Sustainability History Project

[This post was written by Megan Rice, Jamie Price, and Angelina Peters in response to viewing three short videos, Greening the Ghetto, 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World, and Tabor Tilth]

In class today we watched three short videos that pertained to sustainability in three different aspects. The first video was Majora Carter‘s February 2006 TED presentation “Greening the Ghetto.” In this presentation, Carter explains the many benefits of turning industrial riverfront land into a public park. She came across this idea when she was walking her dog in a heavily industrialized neighborhood in South Bronx and discovered an old road that lead to the river. She was motivated to make a change. She brought up overwhelming statistics that show Blacks and Latinos being five times more likely to live in a neighborhood within walking distance to an industrial factory. People who live in these heavy-polluted neighborhoods are more likely to develop respiratory disorders and other health issues. She raises a great question: who would be motivated to go outside and exercise when one lives in area where the air is toxic?

What really struck us about her presentation was that she did not wait around for our government or local business leaders to do something about it, she took action herself. She started a riverfront city park—Hunts Point Riverside Park—that the neighborhood can take pride in. We found it fascinating how things like sustainable rooftops and green collar jobs resulted from the existence of the city park that Carter and her community had built. We find that Carter’s efforts fall under all three sustainability pillars: social sustainability, environmental, and the economics. It is socially sustainable because the community has formed an identity they can take pride in and there is now a greater sense of community; it falls under the environmental pillar because the people have further cleaned-up the area of pollution and expanded on it with things like “green” rooftops that grow plants and attract insects and birds. Finally, their new park plan falls under the economical pillar of sustainability because it has exposed people to sustainable “green collar” jobs that many were previously unaware of. The neatest thing of all is that this one woman took action on her own, got the community to support her and has since made her South Bronx neighborhood a better place to live.

The second video was Paul Stamets‘ March 2008 TED presentation, “6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World.” Stamets goes into great detail the benefits of mushrooms, and though at times he gets very technical, he still manages to explain information in a way that the audience can understand.

We learned a lot from this presentation, such as the fact that fungi have many medical benefits. Fungi are used for immunizations for all different types of flu viruses, and some of the best fungi for this purpose thrive in old growth forests. For us this is the best argument to save old growth forests. Stamets has even gotten the endorsement from the Department of Defense to conduct further research the medical benefits of fungi.

Stamets also points out the agricultural benefits of fungi and how they break simple things like rocks down to help make soil. Another great use for fungi is that they are able to pull toxins like oil and lead out of the ground. Fungi can be a natural way to remove oil from the ground so it does not end up in our ground water. Other interesting points were the use of fungi as a pest treatment in homes. Fungi are very effective in keeping carpenter ants and termites at bay; using fungi instead of harsh chemicals to keep pests away seems to us a fantastic idea.

The third short film was “Tabor Tilth,” a video from Starhawk featuring Connie Van Dyke’s home and urban agriculture project near Mt Tabor in Portland, Oregon. The point of the film was to demonstrate how make an urban property more sustainable using permaculture practices. She lives on a 1/5 acre lot and within the property she has a bee hive that helps pollinate her plants and rabbits that eat her weeds and spoiled fruits (and who also fertilize her garden). She has a pond that supplies water for her plants and a wood pile that offers shelter for animals to help aerate her compost. Everything on her property seems to work with the cycle of life and requires little human maintenance.

What we feel are the high points of her property is the different types of apple trees she plants which provide apples from a good part of spring through fall.

One of the low points is that also uses human feces and urine for her compost. This seems a little extreme for us but we have to hand it to her for being committed to having a sustainable property in the midst of an urban area. She demonstrates that anyone can do it.

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