Category Archives: Eco-stuff

Advice to new vegetarians

After the vigil in support of victims and survivors of domestic violence was over last night, I wound up talking to a twenty-something woman who had been a vegetarian for two weeks. She was having difficulty adjusting to her new way of eating, and when she found out I had been a vegetarian for years, she wanted some advice.

My advice for her wasn’t all that good. While for the most part I still am a vegetarian, now my priority is eating organic and/or locally-grown food, and I realized that I’ve lost touch with the reasons for and mechanics of vegetarianism. So I recommended that she read Diet for a Small Planet, but then I realized that book was written before she was born, and is probably horribly dated. She said she had been reading a book called Skinny Bitch, but she wondered if there were other, easy-to-read, books on vegetarianism.

I was able to give her one piece of advicae based on my own experience as a vegetarian: be sure to take vitamin B-12 supplements (not the mega-doses — it’s a fat-soluble vitamin, and too much of it won’t do you any good). I also told her to be sure to get complete protein, and asked if she was a vegan or a vegetarian who would eat eggs and cheese. She hadn’t thought that through, and I couldn’t think of a good resource to help her figure out what kind of vegetarian she was.

In short, I realized that I’m out of touch with the world of vegetarianism and veganism. But I know that many of my readers are sure to be vegans and vegetarians, and you will be able to give me some good advice. Here are my questions for you:

  • If you were giving advice to a new vegetarian, what one book would you recommend? The book should give some of the moral, ethical, and political implications of vegetarianism — and it should provide enough recipes (or cookbook recommendations) to get someone through the first month.
  • Same question for a new vegan: If you were giving advice to a new vegan, what one book would you recommend?
  • What are the top three pieces of advice you’d give to a new vegetarian?
  • Same question for vegans: top three pieces of advice to a new vegan.

Or any other comments or help you think would be pertinent to new vegetarians/vegans….

Completely shameless promotion

It finally arrived. Carol finally got a copy of the book she has been working on for the past year or so. The book, titled Reusing the Resource: Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling, was published by the small non-profit she runs, Ecowaters — in other words, Carol co-wrote the book, edited it (with lots of assistance from her mother), and laid it out. The book has also been the cause of a certain amount of angst in our household, as it slipped farther and farther behind schedule over the past six months.

But at last the book has finally arrived, fresh from the printers. I got to leaf through a copy this afternoon, and I can tell you that it’s an attractive book, beautifully designed, chock full of solid information about reusing wastewater. I particularly like the fact that there are fifty short profiles of people and companies that have already built wastewater recycling into their homes, businesses, and skyscrapers — which makes you realize that recycling wastewater is not some hippy-dippy pipe dream, but financially viable reality. There are even a few illustrations by me (my only contribution to this project).

And if you really want to buy a copy, please buy it directly from Ecowaters. Amazon and other online booksellers force Ecowaters to cut their profits in half, and those profits are what fund their presentations, tours, and the rest of their educational mission. Available online using Paypal here. (I warned you that this was a completely shameless promotion.)

Just an observation

Today has been decreed to be “Step It Up” day:

April 14, 2007 — National Day of Climate Action

On this historic day, Americans called on their leaders to act immediately to stop global warming. In all 50 states, at more than 1400 iconic places across the nation, we have united around a common call to action: “Step It Up Congress: Cut Carbon 80% by 2050.” Your move, Congress.

One of those 1,400 iconic places was the Whaling Museum here in New Bedford, right across the street from our apartment. I was doing my taxes, but Carol went over and heard the excellent keynote talk by John Bullard, former mayor of New Bedford (and, as it happens, a Unitarian Universalist).

When I needed a break from my taxes, I looked out the window and counted exactly three bicycles. But there were cars parked in every parking place I could see from the window. I’m sure a few people besides Carol walked to the event, but the reality is that many of the people who attended the New Bedford “Step It Up” day live too far away to walk or bike; and for others, their busy schedule required them to drive.

Three bicycles. Fifty or more cars.

Just an observation about how hard it really is for us to change the habits and rhythms that release tons of CO2, yet which have become fundamental to the way our society works.

Pilgrimage

Religions have been basically clueless when it comes to dealing with global climate change. Which is to be expected, because ecological crisis is so completely new, no one has a clue how to deal with it. Being clueless myself, last Saturday, March 24, I walked on the last day of the Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue. The walk culminated in an interfaith worship service in Boston’s Old South Church.

I know that a walk for “climate rescue” seems pointless;– certainly, the walk had enough trappings of 60’s “counterculture” (signs with slogans, chanting, etc.) to make it seem even more pointless. And like many interfaith worship services, the one last Saturday seemed more like a disjointed collage than a unified worship service. In spite of all that, interfaith worship services and pilgrimages on foot might be exactly the right thing to do right now.

I don’t know. You watch the video and see how you feel. (6:26)

Quicktime video — Click link, and where it says “Select a format” choose “Source — Quicktime”. Wait until the file downloads to your computer, and then click play. This should work for dial-up connections, and offers higher-resolution for all connections.

Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.

Global warming and business

The March, 2007, issue of Harvard Business Review has a good article on global warming titled “Competitive Advantage on a Warming Planet.” Authors Jonathan Lash and Fred Wellington point out that it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe global warming is real because “investors already are discounting share prices of companies poorly positioned to compete in a warming world” (take that, Wall Street Journal editorial page). They point out the effects of climate change on business become clear when you consider the kinds of risk associated with it: regulatory risk, supply chain risk, technology risk, litigation risk (they predict that companies with lots of carbon emissions face lawsuits similar to those brought against tobacco and asbestos industries), and of course reputational risk.

Most often, you have to pay to view articles on the Harvard Business Review Web site, but in this case the complete article is available free — and definitely worth reading:

Link.

Suburban sprawl makes you fat and old

Any eco-freak worth his/her salt knows that suburban sprawl is bad (destroys wildlife habitat, requires excessive use of automobiles, is ugly, etc.). So far, the average response of the average American to the eco-freaks has been: “So what? We love our sprawl.” Now it appears that living in the midst of sprawl is associated with being fat. Better yet, a study has found that living in the midst of sprawl can make you feel like you’re years older:

In 2004, Cohen and Roland Sturm of RAND asked more than 8,000 residents of 38 U.S. communities to list their health problems. The researchers also assessed the degree of sprawl in each resident’s community. “People reported more complaints — more health problems — when they lived in more sprawling areas,” Cohen says. The excess of physical problems such as arthritis linked to sprawl was comparable to the change that would occur if the entire population suddenly aged by 4 years, Cohen and Sturm concluded.

Now we eco-freaks have a new argument: sprawl makes you fat and old. Read more: link.

Doomsday clock

You know, what with global climate change and the war in Iraq, plain old nuclear armageddon seems somehow comforting. At least it’s an old familiar problem.

On January 17, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will be advancing their famous symbolic clock a little closer to midnight; a little closer to the ultimate act of environmental destruction.

Link.

Election Day snippets

Our polling place is in the old New Bedford Hotel. But Carol had not changed her place of residence properly (no, it wasn’t voting fraud or conspiracy, it was Carol’s mistake). So I’m the only one in our house who voted. And then I was the only voter in the polling place at 7:30 p.m. — me, seven poll workers, and one cop. I asked if it was a good turnout in our precinct. The poll workers just shrugged.

Since this blog is my private blog, with no connection to the congregation I serve as minister, I can safely express political opinions here that would give the IRS conniption fits if I said them at church….

I voted to re-elect Ted Kennedy even though his stand against the Cape Wind project is utterly selfish and immoral. Global warming is real, it’s happening, and wind power makes sense here in windy Massachusetts. I cannot imagine why Kennedy, usually so strong on environmental issues, is throwing all of his weight (and probably a fair amount of his money) into ending Cape Wind — unless it’s because he selfishly doesn’t want to see a wind farm from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis on Cape Cod. Ted, Ted, Ted:– wind farms are the new chic landscape feature; all the rich people like you want to be able to see a wind farm these days.

The thing is, Ted Kennedy is also one of the few senators who can be counted on to stand up to the current administration’s handling of the Iraq war. As a pacifist who takes the teachings of Jesus seriously, I believe all war is bad. But this current war is beyond bad:– in my opinion, it can no longer be justified by the standard Western criteria for just wars; therefore, we are currently engaged in an immoral war. The immorality of Kennedy’s stand on wind power is more than balanced by the morality of his stand against the Iraq war.

For the second time in my life, I got to vote for congressman Barney Frank (the first time was when I was in seminary at Andover Newton, which through the miracles of gerrymandering is in the same congressional district as New Bedford). So what if he’s running unopposed again — I enjoyed voting for Barney Frank.

State senator Mark Montigny and state representative Tony Cabral got my votes, in large part because of their strong stands in favor of same-sex marriage.

I did vote for a Green-Rainbow party candidate — Jill Stein for Scretary of State in Massachusetts. Interstingly, she was endorsed by the New Bedford Standard-Times, who wrote: “We recognize that Jill Stein, the Green-Rainbow Party candidate for Secretary of State, is a long shot to unseat Democratic incumbent William Galvin. But our endorsement of the physician and open government advocate from Lexington and your vote for her will send an important message. The voters need an activist secretary of state who will open up government on Beacon Hill….” I have to admit that my vote was as much a vote against Galvin as it was a vote in support of Stein.

Deval Patrick better win… that’s all I’m going to say about the governor’s race.

Election Day is not my biggest political concern right now. I’m more worried about the constitutional convention here in Massachusetts on Thursday, conveniently scheduled after Election Day so the pols can vote as they please and not suffer any consequences at the polls (grr…). If the opponents of same-sex marriage get fifty votes on Thursday, there will be another constitutional convention in 2008, and at that time the convention could vote to put an anti-same-sex-marriage question on the ballot. I’ll be attending the big rally in support of same sex marriage in front of the State House on Thursday [Link] — I’ll be there in the morning, and I hope to see you there, too.

Al Gore vs. Bender

If you’re a fan of the Futurama TV show, you’ll know that Bender is mouthy robot given to saying things like “Comedy’s a dead art form. Now tragedy…heh heh heh, that’s funny.”

Now Bender the robot takes on Al Gore in a short cartoon, “A Terrifying Message from Al Gore,” featuring dialogue like this:

Al Gore: If we don’t do something, our planet will become a deadly smog ball that will choke out all life.

Bender: Good! More beer for the robots!

How can you resist? See it now: Link.