For 25 years, Chelsea Green has been the publishing leader for books on the politics and practice of sustainable living. They are a founding member of the Green Press Initiative and have been printing books on recycled paper since 1985. They lead the industry both in terms of content-foundational books on renewable energy, green building, organic agriculture, eco-cuisine, and ethical business. Hanging around Chelsea Green’s website is as much fun as your local bookstore, you could easily spend a half a day perusing their great titles, listening to author interviews and watching videos featuring some of their brilliant writers. Many of their writers blog and tweet – they are on the cutting edge of the sustainability movement and the new media movement!
With well over 400 titles in print, its best-selling titles include:
Books on the politics of sustainability including the National Bestseller Don’t Think of an Elephant. George Lakoff’s definitive handbook for progressives to understand and communicate effectively about key political issues started the national discussion on framing the political debate. Over 200,000 copies printed in 6 months; The Man Who Planted Trees, an ecological fable that has sold over 250,000 copies in 18 years, setting a standard for quality of writing, beauty of design and illustration, creative publishing and inspirational message; The Straw Bale House, a revolutionary building book that has sold over 100,000 copies, launching the company’s natural building and renewable energy list and helping establish our recognized leadership in this field; Eliot Coleman’s The Four Season Harvest and The New Organic Grower, landmark books in sustainable agriculture and organic food – just to name a few.

 

 Chelsea Green Publishers – Green before green was green with Michael Weaver [29:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Doug Fine grew up in suburban Long Island, and after graduating from Stanford University, he strapped on a backpack and traveled to five continents; to the places where the world’s moneyed media venues weren’t sending their people.

As a young freelancer, Fine reported in this manner for the Washington Post, Salon, U.S. News and World Report, Sierra, Wired, Outside and other venues from little-visited jungle war zones like Burma, Rwanda, Laos, Guatemala.

Fine recognized that he felt most alive while living and loving in wild ecosystems. Following this impulse he moved to extreme rural Alaska to see if a former suburbanite could survive away from Costco – happiness and self-awareness were the goals. This resulted in his award-nominated first book, Not Really An Alaskan Mountain Man, a book that has been well-reviewed across the country as a wildly-humorous and meaningful adventure narrative.

Now living in rural NM – Fine has written another book called “Farewell my Subaru” which chronicles his efforts to live off fossil fuels and find his own salvation in the process. From solar panels to goat husbandry to driving a veggie oil truck, Fine is exploring whether an American can live a green life without becoming overwhelmed by electrocution or contradiction.

 

 Doug Fine and the Sustainable Life [26:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Bob Ross is a practicing Landscape Architect & Garden Consultant in Santa Fe. He was the Chief Landscape Architect for Forest Service, Washington, DC for 15 years and Designed the American Garden for the International Garden Festival in Liverpool, England. A Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Bob also designed and oversaw the building of the Algerian/American Friendship Forest in North Africa. He is on the Board of the Santa Fe Farmers Market Institute and The Monte del Sol Charter School Foundation. Last but not least, Bob has a weekly radio program, “Gardens, Food and Santa Fe”, which airs on Saturday mornings at 10am, KSFR (101.1 FM). The shows are archived at www.santafefarmersmarket.com

Even the smallest of spaces can host a crop of vegetables! Container gardens are beautiful, versatile and flexible for every space, indoor or out, from small balconys to large-scale gardens. With the do’s and don’ts of planting in pots, and a little imagination, the possibilities are endless.

 

 Bob Ross Practices Planting in Small Spaces [47:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Kurt Michael Friese was born and raised in the heartland, and has more than 25 years of professional foodservice experience.  He is the chef and owner of Devotay, a restaurant in Iowa City that supports sustainable cuisine, local farmers and food artisans. Kurt is the founder of the first Slow Food Chapter in Iowa, and he is now on the National Board of Directors of Slow Food USA. He is the owner and editor-in-chief of Edible Iowa River Valley, and a regular contributor on Grist.org, Gather.com, and his own blog, www.kurtfreise.com.

His new book is called “A Cook’s Journey – Slow Food in the Heartland“, and is a testament to artisanal foods and traditional farmers who still toil in the heartland on small farms, shadowed by big ag – commercial corn, soybeans, beef and pork.

 

 Slow Food in the Heartland – A cook’s journey [32:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

People’s Grocery is a community-based organization in West Oakland that has developed a unique and creative solution to the health problems in their community that stem from a lack of access to and knowledge about healthy, fresh foods.

Their mission is to build a local food system that improves the health and economy of the West Oakland community by bringing healthy, affordable foods to lower income folks in Oakland. Their solar powered mobile market could be seen darting through the streets of West Oakland dropping off organic fruits and veggies while their food programs and cooking workshops steadily promoted the powers of healthy eating.

Brahm Ahmadi- Co-Founder and Executive Director of People’s Grocery
Brahm Ahmadi is an Iranian-American who grew up in Los Angeles and now lives in Oakland, CA. He has a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California and is an MBA candidate at the Presidio School of Management. Brahm combines social enterprise, cooperative economics, urban agriculture, public education and youth development to build healthy and stable inner city communities. He is also Executive Director of the North Oakland Land Trust, which preserves properties in North Oakland for the exclusive purpose of community gardening. Brahm is active in worker-owned cooperative business development and organizing for economic democracy and was a founding board member of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Visit www.peoplesgrocery.org, or Brahm’s blog at http://peoplesgrocery.org/brahm/peoples-grocery.

 

 Feeding the Masses – The People’s Grocery [24:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Located near Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Permaculture Institute was founded in 1997 as the sister organization to the Permaculture Institute of Australia. It came on the footsteps of the Permaculture Drylands Institute, formerly the leading permaculture educational institution inthe US. SCOTT & ARINA PITTMAN have been working in permaculture field for over two decades. Their Lots of Life in One Place permaculture farm is an exemplary site for learning home- and community-scale sustainability. Their mission is to promote sustainable living skills through education, networking and demonstration projects. They facilitate networking among permaculture groups and projects in NM/Southwestern region and beyond.

Visit the Permaculture Institute to learn more about permaculture, and to see a list of classes and events, at http://www.permaculture.org

Visit Arina’s blog: http://lotsoflifeinoneplace.blogspot.com

 

 Permaculture Institute - talking with Arina Pittman [25:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s hard to believe that in the world’s wealthiest nation, 35 million Americans – including 12.6 million children are at risk of hunger. That’s one in six kids in America who have limited access to the nutritious food they need to develop their full potential. Childhood hunger doesn’t discriminate, it affects those of all races – black, white, Asian and Hispanic, short and tall, thin and chubby.

Family poverty is the most universal cause of childhood hunger. Families living in poverty are constantly forced to trade one necessity for another: cupboards filled with healthy foods for rent, utilities, transportation and healthcare. Often people living below the poverty line live in what are called “food deserts” – far from the nearest grocery store, their neighborhood stores aren’t stocked with fresh foods at affordable prices. And many families have limited knowledge of the food and nutrition programs available to them.

Children who don’t get enough healthy foods on a regular basis suffer lifelong consequences:

• Poorer health and weaker immune systems; more stomachaches, headaches, colds, ear infections, and fatigue; and more hospitalizations.

• Behavioral difficulties.

• Impaired performance in school — academically, athletically and socially.

Today we are talking with Amy Zganjar, Director of Development for an organization called Share Our Strength®. Share our Strength – or SOS, works to end hunger and poverty in the United States and abroad by mobilizing industries and individuals, and creating community wealth to promote lasting change.

Share Our Strength is a national organization working to make sure no kid in America grows up hungry. They work to weave together a safety net of community groups, activists and food programs to catch children at risk of hunger and surround them with nutritious food where they live, learn and play.

To learn more about the Share Our Strength and how you can help fight hunger in your community, or how to give immediately to the Holiday Campaign, visit www.strength.org .

 

 Share Our Strength - Eradicating Hunger in America [26:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Roots of Change (ROC) is a collaborative of diverse leaders and institutions unified in common pursuit of achieving a sustainable food system in California by 2030. In 1999, a group of California-based foundations came together to explore the challenges facing the current industrialized food system and to discover a means to maximize the impact of their investments in pursuit of a healthier system. In 2000, they commissioned and released Roots of Change: Agriculture, Ecology, and Health in California, a report that consolidated information from policy makers, farmers, scientists, and activists, as well as data from numerous state agencies. The report made the case that multiple environmental, social, and economic problems in California can be addressed simultaneously by a comprehensive transition to a sustainable food system.

California is the nation’s most populous state, the largest economy in the U.S., and the 7th largest economy in the world, the state has the resources to lead the way to a sustainable future. With an agricultural industry is twice the size of any other state, California is the nations largest food producer. Worldwide, California is the world’s fifth largest supplier of food and other agricultural commodities. Because California helps feed the nation and world, actions here will create waves of change. Changing the state’s food system will require that all Californians of every ethnicity, religious belief, political party, and region take part in this effort.

Michael Dimock is the president of ROC Coordinating Team. Michael has worked in the agricultural sector for seventeen years. He founded and directed a unique organization, Ag Innovations Network, which provides strategic planning and consensus building services to rural communities, farming and food companies, and government agencies focused on sustainability. He was Chairman of Slow Food USA (until January of 2006) and a member of the Slow Food International Board, and has been Chairman of the Board of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, the state’s oldest organization dedicated to sustainable family farms. Michael came to the ROC Fund following his leadership, as a grantee, of the ROC effort to build a statewide leadership network.

Visit ROC website: http://www.rocfund.org, and to read the New Mainstream Report to see what a sustainable food system looks like: http://www.rocfund.org/resources/reports/the-vivid-picture-project-reports

Read and Sign the Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture http://www.fooddeclaration.org/

 

 Roots of Change - Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture [00:29:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Back in June the Wall Street Journal is reported on an increasing trend amongst suburban homeowners: growing, instead of buying, food. As the WSJ article reports:

“In Portland, Ore., sales of vegetable plants this season have jumped an unprecedented 43% from a year earlier, and sales of fruit-producing trees and shrubs are up 17%. Sales of flower perennials, on the other hand, are down 16%. It’s much the same story at Williams Nursery, Westfield, N.J., where total sales are down 4.6% even as herb and vegetable-plant sales have risen 16%. And in Austin, Texas, Great Outdoors reports sales of flowers slightly down, while sales of vegetables have risen 20% over last year.

George Ball, chief executive of seed giant W. Atlee Burpee & Co. in Warminster, Pa., says Burpee’s sales of vegetables and herbs are up about 40% this year, twice last year’s growth rate.”

Recently, a NASA-funded study, which used satellite data collected by the Department of Defense, determined that, including golf courses, lawns in the United States cover nearly fifty thousand square miles-an area roughly the size of New York State. The same study concluded that most of this New York State-size lawn was growing in places where turfgrass should never have been planted. In order to keep all the lawns in the country well irrigated, the author of the study calculated, it would take an astonishing two hundred gallons of water per person, per day. According to a separate estimate, by the Environmental Protection Agency, nearly a third of all residential water use in the United States currently goes toward landscaping.

A third of our greenhouse gasses are produced from shipping food. Yet not so very long ago in the 1940’s, Americans managed to produce 40% of the food they consumed from Victory gardens in their own back yards.

Today we’ll be talking to Heather Coburn Flores, author of Food Not Lawns, How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community. In “Food Not Lawns” (2006), Heather C. Flores argues that the average yard could yield several hundred pounds of fruits and vegetables per year.

Heather is co-founder of the original Food Not Lawns grassroots gardening project in Eugene, OR, she is a certified permaculture designer, holds a BA degree in ecology, education, and the arts from Goddard College

MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/foodnotlawns

Her Amazon Profile
http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1APFEWFJOGMB2

ChelseaGreen
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/foodnotlawns#

 

 Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community [00:27:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In 2001, Lance Hanson was a software engineer in California. He wasn’t looking for a life change or a reason to leave. After a visit to a family farm Colorado, things changed.”Here we were, on the road, talking about the farm, and felt a pull, a very strong pull.” “We had no background in farming, organic or otherwise. But suddenly we envisioned something bigger.”

The Hansons sold their home in California and were back on Redlands Mesa within two months. They moved into a small barn-apartment on the land, designed and built their new home, and opened Jack Rabbit Hill Winery in time to celebrate their first harvest in September 2002. As the first growers to raise grapes on Redlands Mesa – or anywhere
in the state outside of the Grand Valley – they faced challenges, not the least of which was a 1,400 foot jump in altitude.

Peak Spirits, an offshoot of Jack Rabbit Hill, is also Colorado’s only organic distillery. The label’s brandy, made from fresh, organic fruit, has made a name for itself nationally. Hanson’s Jack Rabbit Hill wines are also the first, and only, labels featured in the Sustainable Settings state-certified tasting room. Sustainable Settings – at the Thompson
Creek Ranch Homestead off Highway 133 in Carbondale – houses research, demonstration and educational activities focused on sustainable agriculture and green development.

Jack Rabbit Hill and Peak Spirits, two pioneering organic wine and spirits makers in western Colorado, are now Demeter-certified Biodynamic(R), completing a two-year transition from USDA-certified organic practices that began in March of 2006. The estate winery and
distillery are two of only 39 agricultural producers in North America to embrace the rigorous Demeter Biodynamic standard.

Visit Peak Spirits http://www.peakspirits.com/index.php

 

 Lance Hanson and Peak Spirits [00:27:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download