Daily Loaf

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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Gulf Restoration Network report reveals poor water quality protection Gulf-wide:

TAMPA, FL – Today the Gulf Restoration Network released its “Clean Up Your Act!” report card, which grades Gulf of Mexico states on how they implement the Clean Water Act and protect their state waters and public health. Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas all received disappointing and unsatisfactory grades for their failure to fully incorporate the Clean Water Act into state policies. The report grades the Gulf States on issues such as establishing water quality standards, policies to prevent Dead Zone-causing pollution, public health protection, and facilitating public participation in the policy-making process.

“Florida’s economy and future depends on our waters, and Florida’s failure to successfully implement the Clean Water Act continues to hurt our environment, public health, and our economy” stated Joe Murphy, Florida Program Director of the Gulf Restoration Network. “It’s time for Florida, and for Governor Crist, to step up and protect the lifeblood of our state’s future.”
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Here are two upcoming lectures on environmentalism, sustainability, and conservation, one presented by a St. Petersburg College professor, the other hosted at St. Petersburg College.

The first presentation will be held Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 7:30 until 8:30pm at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve’s Lake Maggiore Environmental Education Center, and led by SPC Professor Christopher Nichol.

During the talk Professor Nichol will discuss the Tampa Bay Estuary, the largest open-water estuary in Florida.  He will present the multitude of unique habitats and their inhabitants, threats to the bay, and some of the things that people are doing to ensure that this beautiful resource will remain productive for many years.

Lake Maggiore Environmental Education Center is located at 1101 Country Club Way South in St. Petersburg.  For more information, please call Boyd Hill Nature Preserve at (727) 893-7326.

The second lecture, sponsored by the SPC Friends of Florida Environmental Club will be held Thursday, September 10th 2009, 12:30 until 1:30 pm in the Natural Sciences Building, room SC236 of SPC’s St. Petersburg/Gibbs Campus (6605 Fifth Avenue North, St. Petersburg).
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Once a year on a nice sunny day, you pull up to your house and there is a yellow cellophane bag sitting on your porch with the annual telephone directories inside of it. You sigh. You take it in to your house or apartment and figure out where to put it, never knowing if you will ever actually use it. It collects dust and you usually throw it out in 3 months after you see it wedged in the pantry or under your bed. Sound familiar? You are not alone.

In this computer and tech savvy world, most people generally don’t think to use their phone books anymore as their first source of information. At work or at home, many people will check a telephone number or address through their computer or even more likely, their cell phone.

Plus, these phone books are made from trees. A lot of trees. According to banthephonebook.org, the production of phone books cut down up to 5 million trees each year. That’s a lot of trees to make someone’s makeshift coffee table. Not to mention other costs to taxpayers like added recycling efforts and the financial impact of printing and delivering these bulky information books to your front door or office.
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Would you like to stand up against the Big Oil and Big Energy companies and oppose offshore drilling of the Gulf Coast? Would you like to support Clean Energy and green jobs in the Bay area? Then help make a difference and make your voice heard by attending this Clean Energy rally on Thursday in Ybor:

The American Petroleum Institute, a lobbying front group for Big Oil and other energy industries, is orchestrating staged “grassroots rallies” to try and stop the Clean Energy and Climate Bill from passing the U.S. Senate. The press calls these rallies “astroturf”: manufactured grassroots. This Thursday, August 27th, join Sierra Club, 1Sky Florida, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and other environmental groups for a real grassroots rally outside Big Oil’s staged gathering.

WHEN & WHERE: Meet beforehand at 9:30 am at La Tropicana Café, 1822 East 7th Ave. for some for great cuban coffee! The “Energy Citizens’” event begins at 11:00 am at The RITZ YBOR theatre, and we will counter rally out front at 1503 East 7th Avenue, Tampa, FL 33605 (there is a shady area where we’ll be).
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I have always been someone who has felt connected to the Earth and environmental conservation. In high school, many years ago, I was wearing the “reduce, reuse, recycle” t-shirts at a time where this practice was not commonplace. Recently though, I have found myself with a new emotional connection to the Earth.  This connection has me paying attention to the details of my day to day life, and seeing the plants and animals around me in a new light. 

When I am outside I look at the plants and animals in a new way – I listen for what they have to say, look at what they are doing and what their day to day is like. When I am around plants I listen for messages within as they hold many ancient secrets of the universal ways. Imagine what they have seen in this span of time!
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Scattered about me are books and magazines. On one the poster child of the climate change movement, the polar bear swimming in icy clear water. Audubon chose the title Sink or Swim: Another Assault on the Arctic and How You Can Help Stop It. In all honesty, I think it’s too late. We are currently witnessing the fifth or is it the sixth mass extinction since life first emerged from the slime or rocks or whatever that latest scientific findings happens to suggest. But remember when compared to our life spans this extinction will take an insanely long time. So the urgency just doesn’t seem to be there, because if it did, then we would all be in the streets marching on Washington, D.C. and the United Nations demanding that something be done yesterday.

Another magazine, the April/May 2009 issue of Free Inquiry, has a time bomb on its cover. The number on the clock 6,790,064,816. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of August 16, 2009, at my time of 10:15 a.m., the human population is 6,845,146,634.  In 1960, it was 3 billion. By 2044, 9 billion. That’s a 6 billion jump in less than 100 years. For me, this is the number one problem plaguing Homo sapiens. There are just too many of us, which leads to greater and greater demands on water and food, both quite finite. And the energy demand will only increase GHGs if viable alternatives are not found – think China and India. If human population growth does not slow down, we will not have the resources to feed everyone. I have to smile when I think about the town hall meetings and the misinformation being propagated with end-of-life issues and death squads. If we don’t stop breeding who knows. Sounds like a great story for a movie, though. Oh wait! It’s already been done - Soylent Green.
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“I’m not interested in taking it from the seniors and giving it to somebody else.”

That is Sarasota Congressman Vern Buchanan’s statement about health care coverage from his town hall meeting on Thursday night at Braden River High School in Bradenton. Of course, Vern doesn’t tell them that they are ALREADY paying for other people, through their taxes that reimburse hospitals for the uninsured at exorbitant rates. Better to let uninsured folks get reallll sick (expensive sick), after all, than have health coverage that provides preventive and well care at lower, more affordable costs.

Here’s video of the towner from PoHo correspondent Robin “Roblimo” Miller, after the jump. It gets testy when a pro-Obama speaker gets up at about 4:20 in:

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Click on the chart to make it larger

As we report on tight and interesting races in the Best of the Bay Readers’ Poll, this category is always popular. Some view it as a good thing to be named a troublemaker; others vote it as a pejorative. We don’t care how you vote/view it as long as you vote in the poll.

Longtime reader fave Joe Redner is winning at this point. You have less than two weeks to vote (the poll ends Aug. 31). Vote now,

[About Daily Best of the Bay: Creative Loafing is posting writers' and editors' picks for Best of the Bay 2009 each day until the BOTB issue is released on Sept. 16. Vote now for your own BOTB choices in our Readers' Poll!]

Since 2006, one book has held a prominent position in my library, as well as my nightstand because of its eloquence and forthrightness. That book is E. O. Wilson’s The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth.  Environmental books have become as ubiquitous as Florida strip malls, so its position at the top of my all time greatest list (not included in this article) shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s a small book, which can be easily finished in a day, but it’s packed with such insight that its hard not to refer back to it. It has been my inspiration when I have strayed on past ventures in sustainability and good stewardship of the planet. In fact, many of my dinner guests have been subjected to readings from its pages.  So, I begin my article/commentary/blog in the same vain with an excerpt from the book.

According to archeological evidence, we strayed from Nature with the beginning of civilization roughly ten thousand years ago.  That quantum leap beguiled us with an illusion of freedom from the world that had given us birth.  It nourished the belief that the human spirit can be molded into something new to fit changes in the environment and culture, and as a result the timetables of history desynchronized.  A wiser intelligence might now truthfully say of us at this point:  here is a chimera, a new and very odd species come shambling into our universe, a mix of Stone Age emotion, medieval self-image, and godlike technology.  The combination makes the species unresponsive to the forces that count most for its own long-term survival.  (Wilson, 2006)

That part about the Stone Age emotion, medieval self-image, and godlike technology can fuel a discussion for hours. Welcome to the age of Homo sapiens, especially our last hundred years.
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“I’m mad as hell, and I won’t take it anymore.” – Howard Beale (Peter Finch in Network, 1976)

Mad doesn’t get me anywhere by myself, so I need your help, too. I helped found and operate a farmer’s market in St. Petersburg, FL. But no, we couldn’t call it a “farmer’s market” with integrity because we couldn’t find any farmers. So the St. Petersburg Saturday Morning Market is a “fresh” market. After six seasons and well into the seventh, we got farmers – finally. Organic, local, and sustainably grown vegetables can be found at SMM. We are moving in the right direction.

It has been a struggle to find farmers to come to markets in Florida because small farmers are struggling, too. Why? In a state that has almost a year round growing season? First, while the US Department of Agriculture (The Fed) has an exemption for small producers/farmers, the state of Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) does not! So, Florida’s small farmers are stuck with big creepy costly agribusiness rules – not fair.
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Cross-posted from The Political Whore blog.

By Catherine Durkin Robinson
PoHo contributor
Catherine Durkin Robinson is a “feminist mother of twins” and a political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field.

When he speaks about the impact of captivity on the mammals, he doesn’t sound like a showboater, and what might seem like New Age-y talk about dolphin intelligence is pointed up with footage that left me haunted, too. That smile, says O’Barry, is nature’s greatest deception. Dolphins smile even when they’re crying on the inside.

Living in Florida, I am used to certain theme-and-water-park douchebaggery.

Comes with the heat, bugs, and old people driving 30-mph down the highway.

But there is something vastly disturbing about certain aquariums and water parks. And not only in Florida.

(Read the rest and see the film’s trailer after the jump)

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This is an interesting way to protest McDonald’s and draw attention to oneself:

Courtesy of Nicole Matthews, PETA

A woman who identified herself as a PETA member and was dressed as a giant chicken hit Ronald McDonald with a vegan custard pie at the “grand” opening of the new McDonald’s in the Hancock Village Shopping Center in Midlothian on Saturday morning.

Despite the clown’s cry of “No pie!“ the plucky protester managed to cream the corporate mascot with the confection before flying the coop, leaving Ronald to change his costume. The protest is part of PETA’s campaign to convince McDonald’s to make reasonable, humane, and basic improvements in the way chickens are killed for its restaurants.
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If you have not heard of the Gulfport Goes Green Festival, you will likely soon enough. This monthly street festival has truly gained momentum with their green efforts towards this small Pinellas community. Not only do they have local artist displays and great food, they have also gone a step further and introduced other green services such as computer recycling, dead/dying battery recycling, clothing and book swaps. It has even been noted that the Florida Blood Services has been there on more than one occassion.

This monthly festival, which occurs on the fourth Saturday of each month from 10am-5pm, focuses on green and healthy living, as well as eco-consciousness and sustainability. The best thing is, it is free to the public and all ages are encouraged to attend.
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Having grown up on the beach, I learned that I could never completely shake the sand out of my shoes.  I am forever imprinted with a stong connection to a shoreline. I was thrilled to discover the lastest project of one of my favorite websites – Treehugger.com.  They have introduced Blue August – a month long dedication to the water on our planet.

With water covering more than 70 percent of the globe and yet drinkable water in precious short supply, this is a most timely topic to dive into. You will discover the magnificent beauty and horrifying destruction of the lifeblood of the oceans – coral reefs. They take us on an in-depth look at marine life, water purification, rivers, and everything associated with impacting our beloved beaches.
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Are you an aspiring filmmaker looking to reduce your carbon footprint but you don’t know how to get started? Then the Going Green Film Festival might be right up your alley.

First and foremost, What is ‘green filmmaking’? According to the festival website, “green filmmaking is a way of producing your film that uses alternative materials, as well as environmentally friendly practices in the production office and on set”. That seems logical enough.

As per the guidelines, films must be made between 2008-2010 and be between 20 to 120 minutes. It doesn’t look like any exceptions will be made with these rules.

There are three different green genres that you can enter your film under:
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Cypress trees all along the gulf coast are the regulators of our water system. They provide us with a natural filter, support the nutrient cycles and protect our environment from storm surge. They have been doing this for thousands of years and now it is our turn to protect them.

The clear cut of cypress trees for the benefit of the mulch industry is ruining the natural wetlands. The cypress tree are unsustaninable and the deforestation is having permenant effects.
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This Saturday, August 1 join e-tba (Emerging Tampa Bay Architects) for the third installment of Pecha Kucha.  For those not familiar with the event, designers, activists, artists, advocates and generally creative people are given 20 slides shown for 20 seconds a piece to present an idea, theme, cause, or project.

Pecha Kucha originated in Japan and takes place in over 200 cities worldwide. It was invented by Tokyo-based architects Mark Dytham and Astrid Kleins who turned PowerPoint, fixture of monotonous cubicle life, into both art form and competitive sport. Their innovation, dubbed Pecha Kucha (Japanese for “chatter”), applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. That’s it. Say what you need to say in six minutes and 40 seconds of exquisitely matched words and images and then sit the hell down. The result, in the hands of masters of this art form, combines business meeting and poetry slam to transform corporate cliché into surprisingly compelling beat-the-clock performance art.
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Following the release of Greenpeace’s report, “Slaughtering the Amazon” and pressure from activists, sneaker-giant Nike agreed to revise its policies to ensure that they stop buying leather from deforested areas in Brazil. Now, it’s time for Timberland to act to stop destructive practices in the Amazon.

“Nike has set a great precedent for Timberland, Adidas, Reebok, and Clarks to follow,” says Greenpeace forests campaigner Lindsey Allen. “Brazil’s cattle industry, which supplies leather for shoes, accounts for about 80% of all deforested areas in the Amazon. In fact, the Brazilian cattle industry is the largest single source of deforestation anywhere in the world. And deforestation in turn causes one-fifth of all the greenhouse gas emissions in the world, more than all the world’s cars, trucks, trains, planes, and ships combined. Nike has taken the necessary steps to make sure they aren’t contributing to the problem. Timberland, Adidas, Reebok, and Clarks need to adopt policies to protect the Amazon and the climate, as well.”  Read Nike’s press release. Read the rest of this entry »

Sustainability is the ability to meet present day needs without jeopardizing the future’s ability to provide for their needs as well. In order to have a sustainable system such as this it must be created equally in a democratic way. If sustainability is built only for the extremely rich the poor and middle class will be left out with ever rising costs of living. A green revolution is needed most from the bottom up, not the top down.

Social justice and peace are necessities for a sustainable society. The resources and manpower devoted to war are all we would need to combat global climate change and transition our economy from a fossil fuel dependent one to a cleaner/renewable energy/decentralized system. What would this story look like?

In 1992 a little girl named Severn Suzuki spoke at the Rio Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero:
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Reducing your beef (or all meat, for that matter) consumption could make quite an impact on not only your health, but also on the environment.

Beef contains high levels of cholesterol and saturated fat, as well as chemicals and growth hormones. Many scientific studies have linked the consumption of red meat to heart disease, stroke, and breast and colon cancer.

According to the National Research Council, beef has the highest levels of herbicides of any food food sold in the US. This is obviously due to all of the pesticides used on the corn and soybeans that is then used for cattle feed. The NRC says that beef rates as second highest on the list of foods that pose the greatest risk of cancer due to pesticide contamination (tomatoes being the highest on the list). Their studies also show that over 95% of all cattle in the US are receiving growth hormones and other pharmaceuticals, many of those then showing up in the cuts of beef we buy at the grocery store.
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I just participated in a panel discussion on offshore drilling of our Florida beaches, sponsored by the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce. Also joining me were Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch, Senator Nelson’s staff Shahra Anderson, and the Ocean Conservancy’s TJ Marshall, as well as two other panelists acting essentially as lobbyists for the oil industry from the Southern Strategies Group – the firm that came close last spring to getting our state legislature to okay oil drilling within three miles of our beaches.

Over and over, their message came across: “Trust us. The oil companies would never do anything to harm your beaches. Honest, we can drill and you’ll never see a spill, nary a drop nor a tar ball. Never mind that Texas beaches, naturally as nice as Florida’s, have almost zero tourism revenue because of the muck and tar balls that ruin a nice walk on the beach there. If we had anything to do with that, we’re sorry, but that would never happen here. We’re much more careful now. Trust us.”

Two problems with this argument:
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We (CL) opened up our doors Wednesday night for about 50 potential new contributors. There was wine, beer, pizza and a micro-symposium on 21st-century community journalism. We got a chance to recruit some new voices and our guests got to feel out our site editors. Look for their contributions in the coming days.

One of our newbies, Robin Miller, captured the whole thing on video, which you can see below the jump:

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With a helping handout from taxpayers, multinational bankers like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan have given themselves record bonuses – billions of dollars – in 2009. What? You didn’t get your record, subsidized bonus in 2009?

Despite those giddy Wall Street windfalls and federal stimulus package, the Florida employed rate topped 10.6% in June – 970,000 Floridians “officially” jobless. How many of your family, friends, and neighbors have yet to be lifted out of the economic black hole that seems to be consuming more and more of us?

In the Tampa-St. Petersburg region, we need our own stimulus package – for us. Read the rest of this entry »

This column is the first in a series of profiles of people who do their part to live more sustainably in Tampa Bay.

Dave Starman lives a simple life. He resides on a sailboat in the harbor off Davis Island. He is just finishing his Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of South Florida, and drives to school everyday from South Tampa in his 1985 Mercedes Benz 300D diesel that he has converted to straight vegetable oil that he collects from restaurant waste fryers and filters.

The car is modified to heat the oil to a temperature which brings its viscocity similar to that of petroluem diesel fuel and the diesel engine just burns it.

On his sailboat, Dave limits his daily living power consumption to what can be collected from one 130 Watt solar panel.  He lives on a 12V DC system primarily with lights, stereo, water pump, and other marine navigational equipment.
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Going to the movies is a fun activity for kids during the summer. However, with high prices, many parents might be debating whether or not to catch a flick on the big screen. The good news is that there are a few theaters offering free and discounted movies for kids.

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays Muvico is hosting a free Summer Film Festival and AMC is hosting a Summer Movie Camp with $1 admissions every Wednesday through Aug. 5. Both movie theater companies are raising money for charity by offering these free and discounted films.
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For the next century, my generation’s greatest challenge will be dealing with our energy sources. Energy is what drives everything in our society. The food we eat, the gas we put in our cars, as well as the electricity we use to turn on our lights - all originating from fossil fuels that were created from condensed sunlight millions of years ago. For millions of years, the Earth only had the available energy source of the sunlight to feed our societies’ advancement.

During the 18th century that situation changed when the Industrial Revolution began using coal to fire industry and machinery to do the work of thousands of men. Shortly after the Civil War in the 1860s, oil was first utilized in this new industrialized society. America became the current day Saudi Arabia of oil exports up until the 1970s. Unfortunately for us, becoming the biggest exporter also made us the biggest user of oil. We currently have 5% of the population of the planet but utilize 25% of all the oil that the world consumes – roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day (though less since the recession).
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This morning I came across an amazing article by Alex Pasternack on Treehugger that was accompanied by the Michael Jackson music video ”Earth Song”. Another extraordinary aspect to Michael’s passions.

Pasternak states in the article,

“Michael Jackson was famous for his socially-conscious music, but ‘Earth Song’, his big, bold environmental call-to-arms, is often overlooked. Still, by sheer dint of his reach, the song might have made Jackson (who bears no relation to U.S. EPA chief Lisa Jackson) a kind of super-sized Al Gore, a decade before An Inconvenient Truth.

‘Earth Song’ is indisputably the most popular green-themed tune ever. It remains Jackson’s best-selling song in the U.K. (yes, bigger than “Thriller” or “Billie Jean”), and beat out the Beatles’ first single in 25 years for the top spot on the British charts. But the song, and its lavish globe-trotting video, barely registered in the U.S.”
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The Iranian revolution underway is a sign of the times. Millions of oppressed people Twittering and linking up forging networks to create and topple a system that’s in need of reformation. Women have been the very foundation of this movement. Moussavi the leader of the resistance’s wife spoke at one function this quote:

“I hope freedom of the speech, freedom of the pen, freedom of thought will not be forgotten” – Zahra Rahnavard

We, too, in America are in the mist of an revolution. A transformation from a domination culture that views the world as fleeting and open to exploitation, to a partnership culture that wants its society to be permanent and seeks to partner with the world to create harmony.

The example for a domination culture is one of a pyramid. The vast base is dictated and controlled from a smaller point. Our oligarchy style of government in the United States best represents this culture. The very fact that nearly 60% of our Federal government’s budget goes to the military exemplifies this notion. We dominate the world with our military - over 750 bases in over 150 countries. 2% of the worlds population owns 80% of all the wealth. How has all that wealth migrated to the very top of this pyramid for so long? Through domination of course.
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The Tampa Bay Derby Darlins had their first official green event take place at Little Bayou Park, in St. Petersburg, this past Saturday morning. Teaming up with the super fun and cool people at T.R.E.E. (Tampa Bay Reforestation and Environmental Effort, Inc.) the Darlins planted over 100 native trees at the Park in a record time.

With about a 20 minute introduction from T.R.E.E. representatives about how big to dig the holes for the trees and how to fill them in properly and top with mulch, the girls were off and running with shovels in hands in groups to get started. Some of the T.R.E.E. reps mentioned how this was one of the most humid days they have ever done a planting, but no one seemed to complain about the weather as everyone knew that there was important work to be done.
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It seems New York City has counters for everything these days. The famous debt clock, and now, a new ‘carbon clock’ was resurrected this past Thursday near Madison Square Garden and Penn Station. It counts the total amount of greenhouse gases that are trapped inside the Earth’s atmosphere.

According to Scientific American, the counter takes into account all greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, and reports them in carbon dioxide equivalents. It skips the effects of natural cycles, such as the El Niño, and doesn’t factor in aerosols, which are difficult to measure and also exert a cooling effect.
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Below, is an interview I just conducted with Arlen Slobodow, a local filmmaker who just completed a documentary about air pollution caused by fossil fuels in the Tampa Bay area and how it affects our health and the health of our planet. Also, see my last post which goes more in depth about the film.

The following interview was conducted by phone on the evening of Tuesday, June 16, 2009.

Matt De Vlieger (M): How did you get involved in documentary filmmaking?
Arlen Slobodow (A): I have always been interested in social change work and have found mass media a good way to accomplish that. Read the rest of this entry »