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Check out my latest Turning Point podcast about the N.C. Farm to Fork Summit taking place this week. The Center for Environmental Farming Systems convened the summit on Monday and Tuesday to finalize proposals to promote and strengthen sustainable agriculture and local foods consumption in the state.

You can track the progress of the summit at the Farm to Fork Web site. There, you can check out highlights from Monday's discussions and find most of the "game changer" and local actions ideas on the Web pages of the specific working issues teams. I heard that speaker presentations will also be added to the site this week.

About 400 people from across the state registered to attend the summit. Some of the Triad area registrants represented Urban Harvest in Greensboro, the Guilford, Davidson and Forsyth County Cooperative Extension Service agencies, the Piedmont Conservation Council, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Deep Roots Market, Healthful Living Organic Farm, Peregrine Farm, N.C. A&T, city of Greensboro Parks & Recreation, Slow Food Piedmont Triad, and Garden Discovery Tours.

Today, Gov. Perdue is expected to address the summit participants at 9 a.m., with the rest of the day focused on regional proposals. (I couldn't make it as I have another story to work on.)

Check out the latest episode of Turning Point, based on "Cradle to Cradle" architect William McDonough's visit to UNC Chapel Hill last week. (Read some background on this design philosophy from a previous post.)

More than 800 people attended his lecture and book signing, the largest crowd in the history of the 41-year- Fred T. Foard Jr. Memorial Lecture series.

McDonough has designed the Greenbridge mixed-use development in downtown Chapel Hill, which will offer 98 condos, a retail area, green roofs, solar panels, rainwater runoff systems and a community learning center to teach sustainable living practices. (Interestingly, one of the development partners, Tim Toben, is the son of Carolyn Toben, co-founder of the Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World in Whitsett.)

Some McDonough quotes from his presentation last Wednesday:

"The question at this point in history that we're looking at is what is our intention as a human species? We clearly are now the dominant one."

"What we're looking for is 100 percent fabulous where things can be environmentally intelligent, economically intelligent and socially fair."

"The environment wants to be nurtured. It wants to be fecund. It wants to be generated and regenerated."

"Efficiency isn't necessarily beautiful. The idea of being effective is more interesting to us."

"The question is are we doing the right thing? Then we can go about doing it the right way."

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Update (April 9): Eco-cities are not having much success in China, including one of McDonough's projects, according to this article.

I have added a podcast called "Turning Point" to the features available on goGreenTriad.com. I will continue with this long term if interest exists; let me know what you think and share ideas. The podcast will feature audio recaps of events going on in the Triad as well as Q&A's with people involved in the various sustainability movements.

This first episode is about the UNCG community gardening conference that took place this weekend: