The SoleFood Urban Farm on East Hastings Street is sprouting to life once again. C’mon spring!

You can find more of my pics on Instagram at @itcaughtmyeye

Infographic: Global Sea Level Rise Projections and Risk to the U.S.A.

A 2012 study by the U.S. Geological Survey determined that sea levels along the East Coast will rise three to four times faster than the global average. The study named Norfolk, New York City, and Boston as the three metro areas most vulnerable to the devastating effects of rising sea levels—ranging from the dramatic increase in storm surge, as winds scoop up water from the sea and dump more of it farther from the coast than ever before, to the steady erosion of roads, buildings, and arable soil as seawater creeps inland.

Source: ‘The Scary Truth About How Much Climate Change is Costing You’ (National Journal)

From Reuters:

The world’s urban areas will more than double in size by 2030, presenting an opportunity to build greener and healthier cities, a U.N. study showed on Monday. Simple planning measures such as more parks, trees or roof gardens could make cities less polluted and help protect plants and animals, especially in emerging nations led by China and India where city growth will be fastest, it said.

“Rich biodiversity can exist in cities and is extremely critical to people’s health and well-being,” wrote Thomas Elmqvist of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, scientific editor of the Cities and Biodiversity Outlook.

The world’s urban population is expected to surge from just over 3.5 billion now to 4.9 billion by 2030, according to the assessment by the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity. At the same time, the area to be covered by cities will expand by 150 percent, it said.

“Most of this growth is expected to happen in small and medium-sized cities, not in megacities,” according to the report, issued to coincide with a U.N. meeting on biodiversity in Hyderabad, India. More green spaces in cities can filter dust and pollution and soak up heat-trapping carbon dioxide. Some studies have shown that the presence of trees can help reduce asthma and allergies for children living nearby, it said. And the study said that cities were also home to a wide range of animals and plants.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related:

• Video: ‘Cities and Biodiversity Outlook’ (Stockholm Resilience Centre)

(Photo: The High Line)

Connect the Dots: Lester Brown on ‘Why Food Is The New Oil And Land The New Gold’

From CNBC:

The United Nations food agency reports that food prices are rising again, reaching 6-month highs and nearing levels not since 2008. Higher prices then spurred food riots in the Middle East and North Africa, which fueled the Arab Spring.

There’s no sign of widespread food riots now but eventually there could be, says Lester Brown, president and founder of the Earth Policy Institute and author of the new book “Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity.”

“The term ‘food unrest’ will become part of our daily vocabulary,” Brown tells The Daily Ticker.

It reflects the imbalance between the supply of food and demand for food globally.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related:

• New England Complex Systems Institute ‘Food Briefing’
• ‘Americans waste, throw away nearly half their food: study’ (Reuters)
• ‘How much in food do Canadians waste a year? Think billions’ (Globe & Mail)
• ‘7 ways to reduce household food waste’ (CBC)

Hey folks, 

I’ve been slammed with work and other projects over the last few weeks so my posts have become less frequent. This looks to be the case for the next while. I aim to catch up during down periods, but in the mean time I’m continuing to post sustainability and resilience related content (mostly links) to my ‘planted city’ Facebook page. Check it out and click ‘like’ if you’re interested in having it come up in your news feed.

Cheers,

Steven

P.S. Happy autumn!

(Photo: plantedcity)

Grow your own: ‘How we can eat our landscapes’ (Video)

From TED Talks via YouTube:

What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community.

Pam Warhurst cofounded Incredible Edible, an initiative in Todmorden, England dedicated to growing food locally by planting on unused land throughout the community.

(Photo source: Incredible Edible)

US President Barack Obama, in his 2012 nomination acceptance speech tonight at the Democratic National Convention. 

Related:

• Obama vs. Romney: Who has the best energy plan? (Smart Planet)
• ‘Renewable energy is Obama goal for next term, aide says’ (Bloomberg)

(Infographic source: Rooftop Revolution via Clean Technica)

I recently stumbled upon this article from Postmedia’s award-winning national science writer, Margaret Munro. It was written in advance of June’s Rio+20 summit, which was widely viewed to have achieved limited results. That said, the article offers a good summary of some of the big systemic changes that we’re likely going to have to pull off on the long road to building a sustainable and resilient future. In other words, it’s going to take a whole lot more than riding a bike, recycling, and using cloth shopping bags.

The article has a bit of a Canadian focus, but the steps are universal:

1. Start a revolution

2. Energy game change

3. Put a price on carbon

4. Overhaul corporate motives and mindsets

5. Green Canada’s blackened record 

6. Transform cities

7. Connect the dots before you buy

8. Eat less meat

9. Embrace education (and contraception)

10. Get politically active

You can read the rest of the article and an explanation of each of the steps here, but I’ll post the first one here as an example:

“For most of the last century, economic growth was fuelled by what seemed to be a certain truth: the abundance of natural resources. We mined our way to growth. We burned our way to prosperity. We believed in consumption without consequences,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year. He went on to describe it as a “recipe for national disaster. It is a global suicide pact.”

“We need a revolution,” he said. “Revolutionary thinking. Revolutionary action. A free-market revolution for global sustainability”.

Related:

Every time I walk past this Margaret Mead quote it leaves me with a smile. If you want to check it out for yourself it’s on the wall of ‘The Foundation’ restaurant at 7th and Main.