Last week, the GGG crew was on a mission to interview the artist and activist, “Moby” (Richard Melville Hall). Being that we’re an environmental group, we talked with him about one of his pressing concerns: how the over consumption of meat leads to global warming. Moby’s new book, Gristle , addresses this relationship in detail, describing how the consumption of meat hurts everyone in the world community. The most interesting thing I learned from Moby is that although he is a vegan*  he respects others’ eating choices because he’d like others to respect his veganism in return. He also explained to us that even if people won’t necessarily change their diets completely, if they would just stop OVER-CONSUMING meat, that alone could make a positive change. Less meat = less heat! It was a great learning from Moby how our eating choices influence everyone around us. This “little field trip” was also particularly special because Moby was kind enough to share with us his REALLY nice apartment!! Just another day exploring the LES with the Girls Club! Thanks Moby!

Brittany & me           Brittany,Me,Moby&Gigi      All of Moby’s awards

*Vegan: A Vegan does not eat anything that is an animal product including cheese, milk or meat and will not wear any products tested on or made out of an animal or animal skin.

Yesterday, Girls Gone Green was on a mission to compare the prices of organic and non-organic fruits, vegetables, meats and poultry at different grocery stores in the LES (Whole Foods, Key Foods, and Fine Fare). When we examined the meats we compared not only the price per lb but also the quality (for example, Where the cows fed antibiotics? a corn or grass diet?).  It was really interesting to find out that our poultry and meat labels do not always identify whether the animal was in a coop/fed-lot or able to roam freely, or whether it was fed corn-feed or a natural diet.  We need better labels. As we passed by the 4th street Key Foods, we took pictures of the people recycling cans and waiting on line to recycle. An elderly lady freaked out and popped a bottle out at us! It was so funny and yet scary, so BEWARE! And never take pictures of people recycling their cans..it can be dangerous

On the bright side, we found a peach shaped like a heart; here I am holding it:

On July 21st the Girls Gone Green were on a mission to explore the neighborhood around Con-Edison. By doing so, we’d be able to see how communities were affected by industries surrounding them.
It’s amazing to see that this plant (Con-Edison) provides electricity to most of lower Manhattan. It is a great thing for New Yorkers to have a reliable source of energy (especially in the summer heat), but high energy consumption also negatively impacts the local community.

Poor outdoor, as well as indoor air quality, worsens kids’ asthma and the health conditions of others. We think that city residents should reduce their use of electricity in general and that the city should make more use of solar power and other energy alternatives instead of relying on electricity plants such as Con Edison.

This walk to Con-Edison helped us became aware of all the pollution our city faces daily.

Yesterday, my group and I went to the Bowery Poetry Cafe to read a book called “Kiki Strike”,  by Kirsten Miller. This book mentioned “underground cities”. We knew there was such things as underground cities but now it was just a matter of fact of finding them. The book inspired us to find underground cities in NYC. The book,”Kiki Strike”, mentioned a underground cemetery called “The Marble Cemetery”. Your probably wondering ” Yea..People are buried underground. What’s  the big deal about being buried underground?” Well in The Marble Cemetery on 2nd Street and 2nd Avenue, you can actually walk through the underground. It’s like a whole little world inside. The cemetery had “underground” tunnels to lead to different tombs. When we saw that the location of the cemetery was close by, we decided we wanted to go check it out because it’s right around the corner !!! Why not go and check it out? We got permission from the Bowery Hotel to go to the back patio that overlooked the back of the cemetery. We all became eager to go check out the actual place so we went around the block to see the entrance of the cemetery. When we showed up at first we couldn’t have access  because only descendants from the buried people could enter the garden. Fortunately, the gardeners let us in because we explained how we were reading a book and became inspired to visit the site. The cemetery gardener was super nice and gave us a tour and explained how the tombs were laid underground. He also explained why the people were buried underground into tunnels because there had been a disease going around that they believed was spread through vapors but the real cause was contaminated water. It was amazing just being in the garden/cemetery because the place was nicely cleaned up and lots of beautiful plants growing everywhere. While we were there, the gardener showed us different types of insects he came into contact on a daily basis. There was beetles, worms, dragon flies, slugs and much more. He also said that at one point there was garden snakes. I’m glad we started reading the book “Kiki Strike” because it inspired us to go explore the city more, there so much we do not know about the city we live in. It was an AMAZiNG experience. We got permission to enter a hotel in which we weren’t even going to stay in AND had access to a restricted to family only underground cemetery. How much better can that get?

Today we watched a movie called ” The Garden”. This movie had a great impact on me because I came to realize there are injustices the government commits from time to time. During the 1990’s there was a riot in Los Angeles, California, leaving the city in ruins and in a great mess. There was shattered glass, stores were vandalized, tires burnt all over the place. The violence was so great that it resulted in the death of 57 people and hundreds of people injured. Although it looked like nothing could be done to restore the corrupt city of Los Angeles, a group of families began what would become the biggest urban farm in the United States.

The urban farm was called the “South Central Farmers”. This farm created a sense of belonging to the community because it provided a source of healthy food for them. I really enjoyed the fact that the people cared enough about their community that they cleaned it up and started from scratch to restore beauty to the city. They also created something useful to the people of the community.

It turned out that the land being used as the farm had an owner who tried to take the land back. This part upset me so much because these people had worked hard for this farm and to make it productive and now 12 years later the owner wants to claim it.

I was surprised how the owner gave them 5 weeks to gather 16.3 million dollars to keep the farm. If they didn’t have the money within 5 weeks they would be evicted. I felt so proud of the farmers because they pulled it off, gathering the money by holding concerts and having marches. It was so impressive. 16.3 million dollars in 5 WEEKS! To gather that much money in 5 weeks would take months not weeks!! I was upset at owner of the land underestimated them when he thought that they would not be able to get  the money on time. When they did, the owner, Ralph Horowitz, didn’t accept their money nor give them the land.