Urban Gardening: My Rooftop Garden

I planted seeds! Soon they will make food (in theory)! They will continue to get glamor shots on my flickr account. So far I've started lettuce, zuchini, green beans, cilantro, and morning glories from seed. It looks like the daisies and poppies are not interested in sprouting. It also looks like I didn't spell daisies right. Oops. The plan is to buy tomatoes, basil, and some flowers, which should yield a nice summertime mix of fresh food from my back "yard," er, deck.

Goal: Play in dirt, be responsible about watering, grow my own food in containers, eat fresh, free veggies!

[Bonus points if my roommates decide to grow food] :)

Avaaz's Elixir for Exxon Ad Propoganda

I was in an airport with my sister recently (yep, I fly 3 or 4 times a year) and saw a full hallway of these Exxon ads about climate change. Made by Euro RSCG, but not featured online. They were these beautifully laid out equations with declarations that climate change will be solved by technology, so leave the problem-solving up to our scientists who understand these elegant equations & reactions (my personal favorite being pV=nRT), and just keep going about your business as usual, everything will be fine, Exxon has it under control. While I generally think of oil companies as delusionally market driven and not necessarily outright slimy, the propoganda factor was so obvious in these ads that they were vaguely funny. And perhaps all the more ironic because it was just last year that the Rockefellers pressured Exxon to stop funding for climate change denial groups. Apparently my sister and I weren't the only ones grossed out by these ads. Avaaz, an organization encouraging social action on a variety of global issues, made a spoof ad (perhaps not far from the original) to call Exxon out on its blatant ridiculousness:

See Avaaz's counter commercial here

Hometown Represent! Braddock Grows Green

The first-term mayor of Braddock, PA is showing where the rubber meets the, uh, bike path.

See a video clip here.

Photo by Lake Fong, Pittsburgh Post Gazette

What I like about this present-day story is that the work really gives voice and thought to a community identity, something that has been absent from community development since Robert Moses (ick) told us what city living was supposed to look like. What we're seeing is the real and concrete development of a new mode of urban living, and the energy around Braddock has realized the theories of new urbanism into:

• An urban garden that sells produce to the community
• Low-cost housing for artists
• Local engagement in the arts
• Community events and community engagement for residents, providing a sense of place for people of all ages and backgrounds
• Reclamation of existing architecture (instead of those weird suburban condo things)
• Dense, mixed-use development
• A loud call for green job development & clean energy businesses to set up shop

What I encourage for long-term success is that the mayor, John Fetterman, bring other leaders and "figure heads," especially youth from the community, along with him so that he's not the only one talking, and so there are several long-term faces associated with the neighborhood who are allowed to go out and be strong and be vocal to take the message to the streets. I mean, bike paths. This makes the community stronger and avoids the fiefdom complex that so often pervades Pittsburgh neighborhood politics. I would also encourage a thorough long-term plan of how to empower the current residents to take advantage of the economic change that will come to their community when housing prices begin to rise.

If we're going to make cities livable, that has to mean for everyone, and this model brings together a lot of the ideas. There are a lot of people rooting for these models to work. And of course it's nice to see it happening in my hometown.

Zaproot - More Green News

Zaproot produces short, quirky video segments about the daily news in the world of green.


This particular reporter, Jessica Williamson, speaks English, although quite fast & with one of those fun non-American accents (she's from New Zealand).

Brazilian Green Reporter Andre Trigueiro

Eco design in Rio? Check. World Social Forum in Belem? Yep.

Andre Trigueiro is the best reporter in Brazil covering all things green. He has a TV show available online, "Cidades e Solucoes" (Cities and Solutions) about "cool" things that Brazilian cities are doing related to climate change and the environment.

His weekly(?) radio show is the only podcast I download onto my computer.

Most, maybe all, of his work and programs are in Portuguese, but they're possibly the most thorough and consistent reporting on climate and "green" related news that I've heard in any language, so it's worth checking out.

More than just a reiteration of the important ideas about climate change that are discussed internationally, and more than a transfer of information from the US or UK climate camp, the programs really discuss and discover areas where Brazil is on the cutting edge, or where businesses and organizations are on the cutting edge for their communities. The programs focus on solutions, and things that are working. I think that this really encourages viewers to be motivated and convinced that this is the direction that things are moving in Brazil. The traditional focus on what's wrong and what isn't working leaves out the chance to talk about solutions, forward movement, and innovation. As a viewer, I feel enganged and interested in "what's new" and want to look for similar activities in my neighborhood (albeit thousands of miles away). And it makes me want to watch the next one! (Yes, I'm a nerd, I know...)

I learned Portuguese partially by listening to these shows and radio broadcasts because they were about topics interesting to me.