March / April 2009 Newsletter
SECOND ANNUAL SUSTAINABILITY FAIR
and EARTH DAY CELEBRATION!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
“Going Green = Saving Green:
Food, Water, Power”
Presented by:
Ozaukee Community Awareness Forum
and
We are pleased to announce that the 2009 Sustainability Fair will be
held at the Forest Beach Migratory Preserve
(formerly
the Squires Country Club property), 6 miles north of Port Washington on beautiful Lake
Michigan! The fair
will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The time to look at ourselves, our families and our
communities in terms of environmental sustainability is NOW! Come
and enjoy and learn and take home new ideas.
Major speakers will include:
John Peck, Family Farm Defenders; and Tom Dueppen,
Also available for visits and conversation will be
exhibits by businesses, organizations, and individuals on
sustainable gardening, solar panel installation, aquaponics, energy
efficiency programs, the family farm, and more!
The Sierra Club will give out FREE LED light bulbs and other
surprises; there will be music, raffles, and a poster contest
display. We will have a
space dedicated to children’s environmental art. You will also have
an opportunity to view part of several environmental videos during
lunch, if you wish.
So plan to be with us and bring your family and
friends! FREE!
Bring a bag lunch, or reserve a bag lunch, which will be for
sale, with proceeds going to Habitat for Humanity. (Call 262-268-0526 or
email
marjayrog@milwpc.com to reserve a bag lunch.)
(Directions:
6.5 miles north of
LET’S GET STARTED …
Four simple steps to cutting your carbon footprint … with amazing
results!
·
Cut out one 20 minute car trip each week; if 35,000 people
did this regularly during the course of a 13 week summertime season,
2,240 tons of CO2 would be saved, the equivalent of an additional
597 acres of new rainforest.
·
Another 123 tons of CO2 could be saved by 1/3 if those same
35,000 people (with lawnmowers) cut mowing time by 5 minutes each
week (a lawnmower is like a 1/3 size car).
A suggestion for cutting this time: allow part of your yard
to go wild; another 99 acres of rainforest saved
·
Buy local foods, transport less.
Purchase more food grown locally, shop at farmers markets,
purchase shares in CSA programs; shaving off 10% of the travel
distance for a big pickup truck load would result in another 689
acres of rainforest saved by those 35,000 people
·
Eat less meat: the simplest suggestion on the list – pick one
day to skip meat. The
impact on the environment is incredible because the waste,
production and transport of livestock are responsible for 18 percent
of all greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire transportation
sector!
Simple steps with which we can all start!
Come to the Sustainability Fair with your ideas to
share about how you are cutting your carbon footprint!
A
FOOD CRISIS FOR THE
We
are focused on solutions to our economic problems short term, but
both Michael Pollan, food author and activist, and Wes Jackson,
president of the Land Institute, caution that we must pay more
attention to our soil over the long term. “If we squander the
ecological capital of the soil, the capital on paper won’t much
matter.” Mr. Jackson
wants our leadership to consider a 50-year farm bill, which would be
a plan for sustainable agriculture capable of producing healthy food
and protecting our precious soil.
He says we are inclined to believe, absurdly, that “if we
have money, we will have food”, but many of our present food
production practices are harmful to the land and the environment.
Taking care of our soil and water resources means making some
real changes in the way agriculture is practiced; a new model is
needed which is closer to the natural cycle.
A 50-year farm bill, according to Mr. Jackson, would
represent “a vision that stresses the need to protect soil from
erosion, cut the wastefulness of water, cut fossil-fuel dependence,
eliminate toxins in soil and water, manage carefully the nitrogen of
the soil, reduce dead zones, restore an agrarian way of life and
preserve farmland from development.”
He says that people are ready to explore what it would mean
to come home, not to a romanticized vision of the past but to a
sustainable future.
Adapted from the article “Is
FOOD FOR THOUGHT AND ACTION: A FOOD SOVEREIGNTY CURRICULUM
Grassroots International and the National Family Farm Coalition have
developed an education-for-action curriculum which is free and
available online at:
www.foodforthoughtandaction.org.
It can be used as a discussion tool for any group in the
community. Four
modules have been developed:
one each for consumers, faith and anti-hunger groups,
environmentalists and farmers, all to help people understand the
ways in which food sovereignty and locally based food systems rooted
in social justice and environmental sustainability can be practical
alternatives to unsustainable industrial
agriculture.
UP TO SPEED OR NOT?
It is now legal to carry a loaded and concealed weapon in our national
parks, but … the parks themselves may soon be concealed by smog,
thanks to an attempt by former President Bush’s EPA to weaken
air-pollution regulations near parks and wilderness areas.
This EPA also said that the poultry and beef industries no longer
have to report toxic fumes from decomposing manure piles.
Tell that to the local communities who have to suffer through
the stink!
Processing oil sands in
Think we need a new EPA?
Ken Salazar, are you listening?
-
Adapted from
the March/April issue of the Sierra Magazine.
WE’RE
PROUD OF:
Claire Vanderslice, a member of OCAF, has been a Ozaukee County delegate to the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, and as a member of the Environmental Committee (now the "Air, Waste and Water" Committee) she introduced and worked for years on Conservation Congress resolutions regarding environmental issues which have since become adopted as regulations or state law concerning the following:
- a metallic sulfide mining moratorium, groundwater protection, reducing mercury emissions,
- a ban on phosphate fertilizers, regulations on high capacity wells,
- a ban on baiting and feeding of deer to prevent disease transmission.
Other issues on which Claire has worked while a
delegate but are still pending include returning to
the non-political appointment of the DNR Secretary, and prevention
of dioxin pollution from burn barrels. Way to go, Claire!
The Wisconsin
Conservation Congress was established by the father
of
WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER:
On February
25 at Tello’s, members of OCAF met with representatives of the Obama
teams from Grafton, Cedarburg and
OTHER COMING EVENTS
April 16: An
Inconvenient Truth:
Al Gore presents facts about global warming in a
non-political but passionate way.
May 21: The Sacred
Balance, with David Suzuki: Journey into Worlds:
What have
we gained or lost from the achievements of science?
Celebrating our interconnectedness!
June
20-22:
PARTING
THOUGHT
“Commonly,
the less you get, the happier and richer you are.”
- Henry David Thoreau, WILD FRUITS.