Plenty Magazine Issue 20 Feb/Mar 2008 by Plenty Magazine

PLENTY

The Future of the Hydrogen Economy | Eco barcelona | guilt-Free chocolate

The World In Green february/march 2008

100 Gadgets,

Gear, and Tips for Living Well

Will Al Goreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new campaign save the planet? Farm to Fork with Dan Barber Rick Moody Takes a Hike And the Eco Oscar Goes to...

War of the Roses inside the Fair Trade Flower industry

PLENTY The World In Green

Contents

features

February/March 2008 Monkeying with the Message Earth is about to

Farmers are searching

72 Budding Movement 78 Way Beyond the

Science Few people ever win a

84 Roots of the Cost

get a new PR campaign (and

for guidelines to inform

MacArthur “genius grant.” Even

is booming around the world.

yes, it involves Al Gore). But

environmentally sound flower

fewer can lay claim to helping

But how fair is the trade?

beyond pushing for awareness,

growing practices. But the

find not one but two new spe-

By Anna Sussman

how do we translate concern

array of certifications available

cies of primates. And only one

into action? The answer isn’t as

to them raises as many

person has saved Madagascar’s

splashy as you’d think—and it

questions as it answers.

legendary lemurs through all-

involves primates and shopping.

By Amy Stewart

night rum-drinking ceremonies.

By liz galst

Meet Patricia Wright. By Steven Kotler

2 | february-march 2008

The business of carbon offsets

Cover photograph by Ramiro Falazar courtesy of EcoRoses Retouching by Al Rivera A baby llama lives on the grounds of EcoRoses flower farm in Ecuador.

PLENTY The World In Green

Contents

living

People Eco Star Ricki Lake, the “Al Gore of Home Birth.”

in every issue

4 Plenty Online 8 From the Editor 10 Contributors 12 Letters 14 Ask Plenty 96 Last Word

By Jennifer Block

Travel Escape the roar of engines with a trip to one of these seven car-free islands. By Justin Nobel 46 Going Places: Barcelona 47 A spa with fewer worries; on-the-go charging; road trippers’ alert.

48 Food

For artisanal chocolate makers, ethics are the new gourmet.

By Madhu Puri

50 Dan Barber’s new cooking column. 51 Organic pastas in all shapes and flavors.

Rick Moody braves Arizona’s Sabino Canyon and its “problem” mountain lions.

Home A new direction in sustainable building. By Heather Wagner 55 A chandelier, drying rack, and rush mattress with environmental cred.

spectrum

57 Style

Animal walkways; udderly surprising dairy stats; science and beer; Punky Brewster’s earth-friendly kids’ shop; Rock and Wrap It Up; Plenty’s Eco-Oscars; turtle power; and more.

Become beauty-label savvy; layer up for spring.

24 Superhero of the Seas

A Mexican wrestler’s most important fight. By Tara FitzGerald

30 Life in the Green Zone

Celebrated comedian Lizz Winstead on junk in the family trunk.

Green Gear®

Green Gear® Gadgets to keep your eco-impact, organization and fitness resolutions on track.

current

plenty labs

36 Business

Plenty Labs Putting hand soaps to the test; the best of nondairy milks; the new crop of electricity-monitoring devices; and the latest in green reads.

Iceland: the world’s hydrogen powerhouse; an organic fast food café; and biofuels at a glance.

Nature Honeybees are nearly down for the count, but their native cousins—the new bees on the block— are just getting warmed up.

Just can’t get enough

Plenty?

Check out plentymag.com to satisfy your craving for the latest news, blogs, and more. 55

Exclusive Web Series Starting in March, look for our special series on the International Polar Year. This massive two-year research project allows scientists from around the globe to investigate people, wildlife, and the environment at the ends of the earth.

The Green Fiend Annemarie Conte scoffs at petroleum and embraces French fry grease instead.

To subscribe to Plenty call 800.316.9006 or visit plentymag.com

Green House Effect

On the Beat

Architecture guru Lisa Selin Davis covers the latest news and trends in urban planning and green design.

Kevin Friedl tells you who’s covering the important environmental stories—and who’s missing the point. 72

Special thanks to Birdbath, NYC

Science & Tech Spring’s coming sooner; bringing home the transgenic bacon; light pollution; and magic mud.

PLENTY The World In Green February/March 2008

12 HOUR

HUMIDITY

DEFENSE New Smooth Infusion™ Style-Prep Smoother.™ Our newest way to smooth hair protects clean air. Find Aveda toll-free at 888.641.9202 or aveda.com.

Editor in Chief & Publisher Mark Spellun Creative Director Tracy Toscano Deputy Editor Anuj Desai Senior Editor Alisa Opar Associate Editor Jessica Tzerman Assistant Editors Sarah Parsons, Tobin Hack Copy Editors Iya Perry, Dave Zuckerman Proofreader Adam Stiles Reseach Editors Andrew Bradbury, Michael Matassa Editorial Interns James Sherwin, Nicole Zerillo Editors at Large Cathy Garrard, Sarah Schmidt Contributors dan barber, Bari Nan Cohen, Annemarie Conte, Lisa Selin Davis, Liz Galst, Kate Siber, Lizz Winstead Art Associate Art Director Lindsay Kurz Contributors Josh Cochran, William Pope, Camilla Slattery, Felix Sockwell, Anthony verde Advertising & MArketing Associate Publisher Lisa Haines 415.887.9574 | lisa@plentymag.com Western Manager Nina Sventitsky 949.276.5513 | nina@plentymag.com Midwest Manager Cheryl Kogut 312.494.1919 | ckogut@newco.com Detroit Manager Joe McHugh 586.360.3980 | joewmchugh@hotmail.com Marketing & Creative Services Manager Morgen Wolf 212.757.0048 | morgen@plentymag.com Published by Environ Press, Inc. Chairman: Arnold Spellun 250 West 49th Street, Suite 403 New York, New York 10019 Phone: 212.757.3447 Fax: 212.757.3799

Subcriptions: 800.316.9006 Unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, and other materials must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Plenty will not be responsible for unsolicited submissions. Send letters to the editor to letters@plentymag.com or to Plenty, 250 West 49th Street, Suite 403, New York, NY 10019. Copyright ©2008 by Environ Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Views expressed herein are those of the author exclusively. Plenty (ISSN 1553-2321) is published bimonthly, six times a year. The annual subscription price is $12 per year. Plenty is a publication of Environ Press, Inc., 250 West 49th Street, Suite 403, New York, New York 10019. Periodical postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Plenty, P.O. Box 621, Mt. Morris, IL 61054-7568 or call 800.316.9006. Plenty is printed on body stock that’s free of elemental chlorine and contains 85 to 100 percent recycled content (20 to 30 percent postconsumer). Our cover stock uses 10 percent recycled content, is FSC Certified and is made using green power. Plenty offsets its carbon footprint with eMission Solutions, a division of Green Mountain Energy (greenmountain.com). Please recycle.

©Aveda Corp.

*PER A REVIEW OF WWD BEAUTY REPORT INTERNATIONAL TOP 100 COSMETIC MANUFACTURER’S CORPORATE WEBSITES IN APRIL, 2007. THE WIND ENERGY GOES INTO A UTILITY GRID FROM WHICH WE DRAW POWER. YOU CAN FIND AVEDA TOLL-FREE AT 888.641.9202 OR VISIT US AT AVEDA.COM.

plentyeditor’s letter

The world in green. Introducing new

Amazing EcoGlue

The super-strength, earth-friendly power glue. • Non-toxic • Packaged in 100% recyclable material • Bonds wood, stone, metal, ceramic, glass, cloth and more! Call us at

800.767.4667 or visit www.ecoglue.com

Plenty is now a little more than three years old. In the short time that we have been publishing, the environmental movement and what it means to be green have changed considerably. When we announced our tagline of “It’s Easy Being Green” in the summer of 2005, we weren’t necessarily convinced that it was all that easy—it was meant to urge others on to make some significant changes to their impact on the planet. We don’t take sole credit for it, but the idea that “It’s Easy Being Green” sure took off. Mentions of the phrase have appeared throughout the media landscape over the last three years. Al Gore aside, it didn’t hurt that Kermit the Frog, after complaining for years about how difficult it was being green, suddenly changed his mind upon seeing a Ford Escape Hybrid in the company’s famous Super Bowl ad at the start of 2006. There were other changes going on as well. Gas prices were rising, and Hurricane Katrina showed some of the potential impact that global warming might already be having on our planet. People started to look for ways to bring about changes in their lives. Making the right decision for the planet is not always clear (see our cover story, “Monkeying with the Message,” p. 66), but the idea that there are a multitude of simple solutions we can all implement in our lives has certainly caught on. So we figured now is the time to take the next step. This issue has gone through a dramatic redesign. To start with, we have reduced the size of the magazine by an inch. This move will lighten our environmental impact considerably by reducing the amount of paper we use (which is still 85–100 percent recycled),

and lessening the energy it takes to ship the magazine (for which we still offset the carbon emissions). We also thought we should have a look and feel that reflect a new green sensibility in which a relationship to the Earth’s wellbeing has become a defining part of modern living. Finally, we have selected a new tag line: “The World in Green.” The green movement is certainly global—in fact, it’s stronger in many parts of Europe than it is here in North America—so while the magazine still aims to offer you easy solutions to implement in your life, moving forward, we’ll also endeavor to describe the incredible changes that are sweeping the planet. And we’ll aim to broaden horizons by examining where environmental concerns meet the worlds of arts, business, travel, and more. Plenty has always been a celebration of a certain kind of abundance—the renewable kind. And to us it reflects the American Dream. Think: the Land of Plenty. As Americans seek to reinvent what the Land of Plenty means today, just as they have many times before, we want to present these changes and points of view. Whether that involves cleaning up once-unspoiled rivers or taking the first shaky steps toward moving away from an oil-based economy, we’ll offer a vision of what a country or world that is truly plentiful might look like. In this sense, even with a new look and feel, our mission remains the same.

Mark Spellun

plentycontributors

Tracy Toscano is Plenty’s creative director and redesigned our magazine in the span of two months. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and spends her weekends at her off-the-grid, watercatchment-outfitted, solar-powered cabin in the Adirondack Mountains. Tracy is very grateful to her associate art director, Lindsay Kurz, for all her hard work on the redesign.

Dan Barber is the executive chef and co-owner of Blue Hill restaurant in New York City and Blue Hill at Stone Barns. He kicks off a new column for Plenty this issue called “Farm to Fork” (page 50). Barber, who received Bon Appétit magazine’s Chef of Merit Award for 2007, will appear in each of our issues this year to offer up recipes that will cook readers through the seasons. If he had to choose a favorite midwinter meal (on penalty of death-by-chocolate, say), he’d go with something root-vegetable based. Rick Moody is the author of four novels, three collections of stories, and a memoir. The Ice Storm (1994) was made into a critically acclaimed film in 1997. His fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, and Harper’s. On a recent hike through Sabino Canyon, Rick survived an imaginary mountain lion attack. The attack made for less dramatic tension than the real thing might have, but it left his limbs intact, allowing him to file a humorous account for Plenty’s back page (“Take a Hike,” page 96).

Liz Galst is determined to know why many Americans talk the green talk but don’t go any further. She recently set out on an odyssey through schools, ad campaigns, and retail stores nationwide to see if she could find an answer (“Monkeying with the Message,” page 66). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, and Salon .com. At the moment, Liz is engaged in a classic apartment-temperature war. She sees no reason to raise the heat above 63 degrees and thinks complainers (read: partner and kids) should just put on a sweater. Steven Kotler (“Way Beyond the Science,” page 78) is the author of West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief. His essays and articles have appeared in GQ, Wired, and Outside. He recently moved to a one-acre farm in New Mexico, where he grows herbal medicines for his fifteen disaster-prone dogs, and a lot of people food, too. “I’ve spent a lot of time outside, but it’s been in rainforests and hiking through mountains and shit like that,” he says. “I’ve never just tried to live off the land. It’s hard.”

Josh Cochran has drawn squirrels and wolves for Plenty, and was excited to draw some bees this time around (“New Bees on the Block,” page 38). He wishes they’d stop disappearing already. Josh’s illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, and GQ. He lives in Los Feliz, California, and works on the edge of Koreatown and Silverlake in Los Angeles, surrounded by furniture designed and built by his studio-mates.

“This coming-of-age memoir is brave, emotional, and gorgeously written.”—Frances Mayes “SENSUOUS.”

—Booklist

“Kim Sunée tells us so much about the French that I never learned in 25 trips to Paris, but mostly about the terrors and pleasure of that inﬁnite octopus, love. A ﬁne book.” ––Jim Harrison author of Legends of the Fall and Returning to Earth

“KIM SUNÉE’S

poetic memoir is like a piece of dark chocolate— bittersweet, satisfying, and ﬁnished all too soon.” —Laura Fraser, author of An Italian Affair

Available in hardcover and as an eBook www.hbgusa.com

Author photo: JMM

• www.kimsunee.com

Hachette Book Group USA

plentyletters

“Offset your in-laws’ travel-related carbon emissions. Maybe you’ll make them feel guilty, and they won’t come back next year.” looking for answers

I love Plenty more than any other magazine. I was jolted by the article about eco follies and getting rid of old cleaning supplies (“Life in the Green Zone,” page 26, December/January 2008). I love the writer’s style, and I think it shows that it’s okay to gradually transition into being environmentally conscious at your own pace. Recently, I’ve come across earth911.org, where I can find recycling centers by typing in what it is we’re looking to recycle and a zip code. Now I can sleep easy. Mandi Nadel, Brooklyn, NY

Gimme More

Burning Up

Bravo to Birth Control

I am always intrigued by new ideas, and using compressed air to power a car is clever (“Driving on Air,” page 36, December/January 2008). However, what is missing from this article is a total energyefficiency calculation comparing the carbon per mile required to burn gasoline fuel in an internal combustion engine to an equivalent calculation for converting electricity from coal, transporting it, and then converting it into compressed gas. The air car requires energy to compress the air—the question is, at what cost?

The answer trumpeted in the Tech section for dealing with our waste dilemma (“Ditching the Dump,” page 33, December/January 2008) is anything but forward thinking. Instead, plasma-arc gasification is more of the same old garbage from the incinerator industry. Like other kinds of incinerators, plasma-arc incinerators feed on everyday materials that we should be recycling or composting, like paper, cardboard, plastic, food waste, and wood. Cities around the world—including Buenos Aires; Canberra, Australia; and Seattle—are building state-of-theart recycling and composting parks, implementing innovative collections systems, creating well-paying green collar jobs, reducing consumption, and requiring that products be made safely for people and the planet. That’s forward thinking.

Kudos to Jennifer Weeks for her article (“Bambi on Birth Control,” page 38, October/November 2007). I was surprised to see this complex subject covered so well. Cacapon Institute, a 24-year-old nonprofit protecting rivers and watersheds, runs an annual online forum for high school students where they role-play as stakeholders in the deer overpopulation issue. While science will play a big role in overcoming ecosystem challenges, we agree with Jay Kirkpatrick, the director of the Science and Conservation Center in Montana, who was quoted in Weeks’ story: “The questions aren’t about science— they’re political, social, and cultural.”

Jack Oswald Vice President, Business Development Greater Than Green, Inc. San Francisco, CA

Dave Ciplet North America Coordinator Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives Berkeley, CA

Frank Rodgers Education and Outreach Coordinator ISA Certified Arborist Cacapon Institute High View, WV

And the Winner Is … Last issue, we challenged readers to come up with inventive ways to green their holidays this season. The contest’s top winner is Imogen Taylor from Ann Arbor, Michigan, whose ten tips impressed Plenty staffers—and gave us all a chuckle. As props, Imogen will receive a one-year subscription and a Plenty T-shirt. Here’s our favorite of Imogen’s ingenious eco tips: “Offset your in-laws’ travelrelated carbon emissions from coming to visit you. Maybe you’ll make them feel guilty, and they won’t come back next year.” 12 | february-march 2008

WE LIVE IN THE

HOUSE WE ALL

BUILD.

Every decision we make has consequences. We choose what we put into our lakes and rivers. We choose what we release into the air we breathe. We choose what we put into our bodies, and where we let our children run and play. We choose the world we live in, so make the right choices. Learn what you can do to care for our water, our air, our land and yourself at earthshare.org. Earth Share supports more than 400 environmental and conservation organizations that impact you every day.

Visit us at earthshare.org

askplenty by

Q. I’m dying to get a Prius, but it’s just not in my budget right now. So I’m stuck driving a hand-medown car-boat. What can I do in the meantime? —Julie, TX Chin up, Julie. There are lots of ways to earn green stars in the automotive category. First, keep your tires pumped up like Ahnold; for every three pounds your tires fall below the recommended pressure, your fuel economy drops by about one percent. Properly inflated tires will last

Tobin Hack

I’m thinking of having solar panels installed on my roof. What’s the best way to find out exactly what tax credits are available to me? —Nicole, NJ Lots of states offer fantastic incentives for solar panel installation, and on top of that, up to $2,000 in federal tax credits are available today. Monique Hanis, director of communications for the Solar Energy Industry Association, recommends “at least three estimates from reputable firms,” and points the solarcurious to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (dsireusa.org). Also, your very own Garden State offers some of the best incentives around—so make sure you cash in. longer, too. Then, put a lid on it: According to the Car Care Council (carcare.org), loose, missing, or damaged gas caps cause 147 million gallons of gas to evaporate every year. Next, practice good venting. Not the venting that sparks road rage, but rather, cleaning out your vent when you get home. A clean air filter can improve your gas mileage by as much as 10 percent and can save you up to 15 cents a gallon. Lastly, park in the shade—leaving your car in the sun will cause gas to evaporate.

I hear it’s easy to make our own cleaning mixtures at home, but will they really kill germs? —Mike, MN This may come as a surprise, but you don’t need to sterilize every square inch of your home—and probably shouldn’t. All you need for an effective, full-house scrub are these simple ingredients: baking soda, borax, distilled white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, lemons, olive oil, vegetable-based castile soap (we like Dr. Bronner’s), and

washing soda. And okay, maybe a bit of extra elbow grease to make up for the toxins you’re not dumping. The three germkillers on the list are borax, hydrogen peroxide, and vinegar; and yes, they work. According to Michael Mullen, a spokesperson for Heinz, studies show that a straight 5 percent solution of vinegar will kill 99 percent of bacteria, 82 percent of mold, and 80 percent of germs. For greener cleaner recipes, go to the Green Guide site (thegreenguide.com) and search for “cleaners.”

Pressing eco inquiries, conundrums, snafus? Write to askplenty@plentymag.com. 14 | february-march 2008

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one shot

plentyspectrum Inside the Dairy Industry 19 Eco Oscars 20 Punky Brewster Goes Green 22 Superhero of the Seas 24 Science and Beer 26 Tracking Turtles Online 28 Junk in the Family Trunk 30

photographs by tony clevenger

BEAR Necessities

This grizzly bear in Canada’s Banff National Park isn’t ambling along just any path—it’s walking over the TransCanada Highway on a wildlife crossing, a semi-natural bridge that provides animals secure passage across the busy, four-lane highway. The park now has 24 such bridges and tunnels. And grizzlies aren’t the only beasts that walk on the safe side: Since 1996, ten large-mammal species (including elk, cougar, and wolf) have used the crossings more than 95,000 times. The structures prevent animals from becoming roadkill and also connect habitat divided by roadways, which can help boost genetic diversity. Wildlife crossings are increasingly popular in North America: Their numbers doubled in the last decade, —Alisa Opar and more than 600 now dot the continent.

plentymag.com | 17

spectrum > by the numbers

Got Milk? Yogurt, cheese, ice cream—countless tasty treats can trace their roots to the common dairy cow. In fact, America needs 65,000 farms to satisfy its demand for milk-based products. Consider these udderly surprising stats about the dairy industry.

Number of dairy cows in the US

340

Number of udder squirts needed to fill one milk pail

9,000,000

Average number of miles milk travels from farm to

grocery store

Year first Dairy Queen opened

Years required to convert a traditional dairy farm to certified organic

3.7

Percentage of US dairy farms that produce half of the nation’s milk supply

global greenhouse gas emissions that come from livestock

150

3.5

Average number of pounds of cheese an American eats in a year

26.4 Percentage of total US cheese production that takes place in Wisconsin

Percentage of dairy products sold in the US that are certified organic

21 billion

Number of cloned cows in the US

print ads since the campaign’s debut in 1995

18 Percentage of

“Got Milk”

Gallons of milk US dairy farms produce each year

Average percentage US organic milk sales are growing each year

18 | february-march 2008

Year milk bottle was invented

1884

1940:

Number of

Average number of pounds of cheese that a French person eats in a year

100

billion Profit in dollars that Nestlé makes each year as the world’s leading dairy company

225

spectrum

illustration by

Julia Minamata

He Said/She Said

‘‘

You know there is some guy right now jumping out of a plane going, ‘Where is

‘‘

my dress?’

—Deal or No Deal’s Howie Mandel referring to dresses made from recycled parachutes and worn on his show

“If anything, I almost wanted them to hit me because it just would have made that much more of an impact.” —Heroes star Hayden Panettiere on whether she was afraid during a peaceful protest of a dolphin slaughter cut short by threatening local fishermen

‘‘

My thing with the green situation is: Even if you don’t believe in global warming, don’t you want to screw

‘‘

the oil company or gas company or utility company?

—Jay Leno on why he’s greening his car collection

“Last week my kids were in the pool—in October, in New York.” —Rosie O’Donnell explaining how she knows global warming is a problem

‘‘

I actually have little races with myself, thinking, ‘Oh no, I’m not washing my hair; I only need to have a two-minute

‘‘

shower.’

eco speak

—Cate Blanchett on her water-conserving shower timer

> film

Roll Out the Green Carpet In honor of the 80th Annual Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by comedian Jon Stewart, Plenty presents the First Annual Eco Film Awards, as nominated by staffers. These films may not win a golden statue at the Oscars, but they have achieved some serious (and sometimes tongue-in-cheek) green cred. And the winners are …

Shrek

Best Use of Public Transportation

The Darjeeling Limited

The Bourne Ultimatum

Best Depiction of a Superfund Site

Best Voice of an Animal in Peril

Best Global Warming Message

Greenest Leading Actor

The Simpsons Movie Best “Conservation” of an Actor or Actress

Eddie Murphy [Norbit] Best Focus on Local Food

Ratatouille

ethicurean

\eth •i •kur•ee•an\ n. (adj.) A person who seeks out tasty foods and ingredients that are sustainable, ethical, local, and/or organic. Originally coined by the blog of the same name; can also be used descriptively. Sample usage: “Hey, Sallie. What are you going to do on your big trip to Oregon next week?” “Oh, Bob, I’m so excited! Portland has so many great restaurants, serving dishes like grass-fed beef with local produce—I can’t wait to get my ethicurean on.”

20 | february-march 2008

Jerry Seinfeld [Bee Movie]

Best Zero-emission Transportation

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

THE BIG PICTURE by Bob Eckstein

Most Hybrids or Smart Cars in an Action Film

Evan Almighty

Maybe This Film Could’ve Received an Eco Award, but We’ll Never Know Because We Couldn’t Convince Anyone to Go See It

Snakes on a Plane

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spectrum > music

Rock and Rolls

One nonprofit reduces waste by feeding the homeless For more info visit rockandwrapitup.org.

Anyone who has ever worked in catering has witnessed the end-of-the-night spoils that characterize an extravagant event: extra foie gras, bits of brie, scraps of steak tenderloin. In fact, about 95 billion pounds of uneaten food ends up in US landfills every year. It was this disparity that prompted Brooklyn native Syd Mandelbaum to create Rock and Wrap It Up! The nonprofit

More than 25 million pounds of food have been salvaged “green-achieving organization” collects leftover food from 150 performers at venues across the nation and donates it to more than 43,000 soup kitchens and homeless shelters in 500 US cities. Artists who contribute to Rock and Wrap It Up! include

Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, and Aerosmith. Twentyfive sports franchises and several school cafeterias have also recently joined the effort. More than 25 million pounds of food have been salvaged so far, and with hopes to donate

meals from federal galas and military bases, the 18-yearold organization is poised to generate even greater savings. “The less food that goes into a landfill,” says Mandelbaum, “the more of it goes to people who need it.” —James Sherwin

Paige Tolmach, Soleil Moon Frye, Elizabeth Birkett, and their children (left) serve as founders and the inspiration for the Little Seed (below).

“I felt really lost. I couldn’t find a lot of eco alternatives.”

> style

Seed of Change Punky Brewster may be all grown up now, but Soleil Moon Frye is still up to the do-gooder ways that made her character a beloved ’80s icon. Last October, Frye and friends Paige Tolmach and Elizabeth Birkett opened the Little Seed, a hip, onestop shop in Los Angeles for eco-conscious parents. The impetus behind the store’s development was 22 | february-march 2008

simple necessity: The three new mothers had trouble finding nontoxic and earth-friendly products for their children. “I felt really lost. I couldn’t find a lot of eco alternatives,” says Frye, who is pregnant with her second child. Children’s products like Ecoland onesies and Kate Quinn organic-cotton dresses make up the majority of the Little Seed’s offerings, and soon, kids will be able to amuse themselves in the store’s spacious arts and crafts area. However, the Little Seed also features adult-friendly amenities like a luxe nursing station and stylish jewelry just for moms. From content

For nationwide orders and eco-educational information, check out thelittleseed.com.

to construction, the store is extremely eco, including reclaimed wood countertops, recyclable shopping bags, and VOC-free paints. “We wanted to bring new life to what we knew as organic,” Frye says. “We were all truly inspired to make a difference and do something positive for the planet.” —Jessica Tzerman

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El Hijo del Santo fighting the good fight on land and sea: with the sea turtles of Tamaulipas, Mexico (below); and aiding the gray whales of San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja, California (right).

“I wanted to have contact with the animals and to feel the responsiblity of protecting them.”

> cause celeb

Superhero of the Seas Move over Captain Planet, the environment has a new superhero—a mystery man in a silver mask known as El Hijo del Santo (Son of the Saint). Part of the popular Mexican wrestling tradition lucha libre (freestyle wrestling), El Hijo del Santo is the spokesperson for Wildcoast Costasalvaje, a nonprofit that protects coastal ecosystems and 24 | february-march 2008

wildlife in the Americas. He takes his duty as environmental defender as seriously as the fights that have littered his 25-year wrestling career and that of his father (El Santo). Enemies of the ocean, beware. “My sister heard that Wildcoast was looking for a kind of superhero to support their campaigns, and she thought of El Hijo del Santo straight away,” he says from the memorabiliapacked study of his Mexico City home. El Hijo keeps his identity a closely guarded secret, referring to himself only by his wrestling name and refusing to take off his silver mask. Lucha libre, Mexico’s second-biggest spectator sport after soccer, is based on the age-old saga of good guys versus bad guys. Now, in a campaign launched in March 2007, the bad-guy wrestlers are portrayed as masked enemies of the sea with names like the Pirate, Sewage Man, and the Turtle Eater. El Hijo also pitches in with real conservation efforts: The wrestler recalls the “amazing” experience of visiting a whale sanctuary in San Ignacio where he handled the gentle giants. He’s also helped gather turtle eggs and carry recently hatched turtles safely to the sea. “I wanted to have contact with the animals and to feel the responsibility of protecting them,” he says. In September 2007, El Hijo received the Hero of the Environment award from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California for his conservation work. “When he came to Monterey, more than 8,000 people turned out to see him,” says Fay Crevoshay, communications director at Wildcoast. “We couldn’t have asked for a better spokesperson.” Those of us living unmasked lives may not have access to the same kinds of environmental work that El Hijo does, but the wrestler emphasizes that everyone can make a difference. “We all go to the beach occasionally, so it’s as simple as not leaving garbage behind,” he says. “Or if you are walking on the beach and you see an empty bottle, pick it up.” If only defeating bad guys were that easy. —Tara FitzGerald

."3$)

100 documentary, feature, animated, archival, experimental and childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s films selected to provide fresh perspectives on environmental issues facing our planet. Presented at venues throughout Washington, D.C. Most screenings include discussion with filmmakers and scientists and are '3&&

'FTUJWBM )JHIMJHIUT U GEORGE BUTLER screens his new film THE LORD GOD BIRD about the elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker at the National Geographic Society U THE SECRET LIFE OF A NATURALIST about eminent naturalist DR. E. O. WILSON and his work on biodiversity and sociobiology with a discussion by Dr. Wilson at the National Geographic Society U The world premiere of SCARRED LANDS AND WOUNDED LIVES: THE ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT OF WAR with filmmakers ALICE and LINCOLN DAY U Two new IMAX films: GRAND CANYON ADVENTURE and THE ALPS with The Smithsonian Associates U WORLD WATER DAY observance: films and panel discussion with DAVID DOUGLAS, Waterlines and Water Advocates; MELANIE NAKAGAWA, NRDC; TANVI NAGPAL, Global Water Challenge and MARK VAN PUTTEN, ConservationStrategy U TAKING ROOT: THE VISION OF WANGARI MAATHAI about the Nobel prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist U THE PLANET a prize-winning Scandinavian film examining the future of our Earth U GARBAGE WARRIOR about earthship biotecture and RADIANT CITY a documentary on suburban sprawl, at the National Gallery of Art U THE UNFORESEEN an acclaimed feature documentary on the clash over property rights and the public good at Barton Springs in Austin, Texas with director LAURA DUNN at the AFI Silver Theatre

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Burning Question The Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international agreement designed to curb CO2 emissions, will expire in 2012, leaving it up to world leaders to design new ways to cut carbon. In December of 2007, officials convened in Bali for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to discuss the future of Kyoto and how to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. We asked three experts:

What should follow the Kyoto Protocol? Andy Revkin

New York Times environment reporter, author of the Times’ Dot Earth blog

Science on the Rocks

Taxidermy and other odd decor adds to Union Hall’s ambience.

Forget rock stars—at Brooklyn’s Union Hall bar, the hip headliners are rocket scientists. Every first Wednesday of the month, the watering hole’s dimly lit basement hosts the Secret Science Club, a free meeting of minds that features top scientists talking about topics like natural history, chemistry, and climate change. Its founders, radio host Dorian Devins and authors Michael Crewdson and Margaret Mittelbach, first organized the club in September of 2006 as a way for the general public to learn about important scientific issues while also enjoying one seriously good time. “We’re now at a more critical time to get unfiltered science to people,” says Crewdson. “Global warming, stem cell research—it can certainly affect the future.” The events start with music and a video montage, followed by a lecture from a notable scientist such as Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel or global warming guru William Schlesinger. Meanwhile, audience members can sip on aptly named libations like Amnesiac Punch and the Climate Cooler. The evening concludes with a question and answer segment, and sometimes live music. “It’s not impossible to understand,” says Mittelbach. “We’re trying to bring [science] down to a level where people can actually get into it and think it’s a fun thing and something they want to learn about.” —Sarah Parsons

For more Secret events, check out secretscienceclub.blogspot.com

Two-headed chick on display at the bar.

26 | february-march 2008

Scott Barrett

Professor of Environmental Economics and International Political Economy, Johns Hopkins University

Rather than set overall emission targets that will never be met, we need to break the challenge up into manageable pieces. Our priority should be to transform technology worldwide. That will require pull incentives—like a “price” on carbon—and push incentives— like direct R and D spending. The focus should be on key sectors, such as transportation and electricity generation.

Greg Nickels

Mayor of Seattle

In Seattle, we’ve reduced greenhouse gas pollution 8 percent below where it was in 1990. While it’s an important milestone, it’s just the start. To truly turn the tides on global warming, we must go beyond Kyoto and reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent. Instead of leading the world in greenhouse pollution, the United States should be leading the world toward a solution.

Photo by Marco Repola (bottom left)

> science

A lot more attention must be paid to advancing and disseminating next-generation energy technologies. As it prepared for the Bali climate talks, the American team said it hoped to build support for bigger investments in energy research by wealthy countries, and for ways to get less-polluting technologies to developing countries. I’ve learned to pay attention more to money and concrete actions than to words, so that’s what I’m watching for post-Bali.

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> transport

> pets

See Spot Recycle It may be all fun and games for Fido, but when dogs chew their toys to bits, the leftover plastic pieces pile up in landfills. In 2005 alone, Americans generated 6.5 million tons of nondurable plastic. The environmental impact of doggie destruction got pet toy– maker Spencer Williams thinking. Williams’ Montana-based West Paw Design already used recycled materials like soda bottles and production scraps in beds and toys, and manufactured products in a green building. But to take the company’s eco practices one step further, Williams and his engineers developed a new, rubber-like material called Zogoflex. Zogoflex differs from other plastics typically used in

dog toys in that it’s engineered to be recyclable and is made from an FDA-approved material. Now if Spot gnaws up his Zogoflex frisbee, his owner can send the broken remainders back to West Paw, where they’ll be ground down, made into a new toy of the owner’s choosing, and returned at no extra cost (besides the shipping, that is). Owners can

also opt for a cash refund if they don’t want a new toy. Overall, the whole process creates less than one percent waste. “Our view is pets are one with the planet,” Williams says. “It seems contrary that by making your pets happy, you would be compromising the environment.” Now that’s something to chew on. —Jeanette Hurt

To order Zogoflex toys or other West Paw products, check out westpawdesign.com

Red-bellied Cooter turtles are one of many species Turtle Atlas tracks.

> wildlife

Turtle Power Now, helping to conserve turtles can be as easy as a walk in the park. The reptiles are in decline in the Northeast because of habitat fragmentation from new roads and homes. To save them, scientists need a better understanding of their distribution and range. That’s where a new initiative called the Turtle Atlas (turtleatlas.

org) comes in: Researchers are recruiting everyday citizens to report turtle sightings—from backyards to roadsides—in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Contributing to the Turtle Atlas is easy: Participants sign up online, read the training manual, and then log in to upload photos and enter locations of sightings. Observations are sent

To start tracking turtles, birds, or bees, visit turtleatlas.org, birds.cornell.edu/pfw,beespotter.mste.uiuc.edu

28 | february-march 2008

to the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program (NHESP) and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. The Turtle Atlas is just one of many online projects that use citizens to track animals. Others include Cornell University’s Project FeederWatch for counting birds, and the University of Illinois’ BeeSpotter for tracking poorly documented wild bee populations. So far, Turtle Atlas volunteers have entered about 450 sightings of ten different species over a two-year period. “The records we get from the public help to drive our conservation efforts,” says Lori Erb, a turtle biologist at NHESP. “We need to know where the turtles are in order to protect them.” —Alisa Opar

Fixing your car’s flat is as easy as calling a tow service. But if it’s your bike that’s busted, it can be a bit harder to get back on the road. Enter bicycle roadside assistance programs. The increasingly popular clubs function like auto clubs such as AAA—call a toll-free number, provide your member number and location, and a dispatcher sends someone to drive you and your bike home or to a repair shop. Better World Club, the first and largest national organization to offer roadside assistance for cyclists and drivers, was founded in 2002. The organization donates 1 percent of its revenue to environmental advocacy groups like the Sierra Club Foundation and offers a 15 percent discount to new members with hybrid or biodiesel vehicles. Packages start at $39.95 per year or can be added on to auto packages for $15 a year. Erik Nelson, the club’s vice president of activism, says that 15 percent of its 20,000 members now take part in the bike program. And Better World Club is not alone. Other bike repair programs are cropping up across North America: Currently, League of American Bicyclists, the British Columbia Automobile Association in Canada, and several repair shops also offer bicycle roadside assistance. “Most of the members who are signed up for bicycle roadside assistance are concerned about long-distance cycling,” Nelson explains. “It’s not a service that everyone needs, but for those who do need it, it’s extremely valuable.”

—Jodi Helmer To get your own biker benefits, check out betterworldclub.com, bikeleague.org, and bcaa.com

Photo by Lori Erb (left center)

Pedal Pushers

IMPROVING LIFE FOR ALL MIGRATORY ANIMALS.

THE BIKE PATH. YOUR OFFICE. THE BACKYARD. The environment isn’t just some far off place. It’s the asphalt beneath your bike, the coffee that fuels your commute, and the park where you walk your dog. And it’s why the Natural Resources Defense Council is working to protect the most important places on Earth. For easy ways to help protect your environment, go to NRDC’s how-to website, SimpleSteps.org. Because the environment is everywhere.

spectrum

Lizz Winstead Michael Byers

illustration by

The great family heirloom is quickly being replaced with craptastic cheapsakes.

Life in the Green Zone

The ongoing eco follies of Lizz Winstead. This time, she sounds off on junk in the family trunk After 40 years, my parents recently sold the home I grew up in. As we cleaned out the attic, my sister and I scored. Mary nabbed an old steamer trunk she transformed into a coffee table; I snatched up my grandmother’s vintage washtub to use as a planter for a beautiful array of impatiens flowers until the whole thing became a snack tray for my dogs, Edie and Buddie. Now it serves as a lovely newspaper recycling bin. I blather on and on about this because it reminded me yet again that the great family heirloom is quickly being replaced with craptastic cheapsakes that, instead of being passed down from generation to generation, are being passed down from generation to generation of landfills. As we sink further and further into the quicksand of our disposable society, there are fewer and fewer treasures to leave to our loved ones. That gorgeous steamer trunk my sister Mary claimed? Pieces like that have given way to the oh-so cherished nylon duffle bag. And the laws of physics tell me that delightful item cannot be transformed into a coffee table. No, once the Taiwanese-made zipper breaks, it will end up in a garbage heap along with a zillion other bags emblazoned with 30 | february-march 2008

the same logos of some sporting goods outfit. Hundreds of years from now, social anthropologists will look at these things and conclude that 21st century humans worshiped gods called Adidas and FUBU. And my 100-year-old, classic metal washtub? Well, we all know technology and mass production put an end to those. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m no Luddite. I’m not living in some weird, dark, nostalgic place wishing I could go back to the good ol’ days when women scrubbed clothes with lye soap in a tub down by the river. (Although I wouldn’t mind a river clean enough to wash clothes in.) I realize the washing machine is a big improvement. But when big box stores are selling washers for 300 bucks a pop, people rush out and snatch them up with glee. And when it breaks, it’s cheaper to buy a new one than to fix it. At which point no amount of artistry is gonna transform that old, broken box o’ fiberglass into a keepsake. No, it’s toss-it-to-thecurb time. So you have to ask yourself, “How many bazillion centuries will those be cluttering America’s waste yards?” The number is assholenomical. I blame it on our growing use of the C word: convenience. Yes, we have become a little too comfortable relying on it, and consequently, seem willing to sacrifice everything from quality, style, and most importantly our environment, if it means our lives will be even just a smidge more convenient. Convenience has its noose around our necks, and we won’t be satisfied as a culture until we can have all of our needs met without having to lift a finger, no matter what the cost to our world! Americans have a warped sense of convenience. And the inconvenient truth about convenience is that convenience creates a ginormous amount of waste. The George Foreman Grill, the Presto Burger, the Salad Shooter? Seriously—who were the people so profoundly put out preparing salad the old-fashioned way that they needed to invent a way of shooting it into the bowl? I don’t ever want to know—it sounds like something creepy that happens in prison. So how will all this convenience redefine the heirlooms of the future? I have the sneaking suspicion that 100 years from now, my great-greatgrandchildren won’t be clamoring through my attic saying, “Oh look! It’s one of those vintage Air Poppers. I think I’ll make a lamp out of it!” The truth is, the word convenience has become interchangeable with the word shortsighted. I hope we all remember that when we’re looking for convenient solutions to stop global warming. ✤ Lizz Winstead is cocreator of The Daily Show, and former cohost of Air America’s Unfiltered. She currently stars in Shoot the Messenger, a satirical review of the media world running in New York City (shootthemessenger.com).

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As page 33 reveals, the Big Apple actually became the Big Orange in 1673.

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ith all they need to teach you in school, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to see how they might have missed a few important historical details. Like the fact that the Dutch took New York from the British for a year and renamed it for the royal familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s color: New Orange. America has a fascinating and colorful history. Packed with 365 daily readings, The Intellectual Devotional: American History raises your intellectual stock while shedding light on the history-making decisions of today.

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science tech

plentycurrent Science and Tech Business Nature

Night Light

The breathtaking annual Perseid meteor shower in Joshua Tree National Park.

photo by Wally Pacholka

Scientists are combatting light pollution in some of the nation’s most pristine areas Stargazing is best on the cold, dry nights of winter, when the haze and smog that veil the heavens much of the year give way to crystal-clear skies. Yet in much of the US, it’s increasingly difficult to make out any but the brightest stars thanks to the prevalence of outdoor lighting. That’s why scientists are trying to keep some of our most pristine locales in the dark. The National Park Service (NPS) now considers protecting the night sky part of its mission to preserve scenery. The agency’s Night Sky Team is working to reduce light pollution at more than 50 parks. A four-person team of scientists measures the parks’ nighttime brightness, helps rangers switch to dimmer lights, and develops education programs for visitors. New government funding will allow the team to collect data from more parks to better understand the

threats of light pollution. Chad Moore, an earth scientist who formed the team in 1999, says these efforts allow visitors to get something they can’t get anywhere else: “an inspirational view of the cosmos.” But that view is in danger of being lost. Light pollution can travel 200 miles and mask easily recognizable constellations like the Big Dipper; in fact, two-thirds of Americans can’t see the Milky Way from their homes. Development around parks has been tainting previously unpolluted night skies. According to one 2006 analysis, since 1990, more than 1.3 million people had moved into counties surrounding six popular parks, including Everglades and Yellowstone. Some fear the problem will only get worse. A 2001 study found that by 2025, even deserts and other remote places will be bright— meaning folks throughout the US will see at

33 36 38

most 100 stars from their yards. And the glare disrupts more than stargazing: It can distract turtle hatchlings from finding the ocean, divert birds from migratory paths, and alter amphibians’ hormone production. Moore, however, says the situation isn’t so dire. Some cities and states are already switching their outdoor fixtures to low-intensity and shielded lighting, dimming the glow and saving money. And when national park visitors view the constellation-filled heavens, “they go home unsatisfied with what they can see in their backyards,” which could entice people to think twice before adding outdoor lights. “This is a special resource, so we need to do all we can to educate the public,” says Bryan Faehner of the National Parks Conservation Association. “Then future generations can experience it and be inspired.” ✤

Ask A Scientist Is spring coming earlier due to climate change? Mike Dettinger, hydrologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography There are a number of ways of trying to figure out when spring arrives. One measure is when the snow starts to melt. Another is precipitation; studies have found that across most of the Northwest over to New England, more rain falls now than snow. Other studies show there’s less snow on the ground on April 1 now than there was in the 1950s. Most rivers rise earlier, and some plants have been greening earlier. By all these measures, we can say that spring is coming earlier. There are few places where we could explain even half of the hastening of spring by natural forces alone. We’ve seen warmer springs

and earlier onset over the last 30 to 50 years, which makes sense, because in that time we’ve dumped a lot more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than we did in the early 1900s. Whether these trends accelerate or just keep eroding away at when spring arrives will depend on how much people reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Temperatures will rise and the arrival of spring will keep getting earlier pretty much in proportion to the amount of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere. —as told to Sarah Parsons

plentymag.com | 33

science - tech

current

Terri Peterson Smith Jameson Simpson

illustration by

Bringing Home the Transgenic Bacon Fish, meat, and dairy products from genetically modified animals might not be in supermarket aisles yet, but transgenic livestock do reside in barnyards and fish tanks at some labs. Here’s a look at what’s out there:

Udderly healthy cattle

Fast-growing salmon By introducing a growth hormone gene assembled from pieces of other fish genes, biotech company Aqua Bounty has developed salmon that reach market size twice as fast as regular salmon.

Antibacterial goat’s milk Children in developing countries may one day drink milk from goats that have a human gene for lysozyme— an antimicrobial protein that might prevent infections that cause diarrhea and dehydration. Researchers at the University of California, Davis are raising the fifth generation of these goats.

Pigs that produce cleaner manure A bacterial gene for the enzyme phytase helps pigs at the University of Guelph digest more phosphorous, cutting the amount of this water-polluting nutrient in their manure by as much as 60 percent.

Magic Muck

After a glance at the jars of muddy water in Daniel Bond’s lab fridge, you might suggest the University of Minnesota microbiologist throw them out. But the muck is worth a closer look. It may hold the key to developing clean energy. The jars contain Geobacter sulfurreducens, an electricity-producing microbe that feeds on organic material (even sewage) in sediment at the bottom of oceans and lakes for energy. When breaking down molecules, electrons flow from the bacterium to metals, such as iron, in the soil, creating an electrical current. Geobacter already helps clean up sites polluted by toxic heavy metals: When reduced by the microbe, the metals precipitate into solids, which are easier to remove. Bond studies how the microbes generate current and how to make them do it better. Others are designing devices, called microbial

findings

Climate change could shift the ranges of 130 North American tree species northward by hundreds of kilometers and shrink the ranges of some by as much as 58 percent.

Israeli researchers figured out how venom from jewel wasps turns cockroaches into zombies. After stinging, wasps lead the victim by the antennae to their burrow. There the roach is consumed by wasp larva from the inside out.

Visit PLENTYMAG.COM for more on the growing controversy over GM animals.

34 | february-march 2008

fuel cells (MFCs), to harness bacteria’s power. Though some prototypes exist, the technology faces major hurdles. “So far we can do tricks, like make a light bulb burn, or run a toy robot,” says Bond, “but we can’t economically put it to use on a larger scale yet. We need a way to get more power.” Researchers have made small-scale progress. The Naval Research Laboratory’s microbe-powered weather buoy in the Potomac River monitors air and water conditions. And in 2007, Foster’s Brewing Company installed an MFC at its brewery near Brisbane, Australia. The “beer battery” produces energy from brewery wastewater, treating it in the process. It generates only about two kilowatts of power, but beer lovers should still lift a pint to toast sustainable brewing and the magic of microbes.

A new system called V2G allows batteries of electric and hybrid cars to store or supply grid electricity. Such a system could help smooth peaks in energy demand: 100 of the vehicles could provide 1 megawatt of storage.

For the first time, biodiesel alone fueled an airplane. BioJet 1— a Czechoslovakian-made L-29 jet that runs on vegetable oil refined into biodiesel—climbed to 17,000 feet and flew for more than 37 minutes in Nevada.

As if rising global temperatures and shrinking sea ice weren’t enough of a threat to polar bears—the practice of selectively hunting males could eventually leave females without mates.

Researchers proposed a novel way to mitigate global warming: Enhance the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 by building water treatment plants that remove hydrochloric acid from seawater and neutralize it. One hundred such plants could reduce 15 percent of global CO2 emissions; 700 could offset all of them.

photo by © Ram Gal (bottom center)

USDA scientists have introduced a bacterial gene into Jersey cows that produces lysostaphin. This protein kills the bacteria S. aureus, which causes mastitis, an udder infection that is difficult and costly to treat.

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Organic to Go’s rickshaw delivery fleet (below) and San Diego Federal Courthouse location (right).

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fés opened in the Seattle area in 2005. It has

according to the Organic Trade Associa-

quickly grown to more than 100 grab-and-go

percent over the previous year, so Organic

tion. One restaurant and catering chain,

kiosks and restaurants on street corners, col-

to Go’s dining future looks bright. And a

Organic to Go, is looking to cash in on

lege campuses, and airports up and down the

recent survey by market research firm

the intersection of the multibillion-dollar

West Coast. “We’re a very simple company,”

Harris Interactive found that more than 70

quick-service restaurant industry and the

Brown stresses. “We make delicious food that

percent of the public believes organic food

burgeoning organic food trend.

happens to be organic and natural.”

is healthier and safer for the environment.

Organic to Go feeds students, travelers,

Revenues in 2007 are up more than 60

Organic to Go’s menu features Thai veggie

With only 7 percent of respondents saying

and suits looking for a quick bite that’s a

wraps, yogurt parfaits with fruit and honey-gra-

they mostly buy organic, Organic to Go has

step above cheeseburgers on the nutrition

nola, and more made-from-scratch entrées.

barely gotten past the appetizers.

pyramid. Founded by startup veteran Jason

The selection of food carries the USDA-organic

—Steven K Lee

Kernel Truths The increase in the price of oil to nearly $100 per barrel has inspired a boom in ethanol production, leading to both a rise in the price of corn and an oversupply of this biofuel. (The price of ethanol dropped from a high of about $3.50 a gallon in 2006 to just under $2 by the end of 2007.) Even with more ethanol than we need at the moment, the Senate is looking to increase production of alternative fuels to 36 billion gallons by 2022 (at press time), some of

which would come from corn-based ethanol, a biofuel that is heavily dependent on pesticides and energy for production. Ethanol advocates are hoping to increase the amount of the biofuel that can be blended into our gasoline from the current standard of 10 percent to 20 or 30 percent. In theory it sounds nice, but most engines are not certified operable at blends above 10 percent. That could lead to a feeling of running on empty more often than drivers would like.

Yearly US Ethanol Production (in billions of gallons):

Number of Ethanol Plants (end of year):

Average Price of Corn in the US ($ per bushel):

150

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1.0

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36 | february-march 2008

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David Sokol

First came the hydrogen bus (left), then comes the hydrogen economy? Icelandic New Energy hopes so.

Hydrogen Boom

photo by © Icelandic New Energy

Iceland is out to prove that it is the perfect laboratory for research, development, and private investment in hydrogen power. Will the business world listen? When a business needs the very best engineering, it goes to Germany. For IT consulting, give India a call. Now Iceland is carving a niche in the hydrogen fuel market. Thanks to a new program called Sustainable Marine and Road Transport–Hydrogen in Iceland (SMARTH2), up to 40 hydrogen-powered passenger cars will be distributed to private users, showing off local expertise and moving Iceland toward a fossil fuel–free existence. The small North Atlantic island, which barely cracks 300,000 inhabitants, can trace its efforts of transforming to a hydrogen economy to 1978, when University of Iceland professor Bragi Árnason first proposed that the country end its dependence on fossil fuels, all of which are imported. Iceland is well-poised to develop and dis- tioning Icelanders’ cars and infrastructure to tribute hydrogen, Árnason explains, because it hydrogen is realizable. If a fuel-cell vehicle has already perfected other alternative-energy has a cruising range of 300 miles, “to be able networks: The water from its wet Gulf Stream to run such cars everywhere in the country, climate and the seasonal runoff from ice caps we would need only fifteen hydrogen fueling are converted to hydroelectricity, powering the stations.” Switching the entire vehicle fleet to entire country; Iceland also has a long history hydrogen would, Ármason points out, reduce of tapping into the volcanic brew beneath its Iceland’s greenhouse-gas emissions to 45 surface to heat buildings. Harvesting hydro- percent of its present level. gen from water requires a hefty jolt of power, The next step toward a hydrogen econobut the abundant emissions-free energy from my involves SMART-H2, which is overseen hydroelectric and geothermal sources makes it possible to produce and distribute fuel right at filling stations, cheaply and cleanly. Factor in the country’s Lilliputian dimensions, Árnason says, and the goal of transi-

by Reykjavik’s Icelandic New Energy. The 8-year-old company counts DaimlerChrysler, Norsk Hydro, and Shell Hydrogen among its key shareholders but has no plans to make a profit or take on the responsibility of switching Iceland to hydrogen. Through projects like SMART-H2, or the earlier Ecological City TranspOrt System (ECTOS) experiment with hydrogen fuel-cell buses, Icelandic New Energy aims to show consumers and car manufacturers that hydrogen can usurp fossil fuels. Currently SMART-H2 has eleven vehicles on the road, including fuel-cell cars from Daimler and internal-combustion hybrids adapted from Toyota Priuses that are powered by gas and compressed hydrogen. “We’re really trying to understand all the different implications of the technology,” says general manager Jón Björn Skúlason: They’re weighing an array of outcomes ranging from environmental impact and operation costs to consumers’ comfort with a new kind of fuel nozzle. Already, the ECTOS bus program has been replicated in several European cities, as well as Beijing and Perth, Australia. But a more complete hydrogen revolution really depends on who commercializes the vehicles and the fuel network that will keep them running. Andreas Klugescheid is a spokesperson for BMW North America, which is currently evaluating its Hydrogen 7-Series cars. To build 12,000 hydrogen filling stations in Germany and stock them with renewable hydrogen, he says, would cost approximately €99 billion. But Klugescheid notes that cost isn’t as exorbitant as it first appears: “Most of the necessary facilities are available for 20 years. It’s not an annual investment.” Skúlason admits there’s a long road ahead. “Changing from a fossil-fuel infrastructure to a greener infrastructure will cost a lot of money, and the question is who will pay for it in the beginning,” he says. “Even so, car manufacturers and others still view hydrogen as the solution for fossil fuels.” And certainly, they can look to Iceland for further answers on how to surge forward. ✤

Iceland is well-poised to develop and distribute hydrogen because it has already perfected other alternative-energy networks.

plentymag.com | 37

nature

current

Alisa Opar Josh Cochran

illustration by

The New Bees on the Block Honeybees are down for the count, but their native cousins are just getting warmed up

In many ways, the Rominger brothers are a lot like their neighbors in California’s Central Valley. For starters, they’re farmers—they grow rice, alfalfa, wheat, and sunflowers on a 3,000-acre plot at Butler Farm. But Bruce Rominger knows that his family has a reputation for “being out there a little bit.” That’s because their land also supports scientific research— including a project that aims to bolster native bees, which could take on some of the pollination duties of beleaguered honeybees. 38 | february-march 2008

Honeybees play a vital role in American agriculture—they pollinate one-third of all our crops. But in 2006, colony collapse disorder hit nearly a quarter of US commercial beekeeping operations, which lost between 50 and 90 percent of their hives. The cause of the die-offs remains unknown: Suspects include pesticides, parasitic mites, and a virus. Though pollination nearly returned to normal in 2007, the crisis of the previous year highlighted agriculture’s overreliance on honeybees. That’s where Butler Farm comes in. “We’re interested in increasing biodiversity without sacrificing farm production,” says Rominger, who has been farming for 27 years.

photo by Gary Braasch

Researchers on the farm are trying to boost dwindling native bee populations by providing habitat for them to live in. Traditionally, agriculture has relied on honeybees imported from Europe because they live in hives, can be easily transported, pollinate in large numbers, and produce honey. Unlike honeybees, all but 45 of the 4,000 native bee species in North America are solitary, nesting in tiny holes in timber or the ground. Some native bees are generalists—they’ll eat nectar and pollen from a variety of plants—while specialists rely on a specific plant or group of closely related plants. On the Butler Farm and six other sites, scientists are attracting a variety of native bees by planting 1.5 miles of hedgerows made up of 25 species of plants that bloom in the spring, summer, and fall. In addition to preventing soil erosion and shading streams, the hedgerows provide abundant pollen and nectar for crop-pollinating bees. Interspersed in the hedgerows are blocks of wood with holes and bare patches of earth for nesting. Increasing the numbers of native bees isn’t an instant solution to our honeybee woes, but it will help solve some of the problems. “We know that it’s probably not going to be the case that almonds in gigantic fields are going to be pollinated by native bees,” says Neal Williams, a biologist at Bryn Mawr College. “But knowing where native bees can provide pollination might allow us to take pressure off the need for as many honeybees.” Researchers around the world are trying to determine whether their regions’ native bees can pollinate blueberries, squash, and dozens of other crops. So far, results have been encouraging. For example, the bees increase the quality of cherry tomato and coffee crops. And when it comes to pollinating sunflowers, native bees actually make honeybees up to five times more efficient. Researchers believe the native bees’ presence makes honeybees skittish, causing them to move from male to female sunflowers, pollinating more seeds.

Yet many native bee populations have suffered declines, in large part due to habitat loss and destructive agricultural practices. The insects are most productive and abundant on farms with natural areas, such as forest fragments, less than a halfmile from the edges of fields. The varied landscape provides nesting habitat and diverse floral resources. Claire Kremen, an ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has found that farms in New Jersey have diverse and abundant wild bee populations. Farmers there tend to plant multiple crops, and there are patches of natural habitat nearby. The same isn’t true in California, where the land was transformed to grow acre after acre of one type of crop. In these areas, large crops like almonds are pollinated by commercial honeybees that are trucked in. “The problem with monoculture cropping is that for a few weeks there’s a massive bloom, but the rest of the time there’s nothing for bees to eat,” says Kremen. “Coupled with habitat loss, it’s not very good for native bees.” Kremen is working with the conservation group Xerces Society and Audubon California on the Butler Farm project. “We want to see, if we restore habitat for these bees, can we bring the bee communities back to healthy condition in areas that were degraded?” she says. The groups surveyed the areas before planting hedgerows and will monitor them over the next three years as plants mature and bees colonize the nest sites. Ultimately, they hope to calculate the dollar value of the increased crop pollination that comes from restoring bee habitats. It’s too early to determine whether native bee populations will rebound. But researchers and farmers are optimistic about what they’ve seen so far. “In some of the newly planted areas, there are a lot of bees flying around,” says Katharina Ullmann, California Pollinator Conservation Coordinator of the Xerces Society. “It’s really buzzing, in terms of the numbers and kinds of bees.” ✤

“Knowing where native bees can provide pollination might allow us to take pressure off the need for honeybees.”

Metallic Green Sweat Bee

The Buzz on Native Bees •

Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plant species rely on pollinators.

•

Native bees provide about $3 billion in pollination services in the US each year.

•

There are 4,000 species of native bees in North America, hundreds of which contribute significantly to the pollination of cherries, squash, watermelon, tomatoes, and other crops.

•

About 70 percent of native bees nest in the ground; usually a solitary female digs her own nest tunnel where she places a mixture of pollen and nectar and lays an egg.

•

Native bees come in a variety of colors, from metallic green with white stripes to black, and range in size from less than ¼ to 1 inch long.

•

Only about 45 native bee species in the US are social bumble bees, which live in colonies of up to several hundred; the rest are solitary and nest individually.

•

Many native bee species are more efficient pollinators, on a bee-per-bee basis, than honeybees: 250 female orchard mason bees can effectively pollinate one acre of apples—a task that would require 15,000 to 20,000 honeybees.

plentymag.com |

1st annual Sonoma Environmental Film Festival

January 25 - 27, 2008 Sonoma CA.

ECOFABULOUS The Green Generation has arrived. Join us for an exhilerating weekend featuring uplifting ﬁlms, green exhibits, a beneﬁt crab feed, and speakers from Sonoma’s vibrant and rapidly expanding sustainable community. Just 50 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Sonoma County’s world renown wine country.

Come for one or more days. www.seff.us

special thanks to

707.935.3456 www.seff.us

Jennifer Block

people

plentyliving plenty

eco star

Ricki Lake 14

People Travel Food Home Style Green Gear

41 44 48 52 57 61

questions for the cult-movie legend, television host, and newly anointed “Al Gore of Home Birth”

You know her as John Waters’ teen film star, a former talk show host, and a celebrity weight-watcher. Now meet the acclaimed executive producer. Ricki Lake’s newly released documentary, The Business of Being Born, shines a spotlight on the excesses of US obstetrics and is being likened to An Inconvenient Truth, earning her the moniker “The Al Gore of Home Birth.” Lake is humbled by the comparison to her eco hero, even if the climate crisis and childbirth are seemingly unrelated. In her eyes, the state of maternity care in the US is also critical because the proportion of women giving birth by cesarean section is now 31 percent—a rise of 50 percent in the last ten years. So Lake is talking up what you might call the green alternative: home birth. Her film’s harrowing footage shows that there’s virtually no such thing as “natural birth” in most US hospitals. “I love that this issue is being talked about as an inconvenient truth,” she says from her Los Angeles home. “It’s that dire of a situation.” Those already living green are a natural audience for the film, says Lake, who opted to give birth to her second son at home with a midwife. (Hers is one of several home births filmed in the documentary.) The experience has made her both healthier and more eco conscious, from the pounds she’s shed to the organic veggies she now buys. “I learned to love my body the day I gave birth at home in my bathtub,” she says. >>>

plentymag.com |

people

living

The Business of Being Born will be available on DVD in March. For more information, see thebusinessofbeingborn.com.

Abby Epstein, left, with Ricki Lake in their documentary The Business of Being Born.

Her indulgent parenting sin: Diapers—disposables. I just could not get my head around the idea of cloth diapers. But I have to say, I potty trained my kids very early. My older son was out of diapers by the time he was 2! If I were to have another baby, I’d use G diapers [which are flushable and biodegrade in under two months].

3 4

Family eco car: Lexus 400 Hybrid. And my ex drives a Prius.

Tune pick: The new Radiohead is so good. I love their whole concept of pay what you want—what is it worth to you?

Tattoo count: John Waters always told me there’s nothing uglier than an 80-year-old with a tattoo. I’m not into them or piercings.

How green she feels: I recycle, I just bought bamboo plates, I’m looking into changing my [home energy] system to solar paneling. I want to do my part—I think we have no choice. I’m not Ed Begley Jr, but I want to be!

Most damningly true characteristic of her star sign: I’m a textbook Virgo. I planned both pregnancies to the day—not an easy feat. I read all the books on how to get it right.

Hotel that knows her best: The Four Seasons. Any of them. It’s about as plush as you can get, but I don’t know if it’s so green.

The Business of Being Born director Abby Epstein preparing for her birth as her boyfriend, Paulo Netto, director of photography, looks on.

9 10

Her favorite place on earth: New York City. I’ll always be a New Yorker.

Topic that occupies way too much of her brain: Dealing with my weight.

Her dream carpool partner: Ina May Gaskin (the “midwife of modern midwifery”).

Her worst haircut: Ricki Lake Show, season four. I wanted the Demi Moore Ghost haircut, but it went terribly awry.

Top DIY pastime: Knitting. I’m a really good knitter. I made lots of baby clothes and blankets. I’ve been doing it since I was 14, before it was cool. But I was anything but cool!

Photos courtesy of Red Envelope Entertainment (above right)

Environmental pet peeve: Littering. I yell at people. I scream “Litterbug!” In Serial Mom (another Waters flick, with Kathleen Turner) the lead character wants to kill her neighbor for not recycling. I’m not that bad, but I don’t have a problem getting in someone’s face!

Her fortune cookie wisdom: Always treat people the way you want to be treated. That goes for the planet, too. ✤

42 | february-march 2008

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living

Justin Nobel

The Dry Tortugas, off the Florida Coast, feature unspoiled beaches, crystal clear water, and a 19th-century fort.

Get out from behind the wheel and experience a true sense of calm

Need a break from traffic, pollution, gas prices, and all the other stresses related to the internal combustion engine? Visit one of the handful of US islands where motor vehicles are banned. These protected havens (most are national parks or seashores) are often only reached by boat and have no paved roads. But unlike exotic destinations such as Bali and Tahiti, they’re both affordable and accessible—if you’re up for a little adventure. Channel Islands National Park Ten thousand years ago, the “Galapagos of North America” was home to some of the oldest human settlements in the Northern Hemisphere. Nowadays this mountainous archipelago is vir-

tually free of people, despite being only 60 miles from Los Angeles. Instead, its five islands are home to thousands of species of plants and animals, 145 of which are found nowhere else on earth. In the surrounding waters, 750-pound black

44 | february-march 2008

sea bass and bright orange and blue Garibaldi swim through giant kelp forests. Humpbacks, orcas, and blue whales, cruise nearby, as do four species of dolphin. In spring, wildflowers explode across the hillsides in pinks, purples, and yellows.

Truth Aquatics in Santa Barbara offers multiday, live-aboard trips to the park, complete with gourmet food ( truthaquatics.com). Camping is also available by reservation ( nps.gov/chis). Dry Tortugas National Park Visit this string of tiny coral keys 70 miles from Key West, Florida, and you can explore the ruins of a nineteenth-century fort, snorkel with 300 species of tropical fish, dive to more than 250 nearby shipwrecks, or spot pelicans, terns, and masked boobies from the beach. Get There, Stay There

Two operators run ferries from

photo by National Park Service

Car-Free Islands

Get There, Stay There

Cumberland Island was once a Gilded Age getaway; now a 19th-century mansion is returning to nature.

beach (nps.gov/cuis). Or try the ultra-deluxe lodging at the Greyfield Inn, built by the Carnegies in 1900. Rooms start at $350 (greyfieldinn.com). Isle Royale National Park

Key West to Dry Tortugas (yankeefreedom.com and sunnydayskeywest.com). The park is open year-round and camping on the beach is welcome (nps.gov/drto). Isle au Haut When one of the only ways to reach your destination is by mail boat, you know you’re off the beaten path. Isle au Haut is a pine-covered slab of rock 7 miles off the coast in Maine’s Acadia National Park. Mink, snowshoe hare, and otters roam a forest of spruce, pine, cedar, maple, and oak; ravens, eagles, and the occasional osprey soar overhead. The southern end of the island drops into the North Atlantic down dramatic 100-foot cliffs. A small town features a café, a gift shop, and a year-round population of about 50 hardy souls who brave ice-choked harbors and brutal nor’easters each winter. Get There, Stay There

Book a spot on the mail boat, which leaves from the town of Stonington through mid-October (isleauhaut.com). You can camp

in one of five lean-tos, from May 15 to October 14 ( nps.gov/acad) At the Keeper’s House Inn, you can spend a night at the secluded Robinson Point Lighthouse, which is powered by solar panels and windmills. Management is about to change hands, so check out the website to get the latest info (keepershouse.com). Cumberland Island National Seashore This charming isle lies just off the coast of Georgia, but it seems to belong in a fairy tale. Salty ocean breezes that slow tree growth have created a bent and buckled forest of live oaks, with some trees shaped like arches. Visitors can explore the area via a boardwalk that crosses a sea of white sand dunes. Another attraction is Dungeness ruins, the remains of a 6,700-squarefoot mansion built by the Carnegie family in 1884; the house is a 2-mile hike from the beach. Get There, Stay There

Ferries leave from the village of St. Mary’s. Camping is available at backcountry sites or near the

This smattering of more than 400 islands in the northwest corner of Lake Superior was formed when lava burst through the earth’s crust a billion years ago. Today, the resulting 1,300-foot Greenstone Ridge is forested with conifers and paper birch, and the islands are home to wolf, moose, and bird populations. Lakes, streams, swampy beaver ponds, and bogs provide a transportation grid for kayakers and canoers. Get There, Stay There

The park is open April 16 through November 1. A ferry leaves from Houghton, Michigan, and there are 36 campsites (nps. gov/archive/isro). The Rock Harbor Lodge has rooms with lake views and private cottages (isleroyaleresort.com). Fire Island Though it’s best known for the summer cottage scene that attracts nearby New Yorkers, this barrier island 50 miles from Manhattan also features serene beaches and several unspoiled shore ecosystems. Its sunken forest is a dense spread of oak, black gum, sassafras, shadbush, and holly—some trees predate the Declaration of Independence. Hundreds of species of birds swing by on their way up the Atlantic migratory flyway, and giant leatherback sea turtles, harbor seals, finback whales, and humpbacks are all occasional visitors.

Get There, Stay There

There are plenty of ferries that link to the island, and marinas at Sailors Haven and Watch Hill cater to private boats. Camping is available ( nps.gov/fiis). To find cottage rentals, check out Fire Island Finder ( fifinder.com). Cape Lookout National Seashore These three storm-battered North Carolina barrier islands have 56 miles of undeveloped beaches. And although four-wheel-drive vehicles are allowed in designated areas on the two northern islands, South Core and North Core, the southernmost Shackleford Banks is for trekkers only. It’s here that you’ll find vine-entangled maritime forest and more than 100 wild horses along the beaches. Get There, Stay There

The islands are accessible by frequent ferries, and there are rustic cabins on the northern two islands, where vehicle camping is also allowed. There are no established campgrounds on Shackleford, which means you can settle in just about anywhere on the beach, but there are no services ( nps.gov.calo). ✤

Fire Island’s sunken forest.

plentymag.com |

travel

Barcelona

SLEEP

SEE

TASTE

BUY

Casa Camper is a quirky boutique hotel opened by the eponymous, eco-friendly shoe line. The hotel claims to be the first in the world to install solar panels for heating water and to offer a water-recycling system in every room. It also supplies hammocks and free bikes for guests. Be sure to notice the cheeky signs placed throughout: Use the Stairs, Recycle, Stop Smoking, Slow Down, Conserve Water, Use Condoms, and Just Go for a Walk. For those who prefer a more plush setting, Neri Hotel & Restaurante is a restored eighteenth-century palace that retains period décor, including a lounge/library overlooking the Gothic Quarter—but the solar panels on the roof are quite modern.

Barcelona is one of the most walkable cities in Europe, so it’s easy to get around with nary a drop of gasoline. For a pedestrian introduction to the city’s boho charm, stroll under canopies of trees, starting from the oceanview end of Las Ramblas (above), a street where artisans sell their wares and mimes entertain passersby, and then head up to Antoni Gaudí’s great, unfinished Sagrada Família basilica. Afterwards, catch the sunset at his nearby psychedelic hilltop garden of mosaics, Parque Güell (below left). (Gaudí was a big fan of preserving natural light in his structures because of its positive effect on the spirit.) Or traverse the city by bicycle. Barcelona’s spacious avenues allow an extensive system of bike lanes to accommodate Bicing, a public bike-sharing system started last year. It’s currently only available for residents, but you can rent your own bike for around 25€ a day from Bike Rental Barcelona. Too weary for biking or walking? Hydrogen buses are on the way. After successful trial runs, the city plans to expand its hydrogen fleet. (For now, you can take an ordinary public bus for 1.25€.)

The city has a hopping market scene with plenty of food vendors to inspire its nouveau Mediterranean cuisine. The Mercado de la Boqueria (above), which opened in 1840, is the city’s oldest market; its 250 stalls offer a wide array of produce, meats, and fish. You can also grab a bite or a beer at one of the ten restaurants inside. Fresh, organic foods can also be found across town at the new Mercat de Santa Caterina, which features an undulating roof of colorful tile and wood designed by the city’s hottest architects. Barcelona is reputed to have more than half of Spain’s vegetarian restaurants, too. One of the most popular, La Báscula, is a hippiechic, co-op café located around the corner from the Museu Picasso. Order an organic caña (beer) and check out the progressive flyers in the front hall as you wait for your table. For a trendy take on the ovo-lactoveggie menu (there are vegan options as well), head to Sesamo in the Raval neighborhood, where you can listen to ambient music while sipping natural fruit juice.

Barcelona’s city dwellers are both stylish and eco conscious to the max. Visit La Manual Alpargatera for a pair of traditional Catalonian espadrilles made with natural vegetablefiber (hemp, jute, esparto grass) soles and cotton or linen uppers. They’re heavenly for both street and beach walking. Or take home a cool messenger bag from Demano (the name means handmade, see below). The patchwork pop art design is comprised of recycled materials like PVC polyester from banners promoting cultural events. Everyone in Barcelona— where refashioned design is called “trashion”—has one. One person’s trashion is another person’s killer souvenir. ✤

46 | february-march 2008

photos by Juan Antonio Monsalve (below); Carlos Lorenzo (above left); Courtesy of Curtain Bluff (opposite, far right)

living

> going places

With its rehabilitated gothic buildings, hydrogen bus pilot program, and liberal use of solar power, Barcelona is one of the most eco-friendly cities in the world—and one of the most stylish. The approximately 113,000-square-foot solar panel located on the Forum Esplanade (below right) is the perfect symbol of the city’s unique blend of aesthetics and sustainability: The architectural jaw-dropper supplies enough electricity for the public utility system to reduce carbon emissions by 440 tons per year. Check out what else Spain’s natural sweetheart by the sea has to offer. —Adriana V Lopez

Full Mettle Jacket Every year, it seems, we have a new indispensable electronic device to cram into our carry-ons: a digital camera, an iPod, a BlackBerry. And each one comes with an indispensable charger, so daily powering now requires more electrical outlets than a Las Vegas casino. Fortunately, the designers at Ermenegildo Zegna have figured out a convenient way to let you plug everything into one outlet— the Sun. With Zegna Sport’s solar jacket, all you need to power your gadgets is five hours of sunshine, no matter where you are on the planet. The lightweight, waterproof jacket will make you look like Jason Bourne, eco warrior, as the solar cells on your neoprene collar feed a rechargeable battery that works with a range of adapters. The collar and battery also detach, so you can use the tech without wearing the threads. There’s no ladies’ version yet, so women should snag the collar from significant others to power their own devices. —Michael Dolan

In the Bluff A new spa raises the bar for sustainable luxury and service If you think conservation and excess are mutually exclusive, you haven’t really explored the recent trend toward uniting luxury and sustainable travel. Case in point: The posh, eco-friendly Curtain Bluff resort in Antigua now offers to shower clients with champagne at its new spa. Indulge in the signature caviar-and-champagne massage knowing that the staff has taken aggressive measures to recycle waste. Or de-stress in a full-body, aromatic mud masque without worrying about how your towel was laundered—they use only nontoxic detergents. Chuckle if you must at the irony, but the Green Globe–certified resort takes large steps toward sustainability elsewhere on its

property, too. The pool is sanitized using salt rather than chlorine; drinking water comes from a reverse osmosis system that reclaims seawater; landscaping seedlings are grown on-site instead of being flown in; and the specially designed, energy-saving air-conditioning system uses an environmentally safe coolant. The resort also sets aside a portion of its profits to sponsor health-care and scholarship programs for local children. All in all, heading to Curtain Bluff is a pretty circuitous route to saving the world, but options like this one are sure to attract of plenty of willing do-gooders. —Sarah Schmidt

Resort rates start at $595 per night, curtainbluff.com.

Transportation Nation Road-trippers’ alert: It’s getting easier to rent a hybrid while on the road in America. For frequent travelers, a car-sharing membership makes more sense than ever now that Zipcar and Flexcar, the two largest US car-sharing companies, have merged. By April, a membership will give you access to 550 Priuses, hybrid Honda Civics, and Ford Escapes (as well as 5,000 fuel-efficient conventional autos) in 50 US cities as well as Toronto, Vancouver, and London. Members of the service (which will use the Zipcar name) pay a $50 annual fee to then rent a car for only the hours they need, with rates starting at $10 per hour or $65 per day on weekdays (rates are higher on weekends). Traditional car-rental companies are also answering customer demand for less gas-guzzling by including more hybrids in their fleets. Hertz just added 2,500 Priuses to its Green Collection; Enterprise now has nearly 4,000 Priuses, Camrys, Ford Escapes, and Saturn Vue Green Line hybrids; and Avis and Budget combined have 2,500 hybrids available across the country. Here’s to a gentler vacation footprint this spring and summer. —Christine Cyr

plentymag.com | 47

Sweet Satisfaction For many of the country’s finest purveyors of artisanal chocolate, the search for distinctive quality is now rooted in ethics as well as taste

In Ikom, Nigeria, near the Cameroon border, a group of men from Indiana are eager to see their harvest. From under their leaves, mature cacao trees reveal pale, football-shaped fruit. The pods are prodded with bamboo sticks so they drop to the ground. Next, a machete strikes methodically at the exterior ridges until the fruit opens, exposing the soft, white beans and pulp that will be fermented, dried, sorted, and processed into a bitter powder used as the primary ingredient in fine chocolates. To the group’s surprise, harvesting in Nigeria is not mechanized the way it is in the US. These are not the great wheat fields of the Midwest. Work is long, tedious, and always done by

hand. But one of the men, Wayne Zink, now knows exactly why he’s here in Africa. “This was a way to make sure our cacao was ethically traded,” says Zink, CEO of Indianapolis-based Endangered Species Chocolate, whose packaging notes that 10 percent of net profits support the planet. Zink is not alone in his efforts. An emerging group of manufacturers are choosing to personally manage their chocolate, from the source to the final morsel. Through their pursuits to understand the origins of their product, bean-to-bar chocolatiers from Seattle to Switzerland are discovering that making chocolates of distinction directly links to how the cocoa is being farmed. Joe Whinney, founder and CEO of Seattle’s Theo Chocolate, genetically maps the DNA of beans he buys from co-ops in Central and South America and from West Africa, where more than 50 percent of the world’s cacao comes from. He’s grown so invested in the quality of his chocolate that he teaches the farmers about intercropping Ama Kade, one of Divine Chocolates’ farmer-owners, harvests cacao pods in Ghana.

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Madhu Puri

Endangered Species Chocolate’s tree imprint symbolizes the company’s commitment to conservation.

—growing trees of other origins, such as avocados, teak, and black pepper, in the same plot. The added flora nourishes the soil, benefits the neighboring cacao trees, and provides cash crops in the off-season. Whinney’s chocolates are all organic and Fair Trade–certified. The label, bestowed by TransFair USA on transactions between US-based companies and suppliers in developing nations, guarantees living wages and safe working conditions for farmers and ensures that child labor is prohibited. (TransFair also pays farmers a premium for community-minded initiatives like healthcare and microfinance programs, which the farmers themselves vote to put in place.) But Whinney goes beyond the Fair Trade guarantee to deal directly with the farmers, recognizing that while cacao currently sells for around $1,900 a ton, farmers often see only a portion of that amount. Fair Trade farmers receive at least $1,950 for each ton of organic cacao (more if the world price goes up), so Whinney pays between $3,500 and $4,000—allowing farmers to invest more in their families and land. Appealing to the high-brow style and taste of chocolate gourmands, Alice Chocolate, a Swiss-American brand, presents artisanal, small-batch chocolate in designer packaging. Alice’s cacao grows wild in Bolivia and is harvested and traded by local farmers from whom the company buys beans directly. The result is an ethical bar full of flavor. Amid the sweltering heat of Sekyerekrobo, Ghana, in a small farming community just a

photos by by Michael Weber (opposite, bottom right); Sean McDevitt (opposite, center right)

food

living

few degrees north of the equator, a farmer field school is teaching the arts of pruning, mulching, pest management, biodiversity, proper child labor practices, and everything else required to make each of the students’ seven acres of land fully sustainable. Soon these farmers will teach others in surrounding regions, and the cycle of responsible and educated cacao agronomy will grow, thanks to the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF) and one of their biggest supporters, Hershey’s. Jim Lampman, founder of Lake Champlain Chocolates of Lake Champlain, Vermont, is taking in the scene. Known as a “melter” because he works with processed chocolate, Lampman and others in his category are putting their dollars into the WCF. Though many melters sell Fair Trade–certified bars, joining forces with the WCF is about taking the extra step. “We buy chocolate out of Belgium and France but still feel it’s our job to ask if the people responsible for harvesting are properly cared for,” says Timothy Moley, owner of Boulder, Colorado–based Chocolove, which backs the WCF to ensure that children in cacaofarming regions can access proper schooling systems. According to Moley, the WCF has projects across the globe tailored to address specific troubles farmers face, such as insect

“It’s our job to ask if the people responsible for harvesting are properly cared for,” says Timothy Moley, owner of Boulder, Colorado–based Chocolove.

infestations and the need for greenhouses. The goal for the WCF and its backers is to create a global network of support. Dagoba Organic Chocolate of Ashland, Oregon, not only works closely with the WCF but also signed an agreement with the International Finance Corporation to make low-interest loans available to the co-op in the Dominican Republic that supplies the cacao for its Conacado bar. Thanks to parent company Hershey’s, Dagoba also created a nursery in Costa Rica to house 240,000 young trees that will be used to reforest damaged areas and improve existing farms. And Dagoba works directly with its suppliers to lobby against governments like that of the Ivory Coast, which imposes a 50 percent tax on all cocoa growers’ output. Kuapa Kokoo, currently Ghana’s largest cooperative (45,000 members), reversed the traditional farmer-to-supplier model when it founded Divine Chocolate, the first farmer-owned chocolate company in the world. In 1993, with outside funding, a group of farmers (mostly women) set up the co-op, which now owns 45 percent of UK-based Divine Chocolate and 33 percent of its newly established US counterpart, both of which are Fair Trade–certified. Taking control of their beans from source to production empowered the farmers financially and democratically; together, they make decisions about everything from package designs to the most productive farming methods to use. As tastes elevate and research continues to confirm the health benefits of chocolate, more consumers will likely pay premium prices for bars with an ethical edge. In turn, these high-price business models can proliferate—but only for as long as they need to. If more chocolate manufacturers invested in their farmers’ lives, education, and, of course, crops, artisanal and ethical chocolates wouldn’t be so costly. Dagoba founder Frederick Schilling likens the need for a more farmer-centric production model to an old Chinese proverb: “Give a person a fish, you feed them for a day,” he says. “Teach them how to fish and you feed them for life.” ✤

Lake Champlain’s Dark Chocolate Squares

Bittersweet Symphony To navigate the vast artisanalchocolate firmament, we enlisted the taste buds of chocolate expert Dina Cheney, whose job is the kind made in heaven. Here, the author of The Tasting Club describes some of the bars and bites she likes best. Dagoba Chai

Bits of crystallized ginger add texture to this sweet, spiced milk chocolate. If you love chai tea, you’ll relish this flavorful bar. Divine Milk Chocolate

Imagine caramel pudding crossed with a milk chocolate bar, and you’ll get a good sense of this rich and creamy treat. Endangered Species White Chocolate with Macadamia Nuts

Small nutty bits lend crunch and a toasted flavor to this milky, smooth, vanilla-scented white chocolate. Lake Champlain Select Origin Dark Chocolate Squares

It’s impossible to pick a favorite among the four impressive chocolates in this sampler. Tanzania boasts red fruit and wine notes; Sao Thome features a perfumed, floral aroma; Grenada calls to mind spiced nuts and coconut; and African Blend tastes of caramel. Alice Dark Chocolate

With a balanced coffee-toffee flavor and a silky texture, the 68%-cacao chocolate from this Swiss import doesn’t disappoint.

Dagoba founder Frederick Schilling sampling the cacao harvest in Costa Rica.

plentymag.com |

food

living

Recipe

Lamb Pot au Feu Ingredients

1 grass-finished lamb shoulder, bone removed and tied 3 Tbsp grape seed oil 1 carrot, cut into 1-in. dice 1 stalk celery, cut into 1-in. dice 1 onion, cut into 1-in. dice 1 cup red wine 2 quarts rich chicken stock 1 sprig rosemary 1 sprig thyme 2 carrots, cut into 2-in. dice 1 parsnip, cut into 2-in. dice 1 turnip, cut into 2-in. dice 4 Tbsp grain mustard 2 Tbsp cornichons, minced freshly ground black pepper, coarse sea salt

Dan Barber (shown here in his greenhouse) is the executive chef and co-owner of Blue Hill restaurant in New York City and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, located within Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, a pioneering farm and education facility located in Pocantico Hills, New York (bluehillnyc.com). He’ll be cooking Plenty’s readers through the seasons with a recipe in each of our issues this year.

Serves four. DIRECTIONS

❶ Bring lamb shoulder to room temperature and season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper. ❷ In a large Dutch oven or covered cast-iron pot, heat grape seed oil on low. Add the 1-in. diced carrots, celery, and onion pieces and sweat until tender. Increase heat and continue to cook until the vegetables are golden brown. Add wine and cook until the liquid is almost completely reduced.

Delicious and hearty, Lamb Pot au Feu is the perfect one-dish meal for wintertime

By the time Blue Hill at Stone Barns opened, I had sourced enough lamb from local farmers and roasted enough chops to recognize a good lamb when I ate it. What I never considered was, “What does a lamb want to eat?” As I watched the lambs at Stone Barns Center trot excitedly to new grass one July morning, it wasn’t hard to see that they actually cared a lot about their food. They moved quickly over certain grasses to get to others—noshing on fescue and blue grass while avoiding bull thistles and southern pine. Unfortunately, the vast majority of lambs are raised on grain (corn, mostly, and soybeans), which can lead to a host of problems because sheep—like cows and goats—are grass-eating ruminants by nature and don’t digest grain well. To remain healthy, they must receive a regular cocktail of steroids and antibiotics. (Besides

the environmental and ethical concerns here, consider this simple taste imperative: A grain-fed ruminant has a higher acid content in its bloodstream, which makes the meat softer and less flavorful.) To cook with the best lamb, seek out a farmer who recognizes the animal’s changing dietary needs, especially in winter when even free-ranging sheep can spend weeks indoors. Forward-thinking farmers supply a 100 percent pasture diet year-round by rotating the fields and by rationing and preserving grasses. That way, the sheep eat what they want, according to their nature, and we get to do the same. What’s tastier than that? ✤

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❹Transfer the lamb to a platter and let sit, covered with foil to stay warm. ❺ Strain the remaining liquid into a pot and bring to a simmer, skimming excess fat that bubbles to the surface. ❻ In a separate pan, individually cook the 2-in. carrots, turnips, and parsnips (5 minutes for the carrots and parsnips; 3 minutes for the turnips). Place the cooked vegetables in a bowl and set aside. ❼ Reduce the remaining stock until it thickens. Add the vegetables back into the liquid. Stir in grain mustard and cornichons. Season broth with salt and pepper to taste. ❽ Slice the lamb. Place it in the center of a large bowl. Ladle the vegetables and a little of the broth over the meat. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt before serving.

photo by Jen Munkvold

Farm to Fork with Dan Barber

❸ Add the lamb shoulder to the Dutch oven. Cover with chicken stock, and add rosemary and thyme. Place in a preheated 280°F oven for 3-3½ hours, until the shoulder is very tender.

Amy Zavatto

Noodle Me This

Plenty finds out which organic pastas stand up to the calling of our colander When it comes to organic pasta, there are nearly as many flour bases as there are noodle shapes—semolina pappardelle, whole-wheat fusilli, spinach fettuccine. You could eat a different organic pasta dish every night of the week for a month and not suffer a single repeat. Plenty tested five brands to help you noodle your way through the plethora of choices at the grocery store. Eden Organic Pasta Company, Organic Golden Amber Durum Wheat Vegetable Ribbons $3.69 for an 8-ounce box,

Rummo, Organic Whole Wheat Penne Rigate $2.49 for a 16-ounce bag, pastarummo.com

edenpasta.com

Rummo’s organic penne cooked evenly in the suggested eleven minutes. Its firm texture and mild flavor worked well with many different sauces— although we thought it was downright heavenly swathed in a creamy alfredo.

Eden’s pappardelle-like ribbons cooked to al dente in about six minutes (but still had a slightly gummy texture). The lovely red, green, and off-white noodles were best dressed simply, with good, old-fashioned extra-virgin olive oil.

Organica Di Sicilia, Durum Semolina Rigatoni $2.19 for a 16-ounce bag

DeBoles, Organic Spinach Fettuccine $2.29 for an 8-ounce box

Although it took a full minute more of cooking time (nine minutes total) than the package suggested to reach al dente consistency, this pasta cooked evenly, had a buttery, almost gnocchi-like texture, and seemed to gently absorb the flavor of any sauce we put on it. Perfetto!

Though the cooked noodles stuck together slightly, DeBoles had a good, firm texture and a strong spinach flavor with a slight after-tang, likely from the addition of Jerusalem artichoke flour. We liked it best with marinara or good olive oil and parmesan.

Bionaturae, 100% Whole Wheat Fusilli $2.79 for a 16-ounce bag, bionaturae.com

These twisty little noodles were pleasantly dense (if a little gritty) and left a flavor reminiscent of whole-wheat crackers—which some of our panel appreciated, and some did not. In our tasting, this pasta worked best with a big, powerful pesto sauce.

deboles.com

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home

living

Heather Wagner

Sea Change With its striking exterior walls and innovative prefab components, the Loblolly House represents a new direction in sustainable architecture

52 | february-march 2008

To understand the thinking behind Loblolly House, a groundbreaking 2,200square-foot vacation home on the Chesapeake Bay, consider the egg. Not just any egg, but the quasi-tragic case of Humpty Dumpty. Things started off auspiciously for Humpty; he had a lofty perch and a natty suit. But time and gravity had their way, and eventually Humpty was yesterday’s country scramble. Sadly, most celebrated contemporary architecture follows a similar construction pattern. No matter how beautiful and well designed a building may be, when it falls, its parts are usually wasted. Stephen Kieran, a partner at Philadelphia architecture firm Kieran Timberlake, was inspired by the idea of designing for disassembly, of creating a home that could literally be put back together again. “Most structures are built as if they will never be removed or relocated,” he explains. “But the reality of most buildings is that very few make it to a hundred years. We need to be responsible for the way they go together and the way we take them apart.” Named for the shimmering pines native to its Maryland–barrier island environs, Loblolly House was assembled on-site in less than six weeks. The aluminum structural frame provides the means to connect every piece of the house with a simple bolt, and it can be disassembled just as easily. “I see this as a critique of the wastefulness of contemporary construction, and as a provocation for architects as builders,” Kieran says. The news that the Loblolly House is slated to go into mass production with Steve Glenn’s LivingHomes prefab development company represents a great leap forward in what’s also known as flatpak housing: modular, eco-friendly homes aimed at reducing construction waste. A prefab Loblolly also marks a sea change in the way architects are tackling sustainability. As one of the first flatpak homes to come with thoroughly integrated circuitry, Loblolly is composed of “smart cartridges”—floor and ceiling panels >>>

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home

living

Forest Stewardship Council–approved plywood, birch, and bamboo dominate the Loblolly House’s interior (above) and exterior (right). The home’s translucent folding skin (below, right) and floor-to-ceiling windows (bottom) together offer stunning views, warmth, and breezes, depending on the weather.

that contain all the electrical, micro-ducts, radiant heating, and fire detection wiring. While other prefab companies require lengthy off-site work to build in utilities, Kieran Timberlake’s solution saves time and reduces environmental impact. The exterior wall panels fold to create a striking visual effect and also house insulation, windows, and interior finishes. The structure is predominantly wood; every square inch except the aluminum framing is Forest Stewardship Council–approved plywood, birch, or bamboo. All finishes are nontoxic. A west wall is designed with airplane-hangar doors that allow the home to open to the offshore breezes in the summer, while a solar panel captures heat in the winter, boosting temperatures inside by 30 percent. And the home does not sacrifice aesthetics for technical chops, avoiding the sterility of many contemporary glass-andsteel residences. The wood-fenestration effect artfully compliments the ethereal beauty of the loblolly pine. As one teenage visitor commented, “I get it. It’s like camouflage.” Kieran explains further, “We wanted to connect the house to the forest, have it feel a bit random, akin to nature. The effort on our part was to make the house not just in nature but of nature.” Raising the home on structural piles provides added environmental benefits to the fragile coastal land on which the Loblolly House rests. By reducing surface weight on the site, the design allows soil to erode naturally, and the home doesn’t prevent tides

or wild animals from crossing underneath. The height also befits the designers’ inspiration: the idea of a functional tree house. “It has the simultaneous joy of the tree house: the danger element—you’re up high—with the security of being removed,” Kieran explains. Interest in the Loblolly House has been so intense that the firm has a book coming out in May, Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press). When asked about the future of prefabricated, kit-of-parts architecture, Kieran is confident. “We think it has legs,” he says. “We’re hoping on it. No, we’re counting on it.” ✤

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> home

Ins and Outs

Photos by © Peter Aaron/Esto (opposite); courtesy of Hazz Gallery shot by Ali Bekman (this page, bottom right)

When it’s cold outside, whimsical, far-from-gloomy designs like these bring fun and function indoors Hung in to Dry Your undies have never looked so avant-garde: Netherlandsbased designer Monique Horstmann’s pleasingly bulbous indoor drying rack derives its shape from typical items of clothing but adds a modern, graphic appeal to the traditional clothesline (think pants, shirts, and underwear outlines hanging from your wall). It’s also a stylish alternative to energy-sucking dryers. The Dry Line is made of waterheated tubes, so just place clothes on it, and any central heating system—or better yet, sunshine—will do the rest.

Rush Party

English artist Felicity Irons’ hand-sewn creations are nothing if not versatile, appearing in upscale stores like Ralph Lauren, in the Ridely Scott film Gladiator, in exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Her latest, the Rush Matters mattress, adds texture and gravitas to the modern home and can be used on the floor or as bench seating. Composed of pure bulrush harvested from the Ouse and Nene rivers in northern England, the result is raw, unadulterated, and complexly beautiful; much like nature itself. $650, rushmatters.info

$750 for over 3 feet, moniquehorstmann.com

Well Lit

Tord Boontje’s lively interpretation of the traditionally stuffy chandelier isn’t just a coveted design-crowd accessory. Called Come Rain or Come Shine, it’s handmade by members of Coopa-Roca, a women’s cooperative in Rio de Janeiro’s largest shantytown. Artecnica’s Design With Conscience program helps build communities of artisans in developing countries, allowing co-op members to use their homes as workshops. The vibrant, textural chandelier has a metal core adorned with cascading cotton, organza, and silk flowers, achieving—dare we say it—humanitarian chic. starting at $450, artecnicainc.com for retailers

plentymag.com | 55

ead about the history of the snowman now, before he becomes extinct.

The History of the Snowman: From the Ice Age to the Flea Market recounts Bob Ecksteinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quest to solve the mystery surrounding the first snowman. By traveling back in time, this book sheds new light on its enigmatic pastâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; beginning in the present-day, an era in which the snowman reigns as King of Kitsch, and ending in the Dark Ages with the creation of the first snowman.

The perfect quirky wintertime book to give or get Available wherever books are sold H>BDC HEDIA><=I :CI:GI6>CB:CI s LLL H>BDCH6NH 8DB s LLL =>HIDGND;I=:HCDLB6C 8DB H>BDC H8=JHI:G s A CBS COMPANY

photograph by

Rebecca McAlpin

living style

On Her Organic Avenue’s Ahimsa Peace Silk Striped Jacket is made from the open cocoons of wild Indian moths.

$390, organicavenue.com Naturevsfuture’s versatile organic cotton Mock Tunic can be paired with leggings or jeans.

$160, naturevsfuture.com Grace & Cello’s Marilyn leggings are a stylish layering piece made from bamboo, organic cotton, and spandex.

Models: Vanessa Elese & Daniel Kennedy. Hair & makeup by Laly Zambrana Hair for Kiehl’s/makeup for 3 custom color. Special thanks to Birdbath, NYC

$85, gracecello.com Organic Avenue’s Ahimsa Peace Silk Muffler warms you up in a chill or can be worn as a sash on milder days.

$50, organicavenue.com Beyond Skin’s Harriet round-toe flats are made from organic cotton denim.

$197, beyondskin.co.uk

On Him

Climate Change Clothes

With global warming throwing temperatures into constant flux, these layered looks prepare you for whatever weather comes your way

Same Underneath’s bamboo and organic cotton Fun Jacket boasts both warmth and breathability.

$130, sameunderneath.com Okdreamer’s logo T-shirt gives a shout-out to the world’s vanishing bees and is made from 100% organic cotton jersey and low-VOC water-based ink.

$87, okdreamer.com HTnaturals’ long-sleeve Seymour Stitched Tee provides a soft layer of bamboo viscose and organic cotton.

$46, htnaturals.com Gilded Age’s Hudson Rider Boot Jeans are dyed with organic indigo and sun-dried by a chemical-free process.

$290, gildedage.net I Path’s hip Catkin hemp shoes are constructed with vegan rubber soles.

$80, mooshoes.com —Nicole Zerillo

plentymag.com | 57

style

living

Mia Owen

Be Label Smart

Read the fine print on your natural and organic beauty bottles If you’re reading this, your bathroom is probably already stocked with products labeled natural and organic. But don’t assume that tells you the whole story. Unlike food, beauty products don’t need to meet government standards to include the word organic on the label. “There’s no one regulating the labeling of these types of products,” says Celeste Lutrario, director of research and development for Burt’s Bees in Durham, North Carolina. Some companies call their goods natural or organic though they contain only some ingredients that are. The good news is that the Natural Products Association is working with several beauty companies and within a year hopes to define a standard for natural personal care products. (Companies can go through a rigorous process to receive USDA organic certification, but few do.) Because beauty labels don’t always mean what they say, we asked experts which common ingredients we should try to avoid. If you spot any of these, consider leaving the product—and its potential health and environmental hazards—on the shelf.

Sodium Lauryl (or Laureth) Sulfate What it is: the detergent in cleansers that creates a bubbly lather Found in: shampoo, body wash, facial cleanser, moisturizer, hair color, acne treatments, and exfoliating scrubs Why you should avoid it: This harsh ingredient can strip your skin of its natural protective barrier, causing irritation. Plus, if it gets into the water system, it can harm plants, birds, and fish. Parabens (Methyl, Propyl, Butyl, Ethyl) What they are: a preservative that inhibits microbial growth in products, giving them a longer shelf life Found in: shampoo, conditioner, styling gel, hair lotion, body lotion, sunscreen, and many types of makeup Why you should avoid them: Parabens have a greater-than-normal potential for causing allergic reactions, and studies suggest they might interfere with your hormones, explains Lutrario. Preliminary research has also linked them to an increased cancer risk.

Petrolatum What it is: a mineral oil derivative used to soothe and soften the skin Found in: lip balm, moisturizer, facial moisturizer, products with SPF, styling gel, and anti-itch cream Why you should avoid it: It’s a by-product of petroleum, so it’s not biodegradable and comes from a nonrenewable energy source, says Daniel Fabricant, PhD, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at the Natural Products Association. It also may contain low levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are suspected carcinogens. Propylene Glycol What it is: a synthetic used to retain moisture in the skin Found in: facial moisturizer, moisturizer, antiaging products, facial cleanser, shampoo, conditioner, styling gel, hair color, 58 | february-march 2008

Smooth Moves

Anthony Verde Camilla Slattery

photographs by eco styling by

Freshen up with these label-savvy choices

SpaRitual

Fluent Conditioning Lacquer Remover uses a vegan solvent. $7, shop. fredsegalbeauty. com

Pangea Organics

Massage & Body Oil has no petrochemicals or parabens. $25, pangeaorganics.com

Burt’s Bees

Chemical-Free Sunscreen protects with titanium dioxide. $15, burtsbees.com

Aveda

Outer Peace Foaming Cleanser aids acne-prone skin with no DEA or TEAs. $24, aveda.com

Korres

Absinthe Men’s Shave Cream moisturizes with jojoba oil instead of propylene glycol. $22, korres.com

Diethanolamine (DEA)/Triethanolamine (TEA)

Found in: sunscreen, facial moisturizer, antiaging products, shampoo, aftershave, and acne treatments Why you should avoid it: Research suggests benzophenone may have endocrine disruptive properties that can interfere with hormone regulation in the body. And like DEA, benzophenone may be harmful to aquatic life.

What they are: ammonia compounds used to keep ingredients from clumping together and also to create foam Found in: cleanser, foundation, sunscreen (SPF 15 or higher), hair color, moisturizer, antiaging products, mascara, styling gel, and eye cream Why you should avoid them: Residues from these two ingredients may react with other ingredients in products to form nitrosamines, which are potential carcinogens, says Lutrario. And DEA may also be toxic to aquatic organisms.

Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP) What it is: the ingredient in plastics that makes them soft and flexible Found in: nail polish Why you should avoid it: It can be toxic to both the respiratory and immune systems, and it’s already been banned by the European Union. Some studies also suggest phthalates may cause birth defects, says Shel Pink, founder of SpaRitual, who created the first DBP-free nailcare line when she became pregnant. ✤

body wash, and deodorant Why you should avoid it: Like petrolatum, it’s made from nonrenewable fossil fuels and brings to the table all the same environmentally damaging baggage. Plus, propylene glycol is known to be a skin and eye irritant.

Benzophenone-2 What it is: a chemical that blocks the sun’s ultraviolet rays

California Baby

Super Sensitive Shampoo & Bodywash is safe for all ages. $10, californiababy. com

Terressentials Organic Flower Therapy Daily Renewal Facial Lotion bears the certified USDA Organic label. $20, terressentials.com

So what should we be looking for? With no labeling regulations in place, not everyone agrees on which ingredients we should try to avoid. Some companies create unique natural formulas (which may be tough to decode on a label), while others stick to the herbal basics. In some cases, as with benzophenone, the research is strong enough to suggest you should use sunscreens that contain titanium dioxide or zinc oxide instead. But other substitutes are murkier, and not everyone agrees on the harm caused by the ingredients on our list. Some say the negative effects of many of these chemicals are questionable when present in such small doses. The bottom line? A good product is both simple and versatile. Aim to use those that contain as many organic ingredients as possible.

TO LEARN MORE: For a comprehensive look at ingredient safety, visit Skin Deep, the Environmental Working Group’s personal care products database at cosmeticdatabase.com. The search engine can give you the details on nearly 25,000 products.

plentymag.com | 59

Jessica Tzerman

plentygreen gear

gear

The Best of Intentions Exercise More. Get Organized. Conserve and tread lightly. Keep your New Year’s resolutions this year with gadgets, equipment, and everyday basics that will keep you on track all year long.

◀On the Road If you’re shopping for a new car this year, consider the Vectrix ZEV. The only fully electric, completely green, freewaylegal vehicle now available in the US, this scooter features regenerative braking and acceleration, and you can charge its battery using any 110-volt plug. $11,850, vectrix.com

plentymag.com |

livingGEAR green

Reduce Your Footprint

photographs by

Anthony Verde

Charge Ahead

Miniwiz’s HYmini hybrid charger works with almost any 5-volt appliance. Attach the charger to your bike to capture wind power, plug it into your computer, or pop in the solar panel to harness the sun’s rays. $50, hymini.com

Shower Power

The Aquahelix lowest-flow shower nozzle uses just 0.5 gallons per minute (traditional nozzles can use five times as much) without sacrificing pressure or temperature. $29.95, aquahelix.net

Process This

Open-source advocates love Everex’s super-efficient, low-cost PC. It runs on the gOS operating system (a version of Linux made to run Google applications like Mail and Google Docs), which moves processing from the PC to the Internet. $199, walmart.com

Print Job

GreenPrint alerts you to those annoying almost-blank pages before each print job and lets you decide whether to print them. In other words: adios banner ads, lone URLs, and legal disclaimers. $35, printgreener.com

Home Movie

Forget energy-draining big-box cineplexes. Save money and power with Philips’ Home Theater System. The HTS-3544 is Energy Star–certified and made with less material to reduce emissions and waste. $179.54, philips.com

New Media ▲ Resist the urge to buy another iDevice and check out the Trevor Baylis Eco Media Player instead. It’s a video player, MP3 player, radio, LED flashlight, photo viewer, and mobile phone charger in one—and it never needs replacement batteries. Just wind the foldout handle for one minute, and voilà, 40 minutes of playtime. $281, ethicalsuperstore.com

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Get Organized Pressed for Time

Hand-printed at a familyowned press, these weekly planners make scheduling a snap. Little Otsu uses vegetable inks and 100% postconsumer recycled paper to create a date book as up-to-date as you are. $16, littleotsu.com

Bowled Over

Mio’s flexible 100% wool SoftBowls are made by Philadelphia artisans, who employ a process that uses less than 1/10th the energy required to produce ceramic models. They’re perfect for storing and are recyclable and compostable. $35, mioculture.com

Three-Ring Circus

Made from 100% postconsumer materials, these Russell+Hazel binders come in an array of colors and designs. Finally, an organizer for the eco-minded Trapper Keeper lover in all of us. Large binder, $20, small binder, starting at $14, russellandhazel.com

Storage Unit

Japanese design house Muji uses simple-yetinnovative materials and processes to produce this compact steel utility wagon. By reducing waste and conserving resources, Muji ensures that its footprint (and yours) will be as minimal as its designs. $175, momastore.org

Box Popular ▶ Get ready for spring-cleaning with this Paperbox by designer Jos Van Der Meulen. Made from unused billboard posters, it’s perfect for stashing magazines, files, laundry, or linens. $28, greenergrassdesign.com

plentymag.com |

green GEAR

photograph by

Anthony Verde

Move It!

Suit Yourself

Whether you’re looking for full-body coverage or just a top for warmer days, Patagonia offers a wetsuit to, er, suit every swimmer and surfer (including the R2 Front-Zip full suit pictured here, $510). The entire collection is made with chlorine-free wool, recycled polyester, and non-petroleum neoprene. And PVC-free protective kneepads help you get in shape without getting banged up. patagonia.com/ wetsuits for retailers

Pack Light

Osprey’s Stratos Series 24 pack is perfect for hiking, bike commuting, or an afternoon of bouldering. And as part of the company’s Environmental Integrity program— using 70% renewable energy sources is a core initiative—you can donate this lightweight loader to Mountain Fund (mountainfund. org) for reuse and get 10% off your next pack.

Changing Course

Medium Sonic Blue pack, $129, altrec.com

for a box of 12 balls, nikegolf.com for retailers

64 | february-march 2008

Though Nike has yet to produce compostable or biodegradable golf balls, the sports giant is still under par when it comes to golf and the environment. In addition to the strict environmental and fair-labor practices employed in its manufacturing facilities, Nike packages its new Karma golf balls in 50% postconsumer recycled material. $28

Snow Job

Crescent Moon Snowshoes has created 95% recycled and recyclable snowshoes (sans PVC) that weigh less than 4 pounds per pair. Who says that sustainable design can’t go handin-hand with better construction? $239 for Gold Series 9 model shown here, crescentmoonsnowshoes.com

Just Say Om

Unlike typical yoga mats made from controversial and decidedly un-eco PVC, Barefoot Yoga’s eco-friendlier mats (available in two sizes) are produced nontoxically using PER (polymer environmental resin), which doesn’t contain phthalates or heavy metals. Starting at $22.95, barefootyoga.com

it’s not my problem. not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not m y problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s n o t my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my proble m. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s not my problem. it’s

...yet.

Experts predict that within 100 years, natural lands and water resources will become scarce. Climate change will irreversibly alter the planet. And the habitats that support all life could be lost forever. Support our mission to protect the future of our natural world. To make a difference that lasts, join The Nature Conservancy. Log onto www.nature.org today or call (800) 842-8905.

66 | february-march 2008

message withthe

How can we change not only our nation’s climate policy but our environmental behaviors, too? The answer is not as splashy as you’d think—and it might involve primates and shopping.

by Liz Galst Illustrations by Thomas Fuchs

Late last September, Mike Hughes was having breakfast with Al Gore at a midtown Manhattan hotel. “It’s kind of a heady experience to sit across the table from him,” says the president and creative director of the Martin Agency, an advertising firm famous for its Geico cavemen and talking lizards. Together with Cathy Zoi, CEO of Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, and Hughes’ colleague Chris Mumford, Gore and Hughes were discussing plentymag.com | 67

Polar ice

caps

the $100 million ad campaign the Martin Agency is developing for the Alliance. The campaign is still in development but is due out in the next few months. Its primary aim: to point voters to public policy solutions for the looming climate crisis. “Right now,” Hughes says, “we have incredible numbers of people in the US who say global warming is an important problem that needs to be fixed. But most people think there’s nothing they can do about it—or that someone should do something about it, but that someone isn’t them.” The Alliance and the Martin Agency are hoping to make climate change a major issue in the upcoming presidential race. “Even though people think climate change is important,” Hughes notes, “it’s not one of the top three issues that people cite when talking about their choices for president.” Public policy isn’t the only focus of the ad campaign, though. The Alliance is also hoping that in conjunction with what it’s calling “community partners” across the nation, it can inspire significant changes in Americans’ environmental behavior: in the ways we drive; heat, light, and cool our homes; wash our laundry; and buy our food. Such changes could have a tremendous worldwide impact on the environment. After all, we Americans are among the worst polluters on earth, responsible for approximately 26.5 tons of greenhouse gas per person every year, not to mention a host of persistent pollutants, toxic chemicals, solid wastes, and other environmental offenses. Our greenhouse gas production alone is three and a half times the world average and at least twice that of most of Europe. At their meeting, Hughes tried to absorb all that Gore was telling him: The polar ice caps scientists thought might last 50 years may now survive only 10 or 20 more; severe droughts, floods, and heat waves are already taking their toll, especially in poor and low-lying places across the globe; and more species are being lost now than ever before in history. It was a lot to take in over omelets. The conversation Gore and Hughes had in that Manhattan hotel is one that everyday American environmentalists have often, too. How can we change not only our climate policy but our environmental behaviors as well? Making significant efforts to curb our production of greenhouse gases and other detrimental habits is key to a livable future here and in places where the American lifestyle has become an enviable model. There are good reasons to believe, however, that many such

campaigns—the Alliance’s included—may well come to naught. Not because the Martin Agency’s advertising expertise is in any way lacking, or because the Alliance won’t be able to accurately depict the urgency of the crisis. And certainly not because certain government officials and grassroots organizations aren’t trying hard enough. But the agency might come up dry because we as a nation seem almost immune to such efforts. In fact, study after study shows that the majority of interventions aimed at improving environmental behavior—advertising included—demonstrate few, if any, long-term benefits. Does this mean we’re doomed to continue our planetdestroying ways? The clock ticks loudly for activists. “Mike,” Gore declared to Hughes that bright September morning, “we cannot fail. We cannot fail.”

scientists thought

might last 50 years may now survive only 10 or 20 more.

46%

In March 2007, the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy released the results of its annual poll measuring Americans’ attitudes toward the environment. Here’s the very good news: 83 percent of those surveyed believe that global warming is a serious problem—the majority label it “a very serious problem.” That’s up from 74 percent who identified it as “serious” in 2005. According to the poll, Americans are believers in the power of individual action and in the ability of regular people to make a difference. When asked, “Which group or person would be most effective at improving efforts to reduce emissions connected to global warming?” 27 percent chose consumers. (Big business and Congress followed closely; the president came in at a lowly 10 percent.) But for all of their belief in the power of one, in the very same poll, 46 percent said they would seriously consider buying an SUV, up from 42 percent in 2005. How can Americans, who express pro-environment sentiment in the polls, engage in such anti-environmental behavior? And what can those hoping to change their habits learn from these facts? To begin with, say those who study environmental behavior, let’s do away with the idea that most people are rational actors who learn information and translate it into behavioral change. Instead, “it’s good to see every person as consisting of two people—a citizen and a consumer,” says Halina S Brown, professor of environmental science and policy at Clark University in Massachusetts. The citizen is the one who voices the aspirations and awareness we find in surveys like the Yale Center’s. The consumer, who inadvertently damages our ecosystems with SUVs, air travel, and unsustainably

said they would seriously consider buying an SUV, up from 42% in 2005. What gives? 68 | february-march 2008

plentymag.com | 69

sourced foods, is by contrast, says Brown, “a member of society and Creating an environmental sense of self through regular practice culture, and is subject to a different set of influences.” is a core teaching of the nation’s most successful environmental Prominent among these influences is one seemingly hardwired education program, designed for adults and children. At the Teva into human beings and other primates: the desire to demonstrate Learning Center in the rolling hills of western Connecticut, about refined social status. In a famous 1982 study by UCLA neuroscientist 1,200 fifth and sixth graders from Jewish private schools come every Michael McGuire, high-status monkeys who lost their social standing year for three- to four-day visits to study ecology and traditional to others in their group experienced rapidly plunging levels of the religious teachings on the environment. Their instructors are cool mood-elevating and -stabilizing brain chemical serotonin. Those 20-somethings in hiking boots and wooly, crocheted yarmulkes. whose status rose experienced concurrent serotonin gains. In other Teva—the name means ark in Hebrew—is a total-immersion words, being on top and having others know it makes you feel better; environmental experience where kids explore the smells and falling in status, and having others witness that, feels like crap. textures of trees and learn how all energy originally derives from And while a human’s brain chemistry is probably a bit different than the sun. Games like the psolet (which means waste in Hebrew) a monkey’s, it’s no wonder that many of us are driven to constantly contest teach environmental awareness. prove our status by possessing more and more. After all, few things Before the kids’ first meal at Teva, the students are told they say, “Hey, I can afford it,” like a $60,000 Cadillac Escalade with its can eat as much as they want. They can come back for seconds or $3,500 annual fuel bill. Conversely, environmentally thirds even, but they should try not to create too much preferable options like living in a smaller home or psolet. After each meal, the leftover food is collected taking public transportation have, at least to in a bucket and ceremoniously weighed to date, marked you as a loser. the chorus of Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” Besides this primal urge, we’re banged out on dining hall tables. (Teva’s driven to consume for other reasons: resident goats enjoy the spoils.) The to impress potential mates, to goal is to have the kids produce less of those surveyed believe express love and affection, to psolet as their visits progress. By the is a that communicate our individuality. last lunch at a session this fall, 45 No matter how bad it is for the kids produced less than a pound of planet, Brown says, “We consume waste collectively, a new record. — the majority labeling it a lot because, in our society, that’s Teva kids also devise and sign “a very serious problem.” what people do.” a covenant with the earth called That’s up from 74% There’s another hindrance a Brit Adamah. It’s a commitment of environmentally responsible to perform a chosen environmental behavior that needs to be taken action for six weeks. Whether it’s seriously: Economically, doing the becoming a vegetarian, taking shorter right thing is often much more difficult showers, or not having an XBox, Wii, TV, and expensive, at least in the short term. and computer all plugged in and turned on Take energy-efficient windows for example. simultaneously—it’s more practice at doing the Installing them can cut the average American right thing. The Brit also promotes another environmental household’s carbon emissions by more than a ton and a half behavior change: the pledge. Studies show that people who each year. But unless your local building code requires them—and sign pledges—and the actual signing of a piece of paper seems to be most don’t—you first have to be aware that they exist, then spend important, rather than simply speaking a verbal oath—are far more a lot of time and money getting them installed. “It’s at this level likely to follow through on their commitments. that we need to be thinking,” explains Canadian environmental After six weeks, the students can send their pledge cards back psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr. “Unless we remove barriers to and receive a prize: an earth-shaped bead to wear on a necklace people acting in ways that are environmentally effective, it’s not with other beads, each representing an environmental subject they surprising that people are going to make irresponsible choices.” mastered at Teva. Jonathan Dubinsky, Teva’s program director, Because, whether we’re citizens or consumers, lab monkeys or estimates that 70 percent of the kids complete their covenants. “I human beings, living green must come easy or most people won’t think kids really connect to the idea that when a bunch of people do it. Right now, though, that easy green thing isn’t happening too work together, we can really accomplish a lot,” he adds. often. So what can help people get over the hump and embrace the But there’s probably more going on as well. Thinking about how idea of doing what’s right? one’s behavior impacts the environment becomes the community Practice, McKenzie-Mohr says. When people who are not norm, even for students with little or no prior environmental particularly environmentally aware or inclined start doing awareness. The act of reading their pledges aloud to classmates something that’s good for the environment—like, say, participating and teachers makes the kids accountable to each other. Moreover, in a curbside recycling program—they often begin to think of all this pro-environment behavior is modeled by those cool (read: themselves as being concerned about the fate of the earth. “People’s high status) Teva teachers, whom all the kids love. perceptions of themselves are often driven by their behavior,” Without the goats or psolet scales, the Low Carbon Diet McKenzie-Mohr explains. That new self-concept can then spur program—that’s carbon, not carbs—is trying to do for adults further pro-environment behaviors. what Teva does for kids: offer environmental education, create

83%

global warming

serious problem who identified it as

“serious”

in 2005.

70 | february-march 2008

community norms, share information, and director of corporate consciousness at Seventh provide group reinforcement. Indianapolis Generation. When the diet was introduced in area residents who attend “Living 2000, the Portland, Oregon, residents who are among the worst Lean and Green” lectures at their local participated cut their household emissions polluters on earth, library are recruited into Carbon Diet’s by an average of 6,700 pounds, an enviable responsible for groups, which promise big changes: weight reduction by any standard. approximately “Lose 5,000 pounds in 30 Days!” The program, pioneered by David Gershon Whether mass media advertising, of the Woodstock, New York–based like the kind the Alliance for Climate Protection of greenhouse gases Empowerment Institute, is modeled intends to deploy, can effectively motivate per person on one of the few environmental large groups of Americans is a question that’s interventions that studies show has open for much debate. McKenzie-Mohr cites a $26 produced long-lasting environmental million anti-global-warming ad campaign in 2004 behavior changes: The Eco-Team program. sponsored by the Canadian government that auditors Eco-Teams bring together neighbors, friends, later found did nothing to change viewers’ environmental club members, or coreligionists for six to eight monthly behavior. “It didn’t tackle the significant barriers that exist to behavior meetings, where they learn and track behaviors that will improve change,” McKenzie-Mohr notes. their impact on the environment. The meetings tackle topics such Brown agrees with McKenzie-Mohr on advertising’s drawbacks. as garbage, energy use, transportation, and consumer behavior. “I don’t think advertising alone leads us to deep learning,” she A three-year Dutch study that followed demographically similar says—the kind of learning that changes the way we see ourselves Eco-Teams and control groups found that Eco-Team participants and interpret the world; the kind of learning that can release our “changed half of the 38 household behaviors examined, with inner primates from cycles of destructive consumption. If there’s a corresponding reductions on four physical measures of resource use.” place for advertising in environmental-behavior-change campaigns, Moreover, Eco-Team participants maintained or improved their pro- McKenzie-Mohr says, it’s “to sketch out what a sustainable future environmental behaviors for two years after group meetings ended. is going to look like and why it’s preferable to where we are now.” “When you bring together a group of individuals,” McKenzieGore’s Alliance, however, has great hopes that its advertising Mohr say about Eco-Teams’ success, “you will lead people to see themselves as have a much higher likelihood of being able participants in the fight against climate The consumer, to address barriers because of pooling of change. “We’re confident, and the knowledge. At the same time, you have the [former] vice president is confident, that who inadvertently opportunity to create a new social norm, and this is a unique moment,” says Alliance you have a lot of social support.” communications director Brian Hardwick. In Indianapolis, “the Low Carbon Diet “There are plenty of examples of social [movement] is making global warming a frontmarketing that have created significant burner issue,”says Paul Chase,who manages the changes in behavior and policy.” Hardwick program for the area’s Citizens Action cites the famous early-1970s People Start Coalition Education Fund. There are two Low Pollution, People Can Stop It campaign Carbon Diet groups of eighteen members featuring actor “Iron Eyes” Cody as a and ten Living Lean and Green workshops Native American, and studies show that scheduled for the spring. the more recent Truth campaign made a That might not seem like a lot. But significant dent in teen smoking. Indianapolis is in the heart of coal country. Will the Alliance’s campaign work? Only The city of not quite 800,000 doesn’t even offer time will tell. But in our efforts to bring a halt unsustainably recycling in most neighborhoods. Indiana has to environmental destruction that threatens one of the highest rates of CO2 emissions per us all, let’s not forget the things we know sourced foods, capita nationwide. As a result, Chase says, work for sure, like developing real-world social is by contrast, “I’ve really been surprised at the level of networks where green is the norm. School says Brown, participation. The program has developed a children are our natural allies. So are green “a member of life of its own.” movie stars, green pro-wrestlers, and green The strength of this small-group interaction mega-church pastors driving plug-in hybrids. society and is something Gershon intends to build on with And remember: Nothing says, “Hey, I can culture and the help of green cleaning-and-householdafford it,” better than one of those $1,375 products manufacturer Seventh Generation. reusable shopping bags that high-end Together, they hope to roll out the Low Carbon retailer Barneys hawked at Christmas. If you Diet nationally through a project Gershon calls got one as a gift or bought one with your Cool America. “The Low Carbon Diet is easy own hard-earned cash, then flaunt it. In this and really well done,” says Gregor Barnum, environment, status matters. ✤

Americans

26.5 tons every year.

damages our ecosystems

through the purchase AND use of SUVs, air travel, and

is subject to a different set of influences.”

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Budding Movement

Farmers are searching for guidelines to address environmentally sound flower-growing practices. But the array of certifications available to them raises just as many questions as it provides answers.

72 | february-march 2008

Byron Gutierrez prepares a bundle of flowers, bound for Russia, at the packaging center of Ecoroses, located near Quito, Ecuador.

By Amy Stewart Photographs by ramiro Falazar

hen Ecuadorian flower farmer Esteban Chiriboga made the decision in 1997 to adopt environmentally friendly practices, there was no playbook to tell him what to do. If he stopped using fungicides, what would prevent unsightly mold from forming on the petals? Without insecticides, how would he keep aphids from swarming in the hoophouse? And if he had to give up chemical fertilizers, could he guarantee that his roses would be ready to ship by Valentineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day? >>> plentymag.com | 73

Answers to these questions were hard to find. At the time, the USDA’s National Organic Program was still under development. Chiriboga thought his roses might need a minimal dose of chemicals to pass agricultural inspections in the United States and Europe, but he wasn’t sure. Just one bug or one spot of disease could get his entire shipment rejected. And when a grower makes just a few cents of profit per rose, there’s not much room for risk. But Chiriboga was determined. “My decision was to work toward a sustainable production system, both environmentally as well as socially,” he says. Chiriboga established a 37-acre farm just south of Ecuador’s capital, Quito, called Ecoroses SA. Within nine months of planting, he was harvesting his first crop of roses. Chiriboga also tried to do right by his workers by offering them free meals and transportation, extra medical care, and donating computers to their children’s schools. But it would be five years before he received any kind of environmental certification for his practices—and he’s still waiting for the market to reward him for having a conscience.

hundred years ago, most flowers were grown within a few miles of the flower shop where they would be sold. During the 20th century, flower farming moved west as growers realized they could ship their products by refrigerated truck and rail car. Denver was known for its carnation farms, and California dominated the rose market. But in the 1960s, flower farming began to move to Latin American countries like Colombia and Ecuador. The region offered several competitive advantages that American growers couldn’t beat: low wages, cheap land, less regulatory scrutiny, and a perfect year-round climate for growing staples like roses, carnations, and chrysanthemums. Ten years ago, when Chiriboga founded Ecoroses, Americans were importing 60 percent of their flowers. That figure has since risen to 78 percent. With the rise in imports came heightened attention and criticism from journalists and advocacy groups. Unlike produce, flowers are not tested for illegal-pesticide residues when they come into

Behind the Labels Farms selling flowers in the United States may be certified through an alphabet soup of environmental and labor programs—one wholesaler even guessed that boxes of flowers might start to look like NASCAR vehicles plastered with logos. Here’s a guide to some of the major labels out there:

74 | february-march 2008

“My flowers do cost more to produce, and we do not get a higher price for that. We hope at some point in the future that we will.” the country. The logic behind this decision—people don’t eat flowers, so who cares how they’re grown?—didn’t satisfy groups like the International Labor Rights Forum. In 2003, they launched the Fairness in Flowers campaign to bring attention to a host of problems on flower farms: pesticide exposure, sexual harassment, child labor, and the inability of workers to organize. “There have been tangible results in other sectors, with other green or Fair Trade products like coffee and chocolate,” the project director, Nora Ferm, says. “We can hope for similar positive impacts [for flowers].” From the beginning, however, the goal has not been to shut the flower farms down. Rather, activists have sought means by which farmers could improve their practices. One strategy is to create a certification program that audits environmental and labor standards. “Workers are often found in rural areas where there are few employment alternatives,” says Ferm. Instead of calling for boycotts, the goal is to use market pressure to encourage “safe, stable, and fair working conditions.” A similar discussion had been taking place in Europe since the mid1990s in response to conditions on flower farms in Africa. As a result, several European countries developed their own eco-label programs for flowers. Those independent efforts produced a patchwork terrain of eco-labeling programs, some with stricter standards than others. Germany’s Flower Label Program (FLP) is one of the best. That’s how, in 2003, Chiriboga’s farm came to be certified, even though only 10 percent of his roses are sold to Western Europe.

Fair Flowers Fair Plants A program that certifies flowers and plants grown around the world for sale in Europe. fairflowersfairplants.com

Fair Trade An international label for flowers and other products. Farms selling their flowers in the United States are certified through the nonprofit TransFair USA, ensuring that flower workers in developing nations receive fair wages, childcare, paid leave, and protective gear. Growers receive an additional 8 to 12 percent from each sale, and those funds go directly to the workers for a community development project of

their choosing. Workers also get training to help implement these programs, which can include education training, microlending, and gardening to feed their families. transfairusa.org

FlorEcuador A program developed by Expoflores, the Ecuadorian flower growers’ association. Independent, third-party inspectors certify that farms are complying with environmental and labor requirements. expoflores.com

Florverde A label developed by Asocolflores, the

he dilemma that Chiriboga and growers like him face is that they are sincere about their desire to transition to more sustainable practices—some of them live on their farms and watch their grandchildren play in the greenhouses—but they’re not sure how to get the message out to consumers in the faraway countries that import their products. If a farmer ships flowers to several different countries, participating in the eco-label programs of each can mean complying with different standards, paying multiple fees, and participating in several independent audits every year. Germany’s FLP might have been the best of several less-than-ideal choices for Ecoroses, but Chiriboga was still glad to get the label. It turns out the Germans are surprisingly environmentally aware and enthusiastic consumers of flowers. The FLP program helped Chiriboga bring his farm up to speed by requiring health care for workers, reforestation efforts, and other improvements. “I have to admit,” he says, the certification process “forced us to be better organized.” Today a farm in Latin America might participate in Germany’s FLP, along with Florverde, a green label founded by Asocolflores, the Colombian flower growers association, or its Ecuadorian counterpart, FlorEcuador. It might also be certified through Switzerland’s Max Havelaar program, a Dutch program called MPS, or the international Fair Trade label, among others. Each program has different specifications, from requiring minimal compliance with local laws to forbidding the use of any pesticides deemed hazardous by the World Health Organization to requiring farms adhere to an international code of conduct for their workers. “One big step,” Chiriboga says, “would be to try to standardize the certifications into one or two that can be well promoted to consumers.” He added that coming up with a single worldwide certification would save him money, too. “My flowers do cost more to produce,” he says, “and we do not get a higher price for that. We hope at some point in the future that we will.” In 2006, Ecoroses received certification from VeriFlora, the first eco-flower label in the United States. The label is managed by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), which certifies a number of products, including

Colombian flower growers’ association. Farms receive independent, third-party inspections to verify compliance with environmental and labor standards. florverde.org

Flower Label Program A program certifying flowers sold in Germany, no matter where the farms are located. fairflowers.de

Max Havelaar A Swiss program that certifies not just flowers, but also coffee, sugar, chocolate, produce, and other products grown in the

In order to meet certification requirements, Ecoroses is required to provide harvesters like Christina Collahuazo with health care provisions, meals, and transportation.

Southern Hemisphere for sale in Switzerland. maxhavelaar.ch/en

MPS The Dutch program used by many growers who sell their products through the country’s flower auction system. Growers receive letter grades (A, B, or C) for their practices. my-mps.com

Sierra Eco A Canadian distributor’s label for flowers certified through VeriFlora and other label programs. sierraeco.com

USDA National Organic Program A program that regulates the use of the term organic as applied to a wide variety of products, including flowers. A USDAapproved certifier must visit the farm to ensure the farmer is following the guidelines. ams.usda.gov/nop

VeriFlora A program for flowers sold in the US, regardless of where they are grown. Flowers must be farmed in accordance with a set of sustainable agriculture, environmental, and labor standards, as verified by independent auditors. veriflora.com

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lumber through the Forest Stewardship Council and fish through the Marine Stewardship Council. VeriFlora’s standards include a quality component to ensure the flowers won’t wilt after a couple of days in the vase. They also submitted their standard to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). With ANSI approval, VeriFlora’s definition of sustainable flower production may become the gold standard in the US and possibly around the world. So far, SCS has certified more than 40 farms internationally, representing more than 750 million stems per year. VeriFlora is also set apart from other eco labels because it requires growers to either be organic, or to develop a plan to transition to organic production. But Alexander Winslow, SCS’s communications director, doesn’t think organic is enough. “Why be satisfied with organic?” he says. “The reality is that organic only goes so far. It doesn’t address energy efficiency. It doesn’t address worker health or

community benefits. We are absolutely convinced that sustainability is a stronger vehicle for achieving environmental and social good. The ultimate goal is to move toward organic farming practices, but that only goes so far in addressing the environmental impact of the product from a life cycle perspective.” VeriFlora is also making an effort to certify farms of all sizes throughout North America. That goal is particularly important to Tom Leckman, president and CEO of Canada’s largest floral distributor, Sierra Flower Trading. “We wanted to have a label that involved the local growers,” he says. “We felt there was a little too much finger-pointing at Latin America. It’s not just the Colombians who sometimes have an issue with labor laws.” Now, about 30 percent of the flowers Sierra sells are certified through VeriFlora. But before VeriFlora came on the scene, Sierra also had to wade through an alphabet soup of floral certifications. The company initially only

The dilemma that Chiriboga and growers like him face is that they are sincere about their desire to transition to more sustainable practices, but they’re not sure how to get the message out to consumers in the faraway countries that import their flowers. 76 | february-march 2008

At Ecoroses’ 37-acre farm in Ecuador, Ruth Tapia (opposite) loads bundles of flowers, while other workers (right) start the weekly maintenance of rose stems. Ecoroses grows over 60 varieties of roses (below).

bought flowers certified through Germany’s FLP or Colombia’s Florverde. “There are too many labels,” Leckman says. “We can’t go to the consumer and keep introducing a new name every two or three years. So we created our Sierra Eco seal, and no matter where [our flowers] come from, that’s how we market them.”

s the flower industry continues to grapple with what a sustainable future might look like, florists and grocery stores are wondering how their customers will respond. VeriFlora-certified bouquets have started showing up at supermarket chains, where about half of cut flowers are purchased. Karen Christensen, global produce coordinator for Whole Foods Market, reports that the company buys VeriFlora-certified tulips and lilies from Sun Valley Floral Farms, a large California grower, and organic roses from a farm in Ecuador. “Right now we’re buying pretty much everything [the Ecuadorian farm] can produce,” she says. Christensen reports that Whole Foods is also partnering with TransFair USA to sell Fair Trade–certified flowers under the Whole Trade Guarantee program. But she’s not sure yet what consumers will prefer. “It’s going to be an incremental process to turn this industry green,” she says. Some individual florists have made a conscious decision to go green. Christine Saunders, owner of the Spiraled Stem Floral Design in Southern California, offers a full sustainability package for her eco-conscious wedding and event clients that includes not just the flowers but also non-petroleum candles, a container rebate program, recycling, and reduction of waste. Saunders says there is a growing interest in green weddings and events, particularly within Los Angeles’ celebrity community, but that her colleagues are still figuring it out. “I know a florist who just does flowers for celebrities’ homes,” she says. “He told me that they are all asking him to go green. He didn’t know how. He thought it would mean that he would have to stop using flowers and only use potted plants,” Saunders says. “I gave him all my sources and even walked him around the wholesale market and pointed out the eco labels. Those flowers are out there, but a lot of people just don’t know where to start.” ✤

Where to Buy

Looking to spread some eco-friendly love this Valentine’s Day? Here’s where to find the purest petals:

1-800-flowers.com

Diamond Organics

Organic Style

offers Fair Trade bouquets and other Fair Trade–certified gifts. 1800flowers.com

ships organic flowers and produce across the country. diamondorganics.com

California Organic Flowers

Flowerbud.com

ships organic and VeriFlora-certified flowers nationwide, and they have a wholesale division that supplies retail florists. organicstyle.com

is a family farm in northern California that ships organic, California-grown flowers nationwide.californiaorganicflowers.com

ships some VeriFlora-certified flowers—be sure to ask. flowerbud.com

Consider asking your retail florist to order VeriFlora-certified flowers from growers listed at veriflora.com or from local growers. They can check the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ascfg.org) for local options, or visit localharvest.org to search for nearby farms.

Also look for eco-label and local flowers in supermarkets, including Kroger, Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods Market, and natural food co-ops.

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Steven Kotler |

Way Beyond the

photograph by

Beth Perkins

Science

Few people ever win a MacArthur “genius grant.” Even fewer can lay claim to helping find not one but two new species of primates. And only one person has helped preserve Madagascar’s legendary biodiversity through all-night rum drinking ceremonies.

Meet Patricia Wright.

f you ask field researcher Patricia Wright how she managed to create Madagascar’s Ranomafana National Park, which last June was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, the 63-year-old will say: “I took long walks, drank a lot of rum, and threw a lot of parties.” Ranomafana is located on the southeastern side of Madagascar, at the edge of what is called the “High Plateau,” a steep, mountainous region so inhospitable it remained mostly unexplored before Wright began taking walks there in 1986. There are eighteen Malagasy villages surrounding Ranomafana, and to found the park, Wright needed the cooperation of every villager. So back in 1987, she decided it was time to tour the local communities. This was not easy walking. It took up to ten days of rugged jungle bushwhacking to reach each village and ten days more to return. She was working at Duke University back then, and the year she completed her tour, “What the hell does this lady have on her leg?” became question 33 on the medical school’s tropical medicine final. The answer was leishmaniasis, a parasite transmitted via the bite of a sand fly; it’s also called “black fever” for what it does to the skin. Wright also had hookworm, tapeworm, and by her own estimation, “just about every other tropical disease known to man.” Trekking was only part of the challenge. Every visit required a 78 | february-march 2008

rum-soaked meeting with tribal elders that lasted through the night, occasionally for days. The rum, toka gasy, is a home-brewed jungle jetfuel that burns going down and feels worse the next day. So not only was she hiking over mountains to reach these villages, she was doing it dog-sick and occasionally sporting a king-size hangover. It’s been two decades since those long walks from Ranomafana. In that time, with the help of $6 million from the United States Agency for International Development and the support of a variety of conservation groups, Wright’s labors have protected 106,000 acres of land and produced a first-class field research station, seven newly built schools, seven renovated schools, four health care centers, and a roving health and hygiene team. Today, 164 villagers work inside the park, and Wright has trained almost 500 Malagasy scientists, mostly for work at universities and conservation agencies. The park gets about 30,000 visitors a year, and villagers who live around its borders receive half the revenue generated from entrance fees. Currently a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, a member of the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration, and the executive director for the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments, Pat Wright is one of the world’s leading >>>

Patricia Wright at her home in South Beach, New York. plentymag.com

conservationists and primatologists. Having received a MacArthur Fellowship (aka the “genius grant”) in 1989, along with Madagascar’s National Medal of Honor in 1995, she is known as “one of the very few researchers who doesn’t just do the work, sit on their arse, and let others deal with the repercussions,” says Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm. “Pat takes things way beyond the science.” Wright was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania in 1944 and raised on a small farm in Lyndonville, New York. She credits her early interest in nature to the reading that helped her endure Lyndonville’s nearendless winters. She carried this interest to Maryland’s Hood College, where she majored in biology and met her husband, James Wright. After graduation, with James still finishing his degree at Brown, Wright left her first and last lab job in the immunology department of Harvard Medical School, where, she recalls, “What I had to do wasn’t the most pleasant experience for me or the mice.” In 1967, she and her husband moved to New York. Wright looked for biology work, but without a PhD, the available positions didn’t cut it. Instead, she took a job with the Department of Social Services, part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program. And though she had never lived in New York City before, Wright was assigned tough cases in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville neighborhoods. “What did I know?” she says. “I was this innocent, little farm girl. I didn’t realize that most of the social workers who were assigned cases in the ghetto didn’t actually go into the ghetto at all.” But Wright would spend her lifetime going places women have been told never to go alone, and Brooklyn was no different. Because

along—no easy feat because of laws written during that period to combat the exotic animal trade. To make the return trip easier, Wright decided her monkeys needed visas. She took two photos of Herbie to the Colombian embassy—assuming nobody would notice they were of the same animal—explained her situation, and hoped for the best. “They were amazingly calm, like they got these requests every day,” she recalls. “They told me to wait and then returned with two visas.” So Wright got her visas, and after two months in Colombia, Herbie had a bride. They named her Kendra. After two years back in the States, Wright gave birth to her daughter, Amanda, quit her job, and “got down to the serious business of being a Brooklyn housewife.” That business got a little more serious when, two weeks after Wright gave birth, Kendra followed suit. They named the baby monkey Flower. And Flower raised a few questions. “This was in 1973,” says Wright, “at the height of the sexual revolution. Here I was a liberated woman spending all my time caring for our daughter. But with owl monkeys … 93 percent of the time, babies are with their fathers. It’s this amazing example of male paternal care in primates—I just had to know more.”

Unfortunately, Aotus was one of the least studied of all primates, and there just wasn’t the data to sate Wright’s curiosity. She did the research herself. After striking out with grants—Jane Goodall didn’t respond; the National Geographic Society said no—Wright found Warren Kinzey, a City University of New York anthropologist and then one of the world’s leading experts on primate evolution. “Hi,” she began when she rang Kinzey. “I’m a Brooklyn housewife who wants to study Aotus.” Kinzey started laughing, but he didn’t To travel with her monkeys, Wright concluded they hang up. Instead, a few days later, he needed visas. So she took two photos to the Colombian explained how primatologists work. Then embassy. “They were amazinagly calm, like they got he broke the bad news: A number of these requests every day,” she recalls. “They told me to very prominent researchers had already wait and then returned with two visas.” attempted to study the owl monkey, but none had succeeded. The problem was its nocturnal habits. Even with radio collars, this was the late 1960s, Wright also recalls showing up wearing “the tracking an owl monkey through a pitch-black rainforest had proved most amazingly short miniskirts.” But it wasn’t the minis that people not only impossible but dangerous. Owl monkeys have a large home remember—it was her diligence. “I really wanted to get things right,” range, and they share it with a full cadre of big cats, poisonous snakes, Wright explains. “I allotted a whole day for each person and really got to and other Amazonian creatures that do their hunting after dark—the know what the government was offering.” The job required her to write same time an Aotus researcher needs to be out in the field. detailed reports, which turned out to be her introduction to field research. But Wright knew something Kinzey didn’t. She had spent summers “I was recording how people lived, but primate behavior is primate with her husband and their monkeys on Cape Cod, where she often behavior—it doesn’t matter if you’re in Brooklyn or the Amazon.” let the animals run free in the forest. They’d make a clicking sound Wright was also a rock-and-roll fan and went to concerts every to communicate, and she knew she could use it monitor them. “I’d weekend. She says she was on acid—“or something like that”—on tracked them on Cape Cod,” she explains. “I just didn’t think the the way to a 1968 Jimi Hendrix show at the Fillmore East when she jungle would be that much of a problem.” first encountered the primate that would become her lifelong passion. In 1976, with her husband and 3-year-old daughter in tow, Wright Ducking into a pet shop to get out of the rain, she saw an owl monkey: flew to Peru. Research at the New York Public Library had led her to the a nocturnal, monogamous, South American primate of the genus eastern side of the Andes. But after a long flight and a 38-hour taxi ride, Aotus. “He had beautiful, big, brown eyes and a built-in smile,” says she discovered the area she’d pinpointed had become a coffee plantation. Wright, “He was irresistible.” She bought him and named him Herbie. No one had seen a monkey there in more than 25 years. So Wright headed Before long, the Wrights realized Herbie was part of a social species to a small airport and asked in broken Spanish, “¿Dónde están los monos?” and that he needed some company (a fact reinforced by his tendency Turns out los monos were at Puerto Bermudez, deep in the heart of the to destroy their apartment when left alone). So in 1971, they set out Amazon. A Cessna flew them to a remote, jungle landing strip. Amanda for the jungles of Colombia to find their monkey a mate. Because they took one step onto the runway and screamed—less than 20 feet away was couldn’t find anyone to look after Herbie, the Wrights brought him a Campa Indian in full battle dress. Wright walked over to him and asked a 80 | february-march 2008

(Clockwise from top right): Biologist Patricia Wright, who has gained a reputation for collecting data on hard-to-track species, with Madagascarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s golden bamboo lemur (Hapalemur aureus). Wrightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s field research has been key to understanding the behavior of elusive primates (bottom right); and she has led treks through the jungles of Peru, Borneo, and Madagascar (bottom left). But all these efforts arguably pale in comparison to her conservation of Madagascarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ranomafana National Park (top left), a wildlife treasure of just under 100,000 acres of dense rainforest.

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82 | february-march 2008

photograph by Beth Perkins

different question: “¿Dónde está el hotel de turista?” There was no tourist hotel, but there was a rough camp down by the river where visiting Indian traders occasionally slept. They set up there, and Wright hired a local hunter as a guide. But she still didn’t find any monkeys. After two weeks, Wright was frustrated. She had heard that familiar clicking sound near a canopy of trees, but hadn’t managed to see the Aotus. Her guide didn’t want to come back the next night, so she took matters into her own hands. “I left James and Amanda at camp and went off into the dark,” Wright recalls. “I was following a tiny stream, trying to get back to this tree. Then I got lost. I’m standing there in the pitch black, with nothing but jaguars and fer-de-lance and bushmasters for company, starting to panic, when I heard that familiar clicking sound.” She heard more than one. They were in the trees around her. It was too dark to see, and she didn’t want to chase them off with her flashlight, but she could tell by the landing patterns of falling fruit that there were four of them. She spent most of the night listening, always on the edge of panic. Around 4 am, she heard a loud shuffling headed her way. Wright knew wild bush pigs were among the animals in the forest most likely to kill you, so she scrambled up the nearest tree. It was a spiny palm with long thorns that cut deep into her flesh. Then the first drops of urine hit her face. In the tree above her, very angry to have company, were two owl monkeys. “It was my first sighting of Aotus in the wild, and they were pissing on me. I’ve never been so happy.” Wright spent six months following those four monkeys and in 1978 published “Home Range Diet and Ranging Patterns of Aotus” in the journal Folia Primatologica. By then, she’d gone back for a PhD, studying at City College of New York with her newfound mentor, Warren Kinzey. Graduate school was the end of her marriage; James left the first week. There was no money for babysitters, so Wright on the grounds of her house in New York. 5-year-old Amanda came to all of Wright’s classes. Wright brought her daughter back to the Amazon and did her doctoral dissertation at Peru’s Manu National Park—both the encyclopedias. There are those blessed with the ability to always ask the earth’s most biodiverse site and one of the most remote national parks right question and those with the steadfast patience to work through in the world. It was there that she began to answer the questions that the wrong ones. Every now and again, a researcher arrives on the scene were raised after Flower was born, to uncover why the male Aotus with the knack for doing what was thought impossible. After her work took on so much parenting. To avoid predation and food competition, with Aotus, doing the impossible became Wright’s calling card. owl monkeys had become nocturnal. During the day, the fruit trees are That’s why Elwyn Simons hired her out of graduate school. A senior packed with monkeys—many of them significantly larger than Aotus. biologist at the Duke Primate Center, Simons is about as close to Indiana There were also raptors in the sky, eagles and hawks that liked nothing Jones as evolutionary primatologists get. Besides being one of America’s better than a primate snack. But being nocturnal means you have to premier explorers, according to many who know him, he is also a keen deal with big cats. The energy required to manufacture milk, carry a judge of talent. “I could see her doggedness right away,” recalls Simons. baby, and avoid a jaguar at the same time is considerable; because “Most people find ways of talking themselves out of doing things that males didn’t have this combination of responsibilities, they took on the are difficult and uncomfortable—Pat displayed an unusual willingness heavier workload of child rearing. to go anywhere and do anything to achieve her goals.” It had taken almost a decade, but Patricia Wright had started finding Simons sent her to Borneo. The situation was somewhat familiar. answers. Wright was asked to track down the tarsier, another secretive primate about which there was very little data. Of course, there The best scientists develop reputations. Some are known for wild, were plenty of intriguing, unanswered questions. But again, Wright intuitive leaps; others for being able to recall facts better than a dozen brought back the answers.

Simons upped the ante: He asked her to search for the extinct. About 400 miles off the coast of Mozambique, surrounded on all sides by the raging Indian Ocean, lies Madagascar—at 227,000 square miles, the world’s fortysixth-largest country and fourth-largest island. Some 165 million years ago, this island separated from the rest of the Gondwanaland super-continent, creating a period of biological isolation so significant that of the island’s 200,000 species, 150,000 are endemic, found nowhere else on earth. Thirteen percent of all primate species, 23 percent of all primate genera, and 36 percent of all primate families call Madagascar home. Scientists refer to the island as “the eighth continent.” But it’s not an easy place for humans. According to the World Bank, more than 85 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Slash-and-burn agriculture, called tavy, is a common source of income, and every year nearly one-third of the island burns. Since the 1950s, logging for timber, mining operations, and economic development has increased so much that when Wright arrived in the mid-1980s, less than 15 percent of Madagascar’s original forests remained. Today, it’s around 10 percent. Simons wanted Wright to track down the greater bamboo lemur, one of the world’s most endangered species and one of just three species worldwide to feast on bamboo, which is riddled with cyanide. At the time of her arrival, the greater bamboo lemur hadn’t been seen in years and was generally thought extinct. But there’s a difference between being thought extinct and actually being extinct, and in the past few decades that difference has sometimes been Pat Wright. Not only did Wright find the greater bamboo lemur in 1986, she also discovered a new species of primate: the golden bamboo lemur. Finding a new species is rare, but finding a new species of “charismatic megafauna”—animals with widespread appeal that become poster creatures for environmental causes—is about the same as finding a needle in a haystack if that haystack is the size of Montana. It was a career-making discovery and a heartbreaking one at that. Weeks after Wright and then-assistant Deborah Overdorff spotted the golden bamboo lemur, the sound of chainsaws ripped through the forest. The loggers were after one of the most expensive woods in the world, rosewood, and were not going to stop for a bamboo-eating lemur. Wright became a diplomat. She started with the Malagasy government and then moved to the United States, talking to anyone else who would listen. She met with money men on every continent but still couldn’t raise enough. Just when the Malagasy government was ready to quit, her MacArthur award arrived. It was $250,000. Wright dumped all of it into the park. The dividends continue to accrue.

for over two decades, are lousy on the ground. Because the animal’s arm-to-leg ratio is roughly the same as an adult human’s, it spends almost all its time in the tree canopy. So all the time Wright has spent following lemurs has been much like her long walk—bushwhacking up and down hills, knee deep in mud, hangovers replaced by the constant torment of having to crank her neck backward to study the treetops. Luke Dollar, assistant professor of biology at Pfeiffer University and one of the world’s leading Madagascar carnivore experts, says, “What she’s done is amazing. In the past 20 years—a very short time from a scientific perspective—we’ve gone from knowing nothing about lemurs to knowing as much about them as we know about any other taxonomic group of large mammals.” Wright has continued to do the near impossible. In 2004, she and her team sited a new species of lemur, which was named after her: Wright’s Sportive Lemur. And last year, she and her graduate students found a new troop of greater bamboo lemurs, upping the world’s total to around 125. Wright’s work has opened up new frontiers of research for other species of lemurs, too. Additionally, she has raised and begun to answer all sorts of odd questions about primate old age. In relation to Alzheimer’s, which lemurs somehow avoid, Wright is currently investigating their medicinal habits—what plants they eat when ill and utilize when injured. She hopes this will pave the way for both new drugs and more protection for the forests that supply those drugs. But her primatology work pales beside her conservation legacy. “I can’t think of anyone who has been a better champion for the place they love,” Dollar says. “Almost everything I know about perseverance, tenacity, and diplomacy, I learned by studying under Pat.” The proof of this is in the dozen schools serving 4,000 Malagasy students that Dollar and his collaborators have built or renovated in the past two years. It’s all this work that led to a tract of rainforest that includes Ranomafana gaining World Heritage status in 2007. But the park’s biggest dividend is the influence it has had on its home country. When Wright arrived on the island there were two national parks. Because Ranomafana has become an inspirational gold standard, there are now 46 protected areas and eighteen national parks. Building on this work, the Malagasy president, Marc Ravalomanana, is currently helping turn Madagascar into a model for African eco tourism. At the top of

“Primate behavior is primate behavior,” says Wright. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in Brooklyn or the Amazon.”

In 1986, when Wright first set out on her long walk, she had no idea what was coming. She didn’t know that she would log 300 muddy miles. She also didn’t know that, because of the walk’s success and the deep bonds she formed with the island, her work there would add her name to the pantheon of female primatologists who have the serious grit necessary for long-term field research. Unlike Jane Goodall’s chimps or Dian Fossey’s gorillas, Wright’s lemurs, the focus of her attention

his agenda is to increase Madagascar’s protected landscape from the current 1.7 million hectares to 6 million hectares over the next five years, an act that Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, recently called “one of the most important announcements in the history of biodiversity conservation.” Which is to say, 20 years from now, when some other fledgling researcher asks “¿Dónde están los monos?” the answer will continue to include Madagascar. And despite the long walks, horrid tropical ailments, and a brutal schedule that keeps her traveling all year long, Wright has pulled through remarkably unscathed. “I’m a bit slower at the beginning of each field season, and it takes a bit longer to get into form,” she says. “But to tell you the truth, nothing hurts.” ✤ plentymag.com | 83

cost of the

The business of carbon neutrality is booming. But how fair is the trade?

by anna sussman

Early one morning in 1993, Wilson Turinawe woke up to the crack of gunfire in Uganda’s Kibale National Park. Paramilitary park rangers were attacking his village. His thatched hut was set on fire. His wife grabbed their infant child and ran. Turinawe was slashed with a machete. He still has the scars. “They came with guns,” he recalls, with a disbelief in his voice that suggests the episode might have taken place just yesterday instead of fifteen years ago. “Everything of my household was burned. A radio cassette, a bicycle, and even food that I had just got from my gardens was all burned down.” Turinawe is one of 30,000 villagers who have been kicked out of their homes in Uganda’s Kibale National Park to make way for a massive, 86,000-acre treeplanting project. The trouble, Turinawe says, actually started 4,000 miles away in Europe, where businesses have been giving money to the Forest Absorbing >>> Reforestation initiatives around Kibale National Park extend beyond that of the FACE Foundation and include youth education projects.

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>>> plentymag.com | 67

Locals at the edge of Kibale National Park, home to Africa’s densest population of primates.

Carbon Dioxide Emission (FACE) Foundation, a Dutch nonprofit that pays the Ugandan government to plant trees that will one day offset carbon emissions. Two more Dutch organzations are involved in offset-related tree-planting in Uganda: Tendris launched the GreenCard program, which calculates and offsets the carbon emissions created by consumer purchases; and GreenSeat plants and manages forests in Uganda to compensate for the carbon released during air travel. With some 2.4 billion tons of carbon traded last year, carbon offsetting is a booming business. Carbon-neutral products allow consumers to help pay for projects that offset the emissions linked to their purchases. The money goes to efforts like tree planting or wind power investment. These programs are attractive because they allow consumers to reduce their carbon footprint without changing their lifestyles. Some environmentalists say offset programs such as GreenCard and GreenSeat are symbiotic, a way for consumers and companies to atone for their eco sins and boost the economies of poorer nations that most acutely feel the effects of climate change. a debate rages over the benefits of tree-planting schemes. But critics say offsetting is a guilt-assuaging quick fix for decadence and over-consumption. They say it comes at the expense of people in developing nations, for the UWA. “But they had been encroached. Local people cleared who are once again being punished by Western business schemes. the land and planted their crops. They have now been removed, Turinawe now lives in a small mud hut with his wife and eight and we are trying to have the forest come back.” He denies that the children in a farming village just outside the park boundary. Like eviction of the encroachers had to do with the million-dollar treemost of the families in this village, Turinawe’s children do not go planting contract the UWA won in the mid-1990s from FACE. The to school. They spend their days helping to grow bananas and foundation, for its part, refutes claims of mistreatment and maintains potatoes, running for buckets of water, and carrying sacks of that its work in Uganda complies with principles of responsible cornmeal. At night, their bed is a plastic tarp on the floor of their forest management as well as local and international laws. mud hut. Turinawe says that after being kicked out of the park, ecause of stories like that of the Turinawe family—episodes his quality of life fell dramatically. “There is not enough land to involving eviction, brutality, and exclusion stretch back well farm here,” he says, because the villages are so overcrowded with over a decade now and include hundreds of complaints and evictees. “I don’t have enough food to feed my family.” Down a dirt lane from Turinawe lives the local elder, several lawsuits—today, in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala, a debate Mujafragense, who has resided in the village his whole life. He rages over the benefits of tree-planting schemes. Does the global recalls the evictions of the early 1990s. “I saw the fire on the eco business of carbon offsets actually sow rewards for the people hillside and watched the people run from their homes,” he says. here? Mwandha says if you looked at the villages around the park “Mothers were screaming and crying. You could see fear on their before and after the tree-planting project, a “big leap for the better” is faces.” Mujafragense agrees that the evictions have also caused apparent in the standard of living. He says local mothers and fathers are now gainfully employed as tree planters. And there’s more. “We overcrowding and food shortages. But the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) insists the displaced are improving our climate, wildlife like elephants have returned to the villagers were trespassers. According to the UWA, the villagers park, and we are getting funds to replant areas that were encroached moved into the area during Idi Amin’s reign and were living on the that would have remained grassland for a very long time.” But Timothy Byakola, an activist with Kampala’s Climate and land illegally, destroying its delicate ecosystem. The national parks have been established “for wildlife conservation, the conservation of Development Initiatives, says otherwise. He has fought treenatural resources,” says Sam Mwandha, director of field operations planting schemes nationwide since their introduction in 1994.

In Uganda’s capital, Kampala,

Wrappers from a local gin-like banana liquor are reused for seedlings that villagers typically plant during the rainy season (opposite).

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photos by Annie Marie Musselman

Firewood from Kibale provides 90% of local villagers’ energy needs.

over park boundaries in the night and uproot the freshly planted saplings, undoing any potential for carbon absorption. And the jobs promised to local people don’t pay enough. “From the testimonies of the communities, the money is not enough to send a primary child for one term in school. It’s not enough for milk for one person,” Byakola says. Many villagers around Kibale National Park say the scarcity of land and lack of food caused by the evictions left them with few options other than to take a job with the tree-planting project. Still, they appreciate the opportunity for work, and employees are provided with food, a small wage, healthcare, and safety gear like covered shoes—benefits unheard of elsewhere in Uganda. Even village elder Mujafragense worked planting trees. He says that on the whole, despite the low wages (about a Byakola and his colleagues claim deals like those in Kibale National dollar a day), the brutal evictions, and the overcrowding, his village Park are preconditioned on the removal of those living in the park. is better off thanks to the project. He says the projects have resulted not only in brutal evictions but Mwandha maintains that tree planting makes sense for Uganda also in a decrease of important resources for local people, who can and the world. “If I am a consumer in the West, I understand that I no longer access the firewood and herbs that grow in the forest. “It am polluting the environment, there is nothing in my own country was promised to the local people that these trees were not going to that I can do to reduce the impact on the environment, and there take away their rights to access the forest,” he says. But they have. is an opportunity to support a country like Uganda—then why Villagers living nearby have told Byakola that they have been shot shouldn’t I support it? Not only to offset, but also to improve the at when attempting to enter park ranger–protected forests. conditions in the countries where that happens to be.” There is a lot of hostility between the villagers and the treeBut Byakola believes it’s not that simple. “It is business,” he says. The planting project, says Byakola. In some areas, he says, locals sneak UWA has already sunk more than a million dollars into tree planting— that’s major money in a country where the average person earns less than $300 a year. What makes it “into the pocket of the local people,” says Byakola, “is claim deals like those in Kibale National Park are another question.” ✤ preconditioned on the removal of those living in the park.

Byakola and his colleagues

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The Best Nondairy Milks 89 How to Count Your Electricity The Soap Matrix 91 The Amazing Inkless Pen 91 Books in Brief 92 The Green Fiend 93

review

plentylabs

Nondairy Milks There are many health-related and ethical reasons to avoid cow’s milk—veganism, lactose intolerance, a desire to avoid hormones and antibiotics, to name a few. But finding a reliable substitute can be overwhelming, because store shelves are packed with nondairy milk choices. Plenty sampled three dozen products to find the tasti-

Best vanilla Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Vanilla Tastes less like almonds than vanilla, but the two flavors combine well. Organic? No.

Best grain milk Pacific Foods Organic Oat Low-Fat Vanilla The tasty flavor balances the graininess often found in nondairy beverages. And we appreciated the mess-free, twist-off top. Organic? Yes.

Best blend EdenBlend Rice & Soy This combo mixes the health benefits of soy with rice’s mellow taste. Organic? Yes.

est. And while none is a perfect swap for moo juice, many have considerable nutritional benefits in their own right. “These beverages can play an important dietary role, especially the soy,” says Roger Clemens, PhD, of the Institute of Food Technologists. Here’s the cream of the crop. —Eileen Gunn Best for coffee Rice Dream Supreme Vanilla Hazelnut The sugary taste makes this a perfect swap for your usual nondairy creamer. Organic? No.

Best soy milk Silk Plain It has a pleasing nutty flavor and enough fat to give it body and versatility. Organic? Yes

Best chocolate Good Karma Organic Ricemilk Chocolate A richer, more natural flavor makes this the closest you’ll get to Hershey’s syrup in a glass. Organic? Yes.

Best skim milk alternative Soy Dream Enriched Orignal The light body and mild flavor are a good swap for nonfat milk. Organic? Yes.

DRINK TO YOUR HEALTH If you’re looking for a substitute for the nutritional role dairy plays in your diet, choose your nondairy alternative wisely. All but one of our top picks have at least 20 percent of the recommended daily amount of calcium and 25 percent of the suggested vitamin D per 8-ounce serving (whole milk has 30 percent and 25 percent, respectively). And while our favorites are lower in fat than whole milk, the nut and grain milks came up short on protein, ranging from one to 7 grams per serving versus milk’s 7 grams. Many

grain milks contain folic acid, magnesium, riboflavin, and vitamin B12, but they may also be loaded with sugar. And just because a product is made from oats or almonds, don’t assume it provides the same health benefits as the whole food. “When you process these foods into beverages, it’s not quite the same as eating the foods themselves,” says Clemens. For example, research finds that oat fiber lowers cholesterol, but a glass of oat milk has less than half the fiber of a bowl of oatmeal.

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labs LABS plenty

Device The Wattson Maker DIY Kyoto Price under $200, diykyoto. com

How it works Clip one part to your electricity meter and then leave the other on your kitchen or coffee table. It wirelessly transmits your total electricity usage in watts or dollars-peryear to the table unit, so you can see how your costs go up or down as you turn various devices on and off.

ELECTRIC SHOCK These new devices help you track— and reduce—excess energy usage

In our gadget-filled world, it’s all too easy to waste electricity. Devices like DVD players and printers have been dubbed household vampires because they suck up almost as much juice whether they’re on or off. Cell phone and other chargers often stay plugged in, draining electricity even when they’re not in use. Then there are the computers and air conditioners that we could turn off when we aren’t using them, but for the sake of convenience, we don’t. These electrical indulgences add up. The US Department of Energy estimates that 75 percent of home electronics energy consumption occurs while those devices are off. And the Cornell University Cooperative Extension suspects that the typical home has about 20 such vampires. Fortunately, new products are being designed to help you monitor your electricity usage. Here’s a look at the current trend. —Eileen Gunn

Device The Kill A Watt EZ Maker P3 International Corporation Price $60, p3international.com

How it works Plug it into your outlet; then plug in an appliance or electronic device. Based on pricing data you feed it from your electric bill, it can tell you how much the item may cost you on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. Leave it plugged in for a running tally: A quick survey of my own home showed that gadgets I wasn’t actively using could account for more than half my bill.

Device The Home Joule Maker Consumer Powerline Price under $100,

consumerpowerline.com

How it works Colored lights tell you when local electricity rates—which fluctuate throughout the day—are at their highest and lowest, so you can do laundry offhours and use your AC discerningly. A blue light tells you when local usage is approaching critical mass—say during a heat wave— so you can power down and help prevent brownouts. In the future, if your local utility chooses to join the company’s program, your electricity sacrifices may be rewarded with discounts, credits, cash, or freebies.

When your computer runs out of memory, upgrading to a whole new system isn’t the most environmentally sensitive option. That’s where the Hitachi Deskstar P7K500—billed as the world’s most energy efficient desktop drive—comes in. The unit is up to 59 percent more efficient than comparable 250-gigabyte hard drives currently on the market, and it whittles down both active and idle PC power consumption by more than 40 percent from Hitachi’s previous generation of hard drives. Look for models for both personal computers and your big, honking office power drainer. $159.99, hitachi.us —Mike Dolan 90 | february-march 2008

photo by Toby Summerskill (top left)

Best of the rest

It’s a Wash Lather up naturally to fight the spread of germs It took an outbreak of staph infections last fall to get people to pay attention to the number-one way we can all stay healthy: washing our hands. In September 2007, the Clean Hands Report Card from the Soap and Detergent Association revealed that one-third of adults seldom or never wash their hands after coughing or sneezing, and 24 percent don’t always wash after using the bathroom. Even those who do scrub up regularly may think antibacterial soaps give them extra protection from germs. But a recent study from the

University of Michigan School of Public Health proved that antibacterial soaps don’t clean better than traditional formulas. It’s really washing often and long (for 20 seconds or more) that gets hands clean, explains Allison Aiello, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan and one of the Report Card’s lead researchers. Plenty went looking for hand soaps you can use with an environmentally clean conscience. Here are a half-dozen of our favorites, laid out according to scent and sudsiness. —Jessica Hartshorn

EO Lemon & Eucalyptus Hand Soap $8, eoproducts.com Eucalyptus and lemon essential oils give it an invigorating scent—try it as your kitchen hand soap, since both oils are also naturally antiseptic.

Kiss My Face C-Weed Organic Foaming Soap $7, kissmyfacewebstore.com If you love lather, this is the foamiest organic soap we found, and the zingy citrus scent lingers.

6 6

HUGO Oatmeal and Almond Liquid Hand Soap $8, hugonaturals.com This vanilla-spiced blend of vegan ingredients makes for a foamy yet softly scented soap.

Suds/Lather

JASON Lavender Satin Soap for Face and Hands $5.50, jason-natural.com With its lavender scent, this mild, lotion-like soap soothes your senses while you wash.

Pure Life Soap Company Hand and Body Soap $8, purelifesoap.com Made from a base of organic aloe and olive oil with a hint of mint for scent, this mild cleanser claims to help skin heal.

Desert Essence Castile Liquid Soap $5–$12, drugstore.com Organic tea tree oil is a primary cleansing ingredient in this soap; buy 32-ounce refills to save money and waste.

Scent

Trade This for That PENS A pen-a-day habit doesn’t draw high marks when it comes to the environment because most aren’t refillable and rarely get recycled. Enter the metal alternative (pictured here: Axel Weinbrecht Design’s Beta P Pocket Pen). The Beta stainless-steel stylus has an alloy “nib” that writes on almost any type of paper, and with no ink to dry out, it will last for decades instead of days. Scribes, take note. $29.98, grand-illusions.com

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labs labs plenty

Tobin Hack

> book reviews

Green Reads Yogurt, birds, shopping, and Shamu—the latest in eco-minded volumes

Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World By Diane MacEachern Avery/Penguin Group, $16.95 Reduce, reuse, recycle, and vote with your wallet is the 21st-century treehugger’s mantra. Best-selling environment writer Diane MacEachern shows women—who spend 85 cents of every dollar in the marketplace—how to start wielding their purchasing power for the good of the planet, and buying green as if their lives depended on it. Worth toting around in your bag or glove compartment, Big Green Purse explains, in layman’s terms, concepts like nanotechnology; lists names of companies women can trust; and walks buyers through difficult choices in everything from food to lawn care to clothing.

What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons for People From Animals and Their Trainers By Amy Sutherland Random House, $18 When it came to handling the human animals in her life, particularly subspecies American husband, Amy Sutherland used to subscribe to the school of nagging. But in 2003, when she began trailing the nation’s top exotic animal trainers to research this book, Sutherland noticed their techniques work on people as well as on killer whales. Five years, one New York Times most-e-mailed article, and myriad social experiments later, she’s here to show you how to pick your battles, use positive reinforcement, and really notice behavior, your own included. But watch out— Sutherland has shamu-ed all her friends and family, and she just might shamu you, too.

92 | february-march 2008

Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World By Gary Hirshberg Hyperion, $24.95 Having helped Stonyfield Farm grow from a piddling seven-cow operation in the 1980s to the $330 million goliath it is today, “CE-Yo” Gary Hirshberg knows a few things about making sustainability profitable. He’s navigated the mostly uncharted territory that is “marketing with a mission” in corporate America, and been taught eco-waste management by a bunch of hogs (long story). But instead of preaching, Hirshberg offers his hard-earned secrets with a handshake and a gleam in his eye. His is a happy-ever-after tale of how a handful of small, idealistic companies (Stonyfield and righteous peers like Clif Bar, Zipcar, and Seventh Generation) discovered they could join the big league without selling out.

The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature By Jonathan Rosen Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $24 Life is an exploration of birding as the intersection between nature and the industrial world and as Rosen’s antidote to “nature deficit disorder.” Enriched with revelations from history, science, and theology, Life is also generously sprinkled with literary candy (references to DH Lawrence and Saul Bellow, among others). It’s an elegant and honest account of how Rosen learned to live fully by learning to bird (and in particular, search for the elusive, possibly extinct, ivory-billed woodpecker). By the time you put the book down, you’ll agree that “looking up is the best we can do.”

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body By Neil Shubin Pantheon, $24 When fish invaded land 375 million years ago, they didn’t look a whole lot like the doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers they would eventually become, but they did already share one important physical attribute with humans: hands. Fish is a strange and thorough tour through the human body, with paleontologist Neil Shubin—leader of the first team ever to uncover a fish-with-hands fossil— as your expert guide. Walking readers through head, shoulders, knees, and toes (and yes, eyes, ears, mouth, and nose), Shubin pauses at each stop along the way to explain how much we share with our mammalian and reptilian ancestors.

The Green Fiend

Annemarie Conte

Annemarie Conte scoffs at petroleum and embraces French fry grease

I haven’t owned a car since college—and back then it was my father’s hand-me-down boat of a Buick LeSabre. This time around, I wanted my daily drive to have less of an environmental impact. Because there’s no viable plug-in hybrid on the market, I had to look elsewhere. I read a few articles extolling the virtues of converting old diesel cars to run on used cooking oil. Unlike biodiesel—which is processed so it can be poured directly into the car’s diesel tank—waste vegetable oil (WVO) is a quick and easy system ... supposedly. But because it requires installing a second fuel tank, it turns out the field-of-daisies utopia is a little harder won. And you, get to benefit from my steep climb up the learning curve. Nightmare reality No. 1 You have to buy a used car. Converting a new car will void the warranty, so people commonly get an ’80s-era Mercedes or Volkswagen. I decided to go with a Mercedes 300D because they’re tanks, they run forever, and they look awesome. Unfortunately, they’re also incredibly in-demand (beware of scam artists and eBay bidders’ fervor), and they can go for thou-

sands above the Blue Book value. Finally, after fruitlessly searching for weeks, my ex-boyfriend mentioned his fiancée had one for sale. The lessons here: Stay in touch with your exes, and never underestimate the power of whining. Nightmare reality No. 2 You have to install the tank yourself. After buying the kit from greasecar. com for about $1,000, you can drop another grand on a mechanic, or you can DIY for free. But doing the work yourself presents a problem: The Greasecar instructions assume a lot—for instance, that you have intimate knowledge of the technical workings of a Reaganera vehicle. I solved this issue by taking a community college class and offering up the installation as a group project. Even with all that combined technical skill, we still relied on forums such as mercedesshop.com and the Greasecar site.

Nightmare reality No. 3 You have to deal with the aftermath of the installation. These cars are old, and stuff fails, especially when you tax the system by adding a second fuel tank. I spent another grand having a mechanic replace a burnt out fuel pump and worn engine mounts, among other glorious technical breakdowns. My investment was suddenly equivalent to a year’s worth of diesel. Good thing I wasn’t into WVO for the cost savings. Nightmare reality No. 4 You might be breaking the law. Technically, WVO isn’t an EPAapproved fuel, nor is it taxed. And you know that the gov’ment likes to tax anything it can. But WVO use has become so common in California that many people are ponying up their 25 cents per gallon in state fuel taxes. On top of that, you have

to get the oil from restaurants, which usually pay disposal companies to get rid of it. Make sure you get the oil directly from the restaurant and not out of the disposal company’s holding tank— dip your hands in the latter’s vat of grease and you’re stealing. Nightmare reality No. 5 You have to filter old, gross oil. I have a friend who stopped eating at his WVO-supplier pizza place because their oil was so nasty. Find an establishment that uses high-quality oil and changes it frequently, or you’ll never eat out again. So after all this, was the time, expense, and gigantic learning curve worth it? Actually, yeah. But it’s not for everyone, and it’s only part of the solution to our environmental problems. As soon as that plug-in becomes available, my name is first on the list. ✤

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last WORD last word

Rick Moody Felix Sockwell

illustration by

Take a Hike

An indoorsman heads out to the desert—mountain lions be damned Arizona’s Sabino Canyon offers the kind of Sonoran topography that people come from great distances to see: lots of saguaro cactus, prickly pear, barrel cactus, cholla, paloverde, and greasewood. The hikes aren’t terribly difficult—as in “easy” or “moderate”—and there are even roads upon which a great number of visitors are driven to and from the stupendous Sabino views of the valley where Tucson has sprawled out in its petroleum-besotted way. Of course, on my recent trip to the Southwest, I wasn’t interested in being driven around Sabino, even if the tour buses represented a car-pooling initiative. I was interested in hiking. I was interested in hiking in spots relatively free of the throngs at Tucson’s most visited park; the remote latitudes. At least that was my attitude until, upon paying my entry fee at the gate, I was handed a bright yellow slip of paper by the park ranger. It wasn’t a receipt, which would have been a reasonable assumption—it was an alert! A genuine alert about the mountain lions of Sabino Canyon. Mountain lions! There had been sightings recently, the alert informed me. Multiple sightings. And these were mountain lions who had apparently lost their fear of humans. These “bad” lions, the alert went on, could easily attack, and if you saw one of the lions while hiking, you were urged—assuming you were as yet in one piece—to contact the forest rangers immediately. A further inquiry at the

information desk made clear that the alert referred to sightings this week. What is the native New Yorker, an indoorsman, to do with this information? He has some skills in the great outdoors: The native New Yorker has a cell phone, and assuming that there is cell coverage in a canyon, he is willing to telephone for help. The native New Yorker knows how to beat out someone else for a cab. And the native New Yorker can maneuver expeditiously on a crowded sidewalk. Maybe it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. I did live in the Connecticut suburbs during my elementary school years. There were frogs in the stream that ran alongside the street. There were vacant lots at the end of the road rich in maple and birch. And for a year or so in the early ’70s, I was even a Cub Scout. This was very outdoorsy. I learned to tie a few useful knots. I carved some twigs with my Swiss Army knife. I built a couple of campfires. My mom was den mother, and she was an easy mark in the promotion of Cub Scout badges. This experience lasted until, in true suburban fashion, my parents divorced, and my mom returned to the workforce. However, my scouting experience failed to prepare me for the alert. The mountain lion can jump 20 feet in the air and go from zero to 35 miles per hour in just a few bounds. The mountain lion likes to crouch above rocky outcroppings and wait for prey. (Sabino canyon is composed of almost nothing but rocky outcroppings!) Is the mountain lion following

96 28 || february-march february-march 2008 2008

you? Is the mountain lion poised nearby, with hindquarters quivering? Please do not bend over and expose head and/or neck! Inform, if you are able, rangers immediately! Most people that day were opting for the guided tour in the van, and they were not only comfortable, they were safe. I hiked anyway; with an eye on every outcropping. Why? I don’t swim with great whites, nor do I sled in polar bear country, but in the great Darwinian competition for the West, I vote for the mountain lion over, for example, another strip mall or another Circle K. In fact, I’ve got a friend from Wyoming who sends me news accounts of mountain lion attacks; and while I feel badly about the victims and their families, I feel good about the mountain lions. They are performing to type, proudly. And if that means they are getting too acclimated to the mansions at the edge of Sabino, doesn’t responsibility for that lie equally with Arizonans? Esperero, the trail I took, goes up and down into washes and tributaries of the canyon, and if I didn’t actually meet any of these “bad” lions, I did try to imagine standing still and yelling at them to stave off the first exploratory bite. If I don’t have the jagged scar to memorialize a close encounter, I do have the yellow mountain lion alert. I haven’t recycled it yet (though I might). But I sure have recycled the story. ✤ Rick Moody is the author of The Ice Storm, Purple America, The Diviners, and other works.

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