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 |  Conscious Choice Earth for Hire If you started at scenic Bethany Beach on the Delaware shore and drove due west on Route 26 for 10 miles, you’d hit the town of Dagsboro. Pass through town, drive a few more miles west, and you’re in Cypress Swamp Forest Legacy Area. This clunkily-monikered chunk of land is one of the last remaining swaths of forest in the state. Last year, the land’s owner, a timber company, sought to sell the property. Normally, it would have been snapped up by a developer looking to pave it over with housing subdivisions. This, after all, is one of the fastest growing regions of the state, and housing developments bring in more money than timber. Instead, however, the land was purchased by a Maryland-based group of investors who plan to turn a tidy profit another way: by doing nothing. Enlightenment Reason or Occult Conspiracy? What holds our world together is not only the laws of physics, but language, myth and story. Our narratives create the framework in which our actions and our intentions have meaning, or at least some kind of order. It is very hard for us to live without any coherence at all. It may even be impossible, as our minds immediately begin to weave together some type of fable to support whatever it is we find ourselves doing. Dispose of Household Hazardous Waste With Punxsutawney Phil having seen his shadow in February, it is no surprise that we are all chomping at the bit for warmer temperatures. The changing of the seasons is without a doubt one of the most anticipated times of the year. I also know that spring brings with it a sense of new beginnings and an urge to clean up around the house, getting rid of stuff we’ve collected since last year and preparing the garden. The Jolly Green Grocer Cassie Green and Gary Stephens have recently opened a small cheery store called Green Grocer in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood. It’s a quaint spot, with an array of local and artisan producers, but it’s got a really interesting twist: Green Grocer is a great venue for a spiritual pick-me-up. The walls are brightly colored, the food is healthy and one of the best attributes is that Green stands at the door welcoming everyone with a smile, a warm greeting and an uplifting brightness in her eyes. I was in the store for nearly an hour and not a person walked in or out without being greeted by Green. Chicago's Vegetarian Pioneer Celebrates 25 Years When the now-famous Chicago Diner opened its doors 25 years ago, a restaurant critic wrote, “The deserts are so natural they taste like dirt. If you want something good, go to 7-11 for a ding dong.”   Common Ground Nice Save If global warming is the question, then the answer — according to Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp — is entrepreneurship and innovation. In contrast to the hand wringing, fear mongering style of some environmentalists, Krupp is a firm believer in tackling the climate crisis with a healthy dose of capitalist principles and a pinch of good ol’ American ingenuity — an approach which he says will generate new industries, create new jobs and, in the process, probably make a few lucky investors very rich. Conversations: Stuffed! Annie Leonard is obsessed with garbage. She’s consumed by consumption. She’s tormented by natural resource depletion and she’s losing sleep over all the junk we buy and how and where we throw it away. In her 20 years of work as an environmental sustainability expert for nonprofits like Greenpeace and Health Care Without Harm, Leonard witnessed the international fallout of our buying and disposing habit firsthand. Then came 9/11, and the president’s entreaty to “shop more.” That’s when Leonard realized: the average American consumer just doesn’t have a clue. Boom Heat Magic The universe is brimming with energy. Here on earth it’s pulsating all around us: in air, sea and soil, in wood, bone and flesh. This is very convenient for humans who rely on it for powering nearly everything — from our cars to our computers to our triple soy latte-fueled days. Ages ago, our ancestors discovered that a simple way to capture and channel energy to our bidding was to extract materials from the earth and burn them. The problem is that now, short of furniture and wall trimmings, we’re running out of stuff to throw on the fire. Body Image and Bad Health The body-image blues could be bad for your health, suggests a recent report from the American Journal of Public Health. Scientists studied more than 150,000 U.S. adults, finding that about 66 percent wanted to shed pounds while 26 percent were happy with their weight. Those who longed to slim down spent a greater number of days per month feeling physically unhealthy: Women who wished to lose 20 percent of their weight, for instance, said they felt under-the-weather an average of 4.3 days a month. Dine Outside the Box Behind the benignly attractive façade of 803 Cortland, past the deejay and the cozy dining room, through the kitchen and out in back, lives the saddest garbage dumpster in all of San Francisco. Neglected, malnourished and virtually forgotten, this thwarted orphan met its lonesome fate through the knowing intent of two men — chefs Blair Warsham and Ryan Russell. |
|  Whole Life Times Spin Cycle These days we’re constantly bombarded with media messages touting the latest and greatest eco-saviors. Compact fluorescent light bulbs save the polar bears! Bamboo clothes redefine eco-agriculture and couture fashion! Mineral makeup pretties-up your face and the planet too! Pasteurization Nation If you’re not nuts about nuts (sorry, we just couldn’t resist), the USDA’s recent ruling requiring all store-sold raw almonds to be pasteurized probably passed under your radar. And it’s true, for the average occasional nut-eater, the raw almond ban was unlikely to raise an eyebrow. After all, a nut’s a nut right? How much difference could there be between pasteurized and unpasteurized? Boys Club The American man is twice screwed. The first hit occurs early, when X and Y codes us into thinkers, rather than feelers. The second we might blame on society, which encourages us to keep the feelings to ourselves. Repression begets therapy bills. Relationships falter — plagued, in part, because we’re never taught how to communicate. Venice's Sustainable Stay While it may seem like Venice is razing its bohemian bungalows in favor of shiny-new multi-story rentals, at least one new urban getaway has managed to remain true to the seaside town’s beachy roots without leaving a monster footprint: the Venice Beach Eco Cottages. Homegirl Cafe The comforting scent of warm, freshly baked bread rises into a high-ceilinged room in a summery-yellow downtown building. The elaborate red, marigold and green pagoda-style roofs rise up right next to the brand-new bakery, bursting with color and life. The building bustles with energy: patrons moving in and out, workers chatting, men and women laughing.  Conscious Choice Seattle Green For All Since we reported on the idea in last year’s Earth Day issue, “green collar” jobs, have generated quite the buzz. After cycling through the mainstream media and the blogosphere, the term is now common parlance among business leaders and community organizers who want to bring about a New Green Deal. It even got some play during the presidential campaign, with contenders on both sides of the aisle citing it as a way to end dependency on foreign oil, protect natural resources and reduce carbon emissions. When You Wake Up Most of us know what it means to act. But what does it mean to act sacredly? According to Oxford-educated author and religious scholar Andrew Harvey, “sacred activism” is social change that comes from the center of your heartbreak. It’s “the fusion of the deepest spiritual knowledge and passion with clear, wise, radical action in all arenas of the world, inner and outer.” Food Logic We have all heard the phrase “you are what you eat.” Meaning, that if you consume copious quantities of junk food, then supposedly you’ll end up with Snickers-bar arms and a potato chip bag for a belly. On the flip side, if you eat a diet full of wholesome foods, an apple-like complexion and taut muscles will follow. Eco Dining in the Emerald City Each month, I’m asked to find a new eco-restaurant to share with you. It’s pretty much a stellar “job,” and I’m happy for it. It’s my hope that my never-ending quest for good food turns you onto something new, tasty and green. When I chatted with Maria Hines, chef and owner of Tilth last year, she lamented that it was “easier than you think” to stay consciously rooted and run a green business. Trouble is, sometimes it is hard to determine what actually makes a restaurant green. Is building from sustainable and salvaged materials enough? Does all of the food need to be organic? Local? How about business practices — should a restaurant win brownie points for using biodegradable soap (in the kitchen and bathrooms)? In my book, it’s a combination of all of these things. Village Living Quick! Snatch spring before that brilliant sunshine slips rudely back behind the clouds. I suppose one’s impression of April really does depend on whether your sky is half cloudy or half blue. A Canadian friend of mine insists spring arrived last month. Me? I assume that the glare from all those glass-paned high-rises has left her blindly optimistic. I see April as more of a dance, which requires us to drop everything and run into the sun break, because the fickle orb usually only shows its face for ten-minute windows of time. |
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