Green Options

[Sunflower. Creative Commons photo by cygnus921]

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.

So how much does a foreclosed home in Detroit cost? Two weeks ago, you could buy a home for $1 in the city. Today the lowest price I could find was $40. The city’s morale has dipped so low that only 14 percent of voters turned out for the big mayoral election in February, and two-thirds of children drop out of high school. What could we do to boost moral in Detroit? We could buy up [...]

Perhaps encouraged after their recent success in hosting the European Union and Latin American and Caribbean Summit, the office of Peru’s President, Alan Garcia Peréz, announced last week that Peru would bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Never mind that the application deadline was in September of last year.

Critics of the plan emerged quickly, and Peru’s prime minister was equally fast to label the critics as “the same ones that some time ago said Peru couldn’t host the EU-LAC summit and were pessimistic when it was announced.” Peru’s current infrastructure does raise numerous doubts about how successful the Olympics could be in Peru. Lima would no doubt host the lion’s share of events, while Cuzco, Trujillo, Arequipa, and others cities might play a part as well. Traffic problems, environmental and social issues, and financial difficulties could all make the Olympics a disastrous and harmful event for Peru. But, also, despite what the critics might say, the move to bid for the Olympics might have been a brilliant and ingenious action thought up by President Alan Garcia’s staff.