I stayed very busy this summer with my internship duties but it was fun to be working for a publication like Indiana Living Green as there is always something new to do every day. I worked on a list of environmental jargon/concepts by defining what they are. I have covered E-coli, Asian carp, white-nose syndrome,… Read more »
Month: September 2012
Slowly, a sustainable revolution (#9)
Scott Russell Sanders asserts that “The words “community,” “communion,” and “communicate” all derive from “common,” and two syllables of “common” grow from separate roots, the first meaning together or next to, the second having to do with barter or exchange.“ When I read this, it placed the image of Unity Gardens inside my head. At… Read more »
Bridging the Divide
In terms of sustainability, The Natural Step’s sustainability system condition #4 states that, as a society, we must reduce and eventually eliminate our contribution that systematically undermine people’s ability to meet their basic needs. I believe that working at Unity Gardens doesn’t undermine people’s ability to meet their needs; it offers them a way to… Read more »
Community Supported Goodness (3)
I feel like I should describe community supported agriculture a little bit more since I’ve not in previous posts. The entire point of community-supported agriculture (CSA) is to get to know your farmer, while getting to truly know your food – where it grows and how it grows. While we shop the supermarkets, up and… Read more »
A Chance to Experience
The German novelist and poet, Herman Hesse, once wrote that “next to the hunger to experience a thing, men have perhaps no stronger hunger than to forget” And what does that have to do with a sustainability internship? Though this was not likely the context that Hesse wrote his words, I believe this perspective gives… Read more »
Do Something
What are you going to do about it? This is what a COPS (Communities Organized for Public Service) organizer asked Virginia Ramirez about what she was going to do about her widowed neighbor dying of a preventable illness due to no heat retention/lack of weatherproofing in her home. Despite paying her bills and taxes on… Read more »
People, Prosperity, and our Ailing Food System
In the list of system conditions that we learned and I’ve shared with you, system condition number four has always struck me as being the worst. System condition number four states that in a sustainable society people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs. I’ve seen first hand… Read more »
Practices Toward Becoming a Sustainable Champion
When thinking about Starfish and how far they’ve come (not just in terms of helping countless women but also creating a link of help from one country to another) I’m discovering ways they are working towards many principles outlined for becoming a sustainability champion as written by Bob Willard in his 2009 book, The Sustainability… Read more »
Transition of Sustainability
Combining this summer’s reading assignments (The Common Life by Scott Russell Sanders, Sustainability Primer by The Natural Step, Soul of a Citizen by Paul Rogat Loeb, Bridging the Green an interview of Van Jones by David Kupfer, and Tools for the Transition to Sustainability by Meadows, Meadows, and Randers) with my… Read more »
High-Visibility “Green” Civic Projects
Greening the Bend is an expansion of the Rain Barrel Project, my fellowship with IU South Bend Center for a Sustainable Future, which is now in its third year. Tapping on the popularity of the Rain Barrel Project, which connects the arts, sustainability, business, and educational communities as well as governmental entities, we are in… Read more »