The Providential Gardener

Apeiron Sustainability Living Festival & Clean Energy Expo ~ June 6 & 7, 2009

We are fortunate to have The Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living in Rhode Island, and we are even more fortunate that they have a Sustainable Living Festival coming up in Coventry, RI, on June 6 & 7, 2009.  This is the 8th annual Festival and Clean Energy Expo, a great place to learn more about how to live in closer harmony with the earth.

You can take a tour of the Eco-House, and you can attend as many of the dozens of workshops as you like for the entry fee. Jim Merkel, author of  Radical Simplicity, gives the Keynote Address at 10am Saturday. Workshop choices include retrofitting with renewables, personal approaches to sustainabillity, creating community gardens, being a locavore, bicycle commuting, EarthSongWriting, building a solar cooker, green roofing, herbal healing, green transportation choices, and energy efficiency for your historic house. I am giving an overview both days of Rhode Island's environmental information landscape and how to use online tools to monitor environmental topics. I've left out a LOT of workshop topics so check the Apeiron workshop page!

Children will have plenty to do at The Enchanted Children's Forest, and several of the adult workshops are designated as youth friendly. Kids under age 12 are free. Buy tickets ahead at a lower cost. This festival is a fundraiser for Apeiron ~ helps sustain their programming during the year.

But that's not all! A long list of vendors and other activities promises food for the body, mind, and soul. Two music stages with several different groups each day, three tents for alternative energy, wellness, and yoga, a film room, food by Johnson & Wales University of health & mostly local food, plus artists' displays are among the other attractions.

Getting there ~ Take the 45-mile round-trip bike train to the festival and get free admission! Or carpool.... The whole experience from getting there to compostable forks is an exercise in living sustainably.

It's worth taking a little time to make a plan so you can get maximum use out of the Festival & Expo. See you there!

Rhode Island's Eco-Blogging Scene: PostCarbon Rhode Island

This morning I heard from PostCarbon Rhode Island, a new blog that entered the world just three days after 2008, on January 3. It's a great website with info on efforts to deal with energy and natural resource issues locally in South County. Looks like they are doing some reverse globalization, taking national-level resources and using them for local good.

They focus on sustainability and "relocalization":

Building on the models established by groundbreaking organizations worldwide, we hope to serve as a clearinghouse of information, a means of networking, and an organizing hub for those who share a sense of urgency in these endeavors.

The author writes,

...we have been approved as a new member of Post Carbon Institute's Relocalization Network, a worldwide network of more than 150 groups working in the areas of relocalization planning. Our efforts with our group are still in the early stages...

Several of the posts are about starting a community garden or gardens in South Kingstown, which I'm sure would interest many folks around there. Community gardens are sprouting up all over the place. If anyone else knows of other people cultivating such ideas, please let me know! I stumbled onto Sustainable Sakonnet a couple of weeks ago, which shares similar interests with PostCarbon Rhode Island; how many more Rhode Islanders are blogging away out there on environmental topics?

Here are some other sustainability and garden blogs that are based in Rhode Island. You know, using Google and the other search engines is simply not an efficient way to find focused local information ~ they're better at the big picture and finding leads. The rich information sources are what librarians call the "hidden web," the stuff within websites that is never indexed by the search engines. Blogs show up better in Google searches than regular web pages, but still it helps to have local folks organizing local information. This is especially true in gardening because of the variations in climate and ecosystems.

When you need local information, start with Rhode Island-based blogs:

    Primarily gardening info:

• Blithewold Blog ~ A fabulous journal recording the Blithewold gardens in Bristol, RI
• Earth Friendly Gardening ~ A beautifully presented and fascinating garden blog
• Ledge and Gardens ~ Another fabulous journal recording a Northern RI garden
• Projo Garden Blog ~ "What's growing in RI gardens and how"

Eco/environmental blogs, some of which may also have gardening info:

• Baykeeper Blog ~ Save the Bay
• Controlling Carbon ~ A RISD blog
• Natural News Network Blog
• PostCarbon Rhode Island
• Projo Energy Blog
• Sustainable Agriculture @ URI
• Sustainable Sakonnet

Sustainable Sakonnet

Happy New Year!

I love starting fresh at the beginning of the year, and The Providential Gardener has high hopes for the future of the garden called Rhode Island that we all share and tend. There's a lot of work to do, but each year there are more people pitching in.

One example is a blog that began in February 2007 called Sustainable Sakonnet: "Bringing the citizens of Tiverton and Little Compton, Rhode Island, together to create a more environmentally sustainable community for today and tomorrow." I've added Sustainable Sakonnet to my blogroll.

The author, Bill Gerlach, has a background in marketing and communications. And he has a vision for his community and his neighbors, challenging them to think what  Sakonnet towns need to be truly sustainable. He says,

...it is up to individuals and communities to take the lead in shaping a better future. We cannot wait for others to lead; it is up to us to take up that helm with gusto and determination.

Couldn't agree more. I don't think there can be enough blogs and citizens proactively speaking up and taking initiative however they can to bring some sense to our out-of-whack world. Some people can work most effectively on the local level: it would be great to see more bloggers focused on environmental/ecological/sustainable issues particular to each town ~ or for the larger towns and cities, individual neighborhoods. This requires complementing by more general sites, some of which cover particular aspects of importance to the whole state, and others of which focus on different types of information. The more the better in my view. There are so many entry points into the vital issues of caring for our state's natural resources. Different people approach things differently, and no one website can possibly fill all the needs.

You might want to see these and other posts in Sustainable Sakonnet:

• Sustainable Energy Takes the First Step
• Green Building: Where is Our Planner Now?
• Tube For Tuesday: Saving the Landfill One Diaper at a Time
• Greening Our Schools
• Protected Farmland + ? = Secure Local Food System
• Help Set the Environmental Agenda at the State House
• Planning for the Future

Rhode Island Real Food Coalition ~ A New Statewide Campus Initiative

The Sustainable Food Initiative (SuFI) at Brown University is well organized and active on several fronts.  I think these excerpts from their November 19th, 2007, email will interest readers of The Providential Gardener, especially those who are connected with other Rhode Island colleges and universities:

Here is a link to a report about The Real Food Summit at Yale:

The Real Food Summit: A Campus Movement Takes Shape

"Now the Sustainable Food Initiative is  working with students from the Green Collaborative at Johnson and Wales University, Providence College, and our friends at RISD to start a "RI Real Food" group--a statewide coalition of students demanding a change in campus dining--working to leverage a big change in the way our colleges and universities spend their money.  We are planning to officially associate in January.

IF you know folks who are (potentially) interested in environmental issues, or just and sustainable food at other schools in RI (Salve Regina, CCRI, Roger William, URI, etc.), LET US KNOW!!!

Email contact for SuFI: David Schwartz

Transportation: Invest in Our Future -- A New Vision for the 21st Century

From the Environment Council of Rhode Island: News of A Recent Report on Transportation:

Transportation: Invest in Our Future -- A New Vision for the 21st Century

Global economic competition, metropolitan congestion, and global climate change are among the new dynamics that require new thinking in the nation's transportation system of the future. Those are among the findings of Transportation: Invest in Our Future -- A New Vision for the 21st Century, a major report released in July 2007 by organizations representing the nation's major transportation builders, providers, and users.

''The next 50 years will bring monumental changes to transportation demands in the U.S. in terms of population, demographics, freight movement, and the benefits of advanced technology,'' said John Horsley, Executive Director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). ''At the same time we must grapple with dynamics that were unimagined when we built the Interstate system. We have to apply new thinking and new solutions if we want to remain a world leader.''

The primary objectives of the future transportation system must be to reduce congestion, remain globally competitive, and meet the growing mobility needs of the 21st Century. ''We must preserve and modernize the system, improve performance, and add substantial capacity in highways, transit, rail, airports, and seaports,'' Horsley said.

Participating groups include the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO); AAA; the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC); the American Highway Users Alliance; the American Public Transportation Association (APTA); the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA); the American Trucking Associations (ATA); the Association of American Railroads (AAR); and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC).

The report is available online at the resource link below.

Resource: http://www.transportation1.org/tif5report/

How about Moving U.S. Agriculture back East?

Katherine Brown of Southside Community Land Trust sent the Providential Gardener the link to a September 22, 2007, article, "Let the East Bloom Again," which argues that the Eastern United States is much more suited to agriculture than the West because of the abundance of water here. An excerpt:

...Until the middle of the 1900s, much of our country’s food and fiber was produced east of the Mississippi River. Maine led the nation in potato production in 1940, and New York wasn’t far behind. The South, including Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, dominated cotton. Large amounts of corn were grown in almost every state for consumption by the local livestock and poultry. Regional vegetable markets, especially in the mid-Atlantic states, served the population centers of the East.

...Through irrigation, Western farmers were spared the occasional droughts that had plagued Eastern farmers, but the specialized Western system came with a price. Water projects dried up the area’s rivers. Salmon runs disappeared. Soils were poisoned from the salt in irrigated water that is left behind after evaporation....

The key is to invest in irrigation systems that make the most of the East's winter rains that currently run into the sea. Having been in Colorado recently, I can tell you that water is in short supply there and it's a contentious issue. This is an interesting article that gives broad, national, and also historical perspective to our local farming initiatives ~ well worth serious consideration. If we don't deal intelligently with the West's limitations there are consequences:

...If the United States does not expand agriculture in the East, the nation’s food production will move offshore, to developing countries that may not manage herbicides, pesticides and health safety as well as our country does.

Is this what we want?

The authors of the article are Richard T. McNider and John R. Christy, professors of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Here are some links to reports they have written:

• Developing Opportunities: Feasibility of Large Scale                       Irrigated Assisted Rain-fed Agriculture in Alabama (2003)
• Bringing Agriculture back to Water: A Sustainable Solution for the 21st Century (2005) [Also, link at the American Meteorological Society to this paper, and recorded presentation.]
  

The RIght Way Great Green Shoot Off Winner ~ 2007

The Apeiron Institute chose a winner from several short films submitted in the 2007 spring RIght Way Great Green Shoot Off. It's called VOICES, it's on You Tube, and it's about 3 minutes long. Short and Sweet. Hope you enjoy it.  

Rhode Island can be the first "Sustainable State" ~ Let's make this happen soon!

A quote from VOICES: " Sure, our state is small, but we're proud of it."

Providence Tomorrow ~ Rethinking the Northeast Section of the City

A series of workshops for the Mount Hope, Hope, and Blackstone neighborhoods next week should produce some interesting ideas, because a lot of neighbors are taking a strong interest. See the Providence Tomorrow website for details, as well as the post on What Grows On in Rhode Island: Mount Hope, Hope (Summit), & Blackstone Neighborhood Workshops ~ September 24 ~ 27, 2007.

Greg Gerritt has circulated some thoughts about the plan on the Summit Neighborhood Association discussion board. I've posted them here to give them a wider audience. He is particularly concerned to see that vegetable gardens be planted in as many places as possible to give Providence food security. The Providential Gardener wholeheartedly supports this. I've added hotlinked some of the groups or references in Greg's and Southside Community Land Trust's ideas, e.g., US Green Building Council, so readers can easily find more background. ~ SK

The International Dark-Sky Association ~ "Sort of a Nighttime Sierra Club"

When did you last sit on the porch and watch it get dark? It's hard to do, because it doesn't really get very dark around here. Check out the astronomy picture for the day, November 27, 2000, which is quite amazing.

If you haven't seen the New Yorker article, "The Dark Side," by David Owen (August 20, 2007, pp. 28-33), you may not realize what else you're not seeing. Cities, streets, highways, even country roads, and of course all the shopping malls scattered all over the landscape have more and more lights, and over the decades it has gradually become brighter and brighter at night, so that I wonder if there is any place in Rhode Island where we could see the Milky Way? Remember the Milky Way?

Sustainable Landscapes

The RI chapter of the American Institute of Architects extends an invitation to attend a lecture and roundtable discussion this Thursday, August 16, 2007, on Sustainable Landscapes This is part of the AIAri Committee on the Environment "Design Matters" Roundtable Series. The event is from 6pm to 7:30 at the organization's office, 158 Washington Street Providence, Rhode Island. Admission is free!

Moderated by Derek Bradford, the discussion includes

• Will Gates: "Can a sustainable landscape meet the public's culturally ingrained expectations for aesthetics?
• Ron Henderson: Integrating urban landscapes and ecology
• Louis Raymond: Growing the community, greening the city: Allotment gardens in Providence

Architects get continuing education credit for attending. And remember, this is also the monthly Gallery Night in Providence so you can make a whole evening of it.