bmtv88 Your Lawn, Our Ocean

This video entry is to explain some recent goings-on as well as tell about a good friend who gave up growing a green lawn in suburbia. Around the same time he was telling me this, I had also visited the Jersey shore where there were reports of an dangerous explosion in the Jelly Fish population. The causes? Nitrogen from all the fertilizers people use on their lawns that washes into the ocean. Another cause, warm water from the Oyster Bay nuclear power plant nearby.

My focus here is more on the fertilizer and energy wasted on lawn care versus the price we pay collectively for the damage done to the environment.? This situation was very well illustrated by a recent edition of On Point from NPR.? Wherever you live, I encourage you to stop watering the lawn, stop fertilizing, take a stand in your everyday life and change this rediculous and dangerous suburban tradition.

Shifting Focus to Soy

Jetlagged and back in Amsterdam, I wanted to announce an issue that will be one of my primary focuses for the rest of the year. After a very good experience speaking about urban farming at the Last Hope Conference, where I received alot of enthusiastic and warm responses, I’m now looking to tackle something more difficult, that I feel warrants my attention as well as yours.

That topic is the soy industry.? You’ll recall the podcast a few months ago on Responsible Soy, which not only opened my eyes to alot of facts that I had not previously considered but gave me alot of leads as to who to talk to and what rocks to look under.? And when we’re talking about the soy industry, there are plenty of creatures players hiding under the preverbial rock.

From organizations to corporations, from trade unions to government agencies, from activists to scientists, I intend to look at how soy is grown, processed,? and ultimately distributed in your part of the world. Because this industry is much larger than I ever imagined and engaging in practices that have gone without sufficient criticism or scrutiny.

Besides podcasts, I hope to present this issue and my investigation at my most favorite annual gathering in December, the Chaos Communication Congress (25th edition this year).

Why make such an announcement? Because this site is not only dedicated to reporting and commentary, it is also a place where I can present ideas like a drawing board. Only this is a drawing board that is open to you the readers and listeners, where you can know and observe how these ideas develope and (should I be so lucky) you can also suggest tactics or ask questions that will become part of the process.

RAN Video Recommendation

Still in mid conference mode. The Last Hope is going very smoothly and filled with good friends and new faces.? In the meantime I have a recommendation for you:

I’ve spoken in the past about RyanisHungry, Ryanne and Jay’s project dedicated to caputuring aspects of the “green movement” in a video blog. Well they’ve released another classic video, this time the focus is on the work of the Rainforest Action Network. Not only is the organization itself very interesting and doing important work, but the video itself is very produced… hence this recommendation.

Im Speaking on Urban Farming

Greetings from Philadelphia.? A note to all blog readers, podcast listeners, vlog watchers, and friends:

This Friday. July 18th, at 16h00 at the Hotel Pennsylvania, right across from Penn Station in New York City, I’ll be giving a talk as part of the Last Hope conference.? At the last hackers on planet earth conference I’ll be speaking about all that Ive learned regarding urban farming and activities relating to food that groups of people are engaging in throughout North America and other parts of the world.

The conference is sure to be a giant circus of activities you can’t see anywhere else and that you would expect from some of the most creative minds on earth. I’ll be there Friday and Saturday checking out some of the talks on issues of Electronic Voting, privacy, tricking people into meditating, and the big corporate sing along.

This note is a reminder that if you’re going to be in the NYC area you can still come and join the fun, tickets are available for all three days. More info, including the full schedule and a little blurb describing my talk are on the website.? MAybe I’ll see you there?

Now back to Philly festivities.

Abandoned US

Sitting in my cousin Dan’s car driving through some lovely central Connecticut landscape, he points to something huge coming up on the right side of the car. “Look back there, you’ll see a huge building!”? Just beyond the trees that line the two lane road, I see what looks like a brand new shopping mall. Only with a second glance do I notice that the futuristic structure is surrounded by overgrown weeds and unfinished parking lots.? Looking in the building itself, you can see it is completely empty. “That was going to be a headquarters for one of the big mortgage lenders, until they went under” he told me.? In their wake these mortgage lenders have of course laid off many people, and as an enormous reminder of their recklessness, giant never used buildings dot our landscapes.

Driving through the different sections of Newark, I notice the familiar buildings that lay empty, “FOR RENT” and “SPACE AVAILABLE” signs that have turned yellow after sitting in the window for more than a decade. Housing projects, which were never paradise by any means, lay abandoned and boarded up… I’m reminded of my visit to New Orleans, and the fenced off condemned housing projects there.? One block further up on Muhammed Ali Boulevard I slow down the car as I scan a vast open construction project, what looks like a huge amount of low income housing being constructed. A few blocks away, more abandoned store fronts.

Scanning the feed from the Portuguese newspaper “O Publico” I see the headline about a German toy company that once based its factory in Portugal and moved to China in the late 90’s.? The story was about their return to Portugal due to the high costs of fuel and transport of their goods from China.? Being once again based in Portugal now seems more economically sound for this company, which means new jobs… or perhaps.. the return of old jobs to some community.

Abandoned buildings have long been a fact of life in much of the United States, especially in Newark.? As I thought back to them, reading this story about Portugal, I began to daydream about a scenario where factories and businesses that were once based in Newark returned. Picturing the abandoned buildings, long considered an eye sore, being now seen as valuable space to set up shop.? How happy the people in the new houses and the old houses alike might be. A real renaissance for places long forgotten. Or perhaps some people and places not so long ago left behind and abandoned.

bmtv87 Killing Fields and S21 Vlog

Im still getting over jetlag and settling in here in the US. In the meantime here is a video entry recorded in Cambodia last month. It features my visit to the killing fields and the s21 torture prison.