In the city of Richmond, people can get everything they need to start their own urban gardens, with a little help from the local library. The seedbank at the Richmond library is the brainchild of school teacher Rebecca Newburn. “I think it takes and connects a lot of dots for me - it’s creating community. People are coming together and we’re sharing our resources and sharing our skills.” The seeds are rented at no cost, but you do have to fill out the correct forms and attend a small workshop. Information on each type of plant is typed on index cards and color-coded to show how hard or easy they are to grow. The seeds may be free, but that doesn’t mean you get them for nothing. At the end of the growing season you have to bring back your new seeds, so somebody else can borrow them and keep the idea passing forward.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7612093

- The Russian end of wheat exports because of the high temperatures is an example of extreme weather events that threaten world food production, but even slow change can reduce production. World food shortages can impact the price of food in the U.S. as well. Increasing local food production serves as a buffer to prices surely to rise. - Editor
Global warming threatens Asian rice production
Even modest rises in global temperatures will drive down rice production in Asia, the world’s biggest grower of the cereal grain that millions of poor people depend on as a staple food. As the daily minimum temperature increases, or as nights get hotter, rice yields drop. Rising temperatures in the past 25 years have already cut rice yields at several key growing locations by 10-20 percent. Rice is a key global crop, eaten by around three billion people a day.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jQdV69W_J5hApCILihf6sFg0Xpng

- This short home-made video is so very touching to see such creativity and determination to produce one’s own food without a plot of land. Even with my hundreds of articles and numerous books on urban ag, this example of sheer determination should help all of us realize we need to actively support sustainable food production right at home. - Editor

Women grow and harvest rice on a roof in India
The rice was planted in mid-April and watered with treated greywater and rainwater alone. It was harvested in mid-July. The green roof keeps the house cool. It has two layers of a lining, which prevent moisture getting through the roof. Mother and daughter harvest the paddy with a sickle each.

For the video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adhFyVLLx7M&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.cityfarmer.info/2010/08/09/women-grow-and-harvest-rice-on-a-roof-in-india/#more-7132

As much as 12 percent of the world’s human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from plants and other organic materials. That’s more than what could be offset if the same plants and materials were burned to generate energy, concludes a study published today in the journal Nature Communications. The study is the most thorough and comprehensive analysis to date on the global potential of biochar. Biochar would be most beneficial if it were tilled into the planet’s poorest soils, such as those in the tropics and the Southeastern United States. Adding biochar to the most infertile cropland would offset greenhouse gases by 60 percent more than if bioenergy were made using the same amount of biomass from that location, the researchers found.
For the report- http://www.nature.com/ncomms/index.html
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1903066/charcoal_takes_some_heat_off_global_warming/index.html?source=r_science

- Such business opportunities also move us forward. - Editor

- We all have idols, and last week, I got to listen to one of mine. It was partly the ground-breaking Club of Rome work that influenced me away from my intended career and on to population, environment, and climate change. With such an important message, why weren’t all the City decision makers there at the talk? How do we get other cities to listen? Dr. Meadows had read our Sustainable Santa Fe Plan- great! - and while he congratulated us on its importance and value, he said that if population and consumption levels are not included in a climate plan, we can not become sustainable. It’s true. If we cut our emissions, for example 50%, but double the number of people, we have not become more sustainable.

For those of you who have been reading Climate Today for at least a year will not have had any surprises- his talk covered Peak Oil, population growth, the lag time of climate change, the need for local adaptation and relocalization, voluntary simplicity with reduced consumption, etc.

Here are a few gems from his talk that are worth remembering and sharing:
- 50% of all the oil consumed by humans has been consumed since 1984, creating a world we now view as normal, but this high energy usage can not continue.
- We are moving into the “Post Petroleum Age.”  In 2006, 9 billion barrels of oil were discovered, but we consumed 31 billion barrels that year. World consumption of oil is currently 5 to 6 times the amount that is being discovered, so we are using up our savings account, which can not continue.
- Prepare yourself for less available energy. It appears now that the government in the coming years will have to resort to some kind of rationing or quotas, similar to World War II. Just raising prices harms the poor.
- The “biocapacity” of the earth has been surpassed, and we are currently overshooting, which, if continues, is always followed by collapse. We are now consuming 140% of resources with demands accelerating against the world’s ecosystems. These trends include not only fossil fuels but also groundwater, greenhouse gases, the destruction of agricultural soils, the degradation of natural resources, the gap between the rich and the poor, the supply of fish, etc.
- Embodied energy is the energy used to create and ship the things that we import. We have to fully recognize the energy and resources used in other places like China if we are to reach sustainability.
- The world’s population will be going back down this century. It is only a matter of how.
- It is unlikely that waiting for the Federal government will work. Politicians want to get re-elected, and therefore fail to make the essential significant structural changes required to convert to sustainability.
Thank you Dr. Meadows for speaking so frankly. - Editor

- This weekend I was speaking with an executive in Dubai who reported that it was 123 degrees that day. With the need for local food, I wondered to myself- how do you grow food under such harsh conditions? Today’s news provided a glimpse from Dubai based restaurant consultants. Zero food miles for at least some of the food, and getting the water from the air. - Editor