Robert Rausch for The New York Times. Tom Hendrix at the Florence, Ala., memorial he built for his great-great grandmother, Te-lah-nay, a Yuchi Indian.
Thanks to the New York Times for this coverage of a moving tribute to one man’s lineage and his peoples’ heritage:
Off Alabama’s Beaten Path, Tribute to a Native American’s Journey Home
Tom Hendrix has built a mile-long stone wall to memorialize his Native American great-great grandmother, who was displaced during the Trail of Tears.
Mixed martial arts fighter Cornell Ward (from left), chef Daniel Strong, triathlete Dominic Thompson, lifestyle blogger Joshua Katcher and competitive bodybuilder Giacomo Marchese at a vegan barbecue in Brooklyn, N.Y. Courtesy of James Koroni
Thanks to National Public Radio (USA) for this article and accompanying podcast on the masculinity of men denying themselves animal protein:
For These Vegans, Masculinity Means Protecting The Planet
by NEDA ULABY
…Thompson grew up in a rough Chicago housing project. He was the kind of kid who would rush in to save stray cats or dogs if he saw people picking on them.
“[There’s] nothing more cowardly to me than taking advantage of something that’s defenseless,” he says.
Today, Thompson is the kind of adult who checks clothing labels to make sure he never buys leather, wool or products tested on animals. “To me, compassion is the new cool,” he says.
Sage grouse in a part of Wyoming where Shell has gas fields. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Conservation is a classic collective action challenge. Collaboration is a requisite for success. This New York Times report on the struggle between the energy needs of a country, and efforts to conserve a bird species illustrates how green priorities can sometimes conflict in unexpected ways, and how cooperation can prevail for the common good:
…On paper, at least, the Wyoming plan is in line with federal goals, officials say. It cordons off large areas as critical for the bird to survive, and its authors say it is the best compromise they could fashion.
Nestled in the gray-green sagebrush on the sprawling ranches or pecking their way along the dusty roads near the Pinedale Anticline gas fields, the squat, mottled-brown birds appeared unruffled. But they are persnickety creatures easily disturbed by human activities. Every year, males return to relatively open areas called leks, splaying their tail feathers and puffing up their chests as they waddle and call to attract hens. Vulnerable to predators like coyotes and eagles, the grouse depends on vast expanses of sagebrush for food and shelter. Wyoming’s plan would restrict development to levels that would not disturb the birds. For example, it would limit surface disturbance to 5 percent a square mile and ban activity within 0.6 miles of the leks. Continue reading
We are in process of building a monkey-proofed area of the garden. You can see my past post to get a feel for the evolution of this idea. The main issue with providing the Cardamom County restaurant with food from the on-site organic farm is monkeys. We were inspired by these subsistence farmers in Ixopo, South Africa, who blogged about building their monkey-proof vegetable cage. They, too, are neighbors with a nature reserve, so their situation is quite similar to Cardamom County! Now, we are on our way to having a truly farm-to-table menu!
Here is the cage we are modeling ours after. Check out their blog: http://foodieschannel.blogspot.com/2011/04/this-isnt-really-recipe-but-its-about.html
You may be wondering, why is there all this buzz these days about farm-to-table? There is more to it than just fresh, delicious food.
Obviously, a lot of nature gets destroyed for agricultural purposes. In the United States, so much land gets wasted on sprawling, inefficient development. In the in-between spaces, you could feed a nation. But we eat up our open, natural spaces for agriculture. Our agriculture is rarely local so it leads to problems of unnecessary carbon emissions from transport and a lot of not-fresh food in grocery stores. When we can use the land we have already developed on to provide the people there with food, why spread ourselves out so thin into nature? Continue reading
One of the finished chimes
The picture above shows one of a couple bamboo wind chimes that Seth and I built to put up around Xandari. The sound is, err, rather wooden–but definitely mild and pleasant! You may be asking why we took it upon ourselves to demonstrate our mighty artistic prowess. Well, we really had the birds of Xandari in mind with this project. Specifically, a poor Buff-throated Saltator who had thrown himself against the spa window so many times that he had Continue reading
I have been following the Paper Trail since I got here as an intern and got involved in this social entrepreneurship project Raxa Collective has been working on! There are some types of environmental action that focus on being inherently low-impact from the original design while other methods focus on closing loops from more poor designs that leave good material wasted, such as newspapers. Something is sustainable when it meets the triple bottom line: environmental, economic, and social. RAXA Collective has been meeting this triple bottom line with its newspaper bag initiative! Working with the group, PaperTrails, they have been able to provide a livable income for local people who are unable to get work for whatever reason. They have work based on creating useful bags or envelopes out of recycled newspaper. Paper Trails has been providing bags and envelopes for Raxa Collective’s properties from newspapers and other recycled material. Now, we are taking the newspaper bag initiative to the next level. Continue reading
Carbon dioxide emissions like those from coal-fired power plants should be taxed to spur energy innovation. Credit Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
Denial and obfuscation about climate change have been well documented strategies of those who would promote current enrichment and consumption over future well being. And even non-deniers have been hard-pressed to do anything substantial to counter the deniers. It tough economic times, anything goes, it seems. We need more heroic behavior from influential business leaders.
Henry M. Paulson, chairman of the Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago, former secretary of the Treasury of the United States, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, and notably a long-time member of good standing and service to the political party stacked with politicians and business leaders who deny the reality of climate change, has this to (heroically dare to) say in the Opinion section of this week’s Sunday New York Times:
The Coming Climate Crash
Lessons for Climate Change in the 2008 Recession
THERE is a time for weighing evidence and a time for acting. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my work in finance, government and conservation, it is to act before problems become too big to manage.
For too many years, we failed to rein in the excesses building up in the nation’s financial markets. When the credit bubble burst in 2008, the damage was devastating. Millions suffered. Many still do. Continue reading
Thanks to Atlantic‘s website for this post on a topic (or topics, if ice cream is counted separately from our ongoing discussion of the meaning and importance of natural food) of interest to many of our readers:
Last month, Vermont became the first state to require that all foods that are entirely or partially produced with genetically modified ingredients be labeled as such. This month, a coalition of food industry groups, including the Snack Food Association and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, filed a lawsuit, saying that the measure is arbitrary and impedes interstate commerce. Continue reading
Thanks to the CS Monitor for this welcome news:
Obama seeks to create world’s largest marine sanctuary
With the aim of protecting marine wildlife, President Obama is considering greatly expanding the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, an ocean preserve that lies between Hawaii and Samoa.
President Barack Obama is looking to create the largest marine preserve in the world by protecting a massive stretch of the Pacific Ocean from drilling, fishing and other actions that could threaten wildlife, the White House said.
Aiming to protect marine wildlife, Obama will also direct the government to create a program to deter illegal fishing. The executive steps come as Obama is searching for ways to leave his second-term mark on the environment despite opposition from many Republicans in Congress.
Obama was to announce the steps Tuesday in a video message to those participating in an “Our Ocean” conference that the State Department and Secretary of State John Kerry are hosting. Continue reading
One of the many billboards representing the outcry from environmentalists and concerned members of the tourism sector
It’s been some years since our work brought me to this magical part of the world, but all of Patagonia and the specific region of Aysen have long been close to our hearts. So the news that the Chilean government overturned their 2011 approval of the HidroAysén project was happy indeed. The Baker and Pascua Rivers, previously slated for a series of 5 dams, are two of Patagonias wildest, and that’s saying a lot in a country filled with rugged beauty as diverse as it’s 4,300 kilometer length can possibly hold.
Part of that diversity has the potential to offer multiple options for renewable energy sources other than hydro-electric power. Solar power from the Atacama Desert, wave and tide projects from that enormous coastline, as well as wind turbines in areas of the country where winds reach gale force strength on a regular day are all possible options. Continue reading
We have written about and linked to others’ thoughts on altruism more than once, thinking we will eventually have an ultimate illumination on its origins and how to increase its likelihood. Likewise on our main theme as an organization, with regard to entrepreneurial conservation. We also keep a watch out for big companies (versus entrepreneurs) and governments (as in the case of the state initiative in the banner above, which is discussed below) doing the right thing.
Thanks to this article in the New Yorker for bringing our attention to the efforts to bring sustainable and affordable water to the good folks of Texas, and at the same time raising our awareness of the tightrope walking between big businesses that have many motivations to participate in innovative conservation schemes, and the organizations that have been the innovators in this regard for decades:
Mark Tercek, the head of the Nature Conservancy, recently took a tour of the largest chemical-manufacturing facility in North America: the Dow plant in Freeport, Texas. The Nature Conservancy, which is responsible for protecting a hundred and nineteen million acres in thirty-five countries, is the biggest environmental nongovernmental organization in the world. Tercek, accompanied by two colleagues, had come to Freeport because the facility—a welter of ethylene crackers and smokestacks built next to a river that flows into the Gulf of Mexico—is at the center of a pilot collaboration that he hopes will reshape conservation.The key idea is to create tools that can assign monetary value to natural resources. Continue reading
We thank Stuart Pimm for his ongoing excellent contributions to conservation through science and education, as well as creative activism, and congratulate him and his colleagues for their most recent publication:
A new scientific paper was published today in the prestigious journal Science and it has important findings for biodiversity. Though it reaffirms what we already know—that there is a global extinction crisis and it is worse than we believed—it also details how technology and smart decision-making are offering hope for endangered species and their habitats. Continue reading
A view of the village of El Pardal, Sierra de Cazorla, Spain, 2013.
A composting toilet, Sierra Nevada, Spain, 2013.
Many contributors to our platform here, and its readers, have probably considered life off-grid. Most will experiment during their travels, but stop short of the full monty, which would mean divestiture or most/all possessions and hitting the road. Thanks to this photographer (and the New Yorker‘s far-reaching sampling) for giving us both candid and portrait-like views into some examples of “self-sufficient” lives:
In 2006, while he was backpacking in Australia, the French photographer Antoine Bruy signed up with an international exchange program for volunteers who want to work on organic farms.
Annie Leonard, a veteran environmental campaigner, is taking over as the new head of Greenpeace USA. Photograph: Erin Lubin/Greenpeace
We have linked to her work more than once, and this time it is a story of her new commitment that pulls our attention in her direction (thanks to the Guardian for their coverage). Just as we have noted about Paul Watson, not everyone agrees with all the tactics of environmentalists and the organizations they lead, but it is still our interest to share moments of importance like this one:
One of the first things Annie Leonard was asked on being named the new leader of Greenpeace USA this month was: are you willing to get arrested?
“I said: ‘Absolutely! I just need to figure out who is going to drive the car pool’,” Leonard told The Guardian. “It’s going to be interesting being a single mum doing this,” she said.
The last time Leonard worked for Greenpeace, over 20 years ago, the campaign group was known – only half-jokingly – as “boys and their boats”, because of its reputation for dangerous, high-visibility actions. Continue reading
I am not 100% certain that laughter is an antidote to anything, but every now and then it seems like the only option. HOW TO LAUGH AT CLIMATE CHANGE, by Michelle Nijhuis, had its intended effect on me:
Government funding for Hanging Rock will support the upkeep of picnic areas, wetlands and protection of plant and animal life. Photograph: John Crook/AAP
Fans of Peter Weir will be inclined to heed the call, if they can, to help ensure Hanging Rock is not spoiled:
Controversial plans to build a tourist resort at Victoria’s Hanging Rock have been scrapped after the state government committed $250,000 a year to maintain the landmark.
The funding, announced on Friday, will fund the upkeep of trails and signs along the rock, as well as the nearby picnic areas, wetlands and protection of plant and animal life. Planning protections in the area would be strengthened to shield the area from “inappropriate development in the long-term”, the Victorian planning minister, Matthew Guy, said.
Plans by the Macedon Ranges shire council to build a 100-room resort, eco-cabins, a “nature-focused adventure facility” and a day spa near the unique volcanic rock formation had divided the small community north-west of Melbourne. Continue reading
Chad Batka for The New York Times. “It’s impossible for us to separate who we are from where we are”: John Luther Adams, the composer of “Become Ocean,” in Morningside Park in Manhattan.
Thanks to Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim for A Composer Attuned to the Earth’s Swirling Motion, in which John Luther Adams discusses “Become Ocean,” which will be performed on Tuesday at Carnegie Hall, and his other environmentally themed works. Their discussion rings true to us. Where we are is a large part of who we are.
That resonates with La Paz Group’s ethos. If we are not sensitive to where we are, who are we? We wonder that every day, so we recommend the article in today’s New York Times Arts section that offers a well-deserved review and praise of the work of an environmentally-inspired/concerned composer who we first heard about last July when the New Yorker‘s music critic wrote the following:
The hundredth anniversary of Stravinsky’s formerly scandalous Rite of Spring, on May 29th, raised the question of whether a twenty-first-century composer can produce a comparable shock. Perhaps not: the twentieth century elicited such a numbing array of shocks, both in art and in reality, that the game of “Astonish me”—Diaghilev’s famous command to Cocteau—may be temporarily played out. Still, astonishment comes in many forms. There are shocks of beauty, shocks of feeling, shocks of insight. Such were the virtues of John Luther Adams’s Become Ocean, a forty-two-minute piece for large orchestra, which had its première at the Seattle Symphony on June 20th. Like the sea at dawn, it presents a gorgeous surface, yet its heaving motion conveys overwhelming force. Whether orchestras will be playing it a century hence is impossible to say, but I went away reeling. Continue reading
Since Phil first started posting his series on possible solutions to invasive species last year, in conjunction with the theme of citizen science that Seth has been writing about for the last couple years, we have been on the look out for citizen solutions to environmental challenges–stories that match our interest in entrepreneurial conservation. Phil’s series suggests that citizen science may be the best path to building what might be called an invasivore economy. As it happens, just after his first couple posts there was an article in Conservation that dealt with this very issue:
SEND IN THE INVASIVORES
Recipes for Ecosystem Recovery By Sarah DeWeerdt
“We’re trying to be unsustainable,” says University of Vermont conservation biologist Joe Roman. And he says it with glee. Roman runs www.eattheinvaders.org, a compendium of invasive species recipes. He is one of a growing number of people who advocate controlling invasives by eating them. Instead of relying on toxic pesticides, expensive eradication campaigns, or risky introductions of biological control agents, “why not use our own appetites to good advantage?” he suggests.
Image by Corbis Images.
Thomas Rowlandson’s view of the library of the Royal Institution in London, circa 1810
We have been monitoring Harvard Magazine and some of its kindred publications since the early days of this blog, as constant sources of interesting articles relevant to our interests; and now this:
Toward Cultural Citizenship
New gateways into the humanities for students “still fully molten as human beings” by Jonathan Shaw May-June 2014
Aren’t we all? (Trying to change the course of the world, in our own chosen way.) Some by manual labor, some by intellectual labor, some by more typically defined fine art, among others. We appreciate any venue chosen by those who want to make a difference. Click the image above, or click here, to go to the video of artist Maya Lin, with excerpts of her recent lecture at Cornell University discussing:
her work, including her recent sculptures and the installation Empty Room, from her What is Missing? memorial, on view as part of beyond earth art • contemporary artists and the environment at the Milstein Hall Auditorium.
Organikos 