sustainableflatbush.org

A story in today’s AMNY describes a Clinton Foundation program to finance energy efficiency retrofits of existing buildings in 16 cities: New York, Chicago, Houston, Toronto, Mexico City, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Mumbai, Karachi, Seoul, Bangkok, Melbourne, São Paulo, Johannesburg and Rome.

“If all buildings were as efficient as they could be, we’d be saving an enormous amount of energy and significantly reducing carbon emissions. Also, we’d be saving a ton of money,” Clinton said.

The planned projects include replacing heating, cooling and lighting systems with energy-efficient networks; making roofs white or reflective to deflect more of the sun’s heat; sealing windows and installing new models that let more light in and keep the elements out; and setting up sensors to control more efficient use of lights and air conditioning.

… Warren Karlenzig, author of “How Green Is Your City?” applauded the plan and said many of these retrofits have been “crying out to happen.”

“The technology is there; it’s just that the financing has been missing,” he said.

via StreetsBlog… a press release from Mayor Bloomberg’s office outlines some very exciting plans to be presented in Albany, including the creation of a New York City Energy Efficiency Authority, cameras for enforcement of future Bus Rapid Transit lanes, and property tax abatements for green roofs!

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PlaNYC gets up on YouTube! Take 30 seconds and check it out. (and thanks to StreetFilms for the tip.)

Campaign for New York’s Future

I met Sean Maley from Green Phoenix Permaculture’s NYC Chapter on my visit to Epworth Camp a few weeks ago, and invited him to do a little guest blogging about the Permaculture Design Course. (Doesn’t “guest blogging” sound like an appropriate way to reconnect with the urban whirlwind?) Sean is a resident of Upper Manhattan, and works with several community gardens in his neighborhood. Here’s his report:

I’m just returning to the cacophony, today. The full two week Geoff Lawton experience was intense. Some days went from 6:00AM to 11:00PM, but by the end, most were beginning to oversleep the 6:30AM compost turning (every other day).

Geoff and Nadia may not be back for quite some time, if ever. They have enormous amounts of work lined up, especially in the Mideast. He will be working directly with several ministers of agriculture in that part of the world to rethink their infrastructures, especially in Persian Gulf nations like Qatar, where he is presently. He also formally launched Permaculture Across Borders during his stay. Projects are lining up from Afghanistan to Nigeria; sort of a Robin Hood pattern while he sets up eco-resorts and food systems for energy wealthy nations and uses that money to set up Permaculture Education Centers in third world nations.

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Especially here in New York City, buildings are one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions; but that also means that retrofitting them to use less fuel is potentially a great way to clean up the air and lower energy use.

According to the Economist, “The IPCC report looked at the potential for cutting emissions of carbon dioxide from all major culprits—including transport, power generation, general industry, agriculture and buildings. Despite all those exhaust-pipes and power-station chimneys, it found that the greatest potential lay with buildings.”

read the whole article on Treehugger.

Last weekend I took a bus ride up to Epworth Camp in High Falls, NY to drop in on a Permaculture Design Certification course taught by Geoff Lawton. Geoff is an internationally-recognized permaculture expert who has overseen projects all over the globe, from soil restoration at a former refugee camp in the Balkans to creating a food forest in the Jordanian desert. I had heard that this course will be the last one he teaches for some time, as his services are much in demand from governments and communities around the world; so it seemed worth the trip to see what was going on up in High Falls.

I generally feel like a fish out of water in the country, with few skills to offer in an outdoor setting. The truth is, while I love the IDEA of composting my food scraps, I am still somewhat intimidated when confronted with an ACTUAL pile of steaming horse manure, even though it is a crucial component of the process and therefore Special. My biggest contribution was tearing up cardboard boxes for sheet mulch, while scanning my pant legs for ticks. But despite non-starter status in the realm of farming, I was truly captivated by Geoff’s lecture about the chemistry behind soil renewal, the promise of farming without pesticides, the ability of natural systems to remove toxins from soil and water, and the potential to make design serve humans and the environment equally. As he stated more than once, our species has the potential to do as much GOOD as we have already done BAD… translation: we have screwed the planet up, yes, but we can also fix it!

So my question once again is how to translate these concepts into an urban setting, with its specific needs and agenda. Collecting rainwater in the city has less to do with irrigation than with Combined Sewer Overflow; composting food waste is less about making plant food than about NOT making massive quantities of garbage to be trucked off to a landfill at huge municipal expense. The “nutrient” byproducts of these efforts are a side benefit; the big payoff is in finding ways to relieve stress on our urban infrastructures, ever more burdened as cities grow denser. But the methods and practices are much the same, and whether you call this “permaculture” or “sustainability” or common sense, we’d be better off applying it now – voluntarily – than waiting until we are forced to. That is an effort I’d like to be part of.

Last night I attended the 2nd Annual Brooklyn Blogfest at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. As a newcomer to the blogging world (my first post is dated only three weeks ago!), I felt somewhat out of my league in the same room with the brains (and actual human beings) behind such established blogs as Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn (sponsor of the event), Brownstoner, NoLandGrab, Atlantic Yards Report, and Gowanus Lounge.

Although the news media – via Brooklyn’s own Outside.In (and somewhat randomly, by their own admission)– has declared Clinton Hill to be the nation’s “bloggiest” neighborhood, this finding was questioned last night, with Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Fort Greene and Bed Stuy all declared close contenders. The event brought a number of bloggers from areas outside the “brownstone epicenter”: Coney Island, Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Greenpoint, and Flatbush (three of us!) were definitely in the house, and I’m sure there were others as well. While Norman Oder of AYR acknowledged that the Atlantic Yards controversy has motivated many of the blogs based in areas nearby, it was clear from last night’s event that there also happen to be a lot of smart Brooklynites with ideas and information to share on a variety of topics, and with journalist rigor that scoops the mainstream media on a regular basis (particularly where Atlantic Yards is concerned). As Robert Guskind of Gowanus Lounge pointed out, “the days when you could tear down a building without anyone noticing are over; within 45 minutes of taking down one brick, one of us will be writing about it.”

I enjoyed chatting with sustainability comrade Chandru Murthi of I’m Seeing Green (his nine-year-old son doesn’t eat factory-farmed meat!), and meeting my neighbors Brenda (Crazy Stable) and Chris (Flatbush Gardener). Thanks to Louise Crawford of Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn for putting the event together. Should be interesting to see what we’re all up to by next year’s Blogfest.

The past week has been a whirlwind of permaculture activities for me. I am fascinated by this subject, though I still have trouble adequately explaining what it IS when asked. Fundamentally, permaculture is a practice of sustainable design based on ecological principles, and although usually associated with farming or gardening, it can also be applied to urban settings. It addresses all aspects of a human habitat from food and shelter to disposal of waste. To be more specific, a permaculture site can be anything from an organic garden that includes plant “guilds” and a compost heap with a super-fast 18-day cycle, to a water purification system that uses gravel and reeds to “lock up” toxic contaminants. It has been said that permaculture contains “everything we need to be doing voluntarily, but will ultimately be forced to do.”

For a variety of reasons permaculture is capturing the imagination of a diverse group of sustainability-minded people in the NYC area at the moment. Energy efficiency folks like the idea of resource-efficient design. Food activists like to see infertile or unproductive land (including vacant lots and suburban lawns) turned into plentiful food gardens. Those who believe the world’s oil supply will run dry at any moment like the idea of being able to produce all one’s essentials locally.

So where do I fit into this picture? What would a permaculture site in Flatbush look like? These are the questions I’m trying to answer by observing permaculture in action.

To be continued…

There is currently a symbiotic relationship between small farmers and food aid recipients, as both are kept healthier by a government program called the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. But a disturbing Op-Ed piece in today’s NY Times points out that as states switch from paper coupons to debit cards for distributing food aid, many farmers’ market vendors would unable to accomodate those customers.

Without card readers, farmers fear they will lose the bulk of the farm bill help they get now, and be shut out of those new hundreds of millions. The proposals at the Agriculture Department and in the farm bill would let food-aid recipients buy fruits and vegetables wherever they can find them. That means supermarkets — which remain the most convenient place to buy produce. Farmers’ market advocates are alarmed. The money will go to the centralized industrial farms that supply supermarkets, they say — the ones that crush small farmers and waste fuel.

See the whole article here.

GreenHome NYC is a fantastic resource for anyone – amateurs and experts – interested in green/sustainable building practices. Their monthly forums are free, and feature expert speakers with lots of great knowledge to share. This month’s speakers, Chris Benedict and Henry Gifford, are reknowned for their expertise in designing buildings and systems for energy-efficient heating and cooling. Highly recommended!

Join us for our May Forum, Energy Efficient Heating & Cooling with Henry Gifford & Chris Benedict

When: Wednesday, May 16, 2007, 6:30-8:00 pm
Where: The Hudson Companies, Inc.
826 Broadway, 11th Floor NYC 10003
Speakers: Henry Gifford & Chris Benedict

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