What is new at the 2009 GreenFest Philly?

In no particular order here is a short list of some of the new green offerings I noticed at the 2009 GreenFest Philly:

Phew… Philly Electric Wheels opens October 1st.

Earlier this year,  I was attracting your attention to a new generation of electric motor assisted Bicycles in the post titled “Emily’s Bike“.

This Fall, Philadelphia will have the first store in Pennsylvania selling electric bicycles and tricycles.

The store—PHILLY ELECTRIC WHEELS–is located in the “GREEN on GREENE” building in “Mt. Airy Village”.

GreenFest Philly is today: Sunday September 13th

The fourth Philly GreenFest is taking place today  Sunday September 13th from 11 am to 6 pm at 2nd and South Street in Philadelphia.

The Philly Green Fest offers “green” activities for the whole family:

Come to Philly in September to Get Your Slice of the Renewable Energy Pie

President Obama has pledged that $150-billion dollars will be put towards energy independence over the next 10 years.  Where can you learn about how to get your slice of this pie from leading public and private industry experts?The answer is the The World Green Energy Symposium and Exposition on Sept 25-26 to be held right here in Philly.

Terracycle or How to Turn your Trash into Gold

The first thing that jumped at me when I arrived at Terracycle was the walls.  Terracycle walls  are covered with incredible murals and graffiti. Yes, why keep this typical post World War II set of warehouse buildings in West Trenton NJ  in its standard  industrial dread style?

Check out  pictures of some Terracycle’s murals right here…

Philly Compost launches

Let’s connect these 2 facts together…

1. Methane has 72 times the global warming power of carbon – per NOAA and the recent article in Grid magazine by Tanya Seaman
2. Backyard or onsite composting offers the highest environmental benefit among organics management strategies because of the decrease or elimination of transportation impacts. – per the COOL2012 website

Food scraps dumped into land fills slowly decompose while producing a lot of methane which is 72 times more damaging to our Earth climate than carbon. And, in my opinion, it is considerably easier to reduce the amount of food scrap discarded into landfills. Philly Compost proposes to help us systematically compost our food scraps.

How do you move your business when you are committed to a zero carbon footprint??

See how a West Philadelphia Baker who is committed to a zero carbon footprint, moved his business  from the basement of his house to a new location.

This video links two stories previously published on PhillyEcoCity on:
- Four World Bakery: the sustainable bakery

- The Pedal Coop

Green Bucks

Let’s see we are in the worse recession in … decades. Philadelphia City schools are chronically under-funded, the Philadelphia Free Library is planning to close 11 of its branches. Now is the time to think outside the box and launch alternative community funding mechanisms.

Calling for a GREEN New Deal

The most amazing thing about this presidential election is the wave, the huge wave of energy that unfolded into Barak Obama’s campaign. It was the best organized election campaign I have ever seen: people from all walks of life first registered voters, then switched to canvassing undecided voters and then worked on the logistics of getting out the vote. For the past six months, thousands of people made the campaign the sole focus of their life.

The question I have is: Will the Obama administration manage to capitalize the enormous amount of Energy and Goodwill that poured into the Presidential Campaign and direct it toward moving the country out of the consumption society that is killing us and our environment?

I am not suggesting that we duplicate the type of projects that the Roosevelt administration organized. That was seventy years ago, or rather seventy light years away. Then we lived on a different planet than the one we live on now.
I am suggesting that we use this capital of Energy and Goodwill to move to a more sustainable Economy.

I am calling for a GREEN NEW DEAL that support Urban Farming, local recycling efforts, zero carbon energy production, alternative modes of transportation, higher Energy Efficiency and stronger local communities.

Here are a few examples:

- Organize neighborhood wide Solar Water Heating Buying and Installation Groups.

- Offer very low cost house insulation services for the thousands of Philadelphia row house owners.

- Create Recycling based companies such as The Recycle Bank and “TerraCycle”.

- Offer more efficient modes of transportation than the ubiquitous one person car that is cloging our streets and the air.

With this in mind, PhillyEcoCity is launching the PhillyEcoCity Information Hub

The PhillyEcoCity Information Hub is a dedicated website that you can access from the Information Hub page. The PhillyEcoCity Information Hub is a database supporting  information sharing among people in the Philadelphia area working toward building a more sustainable local economy.
The idea of this database is to help us help each other by sharing information and lessons learned from sustainability projects that have been implemented all around the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Please start sharing the lessons you learned while building your green roof or while installing your solar panels.

Time is short, do it now.

The Sustainable Bakery: Four World Bakery

Source: CityPaper – July 9, 2008

What would a sustainable bakery look like?

• It would use renewable energy to bake breads and cakes
• Minimize waste by backing “on demand”.
• Use imagination to stick to its sustainability principles.

Philadelphia has a young baker blazing a trail in the bakery world by creating Four Worlds Bakery, a local sustainable bakery.