How climate change is affecting some environmental sectors

In particular I wanted to take a look at foraging, sod and aquaponics.

Utne Magazine has a fantastic story about foraging, the joys and tensions. Could increased competition be only one of the reasons for smaller mushroom hauls?

-One of the huge benefits for aquaponics has been the fact that it uses very little water. It was already the hottest thing in urban agriculture, I think with water shortages in California and awareness of the drought problem across the continent, you will see a boom in aquaponics very soon!

-These farmers in India have turned to grass manufacturing and are making money hand over fist. But for how long?

How much are birds worth?

 This question was asked about trees last year and researchers delivered an answer. However something about this seems categorically wrong. Despite how well intentioned this might be, is this the world we want to live in where we now have to quantify all of nature to justify treating it with care? And if Americans value birds the way Seattle (population 650,000) at $120 million, does that mean birds are worth $58 billion to all Americans when you adjust for population? And what price tag do you put on the nearly 1 billion birds killed every year by buildings? Or the 3.7-20 billion birds killed by cats?

What does this mean to our urban landscape, particularly green roofs? Should we install more green roofs to protect "our investment"? Or can we just say birds are priceless and we should do whatever we can to ensure their survival.

$46 million for 1,800 urban farms in Seoul

Lots to talk about over the last week, municipalities across the world are doing some incredible things revolving around urban agriculture and green roofs:

-The government of the city of Seoul will inject about $46 million dollars into urban agriculture to hopefully build 1,800 gardens in parks, schools and rooftops, all of which will be within a ten-minute walk!

-Staying abroad, a small aquaponics project has been funded in Trinidad, it's great another island nation is jumping on board. But I wanted to discuss semantics. What do you think looks better, $.5 million or $500,000? Intuitively I know it's the same, but there's something about seeing the decimal which makes me think it's smaller than if we saw all those zeros.

Stateside the biggest news of the last week comes from Houston...let me repeat, Houston!...has given the go ahead and favorable terms, for an aquaponics operation in an abandoned building. The company agrees to apply almost $5 million dollars into the project.

-Living architecture has reached new heights when towns like Traverse, the tart cherry capital of the world with 15,000 people, is considering green roof credits!

-In California's Napa Valley one of the country's most eco-friendly developments just got the green light.  They are calling it a "housing experiment", Napa Creek Village promises greener design (LEED platinum complete with green walls) and a path to home ownership via a rent-to-own mechanism!
 
-Oregon's state legislature is considering property tax credits for those who start urban agriculture operations.

-Up the coast a bit Vancouver will convert some of the caretaker houses for their parks system into food hubs, to plant gardens, share ideas on producing, preserving and preparing food and more. It seems they have been also used for art over the years, hopefully that continues as well.

-And this last story comes from a college. Cornell University now has a college level course, from which you get credits AND a permaculture certificate once you are done!

Permaculture refresher

It's spring time and if you need a refresher on permaculture, guru Larry Santoyo has your primer!

The beauty of blooming!

When do plants bloom in your neck (of the American) woods? The US Forest Service has the very pretty answer.