What a week! In the last few days, we’ve conducted site visits to the Piney Grove Baptist Church and the Mohammed School, as well as libraries in DeKalb County, and created designs we aim to install in the next few weeks. It’s an exciting time of year to be in the planting business! Are you planting anything this spring? Shoot us an email or tag us on Instagram @RootsDownGa. We’d love to hear from you!
We’re also excited to share that our first Community Forum for DeKalb County will be on April 14. We’ll have more details and a link to RSVP very soon!
Stay tuned to future Rabbit Holes for updates on how you can get involved in this ambitious project, or better yet, sign up for our weekly newsletter to stay in the loop for everything Roots Down!
Here are this week’s links:
‘Food security is security’: Brazil’s urban farm success story - Brazil’s vulnerable communities embrace urban farming as food insecurity rises during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Horta de Manguinhos project (Manguinhos vegetable garden), an urban agriculture initiative and Latin America’s largest community farm, is helping at least 800 families survive the coronavirus outbreak, as well as employing more than 20 local workers at a time when Brazil grapples with a pandemic-battered economy.
The Rights of Nature: We Need Nature More Than It Needs Us - This concept of nature existing in its own right as a living entity—not merely as inert property to be extracted and exploited for profit—is the essence of a rapidly spreading Rights of Nature movement.
There’s a Global Plan to Conserve Nature. Indigenous People Could Lead the Way. - Dozens of countries are backing an effort that would protect 30 percent of Earth’s land and water. Native people, often among the most effective stewards of nature, have been disregarded, or worse, in the past. - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/climate/nature-conservation-30-percent.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Regenerative agriculture is the next great ally in fight against climate change - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/regenerative-agriculture-next-great-ally-200928842.html
How To Awaken Our Ecological Psyche
Somehow we can only understand intelligence from a certain cognitive ladder that exists to always put humans on top. It is this human-centrism, I believe, that is at the very core of our ecological catastrophe. In addition to it being deeply problematic psychologically, when we do not value the lives of all beings, they become unfeeling and expendable resources for our ceaseless human consumption.
There is no doubt that practical, actionable changes to our everyday way of life are essential to creating an ecological civilization. Continuing to shift how we are commuting, shopping, eating, and farming is clearly essential. But beyond these physical acts, what are we doing to create an ecological civilization within our psyches? If our minds cannot conceive of it, we surely will not act to make it a reality.
Invasive grass is overwhelming U.S. deserts, providing fuel for wildfires -- Volunteers are yanking the dangerous grasses from public lands across the American Southwest. https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/travel/article/volunteers-help-fight-invasive-buffelgrass-in-sonoran-desert-parks
Georgia company turns shipping containers into affordable housing - https://www-fox5atlanta-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.fox5atlanta.com/news/georgia-company-turns-shipping-containers-into-affordable-housing.amp
Climate change: 'Default effect' sees massive green energy switch - When Swiss energy companies made green electricity the default choice, huge numbers of consumers were happy to stick with it - even though it cost them more. https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/science-environment-56361970
The new must-have for those who can afford it? Their very own electrical grid. - “We’ve probably seen a tenfold increase in residential demand over the past six months,” one microgrid company said. https://www-nbcnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1260306
Comments