Pittsburgh-based nonprofit GTECH Strategies is transforming empty plots of land in New Orleans into sunflower gardens! GTECH’s partner in Project Sprout, Green Coast Enterprises, is a local New Orleans real estate company that’s focused on sustainable development in the Gulf Coast area. GTECH’s vision is to reclaim abandoned land, like these “blighted” lots in New Orleans, to produce biofuels and green jobs for the community.

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Yesterday Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office annouced they will be promoting Sunday Streets again this year, the wildly successful citywide effort to get people to go outside that debuted last summer. The campaign closed a 4.5 mile stretch of roads between Bayview and Chinatown on several Sunday mornings to make more space for joggers, cyclists, walkers and even yoga practicioners. Former arterial roadway, transformed recreational asphalt.

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This Friday is National PARK(ing) day! Across the U.S. volunteers will transform hundreds of parking spaces into tiny, temporary parks. The event is sponsored by The Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit organization launched by REBAR, an art collective, to raise awareness about the need for more green space.

The first PARK(ing) Day was held in September of last year, and there were over 200 spaces turned into guerrilla parks. This year, the plan is to double that number! With over 70 cities participating, National PARK(ing) Day is aiming to transform more than 400 parking spaces into green spaces. Check out a few of the events after the jump!

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After traveling around in a veggie oil and biodiesel powered “volksvegan” for most of last year, I was eager to have a garden again (not to mention an actual kitchen). It didn’t take long in our small town to find a wonderful non-profit organization teaching organic food production classes and get involved. Before long we were starting seeds in a greenhouse, not quite sure where we’d be planting them when they were sprouted. Luckily, the organization, Noyo Food Forest, was just breaking ground on a new community garden, and we jumped at the chance to get our hands dirty and grow some organic food.

Our gardening experience in coastal Northern California has been quite an experiment. After growing up in the hotter and dryer climate of Idaho, gardening on the coast took some getting used to. But we discovered that with some fertile soil, organic seeds, a few helpful people, and the labors of love, we could grow a bounty of fresh organic produce and community at the same time.

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Interested? Great, let’s get cooking! First, choose your menu options: something delicious that’s easy to make, like spaghetti and (vegan?) meatballs, fajitas and tacos, a salad, or even some simple sushi rolls. Call a couple of friends, preferably ones who can walk, bike, bus, or carpool to your house easily. The fewer fossil fuels they use to get to your house, the greener your party will be.

If you’ve also been looking for a chance to get to know your neighbors better, or maybe you’re searching for the right occasion to talk to that cutie down the street, don’t be shy; invite them over. Ask each guest to bring one or two of the ingredients you’ll need for the meal and give brownie points for any locally grown, organic, or fair-trade ingredients. When you’re shopping for ingredients, consider organic wine, locally grown fruit, or fair trade chocolate. Don’t forget to use non-disposable dishware.

Now enjoy the company of friends over a delicious, home-cooked meal. If everyone has a good time, why not take turns hosting weekly dinner parties and inviting new friends? You’ll build community, save money on groceries, and enjoy tasty leftovers. And, whether it’s your culinary prowess or the way you suavely compost the kitchen scraps, you might just make a splash with your neighbors as well.

So, if you love the good life, consider throwing dinner parties as a way to build community, reduce waste, supporting organic foods, and even fight Global Warming.

Bon appétit!

Want More? Try Workplace Activism: Bringing Slow Foods to a Fast Paced World

You can bring green dining to the workplace. Choose one day a week when two or three coworkers can team up from home to bring in a homemade lunch for the rest of the office. Ask them to keep track of what they spend on ingredients and have everybody who would like to join in the lunch contribute several dollars to cover the cost. Then rotate through the office to give others a chance to be designated as chef for a day. You can suggest that everyone use organic, locally grown, fair trade ingredients, or you can showcase these ingredients when it is your day to bring lunch.

What’s the payoff? When choosing where to eat lunch during the workweek, we run the risk of eating unhealthy fast foods and using wasteful to-go packaging and we often end up paying more than we would for food cooked at home. Shared lunches are healthier, use less packaging, and they add an important touch of fun and common ground to the workplace while saving you and your coworkers money.

Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkonig/114636130/

What is most needed in your area may not be exactly what you had envisioned doing. For instance, you may want to protect snow leopards and there are certainly many ways to do so; however, you may have an even greater opportunity to help large cat species by working in your community to resolve conflict between local residents and mountain lions or to prevent game hunting of these magnificent animals. By learning about and addressing the real needs of your community or ecosystem you are guaranteed to make a real and positive impact.

And remember to approach the issue with respect for the needs and concerns of the people involved. In the above example, you may find that conflict between cougars and people arises because of fear of these powerful animals. On the West Coast, the same conflict is present between people and sea lions, especially when these large predators visit local beaches and frighten families or eat fish caught by local fishermen. In these cases, effective activism may involve education, animal rehabilitation, or working in hand with the farmers or fishermen to offset or prevent their loss of profit while protecting the species they view as a threat.

If your interest is improving the environment, it helps to learn about the native ecology of your area. Think about how the environment where you live has changed in the last 200 years. Maybe the land was converted to a city or turned into farmland. What strains does this place on the local ecosystem? For example, if you live in the Great Plains States or the Prairie Provinces, perhaps you see farmlands that use more water than the natural aquifers can support. This is a major concern to farmers and environmentalists alike. Then why not get involved by encouraging more efficient drip irrigation on farms, promoting less thirsty native plants in the front yards of nearby urban areas, and educating others about the importance of water conservation?

One famous example of someone who learned to address change by meeting the needs of local communities is Jane Goodall, who set out with an interest in chimpanzees and a desire to protect their declining populations. Along the way, she learned about some of the important issues for villagers in the local communities that depend on the same land and resources as the chimpanzee populations. She realized that to be successful in her conservation efforts, she would have to also address the needs of the community. Today, the Jane Goodall Institute (and other organizations, like the Wildlife Conservation Society) are helping local Tanzanian communities to meet their needs and solve their most pressing issues in ways that don’t harm chimpanzee populations.

Even far-reaching goals like the protection of an entire species must start by addressing the needs of the communities where they are to be implemented. This creates a situation where everyone wins.
What if your interests are different from the community’s needs? Rather than abandoning your interests, be creative. Try drawing a Venn diagram where one circle lists actions that will respond to your community’s needs and another lists solutions to an issue about which you have an interest. The overlapping area of the diagram will give you creative ways to approach the needs of the community while pursuing your interests.

Even issues that at first seem distant can often be approached from the same angle. For instance, if you care about global warming, but your community is more concerned with the rising cost of health care, it might be most effective to approach the issue of health care first and find out from that perspective how you can include solutions to global warming as well. In this case, it may be that you end up working with the American Lung Association to prevent childhood asthma by decreasing air pollution and greenhouse gases. Or, you may contribute to public education about human influences on the climate with the support of insurance companies that have begun to raise their fees in areas that are most vulnerable to health and property damage due to climate change. In any case, you will succeed at generating support and accomplishing your goals best by working for and not against others in the community.

But wait, there’s more! So that you can have the funds to make your community activism dreams a reality, The Case Foundation is offering the Make It Your Own Awards for "inspired individuals and passionate teams who are connecting people to discuss what matters, find smart solutions, and take action.” They are offering an impressive $35,000 grant to fund deserving community activism programs. But you don’t have to come in first to win their support. All in all, the Case foundation is “giving $100 to the top 100, $10,000 to the top 20, and an extra $25,000 to the final four.” If you enjoy community activism and want to do more, then don’t miss your chance to apply by August 8.

Additional References and Resources:
The Center for Ecoliteracy: www.ecoliteracy.org

Local Ecology of San Francisco, "Nature in the City:" http://natureinthecity.org

Rock the Vote in partnership with the Make It Your Own Awards: www.rockthevote.com/makeityourown
T

he Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots Program, engaged in positive community activism: www.rootsandshoots.org
Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/benevolink/82714178/

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What if your commute to work included an experience in the following:

• Plant and pedestrian-friendly plazas
• Pedestrian streets
• A bike ride
• Rooftop gardens
• Bridges between buildings
• Car-free streets
• And neighborhood waterways

How different would we feel if our cities were designed “for the long term health of human and natural systems?”

At Ecocity Builders, this question is asked every day with an urban re-design approach that treats each city as a giant living organism, with each building an organ, and each human being a cell in it.

Blending social and environmental ecology to reshape our cities by “returning healthy biodiversity to the heart of our cities, agriculture to gardens and the streets, and convenience and pleasure to walking, bicycling and transit,” Ecocity Builders uses various educational materials, world wide conferences, and local hand-on projects to provide a medium for integrating urbanism with dynamic living systems.

Coming up in 2008, the next Ecocity World Summit will be held in San Francisco. “We want to encourage people who have great ideas and projects to write it up and present it at the academic and talent scouting sessions,” says executive director Kristin Miller. Click on the website’s call for papers to learn more, or check out www.ecocitybuilders.org and read the newly released EcoCities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature, second edition, by Ecocity Builders founder Richard Register.