activism – Woman Aloud

Fast Fashion, Landfill Forever

February 25, 2019 by Marika Stone, posted in environment, activism, Fashion and Climate

Outside my front door right now are three bags of perfectly good, wearable clothing, my latest donation to the Vietnam Vets. Do I feel slightly virtuous about recycling what we no longer need? Well, I used to until I realized that far more of my discards than I realized were winding up in landfill. Only about 20% of clothing discards is recycled, and countries like India and China are swamped even so. The remaining 80% goes directly to landfill. Cotton degrades in 1-5 months. Nylon: 30-40 years. Rubber-based products, never.

Of course, that is not the focus of Marie Kondo, the declutter and organizing coach whose new Netflix show has single-handedly caused a surge in donations to Goodwill, Salvation Army and Hospice thrift shops. But maybe she could be paying more attention to what causes all those over-stuffed closets and drawers in the first place.

The Guardian addressed the front end of this worsening problem with an opinion piece well worth our attention: How to cure the shopping addiction that’s destroying our planet. Heavy-handed? Well, maybe not. Dig a little deeper and up pops this quote from a BBC piece: “The environmental footprint of today’s fashion industry is extraordinary, making it one of the top five most polluting industries on earth, up there with the petrochemical industry.” This covers the whole process of textile production and the making of clothing, not just what happens in landfills. Fast fashion, the mix of demand-creation aimed typically at the young, and the response of retailers needing to ‘refresh’ their collections as often as every two weeks with inexpensive clothing — much of which is manufactured in sweat shop conditions (another story) — is a significant part of the problem with The Fashion Industry, one it can no longer ignore (see Sustain Your Style).

OK, we get it. Apart from turning toward thrift stores to replenish our wardrobes, what can we do? The three R’s of how to minimize one’s stuff in general works perfectly for one’s clothing: Reuse — go shopping in your closet, or in the closet of a same-size friend, for that upcoming gala. Host a clothing swap for fun or charity. Or rent your next formal wear, like guys have done forever. Ditto, specialized gear for sports. Repair: one of the gifts my mother gave me that I most appreciate, is a love of sewing, both by hand and with an electric sewing machine. I can now speak hemming in two languages, and have become G-Ma go-to when jeans or Scout uniforms need shortening.

Recycle comes in last now that we realize the true cost to the planet. So what about a new slant on Refresh? This could be anything from altering your existing clothing in good condition so they fit you better — some cleaners offer this service for a fee — or shortening or lengthening pants or shirt sleeves yourself. You can dye, or tie-dye, those tees that are so wonderfully soft with wear. Or, if slashed. distressed jeans are your thing (not mine), you could work magic with some sharp scissors applied in strategic places.

Jackets Since my spouse branched out creatively with a collection of weirdly wonderful masks (available as wall art or on t-shirts, cushions, mugs, totes, etc. from FineArtsAmerica), I got excited about putting versions of his original images on our old denim jackets. Your local art supplier will sell you a medium to convert acrylics so that they can be painted directly on fabric. Now it occurs to me that jeans or cloth sneakers could also be perfect for this kind of customization. Wear your art! Here’s a bunch more ideas for DIY wardrobe hacks at Etsy Who knows, your next side hustle could be a line of repurposed clothing.

Top Apps in swap and trade

Remake — turning fashion into a force for good.

Worn Again new resources

Going Sour for Good

September 7, 2015September 7, 2015 by Marika Stone, posted in back to the future, food as social action, permaculture

I stumbled upon Sandor Ellix Katz’s book, Wild Fermentation: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Cultural Manipulation at The Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health bookstore last November, and because I’m feeling greater kinship with all things wild these days as well as the D-I-Y culture of Whole Earth Catalog*, I snagged two copies. One as a house gift for friends we were visiting when we left our yoga retreat, and one for us.

My spouse adores fermented foods. We are never without plain yogurt and sour pickles in our larder (Bubbies or Batampte), and often I’ll catch him drinking the last bit of brine from a soon-to-be empty jar. I used to tease him that he was embalming himself from the inside out, but his energy and stamina at age 80 are, as they say, proof of the pudding. Our Florida grandsons have picked up on Papa’s pickle habit and that makes me feel better about their otherwise almost vegetable-free diets.

One of my new women friends — a sister spoken word performer in Women Aloud — is an avid maker of pickles and every time we meet to share monologues and work on our next show, she brings everyone a jar of her latest batch. So, something wild is in the air, right in our own homes, and I believe ready to be domesticated for our own good. In case you haven’t been following your Dr. Oz updates, probiotics (available in all fermented foods, yes, even wine) are hot. Anyway, with Sandor Katz’s wonderful book in hand, we decided to launch ourselves into sauerkraut production. If you like a laid-back prose style, e.g. “I never measure the salt, I just shake some on after I chop up each quarter cabbage,” he is your man. Here’s our annotated recipe from Wild Fermentation:

First, you steal two cabbages…bada-bing.

Actually, homemade sauerkraut really begins with a quest for a good, old-fashioned stoneware crock like this one my spouse found at the local Good Will Thrift Boutique, first time lucky. Finely shredded cabbage — thanks to the new Cutco knife (if you have a college-bound grandson, the brand needs no explanation) — kosher salt and about an hour of your time. You pack the crock with shredded cabbage in layers, green and red if you like, sprinkling about a tablespoon of salt on each layer. Press down firmly with a potato masher or your fists. After all the cabbage is used up, insert an inverted clean plate into the opening. It should be sized to leave just enough space around the circumference so you can see some cabbage. We used a butter plate about 6 inches diameter. On top of the inverted plate, place a clean glass or ceramic bowl, then pile on whatever clean weights you can find: several large cans of tomatoes is what we used. Cover the whole thing with a clean kitchen towel to keep dust out and walk away. Needless to say, everything that touches the kraut-in-progress should be clean, but sterilization is unnecessary. Unless you keep your home on the cool side, the ambient temperature should be sufficient to cause the weighted cabbage to exude some natural brine which rises to the level of the plate. If not, slowly add about a cup of salt water until it does. Lift the cloth and give it a sniff every day until you see some liquid rising and it gives off a slight sour fragrance. If it gets dry, repeat the addition of some salt water. In about a week, you will likely be able to scoop out enough of young sauerkraut to enjoy with your pan-grilled dogs or Reuben. Always wash the plate before you replace it into the crock and clean off any weights that may come in contact with the cabbage. We kept watch over our developing kraut as one might a sleeping child or beloved pet. A little more than a week along, some scum came to the surface of the brine, normal, said the directions, so we didn’t panic. We removed it carefully, scraping with a flexible spatula works. At this point, you can repack and let the fermentation process continue for a more sour taste.

We decided our kraut was just the way we like it: slightly crunchy like cole slaw and with a delicious but not overpowering tang. So we decanted it into several clean jars and refrigerated it. Some for us, some for friends. You could, according to Katz, let your sauerkraut continue to ferment for as long as you wish, assuming you are willing to repeat the steps. You simply take what you want to use for a meal any time during, repack the crock (as above) and let it do its thing. Eventually, the sauerkraut will compress down into something closer to the product you can find in the supermarket deli section. After it is to full strength, it can keep for a long time, which is probably why frugal societies that ‘put up’ foods in a way that preserved their nutrients for later consumption, were so keen on these fermenting techniques. The Korean staple, Kimchi, is close cousin to this European concoction, and other Asian cuisines include fermented fish products in many favorite recipes. Our homemade sauerkraut went on this dog, with a generous helping of Grey’s Poupon mustard and Nancy’s jalapeño pickles. Are you salivating yet?

If you enjoy preparing food, let me warn you that these adventures in the art of fermentation could be habit-forming. As we completed this morning’s project and stored our crock for next time, I had a strong intuition that our kitchen was probably humming with live culture. What better time to capture what was in the air with a batch of sourdough starter? I fell in love with sourdough thanks to my mother who acquired a hand-me-down batch from a friend in Alberta Province, and kept it going for over 20 years. She fed it weekly, and baked biscuits, rolls and bread of unparalleled flavor and texture for family, friends and neighbors. Once, she even smuggled a cup of starter through customs in her cosmetics bag. There is also something that appeals to me deeply about being part of an ancient tradition, the idea that one needs to feed ‘Mother’ every time you take some for a recipe. A permaculture vibe: regenerative, rather than merely sustainable. I haven’t had much success with earlier attempts at sourdough starter, but that’s before my kitchen went wild.

Here is a link to a free pdf copy of Sandor Ellix Katz’s book: Wild Fermentation: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Cultural Manipulation although I encourage you to look for it at your usual book sources, help keep a roof over his head, and his fermentation workshops full. He is also the author of This Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved and his http://www.wildfermentation.com/, also looks amazing.

*about Stewart Brand, editor of Whole Earth Catalog, not so much. See George Monbiot’s critique

Earth Hour 2015: Lights Out

April 9, 2015April 9, 2015 by Marika Stone, posted in arts activism, environment, activism, localizing, Transition Movement, sea level rise

Where were you when the lights went out? If you are of a certain age and lived in the Northeast United States, you’ll remember at least one major blackout, with those of 1965 and 1977 perhaps the most indelible because normal life was disrupted for so many people across a vast region.

I was caught in a blackout in New York City in the early 80’s while on a research assignment in Brooklyn for Technology Magazine – the irony sank in sometime later. Fortunately for my co-worker and me, we were above ground when the power went out, not trapped in a subway car or skyscraper office. We, along with hundreds of others hit the streets, giddy with relief. It was late afternoon when we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, into Lower Manhattan and the Village. There, a party was in progress as restaurants who had lost their refrigeration, were turning out meals on make-shift charcoal grills and offering them, along with slightly warm beer, to whomever cared to take them up on their offer. Although that particular blackout would prove to be relatively local and short-lived, there was no way to know at the time. “It’s tempting to ask why if you fed your neighbors during the time of the earthquake and fire, you didn’t do so before or after,” writes Rebecca Solnit of the San Francisco earthquake in A Paradise Built in Hell: the Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster.

Eventually, I got my foot-weary self to the Port Authority Bus Terminal that evening to wait with other New Jersey commuters for the power and interrupted bus service to resume. Here, too, there was unusual cooperation and camaraderie. We riders of the DeCamp 66 and 33 who barely exchanged a word before, were talking, exchanging stories and phone numbers, discovering we were neighbors after all.

Earth Hour, 8:30-9:30 pm local time, when the Strip in Las Vegas, Times Square and the Eifel Tower intentionally go dark to raise awareness about climate change, was launched in Australia in 2007 by the World Wide Fund for Nature and has become a global movement. Getting millions of people to power down for one hour a year doesn’t seem like much to ask, even of the electronic device-addicted populace of our century. In our home, we mark the occasion with an hour of candlelight, a glass of wine, a ukulele, some songs, enjoying the respite from the mixed blessing of an always-on, always-connected life that we have embraced so wholeheartedly. Viewed in long-range or aerial images, Earth Hour is spectacular, and more than a little unnerving. I would like to think that this scale of community arts activism will help us wrap our heads around what is impossible to contemplate, even for climate advocates: a world without power; life as we’ve come to know it, unplugged.

Artists of all kinds have often taken the lead in making the invisible (under-appreciated or ignored) visible, because they can. Some are using their gifts to wake people up to the really wicked, society-transforming problem of climate change and a rising sea, e.g. The HighWaterLine project. The brainchild of artist, Eve Mosher, the HWL helps communities visualize the impact of climate change in our own neighborhoods and streets. Mosher began her work in 2007 in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, mapping areas predicted to be impacted by flooding during storm surges. After deep research into climate science and Google maps of flood zones, she spent six months using chalk and a sports field marker to draw the 10-ft. above sea level line in the streets and on the buildings. Yes, that was five years before Sandy. Click here for more on the HWL.

As residents of one of the states most vulnerable to sea level rise, Floridians are fortunate that Eve Mosher will be making a return engagement, this time in Palm Beach County later this month, chalking sea level rise for the HighWaterLine Delray Beach event. This day-long performance is part of the 2^nd Annual Florida Earth Festival, a series of workshops and demonstrations that runs April 18 through 25, including a weekend of intensives at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton, 2501 St. Andrews Blvd. Volunteers are needed for all kinds of tasks during the festival, and if you are able, I urge you to find what speaks to you and sign up. For this yoga instructor and lover of dance, it is the prospect of being in the grand finale of the HWL mapping: a ‘movement choir’ of dancers holding blue glow lights and moving to Neil Young’s new anthem: Who Is Going to Stand Up for the Earth.

I’ve also signed up for the Beautiful Trouble workshop in the hopes that it will help me hone my new-found voice as a spoken word artist (thanks Vagina Monologues!) into a poetry flash mob or open mic performance on environmental themes. In any case, it sounds like way more fun than climate advocacy usually is, Greenpeace Gorilla suits and the Raging Grannies notwithstanding. These trainings are intended to serve as “A Toolbox for Revolution.” Bring it on.

Earth Hour visuals

Earth Hour, March 19, 2016

Biggest Blackouts in History

HighWaterLine Action Guide

Like Water For Avocados

March 23, 2015 by Marika Stone, posted in activism, arts activism, environment, activism, sea level rise, Simple life

After an announcement about a possible shortage of Hass Avocados caused near panic (and perhaps some welcome publicity), Mexican food chain, Chipolte, tried to soothe its fans with an announcement that there is no “guacapocalypse” in the offing. Really? Avocados are a thirsty crop, second only to another California favorite, the endangered almond. According to Mother Jones, it takes 74.1 gallons of water to grow one pound of avocados as opposed to strawberries (9.8 gallons) or lettuce (5.4 gallons). For the time being, the California Hass is big business for the state: “… about 80 percent of all avocados eaten worldwide and … more than $1 billion a year in revenues in the United States alone.” (California Avocado Commission).

Headlines like this one from Newsweek 3/13/15: NASA: California Has One Year of Water Left, should be setting off alarm bells in the Congressional denialist camp on the basis of the economic impact alone, with the nation’s food security right up there next to it. So it’s particularly bad news for all of us who love avocados — heck, like to eat regularly! — that Senator Ted Cruz now heads the Senate Science Committee, and that he has told NASA to stick to space and drop its climate investigations. We need to pay close 27_smap20150224-16 attention to what happens next. After all, budget cuts that could threaten programs like NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Soil Moisture Mapper (SMAP) — a satellite that can improve weather forecasts, monitor droughts and predict floods — will hurt us all, now and in the immediate future. Maybe we should take a page from Senator Snowball’s playbook and start jamming the inboxes of legislators of his ilk with our favorite guacamole recipes. This sounds like a job for Beautiful Trouble, fearless artist/activists. Hi-jinks and hackery that exercise our creativity and even soothe our souls.

It’s great to learn that Al Gore is newly optimistic that we can bring ourselves back from the brink, but yesterday on World Water Day, I couldn’t help thinking about what ordinary Californians are doing about a drought so severe, it has its own website? Not nearly enough, according to figures from January this year which showed that conservation of water dropped from 22% to 9%, possibly spurred by an end of the year rainy period. We are so addicted to short-term — or maybe it’s magical — thinking! No wonder we are so easily distracted by shiny new things, blockbuster movies, and gossip about people we’ll never meet or particularly want to.

So I decided to ask a friend who lives in Huntington Beach about the water crisis, and she assured me that although some of her neighbors still have lawns (and presumably, have not as yet been prohibited from watering them), she has embraced a more desert scape, that is, rocks and succulents. OK, it’s something, and granted, this is a minuscule sample. But isn’t this typical of a common mismatch between the complexity of the issues we face — economic, health, safety, civil society — and the response of too many people like my well-meaning friend, as well as those in positions of power? California officials, writes Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, are “staying in emergency mode and praying for rain.”

Although drought isn’t an issue for Florida at the moment, we have our own water challenges: a rising sea (flooding, coastal erosion, threat to infrastructure and property) and the migration of salt into the agricultural water supply. So much for the idea that California’s agricultural losses might be somewhat mitigated by Florida’s food growing power. For more on this including the Sea Level Rise Symposium 2014, see my blog posts from last July, Water: Next Capitalist Tool? and November, Raising Fields. Not enough water or the wrong kind — none of this is good news for living things. But compared to what many see as the threat of water wars in the not too distant future, these issues are a drop in the bucket.

What can we do? First, recognize that climate change is with us here and now and that we humans have no history or experience with the kinds of change it will likely produce in our lives. On a beautiful, cool morning in South Florida as I write this from my patio, it’s possible to imagine that we have a decade or two before we are forced to adjust, to take action, or possibly, flee for higher ground. Even if that were true, it’s cold comfort for our children and grandchildren. Second, cut your consumption: repair, reuse, repurpose, skip the upgrade, minimize air travel, and make do while these are choices we can still make freely. Third: ask yourself to imagine a world without your favorite food (yes, avocados), a beloved bird, flower, tree, pollinators in general, a particular beach, a cherished vacation spot, a life experience you now take for granted (hiking a pristine trail, growing vegetables, access to a wide variety of fresh food, taking a hot shower, feeling safe on my streets and in my home, are all on my list). What would you do to preserve these ordinary treasures, for yourself and those you love? Do it.

The Road Taken

January 5, 2015 by Marika Stone, posted in Colony 1, environment, activism, localizing, Transition Movement

Like many classic American adventures, this one was propelled by a vehicle: a school bus, fitted out to become a home, transportation, and learning center for Nando Jaramillo and Blair Butterfield, and their two children, Luciano, 4, and Imogen, 2 1/2. In three years, the family covered 8,000 miles to visit sustainable cities across the country, and bring the ideas back to their home base in Miami. Concrete ideas like a bicycle-propelled compost collection service (wow!). And intangible lessons about generosity, experimentation, a willingness to ask ‘why’ and ‘why not,’ old-fashioned skills blended with leading edge technology. They came home to work on their dream: to help make Miami the ‘greenest city’ in America.

Last evening, some 30 people came to the Transition Palm Beaches monthly meeting at the Friends Meeting House in Lake Worth, to hear about what happened next and pepper the couple with questions. It was perhaps the most diverse group and liveliest meeting to date.

Although the presentation began with some standard environmental disaster imagery, this is a good story, a model for what is possible when motivated people marry their deeply held values – in this case to live and raise their children in as green and sustainable a way as possible — to committed action.

Blair and Nando began by forming a nonprofit organization – Art of Cultural Evolution (ACE) — and establishing a pilot on a vacant lot on 34^th Street in Miami. There they worked to restore the soil, plant an organic garden, compost, harvest rainwater, and experiment with solar energy. The neighbors noticed, and soon began to plant their own yards with vegetables. Volunteers showed up. Fifteen families were fed from a single growing season.

Next, working with local groups, the 34^th Street Sustainable Land Lab (as it was then called) began to offer public workshops, classes, and movies about organic gardening, CSAs, and other related subjects. They were creating, you might say, a buzz. A fortuitous meeting with a City of Miami commissioner – Nando, an art director for film and television, grew up in Miami – helped clear the way to a 50 year lease of land for what is now known as Colony 1, an environmental arts and science education center, at 550 NW 22^nd Street in the Wynwood arts district of Miami. When it is built out, it will be a 2,500 sq. ft. space, constructed entirely of 11 shipping containers, chosen for their availability and durability. (I, for one, will never look at a container quite the same way.) Think Tiny House x 11.

It is going to take funding to make this $200,000 dream come true, and the drive is on. Take a look at the site: http://www.artofculturalevolution.org/ and see where you might want to plug in as volunteer, partner, donor, or all three. Brewing your own kombucha, mending your own garments, or growing medicinal herbs, are all worthy endeavors. It’s when you teach others how, and they teach others, that it starts to become something greater: a learning community, a movement toward sustainability.

More about their journey:

Edible magazine’s article, and much more detail.

https://www.facebook.com/culturalevolution

Telling the Good Stories of 2014

December 29, 2014December 30, 2014 by Marika Stone, posted in environment, activism, localizing, Transition Movement

When climate activists in South Florida meet, the mood is often serious bordering on grim, and I usually head out the door with a to-do list and a heavy heart. We know what we’re up against in our state legislature, so one doable strategy is to attempt to convince our local municipalities, one mayor and/or commissioner at a time, that we are holding them accountable for the preservation of our towns and cities, and our safety. For this we need local citizen volunteers to join in the effort. My team mates have developed a terrific script suitable for phone or email.

This is good, worthy work, yet I fear we may not attract many takers without the leavening agent of uplifting stories, and the truth is, 2014 was a pretty good year for the environmental movement. Last December, I tapped into Mongabay for positive stories, and this year, some that appeared on its current Top Ten list are also on mine:

The ban on fracking in New York State shows what can happen when the people don’t give up, and keep the heat on indecisive elected officials. It worked in Denton, Texas, the state where fracking was born. Another small victory: would be frackers got fined in Florida. We have only begun to fight. Stay tuned, and keep an eye on other fracking news.
Pope Francis, whose agenda for 2015 includes a rare papal encyclical to 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, an address to the United Nations, and a summit of the world’s religious leaders. His Holiness has connected the dots that many miss:

“An economic system centered on the god of money needs to plunder nature to sustain the frenetic rhythm of consumption that is inherent to it.”

The Climate Pledge between the U.S. and China, a savvy move by President Obama to sidestep an obstructionist Congress. What he will do on the KXL when it is (most likely) reintroduced, remains to be seen.
Breakthrough in palm oil plantations as Kellogg, L’Oréal and Nestlé, signed a declaration pledging to help cut tropical deforestation in half by 2020 and stop it entirely by 2030. You don’t mess with Harrison Ford.
EPA ruling on power plant emissions comes under the Clean Air Act. Unless the Supreme Court changes its mind, this should stand. Thanks again to crafty POTUS.
September Success: Over 400,000 people from diverse groups join in the climate march in New York City, and in smaller demonstrations elsewhere: Transition Palm Beaches, EcoArt South Florida, The Sierra Club and Raging Grannies (among others) in Delray Beach.
The business connection. Earlier this year, I found my way to the B Team whose stated mission is to ‘catalyse a better way of doing business for the wellbeing of people and the planet.’ http://bteam.org/about/ I figure any group that includes Muhammed Yunus (founder, the Grameen Bank of micro-loan fame), Arianna Huffington and Mary Robinson (former president of Ireland and member of The Elders) is a vote for humanity.
The Transition movement continues to grow in the U.S. You can avail yourself of great, free seminars with some of the smartest, forward thinkers around, e.g. Cecile Andrews, author of Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good.In partnership with the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, Transition US announced the People’s State of the Union, the first in a series of new, participatory civil rituals. From January 23-30, 2015, people across the country are invited to convene “story circles” with neighbors, friend, and community members to respond to three prompts:

Tell a story about a moment you felt true belonging – or the opposite – in this country or your community
Describe an experience that showed you something new or important about the state of our union
Share about a time you stood together with people in your community.

May 2015 bring about an awakening to both our perils and possibilities, and action as our conscience dictates.

Bailing by the Thimbleful

December 8, 2014December 8, 2014 by Marika Stone, posted in activism, Election Reform, Money

My world is almost entirely structured around climate activism these days, from engaging with other local activists to hold our elected officials to account for their pledges – the Southeast Florida Climate Action Compact – to planning Transition Monthly Meetings, to tending a community garden whose crop will be donated to feed hungry people. And I am putting in a fraction of the time some of my colleagues are devoting in groups like the Climate Action Coalition, Organizing for Action, and EcoArt South Florida, to name three. They are the true patron saints of sustainability, in the ecological sense. And yet it’s not enough given the math stacked up against us, and possibly short of the real target.

“There is a corruption at the heart of American politics, caused by the dependence of Congressional candidates on funding from the tiniest percentage of citizens.”

Fix that, and many other issues will be resolved, argues Harvard professor, legal scholar, and Beltway bête noir, Lawrence Lessig. He makes this point in an electrifying TED Talk and a follow up book (published by TED) called Lesterland. Hint: the Lesters are the 1%; the USA is Lesterland. Right now, you can purchase the ebook for $1.99, and I encourage you to do so, share it, and maybe create a book group around it.

As if we needed any more reminders of how broken our democracy is, how corrupted government has become by money, Saturday’s New York Times published this: Energy Firms in Secret Alliance With Attorneys General. It was the most emailed article through the weekend and has drawn 1594 comments to date. This one by Richard Watt of Pleasantville, NY, was the most “Recommended.”

“I should not be surprised, but I must say I was shocked when I read this article. These attorneys general should be impeached and removed for the sale of their offices and the people* behind these letter[s] should also be prosecuted.”

But this morning, the article was no longer in the top ten. So I have to agree with the second most Liked comment, that of S.R. Simon of Bala Cynwyd, PA: This is how democracies die: behind closed doors. And I might add, inside minds that shut down when the facts become too awful to contemplate.

If you’ve been working on sea level rise (SLR), to pick the environmental blowback that will likely cripple the economy in Florida, you know how challenging it is to chin up and keep bailing, if only by the thimbleful. And yet, bail we must, because the alternative is even worse.

Take the Ag Reserve, a parcel of land once considered ‘safe’ from developers because it is so important to our agricultural economy, and now back on the bargaining table. Yes, attend the meetings and send in statements. Go demonstrate to protect the Briger Forest from the Scripps juggernaut. Raise funds for Florida Earth Day 2015 and to commission environmental artist, Eve Mosher (HighWaterLine), to do for Delray Beach what she did for Brooklyn and, more recently, Bristol, UK – show graphically on the roads and buildings what SLR looks like in our communities. It’s as good as it gets, and we have to do whatever we can to support these actions. But let’s not kid ourselves that meaningful change is possible when money has the upper hand

OK, here’s some good news, sort of. As Professor Lessig points out, this is not a Left vs. Right, Red vs. Blue, Treehugger vs. Denialist issue. It is clearly a Beltway insider vs. the rest of us issue, and on that you may find agreement in surprising places. Of course, using campaign contributions to buy yourself, say, an ambassadorship, is nothing new and long the prerogative of presidents. Here’s The Palm Beach Post’s ever wry columnist, Frank Cerabino:

“You can be America’s ambassador to Argentina and not speak Spanish…President Barack Obama nominated Noah Mamet, a California political consultant, to become America’s next ambassador to Argentina, and the Senate confirmed that nomination on a party-line vote…Mamet doesn’t speak Spanish, and he had never visited Argentina. But he did orchestrate a $1.4 million bundle of donations to Obama’s re-election campaign two years ago.”

Not pretty, but compared to what’s going down now, this is chump change.

Larry Lessig is looking for 300,000 engaged citizens, no matter which issue
stirs our passion most, to join his organization, Rootstrikers. Whether or not you feel inspired to do so, you will find it packed with information you won’t find elsewhere, e.g. why Citizens United is the ‘tip of the iceberg.” If Rootstrikers feels like the best way to strengthen your citizen muscle — and boy, could we all use that! — choose from a range of campaigns to join – supporting Government by the People Act (H.R. 20) is my mine. Could citizen-funded elections also eliminate the endless election season we currently endure? That would most certainly get my vote.

#fastfortheclimate

December 1, 2014 by Marika Stone, posted in activism, environment, fastfortheclimate

I’m no stranger to fasting since my daughter introduced me to The Master Cleanse years ago, and it still feels like a good way to balance the excesses of holiday celebrations. But this is the first time I’m fasting as an act of solidarity with climate activism, specifically with the massive international fast in conjunction with the Lima Climate Change Conference that opens today and runs until December 12. So, if you are just hearing about this for the first time (and I hope not), it’s not too late to shed a pound for a good cause. My tribe of activists just got bigger and more diverse as soon as I took the pledge and checked out the pages of http://fastfortheclimate.org/en/: bishops, CEOs of NGOs, activists, TV chefs, musicians, UN officials, and negotiators from around the world (though not to date Yeb Sano, the young Filipino diplomat whose emotional presentation at the 2013 Warsaw climate talks, and subsequent two week hunger strike, inspired this movement.)

Astonishingly, the comment section of fastfortheclimate.org has an outsized number of enraged comments from the denial crowd, most of which fall into the ‘protest too much’ category and lead me to hope that the evidence of climate change is beginning to hit home. I even got some flak from a foodie member of my family when I posted my intention for the day on social media. Eating is itself a political act no matter where you stand intellectually on climate science. Just ask anyone attempting to prepare a Thanksgiving meal that will please everyone. Free-range or tofurky? It seems that too many of us Americans hate and resist any suggestion that we must change our own habits. This made a best-seller of Who Moved My Cheese? and explains why diets usually fail, and more importantly, why we continue to live with the devils we know: money-corrupted politics and dysfunctional government (a topic I’ll be blogging about as soon as I finish reading Lesterland).

Well, as anyone who has tried fasting for any reason knows, as the first day of your fast wears on, you realize just how much time you are saving not preparing and consuming food, let alone thinking about it. This can feel almost liberating. Even if you are not taking solid food, you must keep yourself hydrated — lemon water and herbal teas for me — and you may actually start to enjoy the experience of some lightness of mind and body. Not to mention how ambrosial the first bite of solid food tastes! Fasting, like dieting, does interfere with the social aspect of eating, which is not a small thing in a household where a favorite word is ‘lunch.’ Of course, most of us climate fasters are doing this for one day, although some intend to extend it to the first day of every month (no promises). It is a far cry from famous individuals like Gandhi and Cesar Chavez who effectively used the extended hunger strike as a form of nonviolent activism and changed the course of history for the better. To them, and to my fellow December 1 fasters — may our numbers increase — I raise my cup of mint tea.

Greenier Than Thou?

November 11, 2014November 12, 2014 by Marika Stone, posted in Carbon Footprint, environment, activism, localizing, Transition Movement, renewable energy

OK, I’ll admit that our switch from Florida Power and Light to Pear Energy, a renewable energy broker over a year ago, right after we began our lease of a Nissan Leaf, made me feel a tad smug. Competitions about one’s carbon footprint don’t seem out of line, given the state of the Planet. Not to mention that I managed to convince a small number of friends to make the switch.

We stuck with Pear despite accusations in social media that the company was engaged in ‘green-washing,’ because here in South Florida, there seemed to be no better choice. The company’s move from Miami to Amherst, MA, gave me pause but it was business as usual. Here’s a link to the discussion between that convinced us we’d rather fight than switch back: http://www.greenwashingindex.com/pear-energy-how-green/ I’ve written some damage-control PR in my life, so I appreciated how Pear answered its critics:

… it is important to keep in mind that we are an independent REC seller, which is a different model than that of a local utility’s green energy program. Local utilities are established, profitable businesses that simply add REC sales into their mix of services, as one very small share of their overall operations. These established utilities do not need to generate additional revenue through REC sales because they use their profits from selling electricity generated by coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy to provide a tiny subsidy to their purchases of clean energy RECs. By contrast, because REC sales are one of Pear Energy’s main activities, a portion of our charges must go to supporting our staff and our business operations. So, to summarize: 100 percent of all of our business activity supports the development of green energy in the U.S.

So imagine my surprise yesterday, when I received this email.

Dear Marika Stone,

Your Pear Energy account is officially closed as of November 10, 2014. As previously mentioned, Pear Energy is no longer offering our residential renewable energy service for homes and small businesses.

You will receive utility bills again. Please make payments directly to FPL normally. In addition, you may be receiving a verification email from your utility due to the recent changes made on your account.

Thank you again for supporting renewable energy and helping to build the green economy.

Sincerely,

The Billing Department
Pear Energy
(877) 969-7327
www.pear-energy.com

Apparently, I wasn’t the only customer who was upset at the news because today, another email arrived from Pear Energy offering us renewable energy via one of its partners, Acadia Power. We’ll look before we leap, of course. I won’t be surprised if there is a whole lot more of this kind of shaking out as we move toward renewables, and neither should you be. In fact, I welcome it. Stay tuned

REC – Renewable Energy Certificates

https://www.facebook.com/PEARenergy

Miami Dice

October 27, 2014 by Marika Stone, posted in environment, activism, localizing, Transition Movement, sea level rise

I love Miami. I love the amiable mix of cultures, the scene at Hoy Como Ayer in Little Havana, the outdoor murals of Wynwood, the new South Pointe Park, the art deco homes, the new Perez Museum, built inexplicably enough on Biscayne Bay, next to new science museum under construction. Miami is a mere 77 miles from my hometown and along the same coast, so what happens in Miami isn’t going to stay in Miami. My county may be a foot or so higher in sea level, but we share the same porous limestone, the same array of barrier islands with their luxury high rises, and the same professional climate change deniers.

The sense of carpe diem might have had as much to do with our choice of Miami as a destination to celebrate our 30^th anniversary this past summer as the city’s many undeniable attractions. So, we treated ourselves to three nights at the Marriot on Biscayne Bay where the management – alerted to the occasion by a child – gave us an upgrade that included a sweeping view of the Bay, Causeway and cruise ships. To my surprise, this Marriot (as in West Palm Beach) is growing food on site for its restaurants. Lettuces, tomatoes and herbs are the edible landscaping by the pool area.

That ‘farm to table’ glimmer aside, I am worried about Miami. It is clearly failing the test in how coastal cities will need to adapt to a rising sea. The $500 million earmarked for a new pumping system for Miami Beach is already acknowledged as a mere stopgap. I am concerned about friends there who recently spent weeks and a small fortune to install stronger new windows in their ground floor condo. I fear for the stalwart efforts to forestall what appears inevitable, even if we were able to cease using fossil fuels immediately. One of these is a permaculture food forest, right in the heart of the city, designed by Deva Marcus Thompson, founder of Permaculture Miami, whose intensive at The Mounts Botanical Garden I attended this weekend. Eve Mosher’s High Waterline project to show just how high the water will rise, is another. Also, Colony1, a sustainability research center that combines art and science. Closer to home, and heart, Transition Palm Beaches.

It is uplifting to see smart, persistent media coverage on the climate crisis, e.g. a feisty overview of what keeps The Sunshine State from becoming a solar energy giant in a blog post from Fred Grimm in The Miami Herald last Friday: Florida Utilities Stay Shady… While Florida denies, he writes, neighboring Georgia is preparing to add 900 megawatts of solar by 2016, thanks to an unlikely alliance between environmentalists and the Tea Party, aka, The Green Tea Party (the latter on free-market principles). When you realize that some $12 million has been allocated by our largest utilities to fund, “on average, one lobbyist for every two [Florida] state legislators each legislative sessions between 2007 and 2013,” you know what we are up against. The choice at the polls has never been clearer. Or the need to rid politics of money.

On the local level, my Unitarian Universalist congregation has become a partner in the Climate Action Coalition of South Florida, joining the UU Fellowship of Boca Raton, The Arthur R. Marshall Foundation, Oxbridge Academy, the local chapter of Organizing for Action, and League of Women Voters, among others. Our goal is to educate our municipalities on the risks we face as small cities and citizens, and get them to sign the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Action Plan. We hope to bring Eve Mosher’s High WaterLine to our area. There is mounting evidence that local politics may yet do, piecemeal, for Florida what the big boys can’t, see: Pragmatism on Climate Change Trumps Politics …

Pitch in, please, every way you can. It sure beats relocation to … Anchorage.

High Water Line: http://grist.org/cities/street-artists-trace-against-time-and-sea-level-rise/

http://highwaterline.org/building-a-resilient-miami/

High Tide on Main Street, John Englander

Safer Cities

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