BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

WINDOW FARMS: Grow food in your own window!
source: WindowFarms  posted by VaLerie K

“The material I’m working with is people — creating moments for them to be thoughtful,” says Britta Riley, whose window farms have been displayed in more than a dozen buildings in New York City. Riley and her collaborator, Rebecca Bray, are conceptual artists whose goal is to engage the public in developing simple solutions to vexing environmental problems. By artfully demonstrating how lettuce and tomatoes can be grown in even the most cramped urban spaces, they hope to inspire people to think about where their food comes from — and then take part in producing it. (1)

(2)  “The Windowfarms project broaches both immediate urban agriculture goals as well as a far-sighted shift in attitudes toward the green revolution. We are both starting a windowfarming craze in cities worldwide and hoping to accelerate the pace of sustainable design by having ordinary citizens think of themselves as innovators.”

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Last Minute Gift Giving:

by VaLerie K

More and more people are giving (or asking for) the gift of a donation to charity for Chanukah, Kwanzaa and Christmas these days, eschewing the materialist mandate to buy more stuff.  Besides choosing national or international charities, consider picking something local.  Here’s some reasons why:

1. Seeing results first hand - rather than getting a newsletter from afar, the recipients of your gift can physically go and see the charity their gift is supporting, and feel a greater connection to why the gift is important.

2. Education - people can learn directly, such as getting a gift donation to a wildlife preserve, and then taking the kids to go see the animals and learn from the nature center.

3. Less junk mail, more trees - small, local organizations are less likely deluge you (or friends in whose names you donate) with mailings requesting more money, and if they do, you can call and talk to someone who will make it stop.  When I donated to a local animal rescue effort, I talked directly with the person in charge of donations, and we set it up so I could give everyone in my family an ‘adoption certificate’ in their names, but the donations would all be grouped under my address, so no one but me would get mailings in the future.

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Turn out your lights for Earth Hour tomorrow night!  [posted by VaLerie K]

That’s right, tomorrow night - Saturday March 28th.

Grab a flashlight or some candles and take a stand with people from all over the planet:

On March 28, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time, millions of people across the globe will turn out their lights to raise awareness and take action to fight climate change.  Will you vote for Earth with your light switch?

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Women lead a farming revolution in Iowa

As wives inherit husbands’ farmland, they stress conservation over maximizing profit.

By Mark Clayton Source: The Christian Science Monitor

Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

Mount Vernon, Iowa

Women own nearly half of Iowa’s farmland. But they find they have a common problem: The men they hire to farm their land often don’t treat it with the tender care they expect – and often won’t listen when they complain about it.

Women from three counties near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, discovered the shared view in a series of meetings on “Women Caring for the Land.” Dozens have turned out to learn more about farmland conservation – and to share tales of dealing with their tenant farmers.

Margaret Doermann’s Iowa farm has some of the richest soil in the state, which is why she insists it be farmed the way her husband did, using strong conservation practices to preserve it. So it was a shock to discover the tenant farmer she’d hired after her husband’s passing was treating her land like, well – a rental property.

“I was awakened in the middle of the night by a tractor tilling the hillside,” Mrs. Doermann says. Her husband “had always tilled it in a contour [across the hillside] to limit erosion. But when I went out the next morning, that hill had been tilled up and down so the soil would wash right off.”

Doermann’s rude awakening didn’t end there. The water in the stream near the field looked like “brown gravy” – full of soil runoff from the hillside. She and her daughter wound up in a lawyer’s office arguing with the farmer over how to till the hillside. A new lease now specifies the soil preparation she wants.

“Well, you know what?” Doermann said to three women at a small gathering of farm-land owning women last month. “The very next spring, he did it again.”

Doermann’s experience is hardly unique, experts say. Of Iowa’s 30.7 million farm acres, 47 percent are owned by women. But a growing share – 20 percent – is now owned by single women, many of them older, with a far different take on farming than their male counterparts. About three-quarters of the land owned by single women is rented out to mostly male tenant farmers.

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Community Activism: Silence Youth Violence, an afterschool audio arts program  by VaLerie K

Multicultural Youth Exchange [MYX] is a Philadelphia-based youth art program with a mission “to increase tolerance among young people worldwide by using art-based projects to explore diverse cultures and social issues relevant to all youth.”

MYX sends teens abroad to do community service and learn about other cultures first-hand.  Then there is Y Philly, a yearly art exchange between area youth and young people from other countries - right now they are working on an art project with the Bal Bharati Public School in New Delhi.

More recently, to add to this rich history of cross-cultural work, MYX is taking the adage ‘think globally, act locally’ to heart.  A new project calld “Silence Youth Violence” launches in March, and it’s part of an exciting new direction for MYX, using creativity to combat inner-city violence that affects so many kids.

For more info, check out the MYX website.

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Sure Valentines Day is swell. But now-a-days chocolate and flowers come with a price. A price to the environment (pesticides) and the horrible price paid by the young children who basically work as slaves on the chocolate ‘farms.’

The wonderful people at the Organic Consumers Association have made a list (and I’m sure they’ve checked it twice) of sound places to purchase flowers and chocolates for your sweetie. Or maybe buy some flowers for yourself, you deserve it!

But why don’t you consider a truly sustainable Valentines gift? How about making a donation to the Organic Consumers Association in lieu of flowers or chocolates? Your loved one will know you’re a most caring person after all. Love, Elizabeth Fiend

Source: Organic Consumer Association

Donate to the Organic Consumers Association

Valentines Day marks the biggest shopping day of the year, when it comes to chocolate and flowers. But did you know that by purchasing organic and Fair Trade chocolate and flowers (see our buying guide below), your consumer dollars will no longer be going towards toxic pesticides, child slavery, and farm worker exploitation?

Over 40 percent of the world’s conventional chocolate (i.e. non-organic and non-Fair Trade) comes from Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), where the International Labor Organization (ILO) and US State Department have reported widespread instances of child slavery. Exploitation of cacao farmers and farm workers is the global norm in the chocolate industry, rather than the exception.

Meanwhile, organizations such as the Pesticide Action Network point out that commercial flowers, produced in countries such as Colombia, are the most toxic and heavily sprayed agricultural crops on Earth. Fortunately, since OCA first launched it’s Valentines alerts several years ago, half of Colombia’s flower acreage has become Florverde Certified (which requires better treatment of workers and more sustainable farming practices). Taking a step beyond that, there are an increasing number of retailers across the U.S. who are providing organic flowers.

This Valentine’s Day, join with the Organic Consumers Association and our allies around the world to put your money where your values lie and to show your loved ones that you truly care. Please break the chains of industrial agriculture and corporate globalization by choosing Fair Trade and organic flowers and chocolate for your Valentine’s Day gifts.

Check out the Green Valentines Buying Guide…

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ScienceDaily (Sep. 22, 2008)

Faced with the prospect of more variable and changing climates increasing Africa’s already intolerable disease burden, scientists must begin to reach out to colleagues in other fields and to the people they want to help if they hope to avert an expected “continental disaster,” according to leading climate, health, and information technology experts, who met in Nairobi last week.

Climate change will further increase the already high variability of Africa’s climate, fostering the emergence, resurgence and spread of infectious diseases. “A warmer world will generally be a sicker world,” said Prof. Onesmo ole-MoiYoi, a Tanzania medical, veterinary and vector expert. “We scientists need to adopt a new way of working, one that makes African communities bearing the burden of disease part of the solution rather than part of the problem.” The separate fields of human health, animal health, climate, vectors and environment must come together to avert a “continental disaster,” according to leading experts who attended the meeting.

Patti Kristjanson of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which hosted the meeting, agreed. “We need to do things differently than we have in the past. The impact of disease will increase if we continue to operate in silos. Our only chance at reducing the impact of deadly diseases in Africa is to increase collaboration across the disciplines of environment and health, and in a way that involves local communities. Failure to do so could lead to disastrous consequences.”
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BiG TeA PaRtY on TV!

BiG TeA PaRtY’s award winning, historic look at the protests during the Republican National Convention when George Bush was first elected president:

UNCONVENTIONAL COVERAGE: THE MESSAGE AND THE MEANS

On DUTV, channel 54, Philadelphia

Thursday, Sept. 11th at 8:30 pm

Friday, Sept. 12 at 10 am

Saturday, Sept. 13 at midnight

AND

In conjunction with the 2008 Republican National Convention, BiG TeA PaRtY’s Unconventional Coverage will also air on Minneapolis TV Network (MTN) through out the week.

BuY THiS ViDEO click here

This hour long commentary, produced by BiG TeA PaRtY, was filmed during the protests that erupted when the Republicans first nominated George Bush for president at their national convention in Philadelphia in 2000.

This award winning video is a blue-print for the modern protest movement. It outlines how and why protests happen. Plus it offers detailed information on the sorry state of health care in America, our problems with gun violence, our eroding rights to dissent and the many varied reasons people feel compelled to protest. Tips on how to organize a protest, jail solidarity and the importance of independent media are included alongside insightful and witty commentary. Says “The Chicago Tribune:” [Speaking of video host Elizabeth Fiend] “Her documentary on the demonstrations protesting the Republican Convention in Philadelphia was pretty much the only coverage I can remember that actually told you what the protesters were protesting.”

Previously aired: Thursday, July 10th at 8:30 PM and Friday, July 11, at 10 AM
DUTV, Cable channel 54 Philadelphia.

Unconventional Coverage: The Message and The Means is the Winner Best Documentary, Festival of Independents, Philadelphia Film Festival
Love, Elizabeth Fiend (more)

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Confucius Say

By Elizabeth Fiend

“You peng zi yuan fang lai, bu yi yue hu?”  “Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?” To the thunderous beat of 2,008 Xia Dynasty drums, 2,008 voices chanted this classic greeting from Confucius in welcoming the 100,000 spectators to the opening of the Olympics in Beijing. The Olympics are on and it’s impossible to ignore thinking about China, especially after that dazzling opening ceremony. Are the Chinese scary task masters, or did that display show the wonders of a large group of people working together in harmony? It’s hard to decide from our vantage point. But one thing’s for sure, China is on the world stage, straight and center, and its population of 1.3 billion, one out of every five people, is going to influence everything on earth – for the good and for the bad.

Not only big, China is one old country, which is also hard for us Americans to wrap our heads around. It has a history, philosophy and culture that has had continuity for over 4,000 years not like the United States that has only a few hundred years of history under its belt.  But unlike its also-communist neighbor Russia, mostly we’ve ignored China except as a source for cheap goods. Well that’s going to change no matter what we think about it. This sleeping behemoth has woken up for real.

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A City Committed to Recycling Is Ready for More

By FELICITY BARRINGER

Source: New York Times

Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

SAN FRANCISCO — Mayor Gavin Newsom is competitive about many things, garbage included. When the city found out a few weeks ago that it was keeping 70 percent of its disposable waste out of local landfills, he embraced the statistic the way other mayors embrace winning sports teams, improved test scores or declining crime rates.

But the city wants more.

So Mr. Newsom will soon be sending the city’s Board of Supervisors a proposal that would make the recycling of cans, bottles, paper, yard waste and food scraps mandatory instead of voluntary, on the pain of having garbage pickups suspended.

“Without that, we don’t think we can get to 75 percent,” the mayor said of the proposal. His aides said it stood a good chance of passing.

How does he describe his fixation with recycling dominance? “It’s purposefulness that could otherwise be construed as ego,” Mr. Newsom said. “You want to be the greatest city. You want to be the leading city. You want to be on the cutting edge. I’m very intense about it.”

In a more businesslike tone, Jared Blumenfeld, the director of the city’s environmental programs, addressed one of the main reasons the city keeps up the pressure to recycle. “The No. 1 export for the West Coast of the United States is scrap paper,” Mr. Blumenfeld said, explaining that the paper is sent to China and returns as packaging that holds the sneakers, electronics and toys sold in big-box stores.

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