No fare hikes on NJ Transit. For now.

In spite of budget cuts felt 'round the state (and the nation) there's one thing not on the chopping block this year: New Jersey Transit service. Fare increases are off the table as well, thank goodness. Which means commuting to Philly or Atlantic CIty from Cherry Hill is just as easy as it always has been!

This is great news. In this fiscal climate it's nice to see out policy makers "waking the walk" on sustainability instead of using mass transit as a way to simply generate short-term revenue. New Jersey is the most densely populates state in the nation. Mass transit options are an integral part of how we do things were and the more folks talking the train the better.

With Liberty and Justice for All?

It's the 4th of July. Independence Day for people all over the USA. Well, maybe not for all of us.

For the residents of Waterfront South, Camden, NJ, there is no independence from the worst sort of environmental injustice.

Home to the county's trash incinerator and sewage treatment plant, two busy port terminals, a power plant, scrap metal operations, multiple polluting industries, a superfund site and more, this community bears more than its share of the region's environmental burden.

As a result, Waterfront South residents have high rates of respiratory disease (especially asthma) and elevated rates of stomach, esophageal, lung, liver, kidney and pancreatic cancers. Needless to say, this tends to put the community last on the list for coveted redevelopment dollars.

But within this context of environmental devastation, Waterfront South residents have shown remarkable vision and resilience with the building of a community theater, community gardens, a labyrinth and the formation of The Center for Transformation. Established last year as a 501c3 by a group from the legendary Father Michael Doyle's Sacred Heart Church, the Center for Transformation seeks to create a physical space where people come to "be awakened to their responsibilities as people of faith to the earth and its environment".

The idea is that people from outside of Camden will come to the center for a day or a week to get their hands dirty, working side by side in a community garden or green house with residents from Waterfront South. This retreat experience would equip people with the resources of their own faith so that they could go back to their network and raise awareness and respond to this type of environmental injustice. By actually bearing witness to the most grievous environmental violation and the lives of the people who live in Waterfront South, it is hoped that visiting suburbanites will become change agents for the transformation of this community and others around the world.

How did I come to know about this remarkable community and its efforts to heal? From an email I received from a man named Mark Doorley, a Cherry Hill resident and Ethics professor at Villanova University. Mark is one of the leaders of The Center for Transformation. He heard about Sustainable Cherry Hill as a result of some of our faith outreach and approached me about working together. On Friday, SCH board member, Jay Lassiter and I met with Mark for several hours. I have long been looking for an opportunity to cross pollinate with a community in Camden in a meaningful way. Cherry Hill and Camden, being the two largest municipalities in the county, could not be more different.

When the residents of Cherry Hill flush our toilets and throw away our garbage, it ends up in Waterfront South. There is no such thing as away and everything is connected.

Stay tuned...

Pictured: Mark Doorley at our meeting last friday

Smith Saves NJ Recycling from Dump

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

Go directly to Frank Brill's EnviroPolitics blog and read the (Hollywood-esque) story about NJ Senator Bob Smith, who managed to save the Garden State's recycling program from being trashed!

You'll need your thinking cap for this one but I promise you a happy ending!

Green Drinks Dispatch + I WANT YOU TO VOTE!

Jenny Deller is a filmmaker from nearby Philly PA who's working on an intriguing indy flick called Future Weather. I learned all about it when a member of the crew came to last night's Green Drinks at PJ Whelihan's in Cherry Hill.

First of all, this is a perfect example of the type of diverse folks who show up at Green Drinks which we celebrate on the first Wednesday each month. (where will you be on August 5? come down and meet us at 6pm at PJ's on Rt 70.) And secondly, you can see the film's trailer here!

If you like it as much as we did, you can go vote for the movie here which is in the running for the top prize in the Netflix future filmmaker's project.

So what will next month's Green Drinks bring? Hopefully YOU!

New Jersey Learns for a Sustainable Future!

Last week, five members of the SCH community participated in a 5 day immersion experience in Princeton with about 40 other New Jerseyans from all across the state. This training follows a 2 day introduction last month and will continue throughout the year. If this program sounds familiar, it's because a group of us participated last year and are returning for a second year of deep learning and thinking about sustainability. The program is facilitated by the always inspirational visionary, Jaimie Cloud and combines educators, community leaders and others in a "training the trainers" transformative learning experience. The concept is to provide us with the tools we need to educate our community about sustainability. Stay tuned for an opportunity to participate in an interactive learning session facilitated by ... US!

Take a look here for more information about the program, which is funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.




Participants from the SCH community over the past two years include: Lori Braunstein, Erica DeMichele, Kevin Frost, Jennifer Kelley, Mark Loeser, Shelley Osagie, Jodi Raditz and Melisa Skrym.

Climate Change, Congress (and one helluva squeaker vote!)

Part of that ol' axiom to "think globally, act locally" means paying attention to what's going on politically. That's especially this week in Washington DC where climate change legislation took a tentative step forward.

Just barely.

After surviving a squeaker vote in the House, the bill now goes onto an even tougher battle in the Senate.

It's a safe bet that both NJ Sens. Lautenberg and Menendez will vote for this bill -- which by the way is a major White House priority -- but the final count will be very close indeed.

To be honest, this is one of those times where going through your phone and urging your friends and family to contact their Senators just might make the difference. Tell them anyone can call the capitol switchboard in DC at anytime at (202)224-3121. Why not add that number to your mobile phone NOW!?

Suburbia hosts Bees and other pollinating incects

Thanks to NPR's local affiliate WHYY for this report on the prominent role towns like Cherry Hill play in sustaining the honey bee population. So have a look look/listen and brainstorm some native wildflowers to plant in your garden.

Kerry Grens makes the call via NPR download stream here:

Watch the video report:

J J White Cranberry Farm grows about eight million pounds of the tart, red fruit each year. That’s spread across 350 acres, making the farm the second largest producer in New Jersey. Manager Joe Darlington takes no chance with making sure the crop gets pollinated, by importing honeybees.

Formatting your Documents $aves more than just tree$!

At the most recent Sustainable Cherry Hill board meeting, we got a master class from Ruth Anne Robbins about $avings and sustainability while printing  documents at home or at work.

Here are a few bullet points straight from Ruth Anne's smartly formatted email for you to use! In short, there's a lot you can do besides printing on both sides of the paper. (#5 is my favorite!)

1.    Get a little closer. Tighten up the spaces between your headings and the text that the headings modify. Why do you need your headings to “float” so far above the text? Rather, you want to keep related things together. That will save you space. Saved space = saved paper. Plus, you would be surprised at how much more readable that will also make the document.

2.    Bigger isn’t always better. Check out the font size of the emails that you send.  Betcha it is smaller than the 12-point Times New Roman that most of your (printed) docs are set in. Now think about the distance between you and your computer screen. (Is it more than the distance between you and your print document? What does that tell you?) That your print documents don’t need to be in 12-point font unless some professional rule dictates otherwise.

3.    Mind the gap. Double the space = double the trees. In fact, for optimal reading choose a line spacing setting that is 12% of the font size. So a 12-point font would use 1.44 spacing (close to 1.5) and an 11-point font would use 1.2 spacing.

4.    How wide is your font? The wider the font, the more paper you are going to use. You want to choose fonts with the right “tone” but you also want to be cognizant of the effects on paper usage. Setting a document in something that is monospaced will use more paper. Monospaced = each letter is the same width, so a “w” and an “i” will take up the same horizontal space. That’s left over from typewriter days. As a prime example, Courier New.

5.    Choosing boldface over SCREAMING ALLCAPS. Allcaps takes up more space and is actually a lot less readable than using boldface as the main way to make your headings look different than the body of your text. For even more contrast you can vary your font between the headings and your blocks of text. And ALLCAPS for headings also has the extra detriment of looking like you are screaming at your reader. Not the best way to treat your audience.

6.    Rely on our inherent laziness. Keep your printer starved for paper. And keep the paper stored in some inconvenient location, preferably involving a flight of stairs. The harder we make it to set up a printer for printing the less likely we are to hit that print button.

Sustainable Cherry Hill goes to the Mall

If a picture is worth 1000 words, a video is worth even more. See for yourself.

Political Environmentalism 101

(today's update by Jay Lassiter of Cherry Hill)--

Community and sustainability were on display Tuesday night at the Cherry Hill Library for our Environmentalism 101 session. Over fifty-five people showed up to hear short talks given by writer/lobbyist Frank Brill, Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt and Freeholder Jeff Nash. (see pic, l-r with Lori, our fearless leader)

We wanted to get several perspectives on environmentalism's political side to educate the community about how a bill gets shepherded through the process -- from the original draft to the Governor's desk for a signature.  Making laws ain't easy, as anyone who grew up on Schoolhouse Rock knows. (for a nostalgic trip, see video clip below.)

So the idea was to bring together a trio that represented  state + county government plus our friends from the Environmental lobby to see the process from multiple angles.  That way -- as activists-- we're armed with the know-how to fight in Trenton and Washington to determine whether the policies from our capitals are good for the environment.  Or not.  

MEET OUR GUESTS

Frank Brill is more than a pretty face.  He's  the brains behind the popular website EnviroPolitics, "a daily compendium of political and environmental news for New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York."   

His expertise and lobbying experience is an invaluable tool for anyone -- or any organization --  fighting for greener policies.   Like we do!  (You can follow Frank on Twitter here. Still not tweeting? maybe this is a good time to start?)

Pam Lampitt represents Cherry Hill in Trenton but her leadership on sustainability make her a leader for the whole state and region.   Likewise, Jeff Nash's efforts on Camden's freeholder board are supplemented by his work on the Delaware River Bridge Commission. 

The DRPA manages our region's ports and bridges + mass-trans connection between New Jersey and Pennsylvania.   A Cherry Hill native, Freeholder Nash wants to ensure our state's port expansion projects incorporate sustainability into the original design.  It sounds like a no-brainer, but to build a new port from scratch with sustainability in mind from day one is actually a very radical idea.  And it's an idea that -- thanks to stakeholders like Jeff Nash -- may see the light of day sooner than later.  Maybe even down the road in Paulsboro, NJ were a huge port is slated to begin construction very very soon.

A COMMUNITY, A CAUSE

If you missed this event, fear not.  Sustainable Cherry Hill has a host of cool stuff on tap this summer and we always welcome new members from the area.  Our name says Cherry Hill, but our mission goes well beyond our town.  We LOVE to cross-pollinate with folks from other communities.   And basically we love to meet new people.  

When the program closed at 9pm, the spillover crowd lingered for another 1/2 hour until the guards finally (gently) tossed us out..... at which point we took our lively conversation into the parking lot.  It's obvious that the passion for this issue runs broad and deep in Cherry Hill. 

And from a personal standpoint, I remain most grateful for the broad range of diversity that continues to show up for SCH events.  We get folks of all ages, from middleschoolers to retirees; we get folks from all political and religious persuasions and (most importantly) we get a good cross section of our community from Brooks Brothers to Birkenstock and back.  

Which is exactly the way we like it.