Red Hook Farmer's Market is open for the season

Visit the Red Hook Farmer's Market for local produce (how much more local can you get than food grown in Brooklyn itself?) every Saturday through November, 9:30am-3pm.

The Red Hook Farm, Columbia and Beard Street

Directions:

• Train F/G Train to Smith and 9th Street stop.
• Take the B77 to Van Dyke and Dwight.
• Walk one block up Van Dyke to the Farm or Walk up 9th street to Court.
• Left on Court Street to Bay.
• Right on Bay to Columbia Street.
• A/C to Jay Street Borough Hall transfer to the F or Exit the station.
• Take the B61 going towards Red Hook.
• Take the Bus to Van Brunt and Van Dyke.
• Walk 3 blocks up Van Dyke to the Farm.

Learn more.

Greene Hill Food Co-op

The neigborhoods of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill may soon get their own food co-op. Members of the community are working to start a new 100% working, member-owned food coop to provide affordable, quality, responsibly-grown food within the neighborhoods of Clinton Hill/Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York.

Learn more by attending the next general meeting:

When: next Tuesday July 14, 2009 7pm-9:30pm

Where: BRIC Studios, 2nd floor, 57 Rockwell Pl, Brooklyn

The main topics to discuss are bylaws, including member meetings, member voting, membership fees and equity contributions, and annual patronage refunds.

Or visit their website.

Volunteer to Protect Public Water

Food & Water Watch, a national non-profit organization, is working to build a base of volunteers who will be local leaders in the movement to fight for public, fair, and sustainable water resource management. They are hosting a volunteer training next weeks as a part of Take Back the Tap New York! At the workshop, you will learn about Take Back the Tap and other local water issues, as well as learn to do outreach to individuals, businesses, and local institutions to rid their establishments of bottled water and ensure that drinking fountains are upgraded and maintained.

Here's what you need to know:

What: Volunteer workshop training and introduction to Food and Water Watch projects with coffee and snacks provided by Food & Water Watch.

When: Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Time: 7:00-9:30 pm

Where: Sustainable NYC
139 Avenue A, at 9th street
New York, NY 10009

RSVP: Please reply to Frank at fgallegos@fwwatch.org .

Learn more.

Who will clean the Gowanus?

Public debate over who will be responsible for cleaning the polluted Brooklyn canal ends today. Should it be designated a federal Superfund site or be cleaned by the city and private developers? The Environmental Protection Agency is not expected to release their final decision until at least September.

For more information, check out these recent news articles:

City Proposes New Plan for Gowanus Canal Cleanup
New York Times

Gowanus in Transition
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The battle for the Gowanus Canal: Fight over Superfunding grows
Daily News


And if you're in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza, check out the exhibit “Brooklyn in Transition: A Photographic Essay of the Gowanus," which is currently on display in the Grand Lobby.

New Community Farmers Market in Bed-Stuy

The Hattie Carthan Community Garden, located on the corner of Marcy Avenue and Clifton Place, is hosting its first ever Farmers Market. Here's what you need to know:

The Community Market Grand Opening celebration July 11th will begin with Ribbon Cutting at 9:30 followed by events throughout the day including cooking demos, recipe sharing, live music, storytelling and cultural presentations.

July 25th is Salad Fest in the Market. Community Food Educator Yonnette Fleming explores the art of salad making and tosses up a bevy of seasonal salads.

Join us throughout the season. Fresh fruits and vegetables for sale from local farms and community gardeners, and a community space for gatherings and events. Every Saturday from 9:00am to 3:00pm from July 11th to November 5th.

We accept EBT FMNP WIC HEALTH BUCCS

Citysol 2009 - Independent Music, Art, and Sustainability Festival July 10, 11, 12

Solar One hosts the annual Citysol festival this weekend to support sustainability.

Highlights include:

Friday July 10 6pm-10pm
The Alien Comic
"Mr. Lower East Side" Moonshine Shorey
DJs from HomeBase Collective
Party for a Solar-Powered NY

Saturday July 11 12pm-10pm
Dead Prez, Fiasco, Schwervon!, Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers, Outasight, the So So Glos, Love Like Deloreans, Hi Red Center and DJ Green Lantern!

Sunday July 12 11am-6pm
Rachel Trachtenburg's Homemade World
Workshops with BioBus Mobile Science Lab, Band of Bicycles, the Madagascar Institute, Voltaic, Just Food and more!
Wide Open Eco-Pet Fashion Show


Learn more.

How much do you know about where the food you eat comes from?

Check out the new documentary Food, Inc. in a theater near you.

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Learn More.

New Farmers Market in Bushwick

The Bushwick Farmers' Market will be opening tomorrow (Wednesday, July 1st) from 10am-6pm on the corner of Linden and Broadway in Brooklyn!  Come enjoy some pedal-powered music, henna tattoos, mural painting, food demos, bike-blended drinks, and more!  Bring your friends, enemies, re-usable bags, and appetites. Please spread the word and join us every Wednesday for your farm-fresh food fix. Vendor space is available. 

Learn More. 

Recycling...as American as Apple Pie

Every time you reduce, reuse and recycle you’re celebrating your love for your country. During World War II citizens were urged to recycle (or “salvage”) metal, rubber, paper and even kitchen fat to help in the war effort. Today’s soldiers don’t need recycled steel for guns, salvaged kitchen fat for explosives or scrap paper for packaging, but recycling is still patriotic.

By recycling, we show our love for our country by protecting our nation’s resources, reducing our dependence on the resources of other countries and boosting our economy.

Here’s how:
-Recycling plastic reduces the need for virgin plastic. Of course, virgin plastic isn’t a natural resource, but the petroleum used to make it is. In fact, approximately 4% of our annual oil consumption is used to make plastics. By recycling more plastic we reduce the need for the production of virgin plastic and that reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

-Manufacturing products using recycled materials instead of virgin materials requires a lot less energy. Making an aluminum can from recycled aluminum requires 95% less energy than making an aluminum can from virgin aluminum. In 2003, we reduced our oil usage by more than 15 million barrels by recycling 54 billion aluminum cans.

-Of course, oil isn’t our only source of energy. Recycling materials also reduces our need for coal—and that protects those purple mountains majesty.

-Using less energy also saves money. Saving money improves the national economy, but the recycling industry has given the national economy a real boost by creating over a million jobs.

-Recycling reduces the amount of solid waste we need to dump in landfills, which in turn, reduces the need for landfills. By protecting our land from being “filled” with garbage, we’re helping to keep America beautiful.

-Recycling paper protects our forests by reducing the need for trees to produce paper. Recycling cars and other objects made of steel and iron reduces the amount of iron ore we must mine and recycling aluminum reduces the amount of aluminum we have to pull out of the ground.

This July 4, use reusable or at least recycled products for your picnic.

From our friends at Recycle Bank.

Jacob Riis Park

Just a leisurely trip on the A train and a quick bus-ride lets you off at the gateway to Jacob Riis Park - where the beach awaits.  Dubbed "the people's beach," it's much cheaper than Long Island Rail to Long Beach.  A great way to spend a weekend.

Learn More.

Green Power

President Clinton Announces Program for 2009 Clinton Global Initiative

New York, NY -- President Bill Clinton today announced the program for the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to be held September 22-25 in New York City.

“As the Clinton Global Initiative approaches its Fifth Annual Meeting, I am looking forward to working together with some of the world’s most forward-looking CEOs, leaders from government and innovative non-profits to make progress on the great global challenges,” President Clinton said. “Through our Annual Meeting, CGI members have made upwards of 1,400 commitments that have already impacted more than 200 million people in 150 countries. I am excited to see what this year’s Annual Meeting will bring.”

Since 2005, more than 80 current and former heads of state; hundreds of leading CEOs, philanthropists, and NGO leaders; and 10 of the last 16 Nobel Peace Prize laureates have attended CGI. This year, President Clinton will again be joined by leading voices from every sector to take action on four major global challenges: education, energy & climate change, global health, and poverty alleviation.

Learn More.

Mulberry Harvest

Rumor has it you can pick mulberries at the Queens County Farm Museum on Friday because they have so many.  Then they're going to sell them. what a fun and eco-friendly Saturday that sounds like. Learn More.

Also, it's the 25th Anniversary of the Brooklyn Borough Hall Greenmarket and there's a big celebration. Learn More.