Daily Loaf

I intend to describe an emerging tribe that is being formed, not only in the Tampa Bay area, but across the state as well. But while doing, so I want to showcase my own observations of the mindset of a large section of the population that is emerging. I believe and have witnessed the cohesive power of this tribe en mass. This cohesiveness is being brought about with courage from an unknowable source. The people standing up for the changes within our culture are ones that have jumped into a new dark abyss. They go forward with lamps showing the way for others to follow.

Last weekend, I attended the 4th Annual Campus and Community Sustainability Conference and Expo at the University of South Florida’s Tampa campus. One of the first seminars I went to was about a group of young architect students from the USF Center for Community Design and Research designing a sustainable community.  These young ladies entered a contest to design a sustainable city, their design being at the heart of  Tampa between Ybor and downtown Tampa. They readily valued community supported agriculture as a method of enabling people to consume food, not measured in miles, but in feet. Light rail mixed with walkable communities enabled the commuters to enjoy a short stroll to anything needed in daily living. Driving a bicycle was just about the only vehicle allowed within most of the area. There was a centralized farmers market where hundreds of stands could be set up, bringing in the local community garden’s food, as well as that from local farmers.

The next seminar I attended was by Laura Morton from Florida West Coast RC&D Council. Her attitude about the challenge of starting your own farm was very realistic and to the point. She spoke of the difficulties and how you really have to want to pursue it and have perseverance. I asked for her opinion about the ability for the Tampa bay area to support the local food production. Her opinion was very science-based upon the thermodynamics of food creation and that the actual ability to grow grain down here in Florida is limited. She spoke about the success of the CSA’s to teach local farmers and their Florida Farm Link website, which links would be farmers to land as well as training. Their CSA’s generally sell shares for $500- $600 which in turn gets you 6-8 types of vegetables each week for a 28-week harvest. Considering the cost of vegetables now days, that’s an impressive amount. They incorporate cooking classes as well as potlucks into their program.

The third program I went to was held by Jennifer Languell of the Trifecta Construction Solutions. Jennifer is a contractor, as well as a television host for the Discovery Channel’s environmental series Discovery Project Earth, and the Florida Green Building Association’s president. She took us through a run down on how to effectively lower the energy costs of your home. Jennifer’s home saw an monthly average around $75 or lower. She told how a major part of the total use of energy in United States buildings use. For existing single family homes it is nearly 50%, as most homes pre-1979 had zero energy code. These models need to be retrofitted to become more energy efficient. Cheap solutions could be utilized to form an effective ability for older homes to lower their monthly electric bills.

The fourth program for the day was Commuter Alternatives by Sandi Moody of Bay Area Commuter Services. This service is one I plan on starting to help my local St. Petersburg College campus begin a carpooling initiative. Sandi has been a part of the TBARTA commission that looks at regional transportation planning. With the introduction of a local light rail system and a regional bus network our area could be connected through mass transportation.

One of my favorite presentations was by Jon Butts, the owner of EcoFarm Community, as well as WMNF 88.5’s sustainability show director. He showed photos of his sustainable lifestyle just a short few miles away from Tampa. The “humanure” toilet got the most laughs, yet when Jon explained the benefits it quickly became how obvious a choice it is to save our water for other necessities as well as gain a new resource for gardening. His displays of his aquaponics system also were very popular with the audience.

There were other great seminars, such as Warren Clark’s FUSE- Faith United for Sustainable Energy group promoting 350.org, and the UF Gators showcasing their grassroots efforts to go green. The rest of my day was spent at a presentation from the USF Anthropology Department about the effects of community gardens. They showcased the numerous relationships that arrive by interconnecting the community and were working on information I found highly useful: The Tampa Bay School Garden Network .

The end of the afternoon was met with a bus ride to Sweetwater Organic Community Farm. We dined and listened to Florida folk music followed by a farm tour. It was an encounter where we got to learn more about the history of the farm as well as the possibilities of a local food network as all the food that was served came from local organic sources. Roberto was our farm guide and as he showed off the different stages of the farm from nursery to farm bed, we got an experience of the importance of our interrelationship with the soil. In Roberto’s words, “When you put your hands in the soil, your interconnected with the rest of the Cosmos,” – coming from someone with interest in biology I have to concur, the process of making soil is a cosmic experience that takes the multiple workings of thousands of species.

The next day started off with more of an environmental tone with a trip to the Hillsborough Community College’s Environmental Stewards Program. The college lead middle and high school students into natural preserves to do biological population studies as well as collecting data for experiments – building an appreciation for nature at a young age, creating future stewards.

The sessions where speakers from St. Petersburg College were well packed, one in particular had some attendees sitting on the floor listening in. The first was about convincing the unconvinced, a two pronged talk from two teachers from the corporate office. The sustainability-minded always want to know how best to market to that elusive faction of the American marketplace- the conservative. What words stood out most were “energy security” along with “self-sufficiency”. Global warming is less of a concern, whereas economic security and small businesses, which most green business are, were the most valued assets for conservatives.

The second session from a St. Petersburg College speaker was about the tax credits available for energy production. Other incentives given by both the state and federal level were discussed, all pertaining to the aspects that most affect the sustainability minded. I want to also bring up a adjacent session that was transpiring that had a interesting subject: statewide feed-in tariffs. This session was hosted by FARE, the Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy. The idea is to make solar power to be more affordable so that people will want to invest into this long-term form of power generation.

The last two sessions I attended were about land management as well as green business awards in Tampa Bay. Shortly after those was the keynote speaker, Ed Begley, Jr. I had some reservations at first about him, but found that his speech was rather inspiring and reality-driven. There are the green dreams of living that everyone seems to be trying to aim, but Ed put them into a more attainable perspective, letting people know it takes dedication to live this way. My main issue has always been about going further into debt pursuing this agenda of greening this nation. Ed’s suggestion is not to go all out, but to work slowly, fiscally, and responsibly towards the end goal of becoming carbon neutral or, better yet, carbon negative. In these times, that is to the point of what we all must consider now. Personal choice was Ed’s main point to make, but he vaguley hinted at what really is at the heart of real change towards sustainability. That is community, He mentioned it quickly with the clean up process of New York’s Hudson River – how organized fishermen and retired veterans came together to clean up the river by going after polluters. This is how real change occurs, though in the past it was about competition.

Corporations and organizations now realize that a symbiosis must arise. The fate of our existence, the next generation, is what must be considered before the bottom line. This is an unraveling of the old system and an creation of a new system based upon creating life and not money. Retrofitting our world to live in balance with nature and to utilize waste as a resource. Radical transformations must arise not only in the physical sense, but mental as well. We must raise our consciousness from a competitive nature to one purely based upon cooperation. This is done by telling a new story of how man should live: a vision of an walkable world with nature surrounding us and providing our local needs. This vision is being created at these conferences by the pollination of new ideas and innovations.

The really most powerful moment for me was the spontaneous student leadership meeting shortly after the Ed Begley talk. Students from UCF, USF, St. Petersburg College, Florida Gulf Coast University, and The University of Jacksonville gathered in a room meant for Mr. Ed Begley to actually meet up after his book signings. Tim Center helped redirect Ed to the Green Expo in order to allow us to network. In this meeting we reviewed each other’s campus sustainability initiatives. We started up an organization- Student Sustainable Leaders of Florida, and discussed Florida’s Power Shift 2009 where most of the students will be heading to organize for a shift to renewable energy. If you’re a college student interested in this group, you can email me at zetazhan@gmail.com.

I leave you with something that was passed to me via email. Its message is one that is really the heart of sustainability. Creating a genius through cooperation and imagination. We need to be the generation that creates a human presence on this Earth that is both peaceful and everlasting. A permanent culture that can live this world livable for generations to come. We can transcend our material world, think more about others, and gain mastery over our evolution in the process. This is our moment.

Awakening the Dreamer Symposium Trailer from Pachamama Alliance on Vimeo.

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