A few weeks back I thought I’d hit a lottery: the local paper was filled with news of eco-friendly projects despite the state of the economy. This week an article mentioned that the Pennsylvania state consitution was amended in 1971 to say

The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of natural, scenic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustees of these resources the commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all people.

Yet over and over again profit of a few stands against these constitutional rights. Read the rest of this entry »

I love reading novels. They inspire and inform me. They get me thinking. It’s been awhile since I read Starhawk’s Fifth Sacred Thing. Yet I can still picture the San Francisco she conjures in her book–the one that loosely resembles the city we know, yet is a place where resource use is in balance and people are fed from the land. It is a place where gardens grow and brooks flow. Where wind power creates energy and gondolas run from hill to hill. It’s a walking city and a place to ride electric carts. Starhawk juxtaposes this idyllic setting with a dystopian one where people are at war over scarce resources. Her novel foreshadows a time that many of us can too easily picture, especially now that climate change is much more broadly understood as something that will not only affect our relationship with the natural world but also economic, political and social structures.

In a preamble to the book, Starhawk talks of the sacredness of earth, water, air and fire (energy): these elements are essential to and are the building blocks of life. “They have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standard by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.”

What does this have to do with land conservation? Notice the extent to which free market economies make air, water and land commodities to be taken and used for the highest profit. Notice the extent to which you benefit from such a system. Notice the extent to which you are harmed by such a system. Can you picture another way? Read the rest of this entry »

You may have heard of the movement afoot to buy locally, especially food grown or processed locally. There are so many reasons why buying locally makes sense. Your food will be fresher, it will not be shipped long distances by fossil fuel power, you will be supporting local businesses. You will also be supporting local farms, ranches, bakeries, etc. And wouldn’t it be good to know that in a large-scale emergency there are food sources nearby?

You will also be helping to preserve agricultural space. And supporting existing businesses rather than traveling to the bigger “better” store that’s over the next hill. Food Coops and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects are appearing even in urban areas so that people pool their resources to bring in fresh regional food as much as possible. I was just reading an article in New York magazine about Star-mers (star farmers) who are becoming known like celebrity chefs as people are more interested in where their food comes from.

However, there are some times when it is important to not support local businesses. Read the rest of this entry »

Wouldn’t it be nice to travel down your local highway and instead of seeing concrete, signs and strip malls, seeing green and trees with occasion signs? And instead of seeing residential developments and huge lawns, seeing meadow and trees with just a small lawn carved out around a home? Years back I spoke with a developer about this and he told me that clients don’t usually ask to leave the trees. Plus it’s easier for contractors to just start building on cleared ground. But he’d be happy to do it differently if people asked.

So . . . ask! I picture setting up signs on area roads that say Developers: Leave The Trees! Read the rest of this entry »