Perusing the Tree Hugging

Thanks to my friend Shaw for reminding me to check out TreeHugger occasionally. He sent me a link to Building a Truly Local Food Economy Through Strategic Thinking. Which led me to watching the videos at one of the links, read a link discussing what Dan Carmody espouses (which everyone who attended the Local Food Summit last year knows, nice to see it getting "national" attention), checked out a handful of links in between since TreeHugger is link heavy to say the least, and ended on a story about Buffalo for which you could insert any Midwest town just about, particular those proximal to southern Ontario.

That last one was kind of fun to see even though it was over a year old. People tend to not ever speak this shadowy truth but the calculus they discuss, eluding to a Purdue study even on carbon emissions for part of it, was part of the calculation I personally conducted over 15 years ago. Really the resources and climate in this region is optimal for the future and strangely currently immensely undervalued. Certainly the large part of the reason I stayed in Michigan and began my sustainable agriculture adventure now over 7 years ago. I sometimes feel alone in this belief, especially as everyone curses the fresh water precipitation falling from the sky during admittedly cold temperatures. So it is nice to know you are not alone. Others are operating under the same paradigm and seeing value. All of these links invigorate me to dig in more with the activities I currently base my life on (in addition to assisting research and educating students at a great public university of course): Brines Farm, Slow Food Huron Valley, HomeGrown Festival, Local Food Summit, Tilian Farm Development Center, and most recently the Greenbelt Advisory Commission and brand spanking new Washtenaw Food Hub which I'm hoping to plug into (and is so new it doesn't even have a website). Thanks to all of you for your support!