Environment

COMMUNITY VOICES | Hmong Mississippi River canoe trip

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:32:16 +0000

Jay Clark

TC Daily Planet

On June 14, 20 Hmong refugee students took a canoe trip down the Mississippi river. The trip began at Brooklyn Park’s River park, and ended at Minneapolis’ Boom island.

Hmong canoeists heading towards downtown Minneapolis

Learning how to paddle

Along the way, they saw bald eagles, heron rookeries, and turtles and snakes.

Pushing off

They made a stopoff at North Mississippi Regional Park.

Passing under the I-694 bridge over the Mississippi river

Most of the Hmong students came to the United States between 2004 and 2006 from Thailand’s Wat Tam Krabok refugee camp. Many had never set foot in a boat before.

Canoeing past the XCel power plant in northeast Minneapolis

The students had a great time, and many said they hoped to take more canoe trips and see more of Minnesota's nature in the future.

Celebrating

The canoe trip was sponsored by the Pohlad Foundation, and organized by Wilderness Inquiry.

On June 14, 20 Hmong refugee students took a canoe trip down the Mississippi river. The trip began at Brooklyn Park’s River park, and ended at Minneapolis’ Boom island.

Hmong canoeists heading towards downtown Minneapolis

Learning how to paddle

Along the way, they saw bald eagles, heron rookeries, and turtles and snakes.

Pushing off

They made a stopoff at North Mississippi Regional Park.

Passing under the I-694 bridge over the Mississippi river

Most of the Hmong students came to the United States between 2004 and 2006 from Thailand’s Wat Tam Krabok refugee camp. Many had never set foot in a boat before.

Canoeing past the XCel power plant in northeast Minneapolis

The students had a great time, and many said they hoped to take more canoe trips and see more of Minnesota's nature in the future.

Celebrating

The canoe trip was sponsored by the Pohlad Foundation, and organized by Wilderness Inquiry.

Global Water Dance marks solstice in Minneapolis

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:28:53 +0000

pkcarney

North News

Early in the afternoon June 15, the weather was threatening to make the event a wash out. Then an hour before the 7:00 p.m. start the sky cleared and the crowds arrived for Solstice River XVII. Choreographer Marylee Hardenbergh of Global Site Performance, assisted by Jordan Hart and Emily Gastineau, teamed with Hamline University’s Center for Global Environmental Education to present the 17th site-specific performance at the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis.

The character of the dance and music performances at this event are secondary to the river. This single-day worldwide event involves over 2,000 dancers staging performances centered on water issues, then broadcasts them online. The dances highlight local water issues that would have to be solved to ensure safe water. The size of the Stone Arch Bridge and surroundings mean the humans will always be a tiny part compared to their magnificent surroundings.

Solstice River and Global Water Dances raise the awareness of the importance of water and encourage local communities to take action. Participatory art-making raises consciousness about environmental problems and brings people together to solve them. Participants and viewers learn about the critical role of humans in protecting water supplies. There are an estimated five million deaths per year globally from polluted water. By 2025, over half the world’s population will be facing water-related problems.

Save the Date! Local Economy Fair

Staff — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:21:27 +0000

Corcoran News

Saturday, July 20!

Corcoran GROWS and the West of the Rail Business Association (WRBA) are pleased to announce the Local Economy Fair, which will be on July 20 in Corcoran Park from noon to 5pm. Neighbors can join us for workshops on self-sustaining skills like building rain barrels, vermicompost bins, mason bee houses, and more. Hiawatha Yoga Studios will lead a yoga class. WRBA will bring together local businesses to share about the services they offer to the community.

Check corcorangrows.org for more information, a workshop schedule, and to register for some of the larger, more materials-intensive workshops.

Contribute, advertise, or learn more about the Corcoran News.
Click here for current edition.

Saturday, July 20!

Check corcorangrows.org for more information, a workshop schedule, and to register for some of the larger, more materials-intensive workshops.

Contribute, advertise, or learn more about the Corcoran News.
Click here for current edition.

Local Economy Fair

Save Energy and Stay Cool this Summer

Staff — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:02:30 +0000

Corcoran News

Interested in saving energy this summer? Home Energy Squad Enhanced is here to help! Formerly called Community Energy Services (CES), the Home Energy Squad Enhanced program, just like CES, is a full service residential energy program designed to make reducing energy use and saving money easy.

Our team of trusted energy professionals will install energy saving materials that will help you save money and be more comfortable all year long. Door weather stripping not only keeps out cold drafts in the winter, but also serves as a barrier from that hot, humid air coming into your home in the summer. Swapping out incandescent light bulbs for CFLs or LEDs also helps increase comfort in the summer by reducing the heat being emitted from your lights, cutting down on cooling costs.

The visit also includes a blower door test, an insulation inspection and recommendations for additional ways to save energy in your home. Homeowners will receive a personalized Home Energy Report that serves as a road map for prioritizing which home improvements to focus on. The report includes information on low interest financing, rebates and quality checked contractors. All of these services and materials are available for only $70 per household thanks to support from the City of Minneapolis, CenterPoint Energy and Xcel Energy.

To learn more about the program, contact Stacy Boots Camp at the Center for Energy and the Environment, (612) 244-2429 or sbootscamp [at] mncee [dot] org. Information is also available at www.mncee.org/hes-mpls.

Contribute, advertise, or learn more about the Corcoran News.
Click here for current edition.

Water for our future

Brendon Slotterback — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:29:37 +0000

Brendon Slotterback

Streets.mn has me on assignment in mostly sunnier San Diego, and besides seeing a lot of cool animals, this trip has me thinking about water (ok, not on assignment, but on vacation). San Diego is classified as semi-arid to arid, receiving less than 12 inches of rain per year. Typical suburban yards look a lot less grassy and lot more cactusy. You see things like this and like this, which you don’t typically see in the midwest. Surface water from rainfall runoff hasn’t been able to meet the region’s water supply needs since 1947. Because of this, the County of San Diego imports 80 percent of its water from sources hundreds of miles away. Many parts of California continue to grapple with water supply issues.

What does all this have to do with Minnesota? We have tons of water, right? Well, on the surface yes, but we’re using our groundwater much faster than it’s being replaced, and that’s a problem. That was one of the main topics at a Thrive MSP 2040 Roundtable discussion I attended a number of weeks ago, and have been meaning to post about since. The 7-county region now gets 70 percent of our water from groundwater sources, up from 15 percent in the 50′s. In some places this means we’re reducing groundwater levels by over a foot a year. These conditions led the Star Tribune to produce these troubling graphics recently.

Under a future scenario with continued population growth and no change in water supply practices, many areas, particularly in the east metro, will face serious water supply problems. The case of White Bear Lake is a troubling example of what can happen when groundwater supplies become overused. In other locations, reductions in groundwater could mean cities and homeowners having wells run dry, and more lakes, streams and wetlands becoming damaged. Minnesotans tend to cherish water of all kinds, making these kinds of trends particularly troubling. For a good overview of the issue, watch this video from the Met Council.

The good news is, there are solutions, all of which are easier than building a huge pipe to a river hundreds of miles away, like the one our California friends are stuck with. Some of the approaches discussed at the roundtable meeting were:

Conservation. The Twin Cities isn’t a water starved region like the southwest. We actually haven’t done a lot to encourage people to conserve water. There aren’t regular watering bans, municipal water is very cheap, and conservation technologies are just catching on here.
Infilltration/re-infilltration. Surprising to me, daily groundwater withdrawal for municipal use is about equal to what we flush down the drain, eventually sending it to regional treatment facilities and down the Mississippi. What if we were able to send some of that treated wastewater back into the aquifer? Water supply planners at the meeting said that this treated water is generally clean enough, but some work would have to be done to figure out how to best get it into the ground and where exactly it’s needed most.
Protecting infilltration areas. You may have been reading this post and thinking, “what does this have to do with land use and transportation?” Well, thanks for hanging in this long. In turns out that certain parts of our region are “recharge” areas where groundwater can quickly move from the surface into the aquifer. If these areas become more developed and covered with impervious and semi-impervious surface like parking lots and suburban lawns, less water will make it to the aquifer. The update of the regional plan may restrict certain areas from development to protect these recharge areas or suggest development practices that allow water to infilltrate on-site.
Build new pipes. According to water supply planners, we’ve got plenty of water in one source: the Mississippi River. Facing serious water supply problems, some communities may need to build new infrastructure such as pipes or treatment facilities to access river water. Adjacent cities could also connect to the Minneapolis and Saint Paul water supply system, which both use river water. This could mean some loss of independence in some communities that have historically depended on their own wells, and possibly some large infrastructure costs.

Streets.MN

The greedheads will destroy the Boundary Waters Wilderness

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:57:37 +0000

Dan Burns

If they can. Here’s the deal. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) straddles part of the Minnesota/Ontario border. What with not being so much the trekking, camping type, I haven’t been there, but knowledgeable sources tell me that it is quite literally heaven on earth. Spectacular and powerful.

A corporate entity called Twin Metals Minnesota wants to dig and operate a big mine, for copper, nickel and whatever else turns up, right about where the South Kawishiwi River connects with the BWCA. (Here’s a PDF map; we’re talking about the one that says “Duluth Metals.“ More about the various corporate tentacles involved, below.) The project has the (almost giddy) support of many of the state’s top elected officials, which in Minnesota right now means Democrats, who have been seduced by the siren call of purported jobs and “economic development.”

Here are the two main issues:

Can this mine happen without serious, long-term environmental damage? There is every reason to be exceedingly doubtful, as a project of this nature has never happened before, without negative environmental consequences.
There is also little reason to be confident that it will be all that great for the area’s economy, to say the least. Frankly, quite the contrary.

In the past, I’ve been skeptical, including on this blog, that this project will really happen. I believed that the investor/shareholder “benefit” in “cost/benefit” would be determined not to be there. I was wrong. This is very serious.

First, the environmental stuff. There are a lot of sources out there, about what happens when mining companies run amok. I picked this one as a solid summary.

One of the biggest factors in the dark history of sulfide mining is how frequently mining companies are wrong about what their impacts on water quality will be. One peer-reviewed study found that, while all projects that were reviewed predicted they would not pollute, at least 76 percent of the time they still did. The same study found that 89 percent of mines that have polluted said they would not.
It is this history that is one of the biggest reasons for worry about proposals to bring the mining to Minnesota. The industry says they won’t pollute our prized waters, but they’ve said that before, and they’ve been wrong more often than not.
The Brohm Mine, mentioned above, is also a useful illustration of this problem. There, the mining company assured the state that the mine would not produce acid mine drainage because the ore was low in sulfides, around one percent average. The mine still created terrible pollution, killing all the fish in that stream turned acidic.
This is an important point, because the mining industry in Minnesota frequently states that because the ore here is low sulfide, it won’t cause acid mine drainage. The companies claim that the ore averages about one percent sulfide. Sound familiar?
…In Wisconsin, the legislature in 1997 passed a “Prove It First” law. This law says that, before opening a mine, a company must be able to point to a similar mine to what it is proposing that a) has operated for 10 years without polluting and b) has been closed for 10 years without polluting. Unable to point to such an example, no new mines have been proposed in Wisconsin since the law passed.
(Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness)

(As an aside, and a very distressing one, things recently changed in Wisconsin.)

Regarding “jobs,” the blockquote summarizes part of a definitive, 5-part series. (The links to the others can be found in the one below.)

With that, let’s try to answer another important question: does opening a new mine improve business income and increase local population? In the Safford Micropolitan Statistical Area, comprised of Graham and Greenlee Counties in southeastern Arizona, the answer is no. The opening of the Safford mine in Arizona in 2006 demonstrates that adding a new mine to an existing mining district did not create significant population growth, nor did business income improve…
This is an important lesson for those who would pin their economic development hopes on new mines in northeastern Minnesota. The lack of diversification in the Safford area bodes poorly for sustainable economic and population growth. The sugar high of a new mine development quickly faded into a headache of lower business income, higher unemployment, and continued population stagnation.
This is the likely outcome from opening a new copper-nickel sulfide mine or two in northeastern Minnesota, even assuming there is no significant economic downside from lost tourism jobs. And somehow, nobody ever thinks about those jobs.
(LeftMN)

My information is that Twin Metals has promised to use union labor to build the infrastructure. There’s been no such promise, regarding the actual mining operation.

Twin Metals Minnesota is not really some little local outfit trying to responsibly make an honest dollar. Rather, it is yet another front for the megalith that is the global mining industry.

In (early April 2013), the PolyMet and Twin Metals projects have sold significant stakes of their proposed sulfide mines to foreign commodities investors. This demonstrates that if these mines open, the metals produced will be sold overseas and the profits will flow to wealthy foreign investors and multinational corporations.
…Duluth Metals (majority owner of the Twin Metals project) announced that it received a $30 million (CDN) investment from CEF Holdings to finance the Twin Metals proposal. Hong Kong-based CEF Holdings is a joint venture of Cheung Kong Holdings and the Canadian Investment Bank of Commerce (CIBC.) Both of these entities are connected to Li Ka-Shing, the richest man in Hong Kong and one of the 10 wealthiest people in the world. Mr. Li’s Hong Kong conglomerate contains several companies, the largest of which are Cheung Kong Holdings and Hutchison Whampoa…
The CEF Holdings investment in Twin Metals also has a connection to Glencore. Simon Murray, the Chair of Glencore’s Board of Directors, once ran Hutchison Whampoa and currently serves on the Cheung Kong Holdings Board of Directors.
(Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness)

And guess who Glencore recently made interim chair? Tony Hayward…yes, that Tony Hayward, CEO of BP during one of the greatest environmental catastrophes of our era. I don’t normally believe in omens, but…

Thankfully, the public is turning against this. From March:

In a statewide telephone survey by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz and Associates and Public Opinion Strategies, 48% of Minnesotans opposed the proposed sulfide mines while 39% favored the mines.
According to the Partnership, this is a 29% increase in Minnesotan’s opposition to sulfide mining compared to a similar poll in 2009 when only 19% opposed the new mines. During that poll, 66% of those questioned supported the mines.

But that doesn’t seem to be affecting the sulfide mining fans, some of whom, as I noted before, are in the proverbial “driver’s seat.”

To provide a reasoned, objective summary, corporations want to put a big mining operation, that will generate mega-quantities of toxic waste, right next to one of the most sublime wilderness areas in North America, in order to further stuff their already bloated pockets. What the f**k?!?! It is simply not realistic that a project like this can be profitable without producing substantial, long-term environmental damage, especially at the squeeze-every-penny-out-of-everyone-and-everything levels of “profitability” demanded by contemporary ~~loathsome, swindling parasites~~ high-end investors. And the crap about a guaranteed economic boom is a preposterous canard.

Minnesota Progressive Project

Minneapolis has number one park system, according to Trust for Public Lands

Siobhan Keirans — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:52:56 +0000

KFAI Radio

Minneapolis has earned its first ever “5-park bench rating," on the Trust for Public Lands and ParkScore; beating San Francisco and becoming number one. John Erwin is the President of the Minneapolis Parks and Recreations Board. John talked to Siobhan Keirans on KFAI’s Morning Blend, about the achievement Minneapolis has gained by being considered the healthiest city in the country. Siobhan asked John about the “Trust for Public Land." [Audio below]

Media

One-sort arrives throughout Minneapolis

Douglas Fehlen — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 20:17:07 +0000

Camden News

As the calendar turns to June, Minneapolis is set to achieve a significant landmark in its recycling program. By the end of the first week in the month, all residents participating in the city’s recycling program will switch to a one-sort collection model.

One-sort recycling, also called single-stream recycling, is a practice in which recyclable items are placed in a single container for pickup. Already implemented in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, one-sort recycling is designed to increase the number of recyclables that are collected.

In the phased-out recycling program, residents were asked to separate aluminum, glass, plastic, batteries and paper products into separate containers. By no longer requiring residents to separate materials, Minneapolis hopes to remove a major impediment that prevents households from joining the city’s recycling program. Those who do not recycle commonly cite the inconvenience of sorting materials as the largest obstacle.

Easier for residents, one-sort recycling also benefits the city. After an initial investment to overhaul the system, collection costs are reduced because single-compartment trucks are less expensive to purchase and operate. The one-sort program is also seen an important step toward meeting the city’s goal of doubling its recycling rate from 18,000 tons to 36,000 tons per year by 2015.

The rollout of one-sort recycling began with testing in the city’s East Calhoun and Willard-Hay neighborhoods. By last fall, 31,500 residents received their blue single-sort containers. The task of getting an additional 75,000 Minneapolis residential recycling customers began in April.

Officials are encouraged with the initial response to the new recycling program. Customers who switched to one-sort recycling last fall recycled 396 tons more than they had the year earlier under the multi-sort system, an increase of 63 percent.

Minneapolis has long contended with the question of how to improve recycling rates among residents. Figures from last year show that only about 18 percent of households were participating in the city’s recycling program. This number compares poorly to many major metropolitan areas, including St. Paul, where 46 percent of households recycle. Dual-sort recycling, a system in which residents place paper in one bin and all other recyclables in another, is attributed with having improved rates of recycling in St. Paul.

Residents in the Camden Community will be the last of Minneapolis’ recycling customers to make the transition to one-sort recycling. A letter providing information on how the single-sort system works will be sent to each household. Residents will then receive new blue containers into which all recyclables can be left. Old recycling bins can be kept by residents or left for curbside pickup.

While recycling is made easier with the adoption of the one-sort recycling program, care must still be taken. Recyclables should be rinsed out, and the new pickup containers should contain no garbage. Yard waste should be kept separate as well, placed in lawn bags next to garbage and recycling containers.

While the one-sort system represents a big change for the city’s recycling efforts, many aspects of the program will remain intact. Recycling pickup times, for example, are set to remain the same. Additionally, all of the items the city currently allows to be recycled will be considered recyclable in the one-sort program. Learn more at minneapolismn.gov/onesort.

Groups ask "what will come after 'peak oil'?"

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 21:56:55 +0000

Margo Ashmore

Northeaster

Whether it’s challenging each other to see “how low you can go” with the home thermostat in February, or looking at swaths of public turf grass for their potential to hold community vegetable gardens, sustainability and Transition Town groups are popping up all over.

Jon Freise, a national trainer on the subject, told a recent gathering that the Transition Towns movement came out of concerns about three things: Climate change—temperature extremes brought on by pollution, “peak oil”—fossil fuels running out, and economic instability.

There are many things individuals can do to immediately decrease fossil fuel use and in many cases, save money. There are also macro, policy level things that could be done, but these groups admit those changes will take a lot of elapsed time and perhaps a few more crises. “Transition” refers to transitioning “from oil dependency to local resilience,” says Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition movement.

Sustainability groups, instead of being “apocalyptic,” in the words of one organizer, strive to build a sense of community and hope for an improved quality of life. They do it by both informing individual change and, in some groups, encouraging public officials to pursue broader policy changes or specific infrastructure changes. Freise said Milwaukee Avenue in South Minneapolis is a perfect example. Taking out a street there and making a pedestrian mall raised the standard of living and made it more pleasant, “rather than misery, sadness or deprivation.”

One of the newest groups, Citizens for Sustainability (CFS), meets at St. Anthony Village City Council Chambers monthly on Saturdays from 3-5 p.m. At their May 18 meeting, they heard from a consultant who has extensive food gardens in her yard, met in subject-related groups for a while, then shared what they’d discussed. At the end, they strolled the grounds at the community center and looked at a site they may request for a garden.

The next CFS meeting is Saturday, June 15, a CFS Forum featuring several members presenting individual interests and initiatives. Saturday, July 13 will feature open discussion and planning of activities for fall, in conjunction with University of Minnesota professor Dave Wanberg and students enrolled in his sustainability class. Clifton Ware, a U of M music professor emeritus, organized and facilitates the group. Contact: warex001 [at] umn [dot] edu. Website: stanthonyvillage.wordpress.com

Tim Jordan from the Northeast Minneapolis Transition Town group shows up at Diamonds Coffee Shop on Tuesday mornings 8:30 a.m. to greet potential new participants checking it out. (He noted he’ll be absent June 11 and 18.) Jordan describes the group, with three to four regulars, as still in the “mulling” stage, early thinking after more than a year.

Some of those who’ve met in the Northeast group have decided to put their energies toward specific outcomes; Jordan is interested in building furnaces that use wood scrap, Peter Doughty has put his focus on local food resource hubs, for example.

Northeast resident architect Tim Eian (right) is an expert in building “passive house” homes designed, situated and built such that on most days there’s no energy spent, and on the worst cold days they could be heated with the equivalent of three hair dryers. He has spoken to several Twin Cities sustainability groups about his work, and has these observations about their structure and focus:

“The above-60 age bracket are the leaders. They may instigate but they won’t see it,” the full transition, in their lifetime. “I don’t see as many young people as would be appropriate, though there are some gung-ho college kids. Those who would be the economic engine are missing,” people who have young families, two jobs, and not much time to think about these things.

Leslie Mackenzie and Peter Foster of Longfellow neighborhood are a little younger than 60, but took up the sustainability focus as their last of five children left home and they decided to take on college students as roommates. Coincidentally, Leslie left a corporate job and completed the urban farming program at the Permaculture Research Institute for Cold Climate.They blog about their experiences at thinkofitasanadventure.com

Perhaps Eian’s family would be an exception that proves the rule: As their two kids got to the ages where both parents had to bring them in opposite directions for school and activities, a second car was necessary. But until then, even the first car, a hybrid thoughtfully purchased when the previous car expired, didn’t get much use, between walking, biking and bus for work, errands and outings. A list of the family’s other energy and environment-conscious choices accompanies this article.

European countries are more population-dense and have had to deal with energy and environment issues sooner for various reasons. Eian was born and raised in Germany, where the passive house is the building standard.

Tim Eian said, “in the last election energy independence came to mean it’s okay to import from Canada and maybe Mexico,” just not other places. “My idea would be to disconnect from” fossil fuels. “So under the hood, nothing has changed” in the U.S. where it has in many European countries. “And we have more poverty than they do.”

For links to other Transition Town groups in the Twin Cities, see the www.transitiontc.org website. Tim Eian’s website is www.testudio.com.

One Family’s Tips

People don’t need to go to meetings to start making these types of changes in personal/family lifestyle. Here’s what Tim Eian’s family has done:

Recycling. Downsized garbage container to one-quarter size of the original
Food gardening
Composting
Laundry: Bought a front-loader, eurosize, when the old washer gave out. Adjusted the amount of detergent. Eliminated most dryer use by having a rotary dryer in the back yard April-November, line drying inside in winter. No dryer softener sheets (cancer-causing) when they do dry towels; using actuators instead, prickly devices that look like dog toys, that fluff up the fabrics.
For cleaning, substitute use of wet microfiber cloths that are textured fine enough to pick up bacteria, and produce an attractive “finish.” Takes the place of all sorts of toxic cleaners.
Hybrid car getting 50 miles per gallon. Next/second car will be a small electric. Used public transportation, bike and just one car for many years.
Landscaping with native plants to minimize lawn. They can get out of hand, so need to be managed, Tim Eian said.
Retaining walls of rock, not concrete which represents a lot of stored energy.
Driveway pavers, which age gracefully and let water absorb naturally.
Managed stormwater off the roof, a challenge in an area with much clay soil.

For links to other Transition Town groups in the Twin Cities, see the www.transitiontc.org website. Tim Eian’s website is www.testudio.com.

One Family’s Tips

People don’t need to go to meetings to start making these types of changes in personal/family lifestyle. Here’s what Tim Eian’s family has done:

Recycling. Downsized garbage container to one-quarter size of the original
Food gardening
Composting
Laundry: Bought a front-loader, eurosize, when the old washer gave out. Adjusted the amount of detergent. Eliminated most dryer use by having a rotary dryer in the back yard April-November, line drying inside in winter. No dryer softener sheets (cancer-causing) when they do dry towels; using actuators instead, prickly devices that look like dog toys, that fluff up the fabrics.
For cleaning, substitute use of wet microfiber cloths that are textured fine enough to pick up bacteria, and produce an attractive “finish.” Takes the place of all sorts of toxic cleaners.
Hybrid car getting 50 miles per gallon. Next/second car will be a small electric. Used public transportation, bike and just one car for many years.
Landscaping with native plants to minimize lawn. They can get out of hand, so need to be managed, Tim Eian said.
Retaining walls of rock, not concrete which represents a lot of stored energy.
Driveway pavers, which age gracefully and let water absorb naturally.
Managed stormwater off the roof, a challenge in an area with much clay soil.

The current propaganda is regarding a so called "US energy boom" is indeed quite mazing, and that the IEA is one of the key messenger of this propaganda a true scandal (let's not forget also all the financial interests behind that). Otherwise regarding peak oil, and it "acceptability" (or current discredit), a key aspect in this is most probably the myth regarding the first oil shock, myth that could be summarized as : "first oil schock=Yom Kippur war/Arab embargo= geopolitical event = nothing to do with geologic constraints". Typically that's how it is "indexed" on below graph for instance : http://iiscn.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bp-oil-price.jpg (and most historical graphs regarding oil, were US 1970 is never mentioned). Whereas the reality is much more : - end 1970 : US production peak, the energy crisis starts from there, with some heating fuel shortages for instance (some articles can be found on NYT archive on that). - Nixon name James Akins to go check what is going on. - Akins goes around all US producers, saying this won't be communicated to the media, but needs to be known, national security question. - The results are bad : no additional capacity at all, production will only go down, the results are also presentede to the OECD. - The reserves of Alaska, North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, are known at that time, but to be developed the barrel price needs to be higher. - In parallel this is also the period of "rebalance" between oil majors and countries on each barrel revenus. - So to be able to start Alaska, GOM, North Sea, and have some "outside OPEC" market share, the barrel price needs to go up (always good for oil majors anyway) and this is also US diplomacy strategy. - For instance Akins, then US ambassador in Saudi Arabia, is the one talking about $4 or $5 a barrel in an OAPEC meeting in Algiers in 1972. - Yom Kippur starts during an OPEC meeting in Vienna, which was about barrel revenus percentages, and barrel price rise. - The declaration of the embargo pushes the barrel up on the spots markets (that just have been set up). - But the embargo remains quite limited (not from Iran, not from Iraq, only towards a few countries). - It remains fictiv from Saudi Arabia towards the US : tankers kept on going from KSA, through Barhain to make it more discrete, towards the US Army in Vietnam in particular. - Akins is very clear about that in below documentary interviews (which unfortunately only exists in French and German to my knowledge, and interviews are voiced over) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fQJ-0jAr3LQ For instance after 24:10, where he says that two senators were starting having rather "strong voices" about "doing something", he asked the permission to tell them what was going on, got it, told them, they shat up and there was never any leak. The first oil schock "episode" starts at 18:00. (the "embargo story" was in fact very "pratical" both for the US (to "cover up" US peak towards US public opinion or western one in general, but also for major Arab producers to show "the arab street" that they were doing something for the Palestinians). How many Americans these days know that they went through their oil production peak in 1970 1%? 0.5? less? - by Yves Trlt on Thu, 06/13/2013 - 1:44pm

Food justice: For LaDonna Redmond, this is the civil rights issue of the 21st century

Norma Smith Olson — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 19:59:59 +0000

Minnesota Women’s Press

When LaDonna Redmond couldn't find an organic tomato within 10 minutes of her home in her Chicago neighborhood, she decided to become an urban farmer. Her urban garden led to a grass-roots movement of citywide-and then national-conversations about food justice. It is her quest to see that every citizen has a right to food. She now lives in Minneapolis and is the founder of a new organization (Campaign for Food Justice Now) to be a one-stop shop for individuals and organizations working on issues of food justice.

What sparked your concern about our food systems?

I became interested and concerned about food justice issues when my son developed food allergies to shellfish, dairy products and peanuts at an early age. I realized that the right kinds of food for him were not readily available to me in my neighborhood-non-GMO [genetically modified organism], foods that were fresh and free from his allergens.

At the time, I lived on the West Side of Chicago. My husband and I started urban farming in our backyard and it grew from getting vacant lots to developing urban farm sites and selling food at farmers markets. That was the beginning of my work of rebuilding local food systems, first around my neighborhood and now around the country.

What does "food awareness" mean to you?

It's about knowing where your food comes from, knowing who grew the food, under what conditions and to what degree those products are healthy for the land.

Is it healthy for your body and healthy for the planet? Is it healthy for the people who are enslaved by the food system, people who are forced to work for pennies so that we can have tomatoes, when they cannot afford to buy those same tomatoes? Knowing just a little more about food might slow some people down when they are eating highly processed foods.

How do you define "food justice?"

I define food justice as the activity to shift the injustice in the food and agriculture systems. Filling the gap, for example, in worker rights, making sure that the workers are treated fairly; making sure that all communities have access to healthy food; and if people want to grow food, making sure that they have access to land and materials or capital necessary to grow it. Also, to have seeds that are free from genetic engineering and land that is not contaminated by pesticides and other chemicals.

I think everyone has a right to eat. We should have a system that protects people from being hungry. But instead of just feeding hungry people, how do we get food to everyone? This would really mean pushing against corporate control of our food system.

Food justice means we talk about the things that help people get food, for example, raising the minimum wage would help people have food; making sure our immigration policies are fair to those harvesting our food; making sure that women with children have child care so that they can work. "Food justice" links all of these different issues.

Talk more about your work, what you're envisioning.

The issue of food is political at a corporate level but not at the consumer level. We need consumers to be educated to know when their legislators are not supporting the right to food. When legislators are not supporting SNAP benefits [also known as food stamps] or if they are supporting genetically modified foods, we need to call people's attention to that and help them make a decision to support candidates who support the right to food.

When you look at Wal-Mart being the largest purveyor of groceries in the United States ... Why don't we have the diversity in our food corporations that we are asking for in our food? Particularly in agriculture, we know that mono crops are not good. So mono crops and mono corporations? There should not be one corporation that is dominating any field. We need to diversify and bust corporate control of our food system.

What is the role of women in the food justice movement?

Women who have had children have an intimate relationship. We are the first food through breast feeding-being food for someone else. Often moms are the ones who do the cooking and are the protectors of the nutritional value in the home. I think that is a really important voice, underrepresented in the movement.

I call myself the "urban food goddess" and I want to capture the voices of women, politicize them about the food that is available in our communities.

You've talked about dreaming bigger. What does that mean to you?

Dreaming bigger means that we can have a healthy, fair and just food system all at the same time. Instead of just trying to have more organic food or give more food to hungry people, why don't we dream of a world where we don't have hungry people, where we don't have poverty? We've compartmentalized the work on food systems-one group of people working on organic foods, other people working on closing factory farms. What we really want is a fair, just and healthy food system. For me, one of the absolutes is that we've got to get rid of hunger. We should not have hungry people.

FFI: Campaign for Food Justice Now, www.cfjn.org

(Photo by Matthew Gilson)

What sparked your concern about our food systems?

What does "food awareness" mean to you?

It's about knowing where your food comes from, knowing who grew the food, under what conditions and to what degree those products are healthy for the land.

How do you define "food justice?"

Talk more about your work, what you're envisioning.

What is the role of women in the food justice movement?

I call myself the "urban food goddess" and I want to capture the voices of women, politicize them about the food that is available in our communities.

You've talked about dreaming bigger. What does that mean to you?

FFI: Campaign for Food Justice Now, www.cfjn.org

(Photo by Matthew Gilson)