3 THINGS DETROIT CITY HAS TO SURVIVE (Food is It Baby, Ya!)

Wayne Roberts, Director of the Toronto Food Policy Council, writes regularly for NOW magazine. I’ve known for awhile that he’s been visiting Detroit and Chicago, auto cities that have been hard hit by poverty, crime and the destruction of car manufacturing. It is in that crisis that they are discovering that they have 3 special qualities that’ll allow them to dig them out of the death of manufacturing.

1. They’ve got religion. “This is the old social gospel, not the evangelism of the sanctimonious few that is filled with fire and brimstone, especially for those who are different and down on their luck.“

2. They’ve been at rock bottom so long there’s no way to go except “up”.

“A city of two million in the heyday of the auto industry in the 1950s, the motor city has been in reverse to the point it’s down to 800,000, over a third of whom live below the poverty line. There are no chain supermarkets in this city, which economic historian Niall Ferguson calls in his newly-released The Ascent of Money “the developing country within the United States, otherwise known as Subprima.”“

They’ve been toughened by their ordeal. In my words, “they have walked the desert.” Christened in blood. They see beyond fantasies, seeing only reality.

“The long decline means city leaders have had a while to look beyond auto fantasies and value other assets of the city, and to think about how to leverage its historic buildings (many available at low rent for innovators, artists, refugees and immigrants), galleries and museums (possible anchors of eco-tourism), intense music scene (possible welcome mat for new creative industries) and empty lots.“

“Lets use those 300000 empty lots!“

3. They have solutions – that’s food – it’s recession proof. Wayne talks about 5 levels of food centred job creation, they are:

i. import substitution: local food instead of importing

ii. seeing waste as a resource – stop throwing it out and create jobs to reuse it i.e. garbage

iii. using food to heal communities (“food’s well-recognized healing properties when estranged and marginalized young people regain their esteem and direction in life by working in gardens“)

iv. “good food’s ability to reduce medical bills – a no-brainer in Detroit, where the US auto industry pays more for employee medical insurance than steel.“

v. “lively food habitat that attracts the “creatives” who will drive the next economy with their intellectual energy instead of the fossil fuel energy required by yesterday’s industries” … as in lets create a place that really breathes creativity, freshness (like food), the works.

As always only Doc Wayne can tell it the way it really is and ought to be. Doc, don’t stop the good fight! (Look forward to seeing him when the next Toronto Food Policy Council meeting happens either informally in December or formally in January)

Here’s Wayne Robert’s full article at NOW Magazine: http://tinyurl.com/6sayrv

(See Doc, your article is preserved where it started. He probably doesn’t know what I’m talking about…)

Jeffrey Sachs’s $200 Billion Dream: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

Jeffrey Sachs’s $200 Billion Dream: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com: “In some of his fine-tuned speeches, Sachs presents his audience with an ethical choice: ‘Either you decide to leave people to die or you decide to do something about it.’ Who in the world can resist that call to action? After all, one billion people on the planet are scraping by, barely, on less than a dollar a day. Industrialization has passed them by. They have not been lifted out of poverty by what proponents of free markets like to call ‘the rising tide.’ For Sachs, the way to end extreme poverty is obvious; his one question is, How long will it take the rest of us to come around?”

(Via Vanity Fair.)

“The basic truth is that for less than a percent of the income of the rich world nobody has to die of poverty on the planet. That’s really a powerful truth.”

I had heard about Jeffrey Sach’s book The End of Poverty back in 2005 when Professor Campbell and Winn of Global Environmental Issues class had us debate the merits of using DDT to combat malaria. Malaria is the #1 killer of people in the world. If it doesn’t kill you, you could be left a weak pup by it for a long time.

Back then I wasn’t as sharp as I was now. Of course the debate of DDT and malaria spiraled far beyond environmental consequences. We touched on gender issues, power issues which ultimately led to poverty issues.

I admit even I have not seen a child dying of malaria or poverty for that matter except through gripping, heart wrenching photos (such as the one below). I have seen children suffering from cystic fibrosis which is as close I have gotten to a similar situation. Gods, what am I doing here I wonder…?

“”Have you seen children dying?” he asks his audience. We’re in Montreal, at an all-day conference devoted to poverty. Bill Clinton will be speaking later in the day. So will Mia Farrow. But, for now, above Sachs’s head, projected on a giant screen, is a photograph he took a few months ago at Zomba Central Hospital, in Malawi. Row after row of small children in malaria comas are lying on the bare floor, their yellow eyes rolled back.

“I never thought in the 21st century, growing up in the 20th century, I’d ever see that,” Sachs exclaims, outraged by the shortsightedness implicit in that photograph. “Lack of a bed net. Lack of a dollar medicine. Lack of an oral rehydration solution in time to save a child dehydrated from a diarrheal infection. Lack of antibiotics to cure a child of acute lower respiratory infection contracted from living in a hut where dung is burned to cook the meals in a smoke-filled chamber.”"

[So Jeffrey Sachs stated in an all day conference in Montreal some time ago.]

As great as Sachs idea is – the problem is that it’s human nature to hoard technology, wealth and ultimately power. For less than 1 percent we could eliminate poverty. The politics however stand in the way.

We benefit from exploiting the poor – we in the West. Of which I also blame myself for this just as much just by being here. The companies and businesses of the West continue to profit by this “slavery” of people elsewhere in the world (it might as well be called that because even if you pay them 1 cent, you’re hardly giving them enough to live like you or I – really).

Sachs I’m sure realizes that politics and human apathy are the true issues that stand in the way. That and a lack of communal spirit or the desire to identify even with people you cannot see.

Perhaps this is linked to lack of imagination?

Ultimately I support his efforts though as always more is always needed. We really need to reach the next generation of children and instill in them the values necessary to preserve the land with which we depend on and our relationships with other people.

We must do this for all children – particularly the children who come from privileged families.

Lam’s Life: Waste Miles TO Style (Part 1?)

“In this snapshot into the life of Sunny Lam: Sunny muses about a diagram on how far organic waste travels in Toronto to a big processing facility and how that compares to composting that locally the way Green Thumbs, Growing Kids does.” (You guys get the early bird version of my work for GTGK – you should be honored – [grins])

This is for one truck, ladies and gents. You can see it’s a huge difference. The truck drives in and out – day in, day out (except maybe GTGK’s truck). It’s the best estimate to date (thank you, Ailee Ho for getting some of the on the ground figures from the City)

Figure 1. Distance traveled to ship organic waste out of the City of Toronto (one truck comparison)

In a day, the GTGK truck doesn’t travel more than 4 km at most. It stays in its neighbourhood generally. Quiet, local.

Compare that to a city truck hauling waste from here to just outside the GTA (Dufferin Organic and Green Lane processing facility – 20 and 207 km on average respectively), all the way down to the US (Carleton Farms Landfill in New Boston, Michigan, friends – 400 km+). Whew! What a run of things. That’s every day too (and this is only our best estimate so far based on the information!)

So in a year: the GTGK truck travels at most 1500 km to compost its waste. A City of Toronto truck is likely to travel 82,000 km. Um yeah – that’s huge. If the distance were football fields it would look like this:

Figure 2. The distance organic waste travels out of the City of Toronto in number of American football fields.

Don’t expect me to run a marathon on those! (PS. If I had expressed it in earths, 82000 km is like traveling around the earth’s equator twice. I’m sure my knees would have broken long before I finished!)

And ya know, the City has at least 2700 trucks on the organic waste transport job. You can imagine the size of that calculation! (More later on that one)

The Audacity of Despair: Journalism’s Crossroads

Dave Simon, “The Audacity of Despair”

“Yesterday I had the chance to see David Simon, creator of the greatest television show ever made forever and ever, The Wire. He was giving his lecture, The Wire: Audacity of Despair, to a tightly packed, moderately sized, room of about 140 people. I never thought I’d have the chance to see the genius behind the critically acclaimed television series, much less have any insights on what’s on his mind at any given moment. But there he was, in the flesh, talking to us about the country’s state of affairs and the processes behind The Wire. It was interesting to see the man talk loosely off the top of his head. He can connect the dots of his world so well, much like the connections and parallels that were made in the show. He really is as smart as the show suggests he is.”

(Via The Steel Closet – http://steelcloset.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/david-simon-and-the-wire-the-audacity-of-hope/)

David Simon’s presentation at the Townsend Center can be found here:
http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/webcast_Simon.shtml You’ll love the details – he talks about his beat in the seedier sides of Baltimore, his thoughts on Noam Chomsky, television dramas and more. A taste of the dark side.

What I liked about David is that he’s absolutely funny with his dark humour. You just have to watch him. Today’s journalism is a shadow of what it should be according to Simon. “Anyone can do the 5Ws, H – even a kid can do it. It’s the WHY that makes it an adult game.”

Newspapers these days gave up the WHY for the money. And they’ve paid the price particularly with the rise of the Internet.

Don’t trust the statistics until they’ve been checked. In a way, David is alluding to the fact that journalism needs to take a good look at its own version of CSR (corporate social responsibility).

Dig deeper. Dave Simon’s example of a 60 ton barge being the true cause of the destruction of New Orleans is a good example. Not the hurricane. “If you tell any New Orlean’s resident that a hurricane laid them low, a local will you hand you your head on a platter,” says Dave. If he hadn’t mentioned it I would never have known.

Sounds like I should try to watch some episodes of the Wire. Sure reminds me of PBS Frontline. Reminds me that I should find some time to check that out too…

Food Biz: Selling Less @ Same Price

Stealth Cost Cutting: Skippy, Kellogg, McDonald’s and Others Offer Less for the Same Price | Food Industry Blog | BNET: “Squeezed by high ingredient and energy prices, companies are in a bind. They don’t want to see profits drop, but raising prices could be risky. Instead, a lot of companies have indulged in the time-honored recessionary practice of holding product prices steady while shrinking package sizes by tiny amounts — an ounce here, a half an inch there — and hoping that customers won’t care, or maybe even notice.”

(Via Bnet.)

So the food business’ is deciding to cut down on how much they give you so they don’t have to raise prices and you won’t get angry. Well, surprise, surprise there. Umm, what do you think about that?

So who are some of the businesses doing this?

Kelloggs: shrunk its cereal boxes by an average of 2.4 ounces

Skippy: ostensibly the same dimensions, but on the newer jar where parent company, Unilever has ripped out 1.7 ounces of the butter you should get by adding a rounded indent at the bottom.

Dial: the soap maker has shrunk its bars of soap by 0.5 ounces from 4.5 to 4 ounces.

Quilted Northern: who makes Ultra Plush toilet paper lost 0.5 inches on the width of its toilet roll.

Burger King: they’ve been experimenting with a smaller-sized patty for its $1 Whopper Jr.

McDonald’s: they’re introducing a new double cheeseburger with two patties but only one slice of cheese. I guess cheese lovers will certainly feel shafted.

Have you seen any other companies cut down on how much they give you? Do you think this is fair?

Guess the restaurant portions are going to get smaller too – I’ve been hearing that sit down restaurants are taking a real hit while fast food remains steady. A shame.

Beautiful Nails Without Health Risks

Nail-Aid Nail Treatments Give Teens Beautiful Nails Without Risking Their Health – PR.com: “Florida-based nail treatments manufacturer Nail-Aid supports the action recommendations from a recent study that found an average of 13 hormone-altering chemicals in teenage girls. The Environmental Working Group found that teenagers who used mass-market body care and cosmetics products were at risk of exposure to hormone-altering chemicals on a daily basis. Hormone-altering chemicals can affect body systems including the reproductive system and immune system. Since girls experience a rapid maturation of all major body systems during their teenage years, they are particularly at risk for negative long-term health consequences from exposure to these chemicals. The EWG’s study found hormone-altering chemicals including parabens, triclosan, musks, and phthalates in all of the teenage girls tested.”

(Via PR.com.)

Back when I was a high school, one of the gals in my classes used to wear an enormous amount of perfume. Used to drive me mad – with painful migraines. So spare some of your more sensitive guests – make it a scent free event (grins). Wonder if nail polish fumes are as bad?

Toxic Nails – watch out for the skull and cross bones! (Photo:  Angela Jones – PS.  Angela I have nothing against your nails only the nail stuff in the polish)

6,000 Pounds of Produce on a Quarter-Acre

HomeGrown, The Film: 6,000 Pounds of Produce on a Quarter-Acre
Announcement published by www.CultureChange.org

Read the complete article:
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=235&Itemid=1

Robert McFalls’ new film, HomeGrown is the inspiring story of the Dervaes family – father, son and two daughters – that run a small organic farm in the heart of urban Pasadena, California.

Living off the grid, they harvest more than 6,000 pounds of produce on
less than a quarter-acre of land, make their own biodiesel, power their
computers with the help of solar panels, and maintain a Web site that gets
4,000 hits a day. The film offers an intimate portrait of urban pioneers
living a “Little House on the Prairie” existence in the 21st century.

You can see the trailer for the film above, or at www.homegrown-film.com
or on You Tube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z54yRKjiSxA.

HomeGrown will just screened New York City’s Lincoln Center as part of
their Green Screens series on November 3rd at the Walter Reade Theater at
Lincoln Center, New York City.

Read the complete article:
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=235&Itemid=1

Thank you Jan Lundberg and the folks at Culture Change for the notification!

Urban TO Farm Gets Grant to Reduce Climate Change [PRESS RELEASE]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Toronto, Ontario

URBAN FARM GETS GRANT FROM CITY TO REDUCE CLIMATE CHANGE WHILE GROWING GOOD FOOD AND SOIL FOR TORONTONIANS

Left to Right: Ashlee Cooper, Susan Butler, David Miller, David Wild, Sunny Lam and Sunday Harrison (Photo: Shelli Wild)

FoodCycles, an organization who will be regenerating Toronto’s soils while growing salad greens all year round in the city, has been awarded one of six Live Green Toronto Capital Fund grants today by Mayor David Miller. The grant will be used to fund FoodCycles’ flagship project of two large hoop houses totaling 2,500 square feet, and a composting operation. The project’s main goal is to create high-quality soil so that Toronto’s community gardens and gardeners can grow their own food but FoodCycles will also grow healthy, local, chemical-free food for sale or trade in order to generate revenue to sustain the operation. FoodCycles will eventually raise local, hormone- and antibiotic-free fish and bees and educate the public on gardening and composting skills and on how they can reduce their carbon footprint.

“FoodCycles will help Toronto reduce greenhouse gas emissions by putting up to 80 tonnes of carbon back into the soil every year through our composting operation. This number will only grow as we expand our operations,” said Sunny Lam, a FoodCycles organizer. “A typical city truck travels 82,000 km a year to deliver and process organic waste for Toronto. FoodCycles can do that traveling only 3,400 km – that’s a difference of 24 times. By composting locally, we will prevent the release of up to 150 tonnes of greenhouse gases. Furthermore, FoodCycles activities will provide at least $45,000 of waste recycling environmental services annually and this will only grow as operations expand.”

FoodCycles will get its operations going by the end of this year and no later than next season. It is currently looking into establishing itself at Parc Downsview Park and a location at Hwy 401 and Weston Rd. The FoodCycles board includes 10 members with experience in dealing with diverse communities, social justice, urban agriculture, organic farm work, greenhouse growing, mid-scale composting, vermicomposting, curriculum development and education, management, and event planning. The project has the support of several sponsoring organizations including FoodShare, Evergreen, the Toronto Food Policy Council and the Toronto Community Gardening Network.

-30-

MEDIA CONTACT:

Sunny Lam

Organizer (Communications, Outreach)

FoodCycles

T: 416 845 0818

http://foodcycles.org || http://www.linkedin.com/in/sunnylam

“Growing vibrant soil, food and community.”

Dying for the Rich

Dying for the Rich :: Views :: thetyee.ca: “The rich robbing the poor

The problem is not the poor robbing the rich through taxes, but the rich robbing the poor through tax cuts that wreck the infrastructure. And the rich have to the chutzpah to tell us that this robbery is the way to prosperity for all.”

Awww… Defenseless kittens, time to give me the money. Can’t make things fair for you now can we?

(Via The Tyee.)

I found the last part of this article to be so true (continued from the previous quote):

Governments excuse themselves from delivering social services because they don’t have the tax revenues any more. So private education and health care begin to look good to the affluent, while public education and health care, like public housing and transit, become down-market services for losers.

Because so many people still believe in Horatio Alger, the income-gap debate has stayed away from the health issue. Even the NDP and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives define the problem as one of fairness — as if poverty were simply a needless inconvenience to the poor.

If the Raphaels and Wilkinsons are right, however, the growing income gap in Canada — as in the U.S., Britain, Russia, and China — is literally a matter of life and death. The poor are dying early to subsidize the rich, who are too stupid to realize they’re dying early too.

Dennis Raphael quotes the 19th-century Prussian physician Rudolf Virchow, who 150 years ago argued that “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.”

Virchow was wrong about some things, but he was dead right about that.