Jim Wilcox, of the Wilcox Family Farms, has slowly become a believer in sustainable agricultural methods.  According to an article in the Tacoma News Tribune, he says of Wilcox Farm's shifts, “We’re changing for two reasons.  One, it’s good business, and, two, it’s the right thing to do.” . . . “Twenty to 30 years ago, we weren’t very good stewards of the land,” he said. “We’ve kind of seen the light.”

Wilcox Farms has been in business 100 years this week. The family has 1,500 acres along a mile-long stretch of the Nisqually River; they've been selling milk and eggs, at one point selling 1 million gallons of milk a week.

Our neighboring city to the north, Vancouver B.C., is fast becoming one of the most innovative, green cities in the world.  It draws 90% of its energy from renewables.  Under the progressive governance of Gregor Robertson, the just-reelected mayor, they are looking to become a hub for green jobs and sustainable industry.   Unlike most other North American cities, Vancouver appears to be meeting the coming climate crisis head-on.

Last Saturday was the second monthly South Park "Market on Wheels".  This is a new Latino-themed farmers market in the middle of the South Park neighborhood.  There are 26 vendors signed up who bring fresh produce, delicious prepared foods, jewelry and more to sell.  They also generally have lively music in a corner of the market.  This year the markets are once a month on the third Saturday of each month.  Next year, with luck, they will be able to go weekly, allow people who grow small amounts of a single crop space to sell what they grow, have a youth-grow program and more.  Next markets will be Aug. 15th and Sept. 19th.  It's worth the visit.

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a list of the smartest cities (large, medium and small) and Seattle was ranked as the top large city (population over 250,000) in the  country, followed by San Francisco and Portland.  The rankings were based on a set of 10 criteria, including air quality, water quality and conservation, energy and conservation, and transportation.  It's hard to see how Seattle would have make top of the list without yesterday's start-up of light-rail. 

When I hear people say that China isn't going to do anything to combat climate change so it doesn't matter what we do, I tell them that is old information.  China has figured out that they can't have their people drowning in their own pollution.  They have also figured out that they want to build the innovative energy systems that the rest of us will need to buy.  Tom Friedman has an interesting opinion piece, entitled "Can I Clean Your Clock?" up at the NYT on why he thinks that China will step up to making the changes needed to prevent horrendous greenhouse gas emissions.

I attended an inspiring meeting of Latino cooperative members last weekend.  Our partner organization, Community-to-Community (C2C), has developed a program to provide training and technical assistance to groups of Latinos around the state building economic cooperatives.