dedicated to the promotion of urban environmentalism

A few of the trends that I have been reading about in the new year frenzy have me excited. One is the possibility that this will be the year of vegetable! The local food movements, the scares about meat contamination and concerns for health have been combining to prompt more people to look more toward non-meat sources for food. Go veggies!

Never thought I'd be agreeing with Governor Schwarzenegger, but I'm not only agreeing with him, but cheering him on. (transcript here: http://huff.to/9qfRz0) He basically is calling out the corporate interests of those lobbying against Prop 23, a proposed global warming law. He correctly states that they are putting profits first, above all. Any statements about wanting to protect the people or the environment is just lip service. As we learned (again) with the BP spill, companies would rather pay fines than do the right thing from the get-go. Greed is too entrenched in the system.

From a business sense I understand weighing the potential losses versus the cost to prevent an event from happening. I get that we each accept a certain amount of risk in exchange for other benefits all the time. Picking a neighbourhood to live in, mode of transportation, school to go to and job to work at. But there comes a time when the bigger picture needs to be thought of -- like in the oil disaster.

Do you want change? Do you have a choice? Do you embrace change as the only steady-state? Over the years I have used art, science, protest and other tactics to get people to see that we need to change. That we need to go against the grain and follow a better path. A path that sees beauty in decay, imperfection and differences. A path which does not dictate that each apple shall duplicate the one before it. A path that does not say all lawns and teeth shall be straight, perfect rows. Cookie-cutter homes and lives shall be declared boring and bland. Why?