Tuesday, 15 December 2009, 12:00noon ¤ on Kansas City Community Radio
Listen at KKFI-FM 90.1, or on web-streaming at http://www.kkfi.org/
On EcoRadio KC this week - It's the Holidays; do you have the sugar blues? Host Reenie Carmack will talk with guest, Mary Sue Carder, about: "Sweet Death: The history of diseases linked to sugar".
Stay tuned at 12:30 when the Bioneers radio series airs "Time is Not Money: Waking from the Workaholic American Dream". What are the most precious resources on earth? Oil? Gold? Water? Is time our real gold? Author Vicki Robin faced a life-threatening illness and awakened to the true value of time. John De Graff, producer of the film and book Affluenza, charts how U.S. residents spend time very differently from Europeans. What would the alternative to overwork and the workaholic American dream look like?
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COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CONFERENCE ¤ LEGALLY BINDING TREATY?
Tuesday-Friday, 7-18 December 2009
Copenhagen Denmark - Copenhagen Climate Conference 2009
"The signs up all over the airport and various places elsewhere in town are calling it Hopenhagen, but everybody I know is calling it Cop-enhagen, which seems far more appropriate", as reported by David Rovics, activist singer-songwriter - David Rovics, Songs of Social Significance. "Danish police can preemptively arrest anyone they believe is likely to break the law in the near future", as reported by Democracy Now! - Danish Police Preemptively Arrest Over 1,000 Protesters. (Democracy Now! is the ONLY news network reporting daily from inside the Bella Conference Center).
Climate disruption may be a survival issue for dozens of island nations, hundreds of species like mollusks and polar bears, and millions of climate refugees, but conversely, it's also pivotal for the capitalist concept of a growth economy. So it's no wonder there are two adversarial camps with heated conflicts. As historically true, when law enforcement intervenes, they always protect property over persons, rights, or justice.
Climate justice advocates are calling for four major items: scientifically effective targets of 350ppm CO2 and an absolute maximum temperature rise of 1.5°C, payment of climate reparations by industrial nation perpetrators to poor nation victims, a legally binding treaty that forces treaty implementation, and a global climate court that hears cases brought against non-compliant nations.
Industrial nations have historically concentrated our wealth by colonizing the resources and labor from elsewhere, therefore impoverishing those nations. Capitalism accelerates this by having created the corporation that holds a legal requirement to concentrate wealth above all else. As you read this, hundreds of corporatists at CPO15 are posturing and mouthing pretense about climate targets and remediation, while simultaneously cutting key provisions from the text, and cutting back-room deals about secret treaty drafts - Climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak.
Nations of concentrated wealth live by the principle of "I staked my claim first, and I'm not letting go". So it's truly hard to imagine that concentrated wealth nations would agree to closing down coal plants or stop fighting wars over oil, much less equally sharing opportunities for growth with the very nations that they impoverished in the first place when they staked their colonization claims. Even if concentrated wealth nations would agree to abide by such a treaty, what guarantees they will, and when, and to what extent? Nothing points to their willingness to do so.
Naomi Klein - author of "No Logo" and "Shock Doctrine" - is a commentator we've quoted before in these Announcements, because she clarifies contemporary reality so articulately. In a panel discussion at the KlimaForum, the peoples climate forum, Naomi Klein described the callous intransigence of corporatists, and then laid out a hopeful solution. "A particular model of dealing with climate change is revealing itself before the world as nothing more than a final scramble for the remaining resources of a planet in peril. That’s what’s going on at the Bella Center." She goes on "We need to start putting pressure on governments that say that they do care about these issues to do things like launch trade retaliation, kick Canada out of the Commonwealth, things like that. There has to be some muscle. There has to be some consequences." Get the full effect by watching her at Naomi Klein at KlimaForum.
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LEAVENWORTH-JEFFERSON ELECTRIC CO-OP ¤ NET METERING PROPOSAL
Tuesday, 22 December 2009, 5:00pm
LJEC offices, 507 North Union, McLouth KS
The LJEC Board will discuss and vote on the adoption of a service rider regarding net metering. But the method of "net metering" they are considering may be flawed. Here's how they describe it: "Net metering service is designed primarily to allow a member to offset some or all of their electrical requirements with their own generation each billing period. At the end of the billing period, a member who has used more energy than he supplied pays the coop for that usage. However, a member who supplies more energy than he uses is not compensated for the excess energy supplies under net metering." LJEC is a member-owned co-op, so attendance, discussion, and voting will be critical for this policy.
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LAWRENCE HOLIDAY TREE RECYCLING PICK UP DAYS
Mondays, 28 December 2009, 4 January 2010, 11 January 2010; 6:00am
After Christmas, please place your live-cut tree at the curb or alley for collection on one of the above Mondays. The trees will be used for wildlife habitat. Please remove all artificial items including tinsel, lights, and tree stand.
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BREAKING THE SILENCE ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE ¤ 3RD ANNUAL
Friday-Saturday, 8-9 January 2010, day & evening - $1.00 per day
Reardon Convention Center, 520 Minnesota Ave., Kansas City KS 66101
Sponsored by Building Sustainable Earth Community, the conference will feature keynoters Sarah Rush, Booker T. Washington great grand daughter, and Roderick Bremby, Kansas Sec. of Health & Environment. There will also be a screening of Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, who was the 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate. In addition, there will be many workshops on topics like: energy efficiency, environmental law, Kansas rivers, health education, food not lawns, no child left inside, and much more. For more information visit Breaking The Silence Environmental Conference 2010.
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GREAT PLAINS VEGETABLE GROWERS CONFERENCE
Thursday-Saturday, 7-9 January 2010, 8:00am-4:30pm
Missouri Western State University, Fulkerson Center, St. Joseph MO
This annual conference will have a variety of workshops and speakers, and feature workshops on high tunnels, market farming, community supported agriculture, growing your farm profits, and many more on specific crops, growing techniques, bee keeping, etc. For more info and to register contact Katie Cook at (816)279-1691 or go to http://extension.missouri.edu/
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TOBY HEMMENWAY PERMACULTURE WORKSHOPS ¤ MINNEAPOLIS MN
Thursday-Saturday, 7-9 January 2010, day and evenings
University of Minnesotta, St. Paul Campus
Toby Hemmenway is the author of Gaia's Garden, one of the clearest and most comprehensive guides to urban scale permaculture. He not only is a font of information on crops and methods and growing schedules, but he also explains design principles well, along with soil science, synergy of species combinations, water catchments, and more. The Permaculture Research Institute is sponsoring these workshops, a group that is one of the inspirations of our Kaw Permaculture Collaborative.
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MID-AMERICA FRUIT GROWERS CONFERENCE
Tuesday-Thursday, 12-14 January 2010, 8:00am-5:00pm
Lied Lodge at Arbor Day Farm, Nebraska City NE
The MidAmerica Fruit Growers Conference is the regional fruit growers conference. It provides excellent information for professional tree and small fruit growers. If you are thinking about getting into fruit production, this is the place to go for up-to-date information and for grower networking. For more information see: Mid America Fruit Growers Association.
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SUSTAINABILITY ACTION NETWORK ¤ ANNUAL MEETING
Saturday, 16 January 2010, 5:00pm
Free State Brewery, upstairs meeting room, 636 Massachusetts St., Lawrence KS
Come join us for camaraderie and a fun recap of our achievements over the past year. Just as we like to approach the serious societal issues with dedication and humor, our meeting will be a mix of a little business and much fun. Everyone is welcome, non-members and members alike, so we hope to see you there!
The SUSTAINABILITY ACTION NETWORK, Inc. is a Kansas not-for-profit organization. DONATIONS ARE APPRECIATED, and checks can be mailed to P.O.Box 1064, Lawrence KS 66044. Our mission is to advocate and organize societal scale action to address sustainability issues. The triple crises of Energy-Ecology-Economy are building so rapidly that large scale action is needed immediately and methodically to overcome institutional barriers and advance public policy that preserves ecological sustainability. Our focus is to build a relocalized economy-ecology in concert with the Transition Town movement occurring in many other communities. To join the Sustainability Action Network please contact us at
Our current projects include:
1) Transition Kaw Valley - initiating transition to a relocalized post-carbon economy, and municipal level Peak Oil response planning.
2) Kaw Permaculture Collaborative - developing skills and resources for poly-cropping sustainable food production.
3) Energy Conservation & Renewables - advancing a green economy through decentralized technologies and regulations, for conservation and renewable energy.
4) Land Consortium - organizing interested stakeholders to acquire prime farmland in the urban fringe for land-based economic development and regional food security.
5) Water Rights and Watersheds - protecting the water commons, the source of all life, from privatization and contamination, and restoring our watersheds.
6) Electric & Human Powered Vehicles - promoting neighborhood electric vehicles and utility tricycles, including infrastructure and pro-active regulations.
7) Weekly Sustainability Announcements - informing and encouraging others to become active in the Sustainability Action Network, or other action driven groups.
8) Collaboration with sister organizations - such as: The Light Center eco-village; Kaw Valley Food System farm-based economic development; Citizens for Responsible Planning; Films for Action; Kansas River Valley Growers fighting for local water rights; national efforts by the Sustainable Energy Network; KC Metro groups like the Kansas City Food Circle and the All Species Project, etc.
We welcome suggestions for items to be included. Please send items to
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