E4S - Eating your way to a healthy economy

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
5.30pm to 8.30pm
Great Lakes Brewing Company, Tasting Room, 2701 Carroll Ave. Cleveland

Entrepreneurs for Sustainability and the New Agrarian Center are combing forces to create a dialogue about how local diets affect local economies. As the demand increases for "organic foods" many people are starting to take it a step further and demand local organic foods (it doesn't make much sense to order food from California all the way in Ohio when you think about all the energy used and pollution created just to get it here).

One topic will be support and for the 10% local food pledge as well as seven ways that you can localize your food purchasing.

Click here to register

When I used to think of Seattle

there used to be a stretch when I thought about Mudhoney and how much I hated the movie "Singles". Then Frasier Crane became the icon for that city far off to the left of the AAA map of the USA. Eventually I just packed up and went there and Seattle became a town I didn't spend enough time in to get to know (also I got ill, possibly from some food) and since then I have vowed to go back to (as some would say) explore.

Now though, with a quick article from BBC News Seattle has won even more of my heart.

By spouting taglines such as "The good news is that cities have long been the great incubators of ideas " and "It (the publicly owned electric utility "City Light") is a source of great pride: we are powering our city without toasting the planet!" Seattle's mayor Greg Nickels has automatically become my new best friend. While I especially enjoy the digs about how even though the United States never officially signed the Kyoto accord yet many states and cities are forming their very own environmental standards and restriction districts (see: The U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection). It warms my heart get to read how people are starting to understand that each of us need to own up to the consequences of our actions and that some of us are even willing to sacrifice (even though in some ways we don't have to) to try to stem the problems now (even if it isn't considered proactive anymore).

I mean heck, even Cleveland is on the list of cities whose mayors signed the agreement so you know it isn't far from mainstream already. Regardless, I would like to thank Mayor Frank Jackson for putting us on the list. I appreciate it.

I really do.

Happy Valentines Day Northeast Ohio

Well, I finally got my car dug outta the snow about an hour ago and am figuring that I will be getting a call soon to go help out some other people so whilst I wait I figured I would wish everyone a happy, safe and WARM Valentine's Day.

Regular posting shall resume soon. Until then, buck up little campers.

Complacancy - a primer on cause and effect.

Reading assignment for tonight:

Milwaukee is actually pretty great, nothing like freaking out the security guards for hugging a Calatrava addition, also Pabst brewery, also underground bowling, also, some fun people. Anyway, for a town that could be called "vibrant" and "hip" here is a little tidbit about not keeping your guard up nor holding people accountable.

Don't let it happen here, at least anymore then it already has.

Fancy rebranding that doesn't look too shabby

Not that General Electric is known for creating some horrible products that tear apart the environment anyway. Sure some could say that the train or plane engines contribute to a polluted environment but it isn't like you can expect them to halt a productive product line. One CAN expect them however to attempt to change their product line in order to make them more sustainable and better.

Also, their new website is really, really purty.

Ecomagination

I was sort of cringing when British Petroleum became Beyond Petroleum but they eventually began to back it up with forays into alternative energy. One can only hope that this rebranding means a lot more then just some new purty images and flash animations but an honest and actual attempt to change the direction of the company to do something a little more, "right".

Cleveland on track to "really blow" - in a good way.

Well, it looks like some things are starting to go right as Cleveland seems to be moving ahead with plans to study the potential of creating just enough bureaucracy to possibly screw up any chance of Cleveland being first at something.

I know, I am on a bitter streak lately, blame it on the cold weather.

It seems that the plan to put a 20 Megawatt windfarm on Lake Erie is moving ahead with major contributors already promising funds. Granted, the entire project will call for a lot of capital but it would be capital well spent. If Cleveland became the first major municipality to harness it's wind potential while creating the first fresh water wind farm and tying it to major industrial and educational institutions then things could surely turn around for our little burg. If the bureaucracy bungles it we could end up with another gigantic Cleveland joke.

How optimistic am I? Well, actually pretty dang optimistic, I just don't want to jinx the dang thing. I see a bright future with any city that figures out how to become a major center for alternative/renewable energy sources and decides to stake their economy on it. The way the wind is blowing, it seems like it can only be a good idea.

Resource for your own opinion making:
Plain Dealer writes things about stuff and is sometimes interesting

Development economics -or- how Cleveland gets screwed

I was going to be so bold and entitle this post, why "Wal-Mart doesn't love Cleveland" but to be fair other big box stores involved in the good time s Steel Yard Commons fiasco are also poised to negate any positive influence their presence could have brought to the city.

I won't be so crazy as to say I hate new shiny objects that I may purchase from stores. In fact I find excursions to Target sometimes delightful and the dusty hard working "man-scent" of Home Depot sawdust takes me back to a more simple time. (I won't admit to being able to shop at Wal-Mart nor Kmart though, I find that being inside those places makes my skin all itchy with awful florescent-ness).

But this shiny example of more corruption and down-right MEANNESS (for lack of a better word) is more, as we say, site specific.

Already mired in controversy Steelyard Commons is nothing more then an open air strip mall tucked away in what was once a former industrial site (No. 2 Finishing Mill) that sold itself to the city by promising revitalization of the urban core, offering amenities, creating jobs, protecting the environment and create a "vibrant regional retail development that draws Clevelanders". All that and more without the use of any "public money" for developing and infrastructure costs. On top of that over $18 million in property tax from the project was to be used for small local businesses, to complete parts of the Ohio & Erie Towpath Trail and by Cleveland Public Schools (who are in ridiculous need for funds). Such a heady list of feel good community projects and intention, it is easy to see why so many people got swept up in it. Now let us look at what really happened.

Public money was used for development
There is a good chance that most of the promised tax money will not be recovered
I suppose one could argue that they did clean up a "hazardous" site, but they did it "voluntarily" and I am personally curious as to what the site condition was before "clean-up" (also, the Not to Sue Covenant looks ridiculous, if you did clean up the site before developing on it, what are the State's legal responsibilitys to your clean up effort?) and they will create jobs (insert sarcastic comments about low income jobs without health benefits, living wage, etc) and they are revitalizing the urban core (somehow more people in a parking lot is good for the whole city, especially when there is little to no tax revenue from it?) and don't forget the added amenities of the same awful homogenized shopping experience you could get ANYWHERE ELSE.

But it makes it so much more wonderful to live here, as long as you don't have kids and you have a decent job already and a car to get to this strip mall and nothing better to do then try to find an entrance ramp. Criminy it would have almost been better to shove some more overpriced shoddily made "Cleveland City Condos" on the site.

So basically, nothing that was supposed to be accomplished was really accomplished and all we get to show for it is a place to buy some crappy tee shirts. Fantastic.

Oh, and am I a little bitter that an actual interesting location possibility with tons of "contextual potential" became another "Bane of America"? Answer; yes.

Johnny Mango & NEOCH - Bridging the Gap Feb. 12th

Monday, February 12th, 2007

The North East Ohio Coalition for the Homeless and Johnny Mango's World Cafe and Bar are teaming up for the Bridging the Gap Fundraiser. Print out the coupon (see previous link) and hand to your server. and Johnny Mango will donate 20% of your check to the "Bridging the Gap", a program that links homeless individuals with affordable housing.

Thanks, Johnny Mango.

As an aside, the Johnny Mango on Bridge is extremely close to the Cleveland Green Building Coalition.

February 9th, Tremont Art Walk

February 9th, Tremont Art Walk

Alright, it seems this last cold snap is at a pause, perhaps enough for some of us to feel like braving the bitterness of the air to stomp around Tremont bothering the nice gallery owners as we huddle inside for warmth and to peruse the goodness within.

It is hard to think of something new to say every month.

Cleveland Home and Garden Show

Is in town.

February 3 - 11, 2007 at the IX center.

I would post more but I am sort of upset that getting their dang banner image was this huge mess of having to view the source code for their webpage and figure out where it was located because they had the thing locked. What does this say? I don't know...that when it comes to the thicker armor or the bigger warhead, the warhead always wins or that people waste perfectly good time and effort justifying their jobs or maybe that someone figured that making it so that this image couldn't be hotlinked was worth some effort?

Whatever. Flowers, home stuff, garden junk...I will probably be there this weekend with loved ones. Images, etc, probably forthcoming. Hope I have some bizzness cards by then.

For those of you NOT PAYING ATTENTION

February 2nd of the great 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change happened to release a report. Included within said report was something along the lines of "there is a 90% chance of certainty that DIRECT HUMAN ACTION can be blamed for global warming". I include this only because I am perfectly ASTONISHED that some people are, of this report, UNAWARES.

I am yelling, because it is TUESDAY the 6th and I am beyond SICK of pointing this report out to people. Believe me, I get to contend with the same trivial tripe you do everyday. I also get to hear stories of the guy on the train who doesn't believe in global warming because he looked it up on the Internet and a particular political party doesn't believe in it. I know, it is hard to argue with an hour of in-depth Internet searching but if one were to remove one's head from ones' ass and try to listen to what those that utilize science are saying, then maybe we could perhaps hope the world would become a better place. Maybe. Whatever.

I included a picture of the Oscar Meyer Wiener mobile that was downtown today for 2 reasons.
1- I find this vehicle hilarious. It made the fact that the network was down at work not too awful.
B- It was too cold outside to get closer. Ironic with all the "global warming" hootenanny".

Seament - Seacrete Research

"The use of electrodeposited calcareous deposits (solidified calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide) for the corrosion protection of metals immersed in sea water has been researched for over a half century. In 1974 Wolf H. Hilbertz professor of architecture first researched using thick electrodeposited calcareous deposits as a marine construction material. This sea water derived electroaccreted construction material is commonly referred to as 'seament' or seacrete.'"

Intrigued? You should be.

How much of the earth is covered with sea water? How much with land? How much of our known life is based upon land living? What is a natural defense against hurricanes reaching landfall? What could slow down or disrupt a tsunami? As cargo ships get bigger and ports grow to handle them where does our precious oceanfront property disappear to? What happens to wildlife habitats along developed coastlines?

What if you could answer how to restore shoreline, create more areas for crowded cities to grow, move heavy port traffic slightly off shore to free up shoreline, create shallow water habitats, rebuild barrier islands and marshes and find a way to use the ocean's suspended materials to build and power off shore communities?

I don't know if all the answers are there, but this collection of Wolf Hibertz and other's research into extracting materials and energy from the ocean sure raises some good questions.

Found on the Material Explorer newsletter and all said and done without a single "Kevin Costner with gills" joke.

Connecting Cleveland 2020-><-CityWide Plan

While looking around at some updates sent to me regarding some investment into Cleveland's cycling infrastructure I ran across the Connecting Cleveland 2020 website, a comprehensive plan for creation ease of public connections to and through downtown Cleveland.

The website is full of great overviews, zoning information, concepts, etc. All in all the whole plan looks, at first glance, as something that I could actually find interesting. An entire plan, put forth to connecting the city offers so many different opportunities that I can find it hard to fault any study based upon or espousing such development. In fact the whole thing makes me giddy and wonders, well, wonders just what would happen if such concentrated planning effort materialized into something that we could experience.

Giddy.

Resources:
Meeting Schedule PDF

Because we all LOVE tales of corruption...

I have to link to a very sensational article about Jimmy Dimora, a Cuyahoga County Commissioner who some are inferring might be shady. A government offical, shady? In Ohio? My heart can't take the news!

Still though, what are the consequences with the Breuer building? Oh, you haven't thought I forgot about that yet, have you?