A Blogger's Day

A Blogger’s Day

When not writing and reading, I have days like the one outlined below:

• Work I do for an employer that meshes with personal values and brings dollars into the household 
• Housework to keep us all healthy and happy
• Finished a summer jacket
• Tended vegetable seedlings under growlights
• Helped to prepare three meals
• A trip to the local foods store and the local chain grocery to get what the local foods store hasn’t room to carry
• Pruned back bushes and fruit trees

Usually early in the morning or before bed, I read a little bit. Here are some titles I've found very informative and/or uplifting lately, in no particular order:

a)     Pahl. Greg. Power from the People: How to Organize, Finance, and Launch Local Energy Projects. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2012.

b)    Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1980.

c)     Wilkonson, Richard and Kate Pickett. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.  New York: Penquin, 2009.

d)    Autry, Charles T. and Rolanf F. Hall. The Law of Cooperatives. Chicago: American Bar Association, 2009.

e)     Estill, Lyle. Small is possible: life in a local economy. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2008.

f)     McGraw, Seamus. The End of Country: Dispatches from the Frack Zone. New York: Random House, 2012.

g)     Hillman, James. The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World. Dallas: Spring Publications, 1981.

h)    Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: a political ecology of things. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010.

i)      Horowitz, Morton J. The Transformation of American Law: 1870-1960, the Crisis of Legal Orthodoxy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

j)      Parker, Rozsika. The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine. London: Women’s Press, 1986.

k)    Toensmeier, Eric. Perennial Vegetables. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2007.

l)      Solomon, Steve. Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2008.

m)   Hemenway, Toby. Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, Second Edition. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2008.

n)    Pavel, M. Paloma. Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.

o)    Markham, Brett L. Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on ¼ Acre. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2010.

p)    Thompson, Sylvia. The Kitchen Garden: A Passionate Gardener’s Comprehensive Guide to Growing Good Things to Eat. New York: Bantam, 1995.

q)    Jabbour, Niki. The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year No Matter Where You Live. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing, 2011.

r)     Brasch, Walter M. Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting with Disaster. Carmichael, CA: Greeley & Stone, 2012.

s)     ICA Provkök. Rutiga Kokboken. ICA Bokförlag Västerås, 1984.

t)     Bayless, Rick. Mexican Everyday. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 2005.

u)    Puckette, Chrlotte and Olivia Kiang-Snaije. The Ethnic Paris Cookbook: Bringing the French Melting Pot into Your Kitchen. London, New York, Munich, Melbourne and Delhi: DK Publishing, 2007.

v)    Pham, Mai. Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table. New York: Harper Collins, 2001.

w)   Robertson, Laurel, Carol Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal. Laurel’s Kitchen Recipes. Berkeley, CA:  Ten Speed Press, 1986.

x)     Nathan, Joan. Jewish Cooking in America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.

y)    Somerville, Annie. Fields of Greens. New York: Bantam, 1993.

z)    Pépin, Jacques. Simple and Healthy Cooking. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, 1994.

aa)  Madison, Deborah. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. New York: Broadway Books, 1997.

Aged Beef

Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain... Now it's long been understood - very well - that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist - with whatever suffering and injustice it entails - as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage can. At this stage of history either... the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community issues guided by values of solidarity, and sympathy, and concern for others, or - alternatively - there will be no destiny for anyone to control.  (Noam Chomsky)

Sometimes the inspiration for considering a problem comes from the most unexpected corners of thought, in this case Noam Chomsky and my uncle.

My uncle was the head chef for many years at the Chicago Athletic Club. When we visited his home, we were often treated to culinary delicacies supplied by purveyors intent on securing his business. Among these treats was what my uncle described as "aged beef," beef that had been allowed to decompose under carefully controlled conditions in a refrigerated meat locker. He told us a greenish mold would form on the meat as it aged. And he insisted that the process led to some of the most tender, delicious--and expensive-beef a person could eat. The process sounded revolting to me, but then again I never saw the unprepared meat. I only tasted the roast after it emerged from the oven and I had to admit it tasted pretty good. Still, I was acquiring part of that day's calories by eating meat that was on its way to being inedible.

To eat only this kind of aged beef is possible only for the very wealthy. The energy and space for the refrigeration needed to decompose the meat vastly increases its cost. Setting aside any health risks posed by the consumption of red meat, providing such tender beef to an entire population is not a sustainable goal. There is too little of the stuff and it is too expensive.

As a child I had not yet ingested the social point of view that delicacies, regardless of how they were produced, were to be yearned for and treasured. When my sisters and I chorused, "Yuck!" and "I don't want any," when the 'aged beef' was offered to us, my uncle laughed at our ignorance and our parents shushed us for being unappreciative of the generous gift we were being offered. In that interaction we were being taught how to think about an aspect of our culture. It would take many years before I would set aside the family admonishment to place value in this kind of food.

Over the years I have often found myself exclaiming “Yuck!” to some aspect of our society that seems cruel, unwise, or unsustainable, only to have someone who felt wiser or more powerful shush me for expressing such a thought. Sometimes I have quieted, but lately, as you know if you are reading this blog, I let my thoughts fly. I have learned that there are others in the world like me—people who are really considering the effects of the lifestyle choices we are making. As it turns out, my initial reaction to aged beef had some merit. Certainly, a diet heavily invested in this food would not be good for my health.

My uncle, by the way, developed both diabetes and heart disease as he grew older. His lifestyle did not do right by him. I remembered my uncle as I considered an image of oil and gas that keeps coming to me.

Bennett H. Wall, author of Growth in a Changing Environment notes that oil is the resource that has allowed the U.S. to create our current standard of living. Our country would not live as well as it does or exercise its extensive influence over the world if it lacked oil. My son describes oil’s effect on humanity as a turbo booster to human development.

According to the site petroleum.co.uk, oil is the result of the decomposition of vast amounts of plant and small animal life, buried under silt and sand, and subjected to heat and pressure over millions of years. This website also notes that man has almost exhausted these hydrocarbons or fossil fuels in about a hundred years. Once we’ve drilled and pumped the last bit of the stuff to the surface, that’s it. There won’t be any more for longer than it’s useful to think about.

Our current culture in the U.S. has developed as if all of us are entitled to a steady diet of aged beef. And in spite of worldwide recognition that oil supplies must diminish, the world continues to prop up social structures that are completely dependent on an inexhaustible supply of oil—or gas. U.S. transportation needs and the huge appetite of the U.S. defense industry account for 40% of our country’s oil and gas consumption. And that 40% equals an ability to eat up 25% of worldwide supplies of oil and gas.

Clearly, our country has a big oil habit. And the system responsible for maintaining our country’s preeminence on the globe—the U.S. military—needs a great deal of that oil. Is it any wonder that powerful interests in our country are pushing so hard to get fracking going in every possible state?

So if we’re going to take my metaphor to its ridiculous conclusion: if oil is like beef, gas must be like the flatulence that comes when you eat too much of a good thing. Our government and the oil and gas industry hope to stave off the reality of dwindling hydrocarbon supplies by running our country—and the world—on ‘the rumbling in the tummy’ that follows a too heavy meal. The U.S. has been gorging on dead plant and small animal waste for about hundred years and is now being forced to switch to the poor cousin of hydrocarbons—gas. And this unpalatable strategy is put forward in spite of the risks that fracking poses to air, water, and land—those three key elements life needs in order survive.

For an additional turbo charge of hydrocarbons, the oil and gas industry—and the government it has bought—is willing to risk every other aspect of life on the planet. If that isn’t a junky’s approach to existence I don’t know what is.

But I didn’t write this so that you’d feel overwhelmed by the forces mounted against a saner approach to our situation. In fact, I’ve written this hoping you will stop waiting for anything or anyone powerful to save you. I am writing because I believe citizens in this country—who routinely weather the vagaries imposed on them by more powerful forces—have it within them to make choices that will help them and the planet at the same time.

The quest for hydrocarbons is predicated on markets. And according to the industry, our transportation needs are a huge part of that market. There are choices you can make that will seriously decrease the country’s transportation needs:

1.     Look at the distance between where you work and where you live. Can you find a way to close the gap? Move closer to where you work? Or find a job closer to where you live?

2.     Think about the car(s) you own. If you own more than one vehicle, could you get by with one? Could you at least park one for most of the time and choose public transportation, bikes and your own two feet to get around in town? Could you replace an aging vehicle with one that gets as high an amount of gas mileage as possible? Could you choose a vehicle that is lighter and has a smaller engine?

3.     Do you have kids bicycles in your garage that no one is using? Where could you donate them so kids can put some more miles on them?

4.     Are you in the military? Could you consider a new career? Could you communicate to the military whenever possible your need for it to grow more energy and environmentally conscious?

5.     Where does your food come from? Could you choose local foods that don’t have to be carted thousands of miles to get to your store?

6.     Could you wean yourself and your children off plastics? Just think about that one for a second—how many ways do you use plastics every day? What renewable substances could take their place?

7.     Some communities are setting up biodiesel plants. Owners are converting their cars to run on biodiesel fuel. Are you an entrepreneur? Could you start a business like this in your town?

8.     If you feel inclined to work on a cause, how could you promote the extension of public transportation in your town?

9.     If you know your town is trying to set up a food cooperative that will offer local and affordable products for its citizens, can you buy a membership? Can you help to pay for someone else’s membership? Can you offer to loan start-up funds to a cooperative that’s trying to get off the ground?

By all means, if you are so inclined, become an anti-fracking activist and work on a political solution to the fracking problem. We need moratoriums or bans on this kind of energy as soon as possible. But please remember that our appetites for energy provide, in part, the justification for the oil and gas industry to pursue its latest turbo charge. We will not keep fracking out of the energy mix until we significantly curtail our own use of hydrocarbons.

In his last days, my uncle bemoaned people he called “health nuts” who had changed the kinds of foods that people wanted in restaurants. Among other things, he noted that people’s appreciation of aged beef had dwindled as more and more people limited how much they ate of this rich and expensive food. He lived through a change in values when it came to eating styles. I am hoping we all live through a change in values with regard to energy consumption.

Of Laws and Sausages

Of Laws and Sausages

A week ago I traveled to the Ilinois Capitol to witness an Energy Committee Hearing. Though I’ve lived in Illinois most of my life, I’d never been to the Capitol before.

It has a special smell, I found—of sugar, of perfume that’s lingered in the air past its prime, of anxious people’s sweat, and of hard liquor. I was amazed, frankly, by the odors. They made the place instantly personal in a way I did not expect. My nose sensed immediately that people with great hopes and fears walk the halls of the Capitol. People who fortify themselves for the effort as best they can.

And as I waited with my friends to discover if the Senate’s fracking moratorium bill would be discussed in the Energy Committee hearing on that day, I saw that many others were waiting, too. I saw many hushed but intense conversations, many carefully dressed people looking for the word that would propel their opinion forward, and quickly realized that the real work of creating laws happens in the hallways outside the hearing rooms. Speculation, persuasion, deflection, denial—all these approaches made the hallway buzz.

And when my friends and I finally entered the hearing room, I already felt like I’d been in the backroom of the butcher shop on a day when sausage with, perhaps, not the freshest ingredients was being made. Just before I entered the hearing room, someone had whispered to me, “Look, there he is. The leader of the pro-fracking supporters.” The man slipped into the hearing room a few minutes before us, but I had time to take in his appearance.

In his brown wool suit, he looked as if someone must have helped him to stuff those huge arms of his into his sleeves. His shoulders strained at the armholes, and the suit gapped in the front, unable to encase his barrel chest. The skin of his neck topped his shirt collar with folds of flesh and his thick neck and closely cropped head jutted in front of him as if ready to bounce a soccer ball to a waiting opponent.

In the performing arts world such a man walking into a casting call would have been pegged for the role of a hit man or a construction foreman. But in Springfield, this man smoothly entered the hearing room and took a seat near the front.

And then it was time for us to enter the hearing room. As my friends talked with each other about how the moratorium bill might fare, I confess I played the rube. I took in the baroque ceiling decorations, the red leather chairs, the preponderance of carved mahogany, and the tired and, frankly, bored-looking senators presiding over the hearing.

And then the man who looked like a fistful of over-stuffed sausages slid to the front of the hearing room. He went right up to the fellow running the Energy Committee and whispered in his ear. I don’t think my friends noticed this because they were still receiving fresh information from their contacts in the room, but being the inexperienced one, I was, frankly, amazed at this man’s utter confidence that the committee chairman would want to hear his hushed words. When the man in the tight brown suit was finished with his message, he again took a seat at the front of the room.

Then some time elapsed, but finally the chairman announced that the fracking moratorium bill would not come for a vote during the hearing, and instead was to be shuttled to something called a “special issue” sub-committee. No explanation was provided so we might know what a “special issue” sub-committee was designed to address. The chairman simply and quietly announced that this would occur and my friends signaled to me that it was time for us to leave. We would not have the opportunity to provide testimony to the committee about the dangers of fracking because the committee would not be discussing the fracking moratorium bill.

And that was it. Somehow in the moments before the Energy Committee hearing began, the fracking moratorium bill was shunted into the obscurity of a sub-committee process. Not good news for those of us who were hoping to secure for Illinois a period of time in which to study fracking’s effects on our air, water, land, people and other life forms attempting to survive within the borders of our state.

How are citizens to cope with a system like this one? And who exactly is calling the shots in this fracking law process? 

But Please, People

My husband and I lived through what was the 100-year-but-eventually-called-the-500-year flood of Grand Forks, North Dakota. While it unfolded, we  debated endlessly with each other, “What was the most accurate prognostication for the steadily rising Red River?” Who knew what was most true? The spokesman from the National Guard who instructed us to fill sandbags at the Guard’s emergency center even as he assured us the river was unlikely to spill over the wall of khaki sacks of sand? The mayor of Grand Forks who swore there was little chance we would see flooding as bad as what the City knew in the 1970’s? Our neighbors who’d lived through the ‘70’s flood and who were increasingly unsure Grand Forks was going to dodge the bullet this time? My husband and I were relative newcomers to Grand Forks, having lived there just four years. We were unsure whose word we could trust.

In the end, we didn’t have to trust anyone’s word. The Red River taught us when to evacuate. One sunny but freezing April morning in 1997, as we returned from the University of North Dakota where we’d been moving low-lying books and papers onto top shelves and desktops—in spite of assurances from the University that this was not necessary—we drove into our neighborhood and saw, in the middle of the street, a geyser of water shooting thirty feet into the air, a surreal site that lifted my foot right off the gas pedal. As I made a slow turn down a side street to avoid the water cascading before us, we saw another fountain and then another. The Red River had inundated the water treatment plant located on its banks. What we were seeing was the Red River coursing through the city sewers with enough power to blow manhole covers into the air—sometimes fifty feet, we learned later. The river needed more room than the space between its banks. It needed more room than even the city sewers could provide. So it spit out the manhole covers and shot onto the streets of Grand Forks.

Seeing the geysers, my husband and I didn’t have to debate any longer. The time to evacuate had arrived. We didn’t need the National Guard or the mayor to instruct us. We simply grabbed the evacuation bags sitting by the back door, turned off the water, the electricity and the gas, loaded the dogs into the car, and joined the long line of evacuees crawling out of the city. All of us knew it was time to head for the escarpment that lay about an hour northwest of town.

If we had yielded to the sense of foreboding we felt as we learned of towns downstream that were flooding, as we saw the local newspaper inexorably revise its flood stage estimates ever upward, we could have avoided the loss of so much that we left behind in our basement and, for some of us, on our first floors. But we wanted to trust that those in charge were right when they insisted our street had never flooded and therefore would not flood this time. We placed our trust in those who claimed to be our leaders. That, as it turned out, was the riskiest choice we made during the flood. We should have acted on the best information we had and taken care of ourselves as best we knew how. Our biggest mistake was in thinking that there existed social systems ‘out there’ that would watch out for our interests as fiercely as we could ourselves.

As I wade through contending accounts of present dire circumstances—whether I’m reading about climate change, hydraulic fracturing, peak oil or worldwide economic problems—I feel as if I’m back in those days just before the Grand Forks manhole covers blew. I know the weather in central Illinois has drastically changed. My pocketbook feels how the cost of filling up my gas tank has tripled. I see with dread how similar the real estate bubble and the natural gas bubble are, even as I read that even the supposedly liberal president I helped to elect is touting fracking as part of the solution to our energy woes. My breath stops for a moment when I consider how all us Baby Boomers are going to grow old at the same time and how our aging and ailing generation is going to put an incredible burden on succeeding generations. These are not good times. The only problem is that these are circumstances from which I cannot evacuate. None of us can. If the current times were a flood, my husband and I would have to survive the river’s fury from the roof our house while hoping the home’s foundation would hold.

The funny thing about the Grand Forks flood is that it has made me skeptical to the core. I may still look for someone whose point of view is the most reliable. I still catch myself trying to decide whose opinion to trust. But when I’m taking care of practical things—putting dishes away, folding the laundry, getting a meal ready for our family—I know that whatever is coming is going to require that I do the very best I can with the limited information I have. And that information is telling me that we are headed for a heap of trouble.

How nice it would be if an economic theory existed complex enough to contend with the manmade circumstances that threaten the planet and everything living upon it—including us. I might actually cry if a political leader was brave and effective enough to fight for a wise course of action—whether or not it meant he or she would be reelected. I would become downright giddy if a majority of U.S. citizens abandoned the notion that business as it currently exists was capable of doing anything other than pursuing another dollar to put on its ledgers. Or that even one news source was actually capable of weighing all information to arrive at a truly excellent analysis of a problem free of bias. But I’m not waiting for any of those miracles to happen. In fact, when I wait for such positive events, I actually increase the severity of what we face. As I wait for someone ‘out there’ to make all these problems less cataclysmic, I continue to live my life in about the same way. Business as usual isn’t just for business anymore.  Business as usual is what we all choose when we wait for someone ‘out there’ to fix the problems that we face. When hope is what we choose instead of acting on the best information we have, then our hopeful waiting becomes as much of a problem as the dire circumstances before us.

These days there are too many blown manhole covers littering our streets, too many spewing geysers. And yet many of us continue to live our lives as if we do not see the rising water. I guess the question becomes how high does the floodwater have to get before we do what is necessary to work the problem?

In 1997 my husband and I escaped the rising Red River, and lived as evacuees for two weeks while we worried if our house was still standing. When we drove back into town—before the return of the National Guard, local police, health care providers or electric power—a handful of us on our street helped each other to gut our basements, worked together to get power back into our homes, shared our food and our bandages, and pumped out our basements. Eventually, representatives of various social structures returned to the city, but by that time many of us had been hard at work for two weeks or more. We took care of ourselves and we took care of each other. We didn’t wait for those in authority to tell us what to do. We just did the best we could.

That’s what we need to do now: take stock of what is unfolding and make the best choices we know how. The longer we wait for those in power or authority to provide solutions for what we face, the more difficult our work is going to be.

My husband and I learned a powerful lesson in Grand Forks. The power of our country lies not in its military, or its government, or its business or wealth. The power of this country rests with its people and their ability to work hard and care for each other. I know we would all like for someone to tell us what is best to do, but please, people, sometimes there just isn’t anyone out there with an answer. What do you think is best to do? If ideas occur to you as you read that question, trust your gut and get moving. We will not all agree, but we will have a plethora of ideas to explore—sometimes contending, that is true—but LOTS of ideas to bring to the problems we face. That reality will be much better than the polarized ideas that currently keep our decision-makers in a blinking contest with no end in sight. Let them keep staring at each other. We just need to get busy with our own ideas. Those busy staring and snarling will catch on eventually.

Trading fiction for the truth:

Two years ago my husband and I began Baby Clock Meets Global Warming. We created somewhat fictitious characters, a husband and wife, who were trying to decide whether to bring a baby into the world. The blog was our way to explore questions and ideas about human reproduction and its undeniable relationship to climate change, peak oil, human over-population, and worldwide economic contraction. Our question: should we bring a baby into a world as troubled as this one?

Neither my husband nor I found the fictitious approach particularly useful and this blog fell silent after only six posts. Our lives and interests have continued to evolve over the last year and a half, but our desire remains to engage with the huge planetary challenges before us.

So we are back, promising to post somewhat regularly on issues as we see them unfolding, and very interested in what those who read our posts might say in response.

We are in our fifties. We live in the American heartland. We are raising a young son (I did indeed become a mother, but not until I was 41). And we are interested in exploring how our personal decisions lessen or increase the larger problems of over-consumption, human effects on the planet, energy use and energy production, climate change, and related topics as they arise.

We believe that the planet's problems currently create a nexus--of opportunity or danger. We hope that by considering these possibilities we become part of choices that heal our planet, in whatever small way we are able.

The new name for our blog is: Work the Problem. We hope you will become part of the conversation.

Can I get a stroller with that?

Ok, so I was thinking. If too many people are the problem (that is the problem, right?) then what do we as a society do about it? My pappy’s old adage is “if you find yourself in a hole the first thing you do is stop digging!” I have successfully used this thinking on a number of occasions. So then, how do we discourage babies? There is clearly a big market out there for them. Our Toys R Us is building a huge addition on that will become Babies R Us (hmm baby = toy?). A brilliant marketing area for sure. A one-to-one correspondence between babies and expensive strollers is clearly a great business opportunity. Parents-to-be are assaulted with ads for all kinds of things that I never even thought we might need. Tub liners, diaper disposal systems, bottles that reduce belching, swings, car seats.... the list goes on (lest we forget stuffed animals and the binky). This whole operation of course is predicated on having 2 things simultaneously 1) a baby (duh) and 2) discretionary income. This whole baby thing seems pretty expensive. What about the other side of this here coin? Another wise mentor in my life (me Mams this time) tells me that in her part of the world people may be having babes to actually get money. I am being a bit flippant, I will grant you, but apparently under some state and federal assistance rules having another mouth to feed can be a net income gain (although I wonder if as in many things this makes for a good potential problem source but in actual terms the numbers are not significant when compared to the bigger picture). I also have been fascinated by the phrase “our little tax deduction”. We will actually get a tax break for having a kid? In a consumer oriented society I guess this is the equivalent of getting our cut on the deal. Another child, another stroller. If I look at this as a scientist (which I often do since I am) I am fascinated by cause and effect. With my fruit flies I can control the population by raising them at 68 degrees. Is there a set of conditions for control of the human population? Uggh, after helping water the garden last week I can certainly imagine a few that make me shudder. Famine, disease, drought. My flies don’t generally have to put up with these things (unless I don’t pay attention to them...oops). On the other hand the analogy with my flies is clearly flawed, because when they get to be too many for a bottle the hand of God (me...ha!) comes in and splits them into multiple new bottles with new food and plenty of elbow room. God in the machine indeed. So again I find myself long on questions and short on answers. What are our motivations for wanting a child? Can they really be manipulated? Should they be?