Trees, Trees, Everywhere!

If only that were true, or at least a lot more true in New York. Want to do a little bit to help with making this a reality?

There are (at least) two similar initiatives that are pushing for more trees:

The One Million Trees Project is being supported by the ABA. So, if you're reading this and you're out of law school get in touch with them and pick up a shovel.

CUNY is part of the Million Tree NYC campaign, which is part of PlaNYC. Multiple CUNY campuses are the sites of organized plantings on May 1st.

If you want to get involved, sign up here:

http://milliontreesnyc.org/html/involved/cuny_registration.shtml

The Kissena Corridor plantings are relatively close to the law school.

Green Coalition - Let's plant! If you sign up at the link above, you can chose Queens College as your college (I know, I know) and put "CUNY School of Law - Green Coalition" in the Student Club/Organization field. May 1st is our last day of classes! Let's celebrate in the dirt. Before returning to the library for the next two weeks of finals prep.

CUNY Law Invades Green Drinks Brooklyn on TAX DAY 2009

Maybe invasion is a little wishful thinking. However, I just finished my taxes (read: 'celebration necessary') and after Professor Goldsheid tells us about her experience arguing before the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Morrison & VAWA at CUNY Law on Wednesday, a green drink will surely be in order. Probably not an appletini, though.

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Next BKLYN Green Drinks:
Wednesday 4/15 at Oulu in Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, NY

Celebrate getting your taxes done at a Williburg favorite. This eco-friendly and stylish bar is also Uber-green. The lights are set at optimum energy conservation levels and the walls are made of 100% recycled sheetrock.

First 100 green appletinis are half priced--that's $5.
The Green Appletinis are to celebrate Green Apple Cleaner's new Brooklyn location.
http://www.greenapplecleaners.com/Store_Brooklyn_7thAve.html

All guests get a $10 first time customer or referral gift card.

WHEN:
Wednesday, April 15, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

WHERE:
Oulu
170 North Fourth Street (between Bedford and Driggs)
Williamsburg 11211
718 233 1340

Directions:
Please visit www.hopstop.com for detailed directions from any location

HOSTS:
Judy Sandford, Marco Carag and Eugene Lee

WHAT:
Every month, people who work in the environmental field, or simply have an interest in it, meet up for a beer at informal sessions known as Green Drinks.

It's your chance to mix with other like-minded folks, network, share info and make friends. Attendees have found employment, developed new ideas and even done deals! So join us-many report making great contacts every time!

It's a international concept--read more on the web site: www.greendrinks.org
Feel free to forward this invite to interested friends!

Market Fundamentalist Globalization in One City

This is from the last section of an incredibly article about how the global economy has boiled up in all its ugliness in Dubai:

Perhaps Dubai disturbed me so much, I am thinking, because here, the entire global supply chain is condensed. Many of my goods are made by semi-enslaved populations desperate for a chance 2,000 miles away; is the only difference that here, they are merely two miles away, and you sometimes get to glimpse their faces? Dubai is Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City.

Read the rest here: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

Thanks Patrick!

Brooklyn Food Conference - Go!

It sounds great. It's free. Awesome community orgs are behind it.

http://brooklynfoodconference.org/

Questions for the Public Advocate

The candidates for Public Advocate will be coming to CUNY Law this Tuesday. The Green Coalition has some questions for them (we sent these to the moderator; maybe they will get asked):

How can the public advocate connect the progressive local, sustainable food campaigns, cooperatives, CSAs, etc. and the city government to make the most nutritious and sustainable food options available for all of New Yorkers?

How can you as Public Advocate help to ensure that stimulus plan money, which is being directed at state and local governments, will be utilized effectively and in the service of the poor and minority communities of New York?

Can you comment on how stimulus funds for green jobs training would best be utilized to ensure that desperately needed pathways out of poverty are created?

Where are your economic development priorities and how can you connect them to the sustainability movement that is changing priorities within our federal, state and local governments such that long term ecological and social considerations share parity with economic planning?

Food Supply Chain Untraceable!

This article starts:
Most food manufacturers and distributors cannot identify the suppliers or recipients of their products despite federal rules that require them to do so, federal health investigators have found.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/health/policy/26fda.html?_r=1

Let's get busy!

Left Hook

Here's the lineup of 'green' panels for this year's Left Forum, which will be held at Pace University. I've been for the past couple years - its an eclectic mix of activists, intellectuals and concerned citizens looking to dialogue on contemporary issues from a left perspective - and that definitely means different things to pretty much everyone there.

ecology and environment

Capitalist Crisis, Energy and the Commons
The Debate Over Green Capitalism, Technofixes and Reforms
Reclaiming Life
Money, Barrels, and Change
Science for the People
Convergences and Strategies from the Emerging Global Climate Justice Movement
Building Sustainable Communities, Beyond Green and Into Social Sustainability
Overcoming Capitalist Ecological Degradation through Ecosocialism
Global Warming and Society- What changes should students fight for?
The Case Against Centralized Thermal (Nuclear and Coal) Power
Strategies for Addressing the Climate Change Crisis: A Challenge to the American Left
Withering Energies? Oil and the Financial Crisis
Yes We Will!: Organizing to Bring Real and Lasting Social and Environmental Justice

food

Political Economy of the Globalized Food System
Grow It, Sell It, Cook It, Serve It, Eat It: Sustainable Alternatives in Food Production, Preparation and Distribution
Food Sovereignty: Indigenous and People’s Control Over Their Own Food Production
The Food Democracy Movement: Organizing fo a Healthy, Sustainable, and Socially Just Food System

Queens Farm!

Can we take a field trip?
It's really close to school.

http://www.queensfarm.org/

Mr. Jones Goes to Washington

A heap of Appleseeds went to Reblaw this year at Yale and listened to Van Jones give the opening keynote address.

Van Jones has been a social justice advocate in the San Francisco Bay area for years and most recently focused his attention on supporting the green jobs movement as a pathway out of poverty for low-income people and minorities.

Now Mr. Jones is heading to the White House to work in the Obama administration.

You can check out commentary on the announcement here, here and here.

GMO seeds in Afghanistan and Iraq

Directing your attention to a brief up today at http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=217

The soils of war

The real agenda behind agricultural reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq

GRAIN

In this Briefing, we look at how the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and the surrounding regions. Seen together with the growing clout that the US and its corporate allies exercise over donor agencies and global bodies – such as the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centres, which influence the food and farm policies adopted by the recipient countries – this is an alarming development. These are not unique cases born from unusual circumstances, but constitute a likely template for US activities overseas, as it continues to expand its “war on terror” and pursue US corporate interests.