Written by Food Tank

In the film, One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts, filmmaker Peter Byck takes viewers to Bluffton, Georgia to hear from Will Harris of White Oak Pastures about his journey from industrial to re-generational farmer. This is the second film in Byck’s Carbon Nation: Soil Carbon Cowboy series; it continues to highlight farmers and ranchers who are pioneering regenerative grazing practices and soil health.

Harris opens the film reflecting on his journey, “When I was a full-time commodity cowboy, all I thought about was how many pounds of beef I could squeeze out of this farm at the lowest possible price, with no real focus except pounds of beef and how cheap I could do it. Today I never ever think about how many pounds we consume. What I think about all day every day is how can I make this land up.”

Harris, who was born and bred at White Oaks, has transitioned his family’s farm from one focused on industrialized beef production to a farm that focuses on sustainability, animal welfare, and humane agricultural and environmental stewardship.

“The first thing I gave up was confinement feed and hormone implants and antibiotics,” he told Modern Farmer in an interview. “I thought that that’s all I had to do. Then I realized pesticides and chemical fertilizers were wrong, so I stopped using them. And then I realized that we needed to be butchering animals on the farm and not moving them, so we built an abattoir, and I thought we were done. But then I realized we were still running a monoculture– a meat monoculture and a plant monoculture– and to my mind, when you’ve got a monoculture, that’s a sign of a factory farm.”

To transition White Oak Pastures back to its heritage, Harris de-commoditized, de-industrialized, and de-centralized his farming practices, creating a living ecosystem that he takes pride in managing every day.

“Today we don’t feed animals; we feed the microbes in the soil. The microbes feed the soil, and the soils feed the plants and the plants feed the animals, and they breed, and they grow, and we turn them into meat and sell it for money which is like the blood that pumps through our bodies to keep it all going,” says Harris in the film. “It’s really a beautiful system. What’s most beautiful is that in every generation the animals are healthier and healthier, happier and happier.”

According to Harris, “There’s about a hundred thousand beating hearts on this farm on any given day,” that, while may not be enough to feed the world, are certainly enough to nourish his community. “In rebuilding the soil, we are rebuilding a farmer middle class,” says Harris, another area in which he is passionate about supporting.

More on Food Tank

Food Tank: https://foodtank.com/news/2016/10/one-hundred-thousand-beating-hearts-f…

Twitter:          @FoodTank

Instagram:     @foodtank

Sustainable building, ecofriendly furniture and decoration, to protect the environment.

Living sustainably doesn’t have to be expensive. The staff at Green America is pretty savvy when it comes to being green on a budget, so we’ve rounded up a few of our best tips to save money. 

I love shopping at consignment and thrift stores. It’s like built-in recycling because you’re buying used clothes, and you get them at really affordable prices. ” —Amanda Heerwig, foundations & business relations manager

“A lot of people don’t realize that electric appliances use energy even when they’re turned off, and this energy use can add up to $100- $200 to your electric bill per year. To avoid this ‘phantom load,’ use power strips to plug in most of your electric devices, so you can turn several all the way off all at once.” —Sytonia Reid, associate editor

“I enjoy going to garage sales to get clothes for my kids, but if there’s something specific we need—like a black concert outfit (required for band) or a classic white tank for layering—I’ll often shop at ThredUp.com. It’s an online store for secondhand clothing that carries several recognized brands. You can sell your old items on ThredUp, too.”—Tracy Fernandez Rysavy, editor-in-chief

“I like to use a mixture of vinegar and baking soda for cleaning just about anything. It’s cheaper than the cleaning products you would buy in most stores.”—Davina Etwaroo, executive assistant  

“I commute by foot and use the time to listen to Audible and make calls. The area I live in now is very walkable and convenient to most of the places I go.” —J, accountant

“Growing your own produce can save you grocery money and help cool the planet, too, if done with regenerative practices. We can teach you how to transform an average garden into one capable of pulling carbon out of the atmosphere, and we hope you'll register your garden. You can also join the climate victory gardens Facebook group to share photos, stories, and tips.”—Jes Walton, food campaigns manager

“I like to ride my bike to the Metro, which saves me money because bike parking is free. We also replaced the light bulbs in our home with LEDs, which reduced our electric bill.”—Todd Larsen, executive co-director

“I’m in love with Beeswrap, reusable food wrap made from organic cotton and beeswax that you can use in place of plastic wrap. I feel better about wrapping up my leftovers in Beeswrap than in plastic wrap [see photo above], and it’s also a lot lighter than a plastic or glass container when I’m carrying my lunch to work. Since cotton and beeswax are compostable, all you do when its year or so of useful life is up is throw it in your compost bin!” —Dana Christianson, membership marketing director

“Dressing for the weather and season in your home is something I like to do. In the winter, you can keep the thermostat low and wear sweaters. In the summer, keep it high and wear shorts, tanks, and thin shirts. Or go without clothes.” —Shireen Karimi, director of digital communications 

One Love Organics Is Award-Winning Skin Care Made With Organic Ingredients

During the weekends in 1998, Suzanne LeRoux frequented a yoga studio near her law school5!M. One Saturday, the studio was holding an essential oils class, and so on a whim, she went. What she thought was just going to be a class she’d enjoy and soon forget turned out to be a pivotal lesson for her mental and physical well-being.

Inspired by what she learned about the health benefits of aromatherapy, LeRoux started using essential oils to relieve stress while studying. When that helped, she began blending essential oils into her skin care routine and stopped using conventional beauty products. For years, LeRoux had struggled with acne, but her skin changed dramatically when she switched from a standard facial routine to a more natural regimen.

LeRoux finished law school and became a practicing lawyer, but she soon realized that she had found her passion in skin care. After work and on the weekends, she learned more about and practiced making holistic, plant-based cosmetics. Then, when LeRoux took a break from her law practice to spend time with her children in 2005, she further refined techniques and finalized formulas she had been developing. Two years later, when LeRoux and her family were ready for her to go back to full-time work, she found it was her hobby that was calling her, not her law office.

Through 2008 and 2009, LeRoux continued to experiment in her home kitchen in Georgia, giving her products away to friends and family, and using their feedback to make changes.

She also spoke with industry experts about whether pursuing holistic skin care full-time was a realistic idea, and was told that her vision for an independent, organic, plant-based cosmetics company was not feasible. At the time, small-scale skin care companies were uncommon, and plant-based skin care was a new concept.

“Everyone was saying natural organics was a trend; it was a fad; it would be in and out in two years. They told us not to invest anything,” LeRoux recalls.

LeRoux did not shy away from her bold idea, though. She knew organic, plant-based skin care worked better than petroleum- and paraben-based products. She had seen the results herself, so she decided to pursue her business concept. By September of 2010, she’d found a licensed facility in Georgia and officially launched One Love Organics.

As demand for her products rose, LeRoux’s business took off. Since its beginnings, the company has moved four times to increasingly larger facilities, ultimately purchasing a manufacturing space of its own. It has won several green beauty awards, including two from Glamour Magazine in 2016—one for best cleanser for the company’s Vitamin B Cleansing Oil, and one for best body product for its Vitamin C Body Polish.

“We just thought this was something that I would do: I’d hand-make cosmetics and send them out, and maybe one day I could replace my law income and do what I like to do,” LeRoux says. “The growth of the company and where it is now was a huge surprise to both me and my husband.”

Today, One Love Organics features dozens of original, plant-based, organic products at competitive prices. The company’s team has grown from one to nine people, including her husband, who joined as the chief financial officer in 2014. Since the start, the products have been free of parabens, silicon, and synthetic perfumes and dyes. Most are vegan, all are plant-based, and all are GMO-free. The company and its facilities are certified cruelty-free and ECOCERT organic, a European organic certification.

LeRoux is still involved in every step of the process—from customer service to production to final products and packaging. She even still formulates every new product that One Love Organics releases. And she still enjoys what she does.

“I used to love shopping for beauty products, but as you get older, you hear about parabens and animal testing and unfair trade practices and all kinds of stuff that made shopping not as fun anymore,” LeRoux explains. “I just wanted to take those worries away and make shopping for beauty products fun again.”

See attached

Coming soon.

Arcadia Power Is Connecting People In All 50 States to Green Energy

When Kiran Bhatraju was in third grade, long before Arcadia Power formed, he took a field trip to a coal mine in Eastern Kentucky. There, for the first time, he started to understand where energy came from and the dangers miners faced working underground. Growing up in the heart of coal country, Bhatraju viewed coal as more than just an industry; it was a way of life. It influenced politics and culture in the area, and it drove the economy. As he got older and continued to see the environmental harm and job hazards of the coal industry, he thought, “There’s got to be better ways to produce energy.”

After graduating college in 2009, Bhatraju worked on Capitol Hill for his congressman from Louisville, KY. There, he learned about the “complex, convoluted way” energy is generated and delivered in the US. The US has a 50-state fragmented energy market, so every state has a different system for distributing energy to consumers. He also observed industry trends: solar and wind energy were getting cheaper, and they reduced pollution and global-warming emissions associated with fossil fuels. Yet at the federal level, Bhatraju felt that nothing was changing to bring about a green-energy future. These observations spurred his first big idea: he’d create a software platform to make clean-energy choices convenient. Arcadia Power would make it easy for the average person to access green energy, so they could save money and help the environment.

“It just felt like giving users a way to connect to clean energy was going to be a more effective use of my time [than working in Washington]. ... Starting a company felt like a way that I could drive change and make a difference faster,” Bhatraju says.

While he had a strong idea, he had no background in entrepreneurship or software development. To bring his vision to life, he educated himself in accounting, financial models, and customer relations, and became an expert in energy markets and clean-energy purchasing. With a small team, he launched Arcadia Power in 2014.

Arcadia Power makes clean energy simple: customers across the US can use the company’s website to connect their utility accounts with Arcadia and enroll in its clean-energy programs, which Bhatraju says takes about a minute and is free. From there, Arcadia Power ensures your electricity usage supports solar and wind energy, or even community solar projects, for no added cost.

In addition, if Arcadia Power’s Price Alerts program is available in your area, you can have the company constantly search for the lowest green energy options, sending you price alerts when it finds a way for you to save money.

“The demand for clean energy is there. The customers may not fully understand the grid or how it operates, but they know that they would like to support pollution-free power,” Bhatraju says. “It’s our job to take out all the complexity and make it simple for the user.”

Arcadia Power already has over 150,000 customers in all 50 states. It’s the collective buying power of this large group that allows Arcadia Power to secure exclusively low prices from clean-energy suppliers, which pay the company a fee for connecting them with more customers.

The company has supported the generation of over 465 GWh of clean energy, preventing over 260,000 tons of CO2 emissions. This year, the company closed a $25 million round of investments, and it has committed to bring120 Megawatts of new solar projects to its members. Bhatraju says that amounts to more than 40 solar farms, or 600 acres, that will be exclusive to Arcadia Power members.

Bhatraju calls Arcadia Power a “platform for change.” After all, it’s working to make green energy usage more efficient, re-envisioning how customers use energy at home, and advocating for environmental action all at once.

“If we’re going to be successful as a movement, we have to make energy access a priority. That means every one of the 130 million people that pay a power bill each month needs to have easy access to clean energy,” he says. “It’s good business for us, and it’s the right thing to do to expand clean-energy options to anyone—rich or poor, homeowner or renter.”

As a Green Business Network Member, you can vote for your representatives to the Green America Board. This year, there is one seat up for election, and we want to hear from you.

Green America's democratically elected Board of Directors represents all of our various stakeholders—our individual members, our business members, and Green America's worker members. Your participation is vital to our ongoing work to grow the green economy.

Browse your candidates' personal statements below and cast your vote by February 11. The winner will be announced in an upcoming issue of Connections.

Cast Your Vote

Thanks to our Skip the Slip campaign to address the toxicity, resource use, and waste of paper receipts, the first-ever bill to tackle paper receipts was introduced in California on January 8, 2019.

This new bill in the California Assembly would make the state the first in the U.S. to mandate that retailers must offer digital receipts as the default to customers starting January 1, 2022. Customers will still be able to request a paper receipt in lieu of a digital receipt. Reflecting the focus of Green America’s “Skip the Slip” campaign, the bill, introduced by Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), will help protect consumers and workers from the toxins that often coat paper-based receipts, while also creating substantial environmental benefits.

Green America Lauds Landmark State Bill Introduced to Mandate Digital Receipts as Default Alternative to Wasteful, BPA- and BPS-Coated Paper Receipts.

SACRAMENTO, CA – January 8, 2019 – A new bill in the California Assembly would make the state the first in the U.S. to mandate that retailers must offer digital receipts as the default to customers starting January 1, 2022. Customers will still be able to request a paper receipt in lieu of a digital receipt. Reflecting the focus of Green America’s “Skip the Slip” campaign, the bill, introduced by Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), will help protect consumers and workers from the toxins that often coat paper-based receipts, while also creating substantial environmental benefits.

“We applaud Assemblymember Ting for introducing legislation that will protect the health of California workers and consumers, while protecting the environment,” said Green America’s climate and recycling director Beth Porter. “Over time, this legislation would prevent millions of trees from being logged for paper receipts, which fewer and fewer consumers want, and which often go straight to landfills. This bill will make California a leader in addressing the impacts of paper-based receipts.”

“Retailers who have adopted digital receipts are already seeing benefits in terms of reduced costs and greater connection to their customers,” said Green America’s executive co-director Todd Larsen.  “Assemblymember Ting’s bill will benefit retailers, workers, and consumers in California, and it will be an important step forward in addressing the increasing impacts of paper-based receipts.”

*Green America’s “Skip the Slip” report documented the following national impacts annually of paper-based receipts,

• Use 10 million trees
• Consume 21 billion gallons of water
• Generate 686 million pounds of waste and 12 billion pounds of CO2

In addition, research from Ecology Center estimates 93 percent of paper receipts are coated with Bisphenol-A (BPA) or Bisphenol-S (BPS), known endocrine-disruptors. These toxins are absorbed when people touch receipts and are linked to serious health problems, including numerous types of cancer, diabetes, and reproductive issues. The environmental and health impacts of paper-based receipts highlight the need for retailers to adopt digital receipts.

Skip the Slip highlights cost-effective digital and non-toxic solutions for retailers to protect their employees and customers, and reduce their impacts on the environment, while reducing fraud and increasing sales. There are major companies that have successfully adopted many of these solutions, including Best Buy, Apple, Lidl Grocery, and Trader Joe's.

ABOUT GREEN AMERICA

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today’s social and environmental problems. http://www.GreenAmerica.org

MEDIA CONTACT: Max Karlin for Green America, (703) 276-3255, or mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com.

ASSEMBLYMEMBER CONTACT: Nannette Miranda, Office of Assemblymember Phil Ting: 916-319-2019.

*For updated impacts and explained methodology, please see our Jan 2019 revised report here.

Jeff Daniels

Reporter

Our worldwide addiction to plastic is clogging up the oceans, harming wildlife, and resulting in overburdened landfills and lots of litter. That's why we scoured GreenPages.org for the most useful products to help you get single-use plastic out of your life. 

Rina recommends:

Pack tomorrow’s snacks in ChicoBag’s Snack Time rePete bag rather than a disposable plastic baggie. Composed primarily of recycled plastic bottles, this snack-time super hero offers a stain- and water-resistant liner and can be tossed in the washing machine after use.

Give your gift a festive finish with VZWraps reusable fabric gift bags. Sewn in Philadelphia, PA, these vibrant vessels eliminate the use of plastic ribbons, as well as throwaway paper. VZWraps come in a variety of patterns, from turquoise elephants to multi-colored aliens.

Plant-based from box to bristles, Brush with Bamboo offers its Adult and Kid’s Toothbrushes made from 100 percent organic bamboo. These eco-friendly brushes feature soft bristles and a pesticide-free bamboo handle.

Filled in a plastic-free “Eco Tube” and sealed with a matching “Eco Cap,” Organic Essence lip balm is all-natural and features compostable paper packaging. The shea butter-based moisturizer is available in six different flavors, including grapefruit and almond.

When stocking up on fresh fruits and vegetables during your next grocery run, bring along an ECOBAGS Organic Cloth Bulk and Produce Bag, so you are not left using the store-provided, flimsy plastic produce bags. This ECOBAG is made of 100 percent certified organic cotton and features a secure drawstring closure. 

Jenna recommends:

Keep your favorite single-serve morning coffee plastic-free and guilt-free by investing in a Stainless Steel Reusable Coffee Pod Fill Life Without Plastic’s pod with your favorite coffee, tea, or cocoa and pop it in your Keurig or other single-serving coffee maker. 

Whether you’re going camping or just having lunch at the office, To-Go Ware’s Carry Around Bamboo Utensil Set is the perfect plastic-free utensil option. The set includes a pouch made of recycled bottles, which easily holds a fork, knife, spoon, and chopsticks and can conveniently be clipped to a lunch bag or purse.

Skip the single-use plastic bag at checkout when grocery or retail shopping. With Marketplace: Handwork of India’s fair trade and 100 percent cotton Umang Bag, you’re not only supporting the environment, but you’re also helping to provide dignified job training for women in India. 

Klean Kanteen can help you combat your habit of picking up plastic straws with its 5-Piece Straw Set. Made with stainless steel and food-grade silicone, these straws are a perfect accessory to any reusable water bottle or coffee  thermos we know you already have. Split this set with a friend, and pledge to go plastic-straw-free together! 

Typical period care and packaging amounts to excessive single-use plastic waste. Stay comfortable but cut back on plastic by investing in one (or several) MAIA Bikini by LUNAPADS: leak-proof cotton underwear with additional organic cotton inserts to create customizable absorbency to fit your flow. 

This Christmas, Mariah Byrne was set on buying a hammock for a college friend. Preferably, she’d find just the right one from an environmentally conscious outdoor retailer.

She checked REI. Too expensive. She looked at Patagonia. Also beyond her budget as a graduate student.

So resist as she might, Byrne, 26, settled for a much cheaper option on Amazon that also came with free shipping.

“That for me is the toughest part: balancing wanting to be socially-conscious with being realistic about my budget," Byrne said.

Byrne’s conundrum is one shared by shoppers wanting to support eco-friendly, social-justice oriented or politically-savvy brands without breaking the bank. Especially around the holidays, retailers make a point of promoting themselves as companies you can feel good about supporting. Maybe they’re sourcing products from recycled materials; maybe they’re donating a share of Black Friday sales to charity. Maybe they’re teaming up with nonprofits and taking a stance on a charged social issue.

It’s an appealing pitch, especially to shoppers who increasingly wish to support companies that share their ideals or values.

But practically speaking, higher-income shoppers are often the ones who can afford to weigh those options in the first place.

“The climate has caused people to want to care, and I think that has caused people to be more aware,” said Alexis Desalva, a retail expert at Mintel. But still, “the price is always going to be the motivating factor. I don’t think that’s going away.”

Among older shoppers, it may be an added perk if, for example, a holiday gift was cruelty-free or fair trade, said Steven Barr, consumer markets expert at PwC.

“For prior generations, it was more 'oh, well, it’s kind of a bonus to make me feel good about a purchase I was already going to make," Barr said. “Now it’s the primary driver.”

[How to get holiday shoppers into the mall — and keep them there]

That means retailers cannot win customers over with their products alone. They also must convince shoppers that by making a purchase, they’re supporting some greater good. Madewell, for example, encourages customers to “shop for a cause” through its “Do Well”campaign. Fifty percent of the retail price from “Do Well” products go to charities including Girls Inc. and the Human Rights Campaign.

To cut down on plastic waste, Everlane announced its ReNew collection just before the holidays. The outwear line is made of recycled plastic bottles and kicked off a company pledge for no new plastic in its supply chain by 2021.

And through its holiday Believe campaign, Macy’s aims to raise one million dollars for Make-A-Wish. For every shopper who writes a letter to Santa through the Macy’s website, the retailer will donate $1.

Then there are the companies whose entire platforms revolve around promoting a greener and socially just economy. The national nonprofit organization Green America, for example, curates lists of “Grinch Gifts to Avoid This Holiday," “11 Great Green Gifts Under $100,″ and children’s gifts from green, family-owned and fair-trade businesses.

“Every dollar you spend is a dollar voting for the kind of world you want to see,” said Eleanor Greene, editor for Green America.

[How Hanukkah gets lost in the holiday retail rush]

In St. Louis, Byrne scoured local bookstores in search of a copy of “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” for her brother. Out of luck, Byrne decided to buy him a print from one of her favorite artists, rather than order the book online. (Byrne’s dad, on the other hand, was more insistent about the exact gift he wanted: a sports water bottle from Target. He was unmoved by Byrne’s request to buy a different water bottle from a company with an ethically sourced supply chain.)

Celia Strainge is making a point of supporting local small businesses this Christmas. Strainge said she used to do most of her holiday shopping on Amazon but grew worried about reports surrounding company pay and worker treatment. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

For ideas, Strainge has been following the Instagram account of comedian Aisling Bea, who’s been posting her recommendations for socially conscious brands and holiday gifts. So far, the haul has included companies that sell second-hand clothes, a beer company that partners with charities to end food waste, and earrings made by women who survived sex trafficking.

Beth Porter is Green America’s Climate & Recycling Director, as well as the author of Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine: Sorting Out the Recycling System who joins Jonathan to talk all things recycling; what is is, how it works, if plastic straws are as dangerous we’ve been told, how oil prices effect recycled plastic demands, and more.

Listen to the Podcast here:https://player.fm/series/series-2323839/whats-really-going-on-with-recy…

Find Beth’s work at https://www.bethrecycles.com/

She’s on Twitter https://twitter.com/bethrecycles and Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bethrecycles/

Buy her book Reduce, Reuse, Reimagine: Sorting Out the Recycling System here:

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538105399/Reduce-Reuse-Reimagine-Sorting-Ou…

Beth also heads up Green America's Climate and Recycling Program: https://www.greenamerica.org/climate

https://player.fm/series/series-2323839

A weekly exploration of all the things Jonathan Van Ness (Queer Eye, Gay of Thrones) is curious about. Come on a journey with Jonathan and experts in their respective fields as they get curious about anything and everything under the sun.

By Nicky Schauder of Permaculture Gardens, a member of our Green Business Network

My family and I have a Climate Victory Garden in the suburbs of Washington DC. I wanted to give you a tour of our tiny garden with the hopes it will inspire you. Permaculture designer Geoff Lawton is known for saying, “All problems can be solved in a garden.” The real problem of climate change is no exception. 

Remember, you don't have to fulfill all the commitments to have a Climate Victory Garden but getting to all 10 is not as hard as you may think. Start with one and grow slowly but surely from there. We're a family of 8 living in what some consider a tiny townhome, and we grow over 300 pounds of produce each year. Here's how we try to live the Climate Victory Garden commitments:

1. Grow Edible Plants 

We can all grow something, even during the cooler months. If you're going to grow a garden, you might as well get the most bang for your buck. Choose your plants wisely. Many people grow ornamental plants for their beauty. But selecting plants that are also edible allows us to capture carbon from the atmosphere and feed ourselves all in one go (not to mention, they're still beautiful). If your plant is also medicinal (i.e. herbs), then you have a 4th function to boot!

We grow food in our garden and home year-round. We grow over 300 pounds of produce per year in our townhome’s back and front yards (around 500 sq ft). In the spring and fall, we have cool weather crops like peas and carrots. We grow seasonal mushrooms both outdoors or indoors in logs, bags or mason jars. Summer harvests include beets and tomatoes, and in the winter we start seedlings and grow herbs and lettuce by the south-facing windows.

2. Keep Soils Covered

There are so many reasons to keep the soil covered. Here are some of them:

• We are trying to maximize our space and therefore maximize our yield, especially when growing in small spaces. No “plantable” space should be left uncovered.
• Nature will help you out. Go with her flow. When weeds come to cover those empty spaces you've left bare, don't take the weeds out unless you have a better idea of what should live there and are ready to plant it in the weed’s place.
• Covering the ground reverses soil erosion and depending on what you plant, may even build-up your soil fertility.
• Covering soil keeps moisture in. Even if some ground cover doesn't provide apparent edible benefits, it may be harboring beneficial animals as well as shading other plants from too much sun.  

3. Encourage Biodiversity 

Just as in a community of people, in our garden, even a tiny garden, diversity is the key to abundance. And by diversity, we mean we encourage the growth of all the 6 Kingdoms on the planet! We want a diversity of plants, animals, fungi, algae, archaea, and bacteria even if we are planting in a small space. 

A monoculture (planting the same thing in rows) may give an appearance of neat and tidy-ness. But it is not a healthy one. If you must have rows of the same kinds of plants, consider planting what's known as a "polyculture" of alternating plants and planting diverse habitats around these production patches. From our experience, it is possible to design your gardens to be both beautiful and biodiverse at the same time.

4.  Plant Perennials

Perennials provide stability to your garden. Less fussing with the soil, allowing plants to "take root" and establish themselves over time will lead to less work for you and the garden ecosystem. Perennials include powerhouse plants like trees, vines, and bushes. There is nothing like a tree to stabilize a garden. When you cut down a tree, you alter the weather. Trees are havens for biodiversity and great helpers in rain/water management. So, choose your trees wisely and remember that trees can outlive us! 

In our backyard, we plant apples, pears, cherries, native trees called pawpaws, and figs. We even grow bananas indoors! 

5. Ditch the Chemicals

When talking about balance and ecosystem health, permaculture designer Geoff Lawton says, "You don't have a mosquito problem. You have a lack of dragonfly (or bat or mosquito fish) problem." Your species and crops have to be in a balance that favors bountiful yields and keeps “pests” in check. That balance is not achieved when we use pesticides and unwittingly kill the good bugs (and plants, and ourselves) too! 

We understand that everything affects everything else. So, we cannot in good conscience justify the use of chemical pesticides to wipe out a pesky population of mosquitoes (or rats or weeds) in our backyard. Instead, we have sought out natural alternatives that work in a holistic way. The balance in our yard is an ongoing process. But we have learned more and more every year how to slowly keep the "pest" population down and the favorable species population up! This takes more time than spraying chemicals, but it’s worth it!

As Ron Finley said, "If it's in the soil, it's in our food." We already know about all the evils of glyphosate. No thank you!

6. Compost

Our garden is a cyclical one. We try our best to have a zero-waste gardening process and teach others to do the same. Our main household aim is to eventually become a zero-waste household. I was shocked to learn that if global food waste were a country, “it would be the third largest carbon emitter in the world.” What an inspiration for composting. We use several methods:

• chop & drop - just prune or chop leaves and let them fall close to the plants.
• mulch with leaves - we use what we have or ask the neighbors if they want someone to rake their leaves for free!
• hot composting - we use an 18-day process called the Berkeley method.
• compost pile - when we are lazy we just let our compost heap rot and harvest the rich remains to feed our garden after 3 months.
• vermicomposting - we have worm pets that eat our kitchen scraps and turn them into "black gold" quality soil.
• Bokashi - we put all non-compostables such as meats, bones, and fish into an anaerobic air-tight bin filled with EM (effective micro-organisms) that ferment these foodstuffs so they can be safely added to the outdoor compost heap or directly into the soil.

7. Integrate Crops with Animals

The backbone of every Climate Victory Garden should be a pollinator-friendly patch. Or better yet, several pollinator corridors sprinkled throughout your garden beds. Our goal is to support the ones who do the real work in the garden. Bees rely on plants and flowers for their homes and food and our crops rely on bees.

Integrating crops with animals has a lot to do with diversity and function. We want the garden to be an ecosystem, a web of functions and relationships. The more crops and animals, the more stable your garden will be. That means fewer diseases, fewer crop decimations, and more wildlife. A total win-win-win all around.

In our garden, we keep mason bees and have made a cute little bee lodge for these early spring pollinators. We plant native varieties of flowers and plants to support the native species of wildlife in our region. As we learn more and more about plants and animals, we begin to see that plants that we once thought of as "weeds" and animals that we once thought of as "pests" shoulder the burden of stabilizing our local ecosystems, our home gardens, and our nutrition.

We don't have chickens or other large animals (our HOA won't even allow us to grow crops in our front yard!), but we've asked neighboring friends with farms and stables for manure to add to our compost for a natural nutrient boost that makes this “waste” useful. 

8. Use People Power, not Mechanization

There are so many benefits to getting "grounded." To us, low-tech people power means:

• less dependency on fossil fuels and therefore less carbon released into the air.
• a healthier, truly mobile, human body. Our bodies were made to move! 
• a connection to the process of food production. 
• no mechanized tilling to keep the soil biome alive.

When we teach students how to best water plants, we tell them what Brad Lancaster writes in his book Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands Vol 2: households that use automatic timers and other high tech approaches tend to use more water than those who water by hand. For example, households that water with a hand-held hose use 33% less water than those that do not. That's why we try to capture the water into our landscape passively instead of sourcing it from the grid and spraying it into the air.

9. Rotate Plants and Crops

We have written a whole boat-load about how we do crop-rotation in our garden. Basically, we try to keep renewing our soil's fertility with every action we take. How? By feeding it the way John Jeavon's teaches in his Grow Biointensive method: follow a “heavy-feeder” plant, with a “heavy-giver” plant. 

Tomatoes and most summer crops are heavy feeders. After the harvest, they can leave your soil depleted of trace nutrients and minerals. To help that cause, we plant nitrogen-fixing legumes in between large harvests. In fact, no garden bed is ever without a legume plant in our yard.  It’s that important!

Rotating annual crops also helps confuse pests like squash beetles. We usually give the squashes a rest for two years before we try again for this reason. And, we try different bug-resistant squash and cucumber varieties to keep from crying after a bad year when all baby cucumbers have been lost to beetles!

10. Get To Know Your Tiny Garden

Finally, observe your yard. I cannot say enough about this. Don't just rely on garden manuals and Youtube videos. Find out what the weather is like by going outside and feeling it (in many areas of your garden). There is no replacement for your own personal observation. There are myriad ways to do this. 

By getting to know your tiny garden, you will find out what gardening techniques work or not. Getting to know your garden is directly proportional to your gardening success. And by doing so, you will be able to better plan and prepare for an epic next year. In essence, observation and reflection is where the cycle of growing begins again.

Together all our gardens make a difference.

Our family of eight eating from our tiny townhouse garden is but one version of what a Climate Victory Garden could look like. Your garden may be on an apartment balcony or in a community garden plot. You may have been practicing these Climate Victory Garden commitments all your life. Or you may only be "Ditching the Chemicals." 

Wherever you are on your gardening journey, we salute you. We celebrate you. And we encourage you on your way, at your own gardening pace.  

Through our gardens, we are all connected in this environmental campaign. Each of our gardens, small or large, make more of a difference than we think. Together, they capture carbon in our soils and bring all of us closer to real global climate victory. With these Climate Victory Gardens, we all move the needle towards a greener, healthier, and happier life.

Join forces with us and sign-up to become a Climate Victory Gardener today!

We start with 100% American made equipment.  

Our goal has always been to purchase materials as locally as possible. If what we need isn’t available in Humboldt, we widen our search to all of California. If California cannot fulfill our needs we look throughout the West Coast, and then the Country as a whole. 

This cuts down on fuel and transportation costs but also keeps our investment in our community, contributing to a stronger local economy. 
100% of our grains are organically grown and sourced as locally as possible. 

More details under the ingredients section below.

We have extremely high quality control due to my husband and i being the only employees.  The two of us oversee every stage of production including; grain procurement, milling, fermenting, distilling, bottling and labeling.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – December 11, 2018 – After hearing from more than 30,000 consumers mobilized by Green America, telecommunications giant Verizon has quietly set a new goal to achieve 50 percent clean energy use by 2025. Now at 2 percent renewables, Verizon had previously indicated that it would only go to 4 percent in the foreseeable future. 

Approximately 33,000 people mobilized by Green America have sent petitions urging Verizon to begin powering its networks and data centers with renewables. As participants in Green America’s Hang Up On Fossil Fuels Campaign, thousands of consumers also took direct action by contacting Verizon through social media and phone calls. Earlier this year, Verizon had the worst showing among major telecom companies in Green America’s industry report.

Green America estimates that, based on Verizon’s reported carbon emissions, this will result in a reduction of approximately 2.8 million tons of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of taking nearly 600,000 cars off the road each year. That also equals the amount of carbon that 2.9 million acres of forest could sequester in a year. 

Even though Verizon is moving in the right direction, there is still much more that can be done.

The Verizon announcement comes after T-Mobile's January 2018 commitment to reach 100 percent clean energy by 2021 (which will reduce over 1.2 million tons of CO2). Also earlier this year, AT&T announced its plan to purchase 830 MW of wind power, taking that telecommunications company up to 30 percent clean energy and cutting more than 2.6 million tons of CO2 emissions. 

So far, Verizon has not announced any purchase agreements with wind or solar farms that will help the company meet its 2025 goal. Green America is asking all telecom companies to commit to 100 percent clean energy by 2025. 

Green America Executive Co-Director for Consumer and Corporate Engagement Todd Larsen said: “Verizon management, shareholders and customers deserve credit for moving in the right direction on renewable energy. The company has gone from a meager commitment of 24 MW of new clean energy for its facilities to a commitment of hundreds of MW meeting 50 percent of its total energy usage.  Consumers are still calling on Verizon to match T-Mobile and commit to 100 percent renewable energy in the near term and put purchasing agreements for wind and solar into place soon. Not only is this achievable, but it is essential for every corporation to take action to address climate change quickly to protect the planet.”  

The telecom sector uses enormous amounts of energy. The four largest companies – AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile – collectively use more than 30 million MWh of electric power each year.

“Recent climate reports show that climate change is already impacting communities worldwide. We need bold action from all sectors to cut emissions,” said Beth Porter, climate & recycling director at Green America. “On top of reducing carbon emissions, T-Mobile said it will save $100 million from the shift to renewables. Moving to clean energy is the responsible choice and a sound business decision.”

ABOUT GREEN AMERICA

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today’s social and environmental problems. http://www.GreenAmerica.org

MEDIA CONTACT: Max Karlin for Green America, (703) 276-3255, or mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com.

We work on websites that sell sustainable products, so far this has been in the arena of Fair Trade. I have been involved with Fair Trade for almost 20 years , being the Chair of the Fair Trade Federation for 4 years around 2010. I have a deep interest in advancing the business objectives and success of companies who are doing good in a sustainable way. As a digital online company that does not sell any physical product our environmental footprint is small. We are a paperless business. 

Verizon’s commitment to 50% clean energy by 2025 means a reduction of 2.8 million tons of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of taking nearly 600,000 cars off the road each year. This is also the equivalent of what 2.9 million acres of forest could sequester in a year. 

This comes after T-Mobile's January commitment to reach 100% clean energy by 2021 (which will reduce over 1.2 tons of CO2). Also earlier this year, AT&T’s announced its acquisition of 830 MW of wind power, taking AT&T up to 30% clean energy and cutting more than 2.6 million tons of CO2 emissions.  

This progress is thanks to Green Americans taking action with our campaign to Hang Up on Fossil Fuels, signing petitions urging Verizon to begin powering its networks and data centers with renewables and directly contacting the company through social media and phone calls.  

Jeff's mission is to help clients feel  competent  and effective about the way they are managing their household finances. We live in distressing times, and he helps fellow human beings reduce financial anxiety, feel empowered, and remain connected to abundance and gratitude. Through clearly articulated strategies and analysis of  global events, along with the development of a personal financial profile, Jeff works to make every conversation educational.

His vision is that the growing power of activist investors will bring a degree of economic democracy to the capital markets.  

For years, scientists have tested how carbon dioxide (CO2) levels affect crops, including whether CO2 affects how fast and tall plants grow, and what the nutritional value is of the harvested crops under study.

It’s not hard to imagine that a warming climate will affect the food supply. Hotter weather and more humidity means more insects. Changing rain patterns mean more droughts, fires, and floods. More frequent and more intense storms will undoubtedly have effects on growing crops and raising livestock. But rising temperatures will also affect the food itself, causing staple crops like rice, wheat, corn, and soy to lose nutritional value because of increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

While a drop in food nutrition may be scary, it’s not a change that is set in stone. Regenerative agriculture provides interconnected solutions: restored soils grow healthier plants while also drawing down carbon in the atmosphere. Drawing down carbon prevents dangerous warming and reduces risks to crops—both from extreme weather and reduced nutrition.

The Science Behind It

One of the first things we learn in biology class is that people breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO2, but plants “inhale” CO2 and “exhale” oxygen during photosynthesis. While an increasing amount of CO2 is bad for many natural processes and for people, it’s actually good for crops—to a limit, of course.

This year, scientists conducting a multi-year study of the impact of a warming climate on 18 rice varieties in Japan and China published their findings in Science Advances. They observed averages of a ten percent drop in protein, eight percent in iron, and five percent in zinc, which they also discovered correlates with an accompanying rise in CO2 levels. Several B vitamins also fell between 13 and 30 percent. 

“Overall, these results indicate that the role of rising CO2 on reducing rice quality may represent a fundamental, but underappreciated, human health effect associated with anthropogenic climate change,” the scientists write.

On another note, a 2016 study from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies showed that staple crops soy, wheat, corn, and rice, grew better at higher temperatures when the CO2 levels in the air were also higher. When the temperatures increased and CO2 stayed the same, crops grew less well. 

Delphine Deryng, the lead author on the NASA study, also confirmed that nitrogen, a main ingredient in synthetic fertilizer used widely on conventionally grown fields worldwide, is itself a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. But, she says, there is no simple solution regarding nitrogen, because it is an essential element for plant growth. 

That leaves scientists and farmers stuck between a rock and a hard place, wondering: Can plants be grown on a large scale without vast use of synthetic fertilizer, and can we afford to risk the Earth as we continue to use it?

“The biggest question is how can we sustain and ensure the soil is still nutrient-rich to produce the crops that we need while reducing emissions,” Deryng says. She explains that regenerative agriculture practices like cover cropping and crop rotation can mitigate farmers’ reliance on high-emissions fertilizers. 

“There are soil-management practices that can compensate for the use of fertilizer, by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere to the soil, using management practices like mixed cropping systems where you mix crops with legumes that can use nitrous oxide to fertilize the soil. [Regenerative agriculture] is a practice that offers win-win solutions,” she says. 

Who Will Be Affected

For those who eat a diverse diet, whether omnivorous or vegetarian, food losing its nutritional value isn’t that concerning. Less protein in rice means you can just eat more protein from other sources. But this becomes an environmental justice issue when you consider the two billion people on Earth who rely on rice as their primary food source, and one billion people who are considered food insecure. Not all people who rely on rice are also food insecure, but staple goods like rice make up a large part of the diet of folks who are regularly hungry.

Deryng explains that those who are already likely to go hungry will be the most affected, while folks who currently have money and access to healthy foods may just rely on vitamin supplements. 

“In developing countries, there’s clearly a need to get enough food on the plate,” she says. “The question is how to ensure people have enough food that is nutritious.”

Eating in a Warming World

To feed the 9.8 billion people on Earth in 2050, the world must increase food production by 70 percent from 2005 levels, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. But as food production is rising, so are global temperatures, by 0.13 °C per decade since 1950, now at 0.2°C per decade. 

A 2016 study from the European Geosciences Union shows that if average temperatures rise by 1.5˚C over pre-
industrial levels, corn, wheat, and other crops will be much less affected than if the Earth gets 2˚C warmer. The Paris Agreement of 2016 states that countries should aim for emissions low enough so global temperatures only rise to 1.5 C. 

“The main difference between a 1.5 and 2 degree rise is extreme rainfalls, which will particularly affect regions that are already at the limit of extreme,” Deryng says. “For regions in the tropics that already have a high-temperature climate, they would step into higher levels, which would be fatal to crops, and we see more extreme precipitation patterns and heavy rain that can affect agriculture.”

Some scientists are looking to genetic engineering of crops to solve this problem. Make plants hardier in the face of drought, heat, and CO2, and there will be enough for folks to simply eat ten percent more rice. But we know that’s not the solution, because genetic engineering generally requires increased applications of pesticides and herbicides, eventually resulting in dead soils that won’t be able to grow much of anything.

By looking to regenerative methods to restore soil health and make farming as chemical-free and low-emission as possible, we will be saving lives in the process.  
 

In a greenhouse in Santa Cruz, CA, tomatoes are bright red, lemons look a little orange, and green basil has a definite pink glow. This isn’t a genetic modification project, but it is a science experiment. These plants are growing in the tinted light of a greenhouse made of magenta solar panels. The techniques the gardeners use to grow their produce also help regenerate the soil beneath. 

This structure is just one example of dual-use farming, a growing practice of incorporating solar-energy collection and regenerative farming or gardening in the same places. This practice will combat climate change on multiple fronts: water, soil, and energy, allowing the same patch of land to provide clean energy and more food to feed a growing population, while the healthier soil is able to hold more water and sequester more carbon than chemically farmed soil.

Solar Above, Soil Below

In Bluffton, GA, Will Harris has been regeneratively farming his White Oak Pastures ranch since 1995 (see p. 16). He’s one of the farmers who has been teaching others how to achieve his success with regenerative agriculture through our Carbon Farming Network, part of Green America’s Center for Sustainability Solutions. And, he’s currently in talks to be a land manager for Silicon Ranch, a solar company that just bought up 2,000 acres of land abutting his 3,200-acre farm. 

Will Harris with some of his animals in a pasture at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, GA. Photo by Angie Mosier.

Through the arrangement, Silicon Ranch will pay Harris to manage the land under and around their solar panels (about 800 acres under, and 1,200 around) using his regenerative practices, which include laying down compost; planting diverse species like legumes and grasses; and grazing his animals: cows, goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, pigs,  ducks, guinea fowls, and rabbits.

Solar companies typically tear up and level the ground underneath arrays in the process of installing solar panels, and once they’ve finished construction, they limit vegetation because they don’t want their panels to be shaded by overgrown grass or trees. Normally, solar farms use chemical pesticides to keep the weeds underneath their panels in check, and they hire landscapers to keep vegetation short. 

“The engineering feat of building mechanical panels that will harvest the energy of the sun and send it down a wire to your home is just an act of brilliance by engineers,” Harris says. “But those people cannot be expected to know about the balance and biological science that occur in a well-managed ecosystem. For a [solar engineer], it’s all about building from the ground up with no consideration from the ground down.”

But with Harris’s help, Silicon Ranch’s array in Bluffton will be pesticide-free, and the land underneath the company’s equipment will be put to good use growing food, rather than just sitting fallow. Harris sees collaboration between farmers and solar utilities as a natural partnership that will benefit people, the land, and ecosystems.

When asked what benefit he’ll see with this collaboration, Harris responds that he simply wants to grow the regenerative ecosystem in his region. He explains that his is one of 20 holistically-managed farms certified by The Savory Institute, an organization that works with farms to make the change to regenerative agriculture and then uses those farms as working classrooms for teaching others. He prides himself on making healthier land, raising animals in a way that mimics how they would be in nature, and teaching people about regenerative agriculture.

Harris’s plan is to regenerate the soil under and around Silicon Ranch’s solar panels enough to one day use the space to grow certified organic crops. Since the land where the array will be hasn’t been managed regeneratively before, the White Oaks Pasture team’s first step will be laying down compost and planting a mix of grasses, legumes, and pollinators, which will begin to draw down carbon and attract microorganisms. Once those plants get going, the land can be used for grazing animals. The animals’ droppings will also help the land be restored. Eventually, it will be suitable for growing certified organic vegetables. 

“In a healthy ecosystem, you have many cycles going on at one time: carbon cycle, water cycle, energy cycle, mineral cycle, microbial cycles,” Harris explains. “Under a normal solar-voltaic array, those cycles would be broken—the effort is to limit the vegetation; no care has been given to keep the cycles cycling. When the cycles are operating properly, they pull carbon and other greenhouse gases into the soil through photosynthesis, and it’s sequestered there.”

Silicon Ranch and White Oak Pasture’s dual-use space is projected to be online in the next several years.

Growing in Magenta Light

In the magenta greenhouse on campus at University of California–Santa Cruz (UCSC), professor and plant physiologist Michael Loik and his lab is running tests to see just how well hothouse plants can grow under solar panels. The lab workers use regenerative growing techniques.

Loik got started on his project after his colleagues Sue Carter and Glenn Alers developed the magenta solar panels. Unlike conventional panels, these Wavelength-Selective Photovoltaic (WSPV) systems let sunlight on certain parts of the visible light spectrum pass through, while collecting green- and blue-colored wavelengths to generate energy. The pair asked Loik to test the impact of growing plants under the WSPV systems. 

The pink glass of the greenhouses at the University of California–Santa Cruz allow sunlight in and perform double duty as energy-generating solar panels. Photo courtesy of Michael Loik.

Greenhouses currently cover 9 million acres on Earth, which means the WSPV technology could mitigate reliance on dirty energy to power the agriculture industry. If the world doesn’t work quickly to restore soils, desertification and degradation may make less land available in the future for agricultural purposes, which may mean an increased reliance on greenhouse-grown foods.

What the lab found was that its 20 varieties of tomatoes, along with cucumbers, lemons, limes, peppers, strawberries, and basil, thrived (and without pesticides) under the pink roof panels. The plants all grew just as quickly and well in this less bright, cooler setting, and tomatoes ended up using five percent less water than they would in a typical clear greenhouse. Because of the relative shade of the greenhouse, water stays in the soil longer before evaporating, which accounts for that change. 

But dual-use farming doesn’t always look like growing plants in a magenta greenhouse. In fact, it rarely looks like that. More often, it looks like the setup that Greg Barron-Gafford works on at University of Arizona in Tuscon, and at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, AZ.

Farming Under Solar Panels 

A 2016 study from University of Maryland and University of Arizona shows that large solar farms tend to store heat, both in the panels themselves and by trapping hot air under them. Arizonans, Barron-Gafford found, were particularly concerned about how solar farms might heat up their already sweltering communities. He explained that land being sited for new solar arrays was often in historically agricultural communities, and families were hesitant to let the industry in if it meant abandoning their farming heritage and heating up their region.

Those ideas inspired a project at the University of Arizona called “agri-voltaics,” a term that combines the words agriculture and photovoltaics. 

“We wondered if you could co-locate agricultural production and solar installations. Could you allow for this green energy source, but allow for the agricultural lifestyle to stay within the community?” Barron-Gafford says. 

To find answers to these questions,  Ph.D. students, undergrads, and professors got to work planting on 60-foot by 30-foot plots (about the size of a community garden), which they’d located both under solar arrays and in regular sunny conditions. It was important that they set up the voltaics to a height where tractors could drive underneath, making the plots below usable on a large scale, so the panels are set up 15 feet off the ground.

He goes on to explain that on the plots they test, they use several regenerative farming techniques: people power, compost, no chemical inputs, and a diversity of plants species to grow an understory that attracts pollinators and deters herbivores. 

“Beyond making more use of our lands, reducing irrigation use due to lower evaporation rates [thanks to the shade the panels provide], and boosting renewable energy production, our dual-use or ‘solar sharing’ approach speaks to multiple core principles of regenerative farming.”

The Results

The garden plots in Arizona grow ingredients for salsa—tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, and onions. Like Loik’s lab, Barron-Gafford kept looking for the downsides to the project but found none.

He found that when vegetation was present under solar panels, the warming effect Arizonans were so worried about disappeared. With a garden below, conditions under the panels are much cooler, partially because of the shade, and partially because of the way plants “sweat” and create moisture in the process of transpiration. The cooler temperature under the panels causes evaporation to slow by about 50 percent, which means the team can water the plants every other day instead of once a day, as they’d have to do in the sun. 

Barron-Gafford’s lab’s preliminary research shows the significant cooling benefits workers (or livestock, should they be present) as well, as tests have recorded skin temperatures up to 20°F cooler under the array. In addition, though the panels cut back the gardens’ sunlight exposure by half, doing so has only cut the plants’ maximum potential by ten percent. 

And like the work on Harris’s farm, planting crops underneath these solar panels gives life in a place that would typically have none, especially in the region Barron-Gafford is working in, where people are having to choose between holding onto less productive agricultural land and a steady income from a solar utility that might be interested. Like Harris, they can have both.

Solar Symbiosis

These instances of dual-use, regenerative spaces do not stand alone. At research universities from Minnesota to Massachusetts, California to Germany, studies are showing that not only does solar energy not hinder plants, but the two can often have a symbiotic relationship. Studies are also being done with livestock, testing how sheep and chickens can coexist with renewable-energy generation, and holistic farmers like Will Harris are putting those ideas into practice.

“Every little wedge we can put into societies’ use of energy that reduces how much we rely on burning coal or oil to generate electricity, then all the better,” Loik says. “Some of the work that we’re doing is developing these wedges—little technological things to reduce our greenhouses gases.”

Students from Manzo Elementary School in Tucson, AZ, study regenerative gardens planted underneath solar panels—a University of Arizona experiment in dual-use farming. Photo by Moses Thompson.

The University of Arizona has replicated the agri-voltatics project at two local elementary schools, where kids are involved in planting, collecting data about the growing plants, harvesting, and selling their goods at a bi-weekly farmer’s market to benefit the gardening program. Barron-Gafford said last season, the kids harvested so much basil that they worked with the school’s kitchen to make and sell seven gallons of pesto that was “solar-shaded and kid-powered.”

“Part of what makes it fun for me is not only making new discoveries but working with kids who are so excitable and interested,” he says. “They understand what kind of future they’re going into. They hear about climate change and drought enough living around here. They see this as playing their part to fix it.”

Even if you’re not a farmer or a corporate CEO, you can take part in the effort to regenerate our soil and reverse climate change. All you have to do is garden. 

Americans planted Victory Gardens during WWI and WWII to feed their communities and families at home, as part of supporting the war effort. (That way, more food from farms went overseas to feed soldiers.) By 1944, nearly 20 million Victory Gardens produced nearly 8 million tons of food.

Green America is asking Americans to garden for the common good once more. By planting what we call a Climate Victory Garden, all of us have the opportunity to use our gardens to fight global warming. 
To grow a Climate Victory Garden, all you have to do is shift to regenerative gardening practices. You’ll regenerate the soil in your corner of the country, allowing it to sequester more carbon. 

Use the techniques listed below to grow a Climate Victory Garden during your next growing season. (Note: You don’t have to use all of the techniques. Even using some of them will help regenerate your soil and fight the climate crisis.)

Jes Walton, Green America’s food campaigns manager, is an avid gardener-turned-Climate Victory Gardener. “Climate Victory Gardens gives individuals a chance to engage with regenerative agriculture in their own backyards,” she says. “They represent a very real, tangible action that anyone can do to support and take part in the fight against climate change. And that’s just the beginning. Gardening gets people outdoors, engaging with their natural surroundings, creating community, and eating fresh foods. It’s a win all around.”

Learn more about the Climate Victory Gardens program, learn regenerative gardening tips, and have the opportunity to add your garden to our Climate Victory Garden Map.

If you're a climate victory gardener looking for a community, you can request to join our Facebook group of Climate Victory Gardeners, and join the folks you see below!

Tom Brodersen, a Climate Victory Gardener from Prescott, AZ, encourages other gardeners to grow edible plants. “Eat your vegetables! Save the world!” he says. 

Integrate Crops and Animals: Jes Walton, Green America’s food campaigns manager, allows her chickens to roam about her yard and garden. Their manure naturally fertilizes the soil and feeds the microorganisms that sequester climate-warming carbon. 

Jes wants people to know that even if you don’t have chickens, you can still climate garden.“This year, we had 1,000 Climate Victory Garden join our movement,” she says. “Of those gardens, 215 of them were brand new gardens, which gives us so much hope for the future of climate change mitigation through regenerative gardening. Currently, these gardens cover over five million square feet or around 90 football fields.” 

Jes and her backyard chickens.

Encourage Biodiversity: This summer, Cynthia Schaefer completed a 30-day Eat Your Yard Challenge, where she only ate what she grew in her Davie, FL, garden. Cynthia is committed to organic gardening with a wide range of edible plant types. She says, “I’ve found that if you feed the soil and cultivate biodiversity, the system will find solutions. It’s my lazy way of gardening....”

Photo by Cynthia Shaefer of her garden salad

Grow Edible Plants: John and Holly Trimble ripped out their front lawn in northern Utah and replaced it with raised garden beds, on which they grow organic produce. 

“We have transformed our own landscape into climate victory gardens we also call ‘foodscapes,’” says John. “ We also started a small volunteer group, Foodscaping Utah, that helps people near us foodscape their front yards. ... We believe people would love to grow some of their own food if they had some help getting started. Homegrown fruits and vegetables taste amazing, are incredibly nutritious, and bring beauty to our surroundings.”

Holly and John of Foodscaping Utah.

John and Holly's front yard climate victory garden.