Local Food. Right Now. Come on, do it. Do it. Just do It.

A central component of green urbanism is food--local food.  Local food means either grown within the city through urban farming, i.e. someone's backyard (or frontyard), or a vacant lot turned into a mini farm; or it means from the surrounding rural areas, i.e. the Bluegrass Region.  

This article from Grist.org discusses the concept of local, healthy food and a new pilot show is mentioned, called Food Forward, produced by folks out in California.  Here's the video trailer.  The point of the show is to provide a more inspiring and forward-looking view of "people who are changing how we eat in America."  The trailer specifically looks at feeding children better food, and leaving a better legacy for our children.  That's a very admirable and justified thing to do.  The children of our society have become terribly unhealthy, and that will lead to all sorts of healthcare issues later in life for America. That said, I'm more interested in feeding all of us better.  

First off, I know it's not totally realistic to suggest we can feed everyone locally--at least not through the winter.  And at least not right now.  This is primarily because most people have simply lost the skills of farming, harvesting, and storing food--we have devolved in that respect.  But also, a lot of people either don't have the time, or won't make the time, to raise their own garden.  It is a decent bit of work, and requires maybe putting in a little time on weeknights, and a little weekend work.

Imagine the amount of food that could be grown in all the unused/lesser-used spaces in the city though.  Check out other cities:  Front yards (only function aesthetically, and are a resource-hog as it is), back yards (reduced functions with more and more gaming technology and such), some parks, vacant lots (detroit), school yards, etc.


Next post, we'll take a look at Lexington, and the Bluegrass--what's being done, and what else can be done.  

Civic Mindedness

Suum cuique: To each, his own (thanks Wikipedia).  Every person is different, and has unique talents, ideas, and opinions.  Here in Lexington, there are thousands of people that have all taken our education and life philosophies in different directions.  We all make daily decisions based on education and life philosophies. This is true for almost any city in the country.

As a collective whole though, many lack an understanding of how each decision we make impacts our economy, our city, and our environment.  We lack an understanding of the basic functions of a city or town, and how that works in conjunction with the people living there, and the environment both in the town and in the countryside.  Basically, we lack a civic mindedness.

Civic mindedness involves both understanding these issues, and engaging our leaders in conversation on these issues.  For example, we all understand the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?  Now, let's consider a road, two lanes (one each way), and during rush hour, that road becomes extremely jam-packed.  Everyone wants the road to be widened, so that the traffic will lessen during rush hour.  The reality, however, is that the capacity of that road now increases, and supports more traffic.  Widening a road to four lanes will only make things worse by creating even greater congestion.  It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Widening the road also causes a substantial increase in environmental impacts (urban heat island, stormwater runoff and pollution).  This problem, then, requires a basic understanding of the impacts of choosing to drive everyday, the real impacts of widening a road, and the costs of choosing to do that, as opposed to planning a city better.

In another example, many individuals are unaware that storm sewers (the grates along the curb) empty directly into local streams, full of whatever trash people toss out their windows (including cigarette butts), and the pollutants on the road surfaces from regular traffic flow.  Some even pour chemicals straight into the storm sewer.  When all these pollutants reach local streams, they kill aquatic life (fish, frogs, small insects essential to the aquatic food chain).  This subsequently has impacts downstream, i.e. Elkhorn Creek pollutants can impact the Kentucky River.  Then, eventually, a clean-up effort must be conducted, often an expense by the city, to restore a stream to healthy conditions--all because we, as citizens, failed to understand the impacts of our decisions.

Of course, there are some who do have a civic mindedness, and engage their community and leaders in critical thought.  For most civic actions, like land developments, road bulding/widening, zone changes, and such, public forums are held so that citizens can comment.  Recently, the Centrepointe project is an example of a land development that caused a significant citizen uproar, particularly with those who understood the impact it would have on the center of downtown.  In most instances though, the collection of individuals in these forums are not wholly representative of the community, and do not provide a substantial voice that understands the real impacts of such civic actions.  How can the political leaders make decisions that are in the best interests of the community, if the community is not knowledgeable on the subject, or chooses not to speak?  Then, how can the community be upset at the result?

Knowledge of these issues is important, because choosing political leaders for our community is central to those potential leaders understanding these issues.  If the citizen base does not understand them, then they certainly can not be expected to challenge the political leaders' knowledge of such issues.  Now, with this in mind, I would like to challenge each of you to become better educated on the impacts of shopping, driving, living, and dining decisions, both in your life and the life of our city, economy, and environment.  I would like to challenge you to participate more fully in our democratic republic--do not allow yourself to become a couch potato robot.  Our society is in a challenging situation, and needs greater critical thought and collective participation to become a city of the 21st century (and beyond)--not a remnant of the 20th century.

Blog Renewed

I've been busy for the last few months (or more), and have not been focused on this blog.  However, in the coming weeks and months, I intend to redirect some time and effort into this blog, with more consistent comments and thoughts.  Previous posts spoke more generally about "Green Urbanism," but from now on, my posts are going to be directed primarily towards the Inner Bluegrass Region of Kentucky.  Since I live in Lexington, the majority of posts will be specifically related to current events and issues in/around Lexington.  Hope you enjoy the future of this blog!

Fighting for our Future

Let it be known--this is not a typical post for this blog. First, read this:

Student Activists Demand Alternative Energies on Campus
Burning Coal on Campus is Hazardous to Student Health and the Commonwealth

LEXINGTON, Ky: Tuesday, an anonymous group of students from the University of Kentucky hung a banner from a parking structure near Rose Street to protest the university’s use of coal power on campus. The banner, reading “COAL: A Tradition of Oppression. STUDENTS: Let’s Change Our Legacy”, included a reproduction of the familiar UK symbol, with a burning smokestack between the letters instead of the usual Memorial Hall steeple.

Deemed the “midnight strike force” by local news sources, the students are fueling a campaign to move the university beyond the “outdated” technology of coal power and in the direction of cleaner energies. One of the students, an economics and environmental studies senior, said, “You can’t argue facts. Coal is a finite resource and the shift to alternative energies has to begin immediately. Kentucky must realize its potential to be progressive and enterprising in the country’s transition toward environmental awareness.”

The students’ use of the word “oppression” alludes to the detrimental effects of coal not only on the environment, but on the miners and communities in coal-mining regions of the state. An estimated 12,000 coal miners have died from black lung in the past decade, and their families are equally affected. The real tragedy, though, lies in mountain top removal (MTR) coal mining, a practice that more and more coal companies are using to extract coal at a lower cost. MTR employs explosives to decapitate mountains, and the leftover waste is deposited in surrounding valleys. The chemicals and residue bury and contaminate freshwater streams, thus poisoning the water supply for surrounding communities and devastating local ecosystems.

While the university, directly, does not deal in MTR coal, Kentucky Utilities provides a significant portion of the campus’s power, and is a known distributor of energy derived from the controversial method.

“The University of Kentucky is the flagship university of the state, and as such, sets the example for the rest of Kentucky. Any change we can make toward cleaner energy and the diversification of jobs and economies will affect the entire Appalachian region drastically, and for the better. This change is one that can’t wait,” said an Appalachian Studies junior.

It seems momentum has not died from the announcement last semester that the new Wildcat Coal Lodge would be endorsed by the coal industry. Tuesday’s banner was one of a series that has hung on campus since October, indicating that the students have not forgotten President Todd’s decision, and that they still worry for the future of their school’s energy and integrity.

These students at the Kentucky bring up an important issue, one that relates entirely to the concept of Green Urbanism. First, Green Urbanism, while it maintains an inherent relationship with cities, requires that the inputs into the city (energy, materials, food, etc) utilize environmental, economical, and social sustainability. The absolute destruction of the earth

results in an absolute reduction in our environmental, economic, and social capital. Those landscapes don't just 'come back.' Nor can you just "restore" that landscape to it's former self (contrary to what many MTR companies want YOU to believe that they do). The soils become so compacted that plants are unable to grow. This= less forest, which =less possible timber resources, but also= less places for trees to grow and remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Now, the second part of this is much more connected to the urban system: burning coal in/near urban areas produces air pollution, which has a multitude of health impacts. (And don't take that to mean we should just put coal-burning power plants 40 miles outside of cities--that means we would have to use more coal, and more resources to get that energy transferred that far back to where it is needed--oh wait...we already do that???....save that one for another time). The coal backers will come back here with the whole "clean coal" mumbo jumbo---but they may want to check their own industry. Just last week, Don Blankenship debated Robert Kennedy, Jr. (and was completely embarrassed by Kennedy, I might add). At the end of the debate, Blankenship conceeded that carbon sequestration, the advocated method of "clean coal," is a bunch of hogwash. So, "clean coal" = a pipe dream.

The alternative is we use wind, solar, geothermal (yes), and we use these alternatives on a decentralized system, rather than a centralized system, like coal power. More importantly, we rebuild/retrofit the existing urbanized landscape with passive-solar heating, more efficient insulation, green roofs, living walls, and other intelligent (yes) ideas. This will help reduce overall energy use, which will help reduce energy need, reduce coal input, reduce coal removal, and eventually, remove coal from the equation completely with replacement by renewable energy. Then, we are talking about the sustainability of our environmental, economic, and social capital, and we are talking about Green Urbanism.