100 Year Letter Project

Years ago, I spent a summer at Woods Hole's Marine Biology Laboratory. Of course, I loved going to the science library there, chock full as it was with the biological tomes that drew my enthusiasm in those youthful days. But I couldn't help noticing a prominent sign over one tall, packed shelf--"Don't read too much--Think!" These days, I'm reading more widely but possibly still too much to satisfy my activist soul, and I try to keep in mind my own version of the MBL library's caution--"Don't read too much--Write!"

Thanks to Emmett over at The Natural Patriot, I just learned about a grassroots writing project for all of us. DeSmog Blog is organizing a 100 Year Letter Project, in which DeSmog is "asking readers to write write a letter to their great, great grandchildren about their vision and hopes for their world in 100 years, in the context of global warming." Emmett at NP encapsulates the potential importance of the project: ". . . I think this personal, emotional approach is just the sort of thing that might work in breaking through the thick, dessicated crust of apathy and cynicism and (deliberately fabricated) confusion and fear that keeps people from getting it, from understanding that climate change is a real problem that will have real and serious consequences for the people that we love most in this world--our children and their children."

Possibilities for your letter include explanations, apologies, encouragement, or just a warm howdy from a cooler time. Check back at DeSmog now and then to see examples of missives others are sending to the future. But don't forget to write yours. Emmett suggests sending a copy to your newspaper as well as to DeSmog. I'm going to work on a list of books for the great grandkids, some, I hope, that will help them see that we were trying to wake up to our actions, some that reveal the beauties of the planet that still persist, and some just for fun. No matter what changes the climate undergoes, I hope that reading will still provide inspiration, information, solace and joy in 2107 as it does today.

Big Coal Q & A

Are you infuriated by mountaintop coal mining? Do you need some literary ammunition against proponents of coal-to-liquid as a gasoline alternative? Do you just wonder where your electricity comes from? Jeff Goodell offers authoritative answers to these burning questions in Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future. In a surprisingly engaging book about a global resource extraction industry, Goodell analyzes how our reliance on coal has led to nationwide inertia against alternative energy research. In the 21st century, he argues, few of us realize our dependence on a 19th century energy source. He says, “We may not like to admit it, but our shiny white iPod economy is propped up by dirty black rocks.”

This is an especially important book at this moment of energy legislation debate on Capital Hill. If you don’t have time to read the book, please use that shiny iPod to hear a podcast of Goodell’s June 21 interview, ironically on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. And if you’ve taken your high blood pressure medication, get a podcast from Diane Rehm’s WAMU radio archives of her June 20th discussion of the energy legislation debate. Guests include a well-spoken representative from the Natural Resources Defense Council, but you’ll also hear an employee of the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers extolling the virtues of coal-to-liquid as the key to defeating the terrorist menace.


If the discussion gets you steamed up as it did me, stay tuned to hear Diane’s radio book club discussion of Charlotte Bronte’s Villette. Thinking about Bronte’s insights into human nature and perhaps her line, “Better to be without logic than without feeling,” seems especially appropriate after just listening to a coal advocate using data and reason to convince us to accept more global warming to improve his profit margins.

No (Book) Impact Man

Who wouldn't want to read almost daily about "A guilty liberal [who] finally snaps, swears off plastic, goes organic, becomes a bicycle nut, turns off his power, composts his poop and, while living in New York City, generally turns into a tree-hugging lunatic"? That irresistible character is No Impact Man, author of one of my very favorite blogs. Since his posts started arriving in my inbox a month ago, NIM has chronicled adventures such as saving electricity by stomping his laundry like grapes in the tub and waxed philosophic about the pollution-induced death of a minke whale in New York harbor. Though I sometimes can't even imagine following his example (we have wayward ants, but no composting worms, in our kitchen), he always gives me something to ponder and often a laugh or two.

You can imagine my suspense upon reading today's headline--"Worse Than Giving up Toilet Paper." What could be worse? NIM is starting a new phase of his energy-efficient living experiment, which he calls the "sustainable consumption stage." A writer and book glutton of long standing, NIM began seeing his bulging shelves as antithetical to his sustainability goals. Yet the prospect of parting with objects of such varied and rich values left him feeling panicked. Will NIM get rid of some or all of his treasured books? Should others seeking to save the planet follow suit? And what should be done with books demeaned unworthy of one's own shelves? I won't spoil his story by telling you. But I'd love to hear what you think about his decision and about the comments on that thread of NIM's discussion. Like NIM, I think that what to do about buying, keeping, and purging accumulated books are vital questions in determining how books can and could be used to slow climate change and generally save the earth.

Native Plants as Necessities

I read a book not worth blogging about this weekend, so that freed me to talk about some outdoor, book-free activities—which of course led to more books and thinking about books. Two of my kids and I spent Saturday morning volunteering at a native plant sale held by the Audubon Society of Central Maryland. The annual event supports two local wildlife sanctuaries and environmental education projects (including a schoolyard wildlife habitat grant program that I coordinate), but it’s worthwhile for its own sake as a way to encourage native plant and wildlife habitat gardening. Every year, the offerings grow more diverse, including ferns, grasses, groundcovers, perennials and woody plants, each with indisputable native provenance. We arrived before the crowds, and I altruistically resisted buying the ferns and chokeberries that I coveted, letting the customers get first crack at the goodies. By the time we finished hauling purchases to a few dozen cars, it was too late. But that’s ok; the plants are out there adding biodiversity to central Maryland, even if they’re not in my yard.


It occurred to me that my bioblitz site would have benefited if I’d bought at least some bunchberry to add surreptitiously to the near-monoculture of mown grass at my library. While I picked a lawn-like spot deliberately to see what grows & thrives in that common setting, it’s still been depressing to find so little. It makes me think that a new form of monkey-wrenching could be planting wild columbines to replace New Guinea impatiens and similar acts of sedition (seed-ition?). To learn about the damage we’ve wrought by the simple act of yard-construction, read Sara Stein’s Noah’s Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards. Stein argues that our tidy lawns (and library grounds) are wiping out vast swathes of wildlife habitat, and that each of us has a responsibility to restore at least the patch around our home. Her efforts to transform six acres of Pound Ridge, New York are chronicled conceptually in Noah’s Garden and more practically in Planting Noah’s Garden: Further Adventures in Backyard Ecology. Stein also presents a corollary to her argument that native gardens are good for wildlife--that gardens and outdoor experiences are vital for children--in one of my favorite books Noah’s Children: Restoring the Ecology of Childhood. If that’s not enough gardening books for you, look for recommendations of books appropriate for each region of the U.S. at Plant Native. And if you'd like to witness how a natural landscaper-turned blogger transforms a misbegotten yard into a woodland oasis, visit Wild Flora's Wild Garden.

Sunday, my family managed a hike along the Little Patuxent River and also a visit to an Open House of Chesapeake Climate Action Network. At least once a year, Climate Action invites the public into its founder’s Takoma Park, Maryland home to see how much one family can do to reduce its carbon footprint. We admired a corn-powered stove, rain barrels, and high efficiency appliances, then chatted with a solar water heater installer and a biodiesel car owner. The kids gobbled solar oven-baked cookies, but it was the minescule electric bills that got my husband drooling. Equally attractive, there’s almost no lawn to mow, and blooms of field chickweed attracted a butterfly that would find no reason to stop by my blitz site. The buzz of human visitors, excited by all the possibilities around them, made me think that Sara Stein could extend her argument still further. People of all ages need gardens, outdoor experiences, and new possibilities for improving their environment to thrive. The crowds at the Audubon sale and the Open House were shopping for ideas, for hope.

Act Locally, Read Frequently

“Think globally. Act locally. Read frequently.” I like the motto so much that I wish I’d thought of it. But instead I found it on the website of Arlington READS Green, a project of Arlington County, Virginia and the Arlington Library system. Participants are invited to read “green” books and join in book discussions, author talks, a used book sale, and other enviro-friendly book-related happenings. It’s the literary branch of a many-limbed effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Arlington County, a program aptly named Fresh AIRE (Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions).

So what are Arlington READS Green readers reading? The five selected books include 3 nonfiction titles directly focused on global warming ( An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert, and The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock). To leaven the mix, two novels are also suggested: Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, and Hoot by Carl Hiassen. Oddly, for this nonfiction fan, I’ve read the novels and not the others but recognize all as fine choices to stimulate discussion and heighten awareness. Anyone who lives in the Arlington area may want to check the schedule to learn if you can take part in the discussions. Tonight, for example, is a gathering for kids & teens to chat about Hoot, both book and movie.

But those of us who can’t get to that library can think about public libraries in our own neighborhoods. Could a program like Arlington READS Green work there? Could you help start one, or at least suggest it to the library staff? Another possibility is to suggest one of the GREEN titles (or another appropriate book) to your current book club. The parents' book club at my daughter’s school read Prodigal Summer with much pleasure and lively conversation. I took along a handy reading guide as a source of discussion questions and background info. The best result of the meeting was new fans for Kingsolver, one of the finest nature writers working today. And I know that while reading one book about the environment doesn’t always change your life, reading lots has to have an impact. So three cheers for Arlington READS Green! Let get out there and read frequently together.

Hope in The Post

My Sundays usually begin with a perusal of The Washington Post. My husband grabs the front page (& comics), so I head straight for the book review section. Yesterday, there weren’t any nature or science books that caught my eye (though I'm going to check out one on mistakes women make trying to balance career and motherhood--The Feminine Mistake). But when my husband relinquished Page 1, my reading ups and downs began.

First came a down. As a minor participant but fervent supporter in the StepItUp global warming protests Saturday, I anticipated a front page story on the 1,400 rallies nationwide. Nope. Paging deeper into the Post, I finally came upon a below the fold, left hand corner item on A6, Nationwide, a Clamor Over Global Warming. Compare those few inches of coverage to literally pages on the primary fundraising duel between Obama and Clinton, and you can see my distress. If an international outcry against the greatest environmental threat ever faced can’t get the headlines, what can?

Distraught over the StepItUp reporting, I was in the perfect mood to see an “Outlook” section editorial by a fine writer I know, Janna Bialek. She charges in
Why I Won’t Be Celebrating Earth Day This Year that environmentalists have become just another special interest group. By arranging carpools and recycling drives, she argues, environmentalists let others off the hook to drive SUVs and overheat their McMansions. Bialek’s sitting out Earth Day, she says, and now rejects being called an environmentalist because “Time has proved that the message of Earth Day—that awareness will lead to action—is naïve.” Some readers might view such words as an admission of defeat, but Bialek, I think, means them to jolt us into action. On Earth Day, she’ll skip the organized tree plantings to search alone for wildflowers or eagles, but mostly for spiritual renewal. She needs, as we all do, hope that we can find a way to save the earth. That, I think, is how I’ll make Earth Day every day this year, searching for hope in newspapers, films, books, and of course outdoors.

I’d be remiss not to mention another source of hope in Sunday’s Post. Chad Pregracke is in Washington, D.C., running cleanups of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. The projects are part of his riverkeeping campaign that began a decade ago on the Mississippi. The Post calls him “the Al Gore of the nation’s river system,” and Robert Kennedy, Jr. hails him as “a genuine American hero.” What’s not to be hopeful about that? DC area readers might like to read the Post article, Trawling for Trash to Keep our Rivers Clean, especially if you have time to pitch in. But if you’d like to learn about hands-on, stepped-up environmental action, visit the website for Pregracke’s 2007 book, From the Bottom Up: One Man’s Crusade to Clean America’s Rivers . I haven’t read it yet, so I’d love to hear what people think of it.

Reading While Rallying

I hope that you’ve already heard about tomorrow’s First National Day of Climate Action, a national day of rallies and protests aimed at convincing Congress to cap carbon emissions. Many efforts seek to dramatize the unwelcome changes we’re already facing: scuba divers will be visiting bleaching coral reefs off Florida, and skiers will be schooshing down shrinking glaciers in the Rockies. Around here (Maryland), more prosaic activities are planned, with gatherings, sign-wavings, and hikes of like-minded folks hoping to draw at least a little media attention. The closest group event to me is 20 miles away, though, and it doesn’t seem quite right to drive my minivan (yes, as classic soccer mom, I drive a minivan) to a rally against energy waste. Since other commitments (soccer included) kept me from organizing my own local rally, I needed a Plan B.

So of course I thought of a personal read-a-thon. At first, it seemed ideal to immerse myself in global warming treatises for the day, with the plan to blog about the best next week. After all, activism through books is a major goal of mine. But upon reflection, sitting along doesn’t seem the right way to support the “Step It Up” campaign. The Administration’s been cowering behind the “We need more research” bush long enough. The jury is in. We can quibble over the details of how fast, where, and who, but global warming is happening. What’s a reading activist to do to help stop it?

I know what we’ll do tomorrow. My kids and I will walk to our local park, wearing our “Save the Arctic” t-shirts, and mingle with other families at a planned pet festival. Our message will be quiet and more visual than verbal (wolves and polar bears on the shirts), but maybe it will remind a few people we pass that global warming is part of our regular life, even on Saturdays at the park. More likely, it will remind me to make time in my busy (reading) life to step up and take action. As I walk, I’ll be thinking of more powerful steps my family and I can take, ways to reach out and reach in. My plan for our Climate Action is too small to be satisfying, but maybe that's a good thing. On Sunday, I hope to have the beginnings of a new plan to do more than just read or write. I hope you’ll join me Saturday and beyond.

And if you need more information about the campaign and its founder, Bill McKibben, check out an interview with him at World Changing Magazine. McKibben published the first popular book about global warming The End of Nature in 1989, and initiated the Step It Up campaign just months ago in Vermont. If you insist on reading rather than rallying on Saturday, or are coordinated enough to read while rallying, The End of Nature might be the book to get you started.

Just Say "No" to Book Bullies

I'm enjoying several books right now, but it's too soon to chat about them. Instead, I want to rant a bit about an issue my 6th grader brought up. She's just been assigned a book that she's already read and disliked. Now, she doesn't have much choice but to re-read it at her teacher's behest. But often in one's reading life, books come up that someone or something presses upon you unbidden. "You should read this." "You MUST read this." "What? You haven't read THIS?" How "should" you respond?

My best self knows to listen and maybe take down the title and author for future exploring. But too often such pushing raises my hackles and perhaps predisposes me to dislike the book. Or the raves set you up with such high expectations that the actual imperfect piece of literature has to be a let down.

Sarah's assigned book was a case of the latter for me. For years I heard variations of "You're kidding! You're a nature nut and you write kids books (and your name is Julie) but you haven't read Julie and the Wolves? You must!" When it finally worked its way to the top of my stack, I'm sad to say I found it a bit tedious. I like other Jean Craighead George books, such as Nutik and the Thirteen Moons series and love My Side of the Mountain , so it could well be that I had simply heard to much about "Julie" for it to seem fresh. I'll probably give it another try sometime--if I feel like it!

And I'm glad it reminded me of an important issue for anyone using books as activism tools. It's one thing to let people know about a book and to express your admiration and passion for it. It's another thing to insist that a certain book or lists of books is The Standard Curriculum for naturalists/environmentalists/writers/whatever. I'll try to keep this in mind when my sometimes-too-strident opinions pop onto my blog post and when I make lists of recommended--but not required--reading. The photo with this post will help me remember, since that's Sarah, reminding me that it's better to play in the snow than read about it sometimes. I believe strongly that books and readers need to find each other (and sometimes must also part), and I don't want to bully anyone into reading anything.

Well, except A Sand County Almanac.

Big (& Better) Oyster

My blog earlier today was already long, so I refrained from chatting about another thought I had about reading on the plane—until now. Reading (but not loving) “Pigeons” at least 20,000 feet above my bookshelf made me nostalgic for similar books that I liked more. The first one that popped in mind was Mark Kurlansky’s The Big Oyster (2006, Ballantine). It’s a delicious mix of social, cultural, and natural history, focusing on how one small bivalve helped shape New York City. You’ll find archaeology (Lenape oyster midden research), ecology (explication of the oyster’s distribution & role in water filtration), gastronomy (including historic recipes from Delmonico’s) and much more from this talented author of “Cod” (a highly-acclaimed book from 1998 that I haven’t read yet).

And by cosmic coincidence, the pile of mail that greeted me on return from my trip included a Daedalus Books catalog, complete with a “What We’re Reading” listing for The Big Oyster . Daedalus sells lots of books & music at excellent discounts, so check out all of their nature & science listings while you’re at the site. When I find an especially good bargain, I buy an extra to donate to my nature center or somewhere to spread the word.

Returning to Roost

Well, Andrew Blechman's Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird did turn out to be a good traveling book. Its casual writing style and uncomplicated reporting made it easy to follow even when air turbulence kept me from holding the book steady. But I can’t say that I’d recommend the book under all circumstances. It has quirky characters and insights into worlds where few travel (pigeon racing, pigeon showing, pigeon shooting, etc.), but for my taste, Blechman talks too much about people (will he or won’t he get an interview with famous fancier Mike Tyson?) and not enough about pigeon biology, ecology, or behavior. Anyone interested in learning more about pigeons as living creatures, rather than as objects of human obsessions, would probably learn more from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website Project PigeonWatch .

Or maybe I’m just miffed that Blechman doesn’t mention Aldo Leopold when he had the perfect chance. In my favorite section, a synopsis of passenger pigeon history, he quotes John Muir (who describes world’s then-most abundant birds as “a mighty river in the sky”) and Audubon (who spent three days in 1813 observing a flock’s progress, saying, “the light of noonday was obscured as by an eclipse”). But there’s nothing from Leopold’s splendid essay, “On a Monument to a Pigeon.” Leopold eloquently mourns the extinction of birds he calls “feathered lightning,” lamenting that “no living man will see again the onrushing phalanx of victorious birds, sweeping a path for spring across the March skies, chasing the defeated winter from all the woods and prairies of Wisconsin.”

The essay, in A Sand County Almanac, is a poignant reminder to me that, while I believe words can be mighty weapons in the fight for environmental protection, even the finest nature books are poor substitutes for nature herself. As Leopold writes, “There will always be pigeons in books and in museums, but these are effigies and images, dead to all hardships and to all delights. . . . They know no urge of seasons; they feel no kiss of sun, no lash of wind and weather. They live forever by not living at all.” If we don’t want nature books to be mere monuments to past glories, we need to use them in diverse, creative ways to protect—and restore—the future.

Such musings have put me in the perfect mood for my next book, recommended by a thoughtful reader: Return to Wild America, by Scott Weidensaul. In 2003, Weidensaul retraced a famous 1953 cross-country trek across North America by Roger Tory Peterson and British naturalist James Fisher. What will be left, 50 years after their big adventure? Stay tuned (& keep reading). . . .

Climate Crisis Action Day

See my spiffy new button for GlobalWarming.org? I spent yesterday in Washington, D.C. for a rally against global warming, officially called, Climate Crisis Action Day. We heard John Kerry speak on the history of growing concern and legislative failures and a third grader talk about her concern for drowning polar bears. We also picked up some info on installing solar water heaters, plus a button from the Wilderness Society announcing, "I Like it Wild." Then we headed for our Congressional Rep's office to deliver my seven-year-old's drawing of a polar bear asking, "Save me!"

The rally was a little sparse, especially for such a beautiful day. The minimal gathering inspired my activist son to write a blog entry today, pondering the effectiveness of rallies in campaigns for social change. I'll leave that for his more social-theory oriented mind. My books-oriented mind started wondering how books can shape the campaign.

I've read only one, though: James Gustave Speth's Red Sky at Morning. It's a good place to start, written by a scholar (Speth's Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) and supplemented by a website, complete with additional resources, updates, and a streaming video of the author discussing his work. I've also skimmed the companion book to Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and read laudatory reviews of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert (Paperback,2006).

But there are so many other choices, some overtly hostile to climate change theories, others aimed at spoofing concerns rather than inspiring action. The field looks too big for one humble blogging over-reader to pick the best or most effective at helping the debate progress. So what books have you found useful? Did it inspire you to think better, talk better, act better? Or is there a book on climate change that still needs to be written? Well, then, stop rallying and start writing. . . .

Pass the book, please

No, I don't spend all of my time reading. Just now, I must confess, I was watching tv! The NBC Evening News (another confession: we don't have cable) has a regular segment called, "What Works." Tonight, it featured a book giveaway program started by a doctor who wanted to make sure that all of his patients owned books. The program, Reach Out and Read, has become a national effort, with studies showing that it improves literacy among particpant kids. Bravo!

Could something like that work for environmental literacy? On an online book club focusing on Rachel Carson's works, we've been bemoaning the fact that few people have heard of Carson, Aldo Leopold, or other environmental leaders. Maybe handing out free books might help. Of course we'd need to hand out a few million. Could it be done? Should it? Would it make sense to join established programs, such as Reach Out and Read, then lobby for a certain portion of the gift books be eco-focused (eco-friendly, green published would be nice, too). Or are there better ways to get kids excited about environmental leaders and their messages?

To learn more about the doctors' reading program, visit Reach Out and Read . Then let me know about any similar book programs that might work for kids' or adults' environmental literacy. Thanks!

Barefeet Turn Green

I like to make sure that the books I'm reading are worth the trees they're printed on. Part of that process is picking good books. But the other part is to choose books from environmentally responsible publishers. "Green publishing" can mean lots of things, including use of recycled paper, soy-based inks, efficient printing processes, and high mileage delivery trucks. If you buy often from one publisher, it's worthwhile checking to see how green they are. And if they're not green enough for you, let them know about it.

Writers should do this too, I suspect, insisting that their books be printed as responsibly as possible. I must confess that I haven't ever spoken up on this issue to my publishers. I guess I've been leaving it to J.K. Rowling and others with mega sales to speak up, while I'm just grateful to get a book out occasionally. Maybe some writers can suggest ways for me & other mid-list authors to approach a publisher about going green--or at least greener.

To see how a publisher might spell out their environmental efforts, visit Barefoot Books. Barefoot, primarily a children's book publisher, goes so far as to curtail business airplane travel for employees, to use local organic food for office refreshments, and to minimize paper communication within the office. I'd love to know how other publishers approach this important issue. Any nominations for deep green publishers? Any tips on how to convince more to turn green?