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I'd been trying to put posts up every weekend... didn't quite make it this past weekend. I did, however, just put three short posts over the last week to talk about my garden's progress... it's been quite interesting, this attempt at growing veggies in water. And the adventure has really only just begun... unless the building burns down or something... which I'm wondering as I mix grow lights, a water pump, and electricity in a small corner of my bedroom.

The idea is to be able to grow food in water without soil. Right now I've just got some sphagnum moss as a growing medium -- it's not ideal, but it's all I could find here in town. I think I've got a package waiting for me someplace here in town -- I've ordered rockwool as a more appropriate growing medium -- as well as some nutrient solution. To get me through a couple of days, I've been using a supplemental mixture that you might use with houseplants or something... I'm sure it's sufficient to get me going.

The way it works... the nutrients that plants need are in water... so in my setup, I have three trays that are about a yard long and 6" wide by 6" deep sitting on a small coffee table. On the ground, I have a 12-or-so gallon tub with a small bilge pump in it. The pump is on a timer -- it's 15 mins on and 15 mins off during the day. I haven't decided what to do with it at night -- don't know if I'll need to run it in order to keep the roots moist or if I'll be able to get away with shutting it off... but considering that it's about 4 feet from where I sleep... I'm thinking it might have to be turned off because all of the water moving is pretty dang loud. So. Water pumps through the trays, the runs back into the tub. The idea is that plants take nutrients out of the water... then have 15 minutes to access oxygen before being flooded with nutrients again.

I've also got a very bright light set up for them... it's specially made for growing plants -- meaning that it has the kind of light that they grow best under. There are actually lots of different kinds of grow lights; the one that I have comes in two light spectrums -- one for regular growing and one for blooming. So if/when tomatos and peppers start to come in... I'll have to find a blooming light. For now... the grow light is enough.

So anyway... that's what's happening on the water garden front.


Class... has continued to be quite good and quite involved. Last week was organizational learning and leadership week. I don't remember anything really extraordinary in all of it, but there have been many great conversations with classmates about what leadership means to us and how we might plug ourselves into the growing opportunities as people begin to realize the seriousness of the crunch the world currently finds itself in. Pretty exciting stuff.

What's not so exciting is the fact that we're nearly through our first quarter -- our final exam is a week from Friday. Uffda. And to add to the excitement, we have group presentations of various topics on M,T,W -- the topics are various tools that are relevant to the sustainability world... ecological footprint, life cycle assessment, ISO 14001, natural capitalism... those kinds of things. My group -- consisting of Paul (Swedish) and Viviana (Columbian) and me -- is working on the Millennium Development Goals put forth by the United Nations.

The MDGs are the target of a massive campaign involving all kinds of people... it's very closely tied to the One Campaign www.one.org... and these 8 goals focus on addressing the "world's main development challenges" like poverty, hunger, gender equity, maternal health, etc. On the surface the sound like, and really are, quite good goals that everyone can more or less agree with. The challenge comes when you start to dig into the goals... which comprise 18 targets which comprise 48 indicators.

First of all... because our assignment is to evaluate them from a strategic sustainable development (SSD) standpoint... let me say that they have little to do with sustainability as we've come to know the four sustainability principles. Even though they would seem to address system condition IV -- which basically says that people need to have the capacity to meet their own needs -- they really don't do that very well. And some of the targets and indicators are really quite senseless... like halving the number of people who live on less than one US dollar per day. Well... since the targets are to be acheived by 2015... if we just sit back and wait this goal should be achieved on its own simply by inflation!

A couple of other indicators measure the ratio of men:women (i.e. in education). I think it's great that we're looking at gender disparity and working to improve that... but does it make any sense to only measure the ratio?? Stop educating enough men to shrink the gap... wouldn't that be the easiest and least expensive solution? I'm not advocating for that senseless idea, mind you... education is clearly one of the most important things that can be done.

As I've been working to learn about the MDGs, there are a few great ironies that stand out. One is the idea that "developed" countries are working to assist "under-developed" countries. There's an on-going joke in our class that perhaps some countries are "over-developed." Of course, that's not really the case... it's more like some countries are "wrongly-developed"... but that's a topic for another day.

Overall, it's interesting to watch as so many resources are being poured into the MDGs. And, overall, if in 2015 we can celebrate having achieved them, I think it will be a truly celebratory event... more because we -- as an entire world -- will have worked together toward achieving something significantly big than because the MDGs are so important for human survival. Of course, 10 years from now when we're all aware of the significant environmental challenges we face, we'll have a model for how to overcome this newly-realized set of challenges.

Notice that I completely side-stepped any conversation about the assumption of capitalism being the way forward (which is VERY prevalent throughout the MDGs, and is a large reason why they are not well supported across the entire globe) as well as the focus on corporations being a significant part of the solution. It's a hard pill to swallow when many multi-national corporations are (rightfully!) being blamed for so many of the problems in the first place. But I digress...

Ok. I need to go do some reading about systems thinking -- also known as systems science. Pretty cool stuff... but as usual, involves me needing to do a great deal of reading.

Cheers.