Interviews And Readings

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Agriculture, Food Policy, Slow Food Movement
Energy
Local Economy, Work, Livelihood
Press About Big Green Summer, Testimonials
Public Policy Intiatives
Village Design, Transportation, Urban Planning
Water
Wildness and Ethics
Faculty Favorite Book Lists
2008 Big Green Summer and Permaculture Course Guest Speakers

Agriculture, Food Policy, Slow Food Movement

Vandana Shiva speaks on Agriculture: (MP3, 4:28) at the world slow food conferences (Salone Del Gusto, Terra Madre) in Turino, Italy, October 2006. Interview by Big Green Summer Director Lonnie Gamble.

Carlo Petrini talk at UC Berkeley: (MP3, 8 min) Carlo Petrini is founder and head of the world wide Slow Food movement. Picture shows Carlo Petrini with Lonnie and Valerie Gamble and students Claire and Torrey Witherspoon at the Salone Del Gusto in Torino, Italy in October, 2006. Big Green Summer faculty Steve Boss arranged for Claire and Torrey to work on a farm near Modena, Italy for 4 months, learning the process of making traditional balsamic vinegar. See more about Claire and Torrey's trip at http://www.torreyandheliinitaly.blogspot.com/

Doug Bullock Ecovillage Talk 2001: (MP3, 25 min)Douglas Bullock is one of the top premaculture designers and educators in the US. The he and his brothers have developed on Orcas Island, Washington, is internationally known and was featured in the film "Global Gardener" and Toby Hemenway's book "Gaia's Garden". Doug is a regular teacher at the Big Green Summer permaculture design certification course and courses at our Hawaii facility. This is a talk he gave on the design of Abundance Ecovillage, focusing on the incredible plant and soil resources of southeast Iowa.
Doug Bullock Ecofair 2006 Talk: (MP3, 32 min)

Grow Biointensive Farming founder John Jeavons: (MP3, 1:25) Interviewed in Torino, Italy October 2006 (1:25)

Winona Laduke: (MP3, 4:22) Interview with activist and Green Party vice presidential candidate, Torino, Italy October 2006
Irish cheesemaker on the renaissance in Irish cheesemaking: (MP3, 4 min) Recorded by Lonnie Gamble at the Slow Food Salone Del Gusto in Torino, Itay October 2006
Cheese Aging in France: Report on cheese aging (Affinage) from a Wisconsin cheesemaker who went to France
Artisan Foods Reader: A collection of quotes and links regarding slow foods.
Artisan Foods and Cheese Tasting: Episode of the Great Taste radio program (Great Taste is part of the Abundant Planet Radio collective - http://www.abundantplanetradio.com) on cheese. Great introduction to artisan food in general and artisan cheese in particular. We taste cheeses in the studio that were sent by famed cheese shop and affineur DeBruno in Philadelphia. We discuss various aspects of artisan cheese production with Debruno. Show host for Great Taste is Steve Boss.

Antoine Jacobsen, director of the Potager du Roi (the King's Vegetable Garden): This vegetable garden and fruit production facility established by King Louis 14th covers 20 acres or so, is stunningly beautiful and features one of the world's largest collections of espallier fruit trees. Hear how produce was made available year round before the fossil fuel age. November, 2006, at the plant fair, Domaine de Beauregard, just outside of Paris (home to another beautiful and historic grand potager)

Web site offers stories of Iowa's distinctive foods: France has the AOC (Appellation Origin Controlle), Italy has the DOP, and Iowa has Riki Saltzman's project for identifying Iowa place-based foods - Maytag blue cheese, Muscatine melons, and more. Check out this March 2007 article on her project.

Ken Meter Grinnell area talk - 54 minutes: details the amount of money extracted from the local economy by commodity ag production (corn,soybeans, livestock) and contrasts this with the amount of money that left the local economy to buy food for people to eat. Ken gives the details on who gets rich and who gets poor in todays commodity ag economy. In this talk, Ken analyzes economic data for the counties surrounding Grinnell, Iowa, showing that commodity agriculture lost more than $300 million in the last seven years, while people of the region paid over $850 million for food to eat. He also looks at data from the entire state of Iowa and the entire nation, showing that the same pattern of losses occur at the state and national level. He makes a very powerful argument for creating wealth in communities by changing the way we provision ourselves with food, energy, building materials, water, and other necessities of life. Ken, an agricultural economist based in Wisconsin, is president of Crossroads Resource Center (http://www.crcworks.org). CRC is a community-based nonprofit offering research and training tools for neighborhoods, communities and others working toward community self-determination. Ken Meter's Jefferson County powerpoint

Energy

"Energy and the Wealth of Communities" Presentation on community scale renewable energy: given by Lonnie Gamble at Ecofair 2007, IRENEW 2007, and Tallgrass Bionners (Grinnell, Iowa). How a small city like Fairfield, Iowa could use renewable energy and efficiency projects to create opportunity and wealth.
"Sunsong" by student Michael Cook: (MP3) an homage to the sun with a nod to the Beatles.
"If it's not efficient it's not beautiful" by Amory Lovins: (PDF) on the effects of efficient building practices on the overall Economy availability of capital in the US.

David Orr on a Just Future that runs on Solar Energy: (MP3) Author and environmental educator David Orr was recorded at the 2006 Land Institute conference in Salina, Kansas. Big Green Summer founder Lonnie Gamble was a student of David Orr, and David's ideas about education were very influential in the development of Big Green Summer. David is head of the environmental science department at Oberlin College and author of Earth in Mind, the Nature of Design, and many other influential books and articles. Watch a Bioneers keynote talk by Dr. Orr here 30 min. Great article by Dr. Orr on going beyond sustainability http://ecodesign.bioneers.org/node/14
Wind Power in Navarre Audio (MP3)
Article on Solar Electric Power in Spain (pdf) (PDF)
Renewables in Navarre (audio) (MP3)
Yet another story on Navarre (MP3): Navarre is home to 593,000 people, with 200,000 in the capital city of Pamploma. It's land area is the size of a square 70 miles on each side. (About the distance from Fairfield to Iowa City). As of 2004, Navarre had created over 3600 jobs in the renewable energy sector. In Iowa, we could look to the lead of places like Navarre and power our cities with renewables and create wealth in our region.
Ray Anderson, visionary CEO of Interface Carpet: (MP3, 55 min) about his work in moving toward a cradle-to-cradle economy. Recorded at the Land Institute's 2006 annual conference.
David Osterberg at the 2006 Iowa Environmental Councils annual conference: (MP3) David Osterberg was responsible for the initial legislation that required Iowa utilities to buy wind power. David is head of the Iowa Policy Project (www.iowapolicyproject.org), a social policy think tank that has studied how renewable energy and local foods could creates jobs for Iowa.
Green chemist Dr. Jerry Schnoor on sustainability initiatives at the University of Iowa: (MP3) Iowa City, Iowa, December 2006
Richard Perez, Editor of Home Power magazine: (MOV) at the Iowa Energy Expo, 2005. Starts with a striking demonstration of the simplicity and radical nature of decentralized solar electric power. Clip from the film "Power from the People"

Solar Economy Graphic: Many people have been asking for a copy of the graphic I often use in presentations that compares the amount of solar energy that hits the surface of the earth each year to fossil fuel use by man. I use it so often that my students made me a t-shirt of it, which I love.

The story of Samso - a small Danish island of 4200 that now generate more power than they use - here's how they did it
- 2008 New Yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_kolbert?printable=true
- 2008 NPR Piece (This is a good one with the author of the article above, Lester Brown, and others) http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/07/20080707_a_main.asp
- 2006 article from Outside Magazine
Maine Solar Primer - publication from the Maine Solar Energy Association, details inexpensive solar hot water heater made from materials available at a local building supply store, solar cookers, solar building design ideas and lots more. Yes, solar does work in Maine, and the Maine Solar Energy Society has been promoting it since the 1970's. Thanks to Richard Komp, the current president of the Maine Solar energy society (check out his great book, Practical Photovoltaics)

Local Economy, Work, Livelihood

David Korten talk at the Seattle Green Festival 2008: (mp3, 47 mb) The first 10 minutes or so of this interview needs to be edited out, the Korten talk starts there. This is one of the best talks on this page. Korten is the author of When Corporations Ruled the World and The Great Turning. His wife is teh publisher of Yes Magazine.
Interview with David Korten 2008: (mp3, 9 mb) Lonnie interviews David Korten at the Seattle Green Festival 2008

Wendell Berry on a local economy: (MP3) Wendel Berry is not part of our faculty, but Lonnie had a chance to meet him at the Land Institute conference in the fall of 2006 and record some of his talk for Abundant Planet Radio. This is an excerpt from a speech at UC Berkeley.

Bill Mckibben answers questions about his book, "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and a Durable Future": (MP3 - 44MB) Questions are from students in a course taught by Jon Andelson at Grinnell College in the fall of 2007.
John Barry on a beyond-sustainable world: (MP3) John Barry is an economist and head of the Green Party in Ireland. In 2006-2007 he was a visiting professor at Carleton College, where he and Big Green Summer founder Lonnie Gamble spoke at a conference. Lonnie was so impressed by the eloquence of John Barry's vision for a just, beyond-sustainable world that he invited John to speak to the June 2007 Permaculture Design Certification course.
The Pace of Life: (MP3) Excerpt from an NPR story about leisure and the pace of life in France and Italy and how it is threatened by attempts to imitate the United States. Big Green Summer founder Lonnie Gamble's wife Valerie is French.
Jessica Russell on Life in Italy: (MP3) Big Green Summer founder Lonnie Gamble interviews American ex-pat Jessica Russell about the pace of life in Italy. Like France, Italy is a wealthy western country that has taken a very different path than the US. Hear about universal health care and higher education, 4 week paid vacations, two hour lunch breaks, and public policy that encourages artisan, local foods with a taste of place. Part of a series of interviews that Lonnie did in France and Italy on his 2006 trip to the Slow Food world conferences (Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto). Jessica is originally a Maine native, and Lonnie and Jessica met while "talking Yankee" at an olive harvest festival at La Palomba, the farm of Italian singer/songwriter Franceso Degregori near Sienna, Italy in October of 2006.
Italian village: (MP3) Story about a village that uses its position as one of the most ecologically advanced cities to thrive on ecotourism and attract young people back to the region. Read by student Natalie Melo for Abundant Planet Radio.
Green Jobs: Nation Public Radio's Marketplace looks at the hottest job market in 2007 - green jobs.

Duncan Macmaster on Handcraft in the Age of Machines: Duncan is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, a master craftsman, and Big Green Summer faculty. He loves showing people how to use traditional Japanese hand tools. See his work at http://www.templeworks.com. (Note from Big Green Summer founder Lonnie Gamble: My wife Valerie and I sleep on a bed that Duncan crafted using a traditional Japanese hand plane).

The story of Samso - a small Danish island of 4200 that now generate more power than they use - here how they did it
- 2008 New Yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_kolbert?printable=true
- 2008 NPR Piece (This is a good one with the author of the article above, Lester Brown, and others) http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/07/20080707_a_main.asp
- 2006 article from Outside Magazine

Press articles about Big Green Summer:

Heartland Spirit, 2006 program: (Thanks Savvy Vegetarian for archiving this!)
March 2007 Radish Magazine article: about education, internship, and woofing opportunities in Iowa featuring Big Green Summer.

Brian Robbins on a Relocalized Economy: Program graduate Brian Robbins talks about how Big Green Summer became Big Green Life. Brian was living in a California coast surf paradise when he stopped in Fairfield to intern with Big Green Summer founder Lonnie Gamble for a couple of weeks. That was three years ago, and he has never left. Brian and his partner Kelly are now part of Big Green Summer faculty and work with students at their urban permaculture site in downtown Fairfield, Iowa.

Avi Pogel on Permaculture Design at Grinnell College: Grinnell graduate and '06 Big Green Summer particpant Avi Pogel wrote this thoughtful essay on implementing Permaculture Design at Grinnell in particular and colleges in general. After his Permaculture Design Certification course, Avi was so pumped he sent this essay to the President of Grinnell College.

Public Policy Initiatives

Iowa Mayors Sustainability Reader: In April 2007, at the request of Fairfield mayor Ed Malloy, Lonnie met with the mayor Frank Cownie of Des Moines, mayor Jerry Kelley of Indianola, and mayor Ed Malloy of Fairfield. They toured Abundance Ecovillage and other sustainable design initiatives in Fairfield. Lonnie prepared an Iowa Mayors Sustainability Reader with a variety of short readings to introduce the mayors to sustainable design - topics include Natural Capitalism, Cradle-to-Cradle, case studies from around Iowa and around the world.

Village Design, Transportation, and Urban Planning

James Howard Kuntsler on Peak Oil and a new vision for America: (MP3) Recorded at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair 2006, which was part of Big Green Summer. Here is a (2007) Kuntsler article in Orion magazine called "Making Other Arrangements" where he discusses some options for a post peak oil world http://www.orionmagazine.org/pages/om/07-1om/Kunstler.html

City of Fairfield Bikeway & Walkway Plan: Safe and Healthy Transportation Alternatives for a Stronger Community: The Fairfield Bikeway & Walkway Plan recommends a comprehensive system of bikeways and walkways linking Fairfield�s expanding cultural and recreational resources. Consistent with goals stated within the Strategic Plan, a network of bikeways and walkways will promote healthy and safe recreational activities for all members of the community.
Village Homes News Report: (MOV) San Diego news team visits Village Homes in Davis, California and does a report. Michael Corbett's Village Homes is the model for the look and feel of Abundance Ecovillage.
Village Homes Tour: (MOV) Walking tour of Village Homes with Bill Mollison, who calls Village Homes, "The best thing since sliced bread - I think it's the best attempt at an ecological human settlement anywhere."
Jay Walljasper article contrasting urban design and transportation in Europe and the US: (PDF)

Ecological Footprinting author William Rees interview: (MP3) William Rees discusses ecological footprinting and gives his vision for a localized economy that runs on solar energy. Interview done at the Iowa Environmental Council 2006 annual conference at the Des Moines Botanical Gardens.

Water

Living machines: transcript of a talk by John Todd at a recent Bioneers conference

Wildness, Ethics

Susan Andersen and Lonnie Gamble on the Philosophical and Intellectual Roots of the Green Movement: the Literature of Wildness and the Green Movement: (MP3, 54.6 MB) Abundant Planet Radio, Aug 2007
Susan Andersen on Thoreau and Wildness: (MP3) from Ecofair 2006
Introduction to Wildness by Roger Gipple: keynote talk from Ecofair 2006
Rediscovering the Territory by Roger Gipple: lots of great quotes, the bioeconomy, wildness, and Rogers insights on the relation of humans and otherness.
Scott Nearing Tribute: Roger Gipple's tribute to Scott Nearing, from Ecofair 2006
Roger Gipple's essay Animal Awareness: discusses the ethical issues of man's domination over animals.

Faculty Favorite Book Lists

#2008Speakers

2008 Big Green Summer and Permaculture Course Speakers

Ken Daley - Leadership and Group Dynamics Ken's talk prior to the Leadership Training Adventure
Beekeeping Certification Course
- Overwintering Bees in Iowa - pg 1
- Ovewintering Bees in Iowa - pg 2
Daniel Dermetzl - Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture

Midwest Renewable Energy Fair 2008 Trip

College of the Menominee - Sustainable Development Program This is more interesting than it might sound, and one of my favorite interviews from the Fair,