Green Options

For a glimpse into the future of urban farming, take a look inside a Hell’s Kitchen high school campus, a former public school in the Bronx, or even a nearby prison on Rikers Island.  Either way, you’ll see the hand of Cornell University horticulture specialist Philson Warner at work.  Warner has spent the past 20 years

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Last night, Scott Kellogg from the Rhizome Collective spoke at Charis Books in Little Five Points. He talked about permaculture and taking back the word sustainability.

[Creative Commons photo by Chad Hanna]

Marketers and large corporations have co-opted the word sustainability to sell products. It’s come to mean expensive bamboo counter tops and organic cotton bedding. We need to take back that word to its original meaning. Sustainability is living within your means. It’s closing the waste cycle and finding ways to turn trash into something that’s usable again. Last night, Kellogg talked about some ways that Rhizome is accomplishing these things. Ways that we can, too!

After a six year battle, a decision from the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council on the proposal to develop offshore fisheries is expected soon. The Ocean Conservancy, which has been leading the fight against the project, encourages people to write to their local representatives to express their concern.

But why exactly is this project such a bad idea?

According to this year’s report, Americans consumed a total of 4.908 billion pounds of seafood in 2007, slightly less than the 4.944 billion pounds in 2006. The average American ate 16.3 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2007, a one percent decline from the 2006 consumption figures of 16.5 pounds. But what most concerns scientists is the growth in imported farm-raised seafood coupled with declines global fishstocks.