Spend a few hours this weekend doing some good

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And get rewarded with better health and happiness and some nice fruit to boot!

We are getting calls daily from people in our counties wanting people to come harvest produce from their yards and gardens. Our current list is posted below. If you would like to help bring in harvest from any of these sites, please call the person first and get the specific time and address. You will be entering their property at your own risk. You may keep some produce for yourself. We cannot distribute any fruit that has fallen on the ground. Please take the food you have picked for the Food Share to the closest food pantry or to Marion Polk Food Share at 1660 Salem Industrial Drive. We ask that you have it weighed there, if possible. You may find a list of Food Pantries at our website www.marionpolkfoodshare.org. Thank you in advance for volunteering to help bring the harvest to the hungry!

• 8/24 J. Shrum 503-743-2776 Verda Lane Overabundance of pears on one large tree. Have ladders, bring boxes.
• 8/26 J. Abel 503-581-8371 Jelden St NE One pear tree, one large blueberry bush. Has boxes.
• 8/24 T. Freety 503-507-0729 Laurel Ave NE One large pear tree. Has ladder, bring boxes. No spray.
• 8/26 L. Engstrom 503-378-7055 Doaks Ferry Rd NW Large pear tree. No spray. Has ladder. Can get boxes.
• 8/25 D. Gleason 503-986-5640 21st St. NE One plum tree. No ladder. Can get boxes.
• 8/24 Melrose Farm 503-362-2398 72nd Ave, Aumsville. Blueberries. No boxes.
• 8/24 D. Rundell 503-363-4305 Idylwood Dr. SE One pear tree. Bring boxes.
• 8/24 B. Wright 503-581-3340 Brink Ave. SE One pear tree. Has ladder. Has 5 gal buckets.
• 8/24 Sheryl 503-371-9061 Filbert tree.
• 8/27 Eagan Gardens 503-393-2131 River Road NE. Pear orchard. No spray. Has ladders. No boxes.
• 8/24 M Steiber 503-588-7048 Gravenstein apples.
• 8/24 S. Diaz 503-269-0189. One pear tree.

Janet Spingath
Community Partnerships
2009 Chefs' Nite Out tickets on sale!
Phone: 503.581.3855 x311 Web: http://www.marionpolkfoodshare.org/
Mail: 1660 Salem Industrial Drive NE, Salem OR 97301

Marion-Polk Food Share: Leading the fight to END hunger in Marion and Polk counties
...because no one should be hungry. Help END hunger. Donate now!

Things everyone should know

Image by mandiberg via Flickr

In a country where we are constantly bombarded with "news" about psuedo-celebrities, where the inability to use math to make informed decisions is treated as an endearing quirk, and the ability to look reality in the eye and deny it is treated as an electoral qualification, here's something that every person in America actually should know

The bicycle requires the equivalent energy of approximately 0.4 liters of gasoline to travel 100 kilometers, and the freight train requires the equivalent energy of approximately 0.6 liters of gasoline to travel 100 kilometers (per ton). That’s darned good gas mileage. As a comparison, a modern hybrid automobile requires approximately 5.0-5.5 liters of gasoline to travel 100 kilometers.

Time to turn out some lights

Beacons of waste. Image by makelessnoise via Flickr

Given that it's just about impossible to see any but the very brightest stars from much of Salem, I'd say we've got a lot of work to do in reducing excess lighting. Luckily, knocking off dumb stuff like this is even better than a free lunch -- there's so much savings available that it's like being invited to a tasty lunch you get paid to eat.

The old-fashioned streetlight is the recession's latest victim. To save money, some cities and towns are turning off lights, often lots of them.

The cost-cutting moves coincide with changing attitudes about streetlights. Once viewed as helpful safety measures, the lights are increasingly seen by some public officials and researchers as an environmental issue, creating light pollution and burning excess energy. . . .

In July, Santa Rosa, Calif., started a two-year effort to remove 6,000 of the city's 15,000 streetlights. An additional 3,000 will be placed on a timer that shuts lights off from midnight to 5:30 a.m. Savings: $400,000 a year.

The city boasts that it will cut its carbon footprint. What really matters, though, is money.

Public works director Rick Moshier says he'd already cut his department's budget by 25% when he turned to streetlights. "I can either fix potholes and storm drains or keep paying $800,000 a year for electricity," Moshier says. . . .

There's little evidence to support the belief that streetlights reduce crime, he says. However, lighting does reduce traffic accidents, especially at intersections.

The nation's streetlights consume electricity equivalent to 1.4 million homes. They generate greenhouse gases equal to 2 million cars a year.

More gleaning!

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There is a pear orchard at Eagan Gardens ready for picking. The address is 9805 River Road NE. No spray has been used on the trees for 15 years. Ladders are available, but no boxes. Please go and pick what you want and bring some to the Food Share. We have about a dozen other locations around town. For information, please contact Janet at Marion Polk Food Share using the contact information below. Thanks for helping bring in the harvest!

Janet Spingath
Community Partnerships
2009 Chefs' Nite Out tickets on sale! Phone: 503.581.3855 x311

Think health care costs a lot now?

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(h/t to Hank for forwarding this.)

Think health costs are hot now? Factor in global warming

A report by University College London and The Lancet, a leading public health journal, recently called global warming the greatest threat to public health this century. As I described in a June 21 column, the report said climate change will produce worsening patterns of vector and waterborne disease; heat and respiratory illnesses; malnutrition; and harm from extreme weather events, flooding and sea level rise. Billions of people in both developed and developing nations will be affected.

In Oregon, for instance, asthma is already a major problem, and it will expand as temperatures increase. Heat-related illnesses will grow as we experience more frequent periods of 100-degree days. West Nile Virus, which is caused by infected mosquitoes that migrate northward as temperatures warm, has appeared here and eventually could spread as it has in other states.

The costs of health care are certain to skyrocket under these conditions. A study produced in February by my program at the University of Oregon, for example, found that global warming would generate a minimum of $764 million in additional health-related costs for Oregonians by 2020.

These costs are likely to increase to at least $1.3 billion by 2040. Other states will experience even higher costs. Employers and the self-insured will find it exceedingly difficult to pay the additional costs of climate-induced health impacts. Further, unless every American is automatically covered, those most affected by the health impacts of climate change — including the infirm, children, elderly and low-income individuals — will be left to fend for themselves. . . .

The media has done a good job of documenting the disinformation and consequent hysteria generated by opponents to health care reform. Less well-documented are the remarkably similar strategies being used to stop climate policies. A good example is a two-inch-thick document I recently received from a journalist friend, published by a right-wing group. It claimed to refute the science of today's global warming.

If it weren't so frightening, it would be laughable. Millions of dollars undoubtedly were spent on the publication. It has a glossy cover, is made to look like a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and almost certainly was mailed to hundreds of reporters — and probably others — nationwide.

But rather than being filled with peer reviewed science, it is laced with anti- government and environmental rhetoric. Most of the claims it makes to refute the fact that the Earth is warming primarily due to human activity are irrelevant. It cherry picks data to make its case and omits other important data. Many of the key points are nonsensical. The credibility of the document, however, does not matter. The goal is to create doubt among the unsuspecting about the veracity of global warming and thus stifle support for climate protection policies.

There is too much at stake now to let this type of cynical behavior rule the day. . . .

Bob Doppelt is director of Resource Innovations and the Climate Leadership Initiative at the University of Oregon.

(And here's a link to another sobering piece very much worth reading.)

A contender for "Worst Op-Ed Ever Committed"

How's the view, Michael Lynch? Image by Spartacus007 via Flickr

Thank God that online newspapers are interactive -- the scores of comments to this execrable POS are far more well-informed and insightful than the subject op-ed.

The funny thing is, it's hard to know how to improve Lynch's piece. Trying to argue that oil is in practical terms infinite is so unhinged from reality that ad hominem attacks and misdirection ploys are just about all he's got. He reminds me of the guy with the pistol in the Russian Roulette game after five other players: "Well, there's been no explosion for those guys, so I'm going to be fine."

Nice open-source rebuttal being built here.

UPDATE: hysterically funny and on-target dismemberment of Lynch's "work" here.

Desperately Seeking Gleaners for Marion-Polk Food Share

Image by Steve Rhode via Flickr

Janet at MPFS writes:

Please forward this to anyone who might be interested in helping us. I am getting calls for help daily!

Urban fruit trees are starting to drop their fruit. Homeowners who can’t use the fruit are calling Marion Polk Food Share to donate this fresh produce to the food banks serving the hungry. Please help us get this harvest to them. We need small teams of people willing to pick fruit and get it to us. Harvesters are welcome to keep some for their own personal use too.

We have 8 locations with immediate need and more coming in every week. Please contact Janet to get the addresses. Thanks in advance for volunteering your time!

Janet Spingath
Community Partnerships

2009 Chefs' Nite Out tickets on sale!

Phone: 503.581.3855 Extension 311

Marion-Polk Food Share: Leading the fight to END hunger in Marion and Polk counties ...because no one should be hungry. Help END hunger. Donate now!

Blueberry Picking for Marion Polk Food Share

Pound for pound, one of the best foods in the world, and we live where they grow best. Image via Wikipedia

Bringing in the blueberries

WHEN: First thing in the morning (after 8 a.m. please), till dark, Wed Aug 26. Come when you can, pick what you can, and help get the harvest to the hungry.

WHERE: The homeowner has generously donated the produce from 1100 blueberry bushes. The bushes are located at 8098 Pudding Creek Dr. SE, Salem. To get there from Salem, head east on McClay Road until you get near McClay. Before the McClay Inn and before the railroad tracks, turn right on 82^nd St. Go ¾ of a mile and turn right on Pudding Creek Dr. SE. The berries are next to a U-Pick farm. On the other side of the berries is a manufactured home. There will be a Marion Polk Food Share sign on the road.

WHAT: You will see cardboard boxes to assemble and pick into, for the Food Share. In the box marked "VOLUNTEERS," you will find tape to make the boxes (flats), and waivers of liability. Please sign in, leave the paperwork in the box, and start picking. Be sure to put tape over the holes in the boxes so berries won't fall out.

THEN WHAT: Pick into the boxes. You may keep a reasonable amount for your own home use. When a box is full, stack it with other boxes by the maple tree on the east side of the field. This tree is by the arborvitae hedge and is marked with something shiny. By stacking the boxes under the tree, where they can get air circulation out of the sun, they will remain relatively fresh till they can be picked up by Marion Polk Food Share the following morning. Thank you for your willingness to help!

"Let Them Eat Natural Restoration Areas"

Five members of the Salem City Council tonight sold us out for cash money tonight, approving a move by the feds to put natural restoration "emergency flood control" easements on 200 acres of unique farmland within the Salem city limits, land that has been cropped for more than a century and that has never cost the federal government a single dollar in flood damage claims.

UPDATE: A reader asks a good question, now that self-styled environmentalists have blessed ignoring master plans and blowing off public involvement when it suits them: "Wonder how knee-jerk supporters of this easement would have felt about the need for public involvement and planning if the proposal had been for $800K in exchange for two separate motocross playgrounds in the middle of the park?" Of course they'll respond, "That's different," but actually the only difference is that one proposal they like and one would horrify them.

IRONY UPDATE: Here's text of a proclamation issued the same night the council voted to forever bar community gardens and all other forms of agriculture from 200 acres of prime land in Minto-Brown Park:

National Community Gardening Week 2009 Proclamation

WHEREAS, one of the most frequent and best-supported recommendations by health experts is that Americans need to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables; and

WHEREAS, Salem is located in the very heart of one of the most fertile and productive river valleys anywhere on earth, and our soils and growing climate are among the most favorable in the world; and

WHEREAS, fruits and vegetables grown in the soils and climate of Salem provide unmatched flavor and superior nutrition; and

WHEREAS, community gardens help community members help themselves by providing both a fulfilling, enjoyable avocation and an affordable source of superior nutrition without the need for fossil fuels in transport; and

WHEREAS, gardening together in community helps foster stronger ties between diverse community groups, promotes healthy eating habits for a lifetime, and helps support efforts to eradicate hunger in Oregon; and

WHEREAS, the United States Secretary of Agriculture has recognized and encouraged all Americans to celebrate this week as National Community Gardening Week;

NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that I, Janet Taylor, Mayor of the City of Salem, proclaim National Community Gardening Week, August 23-29, 2009.

I encourage all residents to take advantage of Salem's community gardens and gardening resources and thank the many Master Gardener volunteers, neighborhood community garden coordinators, and the Marion Polk Food Share Community Gardening program making our community healthier, happier, and more beautiful.

“National Community Gardening Week”
DATED this 24th day of August, 2009

As Salem prepares to forever ban agriculture from 200 acres of rich farmland

Salem's commitment to ending hunger --- one sticker deep at most. Image by ginnerobot via Flickr

Before leaping into the fantasy solutions proposed below (skyscraper soilless gardens anyone?), shouldn't we try at least preserving some of the land we have been farming successfully for 150 years?

Funny how many people in Salem seem to think that hunger elsewhere won't mean problems here. Apparently for these people, Salem exists in a perfect bubble, untethered to a world where more than a billion people go hungry regularly -- with billions more expected soon, including millions of Americans and thousands of Oregonians.

Just as we're recognizing how difficult feeding a world of 7 billion is, Salem is proposing to knock out 200 acres of prime, well-situated close-in farmland. Because, to some of the well-fed, "natural re$toration" dollars count more than other peoples' hunger, even when those hungry people are right here in Salem.

If climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. . . .

The floods and droughts that have come with climate change are wreaking havoc on traditional farmland. Three recent floods (in 1993, 2007 and 2008) cost the United States billions of dollars in lost crops, with even more devastating losses in topsoil. Changes in rain patterns and temperature could diminish India's agricultural output by 30 percent by the end of the century.

What's more, population increases will soon cause our farmers to run out of land. The amount of arable land per person decreased from about an acre in 1970 to roughly half an acre in 2000 and is projected to decline to about a third of an acre by 2050, according to the United Nations. With billions more people on the way, before we know it the traditional soil-based farming model developed over the last 12,000 years will no longer be a sustainable option.

Irrigation now claims some 70 percent of the fresh water that we use. After applying this water to crops, the excess agricultural runoff, contaminated with silt, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, is unfit for reuse. The developed world must find new agricultural approaches before the world's hungriest come knocking on its door for a glass of clean water and a plate of disease-free rice and beans. . . .