White House + Gardening

Wondered at all recently if the Obamas were the first WH occupants to have a garden? Well, not surprisingly Eleanor Roosevelt had a Victory Garden there during the war. But the story goes back much further. And ofcourse, the web being the web, someone has made a short animated history of WH gardens. In this case it's Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International, leader of the "Eat The View" campaign. Roger's piece, on Vimeo, says that at the peak of the Victory Gardens movement Americans grew 40% of their own fruit and vegetables. See several animated pieces at: http://vimeo.com/1767242

Incidentally, the video says that the average distance that food travels to U.S. plates is 1,500 miles. Is that possible? It's 1,190 miles Chicago to Miami... A little snooping around the web led to a study (Tim Lang, Thames Valley University) that says:

"An increasing proportion of what Americans eat is produced in other countries, including an estimated 39 percent of fruits, 12 percent of vegetables, 40 percent of lamb, and 78 percent of fish and shellfish in 2001.4 The typical American prepared meal contains, on average, ingredients from at least five countries outside the United States."

The link (posted by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Iowa) that cites Lang's study also shows a color graphic illustrating the rise in the percentage of grapes, pineapples, artichokes and asparagus that are imported to the U.S. It's at http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/staff/files/food_travel072103.pdf

Climate Change Warned in Video from 1958(!)

This piece of video from 50 years ago lays out the dangers of excessive carbon dioxide, down to the southern coasts of the US falling to rising waters, the melting of glaciers, etc. See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lgzz-L7GFg.

So, what are the obvious excesses of today that we know are inherently wrong but that we ignore?

Europeans Shed Light on Encouraging Solar

NYT piece on growing US interest in following the European (German and Spanish) model for encouraging solar energy. It's the 'feed-in tariff,' whereby governments mandate that a utility must pay higher rates for green electricity. See it at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/business/energy-environment/13solar.html?em

Majora Carter on TED.com

If you haven't seen it already, take a look at Majora Carter's speech on www.ted.com. Her informative, passionate speech on Greening the Ghetto is up at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/majora_carter_s_tale_of_urban_renewal.html. While you're at it, take a look at Malcolm Gladwell's speech on TED.

Green World-Mundo Verde Symposium

This past Friday I moderated a panel at Symposium on the greening of architecture, put together by the US GBC, HACIA, Instituto Cervantes and Sao Paulo-Illinois Partners. The agenda is at www.haciaworks.org. Tried to look at the growing green collar jobs movement and how it affects the world of Latino architects, developers and other construction people in Chicago. Thanks to Ald. Manny Flores for sharing his vision for a sustainable city as well as to Paige Finnegan of LEED Council, Aurelio Zarzosa-Ramirez and Lourdex Gonzalez of Primera Construction for all sharing interesting perspectives.

Lightbulbs, Trucks and "Playbills" - Broadway Begins to Go Green

Nice little piece on NY's Broadway theater district beginning to go green. Fighting climate change will take the cumulative effect of many small actions... See it here at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/theater/26gree.html?_r=1

Finally A Candidate That Talks About Cities

Some of us have long hoped for a Presidential candidate that would actually talk about the challenges facing cities. It just doesn't happen, even though the majority of Americans have lived in cities for some time now. Barack Obama addressed the U.S. Conference of Mayors in June of this year. He refers to cities as the backbone of regional development, and talks about appointing a White House staff person to focus on urban policy. See a video of his comments here:http://usmayors.org/76thAnnualMeeting/videolink.asp?video=satluncheon/01palmer.