The traveling Fruit Tree Tour: Spreading celebration, sustainability and seedlings from schoolyard to schoolyard.
March 2006 | MIndful Living
Turning Concrete Jungles Into Urban Orchards
“We visit schools to try to get students in touch with what’s under all this concrete,” says Blair Philips, creator of the Fruit Tree Tour, a six vehicle, veggie oil-powered caravan currently spreading the gospel of sustainability in a city near you.
In February, the nomadic tribe of 30 volunteer eco-educators made pit stops around the Southland, planting school yards with fruit trees and indigenous corn, and engaging students in conversations around key ecological and cultural concepts like nutrient cycles, interconnectedness, diversity and respect. This month they’re headed up to Ojai, Santa Barbara and San Louis Obispo, their eco-party on wheels in tow.
For students, the experience of hanging with the Fruit Tree crew is anything but the average school day. Their caravanning school buses handpainted with murals, Fruit Tree volunteers bust eco-themed rhymes and groove to West African Dun-Dun-Bah agricultural rhythms. Performers in traditional costume present tribal dance and storytellers share Native American nature fables. The event culminates with students hand-planting a row of corn or a tree on school property, followed by a closing circle gathering to give thanks for the day’s experience. It’s “a fusion of arts, culture and ecology” to “rekindle relationships with the earth and empower proactive change,” effuses Philips. In other words, school has never been cooler.
To follow the Fruit Tree Crew, view pictures of past events or sponsor a school visit, check out commonvision.org. —Eliza Thomas
OC’s Extreme Makeover
Orange County is getting a facelift, but the procedure will be more than a simple nip and tuck. The proposed Orange County Great Park will transform the barren former El Toro Marine base from toxic lunar landscape to an urban oasis, but not without a major clean-up effort.
Considered to be one of the most polluted sites in Orange County, Irvine’s former military base needs to be purged of as much as 700,000 pounds of toxic waste—including chemical solvents, pesticides and jet fuel—as well as 900 acres of concrete and asphalt runways.
New York-based landscape architect Ken Smith will head up the construction of the $401 million, 1,300-acre recreational area, and plans to incorporate a lush canyon, sports fields, a lake, an air museum and an amphitheatre. The space will dwarf both Manhattan’s Central Park and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, with the first phase slated to open in 2008. —Jessica Ridenour
DuPont’s Teflon is Held to the Fire
In September, WLT reported on how the EPA and FDA are sticking it to DuPont, maker of the patent- ed Teflon coating, which has been linked to cancer and birth defects.
Under pressure from these government agencies, as well as environmental groups, DuPont and seven other companies agreed to a partial phase-out of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), the risky chemical used to make Teflon.
PFOAs are widely used in pizza boxes and microwave popcorn bags, as well as stain-resistant finishes and waterproofing materials. Full phase-out of the chemical won’t happen until 2015. —JR
Cellular Crimes and Misdemeanors
If you’re in the grip of spring-cleaning fever, slow down and listen up. Last month, the state of California enacted new hazardous waste rules banning residents from trashing the outdated electronics that have become a necessary evil of modern life. Think such detritus as dead batteries, old cell phones, defunct digital cameras and fried computers—any gadget made obsolete as soon as Apple or T-mobile releases the next best E-thing. These, and other toxin-harboring consumer goods like fluorescent bulbs, mercury thermometers and thermostats, are now illegal to dispose of in any way other than recycling at household hazardous waste facilities, universal waste handlers or authorized recycling facilities.
A staggering 515,000 tons of electronics hit Californian landfills in 2004—and that number has only continued to surge, as tech-crazy consumers keep clamoring for upgrades. But when all that E-waste is crushed, it leaches toxins like mercury and copper into the ground and air, poisoning wildlife and polluting the water supply.
So before you toss, check with your town or county for information on safe and legal disposal facilities. In LA, go to lacsd.org/hhw/hhwflier.htm or call 888.CLEAN.LA. —Sara Nuss-Galles
Give It Away, Give It Away, Give It Away Now
U2 lead singer Bono recently shared the cover of TIME Magazine with Bill and Melinda Gates—an energetic triumvirate that has dared to redefine the responsibilities of the rich and famous. Another celebrity who deserved to share that year-end cover was Body Shop Founder Anita Roddick.
The British-born multi-millionaire and founder of one of the world’s most successful (and eco-aware) cosmetic companies, announced that she’s decided to abandon her business career and give half of her £100 million fortune away to charity. Roddick offered a simple explanation: “I don’t want to die rich.” (But hold off on those funding pleas: Roddick isn’t liquidating her assets immediately.)
Dame Roddick plans to use the proceeds from her 18 percent share in the Body Shop to create a foundation to aid the poor and needy. “The worst thing is greed, the accumulation of money,” Roddick told the BBC. “I don’t know why people who are extraordinarily wealthy are not more generous.”
Microsoft Founder Bill Gates, who has pledged $26 billion of his personal fortune to addressing poverty, disease and illiteracy, once asked: “Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion [people on Earth] live? If we were aware, we would want to help out.”
Roddick, who has traveled widely and has witnessed first-hand the problems of poverty and disease, clearly agrees. “I think the rich have to look after the poor,” Roddick argues. “I don’t think in our society we have any understanding of that.” The BBC notes that Roddick’s commitment is somewhat out-of-step with average Britons who “tend to believe it is the government’s job to look after the poor through the welfare state.” That attitude may be changing as Roddick, Bono and Virgin Airlines’ Chief Richard Branson show that, while it makes sense to recycle one’s trash, it makes even more sense to recycle one’s cash. —Gar Smith
Hardy Har Har For Your Health
Every Friday night for the past year, a jolly band of Pasadenans have been getting together to laugh their tuchuses off. Sounds funny? Well go ahead and chuckle—your health will thank you for it.
In January, the Pasadena Laughter Club celebrated its one year anniversary of gathering to practice “laughter yoga,” the literal embodiment of the merry old adage “laughter is the best medicine.” There are very profound benefits hidden behind the act of laughing, says Sebastien Gendry, the club’s founder and Director of the American School of Laughter Yoga. Gendry leads the group weekly in exercises such as “hold an imaginary cell phone and laugh.”
“I have been coming to the Pasadena Laughter Club every week for several months now and I feel much better physically, as well as more cheerful and enthusiastic about life. I practice every day at home and find it much more beneficial than walking,” says laughter yogi Lilia King, 62, from Eagle Rock.
Join the Pasadena Laughter club every Friday, 6-7pm inside Yoga Kingdom Sanctuary, 553 S Lake Avenue, Pasadena. This meeting is free and public. All are welcome, and you get to laugh to your heart’s content for no reason whatsoever. And that’s no joke.
For more information visit laughteryoga.org or call Gendry at 626.755. 5999. —ET
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