The Beginnings of Food Revolution (?)

I just came across a new article about how a biopharmaceutical company was taken to court on the basis of gene patents. A start of a revolution maybe?

The second link was what I dug about the relationship between the infamous Monsanto and the bio-pharm company in question: Myriad



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/30/business/30drug.html?_r=1&ref=science

http://www.techagreements.com/agreement-preview.aspx?num=65914&title=Monsanto%20/%20Myriad%20Genetics%20-%20Collaborative%20Pronet%20Research%20&%20License%20Agreement

The Hunter Garden Project

Hey Everyone :

I just found out that Hunter College is working on creating a garden as well. I liked the Hunter Garden Project on Facebook. I was skimming through their page and they are actually being offered help from different people and organizations for co-sponsorship and what not. I think it would be great to create our own FB group page for the rooftop garden, like Kiran said today not only will that create more awareness, but it works in getting help from others.

CUNY FoodFest 2010

I think this is a great event that we could attend:

At FoodFEST 2010, students will learn sustainable food consumption practices, engage in direct meaningful service, and be empowered to create grassroots food justice movements on their own campuses. Through creating art, cooking and eating delicious food, and networking with experts in the field of food justice and hunger, we hope to create a space for growth, community, and FUN.

WHEN: Sunday, November 14th 2-8PM
WHERE: Macaulay Honors College 35 W 67th Street

New York-Connecticut Consortium Wins Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has granted $3.5 million to the New York- Connecticut metropolitan region. This was awarded on October 20th under Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant!!

This money will be used to design and integrate housing, economic decelopment, reduce congestion, as well as transportation and environmental planning in the metropolitan region. =)

Fall & Winter Vegetable Planting Guide

Here is some more ideas on fall and winter vegetables which we can use on our garden if everything works out well.

winter plants

here are some of the winter plant list. if we do start plant in the cold we can also set up themes for our garden. we can have a christmas theme and have some decoration of our plants

Advice For Gardening

This website had some advice for gardening. since we are not going to plant directly to the roof, we can use some regular garden technique to set up our roof garden. the first and the most important part is to find and setting for our gardening. find a place where mostly exposed to sun and available on campus. we have to get permission for that location as soon as possible. second if we are going to start planting in this winter, we can use some plant that are resistance to the cold, for example: kale, everygreen,etc. (i will post another link for the plants).

Pocket Guide to Sustainability

Here is a great Pocket Guide to Sustainability.

It tells you the basics on how to live a sustainable lifestyle.

"Working together, We can make it happen!"

According to CCNY's sustainability plan, many steps are being taken in order to incorporate sustainability into the curriculum for students. Some of these actions include:

Fall 2011:
M.S in Earth Systems and Environmental Engineering :)!!!
Environmental Studies BA program

annual earth day celebrations

Other facts:

The waste cooking oil in the cafeteria is converted to bio-diesel.

CCNY was the first CUNY to replace the cars for public safety with hybrids. The shuttle buses use natural gas.

CCNY does not order from paper catalogs, instead ordering electronically, to eliminate that as a source of paper waste.

List of Organizations to get Sustainability Ideas

I found a website which is dedicated to Times Square and deal with all the happenings that go on in that location. They also have a sustainability plan and in their website I found 3 resources out of the 4 named that we can contact to get ideas we can add or adjust to our current sustainability plan. They include:

1. Energy Incentive Resources- which runs "PlaNYC" (NYC's sustainability plan)

2. Sustainability Design Resource- which works with organizations like NYC Department of Design and Construction, and U.S Green Building Council.

3. Tips for Going Green Daily- Discusses prompting sustainability in a daily manner.

I've sent emails to PlaNYC and NYC Department of Environmental Conservation to get ideas on sustainability.

Also, I want to add PlaNYC is a student run website run at NYU's Furman center. But it is a city based public plan and is not affiliated with NYU's sustainability plan. It is run under Campaign for New York's Future.

Vladimir Lenin, King Tut and the McDonald's Happy Meal: What do they all have in common?

Since we are watching all these food videos all of us were disgusted by the food processing industries i thought u guys might like this article too. its about the Mickey D's hamburger in a Happy meal. The hamburger did not decompose even after 180 days. Mind you all the Mickey D's ham burger patties are made from 100% USDA ground beef!

vending miser

hey, i'm not sure how much info everyone has about the vending miser, but i have this link to one site to give you all an idea of the impact it will have.

generally, it ranges between 150-200 dollars per unit, which is a small price to pay when it reduces energy consumption by nearly 50 percent.

Besides swapping out the plastic shopping bags for reusable bags in the bookstore as Maya suggested from the NYU sustainability plan, I think it would also be fairly easy to have the computer lab change the settings of the printers so that everything that is printed comes out double sided. And although it was very irritating in the summer to walk into a dimly lit Marshak, its actually worth it since there's not that many people that congregate on the street level, so dimming the lights there should become something that is regularly done during that time of the year.

City of Rockford Sustainability Plan

http://rockford.mi.us/pages/images/news/Sustainability-Publish.pdf

I found this article on rockford Sustainability Plan. It seems very interesting. Most importantly it seems like everything is clear and coherent for everyone to understand the main purpose of having a Sustainability Plan and ways to improve it to make a friendly environment.

NYU sustainability and CCNY sustainability.

When I saw the projects that NYU is overtaking for sustainability it made me feel like our sustainability plan is relatively minor. They have made plans such as the sustainability task force (which means 60 members of the campus) have volunteered to asses current practices. They are also getting grants from 14 new projects. It would be awesome if we can make a fund raiser and get some grants ourselves.

They have also included other organizations within the campus to help them such as their Green Club and Environmental Science majors.

If you look through their website they also have included small and simple steps to their sustainability such as the book store has stopped using plastic bags and have changed to recyclable paper bags. In our bookstore we are still using plastic bags. I think we should make a change to that.

Waste Stream Survey & Recycling Pilot Project

So CCNY sustainability project is working on a new plan which involves taking a survey of waste stream of different buildings. All the data will be collected on quantities nad types of materials wasted in each building. Therefore allowing proper placement of disposables and recycling containers. on campus.

Monsanto in India

There are not only long term health effects due to Monsanto...

"cost–benefit analysis of extensive vegetated roof systems"

I found this article directly related to our Rooftop garden project. The study talks about the benefits, costs, and resources that are needed to create a rooftop garden.

More about GMOs

This is a site that shows more information and statistics about the dangers of genetically modified crops.

A Nice Site About Rooftop Gardens

Before we hit the roof

In 2005-2006, UHC helped True Nature Foods, an organics cooperative and neighborhood recycling center, become more viable as an example of sustainable renovation for small commercial buildings.

A former automotive shop with uninsulated brick exterior and painted CMU interior walls built in the 1980’s when insulation was seen as unnecessary and excessive mechanical heating and cooling were the norm, True Nature Foods was intended as prototype green upfit on a shoestring-budget.

In late 2005, UHC helped with winterizing to make the cold months less extreme for this poorly insulated building. Future phases were to include other sustainable design strategies such as south-facing trellises with vines trained from the roof garden for shading during summer (anybody got any awning frames they aren’t using?), solar curtains for alternately rejecting and absorbing sunlight, vegetated thermal mass benches for moderation of temperature swings, custom-made solar heaters for collection of radiant energy, and exterior raised planters.

We still might do some of these, but money is always the issue.

The real focus, however, quickly became what customers wanted to buy more of - very fresh produce.
And how much fresher can you get than something grown and harvested from 16 feet away?
On the roof.

That’s right.

(Exerpted from http://www.urbanhabitatchicago.org/projects/true-nature-foods/)

Interesting Rooftop Plants

Note: Must be using on campus in order to access this journal.

This is pretty interesting since the article talks of a way to maintain a garden with minimal maintenance. I do not know if our organic methodologies would go hand-in-hand with this, but its pretty cool nonetheless.

-Tauhid M.

fancy design of some rooftop garden

I was looking at some of the design of the roof top garden, and i found this site. We might not be able do the same thing, but it's nice to see what other people came up with. there are few design in different area, and it is really pretty. just want to share this

Planting Seeds for Public Health

I found this as an interesting read, especially after watching the food documentary.

This article explains how the Farm Bill actually help farmers to produce and distribute healthy foods.