Published by the Kingston Greens

GREEN LIGHT KINGSTON #229 		Issue #229
Monday, March 29, 2010
The opinions expressed in articles or linked articles from the Green Light Community Newsletter are not necessarily those of the Kingston Greens, the GPO or the GPC. For official GPO/GPC policy, please visit our website: http://www.kingstongreens.ca

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Quote of the Week:  

Many demolitions are actually renovations.

- Jalaluddin Rumi, poet and mystic (1207-1273)

In This Issue:
1. Website of the Week
2. Cartoon
3. Current Events
4. Coming Events
5. Elsewhere Events
6. Community Action
7. Worth Reading
8. Community Notices
9. Wanted!
10. Local Organic Produce
1. Website of the Week
New!  Cam Mather - Sustainable Independence
Practical steps toward energy, food, and financial independence. Cam Mather lives and works "off the grid" at Sunflower Farm near Tamworth, ON. Mather speaks to groups about sustainability, conducts workshops and tours onsite, and publishes a number of books on sustainable independence and other topics.

http://www.cammather.com/
More info from Cam Mather:

We'll post information on the new website about workshops that we're going to offer here at Sunflower Farm, similar to the workshops that I've been presenting at colleges across Ontario. We've often provided tours of our place for our college workshop participants. Now we're going to offer the
actual workshops right here so that the tour can be part of the learning experience.

We'll also be offering renewable energy retreats here. Over the past few years, we've allowed a few groups to come for a weekend and learn
about renewable energy, organic gardening and living sustainably by seeing it all in action. Our guesthouse provides accommodations for
people wanting to stay overnight here at Sunflower Farm.

In the last 12 years of living off-grid we've upgraded our solar panels 4 times, built two trackers, put up two wind turbines,
replaced batteries, upgraded our inverter, continued to increase the size of our vegetable garden, sold vegetables, heated sustainably
with wood cut from the property, installed a solar domestic hot water heater and started and maintained a publishing company dedicated to
selling books and DVDs about sustainable living. We'd like to promote ourselves as excellent resources to help other people who are about
to take on some of these tasks.

You'll even find a section on "Self-publishing books" as one of our consulting subjects. After 7 years in the business we've learned a
great deal and with our recent move into "e-Books" publishing we can guide anyone you know who may be interested in publishing a book
through this challenging industry.

If you are involved with any organizations or your business is looking for
someone with a genuine enthusiasm for sustainable living and using renewable energy and other techniques to navigate challenging times
ahead, please introduce them to the website. I enjoy the challenge of motivating individuals to take positive action, especially when
presenting to a large group. 		Top
2. Cartoon
New!  Self-Sufficiency
From Raeside - 2008

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3. Current Events
New!  Backyard Hens Public Meetings
Thursday, April 08, 2010 7:00 PM

Urban Agriculture Kingston is hosting a public meeting about backyard hens in Kingston on April 8, 7:00-8:30PM Central Library, 130 Johnson Street, Delahaye Room, 3rd Floor (accessible).

http://www.uakingston.webs.com 		Top
New!  Earth Hour
Earth Hour took place on Mar. 27th at 8:30PM this year. Visit http://www.earthhour.org to see how it all unfolded. Kingston's Earth Hour site is here: http://www.cityofkingston.ca/residents/environment/earth-hour.asp
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New!  Frontenac Farmer's Market
Saturday, April 03, 2010 9:00 AM

Frontenac Farmer's Market

At the Verona Lion's Club on Apr. 3rd

Once again Kaye from K’s Klubhouse has come up with some great ideas for kids. Pin the egg on the basket, Easter Pictionary to name a couple. The favorite event will be the Easter Bunny Beauty Contest. The kids can create or have fun while you shop. Visit the market for some Easter Fun and see whose construction paper bunny wins. Don’t forget—even though we don’t have produce or bedding plants yet !! we still have great products, fresh baking, meats, cheeses, entrees, eggs, potatoes, onions, preserves, crafts, jewellery, honey, hot soups……..

http://www.frontenacfarmersmarket.ca


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4. Coming Events
5. Elsewhere Events
6. Community Action
7. Worth Reading
New!  Worth Watching - Our Bought And Sold Out Land
A documentary about economic dependence in Canada - includes an interview with Elizabeth May. Free to view online.

http://www.ohcanadamovie.com/
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New!  The Earth's Limits
A new study attempts to define thresholds for man’s impact on planetary processes

http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/the-earths-limits
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New!  What Would Jesus Eat?
Musings on ancient notions of waste...

http://wwje.wordpress.com/tag/waste/
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New!  It's Official: HFCS Makes You Fat

By Nikki Gloudeman
From Mother Jones online

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/03/high-fructose-corn-syrup-sugar-obesity

The high fructose corn syrup industry has been arguing for years that their product is no worse than sugar when it comes to weight gain and obesity. According to a new study by Princeton University, that's simply not true.

When researchers fed HFCS to rats, the rodents gained significantly more weight than those fed regular sugar. Further, the HFCS-fed rats exhibited more specific characteristics of obesity, including increased abdominal fat and trigylcerides.

The study illuminates the underlying problem with the obesity epidemic, which hits low-income areas the hardest. Agricultural corn subsidies make HFCS a remarkably cheap sweetener to produce, so it's commonly used in low-cost products. Not surprisingly, last year the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found higher intakes of HFCS in groups with low income levels.

Yet for all the evidence that the syrup is a major contributor to our country's burgeoning and class-based obesity problem, our government continues to serve as the industry's biggest cheerleader. According to the Tufts University Global Development and Environment Institute, HFCS producers receive implicit government subsidies of $243 million a year—plenty to keep the product a staple of the American diet.
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New!  James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change
By Leo Hickman
From The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists' emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Lovelock, 90, believes the world's best hope is to invest in adaptation measures, such as building sea defences around the cities that are most vulnerable to sea-level rises. He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.

"That would be the sort of event that would change public opinion," he said. "Or a return of the dust bowl in the mid-west. Another Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report won't be enough. We'll just argue over it like now." The IPCC's 2007 report concluded that there was a 90% chance that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing global warming, but the panel has been criticised over a mistaken claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030.

Lovelock says the events of the recent months have seen him warming to the efforts of the "good" climate sceptics: "What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek. The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any favours. You need sceptics, especially when the science gets very big and monolithic."

Lovelock, who 40 years ago originated the idea that the planet is a giant, self-regulating organism – the so-called Gaia theory – added that he has little sympathy for the climate scientists caught up in the UEA email scandal. He said he had not read the original emails – "I felt reluctant to pry" – but that their reported content had left him feeling "utterly disgusted".

"Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science," he said. "I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards."
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New!  12 Most Pesticide-Laden Fruits and Veggies
By Kiera Butler
From Mother Jones online

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/03/econundrum-12-most-contaminated-fruits-and-veggies

At my local farmer's market, organic avocados cost as much as $2 a pop. Yet I can sometimes find the conventional version at the supermarket for half that (and some of the cheap ones are even grown right here in California). Considering my homemade guacamole addiction, I'd quickly bankrupt myself buying only organic avocadoes, so I usually go for the cheapos at the grocery store. My reasoning: You don't even eat the skin of the avocado, so presumably, for avocados and other peeled produce, pesticides aren't a problem. Right?

Not always. Some fruits' and vegetables' thick skins do protect the edible part from chemicals. But not all. The Environmental Working Group recently analyzed samples of 47 common produce items in the state that they're usually eaten (i.e., avocados were peeled, apples washed with water, etc.) then ranked them according to the amount and variety of pesticides the researchers found. Good news for my guac addiction: As I suspected, peeled avocadoes contain a small amount of pesticides, ranking 46th on the list. But bananas come in at a surprisingly high 27, and cucumbers at 19. "It’s really hard to use your intuition to figure out what’s going to have high pesticide loads," says EWG spokesperson Amy Rosenthal. "Skin is something to take into account, but it doesn’t always make a huge difference."

More findings: Peaches, apples, and sweet bell peppers were the three most pesticide-laden crops tested, while frozen sweet corn, avocado, and onion were least contaminated. The EWG team estimates you can lower your pesticide intake by as much as 80 percent if you steer clear of the top 12.

In descending order, the EWG's 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables:

1. Peaches

2. Apples

3. Sweet bell peppers

4. Celery

5. Nectarines

6. Strawberries

7. Cherries

8. Kale

9. Lettuce

10. Grapes (imported)

11. Carrots

12. Pears

For the full list of all 47 fruits and veggies, click here: http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php
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New!  Kingston Community Cultural Policy Plan
Reports on the public consultations into Kingston's Community Cultural Policy Plan

http://www.cityofkingston.ca/residents/culture/masterplan
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New!  Slow Death by Rubber Duck - How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health
Provocative and groundbreaking, Slow
Death by Rubber Duck reveals how the living of daily life creates a toxic soup inside each of us.

By Rick Smith of Environmental Defence.

http://slowdeathbyrubberduck.com/CAN/
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8. Community Notices
New!  Living Cities Kingston
Living Cities is a small community business working to help make cities sustainable. Their goal is to serve our community by encouraging local food production and improving food security, increasing waste reduction, and providing thorough environmental education.

Living Cities is trying to increase the capacity for urban agriculture and improve food access while tackling issues of food insecurity stemming from poverty, and this summer they are running a CSA using a network of our urban gardens located at community centers. They are also organizing a big rainbarrel sale for May, with pre-orders available now and due April 30th.

For more info please visit: http://www.livingcitiescompany.ca/home.html
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Root Radical CSA Now Accepting New Members!
Root Radical CSA is now welcoming new members! Vegetable shares are available for the 2010 season. There are no egg shares available but when we have extra eggs they can be purchased by the dozen. Instructions on how to register follow.

How to register

First of all, please take a few minutes to read through the membership pages of our website ( http://www.rootradicalrows.com ) to read more about how CSA membership works on our farm. For those familiar with our shares in previous years, please note that we have changed our basic share unit this year. What used to be called a "half share" is now considered 1 share.

Once you have decided that you would like to purchase a share and become a Root Radical CSA member you need to fill out a commitment form and make an intial payment in order to make it official.

There are three ways to access the Commitment Form:

1) Online: Go to http://rootradicalrows.com/commit10.html . Fill out the form and submit it online. Make your initial payment by cheque, cash or email money transfer.

2) PDF: Print out the attached '2010 commitment form for new members' (3 pages) and send it along with your initial payment by cheque via post. Or contact me (emily@rootradicalrows.com or 613-546-0869) to make arrangements to pay by cash or email money transfer.

3) Hard copy: Contact me (emily@rootradicalrows.com or 613-546-0869) and I will send you a hard copy of the commitment form. Once you receive it, please fill it out and send it along with your initial payment by cheque via post. Or make arrangements with me to pay by cash or email money transfer. 		Top
Join the Kingston Greens
Free newsletter, articles, talks etc. Get involved in community actions (for example: Lobbying Council for a Ban on the Cosmetic use of Pesticides, Fighting Urban Development on Conservation Land, Survey on Green Issues that affect Kingstonians, Election Canvassing etc.).

Green momentum is building in Kingston. Come out and help us bring a sustainable future to Kingston!

Membership to Kingston Greens is free but we encourage membership to the Green Party of Ontario ($10) and the Green Party of Canada ($10).

Remember: You can get up to 75% of your donation to the Kingston Greens back at tax time!  The current government will help you subsidize the greening of their own non-Green policies! Give generously and you'll receive a generous dividend in return: a 75% tax credit and more progressive government.

Please send your cheque made to: KINGSTON GREENS (please specify Provincial or Federal membership on your cheque. Unfortunately, separate cheques are required for each.)
- P.O. Box 1691, Kingston ON, K7L 5J6



More info: 384-8504 or ( 		Top
9. Wanted!
10. Local Organic Produce