Green Options

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Local politics and pure malice can be enough to kill a noble project, but to have quite a respectable environmental action network like the Boulder, Colorado-based Global Response get enjoined in endless intrigues, extortion and tomfoolery that are threatening a $35 million organic farming project in Kenya is quite a story.

Expert findings, personal research and a discreet fact-finding visit to the Dominion Farms project in Siaya, a rural agricultural district, also homeland of Democratic presidential contender, Barack Obama’s father, is all it took to conclude that the letter-writing group partly funded by the New Earth Foundation may have made the goof of the decade.

My recent interview with David Mills, author of 10,000 Days, got me to thinking about the cultural revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s. Being a product of the depression, my involvement was to sit back and look on in amazement as we seemed to shift into the high gear of a revolt of sorts.

Young people were busy then, ripe with lofty ideals about clean air, clean water, a cleaner environment and making the earth we live on a cleaner and safer place. They spoke out, paraded, chanted, ranted, raved and demonstrated, not all that bad, those efforts did indeed bring about some change.

If you’d rather hear the podcast, it’s here.

Gavin is lead writer for EcoWorldly, one of the excellent blog sites here in the Green Options Network.

Gavin has majors in French, Italian, and Comparative Literature from the University of California, Davis. He currently teaches English language in Gangneung, South Korea.

Gavin’s favorite environmentally-minded work has included: co-founding the grassroots Nature Conservation Club at about age 8; interning for the Jane Goodall Institutes’s Roots & Shoots (R&S) program; representing R&S at the World Social Forum [...]

I tried crossing through the Uhuru Park this morning from Nairobi central business district on my way to Community Hill but paramilitary police, better known as GSU or the General Service Unit, barred my way. One officer, armed to the teeth and sporting a bulldog frown, cocked his AK gun, looked at me with scorn and asked who I thought I was. I mumbled a quick “sorry” and went back to walk along Valley Road. I was just testing the waters with my act and I realized they meant business.

But in 1989, one brave woman who we now know as Wangari Maathai, dared the then Daniel arap Moi government at the same park and took a heavy beating, spending time in hospital. Then and now, Uhuru Park, has been the darling of environmentalists and politicians in Nairobi alike. For politicians, it is where declarations on Grand Marches to Freedom have been made to the people; for environmentalists, Nairobi’s only serene recreational public park with an artificial pond, is too valuable for just being a talkshop. It is where Freedom for the Planet, ala Wangari Maathai, began. She almost single handedly stopped the Moi regime from putting up a 60 story business complex as a gift to the ruling KANU party and the world noticed her work that started in 1977 with the formation of the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots environmental non profit.

The Face of Environmentalism in Africa
Maathai is the face of environmentalism in Africa. No other African environmental activist has won as many accolades, including the Goldman Environmental Prize, as she has and when she in 2004 bagged the Nobel Peace Prize for her lifetime struggles and achievements for a greener Africa and the world her countrymen and women thought one of their own had finally been recognized by the global community. Shalini Ramanathan, a clean energy advocate, writing in Grist calls her “outspoken, accomplished and passionate” about the environment and what she stands for. The British Broadcasting Corporation has called her a leading campaigner on social matters.

Facebook can drive me bonkers at times.

As many commentators have remarked, how can one possibly benefit from being bought a virtual drink? An empty gesture.

No empty gestures on this page though.

Stop Global Warming

Picture courtesy of Flickr here.

A much needed boost to city landscapes here in the UK.

And perhaps boots up the backsides of local authorities who thought citizens such as me were unaware of what was going on.

And beginning to disappear.

I don’t personally think that a city environment is a natural environment for an ape species. I don’t think any of us do.

We adapt. But we still need to see greenery.

Paul Hawken"Something earth-changing is afoot among civil society, a significant social movement is eluding the radar of mainstream culture." That's the uplifting and optimistic prelude to comments made by environmentalist and author Paul Hawken in his new book Blessed Unrest, and in an article for Orion Magazine. I was inspired by his thoughts, and wanted to share them.