Be wary of fairy tales …

Mostly with no straight connection, the topic of straw bale houses was repeatedly touched during the seminar. For

example, envisioning the perfect green work camp one of us had the image of a straw bale dorm. Then, it was not easy to explain that straw houses do exist and, notwithstanding the fairy tales bias of getting them down with a blow, they are actually safe, solid and very ecological.

In fact, many are the strengths of straw bale construction, a technique which is getting more and more widespread in the United States and in Great Britain. Made with a "waste" material such as straw, these houses have a very high energy efficiency in as much they keep an optimal heat insulation. According to www.strawbale.com, a straw bale wall is about three times as efficient as conventional framing: over thirty years, it means a 75% reduction of energy costs and connected natural resources.

An often raised concern is fire. However, materials laboratories report that a plastered straw bale structure has proven to be exceptionally resistant to fire. In these tests, the flames took more than two hours to penetrate the plastered bale walls while conventional framing took only 30 minutes to one hour to burn: “due to their tight compaction, bales contain very little oxygen and thus resist combustion. It’s like trying to burn a phone book”.

Another surprise is that the straw won’t decompose. The reason behind this trick is that organic material needs both water and oxygen to decompose and the right building technique will keep water well out of the structure. To make sure of this, think that bale homes built in the1800’ still exist in Nebraska and Europe. Quoting again from www.strawbale.com, “straw bale homes have consistently withstood severe weather and wind in Wyoming as well as major earthquakes in California … Many architects and engineers consider straw bales to be the ideal “seismic-resistant” building material. In wind tests, bale structures see no movement in a sustained 75 mph gale and only 1/16 inch movement with 100 mph gusts”.

And what about pests? Pests are more of an imagined concern than a real threat. If straw bales are properly plastered there is no way for bugs and rodents to get in. And if pest were to find their way in, they would find it almost impossible to move in the densely packed bales. Amazingly, termites and other pests pose more of a problem to conventional construction than they do to straw bale structures.As you just read, straw bale houses are not just eco-friendly, energy efficient, sound proof, and solid. They are stunningly beautiful as well and they can have many different shapes. However, If you have never seen them, it's quite of an imagination stretching exercise!

Think Outside the Sink!

We were among the 200.000 marching against water privatization yesterday.

We joined the parade half way through and we could see the colourful flow slowly moving down via Cavour. Luckily, we jumped in right where a circus like sumba band was filling up the air with energy.
The march was attended by loads and loads of people because of the paramount importance of the issue: 7/10 of our body is water, we need it to live and water simply cannot be a good and it must remain a common resourced publicly managed. The issue was transverse and international as some of the participants of the seminar stretched: all over the world the trend to privatize common resources is getting stronger and stronger.

It was a pleasure to see such an amount of people manifesting their ideas in a strong, yet funny and amusing way. So … people up there in government ranks and management departments, we have a message for you: “we are watching you, we won’t allow you to make a profit out of our invaluable common resources!”

Just one day after is the World Water Day! Get to know about what was happening and to gather interesting materials on this topic visit the

UN Water web page. And there is a surprise present for this occasion: new episode of "The Story of Stuff" series: "The Story of Bottled Water" - watch it and make your commitment for this special day and further!

Meatout Day turned into Meatout Week

Already since 25 years, 20th March is celebrated as the Meatout Day. Event is widespreaded among 50 states of USA, as well as many other countries of Europe. It is also second to last day of the 2nd GAIA seminar taking place in Rome. During the event participants, divided into kitchen and cleaning teams, were responsible for preparing own meals. Real workcamp spirit! But the most interesting thing is that already for 6 days, 17 people of different cultural and dietary background, managed to prepare everyday meals without using even a piece of meat. We were baking own bread, pizza, pasta, tartas, cooking vegetables, preparing salads, tasting cheese from diffrenet corners of Europe and much more, so nobody complained for boring diet. And most of the ingredients came from food cooperatives or fair trade production.

It's definietely good practice example, that some of us will repeat during their workcamp experience.

To learn, why it is worth to know where your meat comes from and why it is worth to implement vegetarian diet in your everyday life, you can start from watching The Meatrix animation.

Market day

Today we woke up with sun shining. It’s a perfect Saturday morning and the idea of browsing the market could not fit better with our mood :) It might even be that the sun is shining so bright to celebrate farmer’s market third birthday.

Every third Saturday of the month, a group of local farmers and producers gather for the Mercato Contadino Terra organized by Città dell’Utopia and by terraTERRA group. terraTERRA’s aim is to implement a short cycle agriculture: the only one which can guarantee fresh, genuine products while protecting biodiversity the patrimony of varieties. terraTERRA stands also for food sovereignty because the earth is not a supermarket, food is not a good.

The market is located just below the Casale Garibaldi, headquarter of Italian SCI branch. The stalls are full of luscious organic vegetables and seasonal fruits. Cheese, wines and bread are there to be tasted and toiletries like homemade soaps and toothpaste poke out every now and then. But it’s not all about food, there are craft items as well like colourful hats and cotton little bags. People of all ages chit chats and looks around enjoying a little walk in the sun.

The market is not just a place to purchase local organic food but is a way to inform people about critical consume and the importance of common resources. The focus of today Città dell’Utopia stand is to inform people of this afternoon march against the privatization on water: access to water is a basic need and it must remain a public asset.

And stop. March is time is getting closer and … we didn’t finish our shopping yet! ;)

Surprise surprise

“Surprise evening”, so was written in the timetable and up until yesterday I wondered and I - not too subtly – enquired. The mystery was suddenly revealed to me when, during the hectic preparation, Milosz started to rave about gardening tools, plants and so on… “is it guerrilla gardening tonight?”

After reaching a no man’s suburban place in Rome we started planning and planting a flower-bed.

There were about forty of us. The heap of tools disappeared in no time and feet were in stepping on the ground. There was a strange bee-hive energy among all of us because motivation was up and kicking. The idea behind guerrilla gardening is to act against neglect of public spaces and reclaim it to public use.

In Rome, as in many other cities I guess, there are plenty of unused or abandoned areas that could easily be transformed by our own small actions. Planting a seed could be a way to change our surroundings and give a clear message that we do value green areas in our grey cities. It is even a way to stretch the idea that the city is ours and we want to take a good care of it, care that often is lacking in municipality policies.

Just arrived we set up for our dinner, a kind of strange picnic in between two roads and a roundabout. An then: we “digged”, we giggled, we sowed, we “singed”, we racked, we “runned”, we planted and, in the end, we just did it!

Neighbourhood was curious and people started coming down to see what was going on. They were pretty happy to see us around and started asking questions. One even brought us a plant! Cars were slowing down to have a peek and they showed their support in a variety of ways. In the end, we spent a good time in an unusual way (it really was a surprise), we joined local people improving their city and, as usual, “deeds no words”!

Some links go dig deeper:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_gardening

and

http://www.guerrillagardening.org/

We are doing stufffff.....

After yestrday session about SCI's history and mission, participants of the Seminar got very much into the motto of the organization - „Deeds and words”. The morning of the 3rd day of the seminar started with a visit of some activists from the „Happy De-growth” movement from the Rome group. We could hear from the first hand how does the Italian de-growth functions, what are the activities of the group and, most improtant, reasons standing behind those actions.

De-growt movement philosophy is not new. The most important propositions are:

1.We buy much more than we need. A lot of the things we need, we can do on ourslves, exchange with others or even get as a present from the others.

2.If we need to buy less, we need less money and as a consequence, we can work less! As a consequence, people will have more time to devote to their families, cpommunities, hobbies, art and culture.

3.De-growt doesn't mean going back to ancient times. It is about using what we have, but in sustainable way. Instead of growth, people should put more attention to developement. It means focusing on quality, instead of quantity.

So the propositions are actually finctioning in different periods of history. But nowadays for sure they are worth reminding!

The theorethical introduction was followed by presentations about composting and community gardening. Straight from the seminar room we went outside, to check how all that works in practice.

The group was divided into Bread Lab (daling with bread and pasta making), Compost Lab (preparation of the terrain for compost nets wich will be put up tomorrow) and Community Garden group, learning how to set up a garden, that in the cities is usually hidden under the concrete.

At the end of the session, almost everybody had to cut the pastry for the noodles, so that we can eat lunch before the sunset.

But you can be sure, that the handmade gnocchi and freshly baked bread was absolutely best lunch most of us ever had!

It started... with an action!

Sunny Monday welcomed the participants of the „European Youth taking the lead of environmental challenges: cre-active reflections for future concrete innov-actions” seminar in Rome! 17 participants form different corners of Europe joined together to learn, discus, share ideas, experiences. But most importnat – TO TAKE ACTION! And the first day already provided us with great opportunity to engage in deeds, not words (only).

Italy is facing major social issue currently. Italy's parliament approved legislation allowing private management of water services . The new law obliges authorities to lower their shareholding in municipal utilities with water businesses. Opposition leaders have expressed concerns that allowing private management of water services, even if the network remains in pubic hands, could lead to an increase in tariffs. And the activists form Citta dell'Utopia in Rome are definietely agains the idea of making water the object of business as usual tactics. Monday 22nd, March is the World Water Day. Before it happens, on Saturday a mobilisation for public water is going to happen in the streets of Rome and other major cities of Italy.

But our small seminar group managed to make a contribution fo the action already. On the first evening, instead of usual drink and regular chit-chat, we decided to join SCI Italy's activists in their late evening action. Together we were prepering signs, saying „Water is not a commodity. NO for prvate water” and giving details of the venue of the Saturday demonstration. Later in the evening we divided into groups and put the signs next to public drinking watr fountains in the neighbourhood of Citta dell'Utopia. We managed pretty well, and one of the groups was even hidding from the police!

Learn more and thake your stand!

You gotta fight for your right to...

...safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose and the right to be heard

Do you recognize these four rights? The right to safety, information, choice and to be heard are the official consumer rights, since 27 years annually celebrated on a World Consumer Rights Day on 15^th of March. They are your rights, because 'Consumers by definition, include us all', as John F. Kennedy, the founder of WCRD day once said, 'They are the largest economic group, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. Yet they are the only important group... whose views are often not heard'.

The Bill of Consumer Rights was recognized, legitimated and acknowledged by all members of United Nations. As Guidelines for Consumer Protection it was even expanded to the list of eight rights:

• to satisfaction of basic needs,
• to safety (of the products to consumers life),
• to be informed (honest labeling),
• to choose,
• to be heard (in the process of developing the products and well as governmental policies),
• to redress (to receive satisfactory settlement for unsatisfactory services),
• to consumer education (being aware of basic consumer rights and responsibilities and how to act on them),
• and the right to healthy environment (understood in terms of sustainable development).

Even though internationally acknowledged, consumer rights are being ignored and violated both by governments and producers and retailers. It sometimes seems that unofficially it was made much shorter into the list of right to watch commercials and the right to buy, buy, buy.

On this symbolic day, 2^nd Gaia seminar is starting in Rome! Twenty activists from Italy, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Macedonia, Croatia and Georgia will be learning and working on new ideas for making change in the world around us!

In your activities celebrating WCRD you can focus on many different things, like food safety, consumer education, responsible shopping and more. During the Gaia event we will touch those topics, as well as we will work on how to implement them in practice during our projects. To learn more, follow the creatclimate4peace blog and remember to leave your comments!