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May 31, 2005
Arctic votes
I can't do better than copy here an email from Beryl Bender Birch about the Arctic Refuge. Unfortunately I've deleted her first message, which was full of the kind of righteous indignation that strikes all of us at times, and which should strike more of us more often. But you can find out all you need to know on this with a quick search online (try this). And here's Beryl*:
Hi Everyone,
Thank you sooooooo much for writing back to my email on the Arctic national Wildlife Reserver. Sorry, but the last (and most important part) part of the email was cut off, as you have all pointed out. Here is what we left off (duh! what kind of an activist am I??) and the information you need to make the calls.
Please check the lists below to see if your senator and/or representative was a Hero (voted to against the budget resolution and to preserve the ANWR) a Disappointment (votred for the budget resolution and to open for oil exploration) or a No-Show. If so, please call them at the phone number provided and deliver the message suggested below. These calls are enormously important. They will set the stage for the final round in this historic fight. Our targeted members of Congress need to know that pro-Arctic constituents like you will be watching their vote very closely.
* Beryl is perhaps the leading popularizer of "Power Yoga," or astanga yoga, and she and I coauthored the yoga article in Berkshire's International Encyclopedia of Women & Sport.
If you are unable to telephone, then please go to the Senate website http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm or the House website http://www.house.gov/writerep/, where you can look up your members of Congress and send them email messages.
ARCTIC HEROES
Call (between 9am and 6pm eastern time) and thank them for voting against the
budget resolution last week because it threatened the Arctic Refuge. Urge them
to defend the Arctic again when the budget reconciliation bill comes to a vote.
Tell them you'll be watching their vote closely.
Senator Lincoln Chafee (RI): 202-224-2921
Senator Mike DeWine (OH): 202-224-2315
Representative Charles Bass (NH-2): 202-225-5206
Representative Sherwood Boehlert (NY-24): 202-225-3665
Representative Michael Castle (DE-at large): 202-225-4165
Representative Nancy Johnson (CT-5): 202-225-4476
Representative Timothy Johnson (IL-15): 202-225-2371
Representative Jim Leach (IA-2): 202-225-6576
Representative Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2): 202-225-6572
Representative Jim Ramstad (MN-3): 202-225-2871
Representative Jim Saxton (NJ-3): 202-225-4765
Representative Christopher Shays (CT-4): 202-225-5541
Representative Rob Simmons (CT-2): 202-225-2076
ARCTIC DISAPPOINTMENTS
Call (between 9am and 6pm eastern time) and express your deep disappointment
that they abandoned the Arctic Refuge last week by voting for a bad budget
resolution. Urge them to make up for it by defending the Arctic when the budget
reconciliation bill comes to a vote. Tell them you'll be watching their vote
closely.
Senator Norm Coleman (MN): 202-224-5641
Senator Susan Collins (ME): 202-224-2523
Senator John McCain (AZ): 202-224-2235
Senator Gordon Smith (OR): 202-224-3753
Senator Olympia Snowe (ME): 202-224-5344
Representative Roscoe Bartlett (MD-6): 202-225-2721
Representative Jeb Bradley (NH-1): 202-225-5456
Representative Tom Davis (VA-11): 202-225-1492
Representative Vernon Ehlers (MI-3): 202-225-3831
Representative Mike Ferguson (NJ-7): 202-225-5361
Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ-11): 202-225-5034
Representative Jim Gerlach (PA-6): 202-225-4315
Representative Wayne Gilchrest (MD-1): 202-225-5311
Representative Bob Inglis (SC-4): 202-225-6030
Representative Mark Kennedy (MN-6): 202-225-2331
Representative Mark Kirk (IL-10): 202-225-4835
Representative John R. "Randy" Kuhl, Jr. (NY-29): 202-225-3161
Representative Jim Nussle (IA-1): 202-225-2911
Representative Thomas Petri (WI-6): 202-225-2476
Representative Dave Reichert (WA-8): 202-225-7761
Representative John J.H. "Joe" Schwarz (MI-7): 202-225-6276
Representative F. James Sensenbrenner (WI-5): 202-225-5101
Representative Christopher Smith (NJ-4): 202-225-3765
Representative John Sweeney (NY-20): 202-225-5614
Representative James Walsh (NY-25): 202-225-3701
ARCTIC NO-SHOWS
Call (between 9am and 6pm eastern time) and express your disappointment that
they were absent for the budget resolution vote. Tell them you're counting on
them to defend the Arctic Refuge when the budget reconciliation bill comes to a
vote.
Representative James Clyburn (SC-6): 202-225-3315
Representative Lloyd Doggett (TX-25): 202-225-4865
Representative Bob Filner (CA-51): 202-225-8045
Representative Harold Ford, Jr. (TN-9): 202-225-3265
Representative William Jefferson (LA-2): 202-225-6636
Representative Steven Rothman (NJ-9): 202-225-5061
Representative Edolphus Towns (NY-10): 202-225-5936
Beryl Bender Birch
Director/Founder
The Hard & The Soft Yoga Institute
East Hampton, New York
631 324-8409
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:09 PM | Comments (1)
May 29, 2005
Design with rain in mind
We’re having a party today—-pan-Asian theme—-so of course it’s going to rain. The last two big summer parties we’ve had brought torrential all-day downpours, with fabulous weather the next day!
But there is one thing that no longer troubles us about rain. Our basement stays dry these days, ever since we did some major landscaping that took account of our land’s history. We’re on a hill, a gentle slope from the top corner behind the barn down to the corner, and water used to flood across the lawn. Then we discovered, both from talking to an old resident and looking at maps, that there was once a stream. Like many developed areas, streams have been moved underground (London has underground rivers flowing into the Thames), but their sources, springs and rainfall both, continue to spill water in the old channels.
With the help of a landscaper who specializes in native plants and stone, we recreated the stream, a grassy channel edged with boulders and planted with water-loving plants like yellow flags (irises) and ferns. We also planted shrubs on the higher ground. The result is both beautiful and practical. Instead of worrying about flooding, we’re thrilled to see water in the streambed.
But I’m still hoping the sun will come out today!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2005
Wildflower heaven
Though it's supposed to rain here for the next 10 days, all I think about after work is planting. I know I have farming ancestors (actually, so do we all), but there's something more to this compulsion. Gardening is definitely an antidote of a special kind to the pressures of modern business life. It's physical, that's the main thing for me, and wordless. Others no doubt find it satisfying because it's creative, and I do love the textures and colors of the things I'm planting. But my work life is quite creative, too, so it's not just that. Surely it's the fact that working on a computer--even if writing--is bloodless, lifeless. Maybe that's what will keep print books alive for as love as we still have arms strong enough to hold them (looking at some of today's kids, I wonder how long that will be).
On Saturday, I went to the garden day at the Catskill Native Nursery, which has to be the most wonderful nursery in New England. It's a small place, on a little road in an out of the way spot in the Catskills. I know about it only through the good fortune of the fact that my father-in-law has a little house nearby. It's run by people who know their plants, birds, and butterflies, and who have an array of trees, shrubs, and perennials that far outdoes anything available here in Great Barrington (which is becoming, someone told me last week, "the Hamptons with hills).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:13 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2005
Starting small
Some solutions are so easy and cheap that the question is why they aren’t adopted instantly. Two examples:
1. Refillable toothbrushes. The brand I use is Fuchs Ekotec and they’re readily available at natural foods stores and from many online natural products shops. You buy the toothbrush and an extra package of replacement heads, and just throw away the brush part. I love the convenience and just wish I could buy the replacement brushes 20 at a time.
2. Refillable razors. I have a nice wooden-handled shaver with a brass bracket (this one came from the Body Shop in the UK), and buy a pack of razor heads at my local drugstore (in the US) for it. Again, cheap, convenient, and good for the planet.
3. Concentrated laundry detergent. Why pay for water to be shipped all over the world? Concentrated liquid detergent is easier to get home and more conveninent (just be careful to use the correct measure instead of dumping in the same quantity).
Note: choosing the water-less or reduced-water version of anything is a great thing for the environment, because shipping water around the world has huge energy costs. Our drinking bottled water on the scale we do adds to global warming!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
May 7, 2005
An IT manifesto needed
The Armchair Environmentalist is printed on 100% recycled paper, which is a wonderful thing. But as a publisher myself, I know that it isn't just trees we need to think about. Publishing is moving online, and onto computers, and like all information industries we are completely dependent on computers. I haven't had much luck--so far--convincing the wonderful folks focused on ancient forests that another track is also essential.
I was thrilled to read Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, writing about this in his blog last week.
"Friday was also Earth Day. And reading some of the Earth Day PR coming from the big PC companies got me to thinking about how wasteful our industry is. Most of the PC companies made announcements last week that made it easier to throw computers away. And not like I'm going to go inhabit a tree anytime soon, but surely what we should be doing is figuring out ways to stop throwing PC's away. And stop the waste more broadly, vs. making the waste more palatable. We are among the most wasteful industry on the planet. Want proof?
"The average utilization in a datacenter is 15% (what we see is tyipcally lower, but we like to be polite). That implies some 80% of the capital that goes to purchasing computers, 80% of the real estate, and best of all, 80% of the electricity to power and cool the unused systems - is flat out wasted. Greenpeace, where are you? Want to know how to solve at least the tech industry's contribution to the power crisis?"
For specifics, read Jonathan's Blog, which has lots of ideas.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:35 AM | Comments (0)
May 5, 2005
Frosty mornings
I went outside early this morning to fill yet more seed trays with potting soil. Guess what? We'd had a fairly hard frost, and the grass was silver-white, gleaming in the sunshine that brought temperatures up to a balmy sixty degrees.
I've really got the gardening obsession this year, and keep buying more plants and seeds to grow my own tender annuals, exotic tomatoes, and even those gorgeous space-alien Italian cauliflowers, all lime-green spikes and swirls. Here's my plan, though, for doing this economically and ecologically: I am planning a 'pot garden' (that is, plants in pots) for my deck with wonderful things like Four O'Clock and passionflower that will be happy outside in the summer. Then I'll roll them into the house for the winter. I do this with geraniums now, but plan to figure out how to enjoy exotic plants without indulging in disposable gardening. Ideas are welcome!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
May 3, 2005
Nontoxic pest control
The words we use for this season are interesting to consider. In French and Spanish, the words for ‘spring’ relate to first life, a beginning. In English, we use a word that suggests both movement and a source. Life really does spring up before us in springtime, especially in a climate like ours in New England. Most of my perennial plants die back to the ground every winter, and it’s hard to imagine the lush fullness of the bed along the terrace in August now, when they’re just beginning to push out leaves.
Along with plant life come the insects. We don’t suffer much from the flies that sometimes plague people in May, but this is the time when our kitchen is suddenly awash with fairly large black ants. It doesn’t last long, and they’re quite harmless, so I certainly wouldn’t dream of taking violent action. Just keeping things clean helps, but they’re still on the prowl. I’m happy to report that my son has devised an ant trap that is breathtakingly simple and has completely solved the problem.
He fills a small glass bottle--an old spice jar or salt shaker--with sugar syrup, made by dissolving two parts white sugar in one part water. (We keep this around for sweetening drinks.) He then covers the top tightly with a small piece of aluminum foil and pokes a tiny hole in the middle with the tip of a knife.
And that’s it. The bottle, in our case, goes under the sink by the compost pail, because that’s where there are the most ants. They climb in and can’t get out, and that’s that. Flush ‘em or add them to the compost. Kids love this—they are amazingly bloody minded and unsentimental—we were comparing the ant trap to the final scene in Titanic last night.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:01 AM | Comments (0)