Hi folks,
I got back from Gloucester Saturday eve, after a glorious week by the sea. I always stay in Rocky Neck, which is "the oldest working art colony in the United States," in a little unit with kitchenette right on the water. (Literally: the building is on a wharf.)
I'll be back in the swing of giving you my honest opinion about all things environmntal soon. Meanwhile, be excited by the news that my new novel Human Scale just won Honorable Mention in the Hollywood Book Festival contest.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Why I'm a Vegetarian (also: Your Dinner is an Oil Pit)
Once upon a time I was a good meat-eating American girl, who devoured her mom's beef stews and Sunday hams. When I grew up, I too served my kids hamburgers, bacon, and lamb legs. I can still vaguely remember the taste.
But I haven't eaten animals for twenty-five years now. The transformation began when, as an environmental journalist, I learned that farm animals are regularly shot full of antibiotics, mostly because of the unhealthy way they are forced to live. By the time I was writing about the Bovine Growth Hormone controversy in the late 80s, I was no longer eating red meat. Turkey and chicken soon followed.
Right away I began to discover delicious alternatives to meat flavoring--recipes and cuisines that call for a wide array of spices. I was also surprised to learn not only how little protein people actually need, but how many other things contain protein, like beans, lentils, tofu, and even grains.
Beside the fact that it's healthier for you to go meatless, and certainly healthier for the animals, environmental evidence is building about the damaging effects of livestock. In light of the current horrific oil spill, you should know that meat is very fuel intensive. More than a third of all fossil fuels produced in the U.S. goes towards animal agriculture. One calorie of animal protein requires more than ten times the fossil fuel input as a calorie of plant protein. That means ten times the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere.
I once saw a cartoon of a man being followed by the ghosts of all the animals he'd eaten. It was quite a parade: sheep, chickens, turkeys, cows, and pigs, all floating along after him as he strutted down the street. So I would add to my improved physical health and my socially responsible satisfaction, my spiritual health. In fact, the most important thing to me about being a vegetarian has become the animals not killed for me.
I would take that even one step futher. I am proud that no animals at this very moment are leading miserable lives in order to become my dinner.
But I haven't eaten animals for twenty-five years now. The transformation began when, as an environmental journalist, I learned that farm animals are regularly shot full of antibiotics, mostly because of the unhealthy way they are forced to live. By the time I was writing about the Bovine Growth Hormone controversy in the late 80s, I was no longer eating red meat. Turkey and chicken soon followed.
Right away I began to discover delicious alternatives to meat flavoring--recipes and cuisines that call for a wide array of spices. I was also surprised to learn not only how little protein people actually need, but how many other things contain protein, like beans, lentils, tofu, and even grains.
Beside the fact that it's healthier for you to go meatless, and certainly healthier for the animals, environmental evidence is building about the damaging effects of livestock. In light of the current horrific oil spill, you should know that meat is very fuel intensive. More than a third of all fossil fuels produced in the U.S. goes towards animal agriculture. One calorie of animal protein requires more than ten times the fossil fuel input as a calorie of plant protein. That means ten times the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere.
I once saw a cartoon of a man being followed by the ghosts of all the animals he'd eaten. It was quite a parade: sheep, chickens, turkeys, cows, and pigs, all floating along after him as he strutted down the street. So I would add to my improved physical health and my socially responsible satisfaction, my spiritual health. In fact, the most important thing to me about being a vegetarian has become the animals not killed for me.
I would take that even one step futher. I am proud that no animals at this very moment are leading miserable lives in order to become my dinner.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
mini review: HOW TO COOL THE PLANET: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth's Climate
by Jeff Goodell. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2010. 277 pages.
Goodell also wrote Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future.
Geoengineering is the kind of word that wins spelling bees, or stuns someone you've just met at a party if you throw it off casually enough. A very impressive word.
What it means, in this book at least, is either removing CO2 from the atmosphere by binding it to particles, or deflecting solar rays back into space. Goodell's opinion of it is not high. "Geoengineering," he says, " is about turning the earth into the planetary equivalent of industrial farmland." Perhaps fortunately, none of the schemes come up with so far have much chance of working.
How to Cool the Planet is engagingly written, by a journalist, not an academic, which means it's easy to read. It's not written in journalistic form, however, but is a rumination covering history, utopian ideas, and tech fixes that didn't work, as well as current science. It includes a charming portrait of James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory.
Goodell ends with the warning question of who will control geoengineering. What if the military chooses to use it? Human nature may be the greatest risk here. The reader concludes that the author is a good, thoughtful, moral man. His ideas are well worth pondering. But his book can be safely skimmed.
Goodell also wrote Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future.
Geoengineering is the kind of word that wins spelling bees, or stuns someone you've just met at a party if you throw it off casually enough. A very impressive word.
What it means, in this book at least, is either removing CO2 from the atmosphere by binding it to particles, or deflecting solar rays back into space. Goodell's opinion of it is not high. "Geoengineering," he says, " is about turning the earth into the planetary equivalent of industrial farmland." Perhaps fortunately, none of the schemes come up with so far have much chance of working.
How to Cool the Planet is engagingly written, by a journalist, not an academic, which means it's easy to read. It's not written in journalistic form, however, but is a rumination covering history, utopian ideas, and tech fixes that didn't work, as well as current science. It includes a charming portrait of James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory.
Goodell ends with the warning question of who will control geoengineering. What if the military chooses to use it? Human nature may be the greatest risk here. The reader concludes that the author is a good, thoughtful, moral man. His ideas are well worth pondering. But his book can be safely skimmed.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Grieving for the Ocean
Hi folks,
I'm back from two weeks in Greece, and recovered from jetlag. It was breathtaking to witness where our civilization began thousands of years ago. They were amazing, creative people. I would like to think we are as civilized as they.
What would they make of our polluting our ocean with 50,000 barrels of oil a day? We have the amazing technology to dig for it, but not to stop it once it's gushing out. Pretty pitiful.
I'm back from two weeks in Greece, and recovered from jetlag. It was breathtaking to witness where our civilization began thousands of years ago. They were amazing, creative people. I would like to think we are as civilized as they.
What would they make of our polluting our ocean with 50,000 barrels of oil a day? We have the amazing technology to dig for it, but not to stop it once it's gushing out. Pretty pitiful.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Breaking News
Check out my new piece on what to expect from climate change, published on NewsBlaze:
http://newsblaze.com/story/20100513175009zzzz.nb/topstory.html
Folks, I'm taking two weeks off but will return to entertain and inform you at the end of May.
http://newsblaze.com/story/20100513175009zzzz.nb/topstory.html
Folks, I'm taking two weeks off but will return to entertain and inform you at the end of May.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Military Gifts Mother Earth
Our planet got a present from the American military yesterday, Earth Day. The Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate issued a report showing how our armed forces are addressing their carbon emissions. The Department of Defense has set a goal of getting 25% of its electric energy from renewable sources by 2025. The military is also initiating energy-saving measures in all its operations from housing to vehicles.
This makes total sense: The military's purpose is to protect us. What better way than to push towards energy independence? Then all those mothers' sons won't have to go to far off places to get killed or maimed for the sake of access to foreign oil. The only losers here are the makers of prosthetic limbs.
I am proud to say that my father was an army captain in World War II. For three long years he was away from our family. Military spouses, parents, and children should only have to bear that pain of absence and loss for a really urgent reason.
Energy independence means far fewer will have to. It also happens to mean a cleaner Earth.
This makes total sense: The military's purpose is to protect us. What better way than to push towards energy independence? Then all those mothers' sons won't have to go to far off places to get killed or maimed for the sake of access to foreign oil. The only losers here are the makers of prosthetic limbs.
I am proud to say that my father was an army captain in World War II. For three long years he was away from our family. Military spouses, parents, and children should only have to bear that pain of absence and loss for a really urgent reason.
Energy independence means far fewer will have to. It also happens to mean a cleaner Earth.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Future of Energy?
I went to a lecture at Harvard the other day. The speaker, Prof David MacKay, said, "This is a lecture about visualizing life without fossil fuels." Great, I thought. That's what I'm doing in my novels.
MacKay, of Britain's University of Cambridge and their Department of Energy and Climate Change, has just published a book, Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air. It's meant for the layperson, and you can even download it for free.
Delivered in a brisk, dramatic tone, the message of his lecture was very interesting, as far as it went. We heard that Americans use twice as much energy per person as Europeans, that we'll need a 90% cut in this use by 2050, and that even to begin to match today's use through alternates, we'd need so many wind turbines and solar panels, they'd crowd out people. We also got information about technofixes like underwater windmills, solar heat storage and transfer, and smart grids that control demand.
But the visualizing never got around to what life will be like. Prof MacKay did not try to picture for us what our grandchildren face. Perhaps he didn't dare. What a downer it would be! So we were informed and entertained, but not scared out of our wits.
I wonder, does Prof. MacKay ever really visualize the future? I'll bet he does. And I'll bet it keeps him awake at night.
P.S. Using the word "energy" to mean fuel is only about 30 years old. But energy just sounds so much more cheerful and innocent, don't you think?
MacKay, of Britain's University of Cambridge and their Department of Energy and Climate Change, has just published a book, Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air. It's meant for the layperson, and you can even download it for free.
Delivered in a brisk, dramatic tone, the message of his lecture was very interesting, as far as it went. We heard that Americans use twice as much energy per person as Europeans, that we'll need a 90% cut in this use by 2050, and that even to begin to match today's use through alternates, we'd need so many wind turbines and solar panels, they'd crowd out people. We also got information about technofixes like underwater windmills, solar heat storage and transfer, and smart grids that control demand.
But the visualizing never got around to what life will be like. Prof MacKay did not try to picture for us what our grandchildren face. Perhaps he didn't dare. What a downer it would be! So we were informed and entertained, but not scared out of our wits.
I wonder, does Prof. MacKay ever really visualize the future? I'll bet he does. And I'll bet it keeps him awake at night.
P.S. Using the word "energy" to mean fuel is only about 30 years old. But energy just sounds so much more cheerful and innocent, don't you think?
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