Subject: Sustainability Announcements

Because the Airport Business Park zoning and annexation hearing was
postponed from December until 15 January, the CRP has not had a general
meeting for a while. This meeting will be to get organized prior to the
City Commission hearing, to plan the CRP presentation to the Commission,
to gather the final public petitions, and to rally folks for a huge
turnout at the City Commission on 15 January.
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The speakers are here to participate in the sustainability intersession
at Kansas State University and have graciously volunteered to do an
additional presentation for the Lawrence community. We would appreciate
your attendance.
http://www.keyaearth.com/ http://www.nativemovement.org/
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*SUSTAINABILITY ADVISORY BOARD- CITY OF LAWRENCE*
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
Recycling and Resource Recovery Annex, 320 N.E. Industrial Lane, Lawrence KS

Monthly meeting of this Board to discuss any and all aspects of
furthering sustainability policies and practices by the City of Lawrence
government and private persons. Members of the Peak Oil Action Committee
have proposed the City Commission adopt a Peak Oil Resolution addressing
energy sustainability. This resolution has been referred to the
Sustainability Advisory Board, and tentatively will be on their 13
February agenda.
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*KAW PERMACULTURE COLLABORATIVE - INTRO & PRESENTATION*
"Permaculture: Food Security in an Era of Energy Depletion"
by Steve Moring
Saturday, 12 January 2008, 12:00-2:00pm, Lawrence Public Library

The conventional model of industrial agriculture is totally dependent on
fossil fuels for fertilizers, pest control, plowing and harvesting,
transport of food, and refrigeration. With the impending advent of
escalating fuel prices due to Peak Oil, this system will collapse. Our
future food security can derive only from a decentralized, localized,
diverse production and distribution base, grounded in building
sustainable soil fertility.

The Kaw Permaculture Collaborative endeavors to bring together
knowledgeable Permaculturists with local farmers and urban gardeners who
want to learn about and implement permaculture design and practice on
their land. We plan to develop a local Permaculture Design Certification
Course. We also want to establish a forum for sharing ideas and skills
on sustainable agriculture, food distribution, water catchment, creating
biodiverse soils, seed saving & exchange, and more.
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*AIRPORT INDUSTRIAL PARK ANNEXATION & ZONING - LAWRENCE CITY COMMISSION*
Tuesday, 15 January 2008, 6:30pm, Lawrence City Hall

This proposal to annex and rezone 145 acres of Class I-1 prime farmland
for warehouse and trucking industrial uses is of concern for our local
and regional future food security. Other serious implications are the
exacerbation of flooding for North Lawrence proper, the more severe and
frequent storms that can bring "100 year flooding" to these bottom
lands, the estimated $8 million cost to taxpayers for bringing City
infrastructure to the site to subsidize private profits, and the
existence of more appropriate industrial sites and zoning elsewhere in
our community.

People are encouraged to attend and speak at this meeting where the
final decision will be made. You can also send letters to the City
Commission by e-mail to:
bjwalthall@ci.lawrence.ks.us
Bobbie Walthall is the Executive Secretary at City Hall--she'll copy and
distribute your letter to commissioners and city manager. Make sure you
identify that the topic is the "Airport Business Park". It is best to
send letters the week before the meeting.
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*350 PARTS PER MILLION C02 AS TIPPING POINT- JAMES HANSEN*
by Bill McKibben, The Washington Post
28 December 2007

NASA scientist James Hansen has offered a simple, straightforward and
mind-blowing bottom line for the planet: 350, as in parts per million
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Twenty years ago, Hansen claimed the
planet was warming and that people were the cause. At the time, we could
only guess how much warming it would take to put us in real danger.
Since the pre-Industrial Revolution concentration of carbon in the
atmosphere was roughly 275 parts per million, scientists and
policymakers focused on what would happen if that number doubled - 550.

In the past five years, though, scientists began to worry, and many
became convinced that 450 parts per million was a more prudent target.
But the data just keep getting worse, so now even 450 looks too high.
Consider: We're already at 383 parts per million, and it's knocking the
planet off kilter in substantial ways. Hansen says that we've gone too
far. "The evidence indicates that the safe upper limit for atmospheric
CO2 is no more than 350 ppm".

Does that mean we're doomed? Not quite. We just need to stop putting
more in and, over time, the number will fall, perhaps fast enough to
avert the worst damage. That "just," of course, hides the biggest
political and economic challenge we've ever faced: weaning ourselves
from coal, gas and oil. The difference between 550 and 350 is the
weaning that has to happen now, and everywhere.

Hansen called for an immediate ban on new coal-fired power plants that
don't capture carbon, the phaseout of old coal-fired generators, and a
tax on carbon high enough to make sure that we leave tar sands and oil
shale in the ground. To use the medical analogy, we're not talking
statins to drop your cholesterol; we're talking huge changes in every
aspect of your daily life.
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*IN DEFENSE OF FOOD: AN EATER'S MANIFESTO*
the latest book by Michael Pollan, to be released in January 2008
Penguin Press, $21.95 (232p), ISBN 978-1-59420-145-5

Most of what we're consuming today is not food; and how we're consuming
it - in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone - is not
really eating. Instead of food, we're consuming "edible foodlike
substances" - no longer the products of nature but of food science. In
the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and
common sense by confusion.

But if real food - the sort of food our great grandmothers would
recognize as food - stands in need of defense, from whom does it need
defending? From the food industry on one side and nutritional science on
the other. Thirty years of official nutritional advice has only made us
sicker and fatter while ruining countless numbers of meals.

Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we
should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: /Eat
food. Not too much. Mostly plants. //In Defense of Food/ shows us how,
despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern
supermarket, we can escape the Western diet and, by doing so, most of
the chronic diseases that diet causes.

http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php
Other titles by Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma; The Botany of
Desire; Second Nature; A Place of My Own
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*GREENSBURG, KS - A DREAM COME GREEN*
a report by Frank Morris, News Director of KCUR, 89.3-FM, Kansas City
as heard on "All things Considered", 27 December 2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17643060

Greensburg, KS, which was almost totally destroyed by a tornado in May
of this year, is rebuilding "green". Danny Wallach began the effort to
make the city more energy efficient just days after the tornado hit, and
heads Greensburg Greentown, a nonprofit group leading the push for
environmental sustainability in Greensburg.

Greensburg City Council resolved that all new city buildings should meet
the very highest environmental standard — LEED platinum. City manager
Steve Hewitt says the town will come back stronger than ever. Now,
Hewitt is thinking big: a new businesses incubator, the high school, and
an art center are all being designed LEED platinum. There's only 14
platinum buildings in the country and I'd like four or five here in
Greensburg," Hewitt said. And some 100 new townhomes are to be "LEED
gold certified.