Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Gardening in the Suburbs: Keeping it Local

My family and I are strong believers in eating locally and organically. In the late fall, winter and early spring, we get food deliveries from a services called Door-to-Door Organics and in the late spring, summer and fall we are members of a local CSA called Asbury Village Farm.

However, the most local you can get is to grow in your own yard. One of the things my husband and I were excited about when we moved to the suburbs 5 years ago was to have our own vegetable garden. However, as it happened, the house we bought has a backyard that is totally wooded — almost 85% shade. Not very promising for tomatos and other veggies that need full sun. We could grow them in our front yard but these fruits and vegetables would be great eats for the plentiful deer, rabbits and groundhogs that inhabit our neighborhood (makes two liberals want to go out and get a gun!)

So after living in our town for about a year, we were going to the local playground with our son. We parked right in front of a community garden. The gate was opened and we walked in to see approximately 70 or so — 10 feet x 15 foot plots– filled with gorgeous vegetables, berries and flowers. Wow, so cool — we had find out how we could get a plot of our own. A small sign at the gate gave the address of the garden club that ran this community garden. My husband wrote a letter telling our story and requesting a plot to tend. While we waited to hear back we talked to everyone and anyone to find out who we could call to speed and influence the decision making process. I tracked down the woman who ran the club and we called her. We were told that there was a long waitlist for the garden and that someone had to give up their plot to for us to get one — but once you get one you can keep it for life! So, disappointed, we waited.

Then one spring the phone call came. There was a plot opening up and it was ours if we wanted it. The garden organizer warned us that it was next to a tree and was shaded, but the last person who tended it had pretty good success growing tomatoes and other veggies. We jumped at the chance to grow our own food. That was three years ago and this summer we were given a second plot, this one in full sun.

More »

Global Warming, Eating Meat and the Importance of the Local Farm Movement — Directly from a Farmer

In my quest to green my life, I have been on a mission to eat more sustainably. I’ve tried to buy only locally grown and organic produce and have searched for grass-fed meats. Well, during my quest I have befriended Shannon Hayes, a sustainable farmer in Upstate New York. This journey to find better, healthier and more environmentally friendly meat can be read in one of my older post entitled “Grass-Fed Meat.”

Shannon has a wealth of information on today’s food issues and I thought Eco Chick readers might enjoy what she has to say about global warming, eating meat and the importance of the local farm movement. I hope you find it has informative and timely as I did.

Compare Apples to Apples When You’re Talking About Rib Eyes
By Shannon Hayes, farmer and host of grassfedcooking.com

After decades of hunching over in shame around environmentalist vegetarians, small grass-based meat farmers were finally given a chance hold our heads high by investigative journalists and nutritional advocates like Jo Robinson, Michael Pollan and Sally Fallon. In the last 10 years, Grass-fed meats have been lauded for their health benefits, their contributions to local economies and animal welfare, and most especially, for their environmental benefits.

…Until recently. A study released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization started a buzz in November of 2006 suggesting that livestock production is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined. According to a story in the New York Times, in 2007, PETA commissioned a Hummer and outfitted it with a driver wearing a chicken suit to travel around to environmental rallies, proclaiming meat as the number one cause of global warming. And this month, a story in Environmental Science and Technology reports on a new study which suggests that, rather than eating locally, we should just remove red meat and dairy from our diet once per week and replace it with chicken, fish or eggs, and have at least one day per week entirely meat-free. The result? Customers ordinarily seeking beef are suddenly asking for turkey burgers and chicken sausage; or they are dropping meat from their diets all together.

That’s pretty grim news for my family. Three generations of us garner a living from our small grass-based farm tucked up in the northern foothills of the Appalachian mountain chain. We’ve managed to build an exclusively local market for our products, making us an integral part of our rural economy. We’ve also managed to bring three additional farms back into viable agricultural production with the help of folks dedicated to buying locally.

…Which leads to the next piece of news being circulated: that these “small dietary shifts” of giving up meat can accomplish the same greenhouse gas reduction as eating locally. The subtext here seriously stings: “Forget about those looney meat farmers in the hills, don’t fret about canning local tomatoes, and return your faith to the conventional supermarket. Just buy less red meat and go vegetarian once per week..” As a grass-based meat farmer, I’ve got a beef with that — not to mention a serious steak in the matter (in this case, a rib eye, which I plan to lay across my grill later today).

Truth be told, these studies aren’t wrong. They aren’t exactly right, either, but I’ll get to that in a second.
More »

Eco-Fashion Makes Local Farmers Happy

The organics industry is expected to boom faster than ever in the next few years. And I’m stoked.

It seems like everywhere I look, someone else is going organic. Just the other day I was perusing my favorite store, H&M and came across and entire organic section, that I had somehow missed the other times I was in there. We’re seeing them pop up all over – The Gap, American Apparel and prAna. It’s cool to be granola, and the farmers are loving it. As with the new craving for locally grown foods, the local farmers are starting to feel the love sustainably harvested homegrown threads.

Both American Apparel and prAna are not only continuing their lengthy organic roots, but will be doing so from Southern California to offset the carbon burned while transporting the goods! Woo!

More »

Deep Economy: Q&A with Bill McKibben

When Bill McKibben wrote The End of Nature in 1989, it was the first popular press book to address global warming in a meaningful way. Since then, McKibben has not only carved out a career as an environmental journalist; he has become one of the most steadfast and trustworthy voices in the arena.

McKibben is currently at work promoting Step It Up 2007—a decentralized protest calling for Congress to introduce measures to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050—which will take place on April 14 in over 800 locations across the country.

In his latest book, Deep Economy (Henry Holt, 2007), McKibben submits that we’re past the point of changing our light bulbs and hoping for the best. Instead, it’s time to challenge the prevailing economic ideology of “More is Better,” with local yet systemic alternatives.

McKibben recently took some time from his work to discuss Deep Economy with Eco-Chick.

Eco-Chick: How does the idea of deep economy differ from the idea of local economy?

McKibben: Local economies are the main prescription, I think, for dealing with the deep problems of our current system—that it’s driving the Earth off an ecological cliff, and that it isn’t making us as happy as it seems to. We’ve thought much too shallowly about what we want out of the economy: not simply more, but a satisfying and workable world.

Eco-Chick: In Deep Economy, you say that it’s time to move beyond “More is Better,” but qualify that by saying, “researchers report that money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capita income, and that after that point the correlation disappears…” (41). Do you see environmentalism as something of a class privilege? If so, do you think that has been sufficiently recognized by the environmental movement?

McKibben: I think that not caring about the environment is a kind of class privilege. The very poorest people—in this country and around the planet—feel the effects of the damage more than the rest of us do. (Go to New Orleans to see what I mean, and after that Bangladesh.) The onus on cleaning up should fall most heavily on those of us who have made the most mess—in this case, by pouring CO2 into the atmosphere, carbon that is directly related to our consumption. And we shouldn’t point too many fingers at China for their carbon emissions, not while our per capita emissions are four times greater. Instead, we need to figure out how to re-engage with the rest of the world to help them develop on something other than our energy path.

Eco-Chick: Since the Democrats took control of the House and Senate last November, many Americans have expressed hope that Congress will finally address growing public concern about global warming. However, you note in Deep Economy that unless we also critically examine our marriage to economic growth—something the Democrats have failed to do—we cannot expect to arrive at meaningful solutions to climate change and other environmental crises. What, if anything, can we reasonably expect from the Democratic Party, both in Congress and in the upcoming Presidential election?

McKibben: I hope that the Democrats will set targets—dramatic and ambitious ones—somewhere near the scientific mandate. At stepitup07.org, we’ve been saying 80% cuts by 2050. If that happens, it will help set in motion the train of events that will, hopefully with enough speed, wean us away from a world of fossil-fueled hyper-growth and towards something more durable. Congress won’t vote against growth. They may vote for higher energy prices (under some guise like cap and trade), which will then help lead us in saner directions. But an awful lot of the work is going do have to be done on the local and state level.

Eco-Chick: As I read more about local economy and, specifically, local food production, it seems to me that the discussion might need to include a reconsideration of the traditional gender roles that Americans have challenged in recent decades. In other words, the move from processed food to fresh, locally grown food requires that there be someone cooking in the kitchen. Do you think that this is part of the dialogue or is it a non-issue by this point?

McKibben: What can I say? At our house, I do the cooking. I guess I don’t think that cooking is such a bad thing—better for your body, for the planet, and probably for your mood than subcontracting it to some fast food kitchen. The fact that we’ve largely forgotten how to cook is a problem, and if we relearn, I sure hope it won’t be attached to gender as it has been in our past.

Eco-Chick: Likewise, does the idea of deep economy suggest that we might need to reconsider the roles that children and grandparents can play in a family and a community?

McKibben: Yep. Children and grandparents are now viewed as slightly problematic since they’re not contributing to economic growth. But any sensible community anywhere in the world has knit [children] into the fabric of real life—not by “child labor,” but by allowing ways that they can help. And it’s the same with grandparents.

Eco-Chick: Your research for Deep Economy took you to India, China, and Cuba, as well as cities and towns across the U.S. To me, one of the elephants in the room is that many of the most committed, knowledgeable and active environmentalists (those who would be most open to the idea of deep economy) are also people who love to travel, partly because they appreciate seeing alternatives to their own ways of thinking and living. Is there a way to reconcile travel and deep economy? Is it enough to buy a hybrid and carbon credits? Or should we heed poet Gary Snyder’s advice and, “Find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there”?

McKibben: I think that Snyder is basically right. One of the hypocrisies of my life is that I spend a great deal of time traveling to tell people to use less carbon. I hope I end up a few gallons to the good. Of course, I buy carbon offsets, but that’s fairly token. My real joy is to stay and home and my favorite vacation of recent years is described in a book called Wandering Home, about a three-week backpack trip across my home county.

Eco-Chick: Deep Economy is dedicated to Wendell Berry. What influence has he had on your work?

McKibben: I read him first at an impressionable age, and he shocked me out of believing that the conventional wisdoms of the world were, in fact, so obvious. As I told him recently when we shared a stage, he completely changed the course of my life, and for that I’m about 85 percent grateful.

Eco-Chick: It’s been 18 years since you published The End of Nature, the first popular press book to address global warming (as far as I know). What has changed—in terms of scientific knowledge, public and government action, and your own concerns about the issue—since then? Are you satisfied with how we are responding?

McKibben: The science has gotten steadily grimmer. We didn’t understand how finely poised the Earth’s physical systems were, so we’re seeing huge responses to warming (such as Arctic melt) sooner than we would have expected. The political response—especially in this country—has been slower than I would have thought. The last six years have been totally and completely wasted, and they were important years. At the moment, though, I’m feeling a little optimistic. The response to stepitup07.org has been so much larger than I could ever have guessed and I think that we’re finally nearing a tipping point.