Location(s)

The World Peace Diet Lecture with Dr. Will Tuttle
Friday, September 5, 2008

Join Mercy For Animals for an informative lecture by Dr. Will Tuttle, who will present the main ideas in his groundbreaking and provocative book, The World Peace Diet. It is the first book to make explicit the invisible connections between our meals and our broad range of problems -- psychological, social, and spiritual, as well as health and environmental.

Dr. Tuttle offers powerful ways we can all experience healing and peace and contribute to a positive transformation of human consciousness.

Vegan snacks will be provided.

Where:     Cleveland Heights Library, 2345 Lee Rd. Cleveland Hts OH
When:       6:00 p.m. vegan snacks,  6:30 p.m. lecture begins

"Use The World Peace Diet as a guide to empower yourselves and others in making dietary choices that are powerful beyond what you can possibly imagine."  Julia Butterfly Hill, environmental activist and founder, Circle Of Life Foundation

"The World Peace Diet is one of the most provocative books I've ever read. This is a deep book, aglow with insights that penetrate and expose the complacency of a culture that has strayed painfully far from compassion."        John Robbins, noted author

"Will Tuttle brings a priceless perspective -- not only to the planetary crisis confronting us all, but also to powerful ways we each can affect it. This book is radiant with his learning and his compassion."      Dr. Joanna Macy, author, Coming Back To Life

"I am grateful for this powerful and cogent book. It has stretched my thinking (and heart) about animals, compassion, and our society."   John Mackey, founder, Whole Foods, Inc.

Visit www.worldpeacediet.org for more information.

Location(s)

Northeast Ohio Sierra Club gathering with a speaker on socially responsible investing.

In addition to giving the gift of spending time with loved ones, what other ways will you show the love for your home and the planet this holiday season? For the second year, we’ve collected ideas of the best local, green, or just plain thoughtful gifts—in the hope of (somewhat) relieving the burden of being generous and eco-friendly.

This year, Gang Greener Chuck Ackerman pitches in his best ideas on where to shop for local & green gifts. Or "no" gift: “My partner and I have agreed to not buy gifts for each other and do something the other wants to do but maybe you don’t (I guess I’m going to be watching Ishtar or going bowling).

Also, read GreenCityBlueLake's green gift guide here.

This holiday season, you can find green, natural, buy local gift giving guides everywhere (TreeHugger has one). For other green ways to celebrate the holidays check out this blog.

Here’s mine.

First, buy as little as possible. Make stuff, cook a dinner for someone, do something that they want to do but maybe you don’t. My partner and I have agreed to not buy gifts for each other and do something like the above. (I guess I’m going to be watching Ishtar or going bowling. My son says it’s because I’m cheap not because I’m green. I remember a friend in high school who would break up with his girlfriend right before Christmas and then make up after. Green before his time).

I know this non-buying can be very difficult if you have children, especially younger ones, who might expect Hannah Montana stuff or whatever the latest craze is. I clearly remember driving all over to find an Optimus Prime. Sometimes we feel like “bad parents” if we don’t get them whatever else is getting. I have three almost grown children and when they talk about fun moments as younger kids, it’s never the Play Mobil Dollhouse but times together.

Here are some links of great ideas, though, if you decide you want to buy gifts:

• Cool Cleveland's holiday gift guide
• Heights Arts holiday gift show
• Support Fair Trade and small artisan communities this Sunday (Dec. 9) and other days this month.
• And check out last year's guide from GreenCityBlueLake, a lot of it is still useful.

A few other thoughts:

Just as Linus in A Charlie Brown Christmas reminds us of the true spirit of the holidays, this essay by Bob Hinkle, Ph.D., Chief of Outdoor Education at the Cleveland Metroparks, is a simple, but powerful reminder of what we’re really looking for at the winter holidays:

Love, time and caring are not obtainable in any mall this season, or any season. They are gifts of the heart, and unique to you and me. They are not found in glittering decorations, or twinkling lights, or in mind-numbing music. They are gifts that are found in small quiet places and unexpected times. You can create them, if you try.

Read on.

A few weeks ago Lisa Warner came to my house and talked to about a half-a-dozen or so Gang Greeners about rain gardens. (if you want me to be on the email list of this group send me an email at chuckackerman@sbcglobal.net). Folks brought shovels and were ready to dig and actually build one, but we couldn’t because it was raining!

Lisa had come earlier in the week and measured my roof (potential run off) and figured out what size the garden was going to be. She also did the homework on how many “rain events” this area gets and she did a “percolation” test to determine how fast my soil will take the water. Here’s the design she came up with:

What’s a rain garden? Here’s what Wikipedia says. Basically, I’m going to disconnect one of my downspouts and divert the rainwater to a kind of dug-out area in my front yard. I will then put some plants there that can withstand being in water for a period of time but also thrive when it doesn’t rain. Maybe I’ll make a nice stone or brick border. FYI, the city will be looking at (and hopefully passing) legislation that would allow residents to do this (without needing a variance). Right now it’s technically a no-no.

Here’s a picture of what a finished rain garden could look like

Why do I want to put one in?

1) Less yard area to mow
2) It will look great
3) I will help keep our rivers, streams and Lake Erie cleaner
4) I have to keep up with the Jones’, or in this case Emily and Aaron, my neighbors

Bioneers is going to be a tremendous event; starting this Friday, you’ll have a chance to hear the premier speakers on sustainability describe what the future will look like.

First, beaming into Cleveland via satellite, are presenters who figure prominently in moving society toward a more sustainable path. Folks like Van Jones—whose work in Oakland to forge a green "New Deal" coalition so that kids who are now prison fodder will help create a zero-pollution economy, harvest the sun and heal the land instead—share inspiring lessons for Cleveland. Other examples include sustainable business guru Jay Harman, an award-winning inventor and CEO of PAX Scientific, presenting “Designing the next Golden Age”, and Paul Anastas explaining how he “fathered” green chemistry.

Also, check out dozens of local workshops; hear or participate in efforts to enrich community, body, mind and spirit. Just a small sample of the local workshops:

• “Connecting the dots in our local food community” with Darwin Kelsey , Director, Countryside Conservancy, Beth Knorr, Amalie Lipstreau, Chris Norman, and Stephanie Webb.
• “Defining a holistic transportation system for Northeast Ohio” with John McGovern, Clean Fuels Program Coordinator, Earth Day Coalition, Mandy Metcalf, Ecovillage Coordinator, Kevin Cronin, ClevelandBikes and Ryan McKenzie, City Wheels
• Chefs in the know Doug Katz, chef/owner of Fire will offer the latest information about selecting seafood responsibly, and prepare a dish using local seasonal products.
• Plastics from plants, junk, and anything but oil and gas The present state of the art, the future potential, and pitfalls associated with replacing petrochemical feedstocks for plastics. David A. Schiraldi, associate professor and Stuart Rowan, both from the Dept. of Macromolecular Science & Engineering, Case Western Reserve University.

Feed your mind, then unwind with yoga sessions from Atma Center, Tia Chi, films, live music, tours of the Great Lakes Science Center’s wind turbine exhibit, Dike 14 Nature Preserve, the triple-bottom line experience in the Cuyahoga Valley and more. Click here for the full list of presenters and workshops, and to register.

Since Clevelander Chuck Ackerman started rolling in April with his Green Month, a journal about how he's working to reduce his carbon footprint, he’s found just too many topics to explore in 30 days—from his experience of the four-mile walk to work to his latest entry where he looks into saving a near-dead clothes dryer.

And GCBL introduces a new series: “Suburb Guy wants to figure out sustainability”. As the idea of living a sustainable life expands into the mainstream, Orange Village resident and father of three (and my good friend) Evan Cooper, tries to figure out what it all means. This self-titled "Suburb Guy" admittedly is not living a very green life, but, like many people, he “really (does) want to be better. I care about my future and that of my children and their children.”

So, our 20-year-old clothes dryer’s motor died, and the repair guy said a new one would cost $180. (I have been hanging clothes to dry in the basement and outside but sometimes we “need” one). I started checking out new ones, and quickly found out there are no Energy Star-rated clothes dryers for some reason. The only energy saving device I found available was a moisture sensor that tells the machine to shut off when the clothes are dry.

I mentioned my pending acquisition to my daughter, who said, “Dad, what about being green? What about buying a used one?”

Thank you, Liz.

So we called the repair guy back, and he came out and got the old one goin’. At the risk of sounding like Dick Feagler, folks used to repair stuff more instead of buying a new one.

Miscellany:

Although this summer’s lack of rain was not good in many respects, it did mean I didn’t have to use my hand push mower but a few times!

Here’s some books I’ve been reading, all from the Cleveland Public Library;

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle- Author Barbara Kingsolver chronicles of her eating only local food
• Deep Economy – Bill McKibben’s newest
• Cradle to Cradle - Remaking the Way We Make Things - Not printed on a pulp paper
• Plenty - One man, one woman, and a raucous year of eating locally
• Blessed Unrest: how the largest movement in the world came into being, and why no one saw it coming by Paul Hawken
• Mongo, Adventures in Trash - by Ted Botha – Chronicles the ups and downs of dumpster divers, trash pickers and other recyclers in NYC.
• Paper or Plastic: Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World by Daniel Imhoff

Finally, green can be painful. I’ve been trying to buy things that are packaged other than in plastic. I take heavy doses of non-flush Niacin daily, but the only Niacin I could find in glass bottles were not non-flush, and ouch! 30 minutes feeling like someone was sticking me with needles.

I recently attended a “Learn and Groove” session on September 17th in the Great Lakes Brewing Co. beer garden presented by City Fresh and The New Agrarian Center. The session welcomed guests to learn about permaculture techniques used to restore degraded land around the world from Australian expert Darren Doherty.

Darren comes from Bendigo, in Australia, near Melbourne. He, his wife and their three children have been traveling on a self-funded tour of the world teaching in lectures and hands-on instruction the power of the permaculture movement. Darren spoke about going beyond sustainable to regenerative farms. These farms feature water preservation and reliance on few outside resources.

A key aspect to the farming techniques he discussed is the use of the keyline system which cuts into soil but doesn’t break it up; building more soil depth and allowing it to hold more water. Using gradually deeper lines, the roots are cut down and carbon is released into the soil. In three seasons, land that was un-plantable can have eighteen inches of fertile top soil. The technique was developed by Alan Yeoman who discusses in his book Priority One his theory that “we could reverse global warming in ten years. The key is to get the worlds' grass back into active production by the use of herbivores (a la buffalo).”^₁

An initial major planning and land-shaping activity takes place to ensure all water is stored and distributed through the farm with no run-off from the property of water or soil. This includes the use of strategically placed ponds (he calls them dams), often in key points which are natural places water will gather. The land is then shaped into a series of parallel rows, using plow patterns to distribute water evenly over the property, using gravity as much as possible.