Giant white men mock and threaten the frozen city of Kandor, while Dieter (Daniel Liebeskind, third from right) slaps the hand of Governor Pataki (center). “Do not soil the tiny white buildings, Herr Governator!”

Larry A. Silverstein is third from the left. I don’t recognize the other guys.

Credit: NYS DEC

Governor George E. Pataki, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, World Trade Center Developer Larry A. Silverstein and architects Lord Norman Foster, Lord Richard Rogers and Fumihiko Maki gathered at 7 World Trade Center recently to unveil designs for the three World Trade Center (WTC) towers that will rise along a reintroduced Greenwich Street on the site’s eastern edge, forming what will be the heart of a revitalized downtown Manhattan’s retail, transportation and office corridor. …

In keeping with the model established by 7 World Trade Center and the Freedom Tower, the three Greenwich Street towers will serve as the paradigm of modern skyscrapers in terms of environmental quality, life safety and technology. Silverstein Properties has committed to ensuring that each of the towers will achieve at least a gold rating, as did the recently completed 7 World Trade Center, under the U.S. Green Building Council‘s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. …

– New World Trade Center Designs Seek High Environmental Rating, NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Newsletter

Additional Links:

• World Trade Center

A one-day symposium of plenary speakers and breakout workshop sessions, this event is being hosted at the American Museum of Natural History.

The concept of “sustainability”–which seeks to balance the needs of human society with the ecological health of the natural world without compromising the future–has become a staple concept within the environmental community. But the concept is still largely confined to where environmental entities intersect with discrete entities such as energy providers, agriculturists, developers, and architects. How does this possible disconnect among these sectors play out in the New York Metropolitan region? …

The central question that we hope to address through this conference is how the sustainability movement relates to biodiversity conservation in the New York metropolitan region. …

Thanks to Ben Jervey’s Green Apple Guide for bringing this to my attention.

One of the feeds I subscribe to is the USGS Earthquake Center ShakeMaps. You can see it in my blogroll under the “Nature” category in the sidebar.

When I heard the reports this morning that North Korea had tested a thermonuclear “device”, I checked the feed. Sure enough, there it was:

Note the time, depth and magnitude. These all correspond to what’s being reported. The magnitude is 4.2 here, instead of the 3.6 that’s being widely reported, but it’s close enough. I haven’t seen any strong surface earthquakes of natural origins.

While the event chills me, I take hope in the abilities we have for monitoring and communicating the planet and the violence we do to it and ourselves. With feedback comes learning, from learning, knowledge, from knowledge – if we live long enough – wisdom.

[Updated 2006.10.09 21:50 EDT: Changed to link to original Reuters article and added link to article.]

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 03:04 GMT (EST+5) Oct 09, 2006, the world population is estimated at 6,549,200,730. The U.S. population is estimated at 299,935,826, about 4.58% of the world population.

Some time this month, the number of Americans will surpass 300 million, a milestone that raises environmental impact questions for the only major industrial nation whose population is increasing substantially. The US Census Bureau predicts the 300 million mark will be reached in mid-October, 39 years after US population topped 200 million and 91 years after it exceeded 100 million. This will make the United States No. 3 in population in the world, after China and India.

Raw population numbers do not tell the whole story, however, due to our (most of my readers are from the U.S.) disproportionate impact. A 69-page report (PDF) from the Center for Environment and Population details demographic changes, beyond simple population changes, and explores their impacts. Some highlights:

• America is among the world’s top ten in per capita water withdrawal, with each American using three times that of the world average.
• In 2000, [U.S.] per capita sawn wood consumption was nearly twice that of developing countries and ten times the world’s.
• About 6,700 known plant and animal species are considered at risk of extinction in the U.S. Almost 1,000 species are listed by the U.S. government as endangered, and 300 as threatened (over twice the number listed a decade ago), mainly (85%) from habitat loss and alteration. Half of the continental U.S. can no longer support its original vegetation.
• Nearly 3,000 acres of U.S. farmland are lost every day to development, with the rate of loss increasing.
• With only 5% of the global population, the U.S. consumes almost 25% of the world’s energy.
• The U.S. is the single largest carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter in the world, accounting for nearly a quarter of all global emissions. These are predicted to increase by nearly 43% by 2020.
• The nation’s average temperature increase over the next 100 years is projected to be 5-9oF.
• Each American produces about 5 pounds of trash daily, up from less than 3 in 1960, five times the average amount in developing countries.

Thanks to PlanetArk for bringing this to my attention.

Links:

• Reuters article
• U.S. Census Bureau
• Center for Environment and Population
• PlanetArk

P.S. While I’ve been putting this together, the U.S. population has increased to 299,936,092.

[Updated 23:35 EDT: Added title and link to Smithsonian article. Minor edits.]

No, unfortunately, I am not the interviewer. Michael Pollan is the author of two books which have been nominated for the Garden Bloggers Virtual Book Club: The Botany of Desire, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, published in April of this year. While on vacation this week, I read his article, “What’s Eating America,” in the July issue of The Smithsonian Magazine on the issue of America’s dependence on corn: it’s not a good thing.

He also raises these issues, and others, in the interview in The Independent:

… [industrial agriculture] depends on cheap energy to such an extent that when energy prices go up and stay up, it will make it easier for organic to compete because organic fertilizer will be cheaper–and also make it easier for local food to compete. At Whole Foods in New York City, they were selling grass-fed beef from New Zealand at a lower price than the local upstate New York grass-fed being sold across the street without a middleman. What allows that to happen is cheap energy; cheap energy allows us to fly meat round the world. So in a sense there was something positive for the food industry in high prices (or for the reform of the food industry). But [oil prices] are not down to stay … but I think sooner or later cheap energy will be over. And I hope that will be a boon to local agriculture.

It just makes me want to read Omnivore’s Dilemma even more. Living in New York City, very little of the food available to us is locally grown. You have to go out of your way – say, a Greenmarket – to support local growers. Even then, they’re likely to be coming from more than 50 miles away. There’s just not enough commercially viable farmland left closer to New York City, and it gets worse every year.

This increasingly becomes a national problem: as the percentage of the population living in urban areas continues to increase, we become more dependent on transporting our food longer distances. Fuel prices continue to increase, which means the cost of transporting food increases. If there was a fuel or other transportation crisis, we would see higher food prices, food shortages … famine? How much of this could be reduced, or averted, by gardeners growing food at home. As fuel prices increase, the need for 21st Century Victory Gardens increases as well.

Thanks to Coturnix for bringing this to my attention.

[Updated 2006.10.06 23:51 EDT: Added captions for some photos, at Kati‘s request!]

Yesterday we visited the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Here are some macro and general shots.

The new bonsai exhibit is impressive. I’ll blog that in the second post.

Kalanchoe thyrsiflora “Flap Jack”

Allamanda cathartica “Cherries Jubilee”

Parthenocissus quinquefolia, Virginia Creeper

Acer griseum, Paperbark Maple

Sarracenia variety, Pitcher Plant

I’m on the road this week. Today we visited Pisgah National Forest and drove along a short stretch of the Blue Ridge Highway. These pictures are from Looking Glass Falls in Pisgah National Forest. Each image is linked to its flickr photo page, where you can see it at higher resolutions. Visit the flickr photo set for more images.

[Updated 2006.09.30 16:53 EDT: Added link to 360° Virtual Tour of Ellis Island.]

A rare opportunity to visit sites and buildings closed to the public the rest of the year.

openhousenewyork hosts year-round educational programs celebrating New York City’s built-environment, culminating in America’s largest architecture and design event, the Annual openhousenewyork Weekend.

As of right now, there are 27 different tours listed, plus many other activities such as lectures and so on. The complete guide will be included in today’s New York Times (City Edition only, sorry! Distant readers and out-of-town visitors should check the Web site). Here’s a couple of highlights of interest to me:

Ellis Island’s South Side, NY Harbor, Manhattan: Tour the grounds of the abandoned Ellis Island hospital where 1 million immigrants were treated between 1900-1954. Wear sturdy, closed-toed shoes. No children under age 16 will be permitted. (To see why these two conditions are important, check out Tours A-G of Jim Galvin’s 360° Virtual Tour of Ellis Island.)

Gowanus Canal Canoe Tour, Gowanus, Brooklyn: From tidal creek to urban industrial waterway, learn the history of the Gowanus Canal as you paddle a canoe along a two-mile stretch. Look out for wildlife such as blue crabs, fish and the black-crowned night heron. Tours organized by the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club. Participants must sign a waiver in order to participate. (Seriously.)

Governor’s Island, NY Harbor, Manhattan: Guided tours describe the history and future of the 92-acre island’s National Historic Landmark District in the hear of New York Harbor. View military installations from the American Revolution and hear about plans for the island’s redevelopment. Organized by the Governors Island Preservaton & Education Corporation.

High Line Cell Phone Tour, Meatpacking District, Manhattan: Self-guided cell phone tour discusses various stopping points along the High Line, the disused freight rail currenlty undergoing conversion into NYC’s first elevated park. Dial the main phone number 888-7-LOOK-UP starting Saturday, Oct 7th. Each stop has it’s own three-digit extension. Organized by the Friends of the High Line.

Victorian Flatbush Walking Tour, Flatbush, Brooklyn (yep, it’s my neck of the woods!): Follow Brooklyn Borough Historian Ron Schweiger through one of the largest concentrations of Victorian Queen Anne, Colonial Revival and Greek Revival homes in the US. View journalist Nellie Bly’s former home, a 1903 japanese “cottage” and many more! Organized by OHNY.

World Trade Center — The Greening of Ground Zero, Lower Manhattan: This walking tour will discuss both the scope of the World Trade Center project, Visit the recently completed 7 WTC,and learn about current work at the site, the PATH station’s sustainable features, the memorial and other WTC buildings. Organized by GreenHomeNYC.

The mission of Food For Thought, a volunteer-driven grass roots organization, is to provide nutritional support to people living with AIDS/disabling HIV disease. They supply groceries to over 300 men, women and children each month.

Several years ago, my job at that time was ending, and I was uncertain if I would continue in the same career. I considered going back to school and getting a degree in horticultural therapy. The gardens of Food for Thought sound like the vision I had of what could be accomplished. It brings together non-profit organizing, community involvement and relevance, and deeply and personally meaningful volunteer opportunities. Gardening provides the means to accomplish all of these, and thus becomes an end in itself.

Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times article published yesterday which brought this to my attention:

Founded in 1999 to provide produce for people living with AIDS, the garden is part of what may well be the country’s hippest food bank, a place where the Alice Waters grow-your-own organic food ethic supplants gloomy institutional staples like American cheese and day-old bread.
…
The garden, run by Food for Thought, a nonprofit organization, is overseen by horticulturalists from the nearby Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, and many of its volunteers are H.I.V. patients who benefit from it. It brims with green beans and scallions but also obscure varieties of amaranth, an ancient Andean grain with flowing Rapunzel-like purple stalks. The fresh produce harvested by the volunteers is the food bank’s mainstay, though it also dispenses other groceries as well as vitamins.

The bank reflects not only Sonoma County’s obsession with food and wine but also its lesser-known side: long a weekend and vacation destination for gays from San Francisco, about 70 miles south, the area along the Russian River absorbed a heavy exodus from the city in the 1980’s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
…
The food bank, which has an exuberant bower of pink Mme. Alfred Carrière roses at the entrance, serves as horticultural therapy for the volunteers, who prune, snip and add wiggly red worms to vegetable compost. It is also part of a broader move to bring organic food and a bit of the wild into places where it has been lacking, among them schools and prisons.

– New York Times, September 26, 2006, A Rare Kind of Food Bank, and Just Maybe the Hippest, Flourishes

Links:

• Occidental Arts & Ecology Center
• Calabash Art Fest

Contact information for Food for Thought:

Email: Stewart Scofield, FFTVolunteer@aol.com

Food For Thought
6550 Railroad Avenue
P.O. Box 1608
Forestville, CA 95436
707.887.1647
foodfairy@aol.com

To find out, visit the Plants in Motion web site:

Although our lives depend on plants for virtually everything that keeps us alive (oxygen, food, fibers, lumber, fuel, etc), their lives remain a secret to most of us. The reason is simple – plants live on a different time-scale from ours. Although not usually obvious in the relatively hyperactive activities of humans, plants are in constant motion as they develop, search for light and nutrients, avoid predators, exploit neighbors, and reproduce.

Time-lapse photography allows us to easily see the movements of plants and clearly demonstrates that plants are living organisms capable of some extraordinary things. … The movies on this site show a variety of plants living out their dynamic lives. While we especially hope this site provides material that may captivate the interest of budding plant biologists, even the seasoned plant biologists will find interesting material.

Not to mention jaded old gardeners!

Viewing the movies requires QuickTime.

Thanks to Seed Magazine‘s Daily ZeitGeist for bringing this to my attention.