Staunton Green 2020

Overrun by tomatoes, corn and peaches? Staying up late baking zucchini breads? Want to eat local and fresh veggies in January? Learn how to can from Stephanie Diehl, an extension agent and canning pro. She will get you ready to can, freeze and even use a pressure cooker.

Plan to come Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010 at 6:30pm at the Temple House of Israel on 15 N. Market St. in downtown Staunton. Email stauntongreen <at> gmail.com with your name and contact info to sign-up.

There was a great article in today’s (Sun. Aug. 15) News Leader about canning and other methods of storing fresh produce. Check it out and then come to this workshop to ensure that your bounty is available all year long.

To sign-up and for more information contact: stauntongreen <at> gmail.com

Need canning supplies? Head over to Young True Value to get set-up.

Don’t forget Green Drinks at 5pm today (Thur. Aug. 12) at the Depot Grille. A casual way to chat, meet folks and talk about all things green. From good jobs and a more secure energy future to healthy, local food, muddy boots and cutting our waste. And, speaking of starting sentences with the word “and” take a look at this great article on all the items you can put in your compost. Like cotton swabs, dryer lint and to-go containers like the ones that Depot Grille uses!

See you at 5pm.

Every Thursday in July at Live Arts in Charlottesville there will be the one woman show, Cry of the Mountain, a documentary play about Mountaintop Removal in Appalachia, conceived and performed by Adelind Horan.

As described on the Live Arts web site: “This is a wonderful and simple piece of theatre in which Adelind portrays a wide variety of people involved with and affected by Mountaintop Removal in Appalachia. The characters are performed verbatim from interviews she conducted last summer while volunteering with iLoveMountains.org.”

Get more info at Live Arts.

Related articles by Zemanta

• EPA Approves First Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine Under More Stringent Guidelines (geteconow.com)
• Satellite Photos Reveal How Mountaintop Removal Is Scarring Appalachia (treehugger.com)
• EPA Approves First Mountaintop Removal Coal Mine Under More Stringent Guidelines (treehugger.com)

On Thursday, July 15 at 7 pm, the film Save Our Land, Save Our Towns will be shown at Mockingbird Restaurant, 123 West Beverley Street, Staunton, as part of the Local Motion Film Series Third Thursday Screenings. Admission is free. Doors open at 5:30 pm for dinner in the Roots Music Hall space. The film follows the quest of small town newsman Tom Hylton to discover why America’s towns have declined. Hylton explores policies which gave rise to sprawl and laws that encourage sprawl. Contrasting bad policies with those that encourage greenbelts and traditional neighborhoods, Hylton unveils logical, practical ways America can rebuild its towns and preserve its countryside. Following the film will be a brief discussion with two planners in our area: Kathy Frazier of Frazier and Associates, and Sara Hollberg of Valley Conservation Council. The screening is cosponsored by Transition Staunton Augusta, Mary Baldwin College’s Spencer Center for Civic and Global Engagement, and Mockingbird.

Don’t miss King Corn this Thursday (6/17) at the Mockingbird Restaurant (123 W. Beverley; Downtown Staunton). Film begins at 7pm, but come early to enjoy a special dinner in the Music Hall featuring food from local farmers (call 540.213.8777 for reservations).

In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from an east coast college, move to the American heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most productive, most subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions, about how we eat — and how we farm.

kingcorn.net has great info and links.

King Corn is part of the local motion film series presented by Transition Staunton Augusta in partnership with Staunton Green 2020.

Did you know that if you walk through your house with conventional lawn chemicals on your shoes the chemicals hang around… sometimes up to a year! Those same dangerous chemicals that run-off and contaminate the Chesapeake Bay watershed after some rain also stick around your house lingering in carpets and household dust for a year or more according to Environmental Science and Technology. Okay, that’s a bummer. But the problem is far more pervasive.

Last month (Apr. 2010) the President’s Cancer Panel released the report, Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk, which details how we are exposed to up to 80,000 dangerous, unregulated chemicals from not only industry and manufacturing, but also in our homes, at work, through agricultural activities and our front lawns. The report is incredibly (and depressingly) comprehensive.

One of the scariest elements of the report is the acknowledgment that children are often most vulnerable to these chemicals.

The report pulls no punches and at the end of the Executive Summary the authors take their case to President Obama:

“The Panel urges you most strongly to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation’s productivity, and devastate American lives.”

Related articles by Zemanta

• The 2008-2009 Report of the President’s Cancer Panel: Mostly good, some bad, and a little ugly (sciencebasedmedicine.org)
• The President’s Cancer Panel steps into it (scienceblogs.com)
• President’s Cancer Panel Warns of Cancerous Chemicals in Environment (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
• Cancer panel: Unregulated chemicals pose serious risk (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Cancers from Environment ‘Grossly Underestimated’ (abcnews.go.com)
• Tackle environmental cancers, Obama urged (cbc.ca)

Check this out… these guys are riding their bikes around Virginia. But they are not just hitting all four corners of the Old Dominion, they are stopping in 13 cities from Winchester to Richmond playing social and environmental justice music. They figured if they were really committed to a healthy planet they couldn’t just make art about it; they had to live it. The 2nd annual Petrol-Free Gypsy Carnival Tour starts in Harrisonburg and comes to the Darjeeling Cafe in Staunton on May 12. Check it out.

Do you need to build a brand new LEED platinum house to go green? Not at all. There are great examples in downtown Staunton that demonstrate how preserving is often the wisest environmental and economic choice. Join the fine folks from Historic Staunton Foundation this Friday, May 7 at 5pm for an hour tour of downtown Staunton revitalization and preservation initiatives that are green.

Meet at the R.R. Smith Center for History & Art (20 South New St. Staunton, VA). A reception will follow the tour. Free.  Open to the public.

Sunday’s (Apr. 25) Washington Post had a great article about the importance of reducing the amount of fescue (also known as turf  or non-native grass) in our yards. Turf grass is now the number one “crop” in the Chesapeake Watershed. What’s wrong with that? The $5 billion we spend each year ($5 billion just in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed!!) on our turf includes among other harmful substances huge amounts of fertilizers with a terrifying abundance of phosphorous damaging our waterways.

Check out the article here.

Ready to make changes? See Gena Adams’ post on Apr. 23 on native plants.

Related articles by Zemanta

• New Game Simulates Impacts on Watersheds, Educates Kids and Policymakers Alike (treehugger.com)
• Report to highlight Chesapeake’s biofuel potential (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• How to create a more earth-friendly yard (bendbulletin.com)

Stay informed after Earth Day.  Here are a few of my favorite websites that I hope you will enjoy.  Send your favorite environmental websites to us at StauntonGreen@gmail.com.

Join the Food Revolution!

www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns

This is an exciting movement started in Huntington, WVA to bring fresh nutritious foods to our schools and to people all over.  See the website to join the 8,440+ Virginians who have signed the petition.

Environmental Working Group

www.EWG.org

Look here for the latest research to protect you and your family from toxic chemicals in our food, water and air in every day products that we use.  EWG is nationally recognized and they event have a great easy to follow rating system.

Food and Water Watch

www.foodandwaterwatch.org

If you liked the movie Fresh, this is a good website for you! This organization is one of the best for environmental education and enabling individuals to take ACTION. Their mission as a non-profit organization is to work with grassroots organizations around the world to create an economically and environmentally viable future. Through research, public and policymaker education, media, and lobbying, they advocate policies that guarantee safe, wholesome food produced in a humane and sustainable manner and public, rather than private, control of water resources including oceans, rivers, and groundwater. Check them out!

The Good Guide

www.thegoodguide.com

The Good Guide is another great on-line resource that rates healthy green products from food to make-up.

Environmental News Network

www.ENN.com

Sign up for daily emails on the latest worldwide environmental news.

The Daily Green

www.thedailygreen.com

Sign up for The Daily Green e-newsletter promoting environmental responsibility with easy to read tips.

Center for Science in the Public Interest

www.cspinet.org

CSPI publishes an excellent magazine, Nutrition Action, on health and food safety. It’s the largest circulating health newsletter in North America.  This is a concise magazine complete with dos and don’ts and healthy recipes at the end of each edition.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Regulation of Toxic Chemicals Faces Tightening (time.com)