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Learning Gardening and Energy Saving, Through Coaching and Competition
Carl Etnier,
Times are changing fast--how do people learn new skills and change their lives the way many say they want to? We look at this question from the perspective of gardening and saving energy.

Joseph Kiefer, co-director of Food Works in Montpelier, describes his work coaching people in gardening--and a whole lot more.

David Eggleton of Applied Ecologics in Massachusetts describes how both coaching and competition can help people save energy in their homes, and Washington Electric Co-op general manager Avram Patt tells how the Co-op helps its members compete--with themselves--to save energy.

The abpve link is to broadcast-quality (128 kbs) audio. A smaller (64 kbs) version is at
http://www.equaltimeradio.com/
(2 March 2009)

Mike Antheil at FARE updates the Florida Renewable Energy Dividend (RED) story
Ecotopia News Now Interviewvia blip.tv
Mark Strassman interviews Mike Antheil, Executive Director of the Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy (FARE) talks about the campaign to implement a statewide Renewable Energy Dividend (RED) (feed-in tariff) in the Sunshine State, recorded from Florida on March 4, 2009
(4 March 2009)

Food Deserts and Delivery: Discussions from the Pacific Northwest
Eric de Place, Worldchanging
Can Amazon's grocery service help poor neighborhoods?

"Food deserts" are places in urban areas where people have limited access to healthy, fresh, and reasonably-priced food. In Portland, Ore., and Seattle, Wash., food deserts tend to be in low-income neighborhoods or suburbs where many residents rely on transit service or foot-power. (Think parts of northeast Portland or Seattle's South Park, for example.)

Without ready access to decent grocery stores, residents end up over-spending or buying food with limited nutritional value or both. Fresh fruits and vegetables -- so important for a healthy diet -- are in short supply, if they exist at all. And you can forget about local and organic food. So food deserts can result in poor health, tight budgets for those who can least afford it, or long cumbersome bus trips to other neighborhoods. Worse, the problem of grocery access is most severe for the elderly, single parents, and the disabled. It's not just an urban land use issue: it's a problem with profound social justice implications.

...Why not take advantage of the grocery delivery services that are popping up all over? The Northwest is rich with Community Supported Agriculture programs that provide weekly delivery of seasonal local food. Larger in scale is British Columbia-based Spud (nee Pioneer Organics), a delivery service that specializes in both local and organic food, serves Portland and Seattle, as well as large swaths of territory in and around Vancouver and Victoria....there are more quotidian grocery delivery services too, including Safeway. Even Amazon is getting into the game with AmazonFresh, currently serving only a handful of Seattle-area zip codes but expanding quickly.

...It's easy to imagine residents of low-income neighborhoods getting grocery delivery service in some lower-tech fashion. Social workers, community centers, or food banks could provide quick checklists for weekly delivery of free (or subsidized) fresh produce. Perhaps the efforts would be funded with public money or by nonprofit food banks. Or perhaps Amazon or Safeway would see low-income delivery service as an opportunity for good corporate citizenship. It needn't start all at once, but one can imagine Seattle-based Amazon adding a low-income zip code next and then reaching out to community service agencies to find ways to deliver fresh food cheaply to those who really need it.
(5 March 2009)
What a good idea! This is an issue that we are trying to get to grips with in Bristol in the UK, where we have food deserts in several areas of the city, and how we can try to bridge that gap as we start thinking about a more sustainable food system for the city in the context of an Energy Descent Action Plan. KS