Bike Rack designs in NYC by milo, March 20

Here’s a cool little piece about a design competition in NYC funded by the Cooper-Hewitt and the DOT. Maybe we can get something similar here in Milwaukee. I see a collaboration between MIAD and the city.

http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2008/03/five_better_bik.php

20 Mar 2008 | 10:03 am | Art, Streets, Bicycles, Pedestrians | No comments yet - Add your comments

Great Lakes Water: Dioxins, PCBs, Lead, Mercury and Pesticides by Sura, March 12

While everyone has been buzzing about a recent report about our pharmaceutical-laced water, another report remains underground. Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern, was originally scheduled for release in July 2007. But several days before that, the study was suddenly withdrawn for “further review.”

The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the study, which warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”—including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee—may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.

Download the report here.

Great Lakes Danger Zones?
by Sheila Kaplan, The Center for Public Integrity
February 12, 2008

For more than seven months, the nation’s top public health agency has blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states, reportedly because it contains such potentially “alarming information” as evidence of elevated infant mortality and cancer rates.

Continue reading ‘Great Lakes Water: Dioxins, PCBs, Lead, Mercury and Pesticides’

12 Mar 2008 | 10:24 pm | Water, Health | No comments yet - Add your comments

Commodity Farming and Subsidies Benefit Big Agribuisiness by Sura, March 4

Beware the Farm Subsidy

“According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2005, farms with average household incomes of $200,000 per year accounted for 9% of all farms but received 54% of government payments.”

My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)

A couple of excerpt from the NY Times article:

[C]onsumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables… will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding.

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers Continue reading ‘Commodity Farming and Subsidies Benefit Big Agribuisiness’

4 Mar 2008 | 1:06 pm | Economic Development, Environmental Sustainability | No comments yet - Add your comments

The End of Water by Sura, March 3

Brave, bold and brutally honest interview with Maude Barlow by Amy Goodman.

The Great Lakes are discussed.

Water is now a $400 billion global industry, the third largest behind electricity and oil. (Water is the new oil)

By the way, the focus of corporations, in response to the water crisis, is to clean up dirty water, instead of preserving water at its source. There’s a lot of money in cleaning up water.

This is why we desperately need a strong Great Lakes Compact. (The Midwest is the new MidEast)

Watch, listen or read about the end of our civilization as we know it, and the privatization of water here
Read the full interview here

AMY GOODMAN: Eight of the nation’s largest water providers from California to New York have announced the formation of a coalition to develop strategies on dealing with climate change. The members of the newly formed Water Utility Climate Alliance together provide water to more than thirty-six million people in the United States. The group has developed a list of goals that include expanding climate change research, developing strategies for adapting to climate change and identifying greenhouse gas emissions from individual operations.

Today, we’re going to spend the rest of the hour looking at the global water crisis. Flow: For Love of Water is a new documentary screened here in New York last night. The film examines how the world’s water supplies are diminishing and how the privatization of water is worsening the crisis.

PETER H. GLEICK: For the longest time, people have taken water for granted. Most people don’t think about where their water comes from. They just turn on the tap, and they expect it to be there. Those days are ending.
MAUDE BARLOW: This notion that we’ll have water forever is wrong. California is running out. It’s got twenty-some years of water. New Mexico has got ten, although they’re building golf courses as fast as they can, so maybe they can whittle that down to five. Arizona, Florida, even the Great Lakes now, there’s huge new demand.
PETER H. GLEICK: The Nile River doesn’t reach its end. The Colorado River, the Yellow River in China, they, for the most part, don’t flow anymore to the sea.
MAUDE BARLOW: So this notion that somehow these problems are far away, get rid of that. You know, take it out of your head. You know, delete that.
PATRICK McCULLY: We’re treating the water resources of the planet with contempt, which is just so stupid, because we depend on them. We need water to live. We will only survive for a day or two if we don’t have water.
WILLIAM E. MARKS: Scientists, through decades of study and millions and millions of pieces of data, now recognize the fact that we’re on the brink of the sixth great mass extinction ever to be experienced on the face of the earth. The fifth mass extinction was the dinosaur age.
MAUDE BARLOW: You know those movies where there’s the comet coming at the earth, and all of a sudden the governments of the world say, “Gee, we’re not—our differences aren’t so big anymore, because we’re about to all die”? That’s really where we are. There is a comet coming at us. It’s called water shortage.
PETER H. GLEICK: Climate change is a real problem. Humans are changing the climate. We already see evidence about it. One of the most significant impacts of climate change will be on our water resources.
PATRICK McCULLY: We’re going to see a lot of people are going die because of the floods and droughts and various social upheavals that are caused by global warming. What’s also tragic is that there’s a lot of awareness of that now, but so much of that awareness is then being used by corporate interests. Oh, we’re running out of water, and we need to invest so much money in water, and it’s so terrible how water is managed. And then, somehow they make the flip to: oh, we must privatize it, so then we’ll use it more efficiently and everybody will be better off—which is total nonsense, total amount of nonsense. It means merely that these people have an interest clearly in making money or to selling water to people.

Read the rest here

3 Mar 2008 | 2:32 pm | Water, Health | No comments yet - Add your comments

Thank you! by Sura, February 20

Dear Friends, Neighbors and Community,

I am so honored to have the dedicated support of so many amazing, intelligent, creative and hopeful people.

We did not make it through the primary, but if we stay together, there is still so much for us to gain. There are many ways to get what we are looking for. I will post more about that in the upcoming days, along with my endorsement in the upcoming aldermanic race.

Again, thank you for your support, love and respect. I am so privileged to have gotten to know so many people. If you want to get involved in local community issues, I will continue to be engaged. Come with me.

Peace and local power,
Sura

20 Feb 2008 | 1:48 am | 3rd District | No comments yet - Add your comments

The Milwaukee River and upcoming development (more dorms?) by Sura, February 17

[Please see the comment at the end of this post about the Milwaukee River Work Group.]

The Milwaukee River has become a huge issue in this race, and almost all the candidates talk about it.

Mandel Group has been floating the idea of more dorms, retail, or hotel space on the river at the Hometown site at North Ave.

The Milwaukee River Work Group (MRWG), is pushing for protections of the river’s banks, bluffs, water quality and viewshed.

If you want a basic overview of the work of the MRWG, check out my response below to the question in the Riverwest Currents on dealing with the Hometown Site owned by Mandel.

Public Trust, Zoning and Development

Cities need development to thrive—not just housing, but economic, organizational, environmental and cultural development in balance. Too much development in one area causes taxes to skyrocket. Too little foreordains blight. Cities and local governments must foster a deeper sense of “public trust” in order to be effective. Zoning, as a public asset, is part of that trust. If we want sustainable development, then we can’t allow ourselves to be held hostage to developers or to equate development merely with fast-buck condo/dorm/hotel building. In this vein, I support development that goes hand in hand with public trust. Continue reading ‘The Milwaukee River and upcoming development (more dorms?)’

17 Feb 2008 | 9:35 am | Water, Development, Environmental Sustainability, 3rd District | Read 1 comment - Add your comments

Biking in Europe by Sura, February 3

Biking in Amsterdam

Bike lifts in Norway

Biking in Copenhagen

3 Feb 2008 | 1:23 pm | Streets, Bicycles, Pedestrians | No comments yet - Add your comments

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