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http://sustainablesavannah.com/politics/two-hours-two-e-mails-two-diff

It’s an interesting phenomenon: the tendency that some folks have to forward politically-charged or opinionated e-mails to everyone in their address books, whether individual recipients are known to be receptive to the message or not. Democrats. Republicans. Libertarians. Greens. Whigs. Bucktails. Know Nothings. Free Soilers. Communist Workers. Aren’t we all united by the fact that we’ve been forwarded e-mails that espouse positions to which we are opposed? I know I’m  not the only one.

On Nov. 17, within the span of two hours, I received two very different e-mails expressing displeasure with a certain television network for very different reasons. The timing of the e-mails and the common target of their complaints are telling, I think.

Reason One

Reason Two

We face serious challenges that will require cooperation to confront and overcome. When considering these two e-mails, I’m reminded that we are still very divided when it comes to the issues that push our buttons, or at least what compels us to push the button that says “forward.”

http://sustainablesavannah.com/uncategorized/can-hardly-wait/

So looking forward to the end of overflowing bins and boxes and bags of recycling next to the washing machine. Read all about it . . . Coming soon to your neighborhood . . .

http://sustainablesavannah.com/uncategorized/green-jobs-now/

Jobs numbers came out yesterday. The news, unsurprisingly, is not good.   From the

Wall Street Journal’s Real Time Economics blog, Brian Blackstone writes, “According to the Labor Department, initial jobless claims were their highest since September 2001. The four-week average - which smoothes out weekly volatility - was its highest since March 1991. And continuing claims lasting more than one week were their highest since January 1983. What do those three dates have in common? All came either during or right after the last three NBER recessions.”

Things around here aren’t lookin’ too bright either. According to the GA Department of Labor, first-time filings for unemployment insurance claims in metro Savannah surged 62 percent over the past year, with 1,403 workers in Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties filing claims during October 2008. And of course we must remember that these numbers do not consider the legions of underemployed or people who’ve lost their jobs, but never filed for unemployment benefits.Local lay-offs have hit every sector -particularly construction, manufacturing and retail.  JCB’s recent announcement to layoff 120 at its Savannah plant, signals that we still may have a way to fall before things start to turn around.

Nobody really knows how long this downturn (recession) will last, but  we do know that it will take a lot more than government bailouts to get us going again.  The president-elect has said that he wants to invest in high-tech green industries.  That would be a welcome change, but I don’t think we can afford to wait and see how his campaign promises trickle down to Savannah.  Especially because we already have the assets to get started right away . . . a sampling:

1) Commitments from local government: Step-Up Savannah, Thrive, Healthy Savannah, the MPC 2010 Sustainability Initiative and Chatham County Commission’s resolution to be the greenest county in Georgia

2) Training potential: a worldclass, career oriented art college (architecture, interior design, historic preservation, urban design, industrial design, fibers, fashion, graphic design, etc.), a local YouthBuild program and the only solar installation class offered in Georgia at Savannah Tech -Training is absolutely critical to the creation of green jobs

3) Active NGOs: Savannah Chapter of the US Green Building Council, the Creative Coast Alliance, Savannah Bicycle Campaign, AWOL,  Historic Savannah Foundation, the faith community writ large, Youth for a Cleaner Environment -These groups have either expertise, organizing power, existing complimentary programs or all of the above

High-tech green industries are an excellent long term goal, but let’s start with simpler things that create jobs, benefit the environment, require little capital investment and have a big short-term payoffs for penny-pinching consumers . . . urban agriculture and really unglamorous, but immense energy saving stuff like weatherstripping and insulation come to mind.

Learn a lot more about green collar jobs on the Green for All website . . . and let’s tell our local officials that we are ready for green jobs now.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/transportation/slower-streets-make-safe

Before it somehow deteriorated into a round of profanity laced exchanges about presidential politics, my neighborhood’s e-mail list was host to a discussion about motor vehicles traveling at excessive speeds through residential areas. It began with a lament over a beloved cat that was killed by a speeding car and yielded suggestions for signage, police enforcement and traffic calming. Except the words “traffic calming” weren’t initially used. Instead, the words were “speed bumps.”

While traffic calming includes a vast array of tools that can be used to modify driver behavior, a lot of people are familiar only with speed bumps. And when speed bumps are mentioned, someone will immediately remind us that “the city is hostile and unresponsive to any suggestion of speed bumps,” to quote one of my neighbors, because they interfere with the travel of emergency vehicles.

How real is this concern? I attended a Federal Highway Administration workshop on designing for pedestrian safety this summer and the facilitator suggested local governments play the emergency vehicle egress card more often than they should. And again, if speed bumps truly are problematic, why not evaluate the suitability of other traffic calming techniques?

Just before the e-mail discussion derailed into the name-calling described above, several participants suggested looking to other communities for examples of how to address speeding and more than a few people recommended Atlanta neighborhoods as worthy of examination.

Pedestrians Educating Drivers on Safety, a group I joined during my second stint as an Atlantan, seems to have anticipated the question. On the front page of the group’s Web site is a document that promises to offer nine “effective strategies for putting the brakes on neighborhood speeders.” You can download a copy by clicking here.

What are the nine things neighbors can do?

1. Spread the word about the problem.

2. Use yard signs to remind drivers to slow down.

3. Set the pace by driving slowly through neighborhoods.

4. Buy inexpensive radar gun to document the problem.

5. Park more cars on the street to narrow the travel lane.

6. Ask for traffic calming projects.

7. Request radars signs.

8. Support speed cameras.

9. Reclaim the streets by walking and bicycling.

PEDS also created a public service announcement to drive home how much difference even 5 mph can make. You can watch it here.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/conservation/tree-foundation-looks-to-t

The Savannah Tree Foundation is directing its attention outside of the Savannah city limits, with a tree planting in Pooler scheduled for Nov. 15. According to the foundation’s Adrienn Mondonca, working in western Chatham county indicates a new area of concern.

“This is the second tree planting our organization has done in Pooler and one of a handful we have done in the western reaches of Chatham County.  It represents a new focus for our organization on the west side of our community, where development trends have resulted in tree canopy loss over a number of years”

The foundation will need 100 volunteers  to help plant 200 trees at the new Pooler Recreation Complex located off Pooler Parkway. Volunteers should bring gloves, hard-tined rakes and shovels if possible. Refreshments and t-shirts will be provided, and community service hours are available. This is a rain or shine event. Partners in the planting are  the City of Pooler, Forklifts & Bobcat of Savannah, Georgia Power, Melaver, Inc. and Vermeer Southeast.

For more information, visit the Savannah Tree Foundation Web site.

Photo courtesy of the Savannah Tree Foundation.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/food/time-for-savannah-to-chicken-out/

A story from today’s Christian Science Monitor, “Whole lotta clucking going on in cities” suggests that more Americans raising chickens in their backyards. Keeping chickens is part of a larger urban homesteading movement and is popular with folks who like to “eat local” or who are concerned about factory farm conditions, according to the article.

Angelina Shell of the Seattle Tilth Association, a group that offers sustainable-living classes, suggests that more people will be keeping chickens as the recession gets worse:

“If our economy continues on the downward spiral,” says Ms. Shell, a third-generation poultry hobbyist, “you’re going to see a lot more people raising their own chickens in their backyards and starting up vegetable gardens.”

Some communities are not so keen on the idea:

“Still, chickens aren’t always popular with neighbors in city and suburban neighborhoods. Chicago Alderman Lona Lane proposed a citywide chicken ban late last year after constituents bombarded her office with complaints about noise, odor, and rodents. But chicken enthusiasts from other parts of the Windy City cried fowl, stalling a final decision. After the holidays, Ms. Lane plans on introducing a new bill to ban chickens in just the neighborhood she represents.”

What about Savannah? Is it legal to keep chickens here? Robin Wright Gunn wrote about urban chicken keeping for Connect Savannah back in August in a piece called “The Big Chicken.”

“At least three friends are the proud owners of chickens that are scratching and laying and living their chickeny lives smack in the middle of town, beneath heirloom camellias in Parkside, or strutting among tasteful lawn statues in Baldwin Park. Each urban chicken flock boasts five hens, the maximum allowed by city ordinance. Rhode Island Reds and Leghorns are among the favored breeds. I love the idea of having friends who have chickens.”

Is this correct? Are Gunn’s friends in Parkside and Baldwin Park in compliance with city ordinances? Is Baldwin Park the hotbed of chicken-keeping it is purported to be? Will the chicken people organize to promote this practice? Are neighbors’ feathers being ruffled over the chickens next door? Please share your answers in the comments section.

Photo credit: Sarah Gilbert via Flickr.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/transportation/streets-destinations-or-

In recent blog post, Savannah Morning News Environment Reporter Mary Landers plugged her address into Walk Score. Running your Walk Score number is fun and can be instructive, athough there are flaws in the Walk Score methodology. I described them here. and Landers finds similar bugs.

Landers expresses concern about the walkability of her Parkside neighborhood, writing, “I can and do walk the area for exercise, but there aren’t many walkable destinations as far as shops and restaurants.” She’ll be happy to know there’s an affordable and widely available device that will effectively double or triple any neighborhood’s Walk Score. In fact, I’m pretty sure Landers owns one. I’ve seen her with it. It’s called a bicycle.

Residents of Parkside may be surprised to learn they can use their bicycles to visit shops and restaurants that are just to the east of them, not far as the crow flies, but often deemed unreachable because of the concrete curtain that is the Truman Parkway. I’ll admit it, traveling on Victory Drive under the parkway overpass is not a pleasant experience on a bicycle. However, with a little practice and confidence it becomes less scary.

Still, “World Famous Victory Drive” isn’t the sort of place most people would choose to ride a bike. That’s because it has ceased to be a public space and is now mostly a pipe for moving cars. And in that way it is a lot like the rest of the country.

For the past 70 years, American cities have been designed to continuously accommodate ever increasing volumes of traffic. Through our work in over 2000 communities around the country, we have found that when cities are designed around cars and traffic, they fill with more cars and traffic—whereas if we begin to plan cities for people and places, we will get more people and places.

That’s something I found on the Project for Public Spaces Web site. Here’s a little more:

Starting in the 1970s, when PPS President Fred Kent began working on William H. Whyte’s “Street Life Project,” PPS has continued to be involved in research, training, and project work related to transportation issues. We have trained transportation professionals across the states of New Jersey, New Hampshire and New York in Context Sensitive Design; we designed and manage the FHWA Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) website, and are in the process of developing a major campaign geared towards achieving fundamental transportation reform in the United States.

It is clear from all of our work that the public spaces of cities, towns and villages—our streets and roads, parks and plazas, waterfronts and commercial districts—represent this country’s greatest potential to create livable, walkable, healthy and sustainable communities, as well as its greatest challenge.

The Fred Kent mentioned above will be in Savannah early next year. From the MPC Web site: “Fred Kent, founder of the Project for Public Spaces, will lead a community forum at the Coastal Georgia Center on Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009 beginning at 7 p.m. This forum will focus on creating vibrant community places and offer strategies so that we can incorporate the concept of placemaking into our public destinations.”

I’m hoping Kent will help Savannah realize that streets are public places and destinations unto themselves. The MPC invites citizens to download a brochure here and take a survey here.

http://sustainablesavannah.com/transportation/no-really-i-dont-need-a-

People, who use bicycles for the kinds of trips that most folks make by car, are familiar with the question:

“Do you need a lift?”

Well-intentioned offers of vehicular assistance can be triggered by any number of circumstances, which cause people to wonder if you really want to go by bike. Inclement weather, nightfall, heavy or cumbersome loads, Mondays — any of these can be viewed as barriers to cycling. Transit riders are also popular targets for friendly folks who like to offer rides. I learned not to wait at the bus stop right out in front of my office. Last time I did that, I was barraged by ride offers from my coworkers. Walking to a stop a block or so away allowed me to wait  for the bus in peace.

The truth is, as a nation, we have vastly overestimated the amount of travel that must be done by car.

When the weather is miserable, as it was on Friday, I’m often tempted to drive. But then I think about what it must have been like for Gen. James Oglethorpe and the colonists who founded Savannah in 1733. They didn’t have the luxury of jumping in their cars when the skies opened up. They braved the rain on their bicycles and so can I!

All kidding aside, with the proper bike you can do all kinds of things. This afternoon I transported a 6-foot Type III wooden ladder about two and a half miles, using my Xtracycle. This, frankly, would have been more difficult in some of the cars I’ve owned.

11.6.08 from 5-9 pm

See Jane: A Modern Apothecary

Downtown Savannah's only beauty & grooming shop is on a mission to change the way you think about personal upkeep. 

Join us at Suite 111 in Drayton Tower (beside Bacchus Wine Lounge) for an evening of organic wines and food as we showcase our ecofabulous products.  

Showcasing products from these fine lines:

-Abahna 
-Alaska Glacial Mud Co. 
-Alison Raffale 
-Babybearshop
-Breath Palette
-Coola
-Duchess Marden 
-Hollybeth's
-Juara
-Little Twig
-Malie Kawai
-Me! Bath
-Paddy Wax
-Pure Inventions
-Stem Organics
...and many, many more.