———————– ** Fresh Green Beans ** ———————– Grown in Kansas. Eaten Worldwide.

I have never attended a city council meeting. I have never participated in a protest (although I’ve signed a few online petitions in my time). And until recently, I have never written my state senator or representative. You could say I am apolitical. I guess I’ve always chosen education over activism to address the issues that are most important to me.

But as the battle to build coal fired plants in Holcomb, KS, raged on this spring, I felt it my civic duty to write my legislators. I knew their minds were already made up to vote for a veto override (even though they both sat through our local “Focus the Nation” event just three months ago listening to arguments against the legislation), but I fired away my messages anyway.

I was pleased to get a detailed response from my state representative, Tom Sloan. But it left more questions than answers. Here’s just a snippet of his reasoning for supporting new coal, and the queries left in its trail:

“Simply saying no to coal-fired electric generation does not result in the construction of renewable generation units.”

Maybe not, but doesn’t saying yes squelch the need for any other source of energy in our state for the time being, and put an end to opportunities for renewable development?

“The coal-fired plants would serve as anchors and financial supporters of the high voltage electric transmission lines necessary to move wind energy west to the California market and south and east to urban centers.”

When did Kansas get in the business of exporting power to the rest of the nation anyway? I thought we were an agricultural state.

“Emission standards for carbon releases from power plants, other commercial enterprises (e.g., ethanol plants), motor vehicles, etc. should be established. Currently no standards exist at the federal or state levels because scientists and policy-makers have not yet reached consensus on what levels are relevant and attainable. “

Now your talking. So shouldn’t we give current debates at the national level work themselves out before we jump headfirst into increasing carbon emissions that will soon be regulated?

“Wind energy will and should be part of the energy mix serving Kansas and the nation/world. The proposed Holcomb plants will be the lowest emitting plants in the nation and will be the first plants to have carbon capture and mitigation investments as part of their business plan”.

This one totally lost me. If wind should and will be part of the mix, why do we need to add more coal? In a state where 75% of the energy produced is from coal, and most of the remainder comes from nuclear power, I’d say we have a long way to go to make wind even part of the mix. Cleaner or not, coal definitely needs to make room for it’s renewable cousins.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. I don’t doubt Representative Sloan’s sincere interest appreciate his effort to education himself on the issue, but for me the logic just doesn’t add up. It looks more like new coal would limit our opportunities, not broaden our horizons, and make shooting for the stars even more difficult than it already is.

“Ad Astra” statue atop of the Kansas capitol. Source: flickr.com

-Jeff

View the Power Point presentation, which explains the theme and purpose of the six-part media series. Click here.

J.J. De Simone, Lindsay Crupper, Bobby Grace, Denzly Janneker, Adam Bowman

The Lawrence Sustainability Network, LSN, was born in 2006 of skepticism and hope. LSN’s founders did not believe that politicians could be counted on to halt our society’s steady march toward the precipice of environmental destruction, economic collapse, and social instability. Instead, they believed that individuals would have to decide for themselves to leave the herd and find another path, to find other disaffected souls, and learn to live lightly and sustainably on planet Earth. Herein lies hope, hope for other species, our families, our communities, and hope for the future.

It is not surprising that we must first act individually in the decision to live differently. American society glorifies individualism and competition, teaching each of us that we will sink or swim on our own merits. So it is no small irony that our first steps away from destruction are personal initiatives to develop a collective response. We in LSN believe community building is key to our success. Together we can imagine what a more sustainable world might look like. We can pool our ideas and our resources, and we can share the daunting task of figuring out how to make the transition from where we are to where we want to be. The introduction to LSN’s vision statement, taken from our website, sets out in broad strokes what we would like to accomplish:

Ecological sustainability means living in a way that is mindful of consequences for the future. We envision a community built around livelihood strategies that protect the commons of clean air, soil and water; deliver efficient, affordable, clean and renewable energy; prioritize local food systems; and promote biological diversity so that future generations of people and other species can also satisfy their basic needs. In this community ‘development’ will mean improving the quality of life for all people in the Lawrence area, fostering social justice in the distribution of available resources and opportunities, and fortifying our local economy toward the goal of self-sufficiency. Social relationships are equally important to ecological sustainability; the social world we will advance will be built on mutual aid, trust, equity, and participatory democracy.

A just and healthy world is LSN’s hope for the future. It will take many hands and minds and hearts, coming together in community, to bring it about.

~ Jane Gibson

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“Poor Sachiko. You have to eat McDonald and pizza everyday.”

I’m a student from Japan. Before I left Japan, many of my friends mentioned fast food and felt sorry about an unhealthy and tasteless diet I’d go through.

Now, I can say they’re not right, at least in Lawrence. I like to go to downtown restaurants that serve a variety of food around the world. I love to cook using fresh ingredients from the downtown farmers’ market. After coming to Lawrence, I’m converted to a supporter of local food, too.

Photo Credit: Farmers’ Market in Downtown Lawrence Lawrence farmers’ market is open on Saturday morning and Tuesday and Thursday evening.

The farmers’ market, a community garden and restaurants that specialize in regional ingredients, Lawrence offers great venues for local food. The benefits of local food vary from taste to health, to the environment and local economy.

To be a prouder Lawrencian, how can we support local food and build a more sustainable food network in Lawrence?

Search Lawrence Sustainability Network and Local Harvest: They tell us farms and restaurants that specialize in regional ingredients.

Support local farmers through a subscription service: Small-scale local firms are vulnerable to risks such as bad weather and pests. Daniel Dermitzel, farmer and associate director of Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, said we can help local formers by sharing those risks and subscribing to Community Supported Agriculture. Under the subscription service, organized farmers collect a fixed fee from customers and provide products periodically. The amount of share depends on the performance of those farmers. Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance is available for the Lawrence area. 

Volunteer for the Lawrence farmers’ market: It’s a great way to share your passion with customers and vendors. 

In the long run, we should create more opportunities for farmers to sell their products.

Open the farmers’ market in winter: Although not many products are available during the winter season, opening the markets would help stabilize farmers’ income and satisfy customers’ demands. The Christian Science Monitor reports winter indoor markets that have become popular in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa. 

Create a local food kiosk on the KU campus: The kiosk could sell fruits, snacks and meals made of locally grown ingredients. It can be promotional, too.

Start a Farm-to-School program in Lawrence public schools: Farm to School is a program which schools provide meals using locally produced foods. Schools also provide learning opportunities, such as farming, gardening and studying about nutrition. This program would enable local farmers to sell their products and raise students’ awareness of food and health. 

Your participation wanted! And don’t miss Lawrence farmers’ market! It opens on Saturday morning and Tuesday and Thursday evening from mid April to November.

By Sachiko Miyakawa

As a child, I lived next to a swamp. It was a place of foreboding, where rumor had it that if particles of the spongy heads of cattails, or bulrushes as they were more commonly known got in your eyes, you’d go blind.

Writing this article, it has just occurred to me how naïve I was in believing that by draining the swamp in preference for a low-cost housing scheme, it would be a viable alternative to the prospect of dozens of kids walking around with white sticks and guide dogs. With hindsight, I’ve come to appreciate the value of preserving fragile ecosystems, at a time when they face a growing threat through industrialization, population explosion and pollution. I now know that a swamp is not just an ominous wasteland, but a wetland, that contrary to belief, cattails have strong medicinal properties, are edible and have many other uses, quite apart from their valuable role in supporting an abundance of wildlife.

It’s estimated that more than one-third of the United States’ threatened and endangered species live only in wetlands like this. Spring Swamp by Ray Devlin.

Around the globe, man’s impact on the land has meant that over 50 percent of the world’s wetlands have been lost, and if only 10 percent are protected according to UNESCO estimates, it means most are in danger of becoming extinct, and with it our priceless natural heritage. When will it all stop? When every bit of earth is occupied by a building, a golf course or a mine? When we try to rediscover our past and a voice rings out:

“Ladies and gentlemen, in this part of the museum we have the prehistoric creatures … and moving along to the 17th century, you have the famous dodo bird, to most recent times with the now extinct white pelican, the great egret, hippopotamus, alligator, osprey … .”

By then, it would have been too late - a world gone blind to the destruction of its precious resources.

-Denzyl

If you are interested in hearing more Ira Glass on storytelling:

John K

Happy Belated Earth Day, everyone!

I know this is a day late, but a friend of mine shared with me this website (Huffington Post, for those who have heard of it or are readers themselves) that I thought would intrigue this audience. The site includes fun-filled energy saving ideas and tips that I always enjoy myself in case there is one more thing I can do in my everyday life that is green.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the website, there is a comedic video of the “Green Team”. A few celebs, including Will Ferrell, participated in the video. If anything, it is just a friendly reminder of how much pop culture, celebs and all that good jazz are influencing the green movement.

-Dena Hart

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

What better way is there to celebrate than with song? Here are some of my favorite environmental songs…I hope enjoy the “concert”!

First, no discussion of music and modern environmentalism would be complete without mentioning the great folk troubadour Woody Guthrie and his timeless anthem, “This Land is Your Land.” It raised issues of Environmental Justice long before the movement had a name; it reclaimed our connection to our land–and empowered us with the knowledge that we’re all equal stakeholders when it comes to the future of our planet:

Our next act is the incomparable Joni Mitchell. To me, no single line sums up the importance of the environmental movement than her angelic falsetto: Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone……so here she is to perform, “Big Yellow Taxi“:

There were several artists throughout the 1970s who addressed environmental issues, Jackson Browne’s, “Doctor My Eyes,” immediately comes to mind…but since to me the 70s is always about the birth of punk, what better song to showcase than “London Calling” by The Clash? Always the prophet, Joe Strummer painted a clear picture of nuclear holocaust and subsequent climate change: “The ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in, engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin, a nuclear error, but I have no fear, London is drowning and I live by the river…”

I came of age in the 1980s, and so that’s pretty much my frame of reference. During that otherwise forgettable decade known for parachute pants and acid-washed jeans, R.E.M, more than any other band carried the environmental banner. My favorite environmentally-themed song of theirs is a tune called, “Cuyahoga,” which recounts the horrors of a polluted river that once served as the playground for childhood memories. Cant’ beat an opening like: “Let’s put our heads together and start a new country up…” Can I get a whoot-whoot?:

I had intended to include a video of hip-hop artists Public Enemy, but, alas, the song I wanted to showcase, “Bedlam 13:13“ is not available on YouTube. Still, check out the lyrics: “No more, no more/Mother earth gets treated like a whore…” Preach, Chuck D! Of course, I should also mention the great work of KRS-One, too.

So there you have it, the first half of our Earth Day concert…want an encore? Just add your favorite clips to this discussion!

–Ranjit

Thanks to advanced technology, we can keep track of global news simultaneously 24/7. Media cover various environmental issues around the world and people’s awareness. Visual communication, such as images of flooding in China and melting glaciers in Antarctica, leaves a strong impact on the audience’s mind and and alerts them to the consequences of humans’ selfishness.

Photo Credit: World View of Global Warming

According to the poll released by Stanford University in June 2007, 85 percent of Americans believe global warming is “probably” happening.

Although the majority of Americans are aware of the issue, some people look at the global crises as if they were watching a movie or something happening outside their world. Those people are reluctant to take action for the environment unless they have incentives to do so.

Are they lazy, selfish or immoral? I don’t think so. I understand people who feel overwhelmed by enormous amount of information. The media send out a bunch of clueless information. The audience are loosing a connection with those information. If we really need the audience’s attention, we have to establish “Why do we care?” and “What can we do?”

It is not easy to provide a reason and solution, especially if it’s international news. But as bloggers, we can serve as the bridge to connect global news to the audience. How can we then communicate with readers as a blogger and persuade them to take action?

The best way of advocacy is give a direct experience to the readers and involve them into activities. We can suggest the readers to volunteer abroad to get their hands dirty. This will connect them to a certain region and influence their actions in the future. Learning about fair trade through chocolate, coffee and tea, is a good introduction, too. Donations for green especially to a specific place might make the readers care more about the place. Also, bloggers should gather readers around the world and encourage them to communicate on their blogs. The readers can learn about different opinions, including non-American voices.

Do you have any ideas? I’d love to share your strategy and feedback.

By Sachiko Miyakawa

Media makes me nauseous.

I have been exposed to a whirlwind of environmental media stories and world news on suffering, violence and hunger. Between the two, I’ve been left feeling skeptical and helpless. I would consider myself pretty well-informed on environmental issues. I live a life more green, and would like to say that my awareness is enough, but lifestyle is not enough, it’s my own perception, and that of others that counts towards a more healthy earth.

The media, I would argue, shapes perception on what is good and bad, and what are important issues to consider. No matter how unbiased a report may seem, the fact that they are published gives the issue an upper hand on importance, and some of the most pertinent issues are barely covered because it is most likely what media thinks people don’t want to hear

Recently, media has shaped the environmental movement in ways that previous generations of environmentalists only wish they had access to. There have been copious amounts of environmental documentaries made, and mentioning a tip here or there on how to be greener, or how your business is green has become a trend. Media takes on a big step for environmentalism, but unfortunately it is ridden with greenwashing, and is targeted to comfortable communities rather than those that are seeking real environmental justice.

Being green is the new feel-good.

I think it has been established that media has done well for environmentalism, although it is ridden with contradiction. As far as access goes for environmental media, it only helps on how much you are interested in it. Since environmentalism is imbued in my brain, I think it is what I am most attracted to when surfing the Internet or reading periodicals, so for me, it is an enormous issue that I am hopeful that many people are being exposed to.

Then I talk to my parents, or coworkers, or someone I run into at the grocery store, and the issues are all jargon to them.

I can mention no personal experience with television – I barely know how to work a remote anymore, so I will focus on the Internet. The internet is an amazing thing because it allows you to cut through the BS that you don’t want to see, you search for exactly what you want to see, you stay on websites that have the same point of view as you, and the websites reinforce your ideas by showing advertisements that they think you would be interested in.

Environmentalism, just as much as any other issue, seems to go only as far as people will allow it in their mind, how much exposure they choose to have in their life and whether or not they will act upon it.

Although the green movement is getting large, is environmentalism still a niche idea?

www.flickr.com

-Juliana Tran