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February 28, 2005
More soup, with apologies to those Down Under
I have a friend off for a week at the beach in Australia, but here in New England it's still soup weather and this is a favorite, full of ginger and garlic to help fight colds. Couldn't be simpler, or easier on the earth, this favorite lentil soup, based on recipe from the New York Times. I always double or triple it.
Lentil & Ginger Soup
1 pound brown lentils
2 T olive oil
1 large onion
3-6 cloves garlic
3-4 T fresh grated ginger root
3-4 carrots, chopped finely
About 9 cups water and/or other liquid--chicken or vegetable stock are ideal
Soak the lentils for a couple of hours in some of the water. Lightly fry the onion and garlic in olive oil (actually, you can skip this step if you like, just throw everything together). Add remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, and simmer until beautifully soft, a brown porridge studded with golden bits of carrot.
Season with salt and pepper, and serve with splash of balsamic vinegar. Freezes well. Yield: 8 servings
Posted by Karen Christensen at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2005
Green books
Publishing does a lot of good: promoting global understanding, sharing knowledge, providing low-impact entertainment, supporting education and lifelong learning. But it also requires a lot of paper, much of which is sourced from unsustainably managed forest. Greenpeace has launched a campaign to promote sustainable publishing practices, and as a result The Armchair Environmentalist is one of the first books in the UK to be printed on 100% recycled paper, and I'm delighted of course.
"Greenpeace is urging UK publishers to follow the example of Canadian publishers, 35 of whom, including Random House Canada and Penguin Canada, have made formal commitments to phase out ancient forest fibre from their books. As a result five new 'ancient forest friendly' book papers have been created and three million Canadian books have been printed on 'ancient forest friendly' paper.
"This includes the Canadian edition of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which is the only edition in the world printed on 100% post consumer recycled paper.
"By printing the Canadian edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on 100% post-consumer, processed chlorine-free paper, significant ecological savings were made, including:
* 39,320 trees.
* 63,435,801 litres of water (water to fill 42 Olympic sized swimming pools).
* 854,988 kgs of solid waste.
* electricity to power the average home for 262 years.
* greenhouse gases equivalent to driving a car 5.3 million kilometres."
Please do look at the Greenpeace Save or Delete campaign. In the United States, Green Press Initiative.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:56 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2005
Environmentalism goes to hospice
I can't believe I missed this when it came out in October, and that I found it only because the lines were long at the food coop before the holiday weekend (today is Presidents' Day, here in the US, and the radio hosts make terrible jokes about not being able to tell a lie, an ironic measure of a president these days). There is a loose network in the US of liberally minded people who are willing to look beyond the conventions of the left, the Democratic Party, and the new age. There's a cool rationality in their criticisms of the overly rational left, and a refreshing willingness to face facts. Now I've just got to figure out where The Armchair Environmentalist fits in: "Death of Environmentalism".
For some commentary, try these links:
Mark Hertsgaard
Living On Earth
And the authors' own website, at the Breakthrough Institute. But don't think the blog is a blog; it's just a collection of articles about the report (come on, guys, keep up the debate!).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2005
Don't Make Mine a (Big) Mac
You may not remember the McLibel trial in Britain, the most expensive case, I think it was, in UK history. During the days I lived there, McDonalds did about as good a job as George W. Bush does today at promoting a positive view of the United States. They sued everyone, from big time journalists to small time authors like me. I think I have the distinction, though, of being the only American ever threatened by McDonalds with a libel suit, because I lived and wrote in England. I was testing Google searches this morning, trying to understand how their ranking works, and came across the story I wrote about my encounter with the Big Mac, McDonalds vs. Christensen story, and much more about the McLibel case.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:03 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2005
Surviving Online
There's a section in The Armchair Environmentalist called "How to Survive the Online Life," covering Repetitive Strain Injury and offering some suggestions about exercise and positioning. But we also talk about the bigger question of how the planet is going to--we hope--survive our online lives. While using recycled paper is a fine thing to do, in an office or when printing books, computers are a bigger problem. So I was fascinated by this article, Design to Recycle, written by Alex Pang of the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto. My secret passion is the whole world of design, and I helped found the UK Ecological Design Association, so this analysis really resonates for me, and will, I hope, give you some new ideas.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:54 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2005
Sweet romance
I'm not crazy about people who give advice then tell you to check with your doctor, your therapist, and your gas station attendant before trying it. But I received an email yesterday asking about advice on "green sex" in my previous book, Eco Living, and I thought I'd try to answer it here. Given the topic, I do need to say that you should check with your doctor or medical professional before trying this, a new form of contraception. One of the nicest things that ever happened to me was a letter from a reader who said she was naming her baby after me, but I don't plan to be responsible for babies coming into the world!
What I mentioned in Eco Living was a special diaphram used with honey as the spermicide. I heard about this from a doctor I knew in London, and the idea intrigued me. But I spoke to the doctor who was using these with her patients, and she didn't want me to give her name, or quote her. But a quick Google search shows that you can easily get information on this undoubtedly natural and nontoxic method of birth control. Just search for "honey cap contraception." And comments from anyone who uses a honey cap are welcome, either her or to my email address.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:25 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2005
A third way with biotechnology
It always amuses me that corporations would tell us to trust them, as if they were priests or surgeons instead of merchants, hawking their goods as best they can. They talk as though their leadership role model is Mother Teresa instead of Henry Ford. They want to feed the developing world, right? Rice with Vitamin A, that life-transforming grain developed by the philanthropists at Monsanto.
What they carefully ignore, and Greens don’t do enough to publicize, is that there is a third way, a kind of biotechnology that combines the ingenuity humans have always shown in agriculture with techniques possible in today’s labs. If I were one of the scientists coming up with these brilliant ideas I know I’d be choking with frustration on my open-pollinated carrot.
The aim of this open-source biotechnology, being developed in universities around the world, is to improve crops just as humans have for millennia – a process that is safe and sensible, and highly effective. Instead of injecting genes from one species into another (daffodils into rice, fish into strawberries), these scientists look for traits in related wild plants or latent genes within a plant itself. Instead of so-called ‘terminator’ seeds – which can’t reproduce so farmers have to buy expensive GM seed every year – the new varieties are open-pollinated.
This is the kind of technology we need, the kind we should support because it gives us a chance at a future that’s fair to the small farmer, a world where the rich won’t live in gated, air-filtered eco-estates while the poor take what they can get in a desecrated world.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:18 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
One drop at a time
Midwinter is when the gardening bug strikes me, because I'm so much in need of greenery and flowers (and folic acid!). One thing I'm doing is growing sprouts, sick of the high prices and dreariness of the salad greens in the shops (they're clearly labelled as coming from California, with signs apologizing for the high price).
I was rinsing my sprouts last night, filling the jar with tap water and letting it run out through the screen lid, and realized that while it's cheap to grow sprouts (one tablespoon of alfalfa seed makes a quart of crunchy salad stuff) this form of agriculture requires a prodigious amount of pure clean water.
Water is fast approaching fossil fuels as the resource we'll be battling over. And there's no substitute for it, no way to make it or capture it from space (as we can grab energy from sunlight streaming down to earth). For a start, let's start looking at water afresh, appreciating what we have (safe tap water, clean clothes, and hot showers whenever we like). Then we can work together to find ways to ensure that our grandchildren, too, as well as other children around the world, will be able to enjoy these things.
What to do?
Not only can you just get used to turning the tap--whoops, in the US we call this a faucet--on and off more. Perhaps the very most important way to save water is to make sure it's not just leaking or dripping away. A drip of one drop per second can easily waste 2,700 gallons of water over the course of a year!! A hot water tap is even more problematic, and expensive.
But plumbers are expensive, too, so my resolution this month is to order--and use--a book I've long known about: Dare to Repair: A Do-it-Herself Guide to Fixing (Almost) Anything in the Home. My daughter and I will fix a leak or two ourselves and report back!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:19 PM | Comments (0)
February 9, 2005
Harvesting nature
You may have noticed that environmental history has influenced my thinking. It ought to be possible to learn from our mistakes, after all. It’s some comfort to know that humans in the past, too, have messed with their environment throughout history, turned forest into desert, polluted rivers, and poisoned themselves!
But we know so much more, in scientific terms, and we have remarkable tools for predicting the results of different courses of action. History—-and our great-grandchildren-—will judge us harshly if we do things now to protect and restore the natural environment we still, in spite of technology, depend on.
When I was in London last week, I got a taste of the past when I went to the Fan Museum in Greenwich.
I adore fans (my publishing company’s logo, in fact, is a fan) and there were beautiful fans from China, Japan, and European countries. What struck me was how their beauty, often, derived from nature. There was a case showing species of turtle from which polished tortoiseshell came. A large case was filled with Victorian presentation fans, the elaborate plumes women often carried when being ‘presented’ to the Queen. Ostriches are not terribly attractive, but their feathers are extraordinary, delicate puffy tips that must catch the faintest whisper of wind. Many of the fans incorporated other bright feathers, often with the species unidentified, and even shiny beetle wings. Some feathers were dyed, but most of the brilliance was direct from nature.
What were they thinking, one asks, the people who so profligately ‘harvested’ ivory and turtle shells and birds’ wings? What are we thinking, using clean water from ancient aquifers, timber from irreplaceable forests, and fossil fuels? It’s all a matter of perspective. Maybe what we need is ecological future fiction, to help us value the things we have in time to protect them.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:49 AM | Comments (0)
February 2, 2005
London life
I haven't noticed anyone wearing a mask this trip. Sometimes you see bicyclists in cities wearing white masks, which certainly makes sense given the air quality on London streets. I never did, myself, when I cycled here. There are many cyclists in London and especially in Oxford, which is great. The physical benefits of cycling and walking outweigh the effects of breathing car exhaust - and in fact people in cars breathe air that is just as polluted. But I talked to a taxi driver last night who said he counted between 5 and 7pm 57 cyclists riding without lights. Drivers hate this, and it's amazing to me that cyclists would take such a risk, given the, well, forceful way people drive in Britain! Cycle paths and lanes would be a help, but cyclists won't help their case by being careless about safety (or by being "knocked off their bikes" as the taxi driver put it).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:29 AM | Comments (0)