Hello, friends. Welcome to the longest few days of the year. Perhaps not coincidentally, Green Scene is feeling a bit sleep-deprived, but not so much that our interest in Charlottesville’s ongoing greenness begins to flag—no, not one bit! Bravely we lift our heads from the pillow in order to report the following local green newsbits! Up and at ’em!
Number one, all the national parks in the, well, nation are going to let us in for free on June 20 and 21. That would be this Saturday and Sunday, in case you didn’t know, and we have a national park right up there on the mountain, in case you didn’t know. Shenandoah, I think it’s called. The free days will happen again July 18-19 and August 15-16. Here’s my spiel about national parks: It’s a shame how they embody the idea that "nature" is a special thing that lives on a mountain and that you have to take a trip to see, as opposed to something that is always everywhere around us. Since Shenandoah is free this weekend, it’ll be a little easier to remember that it is not an island with clear boundaries, except on human maps. As far the bears, tulip trees and whippoorwills are concerned, it’s continuous with the rest of the environment.
Sermon over; moving on to number two. This week, Charlottesville City Council talked about the idea of spraying pesticides around the city to control mosquitoes. It doesn’t sound like they’ll do it, which is good, because as Council’s own agenda item says, the pesticide in question is harmful to honeybees. We ain’t a green city if we’re killing honeybees; we don’t care how many lips are "swelling and itching for days."
Number three, as has been extensively covered elsewhere, we are getting a "SmartGrid" from our mighty power company, Dominion. Green Scene does not like Dominion. But we don’t see how we could fail to support this idea.
Number four, if you have too much food from your CSA or you’ll be out of town on a pickup day, you can call the Charlottesville Community Food Project and they’ll get the food into the hands of someone who needs it. Hurrah! Write to cvillecfp@gmail.com or call 804-6441.
Number five, Green Scene is on Twitter as CVILLEGreen. I’ll follow yours if you follow mine.
And that is all for now.