It is July 29 and the internship is almost over for me. I started it right after the exams, and I think it has been my most productive summer so far.

 We started exploring the concept of permaculture, an acronym for “Permanent Culture” and “Permanent Agriculture”. Even though more than 30 years old, this concept is blooming again all around the world as people are realizing that our industrial agriculture system is falling apart because of its economic and environmental non-sense.

 Most of the work done this summer was qualified as “ground work” because it is the very first year of the Organic Garden Internship and we needed to install all the basic infrastructure. Since we started this project, we have raised up a 6 feet fence around a 1-acre piece of land (in a slope!)  along with several gates, a 12×12 chicken coop that will host 45 chickens, a chicken tractor, and a chicken brooder.

Yes that’s right, 45 chickens, representing at least 9 different breeds! Of course, they need care (water, food, protection), but they will give us eggs, manure, meat, and feather (last 2 are optional), they are an excellent natural pest control, and they weed the land we want to plant on thanks to the chicken tractor. A chicken tractor is a structure containing a small coop (for 3 to 5 chickens), and a run (ours is 4×10 feet) that can be moved all around the garden at any time. The concept is simple: the chickens will prepare the beds (4×10 feet) for us! When the soil is weeded and fertilized, we move the tractor and we can start planting. It goes without saying that one of the best thing the chickens bring to us is their presence. They are really fun to be around!

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Additionally we have started different beds using different techniques (rectangular, keyhole, raised, etc), and we have grown a large diversity of crops in small quantities (we mostly experiment and learn new techniques of cultivation). These crops include but are not limited to: tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini, peppers, basil, dill, onions, garlic, carrots, beans, peas, pumpkin, corn, different native flowers and other plants, wild raspberries, wild blackberries, blueberries, hops, grapes, etc.

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The organic garden has been a success so far. We have already held a workshop (see below) and received the visit and the help from a nationally known fruit trees expert, Tom Burford, and several bees’ specialists.

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Several projects are under construction: pond, beehives, greenhouse, several compost piles, vermiculture, orchard, mushrooms, etc. The list can be long and expanded everyday!

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The overall goal of the garden will be to attract many local people and turn this project into a center for community building around the concepts of sustainable agriculture for a sustainable living.For more info about this unique project, or if you would like to participate, contact Mr Abbassi at sabbassi@randolphcollege.edu, or Professor Warren at kwarren@randolphcollege.edu.

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PS: a second workshop is coming! August 22nd is the date, and the time will be confirmed to all the participants. Please contact Mr Abbassi or Professor Warren to sign up!

We’ve harvested a few things in the garden (herbs, squash, peas, onions, and bok choy to name a few), but the most delicious so far has been raspberries.We actually didn’t plant these raspberries, but rather just let them be. They’re wild, and grow along the fence and in a bed where we planted some cuttings (the cuttings aren’t producing yet). Every day there are more wonderfully tart, red, ripe raspberries that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. I’ll be making a cobbler tonight while the season’s bounty lasts!

Washington D.C., Thursday January 17.

We finally did it! After an intense strategy action plan against the wintry weather threatening our trip, we finally made it to D.C. on time for a tasty continental breakfast at the Ronald Reagan Convention Center where the 8^th Annual National Council for Science and Environment (NCSE) conference was held. The title this year was Climate Change: Science and Solutions.

Arriving on the second day of the conference, we were directly driven to the heart of the discussions… no time to lose.

The first couple of speeches and plenary roundtables were extremely refreshing, featuring famous climate persons like Bill McKibben, Stephen Schneider, Michael Crow, and Amb. Richard Benedick.

It was just perfect to boost our energy for the breakout sessions of the afternoon.

Ludo: I went to the breakout session called “Coastal Managers and Climate Change.” As a first year, I have not really a particular preference on an environmental area, and I choose this session because I knew how important the future years would be for the world’s coastal lands. It happened that I discovered a whole new range of perspectives in this domain, which motivated me to make further research in this field to make sure to explore every single subject that could interest me for a future internship or summer research. I’m so glad.”

Archana: My breakout session was titled “Adapting Technology to mitigate climate change.” The session discussed various issues related to implementing various kinds of technologies to mitigate the current “global climatic disruption”, to quote John Holdren. The most important sectors where technology could play a significant role in lowering GHG emissions were identified, as well as the road blocks impeding the implementation of these technologies. The issue of funding these technologies was also discussed which lead to an extensive debate about the policies governing such funds. Finally, a series of six recommendation were agreed upon by all the participants to

Himesha and Matea: We went to the breakout session named “Climate Change Adaptation for the Developing World: Expanding Africa’s Climate Change Resilience” to expand our knowledge in international development. Members of this session discussed ways to improve climate change resilience through enhancing education, data use, and further research areas. Some of the specific topics included, improving natural resource management infrastructure, promoting sustainable agriculture and food security, educating Africans on climate change science and mitigation, and enhancing the acquisition of climate data and their use to make future predictions.

Parallel to this blog, the official blog of the environmental club of Randolph College has been launched.

Stay tuned with the events going on inside and outside the campus, catch up environmental and world news, read some stories about the Reading University experience, and listen to different style of music while surfing on the blog.

A concentration of info on 1  page, to win some time on your schedule. Internet has never been so useful.

http://randolphthegreen.hw.tc

Randolph W. the Green, in the Human World, Thinks of Changes.

Hello once again from Power Shift 2007!

Saturday turned out to be even more exciting than we originally expected. In fact, we did so much that we are quite exhausted, so we’ll keep tonight’s blog quite short. After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we were off to attend panel discussions. There were dozens of different panels today in many different areas dealing with climate change, including science, politics, economics, social justice, faith, the media and careers. I particularly enjoyed Ralph Nader’s presentation on global warming and progressive politics. At noon, all of us from Randolph College were fortunate to be invited to a luncheon with the National Wildlife Federation, where we were pleased and honored to sit next to Mr. Thomas G. Gonzales, Chair of the NWF Board of Trustees. The third panel presented an eye-opening discussion on “Rainforest Agribusiness, Community Struggle and Biofuels: Testimonies from the Global South.” State and regional break-out groups followed. In the Virginia session, we learned about regional environmental challenges where we can make a difference; e.g., movements to stop mountain top removal in seven locations in the Commonwealth and  to stop Dominion Power’s plans to build a coal power plant in Wise. At the start of the evening, we sat in on a book session that focused on changing the language of being green to encourage participation by business persons as well as environmental activists. All the power shifters returned to the main stadium to listen to Saturday’s keynote speakers and enjoy musical  entertainment. On a serious note, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s speech was hugely popular. On the lighter side, more than a thousand students flooded onto the ground floor of the arena to spontaneously start dancing to various musical groups, such as a wonderful banjo performance.

Day 2

What we experienced today was just beyond our expectations.

After a quick breakfast, we arrived at the university around 8h30am, without realizing that we were going to stay there for more than 10h in a row.

Three panels consisting of 25 different sessions for each, speakers including Attorney General Doug Gansler and Ralph Nader, students more than motivated, and effective calls for action created an unbelievable amount of energy and excitement.We had the incredible opportunity to have a lunch organized by the NWF (National Wildlife Federation) consisting of 5 or 6 tables of 9 people including environmentally active students from around the country, representing colleges like UT, Harvard, Alaska, Princeton,… with our group of 7 students from Randolph College representing the bigger group there. Yay! We were sat with Thomas Gonzales, chairman of the board of directors of the NWF! Simply awesome (and the food was delicious!).We also participated to the State and Regional Breakouts, where Gillian represented our college (as one student did for each college from Virginia present there) by exposing what we already realized and what we are going to do for the campus sustainability.We were also able to assist to one open discussion organized by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, authors of Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility, where we got free food and assisted to a passionate exchange of ideas including the concept to move the world toward a huge investment in alternative and renewable energies and how to make a difference in this domain.During the evening, we finally listened to a couple of great activists like Jessy Tolkan, Judy Bonds, Evon Peter, Paul Loeb, but also Bill McKibben, and the surprise of this Power Shift 2007: the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi! Just a concentration of powerful people, motivated students, and refreshing musical groups.Today was intense, today allowed the sensitization of a lot of people toward a sustainable way of thinking, and it was, I believe and I’m glad of, a day of inspiration for some persons of our group.I’m extremely pleased to participate to this historical coalition.

Ludovic

Hello from Power Shift 2007!

After a long, scenic road trip through the beautiful Appalachian Mountains, we arrived at College Park, Maryland. We wasted no time in the hotel and headed off to the University of Maryland to check into Power Shift 2007. Even though Friday night’s scheduled activities lasted only three hours, they were full of exciting keynote speeches. We heard from speakers with varied backgrounds in environmental activism, from urban areas like Brooklyn, New York to rural areas of the Chesapeake Bay and everywhere in between. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet with other college students from across the nation who are just as enthusiastic about climate change as we are. Tonight’s program was capped off with an environmentally focused musician who was able to get all of us 5,500 college students on our feet and join in on the fun. After the end of tonight’s program, we had a late dinner at an IHOP. The dinner conversation was dominated by talk about tomorrow’s schedule, which if it turns out to be like tonight, will be an action packed day to remember.

Hello everyone!

Here we are, after more than 4h30 of car (yep, traffic jam around DC…), we finally arrived at College Park.

We quickly checked in at the Days Inn where we will sleep this week-end before heading toward the Power Shift center at the University of Maryland.

The student body organizing this event was simply very welcoming and well organized. In less than 10 minutes, each of us got a great T-shirt, several information magazines, a nice bag, a name tag, and an entry to the main room where the first presentation was going on. It was really a motivating speech to start this week-end with a lot of energy!

We missed a part because of the time lost on the road, but it was still a very enjoyable evening.

After a stop at IHOP, we went back to our room to have a good night of sleep before tomorrow.

And then, Power Shift 2007 will really begin

LuDo

Find more about Power Shift 2007 and other environmental events at http://randolphthegreen.hw.tc