New York is one of the great cities of the world. Its reputation in finance, fashion and media is well known. It is also a city that is greening up. Other cities such as San Francisco, Portland,Oregon and Vancouver, BC have been implementing sustainability programs for some now, but recently the Empire State Building announced a new multi media exhibit that showcases a $20 million energy retrofit project. Meanwhile over in Brooklyn urban farming is taking root on the tops of roofs. The urban farming movement is spreading as enterprising individuals and businesses recognize the potential of transforming empty commercial rooftops into local farms. 
Brooklyn Grange is a 40,000 square foot organic farm on top of a warehouse the grows vegetables without chemicals. Throughout NY and other cities there are large amounts of empty rooftop space. I think you’re seeing where this is going. Urban cities have the potential to be transformed into a mecca of agriculture. There has also been lots of interests in vertical farming where skycrapers depending on their design could be used to seed the growing urban farming movement. And you thought New York was just about fashion.
BROOKLYN GRANGE
The Homemade Electric Porsche
Jeff McCabe didn’t have $125,000 for the Tesla Roadster, so he decided to make an electric car on his own, for a quarter of the price. McCabe recently met with Katie Fehrenbacher at GigaOm for the network’s weekly Green Overdrive Series to explain how he gutted his old-school Porsche by removing 1,700 pounds of unnecessary gear that stood between him and his dream of lightweight electric freewheeling.
In its place, he installed a lithium ion phosphate battery capable of taking McCabe 120 miles without a charge and to a top speed of 85 mph. McCabe claims he could have left in gears that would have allowed the car to reach higher speeds. But this isn’t about speed, he says. It’s about performance. (And a little bit of aesthetics, as you can see from McCabe’s hair-raising paint job.) Watch the videoto see how McCabe converted his Porsche into an electric car.
SKIN
Suffering for fashion is one thing (think sky-high stilettos, rib-cracking corsets, and sprayed-on jeans), but getting some hapless animal to do it for you is quite another. Skin Trade is a new indie documentary that cuts to the bone of the issue, so to speak, by splicing interviews of prominent animal advocates with graphic—and we do mean graphic—footage of what goes into making a fur coat. Available next month on DVD, Skin Trade takes a no-holds-barred look at the business of killing animals for fashion, from the earliest days of fur trading to current-day claims about fur’s inherent sustainability.