Kristen Baumlier

NEWS

Go Fossil Free Campaign: Eleven Cities Have Committed to a Future without Fossil Fuels

Posted on April 24, 2013April 30, 2013 by Kbaumlier

350.org, a group that for several years has been working to battle climate change through organizing, events, and petitions has a new campaign for communities and cities to commit to moving away from Fossil Fools. The latest update from the campaign is that 11 cities have made a commitment to moving away from spending money on fossil fuels, and there are over 100 petitions active in various cities and states.

The cities that are committing to divestment so far range in size, like Bayfield, Wisconsin, which has just 530 residents, to large cities, like the City of San Francisco, where the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously this past week to push the city’s retirement fund to divest $583 million from the fossil fuel industry.

Citizens who are starting the petitions feel that we are all part of institutions, such as city and state governments, religious institutions, charities and non-profits that do work to do public good. Most of these institutions invest money in stocks and bonds, and have a responsibility to divest from an industry that’s negatively impacting the environment and our future, and reinvest in solutions to climate change.

You can start a petition to show that there is support for fossil fuel divestment, and there are materials to support you in getting started. To view the campaigns that are already happening in your area and get ideas of how to promote your petition, check out the website.

If you’re not up for starting a petition, the campaign encourages you to talk to your friends, neighbors, and coworkers about the issue, and see if others are interested in stating a campaign.

Image Source:
http://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/

Links:

http://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/

The Gleaners’ Kitchen

Posted on April 20, 2013April 23, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Gleaning is a practice that has been around since the beginning of agriculture. The first gleaners were poor peasants who picked up crops that had been left in the fields after the harvest. Today there are modern gleaners who have created a underground restaurant and grocery store called The Gleaners’ Kitchen where everything served is made from foods that came from dumpsters.

To support the project, founder Maximus Thaler and his collaborator go dumpster-diving behind grocery stores near Boston, getting fruit, vegetables, and packaged food which has been discarded for being past their expiration date.

Once cleaned up and prepared, the food is served and given away for free. The goal of the project is to foster community and support discussion about food and waste. The project’s website reports studies indicate that up to half of the food produced in the U.S. is ultimately thrown away, and that the National Resources Defense Council estimates that around $2300 dollars worth of food is thrown out by grocery stores nightly. Due to the variability of what is in the dumpsters, the food served in the Gleaners Kitchen is always changing.

At the last restaurant event the meal included:

Pesto Spaghetti
Curried Cauliflower and Peppers
Roasted Potatoes
Quiche with Cream, Onions, Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower, Tomatoes and Chives
Roasted Chicken
Fruit Salad with Oranges, Clementines, Grapefruit, Apples, Bananas and Pomegranates
Green Salad with Lettuce, Arugula, Cucumbers, Peppers and Tomatoes
Warm Bread
Fresh Squeezed Apple Cider

The Gleaner’s Kitchen is currently operating out of Thaler’s apartment, but he’s hoping to get support s through Kickstarter to open up a dedicated café where everyone can eat for free.

Images:
www.thegleanerskitchen.org/

Links:

www.thegleanerskitchen.org/

Freight Farms: Upcycled Shipping Containers Become Garden Units

Posted on April 17, 2013April 23, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Want to grow 400 heads of lettuce a week? Freight Farms is a new solution for growing food in any geographic location, all within a 40’x 8’ freight container. The units are equipped with growing equipment and the latest harvest technology necessary for commercial scale agriculture. The setup provides efficient, year-round growing and will help reduce transportation costs.

The systems uses soilless agriculture setups, and uses solar energy. Freight containers are a water-tight, weather-proof structure that is capable of withstanding the most extreme weather conditions. Their size and structure provide a versatile, durable and cost effective way to grow food. Freight farms use less water than traditional agriculture and eliminate the need for pesticides or herbicides.

The company behind the units call them “A local solution for the next generation of global food supply.”The units are designed to be used by a wide variety of users, including institutional foodservice providers, schools, restaurants, farmers, grocery stores, disaster relief efforts, wholesale produce distributors and developing communities.

You can read more about their different units and even order one today if you want to get growing at freightfarms.com
Image Source:
freightfarms.com

Links:

freightfarms.com

Deconstructed Flowers – The Art of Fong Qi Wei

Posted on April 14, 2013April 22, 2013 by Kbaumlier

We’ve all seen flowers and heard of the “he loves me, he loves me not,” method of pulling off flower petals to predict if someone loves you. Fong Qi Wei, takes the removal of petals to a new level in his series of photographs of deconstructed flowers.

Wei is a conceptual fine art photographer who is based in Singapore, who views role of artist is to be a communicator what he calls an authentic message. He writes on his site, “I try to engage my audience by providing a new perspective on familiar subjects or themes. Through my art, I hope to introduce my point of view to my viewer and engage them beyond aesthetics. I wish to provoke them to think further about the familiar and ordinary.”

His series called Exploded flowers presents the beauty and design of flowers by taking flowers and presented them in a manner similar to a dissection. Each piece is separated and presented next to the other parts. The results is images that show the radial symmetry of flowers, and presents the moment of time in which a flower is still alive and in bloom.

He writes about the series, “… what is interesting to me is how much more expanded some flowers can get when they are disassembled – the relative surface area to size of a rose is so much greater compared to a larger flower like the sunflower.” The series has been featured in publications that include The Boston Globe and My Modern Met, and can be seen on his website fqwimages.com.

Image Source:
http://fqwimages.com/2011/08/exploded-flowers-3/

Links:

http://fqwimages.com/2011/08/exploded-flowers-3/

Events and Actions: Food Font Tool Development Update

Posted on April 11, 2013April 11, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Today at work a colleague of mine asked me, “So when is the Food Font tool going to be ready?” We talked about the process of developing programs and tools, and I gave him an update of the progress.

So what is the progress? After months of design work, the interface and design of the tool is done. Currently I am creating the Event Action Matrix document, a document comprised of images, text descriptions and directions for how the tool works. To make this, I create images and screen shots of each element (each button state, each menu, what happens on the canvas, etc.) and explain how each element works and functions. The work is detailed – but it is exciting to be working on this document that helps the programmer do the work to make the tool work. I am lucky to have a brother who does this kind of work, so he is consulting on this step of the process.

Here are some images that are used in the document to show stages of the tool, and how it works:

Food Font Tool Panel – Use this to select a Food Font to use. Select and find Fonts
by the image, name, location/group, tags, or by general text search.

Background Tool Panel – choose a background. Don’t like it? Change it again!

The Stamp Tool – Stamp and Draw with a letter!

Post an Image – Dialogue Window