Happy Earth Day Bonus

Because my environmental news feed overfloweth-ed with goodies yesterday...

Three good quotes:

1. Thoreau

Oh, the number of times I had to read Walden in high school and college... My relationship with Henry David began as many relationships do - with wide-eyed, idealistic infatuation. By the end of my senior year of college I had come to the conclusion that he was a bit of a whiny, over-priviledged mama's boy. Sadly, many "environmentalists" continue in that tradition still today. He did say this though:

“What good is a house if you haven’t got
a tolerable planet to put it on?”

2. Wangari Maathai

She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work with Kenya's Green Belt Movement.

“It's the little things citizens do.
That's what will make the difference.
My little thing is planting trees.”

Well... 30 million trees, that is. The Green Belt Movement works for human rights and democracy through environmental protection. Mostly by planting trees. Planting trees = cleaner water, land and air and helps to create educational and job opportunities for women and the poor. Clean water, land and air + educated and empowered citizens = more stable economies and governments. Sounds pretty peaceful to me.



3. Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot.

I loved the way he said "billions."

"That's here. That's home. That's us.
On it, everyone you ever heard of, every
human being who ever lived, lived out their lives.
The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings,
thousands of confident religions, ideologies and
economic doctrines, every hunter and forager,
every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer
of civilizations, every king and peasant,
every young couple in love, every hopeful child,
every mother and father, every inventor and explorer,
every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician,
every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint
and sinner in the history of our species,
lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."

Happy Earth Day

I saw a nice quote yesterday:

"Never does nature say one thing
and wisdom another." ―Juvenal

Very true.

I then looked up who the heck Juvenal was (ohhh... so that's what wikipedia is for...). No, not a rapper as I initially though. A 1st century Roman poet.

Shame that few civilizations since Juvenal's have actually paid much attention to his sage words.

But it did remind me of one of my most favorite sayings and bumper stickers:

Equally true. And much more my speed.

By the way - if you're out and about and you have a camera handy, there's a cool Earth Day photo project called Earth Mosaic that is going to compile photos from all over the world taken on April 22. Go here to learn more and hopefully participate: earthmosaic.org/index.html.

Hope your day is bright and sunny with all of the clean air and water you need and that you find something nice to take a picture of.

Happy Earth Day!

If you're in need of a new bumper sticker, this one - and many others - can be found at Cafepress.

Of Turtles and Pigs: Two Cool Things

Or nerdy things, depending on your perspective...

1. The Great Turtle Race

Eleven leatherback sea turtles have been tagged with a satellite tracking device and you can follow them on their 3,700 mile migration from Canada to the Caribbean. Each turtle has a name and a sponsor and an Olympic swimming "coach" that will provide commentary on their turtles throughout the race.

You can pick a turtle and sign up to get email updates on it's progress and then follow all of the turtles on a map: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/greatturtlerace.html

My turtle is a 5'3" long / 970 pound female named Nightswimmer. Why is she named Nightswimmer? Because she's sponsored by R.E.M. How cool is that!? (There's also a turtle named Backspacer that's sponsored by Pearl Jam). I'm a little bummed there's not a turtle named Crush, but maybe he wasn't a leatherback...



2. Happy Anniversary Strunk and White

The Elements of Style turns 50 this year. Written by author E. B. White and his professor, William Strunk, it's a good guide for anyone who ever has to write anything. Which is a lot of us.

I received my first copy in college during freshman orientation - along with the APA Style Guide and the university's rules on plagiarism. It was like one of those scenes from a movie where someone enlists in the army and then promptly gets a stack of fatigues and a helmet slapped onto his outstretched arms.

Those last two publications were daunting with lots of meticulous rules to follow and a lecture of what would happen if you didn't - bad marks for the former and expulsion for the latter - yikes. Both scared the beejeezus out of me to the point that I didn't even want to open either of them. But that little, unassuming and nonthreatening copy of S&W - that I could handle.

That eventually dog-eared and scribbled-on copy from college was "borrowed" by an ex-roommate (along with a vintage set of James Joyce's Dubliners and his Collected Poems, but that's a story for a much angrier day...). There's now a much less-worn edition of S&W sitting on the cabinet behind me as we speak. It's there next to the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage and a copy of Robert's Rules of Order (which is surprisingly handy to have around).

S&W is not the most orderly or user-friendly reference book in the world, but it has served me well. Besides - it's not a manual or a rule book - it's the elements of style. And after all, who has better style than the man who wrote Charlotte's Web - except for maybe the man who taught him. Go here and listen to E.B. White read a passage from Charlotte's Web. A very, very cool thing.

Cultist

The other day at work we received an angry, angry letter. One of those in all caps with all kinds of poor grammar and errant use of quotation marks. The kind where you know that if the writer could have typed in a font called "manifesto" he totally would have. It was that good.

An email update from my media service soon found the source of the outrage. The director of the environmental non-profit I do some work for / share office space with was quoted in an article about the nuclear industry. In it he said something about how maybe it would be a good idea to try energy conservation first before we go building any nuclear power plants. And apparently it struck a nerve.

In the letter we were called several crafty names - the very best being "GRANT SEEKING LIBERALS" and "PEA BRAINED CULTISTS."

That first one is outstanding. Because, for one, it's 100% accurate. I am indeed a grant-seeking liberal. It's kinda how I avoid living in a box down by the river. And, for two, it makes me feel so much better about myself. Because here I've been working under the assumption that I was supposed to be a "latte-drinking, Prius-driving liberal." And let me tell ya, I was failing miserably at that.

So really, this is good news.

Ah, but if he is right about that one, does this mean I could also be a "pea-brained cultist"? I don't know. Now I'm worried. Let me think...

I guess I can't deny occasional pea-brained-ness on my part. I once misread a recipe for white chicken chili and instead of 1/4 teaspoon of cloves I added 4 teaspoons and nearly asphyxiated in a giant cloud of clove gas that formed over my crock pot. Things like this happen to me on a fairly regular basis. It's probably why I have to depend on grants for my livelihood - no one would actually pay me an hourly wage to be this much of a ding-bat.

So, OK fine - I'll give him that. But cultist? I may have to draw a line there.

But then I read an article yesterday and it hit me. Like a cloud of clove gas. Yes, I am indeed a cultist.

I belong to the cult of Rick Steves.

Yes, Rick Steves, the dorky PBS travel guy. That Rick Steves.

The article was on Salon.com. They did an interview with him and in it he almost achieved Jon Stewartdom. All funny and smart and self-deprecating and connecting-the-dots with spot-on observations and philosophies about everything from terrorists to marijuana. (The difference being that I have too much of a crush on Jon Stewart to worship him in a cult-like fashion whereas Rick Steves wears those glasses and the shirts with the two front pockets much like a David Koresh would, making him much more cult-worthy... )

Anyway... I first became acquainted with Rick Steves when I was planning a trip to Europe - not quite ten years ago. I had planned to go with a friend and do a quasi back-packing style trip through several countries. A month out she decided not to go and in a fit of pig-headed-ness I decided to just go by myself. To aid me on my trip I had a couple of ridiculously large, travel company-produced Guides To Europe that were quickly deemed useless and abandoned at my first hostel.

But I also had Rick Steves' guide to Italy. Small, concise, well-written and actually useful. He espouses the perfect (well, what I consider to be perfect) philosophy on travel abroad. He gives you tangible and realistic advice while showing you, on an adorably hand-drawn map, directions to the perfect cafe on the perfect side street in Rome. Or a great pub crawl to do in Venice where you will be able to dine for next to nothing on delicious food and wine and hang out with locals. Or which alley to turn down in Florence to find the most delightful tiny hotel where over the front desk in the lobby hangs an enormous painting of Tricky, the crazy owner's chihuahua.

And you go to these places and not only is the cafe perfect, and not only do you spend an evening on the pub crawl drinking wine and being quizzed on jazz by a bunch of twenty-something Venetians, and not only do you actually get to meet the real, live Tricky, but you also meet other Americans along the way. Americans who believe in the same idea of travel - that you should be a "visitor" to another country, not a "tourist." Americans who believe that our way isn't always the best way and that you don't learn anything when you travel if you spend all your time speaking extra loudly in English and don't deliberately wander away from the souvenir carts.

Americans who believe - after you have all downed several bottles of vino and a plate or two of gnocchi - that Rick Steves should be declared your personal god as you start sketching on a napkin the temple you're going to erect in his honor out of focaccia bread in the middle of Piazza San Marco.

It's been a while since I've reaffirmed my devotion to my dorky, public television travel guy. (What with saving all my money for the lattes and my new Prius I just haven't had any money to travel!) But I think after reading this article that should be taken care of. Pea-brained cultist that I apparently am.

And now, I have to go back to work. I have a grant report due tomorrow.

Pardon Me Boys

Here's a link to a nice slide show of the "green" parts of the economic stimulus plan.

I know that opinions vary when it comes to this. Am I sure that it will work or is the best thing to do? No. But my knowledge of economic matters is not good so even if I was opinionated on the matter, I have no knowledge or experience with which to back it up.

And as we know, that only qualifies me to be a hate-filled radio talk show monkey. But I digress...

What I will say is that it's nice to see a president who connects the dots. Who gets that a healthy, sustainable environment helps to create a healthy, sustainable economy and vice versa. Because what I do know is that you can't have one without the other. Our formerly robust economy turned out to be, well, not so much robust as it was a big fat house of cards. And the quality of - and our collective attitude toward - our environment has definitely reflected that.

So, I would very much like to give this plan the benefit of the doubt and be supportive.

I only have one problem so far: the proposed high-speed rail lines.

What's my problem, you ask. Well, let's take a look:


See there... in the lower right section of our country. Anything look odd or amiss? Like, I don't know... the fact there's only one state in that whole area without any rail lines. At all. Yeah. That would be my state.

Did I miss something? I thought I learned in the 7th grade that the word "Tennessee" was derived from the Cherokee word for "meeting place" as in "Wouldn't Tennessee be a great meeting place for all of these high speed rail lines?"

But no. Apparently Tennessee is actually derived from the Cherokee word for "No thanks, I'd rather drive."

And apparently no one from the Department of Transportation has ever had to drive from Memphis to Nashville. If they had, it would have been the first line drawn. Because that drive? It totally sucks. It's worse even than the drive from Cincinnati to Columbus.

Except if you look at the map - Cincinnati to Columbus is totally slated for a rail line.

But don't worry. I'm still here. Being supportive. And not at all disgruntled. In the great Volunteer State. Stuck in my car.

Do they have Lenten Disciplines at Costco?

Ahhh Lent. It always reminds me of Jon Stewart and something he said in a stand-up routine about us gentiles:

"Yom Kippur - we don’t eat for one day and all our sin for the whole year is atoned.
Beat that, Lent! 40 days to one day. See, even in sin you’re paying retail."

He makes a good point.

My former priest was always an advocate for "taking something on" rather than "giving something up" when it came to Lent. She thought "discipline" shouldn't necessarily mean sacrifice and punishment, but should instead be about learning and introspection.

She's no Jon Stewart, but she also makes a good point :)

I've tried the last couple of years to do one of each - give something up and take something on. I'd like to think it's because of the high spiritual plane upon which I reside, but I don't think anyone - including me - is buying that. No, really, it's more like hedging my bets. That MAYBE this way I'll succeed in following through with one of my choices all the way to Easter. Or at least Palm Sunday Eve...

So, this year I thought I'd give it another whirl.

Giving up: Plastic bottles and containers. I'm not a big consumer of bottled water, but I do enjoy far, far too many plastic bottles of Diet Coke. And I do try to choose an alternative to plastic containers when it comes to things at the grocery store, but I eat out way too much and that often involves a plastic container of some type. Case in point - I picked up a few slices of chocolate cake from a bakery for a little Fat Tuesday celebration in the office. Each slice in a separate little plastic box. Madness. Tasty madness. But madness nonetheless.

This picture is part of an amazing exhibit by artist Chris Jordan titled,
Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, and depicts the two
million plastic bottles used in the US every five minutes.

Taking on: More than a year ago I got a little printer/scanner/copier combo thing. It's very pretty and does a really good job. Well, it would if I ever used it. One of the reasons for getting it was to scan in all of my old photos. But oh the time that would take. It's an overwhelming project.

This picture is part of an amazing display by Gert titled, Procrastination:
The Unfinished Photo Scanning Project and depicts the years between
her first Kodak Instamatic (ca. 1979) and her first digital camera (ca. 2005).
Not pictured: additional bin of photos-to-be-scanned-that-actually-made-it-into-photo-albums.

But it occurred to me... you know what else this little discipline could be? Blog fodder. So for this Lenten Season I hope to tackle a life's worth of photos AND take you on the journey with me.

That's right. For 40 days.

In this instance I think my priest might side with Jon Stewart.

Snakes on a Plane(t)

Apparently the threat of climate change is still way on the back burner of our collective concern. Survey results I heard mentioned in the news yesterday said that it was at the bottom of the list of priorities with most people. Understandably there are things like war and the economy that are weighing on people's minds lately - but let's be truthful - concern for who will be our next American Idol probably scored much higher than the people at Pew would lead us to believe.

And I don't know how much hope I have that climate change will ever be a big concern for people. We are currently in a giant "green" trend lately and climate change isn't catching on. The looming threat of drowning polar bears doesn't even seem to be getting the job done either. And you know how much we love the polar bears. Almost as much as American Idol.

I think a new tactic is needed. If cute won't get us to pay attention then cute needs to be replaced with fear. We respond to fear. Not real, could-actually-happen fear - like more severe and frequent weather events, or water scarcity, or crop elimination. No, no. We scoff at that kind of fear. For us, the more irrational and kooky the better.

Our new administration is reportedly going to dial back the fear mongering AND use of the grammatically inappropriate phrase "War on Terror." This means that soon there is going to be a scare-tactic void to be filled and I say climate change is the perfect candidate. And the first order of business should be to get a new mascot.

So, if it were up to me...

This guy:

Totally fired.

(It's okay, really, I'm sure those penguins from that Coke commercial will save him. He'll be fine...)

Your new climate change spokesmodel? This guy.

That's right. Gigantic. Scary-assed. Snake. The fossil remains of an enormous snake have been discovered who existed sometime after the dinosaurs and who grew to oh, about 40 feet long, weighed more than a ton and snacked on crocodiles.

How can a giant extinct snake be either relative OR scary as far as climate change is concerned, you ask? Well... turns out that in order for a cold-blooded creature to be able to grow to and survive at that size, it's environment had to be really hot all the time. Hotter than they ever thought the tropics could get. As hot as the tropics could quite possibly get again if we don't start paying attention. And if it's going to get hotter there, then it's also going to get hotter here, and I don't know about you, but I for one am just fine with the current size of the occasional friendly neighborhood garter snake I find in my yard that still manages to scare the crap out of me.

So there you go. The real threat of famine and drought aren't frightening enough to get us to change to compact florescents or stop wasting gas? Fine. Whatever.

How about the chance that reptiles might grow to be the size of a school bus? Better? I thought so.

And really, when it's put that way the choice is so much more simple, don't you think?

This:

Or this:

Seriously, people. Change your f*cking lightbulbs.

Shopping That's Good For You

No, really. I promise...

An acquaintance of mine has a business called ASK Apparel. She and her sisters make hand-printed and hand-painted t-shirts, scarves, totes and such. All organic fibers, natural dyes, and a sustainable business ethic to boot. Plus, they're super nice.

I recently bought a t-shirt from them at our neighborhood farmers' market and I loooove it. It's a screen print of a rooster crowing at the sun. A nice reminder to be happy in the morning especially now that it's dark when I get up. It was a hard choice though - they had lots of cute designs.

In the process of my purchase I also signed up for their e-newsletter and today received an online $5 coupon on my next order. So... I thought a good way to spread the love of my shirt and of my few lovely readers would be to offer up the coupon to anyone who might want to purchase something.

So if you've been hankerin' for a new t-shirt or need a unique baby/kid gift, post a comment to me and I'll find a way to forward you my coupon.

Happy shopping!

An Inconvenient Gadget

On my iGoogle page is a gadget for the National Geographic photo of the day. It's very cool. But be warned - if you click on the photo you will learn more than you really wanted to. And we all know that learnin' only leads to trouble.

Because sometimes you see a cute photo of a bear cub and learn that this type of bear has a really long tongue so it can eat ants out of an anthill like an aardvark. And then you share this bit of information at a cocktail party when someone mentions something only slightly related to the subject of bears. And then you watch as people start fake-looking around for more artichoke dip.

Other times the lovely photo of the bear cub turns out to be a very sad photo of a bear cub who lost its mother because run-off from the condos being built upstream has filled her river with sediment and destroyed the salmon population so she can't build up enough fat for hibernation.... and then global warming has screwed up her hibernation schedule so she woke up too early and was too skinny anyway because of the no-fish situation... so then she wandered absent-mindedly - what with the lack of sleep and the low-blood sugar and all - into a road and was run down by a Hummer. Then the next time you eat salmon it tastes all kinds of depressing and guilty.

But hey, here's an encouraging photo:

When I saw it this morning I immediately thought "Oh great! 'Cute Penguin Poses in Front of Melting Ice Cap.' I'm guessing he died of heat stroke or was eaten by a ravenous polar bear seconds after the photo was taken." And of course I have to open it and find out for sure... But no! Turns out, THIS kind of penguin (a chinstrap penguin - how cute!) is one of the more warm-weathered penguins so it is actually thriving in the now-toasty Antarctic. Awesome.

If that guy I heard speak in Huntsville has this same gadget on his iGoogle page I bet he is soooo stoked right now.

I Think I Have a Bit of a Crush...

...on Dan Neil.

Who's Dan Neil, you ask? Well, I had no clue until this morning either. Apparently, he's an automotive critic for the L.A. Times.

Huh?

I know. Considering that I don't care about the fine wood detailing or superior handling of the new fourwheeldrivewhathaveyou let alone anything that goes on in the city of Los Angeles unless it has to do with George Clooney, I was a bit surprised myself.

Turns out though that ole Danny Boy (that's what I like to call him) has said something that I have been hoping and praying someone in the "mainstream" news media would say:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GREEN SUV.

And the fact that these words came from a guy whose job it is to review cars, and is read by guys who really like cars, makes me all the more giddy.

Giddy like I'm in the lunch room in 4th grade and the 6th grade boy with hair like Shaun Cassidy just walked by.

I discovered this man of my dreams while reading the Smart Growth America newsletter. Their quote of the week was from his article reviewing the new Mercedes-Benz advanced diesel GL320... CDI... XYZ... 8675309...

So I read the article and from almost the get-go he's off on a tangent ranting about the fact that the 2008 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid was just named Green Car of the Year. A Tahoe. Green Car of the Year? According to whom? Baby Seal Bludgeoners Quarterly?!? Well, turns out it's Green Car Journal. (I've never heard of Green Car Journal, so I shouldn't presume, but I'm guessing if we dig down far enough we'd probably find that they are published by the same conglomerate as BSBQ.)

OK, fine. So a legitimate industry magazine named it Green Car of the Year. A Tahoe. I'm sorry, but unless it's made of compressed poop from a free-range chicken ranch and powered by the happy thoughts of hippies, I highly doubt that it qualifies as green. Just having a hybrid engine DOESN'T COUNT. When you use 5,000 pounds of steel on wheels to haul an 80-pound child to soccer practice, any teeny tiny bit of guilt that you might have can not be absolved by stuffing a hybrid engine in it. Too big is too big.

Unless you are hauling actual cargo or towing something heavy (and your skis don't count!) - ANY GALLON OF GAS IN AN SUV IS A WASTED GALLON OF GAS.

And that's just what Dan says. Only better. And, well, more than four or five people (and some random guy in Portugal, apparently) actually reads what he writes.

Whether it's a hybrid SUV - or a diesel SUV, as in the case of the new Mercedes - it isn't justified:

"But, sadly, except in highly unusual cases where needs and vehicle match up precisely, these big diesels offer only a variety of complacency, coaching people to keep their over-sized vehicles while assuaging whatever guilt they might feel... I'm sorry. It's just methadone for gasoline addiction."

Now, I have to admit that part of me does disagree with Dan and myself because I also have a personal philosophy (that I'm sure I picked up from someone else along the way) that "no one can do everything, but everyone can do something." And I firmly believe that more people would live more environmentally sustainably if they didn't think it required massive amounts of money, time, effort and a bulk purchase of patchouli. It doesn't. You don't have to change your entire life and go off-grid. I promise. If everyone would just make one little change here or there, the impact would be enormous. So part of me thinks that, in the long run, if you're hell bent and determined to buy a Tahoe no matter what, then by all means, please buy the hybrid version.

But I just can't do it. When it comes to the ginormous SUVs,"these harlots of petroleum" (as my new boyfriend says) I have to draw the line. And it's time that someone out there, someone that Joe Golfshirt listens to, said what needed to be said:

"In a time of surpassing urgency — whether your pet issue is global warming, oil security or economic disruption — we are accepting, even rewarding, relatively modest and incremental changes in efficiency that require no sacrifice, no change in consumer behavior at all. This isn't going to get it done, people. The notion that American drivers can sally on as before, driving the miles and tonnage they do, and only the technology under the hood has to change, is complete bollocks."

Amen, honey!

And (GASP!) it sounds like he might even be British!

George Clooney who?!?