New Format

As Providence & Beyond evolves, we are trying to focus on five sites in the area. This will let us see how the different issues we investigate affect the same location or lab site.

Rather than bring in an outside speaker, as we have in the past, we decided to dedicate that time to an introductory multimedia presentation and a panel discussion, starting with prepared questions from Robert Leaver based on the presentation. Then the panel took questions from the group at large before joining us the "traditional" cafe tables. Our panelists - from left to right - were:

• Josh Miller of Local 121
• Greg Gerritt of the Urban Agriculture Task Force in Providence
• Catherine Ady from Woonsocket City Planning

We at New Commons felt the format worked well, generating focused conversation that centered on our region, rather than the issue. So we talked about urban food - as it applies to our cities, specifically. Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

Did this new format have any impact on the events that transpired? Who knows. But remarkable things happened. That much is certain.

Idea 1: Connecting Community Gardens with Restaurants

Thinking: Josh Miller told us about how Local 121 has become a defacto sponsor of a local community garden by purchasing their crops. And the evolution of their relationship is instructive.

At first, the gardeners brought whatever produce they had to the restaurant, and Local 121's chefs would create menu items based on what was available. This limited the amount the restaurant would buy because, since the menu was already set, these could only be used on 'specials'.

But, over the next winter, the restaurant and the gardeners met and planned their summer together. The chefs were able to request specific crops that, given a regular and ongoing supply, could support 'regular' menu items. Gardeners could plan their crops to meet this demand and help the chefs plan a highly localized seasonal menu. 

Linking & Doing: Joe Vaughan from LISC seized on this idea of linking community gardens with restaurants, because finding an ongoing revenue stream to at least partially fund the costs of running a community garden would be key to enabling community gardening at the Sustainable Communities sites. He is actively pursuing the idea with restaurants.

Idea 2: Creating a Portfolio of Brownfields for Remediation

Thinking: This idea grew out of a discussion of the main challenge of siting urban community gardens in the Providence region: virtually every square yard of available soil is contaminated. Remediation costs money. Then Terry Gray of DEM put forth a most remarkable notion. He said he could more easily fund the remediation of a large portfolio of small sites than he could fund the remediation of each site individually.

Linking & Doing : Margaux Morrisseau of NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley works in an area dotted with contaminated sites. She is developing a portfolio to bring to DEM. 

We'll try to keep you posted on how these projects unfold. Hopefully, we'll have be able to play a direct role in creating more community gardens in Providence & Beyond.

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Do you think that sounds melodramatic? Let me give it to you from the abstract of a scientific paper written earlier this year by one of the people who now work for Mr. Obama, NASA scientist James Hansen. "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleo-climate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 [in the atmosphere] will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm." In other words, if we keep increasing carbon any longer, the earth itself will make our efforts moot.

The world is meeting in Copenhagen in December of 2009 to come up with a successor to the Kyoto treaty, the modest first international effort that George W. Bush walked away from weeks after taking office. If Hansen and others are even close to right, this will represent the last legitimate shot the world has at putting itself on a new carbon regime in time to make any difference.

Any hope of succeeding will require Obama to grasp, deep in his guts, the fact that climate, energy, food, and the economy are now hopelessly intertwined, and that trying to solve any one of these problems without taking on the others simply makes all of them worse. More, he needs to understand, again viscerally, the single stark fact of our time: No matter how many votes, no matter how much lobbying, no matter how much pressure you apply, you can't amend the laws of physics and chemistry. They aren't like the laws that politicians are used to dealing with. They will be obeyed, like it or not. 350 is now the most important number on the planet, the red line that defines reality reality.

It doesn't define political reality, however. The political reality goes like this: George W. Bush was so terrible on this issue that the bar has been set incredibly low - Obama will get all the political points he needs with fairly minimal effort. Doing what actually needs to be done will be politically...unpopular isn't even the word. It might well wreck his political future, because it would involve - directly or indirectly - raising the cost of continuing to live as we do right now.

My guess, from the outside, is that all Obama's instincts are centrist. Certainly in energy policy he's offered nothing all that bold or interesting, though his sophistication and engagement have grown during the campaign, which is a good sign.

A better sign is simply that, by every testimony, he's one of the smartest men ever to assume high political office in this country. Not just smarter than Bush. Really smart. Smart enough, if he sits down to really understand the scale of the problem he faces, that he might decide to take the gambles that the situation requires. He said, not long ago, "under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket" - which is a sign of someone who is aware there may be a reality to come to grips with.

First sign to watch for: Does he go to Poland next month for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, and in so doing electrify the international talks over carbon?

All of us, you and I and all our partners, have been hard at work to collect over 44,000 invitations for President-elect Obama to attend that meeting.  We have heard him say he's interested and will at the least send a high level representative next month.

Obama, and the rest of us, have a lot more to fear than fear itself. We've got carbon, and right now that's the most frightening stuff on earth. Nonetheless, we're feeling inspired and hopeful about the new possibilities that exist after this election - for the US and for the world. It's now up to us to make sure the steps for Obama and for our global movement are laid out in rapid succession.  The next step is in Poland: www.350.org/invite

We're in this together,

Bill McKibben

click here for the orginal article

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I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

© 2008, Alice Walker

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