Just when I thought I'd heard it all, from Treehugger.com a DIY (do-it-yourself) kit to turn urine into fertilizer:

What role do our bodies play in larger ecosystems? That's the question asked by drinkpeedrinkpeedrinkpee, a project and installation that opens at Eyebeam in New York City today. The installation features a large scale physical diagram that shows the role our bodies play in the water cycle, and DIY kits for using your pee as plant fertilizer will be available.

Only for the true DIY'er.

Thought I'd share an editorial in today's News & Observer, reflecting on the most recent developments in the Ag-Mart case (see The Tip of the Injustice Iceberg, Ag-Mart Part II, and It's Not Over Till It's Over).

Yesterday I actually went to meeting of the Governor's Task Force on Pesticides, in support of pesticide safety for farmworkers. Activists in the community are urging this Task Force to require employers to keep accurate pesticide records, ensure the anonymity of workers who wish to file a complaint against their employers, require employers to provide phones and adequate showers for workers' safety, and increase the fine of pesticide violations, as triggered by the Ag-Mart case.

We'll keep you posted as the saga continues...

Ever since I cut red meat out of my diet about six years ago, I'm always fielding the question "so...why don't you eat pork?" Usually, I site environmental reasons attributed to the disposal of hog waste in unsound hog lagoons and sprayfields, as well concerns about hog farms and environmental justice. However, there's much more to it than that. 

North Carolina is the second-largest pork producer state in the United States. According to a recent article from the The Daily Tarheel, the Smithfield Packing Plant in Tar Heel, NC slaughters 32,000 pigs a day. 32,000!!! A day!!! The pork is then shipped all over the world—creating a huge carbon footprint. And as for the thousands upon thousands of workers at the Smithfield Plant and their rights and treatment, well...that's another story.

But there's an emerging trend in the agricultural community: sustainable, local, organic hog farming. These farms offer smaller, more environmentally-sound practices, pasture-raised hogs, less of an impact to surrounding communities (in terms of odor and waste disposal), and, of course, the ability to buy pork locally—supporting communities and reducing ye olde carbon footprint.

The main concern, of course, is that buying local, sustainable pork means paying more up front. Some businesses and schools find it hard to support the organic farms due to these monetary constraints. The good news is that there are groups like NC Choices and FLO Foods to help support local farmers, develop community partnerships, and promote sustainable agriculture. 

The good news (for meat-eaters, at least)? This little piggy went organic and went to market.

If you're of the legal drinking age and concerned about making your St. Patrick's Day as truly green as possible, search no more. Forget the green high-tops and four-leaf-clover headbands and check out this article on making eco-responsible choices when it comes to drinking beers this holiday.

Some things to consider: Should you go glass or aluminum? Do local beers really leave less of an eco-footprint? How is the power generated for the production of the beer?

Below is the first installment of a monthly blog series on Food and the Environment, courtesy of our friend Billie with Toxic Free North Carolina. Stay tuned in future months for more on this series. If you have suggestions for future blog series topics or for blog ideas about Food and the Environment, please contact blog [at] ncconservationnetwork.org.

There's an exciting (and delicious) trend afoot: college campuses in North Carolina are turning to locally-produced, organic foods for their dining services and on-campus restaurants! To get up to speed on what Triangle campuses are doing, check out this great article in the IndyWeek about the "FLO Food" movement at UNC, and similar efforts at Duke and NCSU.

Across the state, students and staff at colleges and universities are working on getting their own dining halls to go local and organic, and it's not just the crunchy colleges you might think of first, either! This is really exciting to me for a lot of reasons, but to sum up the highlights -

If a college campus can do it, just about anyone can. At the top of the list of reasons why people don't eat local and organic food, you'll probably find things like "it costs too much," or "it's hard to find," or, for large-scale kitchens, "there's not a large and consistent enough supply for what my restaurant/school/etc needs." But, goshdarnit, if a university dining service that makes thousands of meals a day can do it, than so can just about anyone! I think our NC university dining services are dispelling some important myths about buying local and organic food:

• It doesn't necessarily cost more, and when it does, it's often worth it. I like the example of the hamburger made of local grass-fed beef that costs $1 more, but students buy more of them anyway because they taste better and it's the right thing to do. If you're truly strapped for cash, that $1 really might not be worth it, but I think a lot more people could, and would, make that choice if they had the option.
• You don't have to buy everything local and organic for it to count - start somewhere! According to this article, dining services at Duke are serving between 16% and 35% local foods, depending on the place. That's fantastic, so long as they're not misleading anyone to think that it's more than what it is. As consumers, we have to be like the Duke dining hall - we have to buy as much local and organic stuff as we feasibly can, and trust that with time, it'll get easier. Any business we can consistently send to local and organic farms helps our local economy, environment, and our own health. With a little time, the supply side of the equation will catch up to us, and we'll be able to find more affordable local and organic foods.....but we've got to start buying what we can now!
• It's not just fancy stuff, and it's not just veggies. Nope, "organic food" does not just mean shitake mushrooms, sprouts and broccoli rabe (say what?), and it doesn't just mean something you eat at a fancy restaurant for special occasions. It also comes in normal everyday varieties....your green beans and your mashed potatoes, your carrot sticks and apple juice. And, it's not just your fruits and veggies that come locally produced and organic - it's also meats (pork, beef and poultry), eggs, milk and cheese, honey and more. Heck, it's even your Christmas tree! All these products are available organic and North Carolina-grown, so please don't forget to look for them!

Most of all, this article makes me happy because it's about democratizing good food. By that, I mean that everyone deserves the choice to eat healthy, locally-grown organic food, not just people who live near natural foods stores, and not just wealthy people. When large institutions that serve a broad cross-section of the community commit to providing these options, that's a huge step in improving our food democracy! Where else do we need to see more local and organic food options?

K-12 schools!

Childcare centers!

Office & hospital cafeterias!

Your regular grocery store!

Where would you like to see more local or organic foods? Need help making a plan to get them? Let us know!

Try to ignore the fact that I just recently posted on an eco-friendly car, and check out the YouTube video below, highlighting a car that runs on compressed air. You actually refill the air tank from air compressors at gas stations! It's being marketed as not only environmentally-sound, but inexpensive (about $15,000). It can go up to 60mph, and you get 200 miles per tank. What's more is that guess what it emits? Clean, breathable air. Seems too good to be true! I wonder if it is...

First it was the proposed Cliffside power plant:
Gubernatorial Candidate, Richard Moore, came out first saying that the Cliffside plant can wait. This was followed only hours later by Gubernatorial Candidate, Beverly Perdue, who also said the plant can wait.

It's a shame they didn't listen to thousands of citizens across the state who have been asking for officials to STOP Cliffside (not wait).

Today it's Campaign Reform:
This time, Perdue was first out of the gate. Followed a day later by Moore supporting the exact same proposal...One initially proposed in 1995 - a bit outdated wouldn't you say?

I find this both interesting and frustrating. It's interesting because the two lead Gubernatorial candidates are coming out proactively on our issues: clean air, renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean & fair elections, getting special interests out of politics...

What's frustrating is that it seems these two candidates aren't talking to groups who work day in and day out on these issues. And, because the candidates aren't connected, their proposals are weak and/or outdated.

Perdue and Moore should be applauded (please note that the NC Conservation Network does not endorse candidates) for their attempts to do the right thing on clean energy and clean elections. But, we should also encourage them to take real stands on the issues if they are serious about protecting public health and the health of our democracy. Candidates should talk to the organizations and individuals who know most about the issues before they paint themselves green and stick a feather in their cap. Because, unfortunately, candidates' proposals often fall short of meaning real change.

[This blog entry has been cross posted from Toxic Free North Carolina's weblog, Fair Ground, where it was originally posted by Billie.]

I was already a big skeptic of biofuels before today. Using cropland to grow giant monocultures that are then burned as fuel instead of fed to people seems like a not-so-hot idea - think of the pesticides! More mono-cropping means more chemical pesticides and fertilizers that end up harming downwind and downstream communities and ecosystems. Yuck!

Today, I learned that two recent studies confirm that in addition to being a source of pesticide pollution, biofuels aren't actually preventing global warming either. Princeton University and The Marshall Fund published a study in the journal Science, and The Nature Conservancy has put out a study with similar conclusions.

From an article in The Washington Post on these findings:

"(...) As the study from the Nature Conservancy warns, 'converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia and the United States creates a 'biofuel carbon debt' by releasing 17 to 420 times more carbon dioxide than the fossil fuels they replace.' There are other negative effects. Massive amounts of water are needed to irrigate cornfields, setting up potential competition between farms and homes. The runoff of pesticides and nitrogen-based fertilizers used by farmers could lead to increased pollution and oxygen-depleted waterways. The natural gas used to make the fertilizer adds to the carbon deficit created by biofuels.

An essay in the May-June 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs by two professors from the University of Minnesota highlighted still another problem: The biofuels craze could starve people. "By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world," they wrote. "If oil prices remain high -- which is likely -- the people most vulnerable to the price hikes brought on by the biofuel boom will be those in countries that both suffer food deficits and import petroleum."

Will someone please get the memo to decision makers in Washington who are pouring money into biofuels right now?? Eep!