Sunday, March 4, 2012

Sustain this!

Southwest: Another Garden Grows 

Even with hundreds of millions of dollars spent over the past decade sprouting buildings from "new dirt" UMass has found a way--albeit small--to reduce their carbon footprint by locating sustainable  gardens sprinkled throughout the campus.  Currently UMass/Amherst is the only public school of higher education with a Permaculture Garden program.

Now they have received a tip of the golf cap from President Obama as the UMass Amherst Permacuture Initiative was the top vote getter (with 59,857)  in the "Campus Champions of Change Challenge", where the top five ideas win a  trip to the White House.   

Maybe the President will toast them with beer made from locally grown barley and hops.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Larry,

Thanks for highlighting this, one of many truly sustainable projects all around the Amherst area.

- Your Friend

Larry Kelley said...

No problem. Great ideas sell themselves.

(Now if I could just get the town to turn the Cherry Hill Golf Course into a giant Permaculture garden.)

Anonymous said...

Already is. All those little grass blades do their work day after day.

Larry Kelley said...

At much greater cost.

Anonymous said...

It should be really handy for after beer urination!

Anonymous said...

Am I the only person to think that those small plots can't feed 30K people? What's the point? Especially in an area filled with working farms.

Larry Kelley said...

I think it's along the same lines as a solar farm on a landfill: You don't expect it to provide a significant portion of electric needs, but it's going on something unused and the product produced is vital and sustainable.

Ed said...

Larry, have you ever considered why the solar farm would have been economically viable?

Do you have any idea the amount of debt the country has because of all of this foolishness????