Reading Comments for Science of Sustainability Week 4

Taken from The New Yorker, "The Climate of Man I," by Elizabeth Kolbert is a very well-written narrative of a small Inupiat village in Alaska, Shishmaref, which is victim to climate change and global warming. Due to its precarious position/location on the Island of Sarichef off the Seward Peninsula, this village is being reduced in land size and safety. Villagers began to notice these changes in the mid-1990s when examining the snow patterns and seasonality in concert with their ability to hunt. They have now voted to relocate their village to the mainland in the summer of 2002. With this move they will have to give up some of the heritage and water pursuits that they once relied on for sustenance. It is estimated to cost the government $180 million in order to accomplish this relocation. What I found interesting was the desire to mitigate the circumstances once they were literally at their doorsteps, but not really so much before the changes were upon them having anecdotally shrugged them off as science from foreigners. I think this is a fault we see in many human cultures, a disbelief in change or a hubris founded on the assumption that man is the controlling factor in many earthly scenarios.

The villagers are concerned for what will be left for their children and future generations, but then have the presence of mind to correct themselves to note, not just for their children but all members of future generations quickly incorporating their own. I felt Kolbert ended this installment perfectly by climbing back up to see a rock/boulder she had been instructed she may never be able to see again. I personally find myself doing this sort of thing and really want to attempt to not be too much of a "eco-tourist" in foreign settings or to fall into the trap of putting my own existence above that of natural phenomena, but it is often really hard to be in the presence of such greatness to not at least look or look twice. The end reminded me of the classic Roy Batty dialogue in Blade Runner (When do you ever get to use that reference in classwork?), "All those moments will be lost in time....like tears in rain..."

It was increasingly difficult not to be frustrated while reading "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change" by Naomi Oreskas. It is convenient to blame the media for a false sense of certainty on topical matter as frankly they are a bullhorn for the lobbying of corporate forces on a whole. They do give what the people demand for the most part, especially science which is deemed so erudite by average people who are (in my opinion) just too lazy to be bothered to grasp scientific concepts and would rather believe as cardinal law whatever thing has been boiled down conveniently for them by said media. It is like a vicious cycle. I was learning about the atmosphere in second grade science and did a third grade science project on the role of ozone in the atmosphere and I was just a bored little child in rural Ohio (I then moved on to seismic impacts on bridge foundations which was wicked cool in fourth grade). Then in undergrad (1999) in Environmental Chemistry we were certain the atmosphere was being destroyed by greenhouse gases: CFCs, ozone, freon; the lot of them, although I recall being less focused on the evil carbon dioxide.

Why are people still questioning this effect? Is it really that hard a concept for the average human to grasp? It is nice that Oreskas can find 928 scientific papers forming a consensus on the state of climate change, really, but does that really matter if it is not widely accepted by the humans creating the activity making the climate change? And the last two paragraphs seem almost pandering, kind of back-pedaling from the rest of the point of the paper. Apologies, but I am glad this reading was only one page, because it just really bothered me. I feel like I need to go yell at some bothersome kids to get off my lawn now.

Then lastly, "Defusing the Global Warming Time Bomb," by James Hansen, covers how greenhouse gases have been in study on climate warming as early as 1976, which begs the question, why are laypeople just starting to really learn about it thirty years later with a sense of urgency? Also, I like how the article using teaching blocks to focus on different parts of the global warming phenomena, however, this article being four and a half years old, I wonder how much more exponentially warmed the earth has gotten since the publishing date. Environmental Science on a whole has become frustrating in this fashion of what is out of date, what data can stand, how quickly changes are occurring at this point. I would like to focus a little more on a question Hansen asks in one of the opening paragraphs concerning what will be the practical consequences of this warming, which is something I am interested in from a measurable standpoint, or is this even possible, and if so, how? I also really enjoyed the box at the end that gave stereotypical quotes and straightforward answers that contradict and correct them. I feel like I am going to get a lot of use out of those.

INT 525P ~ Field Trip to the Queens Botanical Garden

The field trip to the Queens Botanical Garden was to look over their LEED certified building from a design perspective. Unfortunately, it was a terribly blustery day so the photos were not as well lit as I would like them to be. Also, I did minor in Botany/Microbiology in undergrad so I have a tendency towards being obsessed with symmetrical flora. Please to enjoy....

Do Petitions Really Work or Are They Just Making Me Do a Tiny Bit to Feel Less Culpable?

Green Jobs Now's website has petitions and events of support to raise awareness in green economy and serves to also show presidential candidates of the need for green economy. Worth a perusal.... And yes, I digitally signed the petition. Did I do much more than that about the topic? Well....

On September 26, we will watch the first presidential debate of this election.

The next day, the candidates will watch us.

On Saturday, September 27, we're launching a national mobilization to say, "I'm ready for the green economy." We are ready to tackle the climate crisis by building a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

Green Jobs Now is a National Day of Action that will empower everyday people to stage hundreds of grassroots events throughout the country. We will have a special focus on low-income communities, communities of color and indigenous people. This will send a message to our leaders that, when it comes to creating green jobs for a more sustainable economy, PEOPLE ARE READY!

Right now, there are millions of people ready to work and countless jobs to be done that will strengthen our economy at home. There are thousands of buildings that need to be weatherized, solar panels to be installed, and wind turbines to be erected. There are communities that need local and sustainable food and people ready to farm the crops. There are public transit systems and smart electricity grids in need of engineers and electricians. Americans are ready to build the new economy. It's time to invest in saving the planet and the people. It's time for green jobs now!

~ Van Jones and the Green Jobs Now Team

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action is a non-profit, non-partisan initiative of Green For All, 1Sky, the We Campaign and our many important partners, including you!

Think Piece: Policy Implementation Ideas for Sustainability: Citywide Composting (NYC)

This is an assignment done for class on ways that the city/federal officials could begin to make a dent in their policies or programs concerning sustainability. I personally feel that pilot projects with high visibility and basic infrastructure work the best in an urban setting, but frankly, how much do I really know about these things outside of elementary school nutrition? Not much...

New York City could enjoy measurable benefit from a fairly basic urban agriculture program seen in other urban settings. These are programs that are implemented on a very local basis to promote community and sustainable values that can create not only economy but also education for the city. They are taken from San Francisco programming which is shown to be successful and can be translated to the urban spaces in New York City with minimal funding when compared to landfill and other resource costs.

San Francisco has long taken action in recycling consumer materials and is now taking further steps by including composting in their sanitation services. The green bins are placed with trash bins and hold all compostable materials that are then taken to city composting facilities in northern California. An estimated over 300 tons of organic material are collected daily reducing landfill needs and increasing economy utilizing the compostable outcome, hummus, in California agriculture. The New York City Department of Sanitation claims a lack of funding and manpower for such an endeavor and makes referrals to other community and ecology groups in the city, which do compost on very small-scale settings. The DSNY has formed the New York City Compost Project to do these some of these things as well as to educate. While this referral is helpful, it is very limited in the reach of education and does not successfully engender the public to begin thinking about their refuse and how to make it work for them or the city at large.

Beginning pilot programs in different high density zip codes (or sanitation routes) to test the merits of a citywide composting drive would bring notice to the need for this service as well as acclimatize citizens to be more aware of their refuse. Incentivizing restaurants to participate as well would make a sizable dent in food refuse. Organizations such as City Harvest already procure unused edible food collection, therefore, there is no reason why inedible food collection could not be collected by Sanitation Department workers (enabled as part of such a pilot program).

The New York Sanitation Department already recognizes groups making composting more translatable to the average person. The Lower East Side Ecology Center facilitates personal composting clinics giving subsidized materials to attendees. While this subsidized funding is certainly necessary, it is no way feasible to conquer or address the mounting problem of refuse in the city and the need for landfills to contain it. Looking at an urban program like that in San Francisco would show the feasibility of a similar program in an urban center like New York City and make active steps towards a solution.

Sources:
San Francisco Recycling
San Francisco Environmental Organization
Sunset Scavenger
New York City Compost Organization
Wasteless New York City
NRDC Recycling

Reading Comments for Science of Sustainability Week 3

"What to Let Go," by Emma Marris, in Nature builds on the idea that some species are able to be prioritized more for savior than others and examines how to decide the best method for this action. She seems to take the stance that its a given that prioritization is a fact of necessity and focuses more on how to go about making those priorities a realistic impact. Especially in reference with very recent current events on the economic front, I was disturbed that only $2 billion dollars a year is allocated to worldwide conservation efforts (both governmental and non-governmental). This figure seems paltry at best, however, I am not overly surprised. I also feel that the triage of species has its merits, but it seems very counterproductive to have scientists more entrenched in coming up with a system, adopting that system, then publishing a paper about said system or species in lieu of a more impact-driven path.

I would like to see some of the maps that are discussed showing the hot spots and triaging in class. I would like to know why when discussing global biodiversity, flora are seemingly much more on the lower rungs of the ladder than fauna, or is this only particular to this article. I would like to hear something positive for once about conservation efforts in the United States as this article and not a single one of my classes seems to cover it more than a passing mention every once in a while. There has to be some progress being made somewhere about something.

"In Sustaining the Variety of Life," by Stuart L . Pimm and Clinton Jenkins, the Brazilian coastal forests are examined as an example of land being used for industry and agriculture in lieu of leaving it as forest. They authors suggest that this land could be easily bought up for roughly $5 billion and then dedicated to conservation purposes. However, they also state that "like politics, conservation is local" (72), asking who developed nations would consider themselves to come in and take over/buy the land rights of developing "poorer" nations? The most interesting part of this articles were the Laws of Biogeography maps and the species listed there. In class I would like to discuss more about the manifest destiny idea of a corporate type of entity buying these lands to hold them as national (or global) forests.

"Brave New Ecology," by Peter Del Tredici, argues the merits of keeping invasive plants form the native landscape. He notes that even once an invasive species has been eradicated due to a "restoration process" it does not always mean that the return of native species is is eminent, guaranteed, or that if restored, these species will offer the same functionality that they once did. H e notes the phytoremediation benefits of plants which are not necessarily native, exemplified in the reed. It seems to be a symptom of environmental degradation, not the cause of it. And he also points out that the designation of invasive species is often a relative concept depending on what the species is doing to whom, when, and where and notes that in landscape planning there should be a charge to note the future adaptability of the species, not just the current state. I am interested to know about more species of phytoremediation plants which can be incorporated into landscape design.

A Mile of Little Checks in the Margins Should Equal a Kilowatt of Clean Energy?

Due to the extensive nature of my note taking (I write down literally everything.), I have begin making obsessively compulsive neat little checks in the margins of my notes when there are things I want to research more, google for kicks, don't understand, want to come back to, etc. Therefore, I am going to start making the lists of them here for each class looking them up and link documenting them. For far too long have there been little checks that never got looked up, but solely existed to look cute.

This particular list of links come from my Science of Sustainability notes taken on my Week 2 readings... That tells you where they are from, but they really are just general things that should be clarified and add to a more well-rounded knowledge base. Also, due to my recent memory concerns, I should do these sooner than later as the longer I wait, the less likely I am to really know or care why I put the cute little check mark there.

"phylogenetically distinct" ~ I think that I checked this because I love the phrase. I know what it is in concept, but this definition and explanation from wikipedia is so much better than anything I could string together:

In biology, phylogenetics (Greek: phyle/phylon (φυλή/φῦλον) "tribe, race" and genetikos (γενετικός) "relative to birth" from genesis (γένεσις ) "birth") is the study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms (e.g., species, populations). Taxonomy, the classification of organisms according to similarity, has been richly informed by phylogenetics but remains methodologically and logically distinct.^[1] The fields overlap however in the science of phylogenetic systematics or cladism, where only phylogenetic trees are used to delimit taxa, each representing a group of lineage-connected individuals^[2].

Evolution is regarded as a branching process, whereby populations are altered over time and may speciate into separate branches, hybridize together, or terminate by extinction. This may be visualized as a multidimensional character-space that a population moves through over time. The problem posed by phylogenetics is that genetic data are only available for the present, and fossil records (osteometric data) are sporadic and less reliable. Our knowledge of how evolution operates is used to reconstruct the full tree.^[3]

There are some terms that describe the nature of a grouping in such trees. For instance, all birds and reptiles are believed to have descended from a single common ancestor, so this taxonomic grouping (yellow in the diagram) is called monophyletic. "Modern reptile" (cyan in the diagram) is a grouping that contains a common ancestor, but does not contain all descendents of that ancestor (birds are excluded). This is an example of a paraphyletic group. A grouping such as warm-blooded animals would include only mammals and birds (red/orange in the diagram) and is called polyphyletic because the members of this grouping do not include the most recent common ancestor.

Cladistics is today the method of choice to infer phylogenetic trees. The most commonly used methods to infer phylogenies include parsimony, maximum likelihood, and MCMC-based Bayesian inference. Phenetics, popular in the mid-20th century but nowadays largely obsolete, uses distance matrix-based methods to construct trees based on overall similarity which is often assumed to approximate phylogenetic relationships. All methods depend upon an implicit or explicit mathematical model describing the evolution of characters observed in the species included, and are usually used for molecular phylogeny where the characters are aligned nucleotide or amino acid sequences.

Hugh Possingham (University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia) ~ Director of the Ecology Centre ~

Hugh completed Applied Mathematics Honours at The University of Adelaide in 1984. After attaining a Rhodes Scholarship in 1984 Hugh completed his D.Phil at Oxford University in 1987. Postdoctoral research periods followed at Stanford University and at the Australian National University (as a QEIII Fellow). In 1991 he took a Lectureship, later Senior Lectureship, in Applied Mathematics at The University of Adelaide. In 1995 he was appointed Foundation Chair and Professor of the Department of Environmental Science at the Roseworthy campus of The University of Adelaide. In July 2000 Hugh took up a joint Professorship between the Departments of Zoology & Entomology, and Mathematics at The University of Queensland. In February 2001 The Ecology Centre was established with Hugh as Director. From 2003-2007 Hugh was an ARC Professorial Research Fellow. Professor Possingham is currently an ARC Federation fellow (2007 – 2011) and Director of a Commonwealth Environment Research Facility – Applied Environmental Decision Analysis.

The Possingham lab includes nine postdoctoral researchers and twenty-five PhD students working on empirical and theoretical aspects of the applied population ecology of plants and animals. Particular areas of recent research include marine reserve design, optimal landscape reconstruction for birds, metapopulation dynamics of plants and animals, population viability analysis, kangaroo and koala management, and optimal weed control (as part of the Weeds CRC). The lab has a unifying interest in environmental applications of decision theory. Hugh has published over 100 refereed articles and book chapters.

Hugh has a variety of broader public roles including Chair of the federal government Biological Diversity Advisory Committee, member of the NHT Advisory Committee, member of the state Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vegetation Management, member of the Research and Conservation Committee of Birds Australia and member of the Board of Greening Australia, Queensland.

Hugh has recently been awarded: the POL Eureka Prize for Environmental Research (for collaborative work with Dr David Lindenmayer) - 1999, the inaugural Fenner medal for plant and animal biology from the Australian Academy of Sciences - 2000, and the Australian Mathematical Society Medal - 2001.

He suffers from obsessive bird watching.

I wish I could make my brain throttle down long enough to suffer from anything other than an internet or solitaire addiction, let alone an addiction to something so purposefully relaxing. Damn.

Mount Lofty Woodlands (Australia) ~ God love National Geographic, I should really get that subscription renewed ASAP. Mount Lofty Woodlands is a terrestrial ecoregion. Having traveled to Australia previously, and loving it, I want to know more....

Diversity in the Eucalyptus Woodlands

In this ecoregion, eucalyptus woodlands slope down the hills from Mount Lofty into the South Australia capital of Adelaide. Hidden in these sloping woodlands is a broad array of marsupials and birds, as well as unique mammals that lay eggs.

Special Features

Rainfall is moderate in this ecoregion, which is characterized by hot, dry summers and cool, mild winters. Endemic orchids abound in the Mount Lofty Ranges. Many of these delicate flowers are endangered as a result of habitat loss. Another prominent species is mallee box, a small eucalyptus tree with rough, fibrous bark. On the plains and slopes below Mount Lofty, these trees mix with southern cypress pine and golden wattle, an acacia tree. Low shrubs and flowering plants line the forest floor. Many of the same species are found offshore on Kangaroo Island, but they tend to be smaller.

	Although Kangaroo Island may have been spared the introduction of European animals such as rabbits and foxes, a number of Australian animals not naturally found here have been introduced from the mainland. Koalas, for example, have become a serious problem on the island, extensively damaging the eucalyptus vegetation they eat.

Wild Side

Western gray kangaroos bound through woodlands in small social groups, searching for coarse grasses. Tammar wallabies, which resemble small kangaroos, shelter in low, dense scrub, coming out at night to feed in open, grassy areas. The echidna, or spiny anteater, searches for ants at dawn and dusk. Echidnas are monotremes, unusual mammals that lay eggs, have small, pronounced snouts, and are covered in spines. Kangaroo Island’s only endemic mammal is the rare Kangaroo Island dunnart, a mouse-like marsupial. Glossy black cockatoos, which actually have a brown head and black wings, feed quietly in open forests, while galahs--another kind of cockatoo--fly noisily overhead. The small and shy Mount Lofty Ranges southern emu-wren survives only in patches of wet and coastal heath vegetation on the Fleurieu Peninsula, south of Adelaide. This bird is such a poor flier that it is unable to cross cleared areas. With its habitat fragmented, only small, unviable populations are created. The emu-wren is named for its long tail, made of six individual feathers that resemble those of an emu.

Cause for Concern

This area has largely been cleared for agriculture and development, replacing native woodlands with fruit orchards. Loss of vegetation leads to a decline in native birds, which in turn leads to less pollination of remaining vegetation. Timber has been harvested from the top of the Mount Lofty Ranges, but fortunately major reforestation programs are being planned. Kangaroo Island is a significant wildlife refuge because non-native species such as rabbits and foxes are absent.

Source.

fynbos ~ (South Africa) Wikipedia covers this area....

Fynbos (pronounced [ˈfəinbɒs], or anglicised as /ˈfeɪnbɒs/, meaning "fine bush" in Afrikaans) is the natural shrubland or heathland vegetation occurring in a small belt of the Western Cape of South Africa, mainly in winter rainfall coastal and mountainous areas with a Mediterranean climate.

Fynbos grows in a 100-200km wide coastal belt stretching from Clanwilliam on the West coast to Port Elizabeth on the Southeast coast. It forms part of the Cape floral kingdom, where it accounts for half of the surface area and 80% of the plant varieties. The fynbos in the western regions is more rich and varied than in the eastern regions of South Africa.

Of the world's six floral kingdoms, this is the smallest and richest per area unit. Contrast it in size with the Holarctic kingdom, which incorporates the whole of the northern hemisphere apart from the tropical regions. The diversity of fynbos plants is greater than that of the tropical rainforests, with over 9000 species of plants occurring in the area, around 6200 of which are endemic, i.e. do not occur anywhere else in the world. Of the Ericas, 600 occur in the fynbos kingdom, while only 26 are found in the rest of the world. This is in an area of 46,000 km² - by comparison, the Netherlands, with an area of 33,000 km², has 1400 species, none of them endemic. Table Mountain in Cape Town supports 2200 species, more than the entire United Kingdom. Thus although the Fynbos comprises only 6% of the area of southern Africa it has half the species on the subcontinent, and in fact has almost 1 in 5 of all plant species in Africa.

Source.

Global Environmental Facility ~ About the GEF....

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a global partnership among 178 countries, international institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the private sector to address global environmental issues while supporting national sustainable development initiatives.

The GEF is the designated financial mechanism for a number of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) or conventions;

as such the GEF assists countries in meeting their obligations under the conventions that they have signed and ratified. These conventions and MEAs provide guidance to the two governing bodies of the GEF: the GEF Council and the GEF Assembly.

• Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
• Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
• UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)

The GEF is also associated with many global and regional MEAs that deal with international waters or transboundary water systems. The GEF is not a financial mechanism for the Montreal Protocol on Ozone-Depleting Substances; however, its activities complement and enhance the work of the Montreal Protocol.

Today the GEF is the largest funder of projects to improve the global environment. Since 1991, GEF has achieved a strong track record with developing countries and countries with economies in transition, providing $7.6 billion in grants and leveraging $30.6 billion in co-financing for over 2,000 projects in over 165 countries. Search the GEF database for project information and documents.

GEF provides grants for projects related to the following six focal areas: biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants.

And most importantly, I can tell when something is truly important by whether there is a little box around it (separating it an elevating it's importance), but I can really tell when something is important if I turned it into an equation. Despite my lack of pursuance of math, I like it best of all subjects in school (I see colors as numbers and vice versa in my head.), just a teensy tinesy bit more than chemistry (accounts for all the arrows all over my notes...), which has just edged out biology. Therefore, equations trump all other notes.

"sustainability ≠ self-sustaining"

MoMa ~ Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling

This morning I went to catch the tail end of the Dali exhibit which is closing today only to find a far more interesting exhibition on the opposite side of the floor! Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling will be shown until October 20, 2008.


The architecture floors are also filled with designs using materials and ideas like those we discussed in class last week. And a fact I did not know but am really excited about now: PRATT STUDENTS GET IN FREE! You just have to show your Pratt student ID at the desk closest to the 54th Street entrance to the building. Nothing I like more than finding my heavy tuition bills have hidden perks...which I would like to be informed about rather than stumbling blindly upon them. But I digress. I have decided this could be made a reality now...granted the shipping containers would make it classier.


The description is below (taken from official MOMA website):

Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling comprises a selective survey of prefabrication in architecture (represented by the Timeline) and a building project of contemporary prefabricated homes on the Museum's west lot (as chronicled in the Installation Journal Archive).

The Timeline begins in the opening decades of the nineteenth century, when factory-produced buildings and building components were integral to the development of the American heartland and to the settling of far-flung colonies by Britain and France. From there, the Timeline spans almost two hundred years of architectural history, focusing on the European and American avant-gardes of the 1920s and 1930s, movements whose explorations have returned to the forefront in every new dialogue about architecture's relationship with serial production: in the golden decade after World War II, with its economic prosperity and baby boom and corresponding housing shortage; in the 1960s, with the introduction of new materials; and again in the past decade, as the computer has dramatically changed the conditions of production.

The Installation Journal Archive is a record of the weekly journal postings by the architects of the five contemporary prefabricated houses erected on the lot to the west of the Museum. The Installation Journal offers a "behind the scenes" look into the entire process of creating and erecting prefabricated architecture. The firms and individuals chosen to participate contributed weekly progress updates, beginning several months in advance of the exhibition, demonstrating how the processes of design, fabrication, shipping, and assembly unfolded to create five finished homes in time for the exhibition's public opening. The architects of each of the five houses were assigned a day of the week: KieranTimberlake Associates of Philadelphia (Mondays); Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier of New York (Tuesdays); Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Rüf of Dornbirn, Austria (Wednesdays); Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture and Planning / Associate Professor Lawrence Sass (Thursdays); and Richard Horden, Horden Cherry Lee Architects in London and Lydia Haack and John Höpfner of Haack + Höpfner Architects in Munich (Fridays). In addition, members of the MoMA curatorial team submitted commentary each Saturday.

Reading Comments for Science of Sustainability Week 2 ~ Natural Systems I: Ecosystems & Ecological Efficacy

When reading "Ecosystem Services: Benefits Supplied to Human Societies by Natural Ecosystems," I found it intriguing and aggravating that this was put out in 1997 and that it was still basically ignored by the public at large. I also find it daunting how the statistics conveyed in the reading are now exponentially more extreme. For instance, I am reading another source currently outside of class called Bottomfeeder, by Taras Grescoe, which follows the sustainability of seafood and very bluntly relays the statistics of fishery destruction and ecosystem demise, whose statistics dwarf those in this week's readings. I would like to read this selection again written with current statistics. I find it disturbing that despite this information being available to the public and government (both local and international), no precise steps have been taken to slow the roll through ecosystems.

I also find the following statement to be fairly devastating to the current human mode of dominance: "Ecosystem services operate on such a grand scale and in such intricate and little-explored ways that most could not be replaces by technology" (1). I would genuinely like to know how scientifically possible it is to utilize technology to the best of our ability for two reasons. Despite my personal perception that ecosystems function better on their own than humans could ever manufacture them, it is clearly not a mainstream view or care. Therefore, other concessions such as biomimicry have to be explored. Also, the rate of human sprawl is significantly more obtrusive than the speed at which ecosystems can rebound and thrive again. We have conjecture in the style of Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, but I would like to know if there is a solid target at how to best fix things to a working order that will become sustainable while humans are still impacting the system.

One of the things I find so inherently overwhelming in the scientific study of sustainability if the sheer amount of symbiotic relationships in the natural world. This is clearly illustrated in "Lessons From the Wolf." Aside from personal anger that a species of any animal could be hunted or driven out of existence in any part of the world for whatever reason of hubris, the way they can be reintroduced and see so many ripple effects happen from that one species coming back in phenomenal. It does seem like an obvious progression, but to have scientific proof of the chain of life impacting an area's flora and fauna is very encouraging information.

I would like to hear more about the steps in deciding to repopulate animals in order to return ecosystem structure. Is this something that is unique largely to areas untouched by humans or can it be initiated in smaller areas with different species of flora and fauna? Also, who decides that these are things, which should be done and followed through upon?

The Indoor Compost Box: A Must Have for Manhattan Girls (And Boys) This Season

This is published also on my food/nutrition/photo blog Babes in Foodland.


Last week I went to a very long-awaited indoor composting workshop provided by the Lower East Side Ecology Center. I had initially heard about this months ago (September 2007 to be exact), signed up only to be robbed of my worm box by a cancellation due to inclement weather. The following two workshops conflicted with life in general and I went without a worm box. I know this may sound slightly off to those of you who do not have eco-anxiety like I do but Andrew "Recycling Boy" can testify to my broken record declaring that I would be so much better off composting things instead of landfilling them for months now. So when we were shut out of this one, I was about to give up. Thanks to my minx, Dani, who gave me her spot so that my vegetable cuttings and I could have some solace.

Enough with the dramatics, let's get into it. What is a worm box (bin) you might ask? A worm box is a small clear plastic tote with a snap on lid that is outfitted with four air vents. The box is ideal for the placement of worms, their bedding, and your food scraps to create an indoor composting atmosphere. This allows you to put certain food scraps, decaying plant matter, and some paper waste in the box to feed the worms and yield glorious nutrient-rich compost months later called vermicompost. This being in bin form allows those who do not have access or space for full scale outdoor composting to do so in the small space of an apartment.

"One red worm processes half of its own weight in food scraps every day!"

I pride myself on knowing quite a bit about worms. I used to catch them on the farm as a child, throw them in my favorite flowers to try to help them grow, etc. I did not know, however, that the only worms that actually create vermicompost are red worms. The kind bought at the workshop were Eisenia fetida. the bin comes with a pound of worms, roughly 1,000 who all told can power through roughly half a pound of scraps a day, or three and a half pounds of food a week.

You begin with a crafty paper mache feeling leading me to wish I had grabbed the box made in class instead of making it myself. I assembled a bowl of water, three copies of the Village Voice (They print using soy ink. Who knew?), my pound of worms, and a ready-made worm bin from the workshop. After tearing all the papers into long strips, wetting them, then wringing them out, I tried to make some fluffy moist bedding. Then I dumped in the worms onto the top of the bedding leaving the lid off in the light for about an hour so they would be prompted to burrow into the bedding. The instructions asked that the box/bin be kept somewhere between the temperatures of 55 and 75 degrees which might be tough in NYC in July, but I tried to stash it out of direct light in the kitchen. I like composting, but it's not going in my bedroom....


When you decide to when to feed the worms, you can do it daily or once a week depending on what works for you. Things that are in large pieces (think broccoli stalks) should be cut down so they are easier to be eaten by the worms (who do not have mouths, but have gizzards instead). Each time you feed, rotate where you are putting the food and put it under the bedding, adding more bedding as needed. Basically, the worms eat their bedding as well.

Items you can feed your worms: Red worms eat fruit and vegetable scraps, crushed egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, and leftover breads and grains. They should not eat meat or fish scraps, dairy, or fatty or oily foods. Vegetables are largely made of water and will keep your box damp, however, you should spritz then bedding with water it it is drying. If the temperature is an issue, you can cool down the box by freezing your scraps then introducing them to the box. I may throw in the occasional ice cube to cool it down in there for the little hermaphrodites.

After my worms burrowed I went to the refrigerator to see what items were waiting for my new little buddies. They got about 6 ounces of blueberries past their ripeness, some chopped tomatoes and lettuce from a forgotten salad, a coffee filter of Fairway's best blend, and a small container of plain brown rice leftover from Asiakan (serious yum). So far so good, they are pampered by the soy ink Village Voice and some lovely colorful nip.


As I learn more about my own worm box and composting there will certainly be troubleshooting updates!


The next Indoor Worm Composting Workshop being held by the Lower East Side Ecology Center is on Tuesday, September 18, 2008 from 6 to 8pm at the Whole Foods (95 East Houston Street). There you can purchase a worm box with worms at a subsidized rate thanks to the Department of Sanitation. To RSVP, email info@lesecologycenter.org

~beth (Who wishes NYC would step it up like SF and have curb-side compost pick ups...)

The Story of Stuff Video Should Be Submitted Via the Placenta

This video is a little over 20 minutes long and is editorialized by Annie Leonard. Worth a watch.... I feel like it should be compulsory for all humans to watch, including running it on Channel One in schools throughout the states. At this point, sadly, you might have to make it a web element of logging into myspace or facebook that people have to watch before they are granted access. I am very much trying to work on using less of everything; I am a reformed "stuffoholic."

"What is the Story of Stuff?

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

Week ONE of NO MEAT Month: A Week in Photos

This is published also on my food/nutrition/photo blog Babes in Foodland.


Eating a no meat diet in Manhattan should be easier, and cheaper! What gives? Anyway, here are some notable finds and meals of the week (Wednesday to Sunday). Please to enjoy!

Wednesday Union Square Greenmarket near closing... 2 beautiful bags of fruits and vegetables!

Expensive but worthwhile....

Baby succulent for my glass desk. No more cut flowers, people! Only succulents!

Salad made from beautiful butter lettuce, Japanese plum, heirloom cherry tomatoes, dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and herb mix.

Hannah poured rain on the isle of Manhattan. Global warming questioners, go outside without an umbrella and tell me how real that shit feels, k, thanks.

Jalapeno poppers, one of the few vegetarian things on the menu at Blondies on W. 79th Street. I avoided buffalo wings, though, which is no small triumph. MANHATTAN PURVEYORS TAKE NOTE: Vegetarians watch sports in public too!!

A Beth's Breakfast Bowl: scrambled egg, French bread toast, heirloom cherry tomato salad, vegetable mix of baby red potatoes, garlic, haricot verts, and red pepper.
Suck it, Denny's.

Hopefully this week will have some new finds...

~beth

The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman Commentary

I need to broaden my horizons from reading books about food, food policy, food food, diets, and food. Unfortunately for me, I have a click addiction, a penchant for ruthless procrastination, and burgeoning adult onset attention deficit disorder. I like the idea of reading books, however, typically can only make it through a few paragraphs until my mind is off to another topic. My office is littered with books as they are my friends, but I don't spend enough time to get to know them well, so they are kind of acquaintances.

When at Barnes & Noble on 5th at 18th attempting to purchase class books that the sad excuse for a Pratt college bookstore did not even bother to order, I saw The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman and vaguely remembered TiVoing and then being too preemptively depressed to watch the show of the same name on television. But here in my bookstore glow with my glossy new handy dandy student I.D. I don't have to pay tax on the damn thing, so why not! Consumerism once again rears it's ugly head. I will offset it by keeping my 5 year-old cellphone for another two or three weeks longer. But I digress....

A very good quote:
"Any conjecture gets muddled by our obstinate reluctance to accept that the worst might actually occur. We may be undermined by our survival instincts, honed over eons to help us deny, defy, or ignore catastrophic portents lest they paralyze us with fright." (4)

I kind of feel like this first week of classes have been like this, an attempt to drum into us just how horrid the world is, how bad we as a people have let it become, and frankly, I am referring to it as "Doomsday Studies" indefinitely. I understand that all these problems exist, so why make it even more depressing by outlining them furiously in each class? I genuinely hope that week contains far more positivity or at least maps out what we should be doing to change this rather than misanthropically dwelling on the problem. And, besides that, this shit ain't cheap.

But hopefully I will make it past page 4 to find more of those great quotes and concepts.At least I'll give it a good college try, you know, because I didn't have to pay taxes for it, and for a libertarian like me, that's as good as it gets.

Without Humor I Will Not Survive Grad School, and Arguably Without Fish, Neither Will My Brain.

And now for something completely different....

During group time I mentioned that London (and the surrounding UK) are going to suffer a huge economic and cultural setback in direct concert with the death of the cod sources due to overfishing (The complaint group's was that London's food is too expensive.). I am no Amazing Kreskin with a preternatural sense of ocean lore, I am reading Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, by Taras Grescoe (ISBN: 1596912251). I really can only make it through a few pages a day as frankly, the book pisses me off. It is amazingly well-written and researched, but the idea that this is all information any of us can have and yet the Charlie the Tuna and Gorton's Fisherman are cultural phenomena here infuriates me...to the point where I have given up seafood for a month to see if I really miss it (It is not nutritionally necessary to humans to consume fish sources as long as nutrients are accounted for through other sources.). But that's another mess entirely. Here is an excerpt taken from the introduction of the book which will help give me focus in my search for sustainable and secure food systems. Please to enjoy....

I love seafood. And by seafood, I mean fresh-caught sardines as well as raw salmon tartare; piles of just-peeled coldwater shrimp and trays of raw flat-shelled oysters; sesame-oil-drenched jellyfish salad and deep-fried haddock; in fact just about any squirmy, wriggly, fishy, edible thing that comes out of the ocean. I have some almost every day.

Let me explain. Ten years ago I cut meat and poultry out of my diet and limited my flesh-eating to fish. I had read too many news items about growth hormones, factory farms, and antibiotics to feel good about a regular diet of steaks, burgers, and chicken; the alternative, organic meat, was expensive and at the time hard to find. (In the years that followed, as the mad cow scandal broke and it became advisable to treat salmonellosis-laden raw chicken in your kitchen as if it were a biotoxin, it was a decision I had no cause to regret.) Seafood seemed like a logical choice: fish not only had half the fat of beef but also seemed to be in endless supply. The oceans were immense and apparently inexhaustible. True, the cod fishery off Newfoundland had recently collapsed, but that, I figured, was a fluke that could be blamed on bad science, greed, and inept bureaucrats. The supermarket shelves were still piled high with canned tuna, the fast-food joints were selling bargain all-you-can-eat shrimp, and a fillet of Atlantic salmon was cheaper than it had ever been. There were lots more fish in the sea. There would always be lots more fish in the sea.

I quickly began to discover the advantages of being a piscivore, a fish eater. A seafood meal, after all, is one of life's great simple pleasures. Find a pier, a creek, or a fishing hole, dangle a hooked line into the water, and with a bit of luck (as well as a fire, some foil, and a wedge of lemon), you've got dinner. Centuries after agricultural societies replaced game and fowl with domesticated livestock, and venison and partridge became rarities reserved for the tables of the the rich, there are still hunter-gatherers going to sea—fishermen—who bring back a form of game that people of all classes can afford to eat. In most supermarkets, fish is the only real wild food, a product not created by industrial agriculture, that you are likely to find.

And human beings will eat just about any kind of seafood, no matter how daunting. South Americans enjoy the picoroco, a huge edible barnacle with a Krakatoa-shaped shell that conceals a golf-ball-sized sphere of glistening white flesh, as sweet as crabmeat. The French have figured out a way to make the reproductive organs of the cuttlefish, la pousse de la seiche, into a delicacy, and the Japanese long ago mastered the art of making the poisonous pufferfish into sashimi. More astonishing to me is the fact that anybody eats the hagfish, a lampreylike bottom-dweller that haunts abyssal depths two miles beneath the surface. Lacking a spine, a gas bladder, or even a jaw, it employs a rasping tongue to burrow into its prey. Marine biologists who find whale corpses on the ocean bottom often observe that the flesh of the dead giants is actually crawling—a grisly submarine puppet show courtesy of the thousands of hagfish writhing through the rotten meat. Threatened by a shark, the hagfish will excrete mucins from dozens of pores, choking its attacker's gills with gallons of rapidly expanding slime. (It then sloughs off the mucus by tying itself into a bow and squirming the knot down its body.) The hagfish gets my vote as the most repellent fish in the sea. Yet Koreans consider it a delicacy: they import nine million pounds a year and savor it as an appetizer after broiling it in sesame oil.

Entire cultures have built elaborate identities around the cooking and consumption of seafood. In a world of homogenized fast food and microwavable frozen dinners, seafood cultures serve as bastions of local tradition. To be Venetian is to have grown up with the taste of spaghetti alle vongole veraci (though the Lagoon's native bivalves have succumbed to pollution and must now be replaced with Manila clams). To be Japanese is to know the rituals of the sushi bar, the taste of seaweed-wrapped salmon roe, and the fact that the finest cut of the finest tuna you can order is called o-toro (though bluefin is now in such short supply that Tokyo's sushi bar owners are substituting other red-fleshed meat, like smoked venison and horse). And to have lived on the shores of Chesapeake Bay is to fetishize deep-fried clam strips, the taste of breaded and battered oysters, and all the pleasures of a shoreline-kitsch-drenched seafood shack (even if the crab in the cakes you are eating happen to be Asian swimming crabs, flash-frozen in Indonesia and air-freighted to Washington, D.C.).

Fish have shaped human history. From medieval times the vast shoals of herring that annually poured down from Scandinavia forged Dutch and English seapower and created the wealth of the Hanseatic League and thus the balance of power that drew the map of Europe. Fish are responsible for humanity's spread across the globe: the technology for curing cod allowed men to undertake long sea voyages, permitted the Vikings to raid England and France and settle Iceland, and brought the Basque whalers to the Grand Banks.

And there is increasing evidence that, were it not for seafood, we would not be human at all. Life began in the sea, about four billion years ago, and the ancestors of all mammals were fish that crawled out of the oceans and colonized the land 360 million years ago. Since the remains of the earliest humans were found in what is now African savannah, anthropologists have long believed that man's ancestors left the forests for the open plains, in the process evolving the upright gait that led to bipedal humans. But recent research on pollen records has shown that four million years ago such regions were not Serengeti-like plains at all but heavily wooded shorefront environment. Protohumans such as Lucy, like most of her kin, evolved close to the water.

These seaside roots may explain why our brains weigh twice as much as those of our closest early human relative, Homo habilis. Around two million years ago the hominid cranium started to expand, with an exponential growth spurt occurring about one hundred thousand years ago. Evidence from shell middens around early human settlements shows that this is exactly the time people started eating seafood in great quantities. Brain size is limited by the availability of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, one of the fatty acids found in omega-3 supplements), without which it is impossible for the body to build brain cell membranes. The only place this acid is abundant in the food chain is in fish from the world's oceans, lakes, and rivers. It is likely our seafood-rich diet provided the nutrients that make us the world's brainiest primate. Without fish, we might still be microcephalic apes, swinging through the trees.

For generations, mothers have known that fish is brain food. It turns out that forcing children to choke down cod liver oil—or its modern equivalent, a capsule of omega-3 fatty acids— is a very good idea indeed. The human brain is 60 percent fat, and the kinds of fat you eat determine what your brain cells are made of. At the beginning of the twentieth century, much of the protein in the Western diet came from nest-laid eggs, beef and milk from grass-fed cows, and other free-range animals, all of which have higher levels of omega-3s than their industrially farmed counterparts. Starting about 1960 an unplanned study in brain chemistry has been taking place, one whose subject is the entire population of North America and much of Europe. Around that time corn and soybean oils and grain-fed livestock, all of which are relatively low in omega-3s but high in the structurally similar omega-6s, became the dominant sources of fat in our diets. Both forms of omega fatty acids are essential for making cell membranes more liquid, but people who have high levels of omega-3s—sometimes called the happy acids—are less prone to depression, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease. Thanks to half a century of consuming cheap vegetable oils, the average cell membrane of an American is now only 20 percent omega-3-based fats. In cultures where fish is still a staple, such as Japan, the average cell membrane is 40 percent omega-3 based.

The results of this experiment may already be in. In 1998 a paper in the British medical journal the Lancet showed that major depression spiked in New Zealand, Germany, the United States, and other countries with lower rates of fish consumption, but declined in such seafood-loving cultures as Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. In Europe suicide is highest in such landlocked countries as Austria and Hungary (where per capita consumption of fish is, respectively, 25 pounds and 10 pounds a year) and lowest among seafood-eating Portuguese (125 pounds) and Norwegians (114 pounds). A researcher with the American National Institutes of Health has shown that a mother's consumption of omega-3s during pregnancy can predict her child's intelligence and fine motor skills. The children of women who had consumed the smallest amount of omega-3s, the study found, had verbal IQs six points lower than the average. Telltale signs of a lack of omega-3s include dry skin and dandruff, lifeless hair, brittle nails, and raised bumps on the skin. Perhaps most surprisingly, a lack of omega-3s seems to predict antisocial behavior: a daily dose of fish oils given to inmates in an English young offenders' prison reduced recidivism by 30 percent.

Nature's richest source of omega-3 fatty acids, which are ultimately derived from oceanic plankton, is wild-caught seafood. River fish such as trout have much lower levels, as do farmed fish, which are now often plumped up with vegetable oils. Though flaxseed oil is also a source of omega-3s, the human body is inefficient at converting it into DHA and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), the latter of which is essential for cardiovascular health. Most national public health authorities now recommend having at least two meals of fish, especially such fatty species as mackerels and sardines, a week.

"There are no limits to Jeeves's brain power," Bertie Wooster once marveled about his fictional gentleman's gentleman. Author P. G. Wodehouse repeatedly had the clueless Wooster attributing his manservant's intelligence to his seafood-heavy diet: "He virtually lives on fish. If I had even half his brains, I would take a shot at being prime minister."

The evidence may be circumstantial, but I concur: if getting more omega-3s in my diet means lowering my risks of major depression, dementia, Alzheimer's, suicide, and ending up in prison, then eating fish is a no-brainer.
-from the Introduction of Bottomfeeder.

EMS 620 ~ Class Numero Uno

Tonight we had our first class which largely focused on introduction, grading, reading materials, LMS, and an introduction exercise. It bears noting that this is a very large class (25), which kind of makes me feel like I am going to spend much of my time in the back taking notes, especially since it is so late at night. I am still very much in the phase that I find much of this discussion about sustainability to be overwhelming, so while I will try to be straight realistic in these digital diaries, some of it might become a bit defeatist in nature, just as a side effect. Also, I am only 10 weeks out of a skull fracture so I tend to get flustered when I forget words and am reminded I have memory issues. This is another reason why I will talk less in class, so much for that class participation grade after all. Aside from mention that my LMS photo makes me look like even Velcro poses a significant challenge in my daily life, the bulk of this post will cover the exercise and subsequent thoughts about it.

We were instructed to choose a city with direct meaning to us and list three things we like about it, three things we dislike about it, and five challenges (planning nature) this city faces by/in 2030. My A.D.D. kicked in when I was handed the paper and therefore, immediately wrote San Francisco (neighborhood: Castro) before listening to any of the rest of the directions. In hindsight, I should have chosen Las Vegas, where I am a homeowner as it poses far more planning problems, however, I lived in San Francisco for four years and feel the most ties to it. My lists reflected as follows:

San Francisco (Castro)
3 liked: urban, beautiful, higher levels of education
3 disliked: homeless, expensive, no real seasons
5 challenges by 2030: earthquake preparedness/consequences, population control, lack of affordability (decrease in diversity), chance in temperatures (extremes), change in sea levels

So maybe I short-worded it.... Oops. Then we were counted off into groups of 5 to discuss our lists as form of introducing ourselves to some classmates. My group contained the following students with the cities (major challenge noted):

Jaime: London (tube/congestion/sprawl)
Joanie: London (no specific challenge given - congestion)
Geoff: Philly - Go Phillies! (suburban sprawl leading to filth)
Beth: San Francisco (global climate change)
Estia: Crete (lack of education on climate pollution/systems)

The overall worries seemed to revolve around infrastructure constraints and how the current rate of urban growth could not contain or support these limits. My main focus/interest is food and water security and sustainable food systems and agriculture (It is my continuing education plan as a Registered Dietitian.). Therefore, when I brought up some points on overfishing linked to the destruction of certain waterways as well as a supporting role in the complaint for more economical food options (London), I definitely got a blank stare and almost a dismissal from a few people, which really worried me both because it is a huge global issue and because I can see that I clearly have an entirely different focus, philosophy, and interest set.

Then we got back together as a group to introduce our groups to the entire group. The challenges are summarized as follows:
Group 1: water, the cost of sustainability, and infrastructure
Group 2: immigration (jobs, racial tensions, social classes), crime (Camden - no joke), cities outgrowing transport options
Group 3: transit system/infrastructure, water pollution, overfishing (I'm putting it in anyway!)
Group 4: water, affordability, car dependency v. aging infrastructure
Group 5: Beijing issues, diversity exponents

There was a comment that these are intimidating issues to tackle, which I have to agree with, obviously. How to mitigate and adapt to changes such as sea level risings and infrastructure constraints will be large challenges for planners. Incorporating economic development into planning replacement of jobs which have become de-industrialized and therefore are now perpetuating a transit-oriented culture (live in one place, commute to another) is a challenge. Committing to a re-industrializing nature of local cradle to cradle production will take significant planning that may not be openly acceptable to a culture very entrenched and driven by the concept of ownership and "stuff." The move to decrease dependence on oil by moving small scale industry in a green sense to a less shipping intense arena will be an issue to focus on in the vein that the hidden costs of carbon are extensive and overlooked by the masses.

Personally, I have long been of the school that people should stop their complaints about oil prices unless they are willing to put their money where their mouths are. It is a market system, like it or not, and as long as there is some gashole in a Hummer who is willing to pay through the nose, we are all going to have to, so either get used to it, find another mode of transport, or run them off the road (here would be a side effect of living in Las Vegas). Take a look at Europe where petrol is exceptionally expensive. People have accepted that their cars need to be more efficient and often far smaller than American models and bikes, scooters, and mopeds are viewed with respect on the road. Aside from the United States, there are literally few other places on earth where the culture is so exploitative, uneducated, and spoiled. Just because you can have something does not mean you should. Unfortunately, we are in a culture of "stuff" and it seems like the few self-policers are terrifically drowned out. However, it can be said that if the public does not demand better options from the private sector businesses (in this case, automobiles, mobility), short of governmental regulation (which is often public v. lobbyist driven as well), it won't be commercially viable and therefore stands less chance of fruition. It is, after all, a free market and we are a free market society. So really, I support the concern of the rest of the class that infrastructure needs to be developed in a more efficient public method (trains, buses, ferries, etc.). Then when people wake up and are willing to shed their cars and oil dependence, there will be an option for them to rely upon.

So for the fun of it I will write a list for Las Vegas, where I technically reside.

Las Vegas (Summerlin)
3 like: living next to red Rock Canyon, Libertarian state, no humidity
3 dislike: lack of public transit, sense of entitlement that comes with gaming, crime from immigration
5 challenges by 2030: realistic water sources, immigration/new resident demands on water and power systems, smog and air quality, changes in desert extremes, struggle to make gaming environmentally compliant

I have to admit, where I live is beautiful. If you are visiting the Strip, look to the West and you will see mountains. That's where I live. And while we too have glorious billboards touting the quality show that is The Thunder From Down Under on the West side of town, it is still very different, thankfully.

A Former Ugly American ~ The Digital Diary of EMS 620

This semester at Pratt, I am required to take the class Sustainable Communities (EMS 620). In this class we are required to keep a digital diary of our thoughts, readings, etc. That is what this blog will serve as. I will still cover other topics about my goals with regards to food as they pertain to grad school, etc. elsewhere, however, this will be a running project for this semester. It might contain links, photos, things you never knew about, things I never knew about, and just a little bit of ranting. Regardless of the contents, hopefully this will show over the course of a semester my move from being an stiletto-wearing, Saab-driving, McMansion-living, cider-swilling, carbon footprint-the size-of the-moon, stock market-worshiping, gun-toting ugly American to someone with a little more enlightenment and meaning in life. And yeah, I will likely put in random photos all over the place, so if what I have to say is of no interest, there's those.

And now a photo of a lovely flower at East New York Farms and a reminder never to buy cut flowers because they are environmentally unethical. Send a succulent instead!


Please to enjoy...