Everyday Sustainable in India

I’ve just returned from a 3-week visit to India, where I kept my eyes/ears/nose open to the Everyday Sustainable there. This was a personal visit, which included travel in the North on the tourist-triangle of Delhi-Jaipur-Agra, and tourism with family/friends visit in the South–mostly Kerala and a few days in Bangalore.
In posts to come, I’ll [...]

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local food: Green Oaks Creek Farm

Lucky kids. Yesterday I got a note from a fellow San Franciscan describing the joys of old-fashioned farming of his 3000 sq ft veggie garden and 80-tree orchard up north, and how his “son’s eyes roll back in his head when he eats a peach, or [the] kids turn they’re noses up at store bought strawberries.” I want to taste one of [...]

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why does online shopping = wasteful packaging?

I am an all-around shopping minimalist, but I live with a prolific online shopper who asserts that it’s better than driving to the store.  This is debatable, especially since we live within walking distance of some of the discount stores he frequents online.
But shopping online is not my beef, since I know it can be useful, and [...]

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Sense of Place: where’s your sit spot?

Last weekend, I attended the second session of the Be the Change Environmental Leadership Program.  We met at Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills, and it was a perfect environment to think about affecting change to benefit the environment.
One of the speakers was Drew Harwell, who is a naturalist, farmer and garden educator at Common [...]

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HOW TO: swap-raffle

Yesterday, I had a great “Everyday Sustainable” day, with two swap events.  The first was a clothes swap which I organize every few months with friends.  And the second happened at a meeting for members of 29Gifts, a global network of people doing a daily practice around giving. 
Before we headed outside to give away 100 [...]

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farmer’s market on a bicycle

“What’s for dinner?”  That’s the central organizing question for Michael Pollan’s brilliant book on the U.S. food system, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
And today, I had a spectacular personal experience of the growing alternatives to the mainstream industrial food system that are described in part in the book, and that are being celebrated this weekend in San [...]

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Resurgence of victory gardens

An informative piece, Victory Gardens Symbolize a New Age from NaturalNews.com on the history of victory gardens — like the one in front of San Francisco’s City Hall — and the modern context for its increasing popularity.
Victory gardens are popping up all over. Last seen during World War II, these gardens now represent our fight to regain [...]

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“local” farmer’s market

I used to drive almost 12 miles round trip, mostly on city streets, to go to a farmer’s market the Alemany Market in San Francisco.  They have a great selection–including organic and pesticide-free farmed–and a festival-like atmosphere I like.  But, not the best choice in terms of overall sustainable for me.  If I lived a [...]

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Slow Food in San Francisco

This Labor Day Weekend, the Slow Food movement is coming to San Francisco, which means taking the traditional holiday eating to new heights of celebration and examination.
There will be many events that address a variety of Everyday Sustainable aspects of food around the Bay Area, including:

policy (Food Bill Declaration)
Food for Thought Speaker Series, including a panel [...]

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Elephant Pharmacy birthday sale

Yesterday I wrote about the accessibility of green products. Well here’s something that helps. 

It’s Elephant Pharmacy’s birthday!!!  It’s a store (a small local chain of stores in this case) that specializes in stocking green and sustainable products, and if you haven’t been yet, this is a great chance to check it out. 
They’re having a fabulous sale this [...]

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