Tag Archives: urban sustainability

Seed Bombs: Natural Farming Aid, Guerrilla Gardening Tactic,…Stocking Stuffer?

Credit: Flickr User: urbanfoodie33

In the 1960s, the Japanese agricultural scientist Masanobu Fukuoka published his now famous book One Straw Revolution about the philosophy and practice of natural farming. Fukuoka’s book inspired a generation of organic farmers, but it also resonated with a few urbanites living on the Lower East Side (LES) of Manhattan in the 1970s.

Urban dwellers seized on Fukuoka’s rediscovery of the ancient Japanese farming practice of packing seeds within clay pellets. Seeds surrounded by clay had higher germination rates and were less susceptible to predation. And when it was raining and the fields were muddy, Fukuoka could throw his seed balls from farther away without wading into the muck.

Fukuoka’s at-a-distance approach to growing seeds was just what this group of Green Guerrillas from the LES needed. In the 1970s, thousands of vacant lots in New York City were fast becoming illegal dumping grounds, homeless encampments, and havens for crime. The Green Guerrillas wanted to green vacant properties and eventually establish community gardens. But they faced a critical challenge: most vacant lots were secured behind chain-link fence (Fox 1985). Fukuoka provided the solution; throwing seeds balls was a way to reach over the fences.

Okay, so the group wasn’t exactly faithful to Fukuoka’s philosophy of natural farming, packing seeds in condoms and hollowed-out Christmas ornaments (see an example of an early recipe here), but their approach worked. The Green Guerrillas called their creations “seed green-aids” and seed bombs and the guerrilla gardening movement was born.

Today, seed bombs and guerrilla gardening are popular around the world, and especially in places where there are high vacancy rates and no formal greening programs. For people who don’t like to get their hands dirty, seed bombs are now available for purchase in a wide variety of seed mixes and from a number of vendors. The California-based Greenaid project even stocks seed bombs in vending machines that are distributed throughout the U.S. and in Europe (see map below).

Credit: Google Maps / Greenaid

Unseasonable temperatures? Why your city may be the culprit

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) recently featured an article about a new study in Nature Climate Change that is making us sweat (in February).

The findings suggest that waste heat, produced in urban areas of the Northern developed world as a result of heating, cooling and transportation systems, is impacting our regional weather patterns by changing the nature of our atmospheric systems.

Some Northern Hemisphere regions have had more warming during the winter months than climate models had predicted. Waste heat may be at least part of the explanation for this phenomenon. However, the temperature effects vary depending on the place, ranging between +/- 1°C, and the effects radiate geographically from the urban centers for thousands of miles.

“The burning of fossil fuel not only emits greenhouse gases but also directly affects temperatures because of heat that escapes from sources like buildings and cars,” NCAR researcher and co-author Aixue Hu explains. “Although much of this waste heat is concentrated in large cities, it can change atmospheric patterns in a way that raises or lowers temperatures across considerable distances” (NCAR).

It is important to distinguish these findings from the urban heat island effect. The urban heat island effect is a result of the sun’s heat interacting with urban structures on the Earth’s surface, warming the city but not the surrounding areas. The waste heat effect is a result of fossil fuel combustion and impacts temperatures of places far away from the city.

The study, “Energy consumption and the unexplained winter warming over northern Asia and North America,”was done by Guang J. Zhang (University of California San Diego), Ming Cai (Florida State University) and Aixue Hu (NCAR) and was funded by National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full article here

Welcome to metabo.locity!

metabo.locity is an interactive forum that takes you up close and behind the scenes of the Urban Sustainability Research Group. We are a group of diverse backgrounds and interests, yet we share a unifying thread: a focus on urban settings as fabulously complex nodes of nature-society interactions and as critical leverage points for sustainability transitions.

Cities house, employ, and supply material goods to over half of the world’s population! (United Nations) What is your favorite city and why?

Meet the bloggers:

Josh C. is a PhD student with research interests in sustainable urban redevelopment projects and the dynamics that shape urban environments over time. Josh is enjoys spending time in the great outdoors, running, basketball, and eating good food.

Josh N. is an assistant professor at SNRE. Trained as a geographer, his research grapples with how to define, measure, model, and assess urban sustainability, particularly from intertwined perspectives of consumption, material use, and equity. A fun fact about Josh is that he did not live in the same house or apartment for more than one year until he was 26 years old.

Mariel is the official metabolocity blog master. She is an M.S. student interested in human-environment interactions, particularly around food. She is also interested in behavior change toward self-sufficient and resilient communities. Mariel is currently dabbling in veganism, modern dance, hooping, and stand-up paddleboarding, in addition to honing her urban gardening skills.

Paul is a M.S. student interested in how metropolitan communities coordinate site-level environmental projects to meet regional sustainability targets. In his spare time, Paul is a committed DIYer, photographer, and beginning woodworker.

Sara is a Ph.D. student with research interests including modes of governance and policies to improve urban energy systems and resilience to climate change, particularly in cities in emerging economies. Over the last five years Sara has lived in seven different cities on three continents.

Thanks for visiting! Now that you know what we are all about, we hope you’ll check back often.