Hello Friends,
These are certainly challenging times for the environment. The news this week about America pulling out of the Paris Agreement was shocking. The world is concerned about climate change, including most americans. There are some hopeful sides to this awful situation: it will take 4 years for America to pull out of the Paris Agreement, and by then, we’ll have a new President and we can re-enter the agreement. There is also a most wonderful and enormous mobilization happening around the country, in cities and states like New York, California and Washington, to lead the effort against climate change and to do whatever we can to reduce greenhouse gases. Clean energy is booming and providing many new jobs and there is an increased awareness about the dangers harmful chemicals pose to our health. We are learning to make healthier choices when we go shopping. Don’t lose hope. There is a lot of good happening out there. We all need to use our voices and let our local representatives know how we feel. They need to hear from us!
Regarding making those healthy choices, I recently gave two workshops at a school in Watts/Los Angeles. The workshop is called Gamechanger.Earth and the focus is about reducing our exposure to harmful toxins from the products we buy and how to choose healthier options. In the workshop, participants learned how to be a label smart and educated consumer, who is ready to make healthy choices for themselves and their loved ones when buying food, cleaning and personal care products. How can you make healthy choices if you don’t know what they are? This group is ready to make some positive changes in their homes and in their communities. I’m happy for them!
Featured in this issue and not to be missed: the awesome zero waste town in Japan; the fascinating movie Seed: The Untold Story and the cool artist Miguel Angel Blanco and his Forest Library. The Game-Changer in this issue is so wonderful! She is supporting the rising generation of new organic farmers in America. We need them! Also in this issue will be the latest posts in the Cabinet of Green Curiosity; several Plant-Based delicious recipes; Garden Calendars for June, July and August; recommended books and check out the latest products I have added to my eco friendly general store.
There is also lots of inspiring news, big and small from different parts of the world. In India, for example, this lovely man has been planting trees every day for the past 37 years, to better his community, or read about the insurance broker in the UK, who has created a wonderful business model that benefits animals and then, fabulous news from German, about how they have managed to break a solar record! One day, the USA will do it too!
In the USA, the giant drugstore CVS made a game-changing announcement that will benefit customers who purchase the CVS cosmetics line and a large dairy company ditches milk and reinvents their brand with a healthier product.
I love insects, especially the beneficial kind. I posted a blog about which flowers to plant that attract beneficial bugs to your garden and another story is about a ladybug’s wings.
There is a bug I don’t love and is a real nuisance: ticks. Learn how to avoid ticks without using toxic chemicals.
In upstate New York, artists Terence Koh & Garrick Gott wrote the loveliest of poems about their bee chapel, which the Honey Gatherers would love, and so would the nature loving Transhumancers.
Wildlife conservation is essential. By doing so, we are ensuring the survival of many animal species, and the ecologically sensitive ecosystem in the ArcticRefuge or on a smaller scale, providing animal and beneficial insect shelter closer to our homes.
Get involved: The theme of this year’s World Environment Day on June 5th is “connecting people to nature.” Connecting to nature is good for our health. Period. On June 8th, we are reminded on World Ocean Day, about how vital oceans are: they generate most of the oxygen we breathe, absorb a large share of carbon dioxide emissions, provide food and nutrients, and regulate climate. There needs to be a worldwide movement of citizens for the ocean so we can mobilize and unite the world’s population on a project for the sustainable management of the world’s oceans. All of us- doing it together.
Enjoy the Summer Solstice on June 21st, and then a month later…be ready for a very rare event, and so much so that the United States Postal Office have issued a stamp about it.
Please keep in touch! I post often on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and would love to hear from you!
Thank you to Kate Orne of Upstate Diary, Craig Castilla, Yassi Mazandi, Anthony Slayter-Ralph, Agnes Baddoo, Laurie Frank, Annie Kelly, Cornelia Guest, Christina Mullin and Roberto Maiocchi of onedigitalfarm.com for contributing valuable information or/and extra help.
Thank you to Kathy Klein and the beautiful flower mandala she made that is featured on the cover. Available as a 2017 calendar.
Have a happy and healthy summer!
See you in September