Worst networker...

I am an awful networker and business card hander outer!

Yesterday was an unusual day for me and we had two big events.

The first was a group from National Parks all over the country. We gave them a tour of the farm, talked to them about how we got into the program, and feed them some Leek and Potato soup... We had 60 people in our barn, coffee set up for them, a table with the soup, and I did not put ANY business cards on the table, not one!

Right after that was done I drove up to Cleveland where I was sitting on a Green Building Panel at E4S. This even starts and ends with networking and I did not have ANY not even one business card. I do not know how many times I had to say "I'm sorry, I forgot my cards!"

No one tell my boss, OK...

Two big business mistakes in one day...

Young people are amazing.

I am constantly impressed with the young people I meet. At GreenBuild we heard young adults from the group "Youth Speaks" give pieces on climate change, and they were powerful communicators. I know a young lady from Cleveland who when in high school arranged a program to send shoes to thousands of children in Afghanistan, when her uncle who was serving there told her that they could not play soccer in the winter because they had no shoes. My niece who is 12 is taking (and doing well in) college level Japanese classes with adults, she has been studying it for a couple years and if you ask her "Isn't it hard" she'll look at you like your crazy and tell you "It wouldn't be fun if it wasn't hard."

Yesterday we had a group of young ladies to our office from the Our Lady of Elms middle and high schools. We are doing a new gymnasium addition for them, and were having them to our office to talk about green design. With young ladies from 11-18, I was worried that my normal talk on green design would bore them to pieces, but not only did they stay interested, they asked insightful questions that show that THEY get it. We went through a series of problems and talked about solutions to them. The questions also showed critical thinking skills, one girl asking if we really were saving resources by rehabbing existing auditorium seating instead of new. Which, I thought, showed that she was thinking about what we were talking about. Another girl asked if the wheat straw board we used for wall partition surfaces in our offices was really a good thing, because we were using food sources for building material.

I choose to believe that the "normal" kids are like the exceptional young people I have talked about above. If that is the case, I think we will leave the world in very good hands.

2 Confrences - 1 year apart...

In late October 2006 my husband and I were lucky enough to be sponsored by our local Slow Food to go to Terra Madre in Turin, Italy. (Thank you Northeast Ohio Slow Food!) A worldwide gathering of 6000 people representing food communities from all over the world. And as I said below, I spent the past 3 days in GreenBuild in Chicago. Two conferences, one year apart. One about food, one about buildings. No crossover... you would think.

But you'd be wrong. Both were about sustainability and social justice and beyond that a greater movement that is currently sweeping the world, largely ignored. Totally non-partisan and without a central unifying ideology we are (all of us) changing the world. The social justice and environmental movements are part of one greater whole.

I guess this post is a not so discrete plug for Paul Hawken's newest book "Blessed Unrest" which is about just that. And although Mr. Hawken might disagree I think that be we greenie liberals or crunchy conservatives (the part P.H. would probably argue) there is a convergence of movements occurring.

I feel myself caught up in the whirlpool of ideas that is trying now to reshape the world and how we function in it. And when gas settles in price at 4 or 5 or 6 dollars a gallon, then how we live in this country and around the world may have to change. Local food will be the economical choice and not an elitist indulgence. A hybrid will be the car of single moms and not of enlightened executives. We will pay more attention to what we do and we will realize that our actions effect everyone.

Although, I KNOW that our built environment more responsible for our environmental issues then all the SUVs on the road and every meal we eat, and that building will be an enormous part of any future solution I still love this quote from Terra Madre. Because as the saying goes you are what you eat and it is one thing that we can control on a day to day basis.

"Loving food is the most personal and least abstract way of being an environmentalist." - Alice Waters

Let us know if you want to see more Terra Madre photos we have a TON!

Sun Gods reward solar!

The Indians won again last night and may well guarantee themselves a world series spot on Thursday. The solar gods are rewarding baseball teams with photovoltaic (solar) panels this year.

There are currently 3 teams in major league baseball who currently have solar panels in their facilities, the San Francisco giants, the Colorado Rockies, and the Cleveland Indians. Coincidence? I don't think so! The Red socks to are embracing "green" recently implementing a recycling program, but their solar system is still in the planning phase, the Indians on the other hand already have a small solar system going. Enough power to power every TV in the Jake!

Since the Red Socks don't have their system done yet the Indians are fated to win the series! We may run into trouble with the Rockies though whose own solar system is slightly bigger then our own...