Great Lakes Bioneers

Do you have some spare time? A talent to share? We have lots of needs leading up to the conference, and sometimes we have needs that we don’t even know we have until a talented and giving person suggests something. If you’re interested email our new superstar, Tara at tara@ecoseeds.org

If you want to help, here are a few of our current volunteer needs:

1. Creating a tabletop display for use at conferences and events
2. Doing data entry to our database of interested people and organizations
3. Updating our press list

Have you noticed that “green” has gone corporate? Does it leave a funny feeling in your stomach? It seems like a great thing, but then, can we trust it? Do you have a little time on your hands? Well, join the citizenry led rating board at the Greenwashing Index. The index is “home of the world’s first online interactive forum that allows consumers to evaluate real advertisements making environmental claims“. After that, swing over to CorpWatch and nominate your choices for the bimonthly Greenwash Awards.

From the Farm and Food Policy Project >

Help Restore the Balance: Tell Congress We Need a Better Deal

We need your help. The House and Senate are nearing a final compromise on the Farm Bill. As competing proposals emerge, we need to ensure that the final legislation has our priorities for a healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable farm and food system. You can help deliver this message to your Representative and two Senators today:

Dear [Your Member of Congress]:

As the Farm Bill enters the final stages of conference between the House and Senate versions, I am writing as a constituent to urge you to champion a final bill that:

1. Increases funding for nutrition assistance programs by at least $9 billion to ensure that more Americans are able to afford food.
2. Increases conservation funding by at least $5 billion to help farmers and ranchers protect water quality, support wildlife habitat, and transition to more sustainable practices.
3. Maintains the funding levels in the House bill and incorporates the best policy provisions from both bills to support beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.
4. Includes the highest funding levels and best policy provisions from the two bills for farmers’ markets, organic farming research and financial assistance, value-added and micro-enterprise grants, fair competition and market access, community food programs, and local food systems.
5. Does not shortchange these national priorities for a costly permanent disaster program.

These provisions are vital to ensure the integrity, health, and quality of our farm and food system. I urge you to help restore balance to our farm and food system by working for these priorities.Sincerely,

[Your name]
[Your address]

Send this letter now!

Forward this letter to your friends.

What do school lunches, renewable energy, and clean water all have in common?

The Farm Bill– an often overlooked piece of legislation that profoundly affects rural communities, the environment, health, and hunger. Bioneers speaker in ‘06, Michael Pollan, gave us a call to action, reminding us that the Farm Bill is really a Food Bill:

“Let your senators and representatives know you’re paying attention and you care. Let them know that you understand that the Farm Bill is really a food bill. It is our fight. Unless we take it to them, they’re going to do the same thing again and we’re going to have more corn, and more soybeans, more Smithfields and Cargills and fewer farmers markets. So please follow this fight and help to wage it.”

Congress is reworking the Farm Bill this year, and a strong coalition of organizations is calling for a new direction in farm and food policy. Michigan’s Senator Stabenow sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee and has strong influence on farm bill direction. Let her know how you want to eat!

For an easy start, go to www.healthyfarmbill.org. For every 100 messages sent from our state, the Farm and Food Policy Project will hand deliver a package of healthy, local food to your Senators and Representatives – a strong message of what we really need from our farm bill.

For more background on the Farm Bill, try these sites:

1. American Farmland Trust
2. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
3. Food & Water Watch

Thank you, Marty Heller, for putting this entry together for us…

We have food issues!

There is movement in Washington D.C. , some of it quite bile. Representatives need to hear from all the foodies out there who wish to have legislation that is for the people, and by the people. Here is a web site that gives us the opportunity to reach Congress about the Farm Bill (a.k.a. Food Bill). Take a moment to check it out. It’s very straight forward and easy: www.healthyfarmbill.org

And, Hey, check this out: A Farm Bill Study Guide from the folks at Sustainable Table.

And, here is another reminder that an expert of Michael Pollan’s presentation at last year’s BIONEERS conference, titled “Beyond the Bar Code: The Local Food Revolution” is available online at the Headwaters site.

Prairie Home Companion features Daisy May and Seth Bernard

The Earthwork Music Collective is one of Great Lakes Bioneers’ favorite partners and we’ve enjoyed their concerts, workshops, and stories.

Members of this collective spill enthusiasm and love for life and community. Seth Bernard and Daisy May Erlewine, cornerstones of Earthwork Music, will be featured on Praire Home Companion April 21.

This weekend marks the first annual People In their Twenties Talent Show on Praire Home Companion and this fabulous duo are one of six finalists chosen from among 740 entries.

You can vote online for your favorite artist Saturday night, April 21 at 7pm EST (show starts live at 6pm) by hitting the Prairie Home Companion homepage.

You can also watch the show with friends at Short’s Brewery in Bellaire, and then catch two more Earthworkers - Jen Sygit and Rachel Davis - live right after!

We’re proud that Michigan’s waters have fostered such amazing musicianship and so glad to know these musicians personally. Break a leg!!

Looking for a useful petition to sign?

The folks at FreePress are leading the call to save Internet radio from the prohibitive restrictions of massive increases in royalty rates for nonprofit and commercial “webcasters”. Internet radio provides an outlet for new artists, independent performers and endless variety of musical genres that aren’t available anywhere else. The recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board to is a mistake and they need to hear from people who utilize it. You can read more about it on the Save Our Internet Radio Blog, and please sign the online petition and contact your federal representatives now!

Also, at Freepress.net you can support Net Neutrality by learning more about the topic an signing those online petitions as well. There are also useful Letter to the Editor building tools to make it easy to voice your opinion in regional newspapers.

You may also notice a video by Bioneer pleanary speaker Van Jones at this year’s National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis. Van Jones closed the conference, watch HERE, and at the end of his remarks he made a plea to work together after the conference; not to fall into an over-critical analysis of Free Press and the conference.

The Michigan Public Service Commission recently released their report based on Governor Granholm’s directive to create a comprehensive 21st Century Energy Plan. Her directive called for a “reliable, safe, clean, and affordable supply of energy for Michigan’s future”. The report calls for ten percent of our electricity to come renewable energy sources by 2015, as well as the creation of a small energy efficiency program that would provide education and incentives for buying more efficient products. Additionally, the plan calls for a new coal-fired power plant that will cost ratepayers around $1.6 billion.

While having ten percent of our electricity come from renewable sources is a start, it will hardly make us an alternative energy leader since 24 other states, including several in the Midwest, already have standards at least that high. Even more alarming is the fact that energy efficiency programs are only funded for one year, and the funding is less than half of the minimum amount that experts have been advocating for.

Because of these weak policies, the report recommends that Michigan will need a new power plant. However, if we properly fund energy efficiency and call for thirteen percent of our electricity to come from renewable sources, then we won’t need a new plant at all. Energy efficiency saves energy at less than half the cost of building a new power plant, yet this is the resource that received the least attention because utility companies want to sell more, not less energy regardless of cost and pollution.

Bioneers luminary Bill McKibben is starting a movement and we are working together to invite your support and participation. Bill wrote early and often about the perils posed by climate change and we both feel it is the single greatest threat to civilization. So far, save for one march last year, there have been no mass protests, no large-scale gatherings of humanity to signal this dilemma and call for its prevention.On April 14, a new organization called Step It Up 2007 is inviting organizations to hold rallies and events across the country. So far, over 300 events are planned in 39 states. Please go to Step It Up 2007 and join one or create an event in your community. It can be as humble as a sign, as entertaining as theater, or as bold as a mass demonstration.

For More information visit: Step It Up 2007

__________________________
Another Bioneers Luminary, David Orr, is helping organize Focus the Nation: Global Warming Solutions for America (www.focusthenation.org).

Focus the Nation is coordinating teams of faculty, students, and at over a thousand colleges, universities and K-12 schools in the United States, to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion about “Global Warming Solutions for America”. View a video about the project on YouTube.

Focus the Nation is calling for educators and students to join them at the University of Las Vegas in Nevada this April, to help build an educated and engaged citizenry at a Free conference. For more information and to register, visit: April Conference