ecoyear

I've been wanting to write about Chris Martenson, his "Crash Course", and his visit to Denver and Boulder later this month.  I wasn't quite sure how to tie him in to my usual themes of local food and the industrial food system.

But here's a perfect segueway:  It turns out that the economic downturn has hit Chicago so hard, that the only place money can be found for basic services is the fast food industry.  Specifically, KFC (which used to have the word "fried" in its name), has offered to patch Chicago potholes for free, as long as they are allowed to put their logo on the patches.  I am not kidding you, this is in the Chicago Tribune.

Of course I found this link on The Oil Drum.  This is why I spend so much of my precious free time reading the Oil Drum - endless revelations that have brought to me an understanding of the world that has been changing radically these past few months.

It was on The Oil Drum that I first read good recommendations of Martenson's Crash Course. The Course is a series of free online videos, many of them very short, which begin with simple concepts, and slowly weave a story leading to a very clear understanding of our economic situation. This is really hard to summarize, but I have found it essential to the way I see the world now.

The financial crisis is both a result and a cause of oil depletion. It is a result because as the price of energy increases, it becomes more difficult to make a profit from any enterprise. It is s cause simply because we need a healthy financial sector to invest in further energy sources, be they research into alternatives, or mining of increasingly harder-to-get oil, coal or uranium.

Similarly, the economic crisis has the potential to enhance the ways we as a society lose control of what is most important. We'll have KFC pave our streets, McDonald's fund our hospitals and then we'll put the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Why this is happening is well explained by Chris Martenson's videos at his website. He will be live in Boulder Thursday July 16th, or in Denver (July 18th and 19th) for a more extensive immersion in the issues.

My new issue of the moment is pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers.  With the tremendous increase in home gardening (47% if all American households, a 30% increase over last year), it suddenly becomes very important who is spraying what, when and how close to your home garden (or your friend's you get the lettuce from).

A few days ago my neighbor asked for my help in getting a petition and fact sheet together, protesting the homeowner's association use of chemicals on common HOA areas. Of course I knew this was going on, but it's one more thing, you know?

This year, however, I have seen one too many examples of herbicide drift damage on tomatoes and peppers, and I am really, once again, appalled that this is how we live. I guess if all your food comes from the supermarket, why should you worry what they spray on your lawn?

Now when I go around Boulder, I see every weed-free gravel landscaping as a toxic dump. HOAs are especially obnoxious, because they spray right where you live and doing something about it requires quite an effort. The same goes for your kids' schools. We simply consider weeds more objectionable than carcinogens. It's a case of the weed you know versus the neurotoxin you suspect but can't prove.

My parents were never lawn aficionados, having grown up in Athens, Greece. So we never sprayed. I don't remember my neighbors spraying either, so the HOAs behavior strikes me as outrageous!! I've always suspected that hotels must spray heavily - how else is it that my house is quite full of spiders and gnats, but hotel rooms are not? Daycare centers and schools are also of great concern to me.

It is easier than ever to get good information on the web. Some sites list all chemicals and their known and suspected effects (www.pesticideinfo.org), while others list what schools have done to decrease chemical use, or offer assistance with a campaign to decrease use of pesticides (www.toxicsaction.org).

But back to the top. I would never dream of spraying chemicals on the vegetables I grow, but pesticides drift, and having seen the damaged leaves, I seeing how easy it seems to be to get full disclosure of what is sprayed and when, and what the effects are believed to be, I am thinking that at least we can protect ourselves from eating contaminated leaves. There are laws after all, and it is the burden of the sprayer if damage occurs as a result of spraying.

On a different note, apparently it is now legal to collect rainwater in Colorado. It has always been legal to sell collecting devices, but apparently now you can put stuff in plain view.

On vacation this last week I picked up two books on food. The first was "Food, Inc". Reading it (I have not seen the movie) I discovered that another dimension of food I had not really been paying attention to, is the question of labor issues. Too much food is picked by hand by overworked undocumented people, some of whom die of overheating because they are not allowed to have water to drink in the fields during the daylong picking in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. There is a law of course, but up to 30% of farms this law applies to were found in violation.

The second book is Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newman's "A Nation of Farmers". I have only started reading it, but already I am confronted by issues I had never considered. Slavery, for example. Though it has  been abolished in the US, supposedly (though cases turn up every year, and over 100 reported cases are investigated every year!!), the United Nations estimates that worldwide, 100's of millions are either outright slaves, child laborers or prostitutes. Then there's the people who work under very bad conditions, the children forced to go to war, and so on and so forth. How does this connect to us? It's a long supply chain, to be sure, but we use oil from Nigeria, coltan from the Congo, palm oil from Indonesia, knick knacks from all over, and rarely wonder why things are just so affordable at Wal-Mart.

I find myself very sobered. Really. I had weeds for lunch. There, I thought. Vitamins and minerals have not been bred out of them. I picked them myself. They volunteered in my community garden plot. So much else is just so objectionable, I thought I would make a list:

Fish - can't eat that, as ocean fisheries are depleted, and farmed fish is full of chemicals. I don't know where to get politically correct and chemically safe fish, and I'm not even trying anymore.

Meat - you know the problems of course, factory farms, methane, water overuse. Can't eat that.

Milk products - sort of go along with meat. If you can find pastured, grass-fed cows, you will be stuck either drinking the pasteurized homogenized version, probably safe but who knows, or the raw version which may have germs. I use raw milk and figure that each week that we don't get sick from it, we are ahead, racking up omega-3's without further destroying ocean life.

Eggs - my favorite protein. Most people (including me) do not have access to eggs from free-range chickens that actually eat a normal chicken diet. Normal chickens should be eating a variety of greens and bugs in addition to grain, and should also not be bred for those enormous breasts. Animals bred for our modern convenience have lost much of their nutritious value in favor of sheer bulk. We really should not eat eggs from chickens fed cow parts. Not the way cows are these days anyways.

Beans - that's good protein, but which ones will you eat? Who picked them? Are they organic? What did they mean by organic? The chemicals used in much farming are not safe. Food safety unfortunately has been delegated to the FDA, which operates by cost-benefit analysis. Any pesticide that benefits farmers more than it costs consumers is a go. If pesticides and fertilizers had been the province of OSHA (occupational health and safety), then there would be no analysis. Any adverse health effect at all would cause a ban. Well I am glad to report that my beans are doing well. I should have a meal out of them (planted two three foot rows) - more next year!

Vegetables - so dear to my heart. A report in Mother Earth News revealed that 21st century varieties actually contain much fewer vitamins and minerals. I plant open-pollinated heirloom varieties of course, but I am far from feeding my family! I try to buy the rest local. I could find out what the work conditions are at the farms around here. I remember the CSA I had in California used to boast that a family from Latin America lived at the farm and had been working for them for a decade. They made a point to tell us how important the year round CSA was providing employment for this family, who therefore could school their children properly, and feel a sense of stability and caring for the farm they worked on. Ultimately, there are products for which price indicates what you pay for. Does that supermarket organic tomato seem cheaper than what you get at the market? Maybe it's not economy of scale. Maybe it's not that the market farmers are trying to get away with prices no normal person should have to pay. Maybe it's the opposite. It's the supermarket and their supplier trying to get away with mistreating their labor and taking shortcuts with the land. Not only that, but supermarkets are not your mother. They don't care what sort of health you are (or will be) in. They are simply there to maximize profit from selling stuff you ingest. Buyer beware!!

Maybe people who care about what impact they have should pay a lot more for food. We need to know who suffered and what died in order for us to live the way we are living. And we must demand that our food be safe. Germ-free is only one small part of safe. The vast majority of food should be health-enhancing. What's the point, otherwise?

As a family physician, for 20 years, I frequently thought about the Hippocratic principle "do NO harm". Maybe that is why this issue riles me up so much. Granted, much has to die for me to eat. But I resent the 99% on top of that reality - destruction of the land, extinction of species, poisoning my own body, and cruel working conditions for the fellow humans who personally picked my strawberries.

Read "Food, Inc" at least. It's an easy read. They have gone to great pains to make sure every single one of their statements was based in fact. Then you can add your rant to mine.

I am going to admit to Sharon Astyk envy.  For those who may not know her (www.sharonastyk.com, also known as Casaubon's Book), all you need to know is that she is the Martha Stewart of the low carbon footprint movement.

I picked up her book at the library last month (Depletion and Abundance).  Compared to her blog it is more concise and compelling - well worth a skim and a read.

The topic that grabbed me anew (I had read about it on the blog), is the Riot for Austerity. Apparently, in a discussion on whether developed world citizens could be convinced to roll back their overconsumption in order to avoid more global warming, George Monbiot argued that it was unlikely that we would have a successful popular movement to do so, because no one ever "riots for austerity". Sharon Astyk and friends picked up on that and started a group and website, divided environmental impact into 7 categories, and proceeded to attempt  90% decrease in their impact (over average US) in each category.

Wow!

I listed the categories, lamely thought through some things I might do, and dropped the whole thing.

Unfortunately, I failed to return the book to the library on time to avoid fees, and it stared accusingly at me from the passenger seat of my car until I finally found a moment to drive by the book return. And during that time, I changed my mind. Who am I to assume that I can't decrease my own contribution by 90%? Sure I can't make my husband stop driving to Denver and stop eating burritos, but I am in control of me, sometimes, and my three kids too, occasionally... So there.

As this website concerns the intersection of food with carbon footprint, I am starting with food, and listing 10 steps I can seriously see myself taking to decrease my carbon footprint when it comes to food. Given that I am already relatively well set up for local food, 90% impact relative to the average American diet is a reasonable goal.

Here goes:

1. Eat more raw foods.

I've touched on this many times before, but the fact remains that many foods are just as nutritious raw than cooked. Wheat comes to mind - sprouts in your salad may be more nutritious than bread, or pasta, and certainly easier than boiling the wheat berries for two hours to soften them. Worth keeping a food journal and looking through it for opportunities to eat more raw.

2. Reduce junk food

Aaargh! Why is this still such a struggle? How many times can I say "No candy!" without caving in or needing major psychiatric tranquilizers? I am going to announce that we are cutting back to 2 days per week only. Candy will be forbidden on other days. The kids can choose the days. Wish me luck.

3. Reduce processed food

I mean granola bars, muffins, pasta, crackers. Summer is around the corner and we will be trying fresh fruit, peas, corn just off the plant, etc...

4. Much more gardening

My neighbor and a friend, finding themselves low on the community gardens' waiting list, have asked whether I could use help gardening and eating from my garden. The more the merrier, I say! Maybe they can keep my motivation up, midsummer when I put off planting in parts of the garden that have stopped producing, for example, or watering - all bad habits that keep my yields low.

5. Dehydrate food instead of canning or freezing

This year I want to try to use my car, parked in the sun, to dry tomatoes, strawberries, and maybe apples. Also, I want to try making kale chips!

6. Use solar oven 2-3 times per week

That's a planning issue, like using a slow cooker. Recipes and ideas to come! You can buy a solar oven, or make one using cardboard, aluminum foil and glass. Many models are apparently available on the web.

7. Reduce the amount of food I buy from grocery stores

I'm not thinking I can kick my chocolate addiction, but I have slipped into buying applesauce, chips, raisins and other energy-intensive, overpackaged treats.  This is because I am getting lazy, and it is easier to eat those than to convince my kids to have fresh fruit and vegies. I can send them the overpackaged foods for lunch or snack, and if they don't eat them, the food does not go wasted. Nevertheless, more creativity could be brought to bear on that department.

8. Think milk, rather than yogurt and cheese

There are some advantages to  yogurt (think active cultures), but milk is good enough, and cheaper

9. You may already be doing this, but focus on local food, in season - and on what you preserve

This means finding your suppliers, and adopting new strategies (one that works for me is a seasonal cookbook, so I am not pining for asparagus in December).  I have become accustomed to thinking about getting eggs before I run out, as that involves an email to Jay Hill Farm, and waiting until the next day to pick up and cook the eggs.  The preserved food has been a great advantage here. I always have pesto on hand, tomato sauce, frozen strawberries, etc... So I also have an "anytime" cookbook.

10. Eat less meat and fish

Much less - none, if you can; Eat more beans if you worry about protein.

I'll fess up here to two of my non-sustainable habits.  One is my longstanding love of magazines (I used to read Seventeen, then Glamour; I still read Shape, Sunset, Martha Stewart's Living and Body and Soul, and have recently added Interweave Knits' magazine).  Most recently, I have had a hard time with them because of the ridiculous ads and the lame articles exhorting us to "sort of greener" consuming. This is made worse by the fact that I'll read anything I can get my hands on at the gym, from O to Runner's World, Parents, etc.. 

My other ecologically unfriendly habit is the indoor gym. Lately, I have been successful at getting a lot of aerobic exercise by walking uphill on a treadmill, only because I can read as I do it, and can count on the daycare at the gym for days when I have kids with me.

However, today the contradictions were so mind blowing I had a vision of myself as a robot on Star Trek (remember those? Well, maybe not - they often seemed to have a malevolent robot which could be made to self destruct by getting it caught up in a paradox - the poor thing would repeat "does. not. compute. does. not. compute." then smoke would spew out and sparks would fly, and the Federation would be safe once more).  

Well here I was walking uphill on a treadmill to work off some unwanted calories while the T.V. gave details of not one, but two shooting sprees killing dozens of people, and I was reading an article focusing on products which make your hair look shiny, and shoes that make your legs look longer. Then the T.V. panned to a press conference showing President Obama talking about earmarks in the federal budget, including several hundred of thousands of dollars to study ways of making pig farming less smelly.

Suddenly it was abundantly clear to me that the world was so permanently messed up that I was wasting my time trying to do anything positive. Worse, I felt I myself could not continue to function with so much craziness around me. Suddenly giving up seemed like the only possible option.

Luckily, I then went home with my gamboling 4 year old, and had my coffee, and read a poem by Mary Oliver sent by a friend ("Wild Geese") and remembered my favorite short piece by Annie Dillard, "Living Like Weasels".  

It turns out I can't, won't, really don't have a desire to give up making the world a better place. So...

Do read the whole piece, if you can, but if not, this is the bare bones version:

And once, says Ernest Thompson Seton--once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to his throat. The supposition is that the eagle had pounced on the weasel and the weasel swiveled and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly won. I would like to have seen that eagle from the air a few weeks or months before he was shot: was the whole weasel still attached to his feathered throat, a fur pendant? Or did the eagle eat what he could reach, gutting the living weasel with his talons before his breast, bending his beak, cleaning the beautiful airborne bones?

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you're going no matter how you live, cannot you part. Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles.