Category: Direct Action

Yes Men Strike: Chamber of Commerce to Fight Climate Change

The Yes Men are great pranksters that try to make the people who cause problems in our world aware of what they do in creative ways. Yesterday they pretended to be from the USA’s Chamber of Commerce and staged a fake press conference talking about how the Chamber is going to tackle climate change.

The timing was great as both Nike and Apple have left the Chamber of Commerce in protest over the lack of action on climate change.

The Washington Post has an article on the Yes Men press conference.

Environmental activists held a hoax press conference Monday morning, pretending to be the business group — and pretending to announce that the chamber was dropping its opposition to climate-change legislation now in Congress.

The event, complete with fake handouts on chamber letterhead, at least a couple of fake reporters, and a podium adorned with the chamber logo, broke up when a spokesman from the real chamber burst in.

What followed was a spectacle not usually seen in the John Peter Zenger Room at the National Press Club: two men in business suits shouting at one another, each calling the other an impostor and demanding to see business cards.

A Craigslist for Vegetables

Almost everyone knows about the online classified site cragislist, but did you know that there’s now a craigslist for vegetables called VeggieTrader?

This is a great idea for people who enjoy local produce – even better for those who have their own vegetable garden. You can use the site to trade surplus produce from your garden with someone who has a surplus of another type of produce. This means that your local garden can be stretched a little further by finding and trading with other gardeners.

It’s local, affordable and sustainable, but we’ve noticed a lot of it goes to waste. You plant too many tomatoes, or your plum tree has a bumper crop, most of which is enjoyed by the sidewalk and the grass…

Wish you could turn your excess plums into lemons, or maybe
even a little cash? Use this site to find neighbors to swap with
or sell your excess produce to. Or if you specialize in growing tomatoes, find neighbors who specialize in other produce and
form networks to share in the variety. Even if you don’t have a garden, Veggie Trader is your place for finding local food near you

PARK(ing) Day 2009 is Tomorrow (Sept. 18)

PARK(ing) Day is all about making the city a little greener by taking a parking spot for a vehicle and converting into a parking spot for people. You can make it happen in your own city!

The PARK(ing) Day website has more information.

PARK(ing) Day began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art collective, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in an area of San Francisco that is underserved by public open space.

Back then the project was named simply PARK(ing), and was devised as a creative exploration of how urban public space is allocated and used. For example, up to 70% of San Francisco’s downtown outdoor space is dedicated to the vehicle, while only a fraction of that space is allocated to the public realm. Paying the meter of a parking space enables one to lease precious urban real estate on a short-term basis. What is the range of possible activities for this short-term lease?

Since 2005, the project has grown into PARK(ing) Day, an annual worldwide phenomenon, created independently by groups of artists, activists and citizens. Along the way, Rebar has been supported by several non-profits that share our values and concerns about how urban space is used. PARK(ing) Days in the past would not have been possible without support from The Trust for Public Land, Black Rock Arts Foundation and Public Architecture.

5 Things to Make the World better Everyday

Everyday you can make the world a little better by doing very small actions. The more people that do small things can add up to a very large movement – so join in on the fun 🙂

Read the list of five things you can do here.

Don’t throw it away! We have a tendency not to think about items we throw away. They disappear from our sight, so they are out of our minds. But all those things that the garbage truck hauls away every week do have to go somewhere, and that place is a landfill. Landfills are a major cause of greenhouse gasses and ozone depletion. So next time you get ready to throw something away, ask yourself if you could possibly use the item in another way or donate it.

Urban Farming the USA is Growing in Popularity

People in urban centres in the USA are turning vacant lots into places for communities to grow in nearly every sense of the word.

Alemany Farm is on the forefront of a renewed interest in urban farming nationwide, from Michelle Obama’s garden on the South Lawn of the White House to the proliferation of backyard chicken coops in New York City.

“I do think there is something like a movement afoot,” said Mark, 34, who chronicles environmental trends in the Earth Island Journal and can rattle off the names of urban farms from Milwaukee to Philadelphia.

In the grittiest, grimiest, most unlikely neighborhoods, in cities that include Los Angeles, Detroit, Baltimore and Miami, volunteer farmers are growing food that provides not only for those who work the gardens, but also for neighbors, food kitchens and school lunchrooms.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says there are thousands of community gardens throughout the country, though no one keeps an exact tally. Localharvest.org, a Web site about community gardens, lists more than 2,500 in its database.

In 2008, 557 new gardens signed up with LocalHarvest, according to the site. In the first two months of 2009, 300 more joined.