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Costs and food safety worries lead city folk to grow their own
Suburbanities getting back to farming roots
Daisy Nguyen, Associated Press via Corvallis Gazette-Times
PASADENA, Calif. — The gray sky cast a gloomy shadow over Southern California one recent summer morning, but the Dervaes family was rejoicing.
A light rain had fallen overnight, quenching the tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, basil and 400 other varieties of plants thriving in the front and back yards of their home 13 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Jules Dervaes and three of his four grown children work tilling the urban garden full-time. In return, it produces about 6,000 pounds of food a year — enough to feed the Dervaes, their menagerie of ducks, chickens and bunnies and even some diners seeking organic meals at local restaurants.
“We’re farming on just a 10th of an acre here,” Dervaes, 57, said.
They’re at the forefront of a small but growing number of city dwellers who are ripping out lawns and replacing them with vegetable beds and fruit trees.
Beyond the back-to-basics appeal of growing your own food, many backyard farmers say they’re also developing a green thumb out of a fear that much of the commercially grown food found at the supermarket isn’t safe.
(24 August 2005)
Global Public Media had a recent interview with him. Dervaes runs an information-rich website:
Path to Freedom.
The Conservation-Conscious Salute This Man’s Commute
Kevin Murphy, The Kansas City Star via ENN
ST. LOUIS — As Americans worry over high gas prices, Jeff Kline glides along for less than a penny a day in his shiny new velomobile.
His what?
“People want to know what it is,” Kline says, standing alongside the narrow, 9-foot-long fiberglass vehicle he got two months ago. “I tell them it is a motorized bicycle.”
Picture Fred Flintstone, running on the ground to get his car going before it zips away under its own power. Kline starts pedaling, and then batteries take over to move the vehicle along at an average cruising speed of about 22 mph.
But Kline didn’t spend $7,500 to amuse people. Hybrid vehicles are being taken seriously as people look for ways to avoid rising fuel expenses and be conservation-conscious. Sales of cars partly powered by batteries are soaring in the United States.
(24 August 2005)
Taiwan’s amateur enviro-spies
To catch polluters, the government is turning to volunteers with digital cameras
Matt Kovac, Christian Science Monitor
TAINAN, TAIWAN – Portuguese sailors in the 15th century named Taiwain “Formosa,” meaning “beautiful island.” But on most days, it’s hard to even see the mountainous island through the shroud of smog. So the government is fighting back, tightening environmental rules, and enlisting an army of citizen sleuths to spy on Taiwan’s biggest polluters.
These environmental spies are armed with binoculars, notepads, and digital cameras, and have been tasked with snooping around small businesses and big corporations alike to make sure they’re putting their toxins and trash in the right place.
Deputizing volunteers to be enviro-snoops is just the latest effort by Taiwan to curb the pollution that has accompanied its rapid development over the past 50 years. It’s also indicative of an emerging civic activism in this young democracy.
(24 August 2005)
‘Permaculture’ featured on Beyond Organic Radio (AUDIO)
Jerry Kay, Straus Communications
Permaculture, said Bill Mollison, the inventor of this food/farming/environmental concept, is being able to look out your backdoor and see your friends gathering food.
A permaculturist’s skills may include straw bale house building or edible forest gardening. They may have set-up a rainwater collection system on their roof, or turned their livestock fences into a food source. All this is part of a design concept that takes its cues from the workings of a healthy eco-system.
The good news is you’re probably already practicing some of permaculture’s principles.
Join host Jerry Kay, publisher of the Environmental News Network as we talk to three prominent practitioners and learn to think like a permaculturist.
Guests:
Penny Livingston Stark — Founder, Regenerative Design Institute
Dave Jacke — Author, Edible Forest Gardens
Patty Karlin — Owner, Bodega Goat Cheese
(24 August 2005)
Available as: [922 KB PDF]
Authors are listed as Tim Denne, John Small, Fraser Colegrave, Richard Hale, Ian
Twomey and Bill Smith.
For further information email [email protected] or phone (09) 916-1960
First page from Executive Summary:
This report provides material to assist the Ministry of Economic Development to
develop an Oil Emergency Response Manual. The report has been developed on the
basis of:
· a recent IEA report on saving oil in a hurry that provides analysis of instruments
that could be used in New Zealand;
· experience with demand restraint measures for other issues and products; and
· an analysis of New Zealand demand data and of likely reductions associated with
individual measures.
A review of the 2000 UK fuel crisis provided evidence of the types of voluntary
reductions in vehicle use that could be encouraged if there was a supply crisis in New
Zealand. The UK experience also highlights the risks of hoarding and how this response can turn a potential crisis into an actual crisis.
A review of the recent IEA report—Saving Oil in a Hurry—provides a long list of
suitable measures, some of which build off the UK experience. And the UK’s Emergency Response Manual provides information on institutional arrangements, communications strategy, requirements for a system of rationing (including a list of priority users) and a number of compulsory and persuasive measures.
Planning for electricity supply failures and droughts reveals a common pattern of
emergency plans. They shift from calls for voluntary restraint through to more
mandatory reductions. And, throughout, there is a requirement for effective monitoring
and good communication.
Theoretical work on behavioural change reveals the kinds of messages that would be
required in order for voluntary change to be most effective. It also highlights the need
for preparatory work and raised issues of trust that will need to be considered in
deciding who best to manage the crisis.
Rationing is a last resort. A review of alternative approaches highlighted the potential
efficiency impacts, particularly the risks of allocating supplies to those that do not value them highly. There are ways to make rationing more efficient, including through
identifying priority users and through allowing trading of allocation rights.
An assessment of the likely effectiveness of initial voluntary restraint measures, plus
mandatory speed limit changes, suggests the potential for reductions in aggregate oil
demand as shown in the Table below. In addition, it is estimated that compulsory
restrictions on car use, eg a return to car-less days, could provide additional reductions of 4-5%. …
(June 2005)
Interesting and useful as far as it goes, but the whole report is constrained by the assumption of preparing an “Oil Emergency Response” (namely due to a temporary supply interruption), not declining total supply, which is the peak oil problem.-LJ
