by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

It’s good to be back. It spent time with my family and explored what’s new in my big city – one of those making significant strides towards a sustainable future. I’ve heard that the Twin Cities have held a high green ranking for decades and the city lakes, free of motorized boats, are some of the cleanest in the country. A stroll around a few busy spots will show you some of the most litter-free places on the planet. I saw street sweepers in the neighborhoods, doing the seasonal clean-up of curbside debris to keep it from entering the sewer system and waterways, my former local co-op is now solar-powered and stocks a wide selection of local farm products and I saw a few urban vegetable gardens where lawns used to be. A newish downtown Farmer’s Market is thriving. The city lakes and parks, populated by an abundance of cyclists and pedestrians, have been made more friendly for wildlife with natual rain gardens and flowering trees and plants. Out in the ‘burbs, a new light rail system is in place.

Last week’s NY Times column, by Elizabeth Royte, (author of Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It) also informed me that Minneapolis recently committed to spending $500,000 on drinking fountains that will be placed in areas of high foot and bicycle traffic. This is part of an effort (joined by San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsom), to reduce bottle use – and the huge carbon footprint that goes along with it.

Now there’s another (like electric cars and electric hand-dryers) retro-solution to both plastic and water waste issues! Remember when most places had drinking fountains? They used to be in markets and department stores and in all parks. No cups, bottles or trash cans required. And it stands to reason that they conserve water, too. I’ve long wondered what happened to what used to be available to all – a cool, clean drink without the cost, waste and inconvenience of carrying a bottle. Germ-phobics can’t claim this one – fountains are designed so that the treated water coming from a spigot is safe. I shudder to think the bottled water industry had anything to do with the demise of the fountain, but then, what gives? More importantly, how can we reclaim a sane way to keep all of us quenched? I’ll be looking into this one – stay tuned.

BTW, thanks for the comments and thoughts about my mom. She is enjoying the Spring weather just arriving in MN. On the day I was leaving, we found a bird’s nest with 3 small eggs, hidden in a potted plant outside her front door. It made all of us smile. Nature has a nice way of speaking.

by Tao Oliveto

Solar panels already in place on Town Hall, council members in Woodstock, NY, passed a resolution to become the first American community to become carbon nuetral within a decade (as reported by correspondent, William Kemble on DailyFreeman.com). The resolution, approved unanimously by the Town Board in 2007, will allow a task force to pursue this goals by increasing recycling, implementing green building standards, establishing land-use policies to reduce sprawl, tree-planting for shade, promoting renewable energy sources, such as methane and wind and promoting fuel efficiency with an anti-idling message.

Locals of this forwarding-thinking town will be encouraged – through tax and other incentives – to change light bulbs, drive less, recycle more and improve energy efficiency on homes. Community by community, individuals and groups, it’s a familiar movement that is available to us at this kind of grassroots level.

If it all sounds familiar, take a look back to the revolution of the Sixties. After all, the hippies may have temporarily lost the battle to runaway consumerism, but they got plenty of things right. As Mark Morford points out in his San Francisco Chronicle column,

“All this hot enthusiasm for healing the planet and eating whole foods and avoiding chemicals and working with nature and developing the self? Came from the hippies. Alternative health? Hippies. Green cotton? Hippies. Reclaimed wood? Recycling? Humane treatment of animals? Medical pot? Alternative energy? Natural childbirth? Non-GMO seeds? It came from the granola types (who, of course, absorbed much of it from ancient cultures), from the alternative worldviews, from the underground and the sidelines and from far off the grid…”

Peace and Love (repeat when necessary).

But they can’t make us drink the kool-aide.

I saw a poster on my friendly community news bulletin board that said, “eco-friendly carriage homes”. This excited me until I read on… “Four Bedroom, Three Bath, 3000 sq. ft. custom homes convenient to Hwy 4o and 15-501“…

Look out, that elephant is about to step on your foot. No matter how you cut it – big, new, stick-built homes with two-car garages and lawns do not qualify as “eco-friendly”, despite Energy Star appliances and Leed Neighborhood Standards included in the fine print. Exalting the CAR-friendly location’s close to the HIGHWAY status is like a twist of the knife.

And what’s up with the term, “Carriage House”? Is it supposed to conjure up a facade of old-world charm? Do you feel duped? You should. Keep in mind – just because they are building doesn’t mean we have to be buying – we consumers run the show, after all.

Compare this to the latest redo just a few miles away in my town of Carrboro. Retro, one-story apartments converted to cool-looking condos – all with not much more than a fresh coat of paint, adding decks and planting new trees and bushes. It looks completely inviting. Here’s the sign announcing the opening of The Flats:

The Emperor is wearing no clothes. Let’s get on with it. I’m thirsty.

by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

Stay with me here. I know what you’re thinking. After all, I became a vegetarian and then vegan at the age of 16 and I did it for the animals and for the planet. Following a lot of personal research, I returned to eating dairy and eggs after moving to Carrboro, where I was introduced first-hand to the natural and humane practices at local farms. I saw chickens completely free to roam (and in fact, hanging out on the farm-house porch), as well as contented cows and goats grazing in spacious pastures.

But could I eat meat again? I wasn’t completely sure. What about the land and the resources used to raise grazing animals? I’ve read about the carbon footprint created in this industry and the release of methane – a potent green-house gas. I needed to know more.

It turns out I didn’t have to look farther than my local Independent news source. Reporter, Suzanne Nelson does her homework and then goes directly to the source – the farmers – to give us the whole story. In fact, there is so much enlightening information, I encourage you to read the entire article here.

The bottom line turns out to be that animals grazing on small farms in fact keeps soils rich in nutrients and allows for the aerobic decomposition of manure, preventing the release of much methane into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cattle are raised in feedlots or CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), which, besides being inhumane, is proven to be an environmental disaster in every way.

Here’s a couple of excerpts and only a few of the fascinating facts of raising our animals in humane and environmentally sane ways. Read more!

Rich, fertile soil contains large quantities of carbon. Poor soils contain very little. So grazing cows on depleted soils not only makes the land more fertile, in the porcess it traps carbon. Happily for climate stability, the process of making soils rich in organic matter, and thus carbon, can be accomplished relatively quickly. And the catalyst is the presence of ruminants.

Yet by far the most abundant contributor to nitrous oxide emissions [300 times as potent as methane in terms of greenhouse gas] is “agricultural soil management,” according to the EPA. And here again, feedlot animal operations – and the chemical fertilizers used to grow crops when cows are taken off small farms – are directly connected.

by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion, has announced plans for opening a bike shop and commuting center in downtown Austin, TX, in May of this year. It will include bicycle/gear sales, bicycle storage and showers for commuters, a training facility and a cafe. Now you can ride in to work, grab a shower, breakfast and a chat with other riders before continuing to the office (by foot, bus, or pedicab).

Mellow Johnny’s, named for the yellow jersey, is making good-sense use of an existing 1950′s building and it is not just about the bike. Lance acknowledges the importance of encouraging and supporting a cycling culture in growing cities like Austin, “We have to promote (bike) commuting. This can be a hub for that.” Armstrong also promotes the addition of safe roadways for cyclists, positioning the new shop in close proximity to the the Lance Armstrong Bikeway, a path conceived of by a local cycling activist and subsequently funded by the city of Austin, that loops approximately 6 miles through the center of the downtown area.

With the revitalization of urban areas and the move towards mixed-use communities, an accessible mass transit system combined with a commuter bike center and safe bicycle lanes is what every city needs and what an eco-motivated population deserves. And I think many of us are motivated and inspired by new ideas and hope for a liveable and happy future.

And, I’m motivated by heroes like Lance, who, instead of resting on his laurels, is doing what he knows best and doing it for Change. Now I know that I’m riding with the best of them.

My co-housing community keeps bees. I’m still enjoying the last drops of honey from our first hive harvest last Fall and looking forward to more, but mostly, I am enthralled to see nature and humans working together for the common good. As you have heard, the pollinator bee population is in serious decline and as they go, so goes our food and well, just about everything. Give Bees a chance by making your yard and garden bee-friendly, starting your own hive (available to city dwellers!) or hanging a “bee condo” in your area.

Below is an early Spring update from our Arcadia queen of the bees, Elisabeth. It’s really interesting and I hope, inspiring. For information on home hives, visit bees-online.com. Tao

By Elisabeth Curtis, Carrboro, NC

When we opened the hives for the first time since last fall and looked inside on a sunny day last week, we found that two of the hives seem in pretty good shape, with active bees and plenty of honey stores left. Neither had evidence of brood laying, but it is still early for that. The north hive, however, was in a precarious condition, with no more than a couple hundred bees and evidence of the dreaded small hive beetle. We thought we might have seen the queen, but she was not all that much bigger than the bees, so we were not sure. If she is a virgin queen, not yet mated, she would not be big, but the queen we would expect to see in that hive is a mature queen of good size. If the one we saw is the queen, that means that for some reason the hive has replaced the original queen. I put in a quick call to Will Hicks, one of the NC state bee inspectors, and he advised us to reduce the size of the hive so that the bees would have less area to protect.

You may have noticed that the hives are now white, the traditional hive color. We painted them less for aesthetic reasons than to protect the wood and make it last longer. You may see them decorated at some point.

Today we opened the north hive, took the three frames that had bees on them and moved them to a nuclear hive (a nuke), which is a small hive holding only five frames. We saw capped brood (larvae metamorphosing to bees) and some recently-laid larvae and actually saw the queen (and she is indeed somewhat petite) backing up to a cell to lay an egg. Very cool! With so few frames to care for, the small amount of bees should be able to keep the small hive beetles under control. As the bee population grows, we will add more frames and soon should be able to transfer them to a regular size hive body. The extra frames from the hive bodies have gone back to Bubba’s house to be frozen for 24hours to kill small hive beetles and wax moth larvae. Then we’ll store them for later replacement on the hives.

The other two hives show a healthy amount of bees and activity. We did not look for evidence of egg laying, but assume it is happening there as well. We are now feeding all hives sugar syrup and pollen, which will make the queens think spring is here and they’d better get busy. We should be able to stop feeding pretty soon, as the red maples are already starting to blossom.

Read Larry’s Lips -

Business is a part of life says Larry’s Beans, a fair-trade, organic coffee company that is out to change the world. Therefore, it should be fun, fulfilling and a force for good.

Larry’s says, “We believe in the vast deliciousness of slow-roasted coffee. We believe that salsa dancing, an Irish jig or a nice tango will put a smile on anyone’s face. (Larry himself is addicted to waltzing.) We believe in economic justice for all. And we believe kissing is always a good thing.”

Larry’s Beans coffee brew guide says that coffee is like kissing and this handy little booklet of brewing options explains why. My favorite is on page 14 – “A quick one to go, the one cup drip method”, featuring the all-too-familiar, “Leaving-for-Montana Kiss”.

Larry’s Beans offers 100% Fair Trade, shade grown, organic coffee, slow roasted in small batches in a greened up bean plant in Raleigh, NC and is locally delivered in a veggie-diesel bus. Larry loves coffee, dancing, cats and everything sustainable. Learn more at Larrysbeans.com and sustainabilityschool.org.

(Disclosure:, we, The Change, created the Coffee is Like Kissing brew guide for Larry’s Beans. It is available here.)

by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC

I belong to a CSA where I get a weekly supply of unpasteurized cheese, butter, milk and eggs. Each of the members takes a turn picking up the group’s weekly supplies. I had my turn last week. After a quiet 40-minute drive on a two lane road, I arrived at “my” farm. There were 11 cows, including a 10-day-old baby who nibbled my fingers when I was petting her. There were lots of chickens roaming freely around the barn and small house, seemingly oblivious to the cats and a dog.

While the farmers, Brandon and Andrea, quietly and busily filled my coolers with orders, their two small children toddled around, playing with sticks and picking through pebbles. At one point I saw Chloe, a tiny blond girl of around 4, walk confidently up to a newly hunted deer hanging under the porch. It’s head was covered in burlap and hung close to the ground. I watched as she lovingly placed her arms around its neck and rubbed her hands through the fur, whispering something that I could not hear.

When I was loaded up, I found myself reluctant to drive away. Something drew me in to this scene on this cold, sunny day. I can only imagine it was life itself.

I know the farmer who raises and milks the animals who give me milk to drink and feeds the chickens whose eggs I eat. I now know the animals themselves. I know a whole lot more than I used to.