Talk, Talk, Talk ... Scream!

When I lived in the city or the suburbs, I often found myself standing in a line up, waiting. Waiting. Waiting for a clerk or a cashier or somebody. I used to stand there in line, with my groceries or whatever, getting more and more fed up, until finally I'd picture myself taking a running leap, jumping up on the counter, and singing at the top of my lungs: "WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT. NO, WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT. WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!" (Sing it with me.)

Well, once again I find myself waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting for the folks in power to quit kowtowing to the fossil fuel industry. Waiting for our solutions to start coming close to the enormity and gravity of the problem. Waiting for others in my community to even "get" that climate change is worth talking about, let alone the fact that we're in a climate change emergency situation.  

I attended a community event yesterday on social innovation. Now, right away that sounds all warm and fuzzy and fun. And the day was good. Three guest speakers gave many examples of social innovation and enterprise, in Toronto and Italy, Spain and Peru, Winnipeg and Cape Breton in Nova Scotia and nearby. In each case, the innovation, creativity and commitment to problem solving grew out of a crisis or a challenge (the SARS epidemic in Toronto, the shut down of the mining industry in Cape Breton, etc.), but in my neck of the woods, we're not feeling any crises or challenges. We're doing just fine, thanks. Climate change? What climate change?

Once again, I came home sad. Ready to scream, really. Ready to clunk heads together, in fact. We talked and talked and talked, about collaborating and innovating and creating social enterprises — but with no sense of actual commitment and definitely not even a hint of urgency. 

I don't think that it was sour grapes (or hurt feelings) for me that my suggestion to grow hemp and create value-added hemp products just plopped on the table. There seemed to be no interest in food growing and food production as social enterprises — even though growing more food here would make us (slightly) less vulnerable to the (initial) ravages of a chaotic climate.  

And so, once again, I picture myself taking a running leap, jumping up on a table at an event like this, and screaming "I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT. NO, I AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT. I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

Twisted Sister, We're Not Gonna Take It

Choice is Addictive

I made a commitment a few weeks ago to get back to the theme of this blog, compassionate climate action — this time, focusing on food growing and food security. So I'm rereading The 100 Mile Diet right now, a wonderfully written, evocative book that definitely makes me think about my food choices.

The other day, however, I started thinking about my food choices from a different place. I visited Walmart for the third time in my life (don't ask). After provisioning my hubby for a stint of granddog-sitting (don't ask), we wandered a bit. Suddenly, in the middle of an aisle in the middle of a warehouse-sized everything store bigger than the community I live in (well, almost), I stopped and burst into tears. 

"This is what's killing everything," I sobbed, leaning on the super-sized cart. "All this. All this choice, all this sense of entitlement. People thinking they can have anything they want, anytime they want, at the cheapest possible price."

I heard a woman with a cart filled to overflowing with boxes of processed foods telling the cashier that her daughter was considered "difficult" at school. I so wanted to say something, but decided against it. I wanted to ask her if she'd like a simple antidote (fresh fruits and vegetables) for her child's behaviour, but chickened out. 

So perhaps I've been barking up the wrong tree when I call Wall Street and fossil fuel corporations "the juggernaut." Maybe Walmart and all the big box stores in North America are the juggernaut — and we're pushing ourselves under the wheels. 

Choice is addictive. It's not fossil fuels we're addicted to, it's choice. The word "choice" comes from the French choisir - to choose. 

What if we started choosing to let the Peruvians eat their own asparagus in December, and the Californians their own strawberries in January? What if we chose to buy less food, waste less food, eat less food? Or at least less unhealthy food? I'm all for everyone in North America eating more kale! (And learning to grow it first.) What if we set up information booths outside every grocery store to tell shoppers what fruits and veggies are in season? Or to offer them a different nutrition lesson each time they shop? To show them the connections between their food choices and the climate change emergency? What if every region had a community farm and every school a schoolyard garden?

What if we started choosing to acquire our food in a way that contributed to the healthiest possible future for ourselves, for our children — and for the Earth? Could that kind of choice ever become addictive?

The Nitty Gritty of Locavorism - Backyard Chickens

The permaculture chicken

The term "locavore" officially entered the English lexicon in 2007, when it made it into the New Oxford American Dictionary. I read that just a few days after receiving a copy of The 100 Mile Diet, a book I loved when I read it back in 2007. And I received that book just before attending a Poultry Raising workshop in my community, put on by our Transition group.

When I was vegetarian, I considered cheese and eggs to be gifts from the animals who gave them. It took me 30 years to acknowledge something important: "Gifts" taken, indeed stolen, are not gifts at all. My husband and I switched to a vegan diet when we finally clued in that the horrendous ways we treat animals in our industrialized food system - even those we don't kill - made a mockery of our denial. 

I was happily vegan for a few months until a sweet student of mine who lovingly raises chickens very proudly gifted me with a dozen of her eggs. I took those eggs home and told my hubby we were eating them. We still eat eggs very rarely, but if we've met the chickens and know their human, we're open to accepting their eggs as a gift. (So I can't really say I'm vegan, can I? But the label keeps me from eating milk chocolate, which is a good thing.)

Zorah's "Mom with Chicks"

That's why I attended the Poultry Raising workshop yesterday. What I discovered is why a vegan friend of ours in the city fought against her municipality's move to allow backyard chickens. These animals take a lot of care! Raising them is not a lark, it's hard work! I've decided to never again look a gift egg in the mouth.

I thought I'd share with you some of what I learned:

• There are about 100 poultry diseases. Vigilance is necessary at every step. You can never put new chicks in with an older flock, and you've got to dedicate one pair of boots just for the chicken coop.

• I was in my 50s before I realized that chickens don't naturally lay eggs all year. (Obviously a city girl.) Without artificial light to fool them, hens go into "molt" during the shortest days of the year and stop laying. The rest of the time, they're churning out about one egg per day, although one speaker said they go in cycles, laying for about 14 days, then taking a few days off. Heritage breeds aren't as productive as hybrid birds, but they'll lay for a longer period.


• Chickens know what they need in their diet and, if allowed to roam freely, will go out and get it. (Chickens are sometimes used to help baby turkeys learn how to feed.) Their food of "mash" or pellets can be supplemented with sprouts and insects. One of the speakers is developing a mealworm farm!

• Chickens also need grit and calcium (crushed oyster shells or something similar).

• Broodiness (the inclination to sit on eggs until they hatch) has been bred out of many chicken breeds, but if a hen does become broody, it's important to give it a nice nest of straw or hay (so her eggs won't roll out). You can keep hens from becoming broody by collecting their eggs often.

• Keeping a rooster is a good idea if you're going to let your chickens range freely. He'll act as the flock's protector, sometimes losing tail feathers (or worse) in very brave encounters with birds of prey.

• Turkeys like to sleep in trees - and they LOVE to eat walnuts and blackberries!

• You should always act as though your poultry has salmonella. For example, eggs must be washed in water slightly warmer than the egg. Washing them in cold water sucks bacteria into the shell.

• If pecking at each other becomes a problem, simply paint red dots on a piece of wood and nail it up on the outside of their coop. They'll start pecking at the red dots, hurt their beaks - and stop! (If only people learned that easily.)

Chickens are smart, fun and loving animals, I learned. Like dogs, they seem to have domesticated us humans thousands of years ago. What role can they now play in helping us assure their - and our own - survival in a world of climate chaos?

"I Don't Want to Live in a World Without Olives"

My husband's tongue was only somewhat in his cheek the other day when he said, "I don't want to live in a world without olives." We were having a discussion with friends about a project (in the dreaming stage) to help people see the connection between the Arctic meltdown and our food.

We'd all just shared an epiphany as we realized that people don't understand (or care about) climate change because they don't understand food and agriculture. As long as people don't recognize the relationship between food growing and the climate, they're just not going to "get" that climate change is a planetary emergency. 

I then shared an epiphany I'd had about a year back, when a friend/colleague/food grower said to me, "Julie, I think we can survive here [in our small island community] on kale (vitamins), fava beans (carbohydrates) and eggs (protein)" (he's been doing his own independent research). It was at that moment that I finally saw how our food system is going to change in response to a heated planet and drought and crop failures. There's going to be less food, and less choice of food. 

I asked, "When we can't get cinnamon anymore, what could we grow around here that will take its place?" One of our friends (someone who understands all this and wants to work on the project with us) said, "Well, you just turned me off." And my husband chimed in, "Yeah, me too. I don't want to live in a world without olives." 

So even people who understand the mess we're getting ourselves into don't want to look squarely at the food crisis. People can picture a future of more of the same -- or better -- but they can't seem to picture a future with less. Less choice. Less diversity. Fewer options. 

Now, I should mention what my husband explained to me later. I agree with him that it's intuitive to see diversity as our saving grace -- and that we should be trying to grow as many different food items as possible. But I believe the reality will be much more constrained. We're still not teaching kids to grow food, and we can't grow food overnight. So when the climate change sh!t hits the fan, eggs, kale and beans might be all we can get around to growing while we're trying to deal with horrid weather events and sky-rocketing food prices. 

I'm just trying to get us all thinkin' in the direction of survival rather than luxury. After all, there must be dozens of ways to cook up beans, kale and eggs!

Clinton Wasn't Completely Right - It's the Food, Stupid

I know, I know. I talk about this a LOT. But today is Blog Action Day, and the theme this year is food! So how could I not talk about the relationship between food security and the climate change emergency?

There. Maybe I've said it all already. Climate change is threatening our food security. Bam. Done.

Okay, I'll keep going. While pundits are still — if they talk about global warming and climate change at all — drawing our attention to rising sea level and the plight of polar bears, the biggest, gravest, fastest growing and most urgent threat to all human beings on the planet (with tens of millions already impacted) is drought and wild fires, which lead to crop failure, which leads to food shortages, with ensuing famine (and then the violence).

I know that we in the developed part of the world feel immune. Our grocery store shelves are stocked with provisions, and our home pantries are full of pasta and canned peaches. What do we possibly have to worry about?

Well, as the summer Arctic sea ice extent continues to decrease (summer of 2011 was the second lowest in satellite history), our Northern Hemisphere growing seasons will become hotter and drier = loss of crops. Witness Russia 2010. If we get a few bad summers in a row, food prices will go through the roof and food shortages could lead to violence, even here "at home." (Remember, our grocery stores only hold about three days' worth of food!)

If that sounds ominous, then get serious about solutions that create local community resilience:

• grow as much food as possible at your own home (lawn = food, porch = food, apartment balcony = food, sunny window sill = food)
• work with others to start as many community gardens as possible
• start a program whereby people without land tend the gardens of people who can't
• talk to others about food security (supermarkets have lulled us into forgetting that our species now depends on a stable climate and successful agriculture)
• create a community kitchen, where people teach each other how to prepare food that is locally grown
• eat lower on the food chain (I see lots of grazing land around my community that could, with some work, grow food for humans instead)

And while you're at it, help to create the political will that will lead to serious international action on the climate change emergency at the next climate negotiations, coming up this December in Durban, South Africa. Help your elected officials and your local, regional and federal governments see that climate change is a threat to our food security.

p.s. As the worst famine in many, many decades continues to ravage the Horn of Africa, can anyone tell me where the "militants" (do they even know what they're fighting for anymore?) of Al Shabab are getting their food from?

By the way, it's never just one thing, is it? But in this case, the famine has been exacerbated by global warming and climate change — and the violence makes it even more tragic.

Time to Be Proactive for Our Own Survival

Let's start with a quiz. Look at the two photos below, and tell me which one feels "right" to you.

Property Before

Property After

If you guessed that the moonscape is legal, and the gorgeous garden is illegal, you're right. (And that's how insane my little corner of the world is.)

Here's the story...

A friend of ours bought a 2.5 acre property in a sort of no man's land, not quite rural, not quite urban, sort of suburban (though we don't often equate 2.5 acres with suburban). Before our friend purchased it, the seller had used an excavator and dump truck to mine and scrape the land bare of top soil, sand and gravel. When our friend moved in, he told us, "There were no worms, no grasshoppers, no birds, no butterflies; essentially — no living creatures!"

Here's our friend's tale of what he and his partner have done since:

Since 1999, we have made a tremendous effort to heal the land, beginning slowly, one wheelbarrow at a time. It has been a gradual, organic process, from planting a few fruit trees and having a small growing area, to expanding with more hand-made soil using wood chips from local tree companies and a small amount of horse manure from local stables. Now we have 4 kinds of bees, several types of dragonflies, numerous types of butterflies, frogs, toads, snakes, and hundreds of birds and much more! We have dedicated our time to supporting hundreds of community members who have sought guidance on how to become more sustainable in their own lives; from educating people on how to support sustainable local initiatives, to teaching families how to grow their own food. Three years ago, we also started a successful farmers' market.

Now, here's the scary part of the story. This couple has been advised by their local level of government that they must "cease all agricultural activity" on their property. Because one neighbour complained about some piles of soil/manure. Then the bylaw officer found out that they sell some of their produce at a farmers market. Sheesh.

This neighbour obviously does not understand where food comes from. Our society is 99% ecologically illiterate. How else can we explain neighbours turning in neighbours for growing food — instead of suggesting over the fence that it's time to turn in the piles of manure?

Our friends were heaped (pardon the pun) in with people who have "filth, discarded materials [let us not forget that poo has, for thousands of years, been recycled, not discarded] or rubbish, unused or stripped automobiles, trucks, trailers, boats, vessels, machinery, mechanical or metal parts" on their properties!

Given that agriculture and food growing in the northern hemisphere depend on a stable climate, which relies on the cooling effect of the Arctic summer sea ice — which is disappearing! — it behooves each of us to start becoming our own food suppliers. Our food crops will not be able to withstand the heat waves of an ice-free Arctic summer (witness Russia in the summer of 2010 and their loss of crops). We must start learning to grow food closer to home, and at home — to hell with neighbourhood appearances! Beauty is a wondrous thing, but we can't eat it. With local food, we can at least try to adapt it to local growing conditions.

So, the caution here? Find out ahead of time what your local bylaws say about food growing, and make sure you will be supported. Be proactive. Explain the climate change emergency to your municipality. If necessary, get the bylaws changed before they get in your way.

And start growing!

104 Days - Celebrating Our Local Food Traditions

I spent yesterday at my community's wonderful little fall fair. I convened the Young People's Agriculture section, and was delighted to see so many people appreciating the children's produce and educational projects on food growing.

It wasn't until a lovely German tourist came through the displays and mentioned that there is nothing like it where she lives, near Frankfurt, that I realized the power and importance of our fall fair tradition.

Small-scale farming and organic gardening connect us to the past, connect us to the earth (and the Earth), and connect us to future generations. Celebrating the fruits of our harvest helps people understand where their food comes from.

And since agriculture depends on a stable climate, and the stability of our climate is already deteriorating, it would be good for all of us to appreciate what we've got before it's gone.

As the Arctic summer sea ice disappears, the whole northern hemisphere is losing its summer "air conditioner," so summer weather is becoming hotter in some places and more unpredictable in others.

I grew tomatoes in pots on my sunny deck this summer, and midway through one of our extremely rare heat waves, I started adding up how much water they were getting. I was shocked! (I've since started using grey water/dirty dishwashing water on my tomatoes.) If my few tomatoes needed almost 100 litres per week, how much water must our food producing systems use? Yet our fresh water is one of the resources most at risk due to global warming.

We don't have a clue how much things are going to change and how bad they're going to get (because they certainly aren't, despite the hopeful protestations of certain commentators, getting better nearly as fast as they're worsening), but in the meantime, let's find ways to honour our food growers and support them as they try to adapt to the changing climate.

198 Days - Learning to Go Local by Growing Local

With new appreciation for the Italians, I tried making my own pasta today. It was a disaster, but my heart was in the right place — I'm trying to go as local as possible.

My students and I grew our own wheat last year and made pizzas from scratch. It was a wonderfully transformative experience for me — sowing the seeds, tending the crop, harvesting, threshing and milling the wheat, and then making pizza dough from the freshest flour in the world. Talk about the circle of life!

My students are so young that they probably didn't recognize this as an extraordinary experience for practically all Canadians. This year we're planting enough wheat for everyone in our whole school to make their own pizza from scratch.

My pasta was decidedly not delicious, but it was a fun way to start realizing how we can start going local.

It's not just the Italians I feel new-found respect for, it's the "ancients" who somehow knew/learned how much of everything they needed to grow and store for the winter.

One of the categories in our Fall Fair's Young People's Agriculture section is "If I grew the food my family needs, I would...." I wonder how many of us adults could answer that question correctly! (Nifty math lesson though.)

And to keep you reading on learning to feed ourselves as transformative education for sustainability, check out Orion Magazine's Destined for Failure by Jason Peters.

My students' pizzas, made from scratch...ing in the dirt, planting, tending, harvesting, threshing, milling, mixing, decorating and baking.