Greening the Ridge is today! Head on down to 69th Street Veterans Memorial Pier!

From our friends at the SRWA:

GREENING THE RIDGE 2009!
SUNDAY, JUNE 14th, 2009 at Veteran’s Memorial Pier at 69th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
10am- 6pm

Festival Schedule:
9am-10am: Exhibitor setup
10am: Festival Opening Ceremony
10am-Noon: Xavier High School Jazz Band “Bailout”
11am, 1pm, and 3pm: Dance Performance Installation, “What We Can See From Here,” by Cassie Mey and Jesse Phillips-Fein
Noon: Dance Performance Installation- Kids Workshop!

2:00pm: OLPH Twirlers!
2:30pm: SRWA Green Youth Award Ceremony
Noon to 6pm: Pill Hill Radio and Musical Guests
6pm: Festival end

The Sunset-Ridge Waterfront Alliance is pleased to announce our Second Annual Greening the Ridge Festival in 2009! This annual summer festival will bring vendors, agencies, programs, and individuals to the pier for an educational festival on how to green our community.

Building upon the success of our First Annual GTR Festival in 2008, this year’s event will bring even more people, and more inter-active booths to the Veteran’s Memorial Pier at 69th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. In addition, we are unveiling our Green Youth Award Program at this year’s festival, click here for more information!

Special music entertainment provided by: Xavier High School Jazz Band, and Pill Hill Radio with Musical Guests!

Special dance performance:
What We Can See From Here
Performance Installation by Cassie Mey & Jesse Phillips-Fein

Meet our current sponsors & exhibitors:

Petri Plumbing
Kettle Black
Alley Cat Exterminating
Green Spa
Ben Bay Realty Co.
Ben Bay Realty Co. of Bay Ridge

Smart Car Manhattan

Gallery 364
Bay Ridge CSA
Bay Ridge Food Co-op
Greenmarket
Center for Urban Greenscaping (CuGreen)
EPA
Narrows Botanical Gardens
Ella Vickers Recycled Sailcloth Collection
Petit Oven

Circles International Natural Foods
Bettencourt Green Building Supplies
WowGreen
Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance
Farm Sanctuary
Natural Resources Defense Council
FDNY Smoke House
GreenBrooklyn
CleanAir NY

Garden Direct
Xaverian High School Environmental Club
Scandinavian East Coast Museum
Transportation Alternatives
Life Scout Troop 20, Edward Maddalena
Bay Ridge Historical Society

Plus many more to be added!

This all-day festival is FREE to the public.

More info at SRWAlliance.org.

If you are interested in obtaining more information, please contact Heather McCown: heather@srwalliance.org / (917) 971-0007.

The Sunset-Ridge Waterfront Alliance gratefully acknowledges support from Councilman Vincent Gentile, Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer, Congressman Michael McMahon, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and State Senator Marty Golden.

Learn how to build a lightweight green roof and save thousands of dollars when you install it yourself!

By taking our workshop Saturday, June 27th, you will not only learn the process how to build a green roof, you’ll actually build one too!

A green roof expert will explain the ins and outs of the process and installation techniques.

PLUS you’ll get info on NY State’s green roof tax abatement, a guide book, tour Eco-Brooklyn’s brownstone (22 2nd St; Brooklyn, NY), and more!

Visit our website to learn more and REGISTER ONLINE NOW: www.greenroofworkshop.com

You may have read about us here back in January. ioby.org is now live.  Visit ioby (eye-OH-be), search for environmental projects in your borough, find one that is meaningful to you, click to make a tax-deductible donation to support it or volunteer to get involved.

ioby stands for “in our backyards” and the belief that environmental knowledge, innovation, action and service begin and thrive at the local level.  On ioby.org groups with environmental projects can quickly connect to the donors and volunteers they need to make positive, environmental change for New York City neighborhoods.

Visit ioby.org or call us if you have questions 212-228-6947.  Follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook. Read about us on the American Museum of Natural History blog or listen to us on WNYC.

Barack Obama at an Iowa Farm - July 27th, 2007

The NYT blog Diner’s Journal posted an article about a letter that the nation’s top food advocates — don’t call them “foodies” — sent to President-elect Barack Obama. The letter advocated for six possible choices for the person who could be the very first green Secretary of Agriculture in modern U.S. history.

Signing the letter were 84 sustainable food advocates from around the country, including three from Brooklyn — Anna Lappé, co-founder of the Small Planet Institute; Josh Viertel, President of Brooklyn-based Slow Food USA; and Peter Kaminsky, Brooklynite chef/food critic/author. Signatories included 11 others from NYC and NYS.

The letter expresses, in no uncertain terms, just how important sustainable food and agriculture has become to our society. Here is a snippet:

We believe that our nation is at a critical juncture in regard to agriculture and its impact on the environment and that our next Secretary of Agriculture must have a broad vision for our collective future that is greater than what past appointments have called for.

Presently, farmers face serious challenges in terms of the high costs of energy, inputs and land, as well as continually having to fight an economic system and legislative policies that undermine their ability to compete in the open market. The current system unnaturally favors economies of scale, consolidation and market concentration and the allocation of massive subsidies for commodities, all of which benefit the interests of corporate agribusiness over the livelihoods of farm families.

[...]

Today we have a nutritional and environmental deficit that is as real and as great as that of our national debt and must be addressed with forward thinking and bold, decisive action. To deal with this crisis, our next Secretary of Agriculture must work to advance a new era of sustainability in agriculture, humane husbandry, food and renewable energy production that revitalizes our nation’s soil, air and water while stimulating opportunities for new farmers to return to the land.

The letter is a must-read. Go check it out (pdf).

The six suggested nominees for the cabinet-level position are:

• Gus Schumacher — former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services and former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture.
• Chuck Hassebrook — executive director, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, Neb.
• Sarah Vogel — former Commissioner of Agriculture for North Dakota, lawyer, Bismarck, N.D.
• Fred Kirschenmann — organic farmer, distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Ames, Iowa, and president of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocantico Hills, NY.
• Mark Ritchie — Minnesota Secretary of State, former policy analyst in Minnesota’s Department of Agriculture under Governor Rudy Perpich, co-founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
• Neil Hamilton — Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and director of the Agricultural Law Center, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa.

You, too, can write a letter to President-elect Obama advocating for sustainable food and agriculture — or any other issue. Go to Change.gov and submit your own idea or story.

“America’s farmers are America’s future” ~ Barack Obama, Indianapolis, IN, 10/23/2008

The 2008 Environmental Justice Community Impact Grants are in. Some of the projects funded by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation include: community gardens and green roofs, air- and water-quality monitoring, lead poisoning prevention, urban forestry, subsistence fishing education, environmental education for urban youth, inventories of local pollution sources, and an international climate justice conference.

The 12 Brooklyn organizations — including some of our favorite friends — won a combined total of $357,669 in grants. Congrats to all!

Here is the list of winning Brooklyn orgs and the projects funded:

• Added Value – Brooklyn - $25,000 – for construction of a rain water capture system for a community garden to reduce the garden’s ecological footprint, along with community education to promote rainwater capture and use.
• Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation – Brooklyn - $25,000 – for partnership with Pratt Center for Community Development to reduce energy consumption by providing: (1) free energy audits and energy conservation education to low-income residents; and (2) job training and apprenticeship opportunities in energy retrofits.
• Brooklyn Art Incubator, Inc. – Brooklyn - $24,800 – for community residents to develop ways to improve local air quality, followed by construction of a community garden and other green infrastructure at the Magnolia Tree Earth Center.
• Going Coastal, Inc. – Brooklyn - $22,400 – for a survey of subsistence anglers’ knowledge and attitudes about fish health advisories, research into health advisories and fish contamination, and education of anglers.
• The Newtown Creek Alliance – Brooklyn and Queens - $46,041 - for health-based interviews of community residents, with results presented in a unique internet GIS interactive map.
• OUTRAGE - Brooklyn - $47,000 – for a community-based study of environmental and public health hazards from local solid waste facilities and attendant truck traffic, with community education and development of mitigation proposals based on the results.
• Phoenix Community Garden – Brooklyn - $22,000 – to expand operations of a 19,000-square-foot community garden and outdoor environmental education center.
• Prospect Park Alliance – Brooklyn - $25,000 – for a summer ecological research camp for inner-city Brooklyn youth at the Rheinstrom Hill Audubon Center and Wildlife Sanctuary in Hillsdale, Columbia County.
• Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation – Brooklyn - $25,000 – for renovation of an abandoned building into a green community arts and cultural center with environmental education programs.
• United Community Centers, Inc. – Brooklyn - $24,415 – for development of sustainable systems and community education programs for two urban farms and a farmers’ market.
• UPROSE, Inc. – Brooklyn - $46,013 – for a study of local air pollution and related health effects and other environmental burdens, followed by environmental education tours of Sunset Park.
• Wildlife Conservation Society – Brooklyn - $25,000 – for a partnership with the New York City Aquarium to provide training and job opportunities for inner-city teens as aquarium docents and interns and to engage the participants in hands-on stream conservation projects.

For the complete list of winners throughout the state, go here (pdf)

Go here for the grant announcement at NYS DEC.

Go here to read more about the grant program and how to apply for next year’s grant.

What is Environmental Justice?

Environmental justice is defined as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.

Environmental justice efforts focus on improving the environment in communities, specifically minority and low-income communities, and addressing disproportionate adverse environmental impacts that may exist in those communities.

Click here to read more and for resources on this important topic.