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The Impact of Urban Farming in New York City This post is also available in: Chinese (Traditional) Imagine a rooftop garden lush with salad greens and fresh vegetables. Picture a quaint patio garden growing bay-leaf, lemon-verbena and lime-basil herbs. Urban farming is a sustainability movement that is giving new purpose to rooftops, patios and unused space. Urban farming has the potential to become a global green evolution, improving the economy, sustainability and health of our urban communities. It doesn’t matter how large or small your rooftop farm or patio garden is, urbanized agriculture positively affects metropolitan areas with stimulated economic growth and better food quality. In New York City, urban farming is changing the way communities approach food production, sustainability and socialization: The Brooklyn Grange Apiary With urban farming comes urban honey, and that’s exactly what the Brooklyn Grange Apiary Project specializes in. Riverpark Farm in Manhattan

Computing for Sustainability | Saving the earth one byte at a time | Page 2 Hopeful tourism computing? A couple of weeks a ago I interviewed Tess Brosnan, a film maker who wanted to talk about links between citizen science and hopeful tourism. This led me to read Annette Pritchard, Nigel Morgan and Irena Ateljevic’s “Hopeful tourism: A new transformative perspective” (pdf). Apple growers, Academics, Activists and an Animator of Lunatics Sustainable Lens: Resilience on Radio, condensed down to one image. There’s a word for that: Anupholesteraphobia I found myself reading a book on music performance (long story). Audaciously sustainable The Audacious Student Business Challenge has expanded this year to encourage business for good with a social enterprise category. Sustainable action points I’m working with a final year Career Practice student – Lily Parker. Celebrating Excellence in Communication within IT in NZ What’s your favourite quote? There’s lots for computing folks to take on board in this round up of recent guests on SustainableLens.org.

Data Farming: Demonstrating the Benefits of Urban Agriculture [INFOGRAPHIC] Transforming underutilized land into productive urban farms was one of the many topics which were presented at the recent Kansas City Design Week. Jerome Chou, past Director of Programs at the Design Trust for Public Space, presented his unique experience with the implementation of the Five Boroughs Farm in New York City and the impact that urban agriculture can have on low-income areas of a city. Chou pointed out in his presentation that having the land available for an urban farm is only half of the battle. The constraint of influencing the community and political leaders is what forced Chou and the multi-disciplined team lead by Design Trust for Public Space to rethink how urban farms were a beneficial investment for New York City. Click to view in full. Design Trust put together a metrics framework that measured the associated activities of urban agriculture with the known benefits derived from various studies. Kyle Rogler is an architecture graduate working at BNIM Architects.

The Greening of the Self By Joanna Macy / filmsforaction.org Something important is happening in our world that you are not going to read about in the newspapers. I consider it the most fascinating and hopeful development of our time, and it is one of the reasons I am so glad to be alive today. It has to do with what is occurring to the notion of the self. The self is the metaphoric construct of identity and agency, the hypothetical piece of turf on which we construct our strategies for survival, the notion around which we focus our instincts for self-preservation, our needs for self-approval, and the boundaries of our self-interest. Widening our self-interest The conventional notion of the self with which we have been raised and to which we have been conditioned by mainstream culture is being undermined. I think of the tree-huggers hugging my trunk, blocking the chain saws with their bodies. What is striking about Michael's words is the shift in identification. This is hardly new to our species.

La ville intelligente, ultime utopie avant un chaos urbain généralisé ? Temps de lecture estimé : 6 min Aussi neuf et incertain qu’il soit encore, le concept de « ville intelligente » ou « V.I. » suscite un engouement qui n’est pas sans rappeler celui de la «fée électricité» à la Belle-Epoque. L’essayiste Jérémy Rifkin appelle au développement des technologiques informatiques dont les V.I. dépendent dans l’espoir d’une « troisième révolution industrielle » [] . Mais les prototypes récemment sortis de terre laissent craindre que les solutions vantées ne soient pas à la hauteur du chaos urbain généralisé qui s’annonce et qu’elles fassent perdre un temps précieux à une indispensable transition vers la « ville durable ». Un engouement croissant, une offre encore immature et segmentée L’homme d’affaires, surtout s’il est informaticien [] , y voit une lucrative voie d’accès aux partenariats public-privé : le marché mondial des technologies utilisée pour les projets de V.I. est estimé à 116Mds $ [] entre 2010 et 2016.

EcoGeek - Brains for the Earth Changer le système, pas le climat L’Espace Climat qui s’est tenu pendant toute la durée du Forum Social Mondial de Tunis, ce mois de mars 2013, a produit un manifeste final qui se veut la base d’une nouvelle phase dans la lutte contre le changement climatique et envisage la situation de façon systémique et pragmatique. Pour reprendre notre avenir en main, nous devons changer le présent ! Nos propositions pour « Changer le système, pas le climat » Le système capitaliste a exploité et abusé la nature, poussant la planète à ses limites, tant est si bien que le climat est l’objet de fondamentales et dangereuses transformations. Aujourd’hui, la gravité et la multiplicité des dérèglements climatiques – sécheresses, désertification, inondations, ouragans, typhons, feus de forêts, fonte des glaciers et de la banquise – indiquent que la planète brûle. L’humanité et la nature sont au bord du précipice. Nous n’allons pas rester les bras croisés. Changer le système signifie : Cela fait longtemps que nous espérons un autre monde.

Big Ideas: Linking Water, Power, and Sewer in K-12 A Center for Ecoliteracy – San Francisco Public Utilities Commission partnership. This publication is an addition to the Center for Ecoliteracy’s suite of Big Ideas curriculum resources. It was commissioned by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) as a guide for educators, curriculum developers, and schools to engage students. It stems from the commitment of the Center and the SFPUC to nurture the next generation of environmental stewards. Big Ideas identifies key concepts that link water, power, and sewer. Download Big Ideas: Linking Water, Power, and Sewer in K–12 on the SFPUC website. With issues of equity and access in mind, Big Ideas: Linking Water, Power, and Sewer in K–12 incorporates creative strategies to help support students with limited English proficiency or learning differences, students of color, and other underserved populations.

The Impact of Urban Farming in Berlin and Hong Kong This post is also available in: Chinese (Traditional) Urban farms are cropping up in metropolises across the U.S., with New York City proving to a be a particularly fruitful example. But this sustainable farming idea is more than an American trend, with cities worldwide taking strides in growing local produce and plants in developed urban areas. These efforts help to sustain the environment and educate citizens, potentially encouraging a cultural change on a global scale. No matter how much space you have or where you live, there is room for a little piece of green in the city. Berlin - Prinzessinnengärten In Berlin, a variety of old and rare crops are being grown on a renovated site in Kreuzberg. Prinzessinnengärten aims to raise awareness about problems associated with global-industrialized farming, seed-distribution monopolies and a global decline in biological diversity. More than just an urban garden, Prinzessinnengärten fulfills the need for social learning and cultural change.

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