NYC Wildflower Week

Hey Ya'll,

My first post!

For all you gardening wildflower-loving maniacs out there, this is NYC Wildflower Week:

http://nycwildflowerweek.org/

I attended the panel discussion "Creating Sustainable Landscapes" at The New School this morning and it was really good. Lots of information from all different viewpoints -- public (both federal and local officials), private, (shout out to Marni from Alive Structures!), non-profit (Gaia Institute), and even university professors (the panel consisted of many Doctors).

A particularly curious theory that stuck with me was that of Dr. Cameron Tonkinwise, Co-Chair of the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School, a self deprecating Aussie -- twice he mentioned that he had a very thick and obvious Australian accent, which of course was the first thing any human being could have noticed -- who suggested that part of the climate change solution is to disengage from the consumption lifestyle. 

And he didn't just mean using refillable water bottles instead of plastic, he specifically referred to the act of community gardening as a low carbon activity alternative to, say, watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall on your 46" Sony Bravia flat screen with your significant other. Presumedly, this is both a waste of energy (the electron kind) and time, while community gardening uses no energy and produces the added bonus of local food!

The good Doctor even suggested going out to see a film as an adjustment of our consumption lifestyles, at least this is a shared experience with a lot of people attending one screening. Unless of course that movie is Forgetting Sarah Marshall in it's second week, because then it's probably just still you and your significant other.

I think the point is that we all need to get a hobby and unplug during our free time. 

And on that note, I'm off to drop off my compostables at the garden. I'm also going to test out the mobile blogging capabilities of my free cell phone so we'll see how that goes...