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Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

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This post was originally published on the United Nations Environmental Programme’s WED (World Environment Day) Voices page. “World Environment Day is an annual event that is aimed at being the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for positive environmental action,” held on June 5. In 2010, Tuesday Phillips won their first-annual national blogging competition and travelled with the UN to Rwanda to cover WED events.

Whether you live off the grid in an obscure part of the country or in a densely populated city, like I do, lines can become blurred when attempting to visualize a mental sketch of what the green economy could, should and would look like. For me, living in Los Angeles (otherwise known as the most ozone-polluted city in the U.S.), these lines are not only blurred, they are sometimes connected by very fine traces, if not entirely invisible.

Admittedly, I have allowed this realization to wash over me with a cool rush of defeatism more than a few times, leaving me feeling helpless within the urban setting I currently call home. However, over time I have been able to alter my aforementioned emotional aversion to city living just enough to see my surroundings as more than just a challenge in sustainable living and look at them as an opportunity for grassroots community growth.

As it stands, there are more people living in urban environments vs. those living in rural parts of the world, with percentages said to increase to up to 80% of the entire population by 2050. Not only are these facts staggering, they are the wake up call we need to begin implementing more innovative economical changes for the urban environment, now, before it is too late. Though most major environmental issues and concerns will take unyielding effort before real change can take place, some are very simple and can be implemented at will. Consider these, for instance:

Build More than A Home: It has never been a better time than now to throw out the old notion that home is where you simply eat and sleep. Home can be where you find ways to utilize the space you have in a way that has the least impact on your community and, ultimately, the planet. Even the tiniest of balconies can be converted into an edible garden and compost bins come in a multitude of sizes, ranging from full-size to, yes even apartment-size. You can also find ways to lower your environmental impact and reliance on external grocers by making things you already eat/drink like learning how to ferment your own kombucha, brewing your own beer, pickling your favorite food, baking your own bread, the list goes on.

Look Beyond Your Backyard: Once you’ve utilized all the space and brainpower you have by trying to create your own personal ecological oasis, that works for you, consider reaching out to your local community to provide support. A great place to start is by shopping at your local farmer’s market. If this is not available to you, consider a community garden, CSA or a food co-op in your area. And since we’re talking about solutions for a green economy, look not just into supporting sustainable businesses in your neighborhood, but transferring your money to a credit union, run by and for the community vs. baking with a for-profit institution.

Get Creative: This can mean lots of things. But the main message is simply, “think differently.” Organize a clothing swap to get rid of clothes that no longer fit, fix things you use on a regular basis before replacing them, make plans in places that are easy to walk or bike to, start a car share with friends, again- the list goes on.

The truth is, if we continue to run global economies as we have in the past, we will find ourselves facing even more environmental deterioration than we do today. We need sustainable solutions. And I believe that these solutions start at home, flourish in our communities, and have the potential to inspire beyond.

There is an ancient Native American proverb that warns, “Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.” By putting our money where our lives are and enriching our communities through investing in local businesses and people, only then can we turn that mental sketch of the green economy into a beautiful, clear picture.

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For Nance Klehm, going for a walk is more then just about getting fresh air and a little exercise. It is about feeling a sense of interconnectedness with all natural and manmade surroundings, including humans, animals, pavement, buildings, plants, and everything (growing) in-between.

“I can go for a walk and have, just a really great time,” says Klehm. “I come back and there is so much hope, and so much exuberance and so much wild out there, even with all this cement.”

Klehm, who is a fifth generation horticulturist, has taken a different path then her plant-loving elders by choosing to share her knowledge of horticulture through her love of foraging.

But let’s be clear here. We are not talking about foraging in a secluded forest, beneath densely packed hanging fruit trees, surrounded by wild, rich vegetation. Klehm prefers to eek out undiscovered and overlooked locations in the heart of major cities where nature is still surprisingly abundant and flourishing, despite the multitudes of odds against it.

Congested urban areas such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, and Mexico City are just some of the cities where she has personally foraged and held guided informal walks, through cultivated and spontaneous landscapes, helping community members identify edible plants.

Photo of foraged wild mustard by chickitamarie via flickr

I sat down with Klehm to learn more about how she got into urban foraging, the ethics behind it, and what tips she has for forage-curious and budding urban foragers.

I started to become disenchanted and lonely. And I started to feel less lonely when I went out for walks and looked at trees. So, I started walking in Chicago, near train tracks, looking at plants and realizing how many were edible, medicinal, good for fiber, or beneficial for pollinators or insects, or ones that build soil, etc. I also grew up indentifying plants. So I kind of had an in, you know. And then there was this emotional response that sort of allowed me to have access, and the result was engaging. So, you know, after I did it, I would just do it on my own for several years and I would go for a walk with friends and they would be completely fascinated, so I then just decided I would offer it to other people and take them out.

I’m also really interested in this intersection of humans and earth and when you’re in an urban area where earth is understood as real estate or that square on the map, or it is just something you cross through and over, it is really ignored and I am interested in the stories of that ignoring or the abuse and the inevitability of earth, and what story it tells of who shows up where. So I am interested in the cultivated environment, too, and what people are planting. Not necessarily what people are planting in raised beds, but what people are planting in the parkways or what they are trying to eek out. My favorite places [to forage] are cracks in sidewalks and places where water collects and what happens there.

When I am feeling just completely depressed, I can go for a walk and see what plants are doing and it is completely joyful and subversive at the same time. I just love it. The plants are telling stories of soil, air, migration, seeds from different places, so there is a lot going on there.

You can forage year round. In certain climates it is very hard to forage things all year. But it depends on what you are looking for.

You have to ask the question, is this something that has been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides? You either know or you don’t know. You take a chance. You should know enough, before you pick. There are certain plants I know I can pick, that I won’t because I know that ethically it may be a delicate or rare plant. Let’s say you are digging up a root. You are actually taking the life of that plant. Or let’s say, you need some bark from that plant: you cut some twigs off and then you scrape bark from the twig. I never scrape bark directly off a plant. Any time I approach a plant, I am actually in gratitude and am happy to see it – and I project a lot of positive energy to the plant – and when I take from it I never take more than 30% of the plant. And I try to do really clean cuts so it is not torn, and so that people don’t see that I have been there. It is out of respect for other people, the plant survival, you know, I don’t need to. I’m not going to name names, but, you know, there are a lot of foragers now that really just see dollar signs. And feel that coming to something that is growing in our environment with that attitude is the wrong attitude to have; it is about a deeper appreciation. It is really important that people realize that they share their environment with everything else, besides just other people. Often on a walk, if I see something rare – especially if it is delicate or rare species – I won’t point it out because some people still feel the need to take from plants.

Because we are in an urban environment, all of us are coming in contact with pollutants, and we’re around them all the time, so we have to realize that, so understanding that and being really practical, like okay I am walking down the side walk and dogs pee up and down the side walk and cars park right there, which of these plants is really that clean. But you are going to choose to pick it and take it home and rinse it off, or not. Of course you could tuck yourself away in a local park, but you can often get in trouble picking in parks. That is the thing with urban foraging. There is no pristine place, you just have to kind of make your decision of what you’re goanna stick in your mouth.

Mallow, mustard, cress, dandelion, yellow duck, chickweed, thistle, garlic mustard, young clover, a lot of small plants, as well as flowering trees and shrubs- which can all have medicinal qualities.

Well, to create a sense of wonderment with people and [spread the knowledge] that we share this environment. It’s humans’ plus everyone else, from the invisible to the large. When I teach it I am not just staying put this in your mouth, I talk about how it got there. Is it ethical? Whether it is something that has escaped a garden. It’s awareness and a sort of magical aspect I try to expose people to, to get them away from the TV set.

What happens is people start having different conversations with each other. Conversations that are more connective and gentle, so it allows people to let their guard down and have a more connective experience with each other and the world around them.

Know your plants before you pick them. And if you do take from them, take as little as you need – don’t strip a plant.  You are in relationship with theses plants, so practice ethics. Know what you are going to use the plant for before picking. There are some look-a-likes that can make you very sick if you pick the wrong one, so make sure you have an understanding of what you are picking and how you are picking them.

Klehm is currently working on a book, set to come out by the end of 2012 or 2013, and plans to release a Los Angeles street specific foraging chart that people can have access to online soon. For more information about Nance or urban foraging, please visit her website, Spontaneous Vegetation.

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There’s nothing worse than explaining your message to someone while knowing it is going in one ear and out the other. You could be explaining the cure for cancer, or how to solve all of our world’s environmental problems – but if it isn’t communicated well, it simply won’t stick. This is why I urge my fellow environmentalists to remain humble.

As someone who is constantly immersed in the realm of environmentalism, yet speaks at the interface of science and the public, I’ve done my share of preaching. I have a general sense of what’s going on with our environment and love talking about it to people. However, as an academic and an informed member of society, I’ve learned that teaching can’t be done without keeping each other’s values in mind (as touched upon in my last article), and this includes some basic principles.

Think about some of the most influential high school or post-secondary classes that you had. How did they make you feel when you left the classroom each time? I’d imagine that you didn’t want to inflict harm on your teacher – rather, they welcomed you, didn’t make you feel inferior, and hopefully stimulated thought and further discussion.

The same principle applies to us environmentalists. Those of us who have taken the time to learn about our planet have a wealth of knowledge that we want to share, which is awesome. However, I’ve noticed that we sometimes think in one direction – that the environmental way (i.e., our way) is the best, and no substitute will be enough. I implore you to think about that thought, especially as someone who is on the receiving side of that message. You might soon realize that it doesn’t stimulate a conversation – which is what we desperately need in order to solve our eco-problems. Without this conversation, and without a humble nature, our message can often be diluted (Colin Beavan, aka ‘No Impact Man’, faced similar remarks for his year of drastic environmental changes).

It’s true that as environmentalists, we may know more about the situation and how to proceed. People are a part of the environmental equation too, and we can’t forget about everyone when having a discussion. We can’t say there’s one way to solve these problems, because there isn’t – we’ve got a whole suite of solutions, none of which are perfect.

I believe in our goal to untangle these complexities and determine a way forward. If we communicate it in the right way, everyone can share in the benefits of a remedied planet.

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More on Fox spinning the wind turbine (and Bullies).

From Treehugger: Wind Farms Cause Global Warming, Fox News Says
From Care2: Bully: The Movie and the Movement

Follow the rest of the Hank D and the Bee series at JoeMohrToons.com. For cartoon updates and other green goings-on, follow Joe on Twitter @GreenCartoons.

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In the summer of 2011, a small group of passionate filmmakers set off on a journey around the country to explore the urban farming movement. What they discovered changed how they think about food, community, and sustainability.

Growing Cities covers the breadth of the urban farming movement. Producer and Director, Dan Susman, admits that the process of making this film altered his understanding of “urban farming.” Initially, the phrase conjured up visions of large-scale farms in reclaimed vacant lots, expansive rooftop gardens, and full-fledged community gardens taking up half an acre of land within city limits. Instead, what he found was that there is no single model dominating the movement; the organization, farmers, communities, and motivations were all incredibly diverse.

Throughout their journey, Susman and his crew asked farmers if they saw themselves as part of a larger movement. The answers may surprise you. Some farmers did indeed see themselves as addressing systemic injustices, like social and economic equality. However, there were some who had never even heard the term “urban farming” before. And there were also some who did not consider their work revolutionary; rather, they found themselves growing food simply because that is what their family has done for generations.

Urban farmers grow food for a plethora of reasons. Non-profit models are most prevalent, but their missions vary. Some focus on providing their community with fresh, affordable food in neighborhoods that would otherwise be considered a “food desert.” Other farms aim to create employment opportunities for young people so that they can learn job skills and responsibility. While the non-profit model is most common, according to Susman, there are a number of businesses around the country that are working on creating economically sustainable for-profit models. For instance, there is a growing desire to provide jobs for people who simply want to work with their hands and have meaningful jobs. In some cases, this move toward for-profit models is a direct response to a heavy reliance on grant funding, which is ultimately unsustainable. When the local and organic food trend ultimately wanes, the money will dry up, as well, putting an end to most urban farms and community gardens.

Funding is not the biggest challenge that this movement faces, however. The leasing, borrowing, and acquisition of land is primary. Before a project can even begin, farmers must answer three questions: How do we get the land? How do we make the land affordable? How do we get to keep the land? It can be challenging for farmers to find land to work, and Susman found that some of the more resourceful farmers have entered into partnerships with non-profits who have access to real estate within city limits. For example, rooftop farmers can create leases with building owners to rent space. The relationship is beneficial for the owners, too, because they see benefits like reductions in heating and cooling costs. Then there are farmers who are exploring the creation of land trusts inside city limits. What was traditionally a way to protect wildlife and resources in rural areas, can now be applied within urban landscapes to teach youth about environmental conservation and the importance of green space. After spending months in the San Francisco Bay area, Growing Cities discovered that Oakland is making an effort to identify how much land is available and what vacant lots that can be leased to farmers for long term projects.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to work with city governments, which are focused on tangible results. The challenge for farmers is to provide local officials with solid data that demonstrates how urban farms improve communities and residents’ lives. The movement has a long way to go in this area. There is a great deal of research that needs to be done, including learning more about how farms influence the children’s eating habits and how they impact the surrounding environment.

With all of the various models and challenges, what holds this movement together? The answer is – food. No matter what part of the country they live in, what crops they grow, or how much funding they have, all of the farmers in this film simply care about how our food is grown. Any attempts to create a clearer definition of the movement only make it more exclusive, says Susman. And that exclusivity does it a disservice and ignores the beauty of its diversity and resilience.

It is easy to dismiss the urban farming movement as a utopian-hippie-trend and argue that it can never feed the world. But Growing Cities cautions viewers that it is more than just hipsters leasing rooftop real estate on top of swanky New York City skyscrapers. It is about getting your hands dirty and knowing your food intimately. It is about community revitalization and family tradition. This movement has the potential to address social and economic inequality locally and on a national scale, one seed at a time.

To help Susman and his crew complete their film, which is in the editing stages, please go to their Kickstarter page to donate to their campaign. Your money will go a long way to giving these farmers and this movement a voice.

Watch the Growing Cities video, here.

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In the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington State there are a chain of lakes that gather winter storm water like mega-puddles, and then spend the summer evaporating in the thick heat of desert coulees. One of these lakes is called Blue Lake, which in the summer feels like the comfortable confinement of the terrarium of some cherished reptile. The seasonal occupants of this habitat are inclined to bar-b-q, boat, swim, cultivate sun burned skin, drink cheap beer, and sit at a distance from unnecessarily large bonfires. These avid “recreationalists” aren’t, generally speaking, avid naturalists. However, an individual that explores beyond the small beach and picnic tables of the main resort will find an understated wilderness where the splintering heat batters the new sprout in favor of, that which is, hard and ancient.

The best way to venture beyond the campground, in my opinion, is over water in un-motorized craft utilizing the resistance of liquid against wood to move your boat forward. Seconds off the beach a paddler may find himself on clear green water, watching reflected sunlight waver across the hexagonal geometry of basalt cliffs like sheets of twisted gold paper spinning in a hot updraft. These walls are uniformly dark except for radioactive green and rust splotches of lichen, and the white patina of accumulated excretion found below long occupied birds’ nests. One is forced to squint into the heat waves that wash over the expanse of broken rock and withered grass that surround Blue Lake. Thoughts of exploring the desert beyond the cool edge of the shoreline can be brutally cooked out of the brain, comfort returning only after a critical plunge into the jade water.

The human will overcomes heat, this has been demonstrated innumerable times. Few things inspire the human will like the idea of making a unique discovery. On a summer day at Blue Lake I was given such an idea by a group of non-descript middle-aged men that happened to arrive at the boat launch at the same time as my wife and I, ready to launch their canoes just as we were. This group was excited and boisterous as they unloaded life-jackets, backpacks, paddles, and the other assorted gear of a day hike in the desert. One of the men noticed my wife and I preparing similarly.

“Are you guys going to see the Blue Lake Rhino?” one asked.

“No,” I replied, “just out canoeing. Wait, what rhino?”

“The Blue Lake Rhino!” answered another member of the group.

“What is that?” my wife asked laughing. We were completely out of the loop.

“Oh you gotta come see it. There is supposed to be a rhino fossil in the cliffs around the bend in the lake,” the first man answered. “That’s where we’re heading.” My wife and I looked at each other and decided with a glance that our leisurely paddle had just acquired a definite goal: find the Blue Lake Rhino if it existed. We put our canoe in next to the small flotilla generated by the group of 8 men, and we all set out together, happy to be dipping a paddle under a clear sky.

“So I guess these cliffs are lava beds,” offered another gentleman from our group of companions. “And then some very large floods came through and carved these canyons out of the lava. I can’t really imagine how that could be possible. The rhino fossil is exposed in the cliff face. That’s what we read anyway”

My wife smiled proudly. “He’s a geologist and a hydrologist,” she said gesturing to me with her chin. “He would just love to tell you all about it.” The truth is a geologist would love to tell you all about it; any chance to talk geology is not passed up. I happily rattled on about eruptions and vast lava flows, ice ages, extinct lakes, and earth ripping floods. I was really just getting warmed up to my subject, remembering obscure facts, when our canoe suddenly nosed onto a beach. The rest of the boats glided to a crunching stop on the gravel and we all disembarked.

“It’s somewhere up there,” one of our cohorts pointed to the horizontally banded cliffs to our right. There was an obvious trail heading off from the beach and leading to the base of the cliffs, up a cone of scree, and onto a bench about halfway up. Every eye traced this route expecting it to terminate at the Blue Lake Rhino. We were all looking for a small cave according to the description that our new friends had received. There wasn’t anything obvious. We all strained in silence to spot what could possibly be a small cave that would house a rhino fossil.

“Hmmmm, could that be it?” someone pointed to the cliff face another 100 ft above the bench where the rest of us had been focusing, the place where the obvious trail ended. The pointed finger of our observant friend guided our eyes to a large letter ‘R’ scrawled on the cliff in faded white graffiti, with an arrow pointing left along a ledge in the cliff face. Following that line we all saw two small holes in the rock. There was a good chuckle at this, both at the convenience of the direction, and at the understanding that it invasively defeated the purpose of our search. We grabbed our water bottles, head lamps, and cameras and headed toward the cliff.

The climb was not friendly. The rock was sharp and loose, and once some altitude had been gained the consequences of a missed step or slip became somewhat life threatening. We lost several of our group along the way as wisdom and better judgment cautioned them to turn back. The casualties urged us to go ahead, saying that someone had to confirm the existence of the rhino. Onward we went.

Mid-way up the face of the 200 ft cliff with little more than a 3 ft ledge to stand on, a handful of us stood looking up at a shoulder width hole in the cliff just above our heads. The excitement of the group was hushed as we took turns climbing the last few vertical feet and squeezing through the opening, each finding the Blue Lake Rhino in his turn. What we found wasn’t a typical fossil such as one would imagine with bone turned to stone. It was a cast, the negative space describing the absence of a rhino body that had been buried and then decayed long ago.
This animal met its fiery doom during a Vulcan rampage that erected the cliffs surrounding Blue Lake. This was the Eocene era, some 17 million years ago, when lava flows enveloped tens of thousands of square miles of what are now Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. There were many eruptions during this time that poured out in layers and stacked one upon the other. Enough time would pass between flows so that a mature landscape would evolve on top of the long-cooled magma. There would likely have been streams, lakes, wetlands, forests, grasslands, and the entire assemblage of creatures that lived in these environments. Whatever was occupying the surface of the last lava flow, such as a hapless rhinoceros grazing in a wet meadow, would be subsequently buried by the next.

Our small group took turns ascending into the cave and investigating the fossil. Each of us came out with a new clue or insight, another piece of evidence in the rhino puzzle. We even found a small geo-cache hidden behind a rock with perhaps 100 hand-written notes from geology classes, or random searchers who came to find the rhino. Many had come all the way and left notes describing their failure to find the cave. This made us all feel a little loftier in our accomplishment. After spotting the last person up into and out of the rhino cast, we started down the slope. Descending the slippery talus became the most difficult portion of the whole trip. An extremely necessary plunge in the lake ended the climb down. It turned out to be an interesting and unexpected visit to a unique geologic feature nestled within an equally unique landscape.

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We’re all living life on the edge. Climate change has made it so that our weather patterns our becoming more and more unpredictable. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and other extreme events are more common than ever. They hold the power to destroy homes, families, and your way of living in a matter of seconds. They are able to take everything you like and turn it into a pile of rubble without any thought. With all of this on the line, don’t you want to stop it? Don’t you want to do whatever you can to ensure that your livelihood is safe and secure?

Deep stuff, eh? When you read that, you may have felt something that didn’t come from your head. More likely, it came from your heart – a place where we feel our emotions. And within environmental research, we’re beginning to understand this a whole lot better – and how to apply it to the messages we want to convey.

All too many times, I’ve been to conferences where people have said, “We need to increase awareness. If people know about this, they would change their ways.” As lovely as that thought is, it’s not the answer.

That approach is falsified by your heart and your gut – in other words, your emotions. In that first paragraph, I didn’t state the facts linking climate change to extreme weather events. I told you a story instead – one that appeals to your values. In the end, that’s what we all base our decisions off of – whether or not the information we hear can relate to the things we truly care about.

That being said, I think we are completely capable of communication the issues that plague our environment with our values in mind. Without proper environmental stewardship, we risk losing the resources we depend on for our everyday necessities. If we continue polluting our rivers, we won’t have fresh water to drink. If we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the air, we will start having trouble breathing (I’ve heard many first-hand stories about air pollution in cities – it’s quite disheartening).

If we tell these stories – through personal reflections, and using our heart (emotions), gut (humour), or even through sex appeal – we may be more effective in getting that information out to others who thought their lives had nothing to do with the environment.

Simply telling people information won’t cut it – and so, dear ecolutionists, I implore you to take your thoughts one step further. Tell a story. Make people laugh or cry. And remember that people love to be emotionally stimulated just as much as you do.

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This Earth Day, the makers of the documentary, One Day on Earth, invite you to a free global screening of their new film. It has over 3000 hours of footage and is shot by communities in countries from all over the world on October 10, 2010.

It’s a film that represents and inspires interconnected humanity, once thought impossible.

To find a showing near you, click here or sign up to host a viewing.

Watch the Trailer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

One Day on Earth – Global Screening Trailer from One Day on Earth on Vimeo.

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Photo by: DonkeyHotey via flickr

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More on the President’s blackness

From We Are the Respectable Negroes: Fear of a Black President? Love of the Confederacy? Explaining the Tea Party GOP and the “Southern Religion”
From MotherJones: 109 things President Obama currently is or recently has been engaged in a war against (according to conservative pundits, lazy headline writers, and Google trawling
From the New Yorker: Covert Operations–The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
From Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

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