ecology/environment

The Hot Topic: A Growing Climate Change Movement Emerges - By Bryan Farrell, NY Indypendent

ericimhof — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:46:45 -0500

“Climate change should always be looked at as a justice issue,” said RAN’s Joshua Kahn Russell.

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Originally posted in the November 2009 issue of the NY Indypendent
http://www.indypendent.org/

Hundreds of climate activists swarmed down a hill toward Britain’s largest coal-burning power plant Oct. 17 with the intention of shutting it down. Within minutes, dozens had broken through the perimeter fence, erected specifically for this protest, and entered the site, known as Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. But 650 police officers rapidly secured the breach and over the next six hours battled about 300 activists determined to topple other sections of the fence.

While a few broke through again to block the main gates and occupy railway tracks, many were injured by police batons or dog bites. By the next day, 57 arrests had been made without a single service interruption at the plant.

Nonetheless, organizers of the event — dubbed the Great Climate Swoop — considered their effort a “massive success.” In a press statement, Natasha Blair, from Camp for Climate Action, said, “We’ve achieved what we came here to do: to show that coal has no future and there is a growing movement which is prepared to take action on climate change.”

British climate activists have been stressing this message for a few years now. In fact, the storming of Ratcliffe came on the heels of a recent announcement by German energy corporation E.ON that it was shelving plans to build Britain’s first new coal-fired power station in 30 years. Although the company blamed the recession, climate activists believe their work was a deciding factor.

Groups like the anarchist-influenced Camp for Climate Action, known for its weeklong gatherings of mostly young people that end in direct action, and the suffragette- inspired Climate Rush have worked with international fixtures like Greenpeace since 2007 to wage a campaign against E.ON. They’ve shut down a coal conveyer belt, blockaded company headquarters in Nottingham, occupied the roof of the PR firm it employs and won a major criminal trial using climate change as a legal defense.

Due to such widespread and effective activism, many see Britain as a climate movement leader. British weekly political magazine The New Statesman recently said, “Climate change activism is more developed in this country than anywhere else in the world.”

Some argue, however, that this perception might be different if developing countries had the same media access as the industrialized world. International groups like Rising Tide and Rainforest Action Network (RAN) continually stress climate organizing by indigenous communities and people of color.

The Great Climate Swoop got more coverage than an even larger action in Thailand last month, which saw 4,000 people in the streets outside the U.N. Climate Talks in Bangkok. Many had come from as far away as Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

“Climate change should always be looked at as a justice issue,” said RAN’s Joshua Kahn Russell. Since its founding in 1985, RAN has lent its expertise in finance campaigning — going after banks that invest in projects like rainforest destruction — to native communities fighting on the frontlines.

“We have no illusion that we’re a mostly white NGO from the States,” he said. “We consider ourselves justice-minded climate activists, as opposed to climate justice activists.”

The difference, according to Kahn Russell, is that climate justice groups are led by people affected by issues of class and race. Their work and perspectives have generally been overlooked in the West, perhaps at the peril of building a more cohesive climate movement.

“Even though the issue is beginning to get that kind of force behind it,” said Abigail Singer, an organizer with the Bay Area’s Rising Tide North America, “it needs to be framed more for regular people and folks who tend to be more marginalized.”

Instead, the number of Americans concerned by global warming is dropping. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that only 57 percent “believe there is strong scientific evidence the Earth has gotten hotter over the past few decades.”

A CONTINENT ON FIRE

There is one rich nation, however, that is being forced to accept this reality. Australia is in the midst of an epic drought that could cause its fifth largest city, Adelaide, to run out of drinking water next year. It has also suffered dust storms, fires, cyclones and bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef — all of which scientists have linked to global warming.

Australia has become a hotbed of climate activism, mainly against the coal industry, which is responsible for nearly 50 percent of Australia’s energy and has made it the world’s leading exporter. According to Sourcewatch.org, which tracks nonviolent direct actions against the coal industry, Australians have waged at least a dozen actions in the last year alone, far outpacing the U.K.

Greenpeace has been at the forefront, temporarily shutting down Hazelwood Power Station, one of the world’s worst polluting coal plants, several times. Last month Australia’s first Climate Camp drew 500 people to the country’s oldest coal mine in an effort to block expansion.

- abridged -

Read the rest of the article at: http://www.indypendent.org/2009/11/19/the-hot-topic/

Organic Gardening Meets Green Energy

creidy — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 14:24:09 -0400

"Organic Gardening Meets Green Energy"
Photo By: John Ellis

Book Review: As the World Burns

ericimhof — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:58:42 -0400

As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial - Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan

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Jensen, Derrick and McMillan, Stephanie, As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial. Seven Stories Press; illustrated edition (November 19, 2007), Pp. xi + 224. ISBN-10 1583227776; www.derrickjensen.org
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Reviewed by Eric Imhof

I can count on one hand the rare occasions when I read a book from cover to cover in one sitting. All such books have had captivating prose and epic content, and—perhaps more importantly—have seemed to come into my possession at just the right moment in the development of my thinking. Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion jumps to mind (although, in this instance, one “sitting” was actually an entire weekend). I’ve never read a more coldly logical book that somehow also seized my imagination, while codifying all my thoughts on a single subject so precisely and eloquently that I concluded there need not be another book on the subject written again. Other books on this list include works by Marx, Ibsen, and Orwell. (I can’t recall any others.) I only mention these works here to emphasize how short this list of utterly mesmerizing reads is.

However, just this afternoon the list grew one book longer. In only about two hours, I had plunged into the startling realm of As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial, a graphic novel by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan, and emerged from it feeling depressed and angry, but still motivated to share the story with as many people as possible.

The novel, which consists of a series of subplots that occasionally intertwine, deals with a theme that Jensen has written about for several years: the destruction of the planet and all human and non-human things on it by civilization’s need to extract resources for unsustainable and less-than-sane ends. Jensen, an anarcho-primitivist (he might object to this classification) and environmental activist, has published several books dealing with civilization’s inherent self-destruction, including Endgame (in two volumes). Stephanie McMillan writes a comic strip called Minimum Security, the first series of which was published as a book in 2005.

In As The World Burns, robotic extraterrestrials exploit human-made bureaucracies for resource extraction. Their goal is simply to kill or eat everything on Earth, living or non-living. From this basic plot, Jensen and McMillan explore possible responses to this disaster from different parties: corporations are upset because the aliens are cutting into their profits (as one CEO reminds the President of the United States, “Aliens aren’t supposed to consume the planet … corporations are.”); the president is concerned that the aliens pay him gold for permits to eat everything in America (permits to eat Mexico are for the Mexican president to figure out); the government and police are busy cracking down on “terrorists” who aided a bunny rabbit in blowing up a dam on behalf of fish and freeing animals from a testing facility; the media narrows the intellectual framework with such shows as Listen to the Experts: They’re Experts and You’re Not; and two friends wrestle with the prospect of using violence as a means to stop those who want to harm the planet from doing so—alien or otherwise.

At first, the plot may seem ridiculous, but the outrageousness of the prospect of aliens from outer space consuming the earth is simply a device used by the authors to point out the absurdity of corporations doing the same, mostly with our implicit support. The novel opens with two friends discussing ways to save the planet. While the more optimistic friend reels off a list of “simple” things we can do to save energy (take shorter showers, drive less, use energy-saving light-bulbs, etc.), the more cynical friend insists not only that these practices are not enough, but that they also delude people into thinking that (1) The problem is theirs alone, not the corporate infrastructure that rapes the planet for resources, and (2) they can save the planet without making any major lifestyle changes (we can still use electric light whenever we want—now just with better bulbs!).

Eventually both friends agree that the only responsible thing to do is to fight the system that cuts down the trees, not simply plant a tree for every tree the logging corporations cut down. When the optimistic friend talks about the joy of planting a tree, pointing out that “a single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide during our lifetime,” the other responds, “How about if we stop someone from cutting down a tree?” The first friend concedes, “I suppose that would work, but wouldn’t it be hard?”

The attitude that the optimistic friend holds at the beginning of the novel is the one that the authors attack most directly. Jensen and McMillan view the supporters of the notion that we can perpetuate our current society, only by making it “greener,” as cowardly, counter-productive, delusional, and altogether illogical. There are several vague references to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in the book, mostly criticisms that the movie’s list of things we can all do to use less energy is, in the final analysis, diversionary at best. The cynical character described above points out, “But there was nothing [on the list at the end of the movie] about stopping the governments and corporations that are the main causes of the problems. Did you know that all by itself, ExxonMobil has released 5% of all carbon emissions put out by this culture?” Later in the novel, there is a corollary scene between the “Al Gore” character and a CEO of an electric company in which the CEO congratulates the film-maker for not only giving his company a smokescreen, but for helping him sell light-bulbs.

Other tenets of the “green” movement (and like-minded quasi-leftist “sustainability” movements) are attacked as well, such as the refusal to use violence against corporate property (even if said violence would stop further and greater violence from happening to the environment and the living things in it), the agreement that “growing the economy” is our only and ultimate goal, and the belief that appeasement and reform are effective alternatives to outright revolution or a scrapping of the system entirely.

At one point in the novel a New Age hippie is expressing his displeasure that foxes aren’t vegetarians. He scolds the fox, saying “[Eating mice] is really disrespectful. And it’s cruel. And it’s not sustainable.” The fox responds: “I didn’t create factory farming. I didn’t create vivisection labs. Nobody did but you humans. Instead of getting us to make these little lifestyle changes, why don’t you storm the vivisection labs and release the mousies? Why don’t you burn those places to the ground?” The hippie screams, “That would be violent!” to which the fox replies, “Why do you hate violence that frees the victims of greater violence, even more than you hate the original violence?” This exchange poignantly expresses Jensen and McMillan’s principal argument.

Whether one agrees with the all the arguments put forth by the authors of this book (or even if one is partial to the graphic novel format), As the World Burns (or anything else by Jensen) is a must-read for anyone who wishes to think critically about environmentalism and its role in community organizing and activism. I believe strongly that the connection between human and environmental exploitation is an important one for any thinker on the left to understand.

Despite the claim made by environmentalist Bill McKibben in The End of Nature that (paraphrasing) “Marxists are concerned with who owns the factories … deep ecologists are concerned with whether or not there need to be any factories,” – in other words, that Marxists assume the existence of an industrial State while deep ecologists see any kind of industrial State, collectively-owned or not, as an inherent problem - the common critiques that both leftists and environmentalists make about the corporate domination of the world demonstrate that, in a lot of ways, the goals and strategies of these groups are intertwined.

That is why books like As the World Burns and others should be standard reading material for anti-capitalists. The delusional aspects of denial and appeasement, the refusal to use violence to stop greater violence (even, or in many cases, especially against corporate property), questions about gradual reform versus armed resistance, and other themes examined in the book are important and need to be brought to the forefront of our conversations, whether we’re fighting huge corporations, organizing for more rights, or simply trying to live in the most responsible way possible as individuals. Making small changes in our daily lives is only effective as a good start; merely getting better wattage light-bulbs is not enough by itself to make a real difference.

Two Worlds According to Vegans

ericimhof — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:35:01 -0400

The World According to Vegans and the Future World According to Vegans

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A political cartoon by C. Gittens for the Indypendent Reader

A Primer on Veganism - By Stella Floyd

ericimhof — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:41:31 -0400

Almost all of our meat (and, indeed, milk) comes from factory farms run by giant corporations that torture animals and abuse workers. What’s so “good and decent” about that?

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Vegans are often considered a fringe group, lumped together with “eco-terrorists” and mocked for their “extreme” diet. Yet, according to a recent study, there are now one million vegans in America. Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain described us thus:

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.”

The enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit? Of course, Bourdain seeks publicity, and this attack on vegans serves as a useful sound-byte and an opportunity to further his own personal branding as a rugged-individualist-cum-foodie. Why, though, are most Americans still meat eaters? Despite the profit-motivated claims of the meat and dairy industry, we do not need meat to live. Almost all of our meat (and, indeed, milk) comes from factory farms run by giant corporations that torture animals and abuse workers. What’s so “good and decent” about that?

Considering that the most common phrases a vegetarian or vegan hears from omnivores include “We need meat to live,” and “Oh, I just couldn’t deprive myself like that,” and “Vegetarians are sissies,” and, of course, “But it tastes good,” Bourdain’s screed is only an honest – if overblown – magnification of the prevalent, mainstream opinion of vegans in this country.

Yet one million people are doing it: giving up milk, and cheese, and butter, along with meat. This number is likely to grow as people seek out ways of eating that are more environmentally sustainable, nutritious, economical, and humane, while opting out of the exploitation that is inherent in industrial capitalism.

We’re starting to hear more about the environmental costs of meat consumption. According to a study published in 1997 by David Pimentel, Professor of Ecology at Cornell University, "If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million." That’s well more than double the current population of the United States. And it’s not just Americans who are sacrificing millions of acres of land otherwise useful for grain or vegetable production (or indeed for non-production and reclamation by pressured wildlife populations); China is now following our lead in developing an intense, industrial food production system, and has increased its total domestic feed grain supply from 12 million tons in the mid-1960s to 107 million tons by the mid-1990s.

In the mid-1960s 34% of maize produced was used for feed, and by the mid-1990s, maize production had quadrupled, while 80% was used for feeding animals. The population of China is currently approximately 1.3 million people and continues to increase. Globally, the livestock population has increased 60% since 1961, and American beef and pork consumption has tripled since 1970.

One of the first questions people ask about a vegan diet is often, “But where do you get your protein?” This well-intentioned, if tiresome, query is easily answered. In fact, most Americans consume too much protein (recent studies link protein overconsumption with insulin resistance, which can lead to diabetes), and many commonly available plant-based protein sources have more protein than meat. For example, one cup of cooked lean beef contains 25 grams of protein (and 75 milligrams of cholesterol) , while one cup of tempeh (fermented, cooked soybeans) contains 41 grams of protein (and has zero cholesterol). And it’s not all soy: one cup of cooked lentils packs 18 grams of protein, black beans 15 grams, and chickpeas 12 grams. It’s also important to note that all foods (except fats and alcohol) contain protein. A bagel, for instance, contains 9 grams; 2 tablespoons of peanut butter has 8 grams; and a medium potato contains 4 grams.

The only nutrient not abundantly available in the vegan diet is vitamin B12. Humans need very small amounts of B12, but it is very important, needed for cell division and blood formation. This vitamin is made by neither plants nor animals, but is produced by bacteria, which is then consumed by animals, including humans. There are several reliable, plant-based sources of B12, so this need is easily met. The souce most commonly consumed by vegans is nutritional yeast, a food yeast grown on a molasses solution, which has a cheesy taste and flaky, yellow appearance. Other sources of B12 are fortified cereals, meat substitutes (such as veggie burgers), and soy or rice milk. Supplements are also available.

Meeting one’s daily recommended intake of other nutrients on a vegan diet is otherwise very similar to an omnivorous diet; it is very important to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, and avoid processed convenience foods and refined white flour and sugar. These are challenges all Americans face, and, in my experience, it’s much easier to eat healthy on a vegan diet. There are also scores of excellent cookbooks available now, with instructions on how to make everything from bean croquettes to vegan cupcakes.

What’s more, vegans eating a well-balanced diet are healthier than meat eaters. According to the American Dietetic Association:

Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phyto-chemicals. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than non-vegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.

Veganism need not only be the diet of the privileged, health-conscious, trendy Whole Foods shopper. Cutting meat and dairy out of your shopping basket will lower your grocery bill, as vegetable protein sources are consistently cheaper than meat. If you have a back yard or access to a vegetable plot or community garden, you can grow vegetables and herbs yourself. If you’re in a densely populated urban area, you might try the nearest farmer’s market or local produce delivery company, more and more of which seem to be cropping up each season. The vegetables you can get there will be fresher and sometimes cheaper, due to the fact that they haven’t been shipped halfway around the planet by truck, airplane, and/or ship. You’ll also be pleasantly surprised by the taste—nothing can compare to freshly picked fruit. However, if you don’t have access to these, you can still be vegan. Regular old imported, pesticide-sprayed, week-old apples are still a better choice for your salad or sandwich than high-fat, high-cholesterol, antibiotic-injected, industrially farmed, tortured flesh.

Beyond these frequently cited reasons, anyone actively working against capitalism and the culture of exploitation ought to consider veganism as a logical next step. Many people are now looking for alternatives to the standard American lifestyle, predicated as it is upon sweatshop labor, wars for oil, an unjust justice system, corporate mis-education, and worker abuse. Many consider these festering symptoms to be manifestations of the violence that is an unavoidable part of our society’s profit-first organization. Factory farms and the exploitation of animals are just another link in the chain, one that kills nearly 10 billion land animals for food each year. The idea that animals are mere objects, to be abused and used at our whim, should be eschewed along with the ideas that wives are chattel property or that only white males are human. Who confers subject status? Misogynists view women as objects, and most people view animals as objects, with the notable exception of many indigenous cultures. When will those of us who otherwise consider ourselves as fighters against the twin engines of profit and exploitation realize that animals have lives and purposes of their own, and that it is no more our right to determine their “use” than it is for men to assign similar values and uses to women (or for the owning class to assign uses to wage slaves)?

Sure, I grew up eating meat, and humans have pretty much always eaten meat when it was available. Sure, sometimes a cheeseburger sounds good, and I am not immune to the smell of bacon (though how much of this is biological and how much is the result of a lifetime of training one's tongue on pig parts, I'll leave to evolutionary biologists to determine). Sure, I could occasionally eat some egg to get a quick protein boost. I could eat some chicken to avoid offending someone. But to do so would be to support the industrial farming of living, sentient beings. Animals feel pain. That alone is enough reason not to eat them. What meat eaters may view as “the pure enjoyment of food,” something to which they have an unquestionable right to enjoy, despite the fact that this enjoyment is predicated upon pollution, exploitation, cruelty, and death - I view as morally indefensible.

I don't view my diet choices as dogma. I retain the right to alter them whenever I see fit. If I become convinced by new scientific evidence that my diet is nutritionally deficient, I will change it. But, for now, I am not convinced, and thus choose to err on the side of compassion and health. I am privileged to live in a time and place where I have this choice. I don't have to eat meat to live, or to live robustly.

The fact that omnivores in the vein of Anthony Bourdain feel the need to proselytize to and demean vegetarians and vegans, often resorting to outdated science, old cultural clichés, and name-calling, hints at the fact that they feel on the defensive, and feel offended by the very existence of vegans. Why is Anthony Bourdain offended by my not killing animals?

I don't have to kill animals to live. So why should I?

Creating Community with Baltimore’s Urban Gardeners — By Sarah Krones

nickpetr — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:09:46 -0400

Urban green spaces benefit communities by improving aesthetics, increasing property values, and providing space for outdoor recreation and socializing. While municipally-managed parks are essential components of a city’s outdoor recreation spaces, a large portion of Baltimore’s green infrastructure exists as community gardens, restored vacant lots, and pocket parks. These spaces are often developed and managed by volunteers who depend on unreliable and often one-time donations from local businesses and neighbors. Limited sources of financial support can be found through small grants and, most often, out-of-pocket spending to purchase or rent gardening tools, and materials .

During a city-wide Greening Baltimore Workshop hosted by the Parks & People Foundation (PPF) in 2003, urban greeners consistently expressed the need for training opportunities (i.e. in community organizing, green space planning and design, and fundraising) and material resources (i.e. compost, mulch, plant material, and tools). While a variety of programs existed to support community greening, a coordinated, city-wide effort to provide comprehensive support targeting needs identified by community green space stewards had yet to be realized.

Seeking a successful model for comprehensive urban greening support, Kari Smith of PPF, and colleague Chrissa Carlson of Maryland Cooperative Extension, sat down together and formulated a plan. They researched and evaluated greening resource programs in other urban cities, including the Garden Resource Program Collaborative (GRPC) in Detroit. GRPC enrolls over 600 gardens and coordinates over 40 workshops, including a cooking-series and a nine-week community garden training course. It was evident that GRPC was a highly successful model for offering comprehensive training and material support to urban greeners and could be replicated in Baltimore.

The Community Greening Resource Network (CGRN, pronounced “see-green”) is a joint project of the Parks & People Foundation and Maryland Cooperative Extension.

CGRN is a membership program with a framework for easy and accessible distribution of materials and information. One of the goals of CGRN is to connect existing events, organizations, and policies in Baltimore City to prevent duplicative efforts. There are several parts to the network. CGRN has established Community Tool Banks at area organizations with hand tools for gardens to borrow. The tools that any one organization has can be supplemented and made available to the gardening community as a whole. In conjunction with existing seed and plant give-away days there are four annual Give-Away Days for plant material distribution. CGRN also compiled a 2009 Shared Calendar of greening workshops and events taking place in Baltimore throughout the year, and a quarterly newsletter provides articles, networking information, and garden highlights; discounts on power tools at local stores, workshops, an online map, tours, pot-lucks, and celebrations.

CGRN began enrolling members just three months ago and is a quarter of the way to the goal of having 100 members by the end of this first year. Anyone can become a member. (see details at the end of this article)

Hamilton Crop Circle, one of CGRN’s garden members, began as a backyard garden three years ago and now has a strong base of about 20 community members. Last year, their greens were featured on the menu at Clementine’s, a local Hamilton restaurant (See:hamiltoncropcircle.blogspot.com/). They hope that the CGRN framework for networking with other community gardens will help build a food-producing garden at Hamilton Elementary School.

Baltimore’s goal of “doubling its tree canopy from 20 percent to 40 percent within 30 years” is ambitious, but will consist primarily of street trees. Some people, however, are looking to increase Baltimore’s food tree canopy as well. The Montpelier Orchard in Better Waverly broke ground just this past year in a vacant lot owned by the City. Though they hadn’t been gardening for very long, and aren’t a traditional vegetable garden, this orchard found something appealing in CGRN. “We installed the underground irrigation system in preparation for the major planting work-day for Montpelier Orchard, and much to our chagrin we ran into a considerable amount of compacted clay. As a result I [was] trying to find an inexpensive resource for topsoil so that these regions can have raised beds,” says Pat Shaw, manager of the orchard. Through the network of gardens, greeners, teaching organizations, government agencies, nurseries, landscape companies, and students, the orchard found what it was looking for. Topsoil was delivered last fall and many fruit tree saplings were in the ground before the first snow.

Several school gardens are also members of CGRN. Securing tools and dealing with liability is often an issue on school grounds, but through the Community Tool Banks, these tools are now available. Taking the yearly task of selecting and purchasing seeds and plants for the garden off the shoulders of often over-extended teachers is another benefit of the network.

We have grossed approximately $1,400 in in-kind donations to support the Give-Away Days. A significant amount has come from Valley View Farms in Cockeysville. At the end of the fall season, the nursery donated all remaining perennial flowers, grasses, and ground covers to the network. Those plants would otherwise have been tossed out to make room for new ones coming in the spring. CGRN sets up a system to channel those plants to gardens that can grow them and beautify our city.

There were few if any similar programs existing in Baltimore before CGRN. There have been many attempts to present information in a consolidated way for those interested in greening, but with little lasting success. Erika S. Svendsen of the U.S. Forest Service has been involved in documenting the evolution of garden sites in Baltimore, and PPF has been cataloguing green spaces for some time now, but there has never been a comprehensive support network established to help green space managers in their efforts to maintain gardens over the long term. One advantage CGRN has over similar programs that came before it is the recent emphasis on greening Baltimore.

Tony Geraci, Baltimore City’s new food service director, is transforming Bragg Nature Center into a functioning farm to provide fresh, local produce to city schools. The Baltimore Urban Agriculture Task Force is working to establish farm incubators to provide 300 green jobs in the next five years. The purpose of a new website, www.goforchange.com, is to be the ultimate online meeting place and business for grassroots greening activities. With all this on the table, attempting to meet the actual needs of Baltimore’s gardeners isn’t such a huge step to take.

CGRN has two tiers of membership. Community-managed green spaces can become members by filling out a short application and submitting photos of their greenspace, a $10 yearly membership fee, and a written acknowledgment to work with CGRN staff. If you don’t have a community garden but want to become involved in the network, membership is $5 per year and requires a short application. For more information, please see http://www.parksandpeople.org/programs_great_parks_greening_CGRN.html.

winter '08–spring '09 issue 11

nickpetr — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:01:50 -0500

Creating a Resource Network for Baltimore’s Gardeners! - Sarah Krones

ericimhof — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:07:07 -0500

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There is so much energy in the city focused on greening the way we live, eating locally, replacing asphalt with green spaces, and, most importantly, sharing our knowledge and ideas. From the Mayor’s Cleaner Greener Baltimore initiative, which includes a city-wide sustainability plan, to the Urban Agriculture Task Force that is trying to set up an urban farm, to the proposed Hamilton Elementary / Middle School’s new vegetable garden, people of all ages and socioeconomic status are ready to join forces and get their hands in the soil. So many initiatives, so much knowledge and drive: wouldn’t it be helpful and, frankly, necessary, to create a framework so we can share information and material resources?

No one should be left floundering because they don’t have the tools to plant a garden, know what the protocol is on gardening on city-owned property, have any idea which fruit trees would survive in our urban environment, or know how to effectively teach kids to enjoy chard! The more efficiently and effectively we can create a network to allow for smooth transfer of information, shovels, trowels, and plants, the easier it will be to accomplish our goals, grow healthy food, and green our city.

Like many other post-industrial cities, Baltimore’s population is significantly lower than it was 40 years ago. The flight of residents from the city has left an abundance of vacant homes that become vacant land as homes are razed. The vast majority of Baltimore’s vacant properties is concentrated in neighborhoods with high poverty rates, weak housing markets, and severely depressed physical, social, and economic conditions. Vacant lots and other open spaces in any neighborhood can become agents of blight, further depressing property values as they become “dust bowls” and a subsequent environmental hazard to residents. However, these same open lots are a potential resource for everybody: studies show the significant role that green spaces, particularly in the form of urban agriculture and urban gardening, can play in community renewal.

In 2003, The Parks & People Foundation hosted a city-wide Greening Baltimore Workshop as an opportunity for urban greeners to share knowledge and express their needs and concerns as managers of community green spaces. Participants consistently expressed the need for training opportunities (e.g. on gardening and food production practices, community organizing, green space planning and design, and fund-raising) and material resources (e.g. compost, mulch, plant material, and tools). While various programs exist to support community greening, a coordinated, city-wide effort that offers equitable access to information and material resources and reaches even Baltimore’s most resource-limited communities, ultimately allowing urban greening to be a community-strengthening solution, has until now not existed.

But here we go! The Community Greening Resource Network (CGRN, pronounced “See Green”) is a new collaborative network addressing the ongoing self-identified needs of green space stewards in Baltimore City. CGRN was formed just this year through an initial partnership between the Parks & People Foundation’s Assistant Director of Community Greening Stewardship, Kari Smith, and Maryland Cooperative Extension’s Food Stamp Nutrition Education Project Leader, Chrissa Carlson. CGRN was primarily modeled after Detroit’s Garden Resource Program Collaborative, which has been extremely successful in supporting and encouraging community gardening.

In August, I became the CGRN Coordinator, a position sponsored by Americorps VISTA, to set up the network. As a network, CGRN is bringing together government agencies such as Baltimore City Hall, the Office of Neighborhoods, and the Office of Sustainability, other non-profit greening organizations like Baltimore Green Space (a land trust to protect Baltimore’s green spaces), Community Greens (an alley gating and greening program), and Jones Falls and Herring Run Watershed Associations, and other entities that work hard to promote greening and outdoor education like Irvine Nature Center, City Blossoms, and Reservoir Hill Improvement Council.

By partnering with area organizations that have indoor and outdoor space and tool sheds, and are already involved in greening their communities, CGRN Sites will serve as hubs for greening information and materials. This first year, four CGRN Sites are being established at Reservoir Hill Improvement Council, Herring Run Watershed Association’s new Watershed Center, People’s Homesteading Group, and the Amazing Grace Church in Southeast Baltimore. These four locations serve a diversity of neighborhoods and are located in different sections of the city. Each CGRN Site with host a Community Tool Bank with hand tools, four annual seed and plant give-away days, and workshops taught by gardeners and greening organizations.

One of the most important outputs of the network is the quarterly See Green Newsletter, which will contain informative articles, spotlights on various gardens to share successes and challenges, and a shared calendar of events. Workshops already scheduled by area organizations will be posted on the calendar, reaching people who might not have received notice of these events. New workshops can be coordinated, on topics that have yet to be covered, like bee-keeping. There are plenty of folks keeping bees and plenty who want to learn how!

In addition, CGRN will facilitate networking opportunities through city-wide evaluation meetings, garden tours, and get-togethers. As a network, everyone involved in gardening is an important and indispensable resource and has the opportunity to be an active force in making CGRN a useful and productive tool.

There are two options for CGRN membership. Applications are accepted year-round and are valid for one calendar year. Community-managed green spaces like community gardens, school gardens, and neighborhood memorial gardens in Baltimore City can apply for Garden Membership. The $10 cost-sharing fee covers the materials distributed through the tool banks, give-away days, and mailings. Individual Membership is for individuals, whether they are gardening or not, who do not live in the city; and for folks in the city who are not involved in a community garden but are interested in gardening and greening. The yearly $5 fee provides these individuals access to CGRN’s newsletter, calendar, and networking opportunities.

CGRN will ensure that individuals and families involved in greening their neighborhoods can connect to opportunities that help them succeed. When resources are available, more citizens can easily become involved in greening and gardening, directly contributing to the revitalization of their neighborhoods. More information about CGRN, including membership forms, is available online at www.parksandpeople.org, or by calling the Parks & People Foundation at 410-448-5663 x114.

North County Preservation presents "Meals from the Meadows of Maryland"

ericimhof — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:39:52 -0400

North County Preservation presents
"Meals from the Meadows of Maryland"
Let's Grow Baltimore County Farms and Farmers:
A unique benefit designed to provide funding for a mentoring program for new farmers.

For Immediate Press Release:

What is planned:

This year we will host an evening titled “Meals From The Meadows Of Maryland”. For information and tickets for the event visit: www.northcountypreservation.org

Where is the event:

The event will be held at the Greenspring Hunt Club on Mantua Mill Road in Glyndon on Saturday, October 18th from 6-9pm.

What to expect:

Top Chefs and Caterers will be using donated produce provided by our local farms to create unique signature dishes. Wine from local Vineyards will be paired with each of the culinary creations. There will be live music with our own local band, Deadwood.

Why should you attend:

Become acquainted with local farms and learn about the mentoring project. Support local efforts, and enjoy a fantastic Meal from the Meadows of Maryland. We anticipate and are limited to 200 guests with ticket prices of $65pp and sponsorships available.

What is this benefitting:

Monies raised will be used to develop a mentoring program to educate new farmers and to promote public awareness on the value of local agriculture which coincides with NCP’s mission to preserve and enhance open space. The mentoring program will focus on teaching agricultural processes, finances, and regulatory issues with plenty of hands-on experience…i.e., hard work! Bringing in new farmers to our area has many advantages and helps meet the higher demand for buying fresh, healthier, and local foods as well as keeping agriculture a viable career choice. Maintaining our local food systems helps the local economy and promotes sustainable agricultural management practices and natural resource conservation.

Who is participating:

The restaurants and caterers committed at this point in time are Atwaters, The Dogwood, Café Hon, Chesapeake Gardens, Innovative Gourmet, Manor Tavern, Panache Caterers, Tark’s Grill, Zia’s and more. We have plenty of willing farms to date including Albright Farms, Briedenbough Farm, the Burton Family, Calvert’s Gift, Edrich Farm, Gunpowder Bison, Meristem Farm, One Straw Farm, Pahl’s Farms, Springfield Farm, Reynolds Farm, Richardson Farm, Roseda Beef, Weber’s Farm, all providing seasonal fruits, vegetables, and meats. The event will be sponsored in part by the Farm Bureau and Baltimore County Department of Economic Development. Other sponsorships are being collected.

Call to action:

Join the effort to promote public awareness about our local agricultural economy and to establish new relationships among local retailers, consumers, institutions, and farmer.

Who we are:

North County Preservation, NCP, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting rural life in Northern Baltimore County.

What we do:

We focus on gathering and distributing fact-based information to encourage responsible development and preservation, providing education on the history, and unique resources of the area. We perform studies on land use trends, and promote long-term solutions to increase agricultural sustainability and to protect open space.

Meals from the Meadows of Maryland is just one of the many initiatives from the “Ag Study”; which is one of our NCP projects. The Ag Study has an Executive Committee consisting of Baltimore County Agricultural Land Preservation Advisory Board Chairman David Greene, University of Maryland Cooperative Extension Baltimore County Director David Martin, Baltimore County Agricultural Land Preservation Program Director Wallace Lippincott, County Economic Development Agricultural Liaison Chris McCollum, Baltimore County Farm Bureau Representative Keith Wills, University of Maryland Extension Economist and Associate Professor Jim Hanson, and NCP Vice-President Alice Chalmers. Alice Chalmers is a finance professional whose experience includes being Finance Director, Controller, and Consultant with Anderson Consulting and Price Waterhouse. The Ag Study Advisory Team is made up of various farmers and retailers in the area. To date funding support has been provided by Baltimore County Economic Development, Baltimore Farm Bureau, MARBIDCO, Mid Atlantic Farm Credit, USDA Rural Grants, Maryland Horse Breeders Association, Dark Hollow Farm, Finch Services, North County Preservation, and private funders.

Contact: For more information please contact Cathy Tipper crtipper@aol.com or
call 410-218-3620 For tickets, sponsorship, restaurant or farm donations for the event
visit: www.northcountypreservation.org or the address below.

Keeping it in the Community: Discussions with Miriam Avins and Jim Kelly on Land Trusts in Baltimore — Nick Petr

nickpetr — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:12:07 -0400

Amidst the mega-gentrification of cities in the U.S. and around the world, community leaders are frantically searching for ways to put the brakes on development projects that don’t consider the needs of existing residents. Community land trusts may be a step in the right direction. A land trust is an agreement in which one party holds the ownership of a piece of land for the benefit of the other. However, in a city like Baltimore, where promises from local government officials and developers often seem half-hearted at most, some might be skeptical of the potential for such measures to take root. Miriam Avins and Jim Kelly are both working to implement long-term land trust programs in Baltimore. I corresponded with them by e-mail to shed some light on the subject.

Part 1: Miriam Avins, Baltimore Green Space

How did you get involved in the effort to create a land trust program in Baltimore?

Five years ago, I worked with my neighbors to create a community vegetable garden in Better Waverly, on a lot where the city government had recently demolished a fire-damaged house. Homestead Harvest quickly became one of the major places where community members could work and socialize together, as well as a source of fresh, organic vegetables that members often shared with friends and people walking by. But we’ve had a few problems: we couldn’t get water turned on, and the lot’s owner—who hadn’t taken care of the property in years and owed the City a pile of money—could have sold the lot at any time. These are both problems that a land trust can help solve.

Baltimore Green Space is focused solely on community-managed open spaces. That means community gardens, pocket parks, horseshoe pits—any space that is taken care of by people in the neighborhood. Communities that feel they could benefit from what the land trust has to offer—security that the site will not be sold for development, liability insurance, better access to water, and stewardship—can apply to have their green spaces included in the land trust. The idea is to respond to communities’ interest in sustaining their public open spaces.

What are community-managed open spaces used for?

Some community-managed open spaces are vegetable gardens. Others are quiet places to sit, or gardens that beautify street corners. A tree park in Reservoir Hill is the site of an annual fair. A sculpture garden in Waverly, with sculptures by neighborhood kids, is a lovely spot for community celebrations. A horseshoe pit in Pigtown hosts an annual tournament that brings in players from around Maryland, as well as casual games. Every space has its own mix of uses.

What are some of the functional benefits of these community-managed open spaces?

Community-managed open spaces provide social and environmental benefits to neighborhoods. For the activists who make these spaces, I think that the social benefits are probably the ones they think about most. For example, many vacant lots have been greened as a way to clean up and deter dumping or drug use, often with the help of organizations such as the Parks and People Foundation and Bon Secours. In the process of doing the work, neighbors get to know each other, and also learn how to bring outside resources into their neighborhoods. The more a space is used, the more eyes are on the street, making it safer. And there’s research to show that plants and trees improve people’s wellbeing. If the space grows food, then more people will be able to have fresh vegetables—and most gardeners share. All of these things strongly improve a neighborhood’s livability.

At the same time, the green spaces are good for the city as an ecosystem. For example, rain that falls in a green space isn’t falling onto paved surfaces. So it doesn’t run into the street, washing trash and pollution into the [Chesapeake] Bay. Instead, the rain soaks into the ground. Trees help cool the community, and even if there are no trees, the space will be cooler than the surrounding pavement or a roof. And any food grown right here in Baltimore reduces the greenhouse gasses pumped into the sky when our tomatoes or cabbage come from 1,000 miles away.

All this adds up to do-it-yourself environmental action: neighborhoods without good access to green places, space for recreation, and fresh vegetables have created their own. The role of Baltimore Green Space is to provide the legal mechanisms to ensure that these grass-roots amenities are not lost.

One benefit that you have mentioned before is the effect that community-managed green space can have on property values. Could you explain that?

There’s been some recent research that documents how green space enhances property values. This research is important for two reasons. First, some people worry that community-managed open spaces will reduce their property values; so it is helpful to put that concern to sleep.

Second, cities traditionally need to receive property taxes on all lots, and so a lot in use as open space is seen as a lot not paying its way. The new research helps show that green spaces do a great job of reversing the effect of blighted lots on housing, at the same time that they are providing social and environmental benefits.

Many community-managed open spaces are in places where people have created beauty because they didn’t want to live with blight. It’s not surprising that other people also prefer beauty to blight, and so are more likely to choose to live where blight has been eliminated. This is something that I think most people understand intuitively, but for government policymakers, who often need to reduce complex issues to a statement of costs and benefits, it is helpful to have the research that spells this out.

We hear a lot of familiar terms when developers and city officials talk about greening space: social capital, strategic development, land banking. These are terms that many people associate with gentrification. Is there any concern that this process (of greening space and creating open space land trusts) might be abused in a way that it could contribute the gentrification of low-income neighborhoods—for example, increased property taxes and middle-class-oriented revitalization initiatives?

By responding to communities that want to see their community-managed open spaces in a land trust, Baltimore Green Space can contribute to communities’ self-determination. Sometimes greening is seen as an interim use of land that will eventually be redeveloped. That may be a fine thing—but it’s not what Baltimore Green Space is for. The land trust will preserve community-managed open space for the long haul.

All communities need access to green space, and when activists in low-income neighborhoods take matters into their own hands to create green space, I don’t think they are worried about gentrification. For example, the site of the Duncan Street Garden, a large vegetable garden in East Baltimore, sits where all the houses on both sides of a narrow street had been demolished. This was once the site of dumping, rapes, and other crimes, according to one of the men who works in the garden. Now the garden is safe enough that people come and work alone and more people eat well.

As a land trust, Baltimore Green Space works to ensure that communities facing development pressure don’t lose their precious green spaces. To a developer, green space looks like vacant land. As one activist in Philadelphia put it, “When developers come, they often destroy the gardens and then wonder why the neighborhood is not as vibrant as they remember.”

What do you see as the role of the city government in the creation of a land trust program? Who really owns the property, if the city is providing financial support?

There are good reasons to partner with government. Baltimore Green Space will be far more effective at preserving community-managed open spaces if it works cooperatively with city government, which is such a major owner of undeveloped properties. The basic model is borrowed from Chicago’s NeighborSpace land trust, which was actually formed by government, because of its own concerns that there wasn’t enough open space in the city, and now protects more than 60 gardens. And yes, NeighborSpace does receive government funding. In contrast, Baltimore Green Space was founded by four community gardeners who were concerned for the future of the gardens they work in.

I think that Baltimore is ready to follow a model like Chicago’s because there’s a growing understanding of the need for varied land uses and green spaces, and recognition that community greeners bring resources to Baltimore’s neighborhoods in an effective way. It’s very encouraging to work on this project at a time when city government increasingly prizes the social and environmental benefits that residents create when they pick up a spade and plant trees, flowers, or tomatoes. No matter how Baltimore Green Space is supported, the land trust will protect the green spaces it owns on behalf of the communities that create and sustain them.

Miriam Avins is the President of Baltimore Green Space. She can be reached by telephone on 443-695-7504, or by e-mail on
bgreenspace@gmail.com

Part 2: Jim Kelly, Charm City Land Trust

What is a land trust and where does the idea come from? How did you get interested in this?

Generally speaking, a land trust is an organization designed to hold or control land perpetually or [for] a very long time for some purpose. Community land trusts and conservation land trusts are non-profit organizations that control land for a publicly beneficial purpose. Community land trusts [CLTs] typically have democratically elected boards to guarantee community control of land resources, especially for affordable homeownership. Although CLTs claim a 40-year history, the movement did not really move forward until about 1980. Conservation land trusts often have self-selecting boards of directors to ensure common commitment to the ideals of preserving land in its natural state. Their history is significantly longer.

I became involved with the Community Land Trust movement in 1988 through my friendship with Chuck Matthei, a founder and leader in the movement. I helped form the New Columbia Community Land Trust in Washington, DC in 1990 and am now working with the Charm City Land Trusts, Inc., [CCLT] here in Baltimore.

It seems that most of the discussion around community land trusts deals with “green spaces” and beautification efforts, and some people are concerned that these initiatives will ultimately be used as yet another tool for the gentrification of low-income neighborhoods. What about Affordable Housing Trusts? Are there working examples of land trusts that actually safeguard affordable housing and those residents who want to improve their neighborhoods without being forced out by speculators and rising property taxes?

Actually, I would say that the creation and preservation of permanently affordable homes has been the mainstay of the Community Land Trust movement. I would refer you to the Institute for Community Economics [ICE] website [1] and the Burlington Associates website [2] for further information. CLTs have been especially popular in gentrifying areas (e.g. northwest D.C.) and areas with high land values and low wage bases (attractive coastal areas, academic areas such as Rochester, Minnesota). In Baltimore, we have chosen to focus on open space first as a means of responding to immediate needs and opportunities for community beautification; CCLT is also committed to providing stewardship over permanently affordable homes.

Let’s say that a large portion of the land that Johns Hopkins is currently developing in Middle East Baltimore had become a Community Land Trust before the project was approved. Would the outcome have been different for those residents who were displaced by the development project, or can a land trust still be acquired by the city, state, or federal government through tactics like eminent domain?

Although my answer is “no” in the context in which you have placed the question, I think the question is very interesting. Prof. Nancy McLaughlin has a new draft article about the condemnation of conservation easements [3].

I think non-profit land trusts can be deprived of their ownership rights through eminent domain as readily as any person or party, but conservation land trusts often do not own the land they protect. Often, they only control the right to prevent development on the land. It’s not absolutely clear what happens to this commitment to not develop land when the government acquires it by force.

Are there any existing community housing trusts in Baltimore?

Charm City Land Trusts, Inc., (Baltimore) and Gateway Community Development Corporation (Mt. Ranier) are the two groups listed as CLTs on the ICE website [see endnote 1]. Neither of us have any single-family homes under permanent resale restrictions because, among other reasons, we are trying to get a law passed that will allow us to enforce, through a ground lease, a subsidized homeowner’s promise to pass the good deal on when she decides it’s time to move out. Currently, the law in Maryland allows single-family homeowners to buy their way out of ground leases. We will be going back to the legislature in the years ahead to explain the importance of allowing CLTs to operate in Maryland as they do in other states.

Do you believe Baltimore will become a city where residents can establish large-scale affordable housing trusts in the near future?

Right now, I think there is an enormous challenge with regard to financial resources and the real estate downturn should lessen concerns about gentrification displacement. That being said, I think the current attention to the creation of a land bank authority and the inclusive housing system in Baltimore makes an affordable housing land trust a natural next step. Chicago is now requiring that all its new significantly subsidized homeownership units be put into a citywide land trust to stay affordable forever.

Charm City Land Trusts is focused on establishing community control of land for a particular group of neighborhoods in East Baltimore, but we are looking to partner with nonprofit developers interested in creating perpetually affordable homeownership opportunities in those communities.

Jim Kelly may be contacted by telephone on (410) 837-5649 or by e-mail at
JimK@communitylaw.org.

Endnotes

1. http://www.iceclt.org/clt.
2. http://www.burlingtonassociates.com.
3. McLaughlin, Nancy A., “Condemning Conservation Easements: Protecting the Public Interest and Investment in Conservation,” UC Davis Law Review, Vol. 41, p. 1897, 2008—available on the Internet at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1136963.