Daily Loaf

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) calls it “electrocution without prosecution,” and in the wake of the two most recent Taser-related deaths in Florida, the civil rights group wants the governor to temporarily ban Tasers until a stricter, more uniform policy can be put in place.

The so called “non-lethal” devices, manufactured by Taser International, have killed over 400 U.S. citizens since 2001. According to the website Electronic Village, which diligently tracks the numbers, over 40 percent of the victims are black men. Charles Smith, president of the Manatee Chapter of the SCLC, sees Tasers as the biggest threat to the people of Florida. “You don’t have to break the law for them to use it on you. We cannot allow the local authorities to arbitrarily decide when a person can use a Taser and when they can’t.  This is not a black and white issue; this is a right and wrong issue.”

The October 27 meeting with Governor Crist came after weeks of protest over the Pensacola killing of 17-year-old Victor Steen, who police say was fleeing on his bicycle from a construction site the night of Oct. 3. Officers tried to tase him from inside their patrol car but missed. Steen then lost control of his bike and fell into the path of the vehicle and was dragged 25 feet to his death. After that incident the Pensacola Police Dept. revised their policy to prohibit the shooting of Tasers into or from a moving vehicle.

A week before Steen was killed in Pensacola, 38-year-old Derrick Humbert died within a half hour of being tased in the back for not stopping when ordered to by Bradenton Police Officer Del Shiflett.  Humbert’s only crime was operating a bicycle without a headlight. Read the rest of this entry »

A local activist has scheduled a discussion on recycling and sustainability at the Seminole Community Library on Monday, November 9, from 10 am to 12 pm.

Mary DeGeorge, coordinator of the discussion, moved from New York to Florida two years ago.  While in New York, she established a paper recycling program at the 1,200 student school in which she taught.

Mary is a member of the Pinellas County Utilities Technical Management Committee (recycling subcommittee) which meets at the Solid Waste Management Plant in St. Petersburg.
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The Tampa Bay Derby Darlins are at it again, teaming up with Esurance, T.R.E.E., Inc. (Tampa Bay Reforestation and Environmental Efforts Inc), the City of Temple Terrace Parks and Recreation Department and Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful, Inc. to plant trees to offset their carbon gas emissions from their local and long distance traveling done in their 2009 season.

The girls and other volunteers will be planting 72 Florida native trees including the Florida Elm, Baldcypress and Longleaf pine trees.

If you would like to help the girls and volunteer this Halloween, the planting will take place at 10 am this Saturday, October 31st, at 78th Street and Bullard Parkway in Temple Terrace. The rain date will be scheduled for Saturday, November 7th.
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Last Saturday (October 24) was the International Day of Climate Action — the biggest day of grassroots action on global warming ever. People from over 180 countries participated in different ways to show our world leaders that we want them to establish stricter rules on global carbon emissions when they meet in Copenhagen in December to reach an agreement on a new climate treaty.

There were over 5,200 events staged internationally and over 19,000 photos taken of the various events that day — from the US to India, Australia to Iceland. See photos submitted to Greenpeace, the Huffington Post, TreeHugger, and check out 350.org’s page for photos and current updates of the movement.
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You would think that when an elected body is proposing the idea to citizens to approve taxing themselves for something they might never even use that they would want to put their best foot forward. We are in Hillsborough though so keep your expectations low. Very low.

The upcoming ballot referendum question is very important to those true rail supporters in the county and how it is worded along with what other goodies are sprinkled on it to entice voters to approve it is very important its passage. I suffered through enough TBARTA meetings while fighting the bypass/beltway/green swath of death (or as TBARTA named it a “freight rail corridor”) to have learned while listening to many presentations on rail referendums that they almost never pass the first time they are on the ballot. Don’t worry, Hillsborough is out to make sure we are no exception.

Photo credit: jeffmcneill @Flickr.com

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Let us assume for one moment that water was a precious commodity, as rare as gold itself. How would we treat it? Would we bathe our infertile landscape with it? Expend perfectly clean water to dispose of our waste? Throw it away after scantly using it in the sink while doing dishes?

Now let us live in reality. Realize that already this resource is such a thing. For we live way above our means at almost 500 gallons a day for the average American. Most human beings on this planet use less than 100 gallons, and by 2025 water will be a scarce resource for nearly three-quarters of the population due to exponential growth of use and depleting glaciers.

In my previous post about South Central Asia, I spoke also about the resource war that could erupt over water. With recent fires in California as well as sandstorms in Australia, more than ever resilience in a water supply will be crucial for our success in the future. We must adapt to a goal of using less water and utilizing it more efficiently.
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We all know the Tampa Bay area is notoriously inept at short or long-range planning. Most would rather work on their tans, or try to forget that nasty divorce up north, than do the heavy lifting required to intelligently plan for our region’s future.

Examples of our incompetence are everywhere. We lack mass transit, housing for the homeless,  good architecture and planning, appreciation (or even knowledge of) the history of our area,  potable water provided without sucking local rivers dry, or even  places worth caring about.

As it turns out, we may be off the hook. It may not matter in the future that we’ve been such custodial goof-offs.

Gordon Hamilton, a research professor at the University of Maine, and members of Clean Air-Cool Planet gave a presentation at the Florida Aquarium on Thursday morning that illustrates how most of Tampa Bay will be under water by 2100 anyway. How much water? Estimates vary from a low of three feet to a high of six feet, maybe more, and they presented maps that show what our region would look like if the sea rose 20 inches, 3.3 feet, and 6.6 feet. Read the rest of this entry »

The following is an essay on sustainable development by Anubha Momin, a Canadian student studying abroad in London who will be attending the Youth Encounter on Sustainability program in Braunwald, Switzerland. This two-week program “aims to sensitize participants to the complex issues of sustainable development in a global context, through course work, field trips, workshops, group work, discussions and practical learning experiences, combined with social and cultural activities”.

I’ve been integrating climate conscious actions into my days for as long as I can remember: trying to view documents on screen instead of printing and printing double-sided if required to print, regarding plastic water bottles with disdain, and using cloth grocery bags even before I was being charged for plastic ones.

However, when my good friend Martina informed me that she was planning to traverse the 9306 km that make up Canada by bicycle in an effort to raise awareness about climate change, I began to reconsider my limited knowledge about the environmental issues my reducing, reusing, and recycling were to target. To that end, I decided to apply to the Youth Encounter on Sustainability program, a course run by ETH Zurich, which is being held this year in the car-free mountain village of Braunwald, Switzerland. I am seeking just the type of immersive, didactic environment YES offers in order to heighten my awareness of sustainable development, beyond the surface attention provided in blog posts, news programs, and school.
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Will you stand? Comment what you’re standing for here locally in Tampa bay.

This Saturday, October 24, 2009, is the International Day of Climate Action - the biggest day of grassroots action on global warming ever. Why are people speaking out on this day, you ask?

People are trying to make their voices heard over wanting stricter regulations on global carbon emissions, so we can try to curb global warming before it gets out of hand. This December in Copenhagen, many world leaders will be attending the Climate Conference to reach an agreement on a new climate treaty. Environmental activists want them to know that they mean business and want things changed now, before it’s too late.

That’s where 350.org comes in:
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On October 24, people from Tampa will join Greenpeace to hear the importance of acting now for the climate and gather together to take a stand for the climate and a clean energy future as part of the largest global day of climate action ever.

The event is one of more than 3,000 events in over 150 countries to call on President Obama and other world leaders to secure a fair, ambitious and binding global deal in Copenhagen this December at the UN Climate Change Conference. Greenpeace is calling on President Obama to lead the world toward a solution to the climate crisis that is based on the latest science, not the demands of oil and coal companies and their backers in Congress.
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The Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival has been in town these past two weeks, and it’s a time of celebration. We should not only be celebrating the films themselves, but celebrating the love that goes into the making of them. These are real people with real lives. This is someone, somewhere’s story.

There was also the National Equality March in Washington D.C. last weekend. Tens of thousands of gay and straight people from around the nation came together in unity to stand up for something important: basic human rights. Lady Gaga made a speech about the nature of equality, pointing out that “it’s not equality if it’s sometimes.” Cleve Jones, co-chairman of the march said “there’s no such thing as a fraction of equality.” It made me think about how far we’ve all come without really going anywhere.

Most people, at this point, understand what is meant by “tolerance.” As I’ve said before, this word is a crock of shit to me. So what? Joe Republican from Midwest, USA with his 2.3 children – that’s his son Timmy, his daughter Sally, and his limbless torso of a child Bob – doesn’t openly call the effeminate Starbucks barista “faggot” to his face? Is that tolerance? Or maybe it’s bigger than that. A woman can dedicate her life to her country by fighting in the military and that’s praiseworthy, but if she kisses her girlfriend when she comes home from overseas she will lose her job. Is that tolerance? I say fuck tolerance. Tolerance isn’t good enough. What we need is equality. Read the rest of this entry »

St. Pete City Council candidate Leonard Schmiege has found an ingenious way of getting some free publicity for his campaign to oust incumbent Jeff Dannner.

Schmiege, an activist who first became known in the city for his work on voting issues earlier this decade, was at yesterday’s City Council meeting when emotions burst out after the Council reversed themselves and voted to allow for the vacating of the public sidewalk in front of the BayWalk shopping center.

Overnight, Schmiege posted on YouTube and sent out to local media organizations a 5-minute video recording of the fracus between  76-year-old Frederick Dudley, the brother of Councilman Rick Dudley, and 61-year-old Ronald Deaton.

Just seconds into the video a green balloon pops up at the top of the screen entitled, “Filmed by Elect Schmiege, click here to see my campaign ad.”

The candidate told CL today that he was able to embed the balloon with a new YouTube feature called Annotations.   He said he spent several hours working on the video Thursday night, but expresses regret that the tool does not allow the user to link to another website.

When asked his thoughts about the Council’s reversal (or specifically, Herb Polson’s),  he said he was disappointed, but expressed more anger at his campaign opponent, Jeff Danner, for his conduct during the workshop that was held for hours before the Council’s vote on Thursday.

“They just put on a dog and pony show,” he said, referring to the fact that representatives from the city’s police, fire and transportation departments, as well as representatives from BayWalk and Muvico Theatres, were given time to speak, but nobody from the activist community was given time before the committee.

The Reverend Bruce Wright also weighed in with his thoughts today.  Wright — last seen exiting Council Chambers yesterday in disgust, saying, “You’re so full of shit it’s ridiculous” — was hardly in a better mood today.

“I’m of the opinion BayWalk is already on the road to its own demise,” he said.

Wright blasted Councilman Polson, who reversed his vote, saying “he was trying to cover his ass.”

Wright will be joining up with others at tonight’s protest at BayWalk.  He said this morning that he had already received calls from people telling him he shouldn’t go out on the sidewalk — not tonight, anyhow.

CL has contacted Councilman Polson to try to learn more on why he switched his vote.

Some of the activists are in a vengeful mood.  St. Pete for Peace member Chris Ernesto told WTSP television that some members may now want to protest in front of Council members’ homes.

Yesterday the St. Petersburg City Council reversed itself from its previous vote two weeks ago, and voted 5-3 to allow for the vacating of the north sidewalk in front of BayWalk, per the request of its owners, along with  Mayor Rick Baker, mayoral candidate Bill Foster, the editorial page of the St. Petersburg Times, and other figures of the city’s establishment.

Councilmember Herb Polson reversed his vote.  We hope to be able to speak with him later today to learn why he changed his mind from two weeks ago.

The activist group St. Pete for Peace, whose demonstrations against the war in Iraq have been blamed by the business establishment as one of the reasons why BayWalk has struggled in recent years, is coming out swinging.  The group says they will be holding a demonstration tonight at 8:30 p.m.

The group says on its website:

In addition to being on the sidewalk we will also be marching in the crosswalk.  It’s ironic that we had not protested at Baywalk in seven months and offered not to protest there for another 12 months. But now, due to the city council resolution, which was meant to stop us from being at Baywalk,  we will once again hold regular protests there.

News coverage last night focused on the fracus that erupted after the vote came in. The anger and disappointment amongst the activist crowd in St. Pete was palpable in the video, shouting comments in the chambers such as “Too big to fail,” “You’ve just driven a stake through the Constitution” and “City of fascists.”

The Reverend Bruce Wright disgustedly walked out saying, “You’re so full of shit it’s ridiculous.”

Here’s video of reaction to the council’s vote: Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Petersburg College Environmental Club and the Emerging Green Builders adopted a mile of beach (Lot 36) on North Shore Clearwater Beach, running from Rockaway St. to 880 Mandalay. We have scheduled our next beach cleanup Saturday, October 17, starting at 9 am. Help us spend a few hours picking up garbage and then relaxing on the beautiful, clean beach.

We will be meeting on the beach at Rockaway Street, right in front of Frenchy’s restaurant. Bags and gloves will be provided, but please remember to wear a hat, sunscreen, closed toed shoes and pants for the dunes, etc. You can park in the public beach parking or go past Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill and find residential parking further down the road then just walk back.
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If you’re interested in clean energy solutions, climate change, and the environment, be sure to attend the Repower America event tonight in St. Petersburg:
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The Tampa Bay area’s Amnesty International Group (Group 240) is actively looking for new members to help in their campaigns for human rights around the globe and at home.

Hillsborough and Pinellas residents are welcome to come to the group’s meeting on Wednesday, October 14 at the Jan Platt Regional Library, 3910 S. Manhattan Ave. (near the intersection of Manhattan and Euclid), Tampa, from 7 to 8:45 p.m.

Among the Amnesty priorities this year: Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve recently seen an influx of environmental themed films that deal with what we’re putting into our bodies. Food, Inc. and Fresh dealt with the mega industrial food industries, and the results of the hormones and chemicals that enter our bodies from the overprocessed foods we eat. But what about chemicals and pesticides that enter our bodies from the upkeep of our prized lush, green lawns?

The new documentary, A Chemical Reaction: The Story of a True Green Revolution, addresses the health risks and side effects of synthetic lawn pesticide and herbicide use and human and animal illnesses, and what a small town did to be the first place in North America to ban the use of these toxic chemicals.

See the film’s trailer after the break
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The $500 billion beauty industry is embraces a message that tells women they must correct, conceal and camouflage. Peel away the glitz and glamour, says Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, and you’ll expose the toxic truths lurking beneath the beauty industry’s seedy underbelly. Malkan shares five of the biggies that the major beauty purveyors would rather keep under wraps.

1. Many skincare products contain chemicals toxic to the skin

“A mind-boggling array of products contain chemicals that sensitize skin and trigger skin problems such as rashes, redness, acne, and other symptoms of contact dermatitis”, says Malkan, who notes that doctors often misdiagnose these problems as eczema and prescribe drugs such as steroids or immunosuppressants. Then, of course, there are the toxic chemicals that are known or suspected causes of long-term health effects such as asthma, infertility, learning disabilities, and cancer—ingredients that companies persist in including despite the fact that they “already know how to make great products without these hazardous chemicals,” she says.

2. Companies that donate to breast cancer research still use carcinogens in their products
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After finally viewing the entire October 1st 2009 St. Petersburg City Council meeting regarding the now infamous Baywalk sidewalk issue, I have noticed many interesting details that are worthy of mention. With just over a month to go until the City election, I found some interesting dynamics displayed. I must admit, the results did not follow my original expectations.

Jeff Danner, voted during the first hearing to give the sidewalk away. Then Danner  flip-flopped and voted against the idea at the last meeting. Could this be because his opponent in the District 8 race, Leonard Schmiege has been speaking out against giving the sidewalk away since the beginning?

Video after the break
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Join the Audubon of Florida on October 23 and 24 in St. Petersburg for the 2009 Audubon Assembly and Dialogue on Coastal Conservation and Climate Change. See below for more information:

Celebrated oceanographer Sylvia Earle, Ph. D., is the Assembly’s keynote speaker. The two-day program brings together conservation leaders and scientists—as well as policy makers, and business people from across Florida to discuss strategies to protect our coasts, birds, and wildlife, and secure our quality of life.

Come and enjoy two days of Audubon fellowship. Connect with nature and birds on expert-led and self-guided field trips. Celebrate Audubon chapter milestones, too: St. Petersburg Audubon turns 100 and Clearwater Audubon is 50 this year. Deepen your knowledge at exciting learning sessions. And share your stories of how climate change is affecting your life and the places you care about. See the full assembly schedule. Receive a discount for early registration.
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Many groups are trying to make their voices heard over the issue of climate change, trying to get world leaders to attend the United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December. Some groups are taking more extreme approaches than others. For instance, a group of 700 volunteers in Burgundy, France, stripped down and posed for the photographer Spencer Tunick to illustrate the threat of global warming, especially its effects on wine and agriculture in France, through art.

I’m guessing that living in a tree for months on end or chaining themselves to heavy machinery wasn’t getting the message across. According to Greenpeace’s website:
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David Swanson first became known to progressives in the U.S.back in 2005 when he helped publicize the Downing Street Memos, the minutes of a meeting amongst the British Prime Minister’s senior ministers in July of ‘02 that documented discussions about going to war in Iraq well in advance of when the  U.S. and Great Britain said they had any intention of doing so

He’s been extremely active in the anti-war movement since then, and has just published a book, Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.  He will be coming to the Tampa Bay area next week, with appearances scheduled  for Tarpon Springs, Sarasota and Eckerd College.

We spoke with Swanson via phone about his new book and his thoughts on the Obama presidency, Afghanistan and the state of activism a year after George W. Bush.

You became well known with the Downing Street Memos.  Can you tell our readers what that was all about?

We started a coalition in May of 2005 called After Downing Street, to expose and publicize crimes and abuses of power and to push for corrective measures in legislation and Congressional actions and impeachment. The Downing Street minutes is by no means the strongest piece of evidence of that crime of lying us into an aggressive war in Iraq. But it was in May of ‘05. And it was a moment that a lot of Americans believed that by exposing that information, we might compel Congress to do something about it. Specifically to impeach Bush and Cheney and end the wars. Read the rest of this entry »

Check out this hilarious clip from the Colbert Report where Stephen sticks it to environmentalists who are against 3-ply toilet paper. It highlights the environmentalists main arguments, such as comparing what quilted toilet paper is to the paper industry what a Hummer is to the car industry.

According to Colbert, the “best, fluffiest toilet paper is made from old wood,” (meaning it’s made from trees that are decades or even centuries old) and environmentalists are taking action against the production of this commodity.

Colbert threatens to start wiping with a spotted owl if the environmentalists take away his precious plush toilet paper.

See the video after the jump.
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Lady Liberty, ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone – only darkness every day. Our St. Pete house just ain’t a home when she goes away. You can forget about solar panels in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mayor Rick Baker has completely robbed the city of all sunshine. And as for Lady Liberty, I wonder if she’s gone to stay. (Click here to hear the song that’s already playing in your head)

The St. Pete times recently reported that agenda items that come before the St. Petersburg City Council are a “done deal” before they are brought to a public forum, according to Councilman Jim Kennedy. This means that any time you or any member of the public speak at a city hearing, your testimony and evidence will not be considered by the board because they have already made up their mind in a meeting with the mayor days before. “It may be a done deal because it has been analyzed and its been massaged” said Kennedy, who openly admits that the Mayor regularly conducts private meetings with council members to ensure his ideas will get a majority vote.
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In May 2007, the city of Greensburg, Kansas, was hit by an EF5 tornado that wiped out 95 percent of the city and killed eleven people. Now, the city is working on becoming better, stronger and greener.

Greensburg is now being rebuilt as a “green” town, with all city buildings being LEED certified platinum (the first city in the country to do so) and residents being educated on how to live greener and more sustainably. These efforts have been made possible with the help of Greensburg Greentown, a non-profit organization, and by charter supporters like Ben & Jerry’s, Brighter Planet, Clif Bar, and Stonyfield Farm, who have purchased ten wind turbines for the city.
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Do you want to know more about renewable energy and local sustainable products? Then the Going Green Tampa 2009 Expo will be right up your alley.

Held Friday, October 9th and Saturday, October 10th at the USF Marshall Center, the Expo will feature a number of exhibits and workshops that will focus on sustainability and reasons why the Tampa Bay area would be a great place for a businesses who would be interested in green growth.

According to the Going Green Tampa Bay website, below is what is expected to be a part of the expo:
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How are academic institutions meeting the challenge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce their carbon footprint?

What are the strategies that they are using to become more “green,” less wasteful, and more energy efficient?

Colleges and universities across the country are exercising leadership in their communities by modeling ways to eliminate global warming emissions, and by producing graduates educated in environmental issues and concerns.  Panelists will give brief presentations on current and future plans for sustainability on their campus, followed by a roundtable discussion amongst all participants. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the first year I have really followed the county budget. While I have a lot of concerns about how politicians spend tax dollars I narrowed it down to the top ten for Thursday night’s final budget hearing. This is the message I delivered to the County Commission regarding my picks for wasting tax dollars:

10. $500,000 to study a rural section of Lithia Pinecrest which was not actually on any plans to be widened.

9. Cost of Pat Bean’s double-digit clandestine raises to some of her faves without your knowledge, including one employee without a college degree pulling in six figures.

8. Pat Bean’s raise to herself without your knowledge. Read the rest of this entry »

This Monday, September 21, Creative Loafing will be hosting a political roundtable here at our office. It is free to attend and open to the public. We will be recording the event and serving light refreshments. More information below, hope to see you there!

The Patel Center for Global Solutions at USF and Creative Loafing cordially invite you to participate in

A NATIONAL DIALOGUE: AMERICA IN THE WORLD

to discuss the below issues and more!

· What are our true national interests—what are our values as we act?

· What goals should we have for the world—how do we go about achieving them?

· How do world events affect you—and how will you influence world events?

Monday, September 21
5:30-7:30 p.m.
Creative Loafing Offices
810 N. Howard Avenue, Tampa

Feel free to share this opportunity with friends & colleagues in your community. To RSVP for this FREE event, please email Bessie Skoures at bskoures@cas.usf.edu

For more information about the event, click here.

The Tampa Bay region has been selected as one of several cities across the U.S. to hold Na­tional Dialogue forums sponsored by the Fund for Peace in Washington, DC and funded by the Ford Foundation. Ideas and themes discussed at these Dialogues will be published in a national report and pre­sented at a major news conference in Washington, DC prior to the State of the Union Address in January 2010.

Welcome to another edition of “Can Hillsborough County Commissioners successfully preserve ‘preserved’ land?” Which, as it has unfolded, has actually turned into “Can Hillsborough County citizens successfully save publicly owned preserved land from the Hillsborough County Commission?”

Photo Credit: MariellaSmith at Flickr.com Read the rest of this entry »

Eight years ago today, nearly three thousand lives – the majority of which were civilians – were taken in a despicable act of terrorism.

It is likely a day that will not be forgotten by anyone who witnessed the events unfold, or the countless lives that were affected by the tragedy. It is a day when all Americans, regardless of race, sex, religion or politics, join in solidarity for the victims of what many consider to be the darkest day in American history.

Just as Washington, D.C. and New York City host formal ceremonies in remembrance of those lost, students from colleges and universities all over America take part in the 9/11 Never Forget Project. Co-sponsored by the Young America’s Foundation, the Project’s goal is to publicly display thousands of American flags – one for each victim of the attack. I had a chance to partake in the event at Florida State University. Read the rest of this entry »

What is Fair Trade?  With the recent celebration of Labor Day (which, by the way, was started in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland as a way to distract attention from May Day) – the real anniversary of radical labor activism – I want to talk more about labor: fair labor.

The fair trade movement sets out to empower producers at the local level by paying them fair wages for their labor, strengthening their local living conditions, and giving them a stronger voice in the market.

While free trade advocates push for international trade devoid of as much regulation as possible, fair trade advocates insist that free trade isn’t enough. They argue that without regulation, a global trade system with power centralized at the international level will always hurt local-level workers.
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The Seminole Heights Community Gardens has teamed up with Green Florida to plant a native and edible garden for a local community member in honor of those lost eight years ago on 9/11. The event will take place this Saturday, September 12th and SHCG are looking for volunteers to to help with setting up the garden and asking for donations from local community groups.
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Last October, an economy that had been running its course for the past three decades was laid to rest. Our country has been on a nearly 30-year credit bubble where we have binged on cheap credit to buy up homes at ever increasing values. This 30-year ascent made us think it could be forever. But this bubble was based upon unsustainable principles and ecological destruction. We destroyed as much land as we could to produce quickly and consume as much food, building supplies, minerals as we could get from the land as fast as possible. We utilize an extremely dense energy source — fossil fuels — to live lifestyles that are historically similar to those that kings lived before. In order to accomplish all this, we have put ourselves in debt for decades to come. We have borrowed from the future to live in the present for far too long.

Here in Florida the Ponzi scheme of real estate flipping ended as well. As my carpenter friend remarked: “We worked ourselves out of a job.” The University of Florida released a demographic report showing that 58,000 people left the state of Florida this year, ending our over 60-year growth pattern. This is a turnaround for a state that based its economic model on perpetual growth. An economy strictly based upon tourism and building is falling apart. We are already witnessing the vast decline in state resources and even our own governor is leaving for Washington D.C. But I’m here, and I’m a native of Florida and I’m not leaving my state any time soon. I’ve been researching a green economy for the past year and a half and I believe it’s the way to move forward for this state and our country. It’s based upon ethics, entrepreneurship and decentralization — a return to a local living economy.
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