Tonight’s program is called “Sustainable Costa Rica.”  We just returned from three weeks in Costa Rica, where we volunteered on a sustainable farm and visited several nature reserves and studied Costa Rica’s efforts at going green. In addition to reviewing some of those efforts (and not ignoring problems and complications), we will play a prerecorded interview with Celina Arragones, co-owner of the farm on which we volunteered.  We’ll also close with announcements of several opportunities that exist in the Northstate to make this region a model for going green.

To listen to the show, click here.

Background on Green Costa Rica

We arrived in Costa Rica during an historic week in which the country elected its first woman president, Laura Chinchilla, who is succeeding Oscar Arias, the Nobel Peace Prize winning president.

Costa Rica has a long history of social and political progressivism that includes social security and universal health care systems that go back almost 100 years. In addition, Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948, and thus for 60 years has enjoyed the benefits of turning spears into ploughshares.

Over a quarter century ago, Costa Rica also figured out the financial as well as ethical benefits of going green.

During that period, Costa Rica has dramatically reforested while placing almost one-third of the country under various forms of environmental protection through public and private reserves. It has also become an ecotourism destination—which, as we’ll explain, has some downsides—but has also allowed the country to reduce some of its dependence on fickle global markets in coffee, cocoa, and bananas.

In 2007, the country established the impressive goal of being carbon neutral by 2021, which establishes it as a global leader. Just compare that goal to the United State’s unwillingness to ratify the Kyoto treaty and legislators’ current waffling and quibbling over climate change legislation that would, at best result in a mere 17-20% reduction in greenhouse gasses by the same date.

We should note that Costa Rica has a head start on that goal through reforestation and from the fact that it already generates more than 90% of its energy needs from renewable resources, mostly hydroelectric power from an artificial lake, Arenal, in the highlands, which also, it should be noted, destroyed some mountain ecosystems and submerged a number of towns.

The commitment to a carbon neutral Costa Rica has been reinforced by the new president and by one of her two vice-president-elects, Alfio Piva, who is, as reported by the Tico Times English language newspaper, “a biologist by profession and a former director of the National Biodiversity Institute.” In an interview with writer Mike McDonald.  Piva said:

Carbon neutrality is a really important goal, and reforestation is a major part of it.[…] If you look at Costa Rica’s land, there is still a great portion that is not forested.[…]There is still space for millions of trees….And as these trees grow, they will be able to capture a great quantity of carbon….If every child in school were to plant 5, 10, or 15 trees, they would carry the idea that caring for the environment is a positive thing.

On the topic of transportation, Alfio Piva said:

We have to consider the possibilities of electric transit, usch as electric cars. We can lower taxes on these cars to make them easier to obtain. We are still very farm from a sufficient electric car market, but I think we can start moving toward this….We have a great advantage in this country in that we generate more than 90 percent of our electricity from renewable resources….But [there is] an education problem….It would require a change in mentality to begin an electrification process.

Piva concluded the interview by acknowledging a number of fiscal problems that are obstacles to Costa Rica’s green future, but added:

Conservation isn’t just for humankind, but for a better equilibrium between man and nature.  Remember that conservation is a human problem. Destruction, that’s man’s doing. Therefore conservation also has to be man’s doing.[…] I believe with a little intelligence, a little bit of will and cooperation, we can make conservation a boon for Costa Rica. My dream is that we can reach a point where conservation is the motor of development for Costa Rica. We can be the first country in the world where conservation drives development.

[ Tico Times, February 12, 2010, pp. 12-13.]

However, we don’t intend to greenwash or romanticize Costa Rica’s role as a model for a country going green. There are not only obstacles to its green revolution, but some clearly contradictory movements.

For example, Costa Rica is in midst of a huge development boom, particularly on the Pacific side, where the climate and low costs are attracting developers, investors, and foreigners who talk the language of green but are chewing up the countryside at a terrific rate.

Note the language from this promotional brochure for a company called “Portasol,” whose slogan is “in partnership with nature.” (The brochure, by the way, was in English only, suggesting that its audience is not native Costa Ricans.) Portasol offers a:

“Rainforest and ocean view community” [that claims to be] “sustainable and socially responsible” in an “eco low density community” that is a “biological reserve” where “83% of the total area is preserved.”

The nonpreserved 2 to 10 acre lots already been developed with water, electricity, and access roads through the forest and the company is building:

“bungalows nestled into the middle of the rainforest. Built on stilts, simulating tree houses, their artisan roofs and decorative verandas create a wonderful space for joy and relaxation. Created for you to experience the Real Costa Rican tropical charm.”

We did not actually visit this resort, but listeners may forgive our skepticism—it’s hard for us to see how such development can make a legitimate claim to being “sustainable.”

[Brochure from Portasol, Portalon, Costa Rica, www.portasol.net]

Further, we found the Tico Times to be filled with commentaries and letters arguing  that the developers are “colonizing” Costa Rica and turning the country into “The Next Florida,” while the government has permitted them “to run amok.”

And even ecotourism—of which we were admittedly a part—has its downside, including what one writer characterized as “in your face environmental degradation,” including the national reserves which “have been taken over by tourists” and the native animals have fled to other parts of the rainforest, driven out by the guided tours.

[Tico Times, February 26, 2010,  pp. 10, 11, 14-15]

One place that is not part of the problem is the farm where we worked for two weeks as volunteers. Celina and Janice Arragones purchased 57 hectares of mountain jungle near Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, and are developing an ecofarm and educational center. During our stay, we trimmed banana plants, planted and transplanted pineapples, helped establish a terrace garden, and did some work on the farm’s infrastructure. And we learned an enormous amount about the goals and practices of sustainable farming.

Listen to the show.

Community Announcements

As many listeners will recall, we have been participating in pubic meetings concerning climate change and the Copenhagen climate change conference. These have led a number of community members to become attentive to the excellent work of the Chico Sustainability Task Force.  At its monthly meeting held yesterday, the Task Force responded to expressions of community interest by creating a subcommittee on Outreach and Education, which will be asked “to develop public education and outreach activities to provide the community provide information and increase awareness on climate change and sustainability.”  Many of the Copenhagen vigil participants will serve on the committee, and if you are interested in joining in this work, you should send an e-mail to Mayor Ann Schwab—she’s at aschwab@ci.chico.ca.us .

We also learned of an informal monthly gathering of people interested in sustainability.  It’s called “Green Drinks Chico,” and it meets at Johnnie’s on 4th Street the second Thursday of each month at 5:30. It’s a no-host bar and an opportunity to talk informally with community members who share an interest in greening the planet and our town. The next gathering will be Thursday, March 11. And again, that’s 5:30 at Johnnie’s.

We also encourage you to check out the website of Green Transition Chico, greentransitionchico.org. It features a number of postings of community events, including a March workshop on biodiesel, information on nutrition, a new series of community environmental video screenings, and an announcement of the new Butte Freeskool, which will be offering classes in a wide range of environmental and other topics.

Last week on Ecotopia we spoke with Laurie Mazur of the Population Justice Project who described the interconnectedness of a number of issues, including population, climate, and the world economy.  Tonight we approach many of those same issues through the lens of the world’s food supply. Our guest iswill be Gawain Kripke, Director of Research and Policy for Oxfam U.S.A.  In particular, we talk with him about the world food crisis and what has evolved in the past year since that crisis was widely publicized.

Background on the Global Food Crisis

We want to read in some detail from an article appearing in Global Research last July. It’s by Professor Philip McMichael  a professor of development sociology at Cornell University who is working on issues concerning agrarian movements, agrofuels [such as ethanol], and climate change.  It’s called, The World Food Crisis in Historical Perspective.  He writes:

The “world food crisis” of 2007-08 was the tip of an iceberg. Hunger and food crises are endemic to the modern world, and the eruption of a rapid increase in food prices provided a fresh window on this cultural fact. […] [T]his food “crisis” represents the magnification of a long-term crisis of social reproduction stemming from colonialism, and was triggered by neoliberal capitalist development. […]

The “agflation” that brought this crisis to the world’s attention at the turn of 2008 saw the doubling of maize prices, wheat prices rising by 50 percent, and rice increasing by as much as 70 percent, bringing the world to a “post-food-surplus era.”  In an article in the Economist titled “The End of Cheap Food,” the editors noted that, by the end of 2007, the magazine’s food-price index reached its highest point since originating in 1845. Food prices had risen 75 percent since 2005, and world grain reserves were at their lowest, at fifty-four days. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute […], agflation from rising agrofuels [such as ethanol] production “would lead to decreases in food availability and calorie consumption in all regions of the world, with Sub-Saharan Africa suffering the most.”

Phillip McMichael continues his analysis of the 2008-09 global food crisis by factoring in the demands of a “new consumerism.” He explains:

A rising class of one billion new consumers is emerging in twenty “middle-income” countries “with an aggregate spending capacity, in purchasing power parity terms, to match that of the U.S.” This group includes […] South Korea, Mexico, Turkey, and Poland, in addition to China and India [,…]  and the symbols of their affluence are car ownership and meat consumption. These two commodities combine – through rising demand for agrofuels and feed crops – to exacerbate food price inflation, as their mutual competition for land has the perverse effect of rendering each crop more lucrative, at the same time as they displace land used for food crops.

Simultaneously, he adds:

financial speculation has compounded the problem. For example, the price of rice surged by 31 percent on March 27, 2008, and wheat by 29 percent on February 25, 2008. The New York Times of April 22, 2008, reported that, “This price boom has attracted a torrent of new investment from Wall Street, estimated to be as much as $130 billion.” According to the same article, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission noted that “Wall Street funds control a fifth to a half of the futures contracts for commodities like corn, wheat and live cattle on Chicago, Kansas City and New York exchanges. On the Chicago exchanges the funds make up 47 percent of long-term contracts for live hog futures, 40 percent in wheat, 36 percent in live cattle and 21 percent in corn.”

Phillip McMichael also notes that the crisis was exacerbated by:

pressure on food cropland with extreme weather patterns and ecological stress. In November 2007, as summed up by John Vidal in the Guardian,

The UN Environment Program said the planet’s water, land, air, plants, animals and fish stocks were all in “inexorable decline.”

According to the U.N.’s World Food Program […] fifty-seven countries, including twenty-nine in Africa, nineteen in Asia, and nine in Latin America, have been hit by catastrophic floods. Harvests have been affected by drought and heat waves in south Asia, Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay.

Phillip McMichael also notes the contribution of oil prices and speculation to the crisis, prices which we observed in the Northstate with $4 a gallon gas, and this was complicated by the conversion of farmland to agrofuels. He writes:

With respect to agrofuels, there is in addition the so-called “knock-on” effect […] where expanding U.S. corn production for ethanol reduces oilseed acreage, such that “oilseed prices then also increased as a result of tightening supplies and this price strength was enhanced by rising demand for meals as a cereal feed substitute and increasing demand for vegetable oils for bio-diesel production.”

In these terms there appears to [have been] a perfect storm.

Actually, in the remainder of the article, which is quite extensive, Phillip McMichael explains that this storm was a long time in brewing as he traces its roots, for example, to world colonialism as well as to capitalist globalism

We recommend that listeners look at the fulll article:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14378

We also realized as we prepared for this program, that the global food crisis has largely disappeared as a headline-grabbing concern. If you were to judge by the number of articles currently addressing global food supplies, you’d think that the “perfect storm” had passed or gone into remission.  And to emphasize the “business as usual” point, we want to read briefly from an article that popped to the very top of the list when we searched Google News for “global food crisis.” This appeared just recently in Packaging Digest with the headline:  “Global food trends to be addressed at inaugural Gulfood Conference.”  The conference is taking place this week, February 21-23, in Dubai, and their article-cum-press-release explains:

In an industry as fast-paced and competitive as the food and beverage sector, knowledge exchange and keeping abreast of market trends is critical.

Not only will the Gulfood Conference provide valuable industry insight to allow companies to build a more profitable business, it will also offer practical tools for invigorating, expanding and launching new business channels.

Now we do not presume to judge all of the food industry on the basis of this conference, but focus of the conference, taking place in oil-rich Dubai, but only a short distance from African nations where people are starving, seems distant from the issues we care about.  Listen to the language in this concluding comment from the packaging industry where globalization and sustainability are reduced to elements in a sales campaign.

The intensive, information-packed [Gulfood conference] will cover topical issues facing all sectors of the industry, including global trends in foods, regulatory legislation, globalisation, regional expansion opportunities, sustainability, flavours and consumer behaviours, scientific advances in food technology and innovations in packaging.

http://www.packagingdigest.com/article/446212-Global_food_trends_to_be_addressed_at_inaugural_Gulfood_Conference.php

Our Conversation with Gawain Kripke

The fall issue of Oxfam Exchange, the publication of Oxfam America, was devoted to “the global food crisis one year later.” We realize, of course, that world hunger is not a “new” crisis, and that Oxfam has been seeking solutions to it for decades. So to learn more, we have Gawain Kripke of Oxfam on the telephone from Washintgon. He is Director of Policy and Research for Oxfam America and has extensive background at Oxfam working on food security, agriculture, and trade issues. Welcome Gawain.

Part I: The root causes of hunger.

• Perhaps we could start with just a bit of background about Oxfam. We know that it originated in Oxford, England, in 1942 as a famine relief organization. What has been its history since then, both globally and in the U.S.?
• What is your role as Director of Policy and Research for Oxfam America?
• Please tell us about “food security.”   Why that term? What does it mean?
• The global food crisis was dramatically in the public eye in mid-2008, partly linked to the global economic collapse. What happened then?  Has the “crisis” been at all alleviated since then?
  • At the time, on this program we read several news stories suggesting that profit-seeking agribusiness was not only partly responsible for but in fact profiting from food shortages. Could you offer your perspective on the role of global capitalism and trade in the food crisis?
  • What was the role of oil prices, and has the decline in oil prices since then provided any relief?
  • How has the international community generally responded since 2008?  Have world governments contributed food and/or funds? What are the longer range needs for support for hungry populations?
• Oxfam has been concerned about world hunger long before 2008, but what was Oxfam’s specific response in 2008?  Did you supply food?  funding?  education?
• Oxfam is also deeply concerned about issues of poverty and social justice. Although immediate link with hunger is obvious, what do you see as the long-term complexities of achieving social justice and alleviating hunger?
• The surface link between climate change and hunger is also apparent, but what are the deeper implications for poor and hungry people if climate change is unabated?
  • We’ve done several programs recently on the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Could you please give us your (and/or Oxfam’s) perspective on what did and did not happen there?
• What are the consequences if the world does not do a more adequate job of feeding the hungry?

Part II:  (Partial) Solutions

• The fall issue of Oxfam Exchange includes a focus on “homegrown solutions to hunger,” including projects in Mali, Ethiopia, and Ghana.  Please tell us about (your choice of these) projects (and other projects Oxfam has sponsored) for community sustainability.
  • Do you see specific roles for women in local solutions projects?  How and why?
  • Does organic agriculture fit into these projects?
  • What kind of “multiplier” effect will be necessary for model projects to bring about large-scale change and alleviation of hunger?
• India’s Green Revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s increased food supply but is now criticized for, among other things, its implementation of factory farming techniques, imported seeds, and artificial fertilizers. What lessons were learned there?
• What’s your perspective on genetically modified seeds, in particular proprietary seeds such as Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” products?
• How can our listeners best support the work and future projects of Oxfam? In addition to financial support, are there opportunities for volunteer work? Is there anything else you’d like to add for our listeners?

Oxfam America.  They’re online at www.oxfamamerica.org.

Local to Global Resources on Hunger

This is Ecotopia on KZFR, and tonight we have been discussing the global food crisis.  There are, as you probably know, many local connections to that crisis.

Several groups doing something about it locally include the Torres Shelter, Heifer International, and Pleasant Valley and Chico High School Students. They will be holding a fundraiser ,Thursday, March 4, 2010.  It’s the annual Empty Bowls Fundraiser at Pleasant Valley High School. Each $10 ticket buys you a simple meal of soup and bread contributed by local restaurants and a handmade bowl contributed by local potters. There will also be desserts and a raffle. Seatings are at 5 and 6:15 PM, and you can obtain tickets at Zucchini and Vine, Christian & Johnson, or from PVHS and CHS students.

We also want to remind you of the great work beeing done by The GRUB Cooperative, Growing Resources, Uniting Bellies. They’re on a 40-acre lot just outside of Chico. It was formed in October 2008. Fifteen GRUB members live here. They are working towards growing our own food and are learning about and practicing sustainable agriculture. They compost everything organic that they can get our hands on. They are experimenting with water catchment and solar energy. They educate the Chico community with the lessons they learn here,  The GRUB Cooperative, 1525 Dayton Rd. Phone (530)894-8547

http://grubchico.org/cooperative.html

Notable on the national level is a program called Feeding America, which was formerly known as Second Harvest, which gets unused food into the hands and mouths of American Families that need it.  Feeding America also has an active Public Policy Program.  They write:

Even though hunger is a widespread problem in this country, it is solvable. We believe we can start by working to strengthen and expand the federal food safety net, and foster effective collaborations between the public and private sectors. Look through this section to learn more about the programs and initiatives we support.

Feeding America’s we site includes specific policy recommendations on a number of federal programs, including the Comodity Supplemental Food program, for low-income mothers in need,  infants, children and seniors. , the Emerency Food Assistance Program, the Summer Food Service Program for hungry kids outside the regular school year, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

There are millions of Americans who rely on SNAP (formerly named the Food Stamp Program) regularly or in times of emergency and economic hardship.

http://feedingamerica.org/default.aspx?show_shov=1/

And finally, we’ll mention the Hunger Site dot com, which was founded to focus the power of the Internet on a specific humanitarian need: the eradication of world hunger. Since its launch in June 1999, the site has established itself as a leader in online activism, helping to feed the world’s hungry. On average, over 220,000 individuals from around the world visit the site each day to click the yellow “Click Here to Give” button.  They also have an online Hunger Site store including fair-trade and handcrafted items, with proceeds generating funds for the hungry.

Playlist for Ecotopia #74  World Hunger

1. Imagine        3:04        John Lennon      Imagine (Remastered)

2. If I Had a Hammer        2:10        Peter, Paul And Mary        The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

3. Pray for Me Brother        5:07        A.R. Rahman        Pray for Me Brother – Single

4. (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding        3:33        Elvis

Costello       The Best Of The First 10 Years

5. Imagine        3:30        Joan Baez     Joan Baez: The Complete A&M Recordings

6. Weave Me the Sunshine        4:28        Peter, Paul And Mary   The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

7. Peace Train        4:14        Cat Stevens     Greatest Hits

8. Doctor My Eyes (LP Version)        3:20        Jackson Browne      Jackson Browne

9. Long Walk to Freedom (Halala South Africa)        5:19        Ladysmith Black

Mambazo     Long Walk to Freedom

Background on Population Growth

We’ll start with an excerpt from a United Nations Report, from its department of Economic and Social Affairs, WORLD POPULATION TO 2300, regarded as one of the most thorough and unbiased population estimates.  It reads:

In these projections, world population peaks at 9.22 billion in 2075. Population therefore grows slightly beyond the level of 8.92 billion projected for 2050 in the 2002 [U.N. Estimates], on which these projections are based.

[A]fter reaching its maximum, world population declines slightly and then resumes increasing, slowly, to reach a level of 8.97 billion by 2300.[…] This pattern of rise, decline, and rise again results from assumptions about future trends in vital rates: that, country by country, fertility will fall below replacement level—though in some cases not for decades—and eventually return to replacement; and that, country by country, life expectancy will eventually follow a path of uninterrupted but slowing increase.

With alternative assumptions about fertility, long-range trends could be quite different. With long-range total fertility 0.3 children above replacement, projected world population in 2300 is four times as large as the main projection; with total fertility 0.2 children below replacement, world population in 2300 is one-quarter of the main projection.

[Doing the math, that gives estimates that range from a staggering 32 billion to an equally amazing 2 billion, well below the current population of 6½ billion.]

The full report is online : http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf,

Regardless of the estimates, the impact of population growth is subject to a great deal of debate.  For example, we googled “population myth” and found dozens of sites, many of them quite conservative in orientation, saying that population is not a problem.

For instance, the anti-abortion Population Research Institute  says, “get the facts,” “spread the word.”  They take the U.N. population growth estimates and argue that even if the entire projected world population were squeezed into an area the size of Texas, there would still be room for every person to have a 33 x 33 patch of ground to grow food.

In other words, they’re not worried about food or space; and, they do not take into account any other population and social justice issues.

www.overpopulationisamyth.com/

The Institute for Environment and Development says rather dramatically that it has a study that “shatters the environment/population link.”  They say:

There is at most a weak link between population growth and rising emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change and contradicts calls for population growth to be limited as part of the fight against climate change and shows that the real issue is not the growth in the number of people but the growth in the number of consumers and their consumption levels.”

Their point is that the wealthy countries generally have the lowest growth rates but are contributing the greatest amount of greenhouse gases.

Dr. David Sattherweite of the Institute nevertheless argues:

that contraception and sexual/reproductive health services are key contributors to development, health and human rights in poorer nations and communities. […But] these are not a solution to climate change — which is caused predominantly by a minority of the world’s population that has the highest levels of consumption.”

http://www.iied.org/human-settlements/media/study-shatters-myth-population-growth-major-driver-climate-change

Many reports focus primarily on people-as-capital. The Taiwan news asks “Is Taiwan Lost?,” claiming that “the dwindling birth rate has boomeranged against the country’s economy by cutting down it’s consumption, which in turn dampens its economic growth significantly.  In other words, people equal growth and growth is equated with a thriving economy, following the traditional and now suspect capitalist model of “grow or die.”

http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1159138&lang=eng_news

And, according to a recent BBC report, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Russians are celebrating the first rise in population in Russia in 15 years. The decline has traditionally been blamed on emigration, alcoholism, poor healthcare and poverty, and Putin’s worry was that without population growth, Russia would fall hopelessly behind in economic competition with countries like Japan and Germany.

Whether population growth in Russia will solve emigration, alcoholism, health care and poverty is not made clear in this report. Certainly those problems existed in Russia when it a larger population.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8468185.stm

Our Conversation with Laurie Mazur

Laurie Mazur is editor of a new book titled: A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice & the Environmental Challenge.  She is an independent writer and consultant and is Director of the Population Justice Project in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Part I: Pivotal Issues

• Your book contains essays by some thirty global experts on population issues, who join you in arguing that we are at a “pivotal moment” in population growth. While (almost) everybody recognizes that population is a critical concern, why is it pivotal now?
  Subtopics:
  • Population projections: 8-11 billion. What’s the difference for the future of the planet?
  • 3 billion young people under 25—why do they matter (as opposed, say, to world leaders)?
  • What are the likely consequences if we/they fail to act now?
• Your book is particularly interesting because of its linking of population and environment. (As you note, population is often referenced only in passing in environmental discussions.) What do you see as the fundamental and/or ignored relationships?
• We especially appreciated the complexity of your book.  You opened our eyes to all sorts of connections, emphasizing that these relationships are reciprocal.  Let’s talk a little about one or several of these as time permits.

• • Population<>Social Justice
  • Population<>Capitalism
  • Population<>Immigration/Migration
  • Population <> Climate Change

• You and several writers talk about the 1994 Cairo population conference as a kind of watershed, leading to new thinking about population issues. But you also express some dissatisfaction with the follow-up to Cairo.  What were the achievements and disappointments growing from Cairo? Subtopic:
  • We’re guessing that you followed the Copenhagen Climate Change conference. What do you see as its implications (and disappointments) related to population and social justice issues?

Part II: Positive Directions

You and your writers do not offer simple solutions, but, rather explore avenues that you think could help the world grow closer to 8 billion than 11 billion people.

• You generally reject “population control” or top down, governmental edicts.  But there are examples—most notably China’s one-child policy—that have, in fact, dramatically decreased the rate of growth.  What’s wrong with strong governmental mandates for population control?
• You (and your authors) argue strongly that education is a key to population moderation, in particular, education for girls, and especially girls who live in poverty. Please explain that equation.
  • Do you have examples of countries where education of girls has made a difference
• If we do not have government mandates for population control, what role(s) can the government—global or U.S.—play?
  • You note that the Bush administration reversed key Cairo protocols; what’s your feeling about the Obama administration?
  • Adrienne Germaine writes in your book about “mobilizing constituencies.”  What’s the role of activists in influencing, dictating, or creating alternatives to forceful yet humane government policies?
  • What roles will religious groups, particularly the Vatican, Conservative Christians, and Progressive Christians play in the debate?
• Your final entry in the book is yours and Shira Saperstein’s concise call for action to policy makers. What are its key elements?
• How can interested listeners and activists become more involved in this project?

We really cannot do justice to this book in a thirty minute interview. It is one of the most comprehensive we’ve examined, and it’s not just about “population.” The book is A Pivotal Moment, and it’s published by Island Press. You can learn more about it at  www.popjustice.org.

Playlist for Ecotopia #73: A Pivotal Moment

Tonight we are going to depart from our usual format to focus on the literature of place, specifically, Calfornia’s beloved Route 99. We’ll be drawing primarily on a wonderful anthology edited by Stan Yogi for the California Council for the Humanities.  It’s called Highway 99: A Literary Journey Through California’s Great Central Valley.

Background on Highway 99

We’ve put together a brief history of this historic highway, drawing on a number sources, including amateur and professional historians and hobbyists who just like to collect information about highways and byways.

For instance, Patrick R. Frank, Founding member of the Route 99 Association of California, writes on the Clark Travel Center website that:

The historic route 99 began as a horse and stagecoach trail extending from Mexico to Canada. Originally, it was called the Pacific Highway, the Golden Chain Route and the Highway of Three Nations, linking from Mexicali (Baja California), Mexico, through the States of California, Oregon, Washington, and ending in Vancouver (British Columbia), Canada.

As automobiles were being mass produced during the early 1920’s, a definitive United States Highway system was needed for the promotion of commerce and tourism.

The year was 1926, when the Pacific Highway was designated to become US No. 99, a part of the U.S. road network. However the U.S. highway shields didn’t occur in California, until January of 1928. The division of Highways assigned the signing responsibility to the Automobile Clubs, at the organizations’ expense, until 1934.

http://www.clarkstravelcenter.com/history.htmlHistoric Route 99 Association of California

Wikipedia explains that in the northern part of California:

The first state highway bond issue, approved by the state’s voters in 1910, included a north–south highway through the central part of the state,  through the Sacramento Valley from the Oregon state line south to Sacramento (replacing the Siskiyou Trail). In addition, a second route followed the west side of the Sacramento Valley from Red Bluff south to Davis and the Yolo Causeway to Sacramento. In mid-1929, this split was renumbered, with US 99W replacing the original western route via Davis, and US 99E following the East Side Highway via Roseville.

We were also interested to learn that:

A third highway heading north from Sacramento was constructed along the Sacramento River levee and Feather Rivers to Yuba City, which was dedicated in October 1924 as the Garden Highway and still exists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_99

Casey Cooper explains on his U.S. highways website:

[As a United States highway] US 99 was completely decommissioned by 1968 with the completion of I-5, but it had gradually been phased out beginning July 1, 1964.

[As this happened, many parts of 99 were given other numbers, but in our part of the world the number 99 was retained as state route], and any portions of US 99 remain, though mostly as frontage roads. This includes 99W, which was replaced by I-5 and remains as frontage road known as 99W.

[And from Red Bluff to Sacramento, State Route 99W is a mainstay of local traffic.  You can see it passing through towns like Corning, Orland, Willows, Williams, and Dunnigan.]

http://www.gbcnet.com/ushighways/US99/US99.html

Chico Wiki details the history of 99 East from Red Bluff on down to Sacramento:

California State Route 99  is the main highway through Chico and the only freeway in town. The freeway in its modern form was built in the 1960s, but the highway has existed in some form since well before then.

Business 99 is the old highway prior to the building of the freeway, which can still be followed along the Esplanade and through downtown along Main and Broadway.  [Many of the motels on north Esplanade are remnants of the original 99E.]

The proposal to relocate Highway 99E through Chico, was the most single most important influence in the growth of the city of Chico. At the time it was a very controversial proposal [opposed by many environmentalists because of its encroachment on Chico’s historic and treasured Bidwell Park.] The California Highway Transportation System agreed to construct a causeway over Bidwell Park, and to beautify and improve The Esplanade which had been the old 99. The first section of the six mile stretch of freeway through Chico was dedicated September 24, 1963. The freeway was built during a time when Chico was much smaller in terms of population, and is often now seen as inadequate for current traffic volumes. The on-ramps are notoriously short within central Chico, which can lead to congestion during busy driving times. There are signs advising through traffic to use the left lanes to help alleviate this congestion and allow for easier merging for cars coming on to the highway, although this advice is not always heeded.

http://www.chicowiki.org/Highway_99

Readings from Highway 99: A Literary Journey Through California’s Great Central Valley

Here’s an excerpt from a narrative by Pedro Fages, one of the first Europeans to see the Central Valley in 1773.  He writes of a village called Buena Vista above the River San Francisco:  pp. 2-3.

A century later and closer to home, here’s an excerpt from the diary of William Henry Brewer that of his trip from San Francisco to Red Bluff and return in the 1860s, plus some notes about Chico and the influence of the Bidwells:   pp.  18-19.

And here is a contemporary poem by Gary Thompson, reflecting on the Bidwells and Old Cohasset Road:  p. 24.

Here’s poet Gary Snyder’s take on the valley, “Covers the Ground.”  pp. 30-31.

There are, of course, cities in the Great Central Valley.  Here’s a view of city life, this of Sacramento in the 1920s, and it offers a perspective from an immigrant, Ernesto Galarza, from his memoir, Barrio Boy.   pp.  49-51

Here’s another view of Sacramento, by Joan Didion, including an excellent description of Highway 99.  pp 194-196

Here’s another city description, this one by William Saroyan, describing Fresno in 1934:  pp.  74-75

And a description the valley’s agricultural life and labor by Poet Roberta Spear.  pp. 175-177.

Here’s a poem by   Catherine Webster, “Child Off Highway 99.”   p. 326

George Keithley writes a poem about another Sacramento Valley tradition,    “Red Bluff Rodeo” p. 235

Susan Kelly-Dewitt writes a poem about another familiar valley scene, “Rice Fields at Dusk”   p. 307

That completes our literary view of Highway 99 and the Central Valley from Stan Yogi’s outstanding anthology, published by the California Humanities Committee and Heydey Press.  We recommend that you get a copy of the book for your own bedside reading.

Tonight we’re talking about the Education conference of the California Certified Organic Farmers which is being held this coming weekend, February 6-7,at the Chico State Campus; specifically at the University Farm Pavilion. The theme of the conference is “Healthy Soils, Healthy Food.”

We’ll be talking with two organic farmers who are on a panel entitled “Why Soil Is Crucial:”

Stephen Bird, owner Celtic Gardens Organic Farm and Education Center, and longtime organic farmer Amigo Cantisano, of Organic Ag Advisors. Other members of the panel include Lee Altier from Chico State and Jeff Mitchell from the UC Cooperative Extension Service.

Background on Organic Certification

This coming weekend—February 6-7–the California Certified Organic Farmers  are sponsoring an Education Conference ‘Healthy Soils, Healthy Food’  at The University Farm Pavilion at Chico State.

Their website describes the conference this way:

CCOF’s 2010 Education Conference will include an exciting opportunity for participants to learn about the role that soil health plays in climate change policies, and how improving soil leads to further opportunities for organic growers, processors, retailers and consumers to help mitigate for climate change. Noted researcher and organic spokesman, Tim LaSalle, Executive Director of The Rodale Institute will be the keynote speaker. Participants will also hear from other presenters about farming, processing and consumer practices that can lead to a healthier environment and improved food system, through things like carbon sequestration, water conservation and activism. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with speakers, to learn hands’ on solutions, to find out what policies are being developed and how to influence those policies, and to take away valuable knowledge and solutions that can be implemented on your farm, in your operation or through your food dollars.

http://www.ccof.org/educationconference.php

You might like to check out the CCOF Website– www.ccof.org–which contains a good deal of information about the process of certification, the history of certification in California, and farms and food producers who have been certified through CCOF. The organization has been around since 1973 and was one of the first organizations to perform organic certification in North America. The organization also provides trade and marketing support and engages in political advocacy. CCOF also provides certification services to processors, restaurants and retailers, and certifies to both the USDA National Organic Program standards and CCOF international standards. They claim to certify over 1300 different crops and products, including livestock.

The organization has grown in scope over the years. Their website says that “In 1990, CCOF founded the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) to fund research related to organic farming practices. In 1997, CCOF helped launch the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) to research and distribute information about materials allowed and prohibited for use in organic production.”

Not all farmers who grow naturally—without chemical pesticides and herbicides—are certified organic, and some resist participation because of the cost of certifying or because of the complex bureaucracy of the USDA National Organic Program. An alternative to national certification is Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS), which is an “international movement to decentralize and simplify certification so that it is available to small farms and poor farmers selling directly to consumers. Most PGS farms have an educational visit from a mixed group of fellow farmers and consumers rather than an inspection. The guarantee is connected with developing local markets and empowering farmers. If you want to learn more about this, you can contact Elizabeth Henderson, lzbthhenderson@yahoo.com.” We learned about this in the Fedco Seed catalogue, which in addition to having an amazing array of seeds also provides great resources and a farming primer.

As we’ve talked to and learned gardening practices from various farmers, we’ve learned that there are many philosophies of farming and many ways of being successful as a gardener. We missed the gardening class conducted by David Grau at the Chico Grange last Sunday, but evidently some of those divergent practices were discussed there. David Grau’s newsletter thanks Carl Rosato of Woodleaf Farm and Marc Kessler of California Organic Flowers for providing alternative methods for creating soil fertility. And we quote from Grau’s newsletter,

“Carl advocates regular soil testing and compost applications along with recommended supplements, while Marc rarely does soil testing and adds no compost. He emphasizes using frequent cover crops (also known as green manures) to supply the nitrogen, organic matter and beneficial organisms that produce abundant crops. Both of these farmers produce excellent crops and work to keep a natural balance on their farms”

For more information about how Marc uses cover crops, you can go to californiaorganicflowers.com. Click on the link in the lower left hand corner entitled “see our farm” and on that page scroll down to the video at the bottom of that page and play the youtube video where Marc shows and describes cover crops. This video is a lucid explanation of the myriad benefits of cover cropping, something we backyard gardeners should be doing more of.

To learn more about soil testing and soil nutrients, you can go to woodleaffarm.net and click on the link on the left entitled “organic soil fertility.” Carl describes in detail how to take a soil sample and a detailed yet clear system for understanding and improving your soil fertility.”

Our Questions for Stephen Bird

http://www.sierraorganicgrowers.com/index.php/gold/grower_page/celtic_gardens_organic_farm_learning_center

1. You’re involved with the Education Conference of CCOF entitled “Healthy Soils, Healthy Food.” Can you tell us a little more about the conference?
2. Tell us a little bit about your farm, the Celtic Gardens Organic Farm and Learning Center? What do you grow? What else goes on there? Where is your farm?
3. The farm is also an education center. What sort of education do you do?
4. What does it mean to be certified organic? Who does the certifying? What does certifying involve?
5. There are lots of farmers who use natural processes in their farming but aren’t certified. Why do you certify? What are the advantages?
6. You’re talking about soils at the CCOF conference.  Why is soil important? We’re familiar with the organic farmer’s commitment to feed the soil, not the plant. What does that mean?
7. What’s the relationship between healthy soil and healthy food?
8. What are some ways that on both a large scale and a small scale farmers and gardeners can improve the quality of their soil?

Our Questions for Amigo Cantisano:

Amigo has worked in organic olive production for more than 25 years. He is the owner of Organic Ag Advisors. Amigo provides organic olive production consulting to more than 20 farms in Northern and Central California. Consulting includes site selection, organic fertilization, organic pest and disease management, variety selection, irrigation, harvesting, pruning, marketing.

1. You’ve been involved in farming for a long time, long before it became a significant alternative. What prompted you to farm organically?
2. Have you always farmed organically? Has organic certification changed over the years you’ve been farming? Why do you certify?
3. You’re doing consulting now. Are you still farming? What do you grow?
4. At the CCOF convention, you’re talking about soil. What is your advice to farmers who want to create healthy soils?
5. What are your arguments for farmers who may be thinking of moving from conventional farming to organic farming?
6. The convention theme is Healthy Soils/Healthy Food. What’s the relationship between healthy soil and healthy food?

Playlist for Ecotopia #71

1. Rain On The Scarecrow    3:46  John Mellencamp Scarecrow

2. Mr. Soil’s Song        1:45  Singin’ Steve      Billy the Bean

3. Garden Song   5:34  MaMuse     All The Way

4. Poor Old Dirt Farmer        3:53  Levon Helm        Dirt Farmer

5. Dirt Made My Lunch 2:25  Banana Slug String Band      Dirt Made My Lunch

6. Weave Me the Sunshine    4:28  Peter, Paul And Mary   The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

7. Zemelya-Chernozem. Black Soil. (Variations )      3:35  Andrei Krylov      Russian Classical Guitar Music. Vol 2. Romance, Folk Songs.

7. Good Health    3:37                 The Dixie Hummingbirds       In Good Health

8. Dirt        4:20  Mary Mary         The Sound

Background on the Voluntary Simplicity Movement

The concept of voluntary simplicity is as old as human recorded history. The roots of simplicity are often seen in the philosophies of asceticism which is associated with a variety of religious practices, according to Wikipedia, in the Shramana traditions of Iron Age India, in Buddhism, and in biblical Nazirites (notably John the Baptist).

Wikipedia claims that “Simple living has traditions that stretch back to the Orient, resonating with leaders such as Zarathustra, Buddha, Lao-Tse and Confucius and was heavily stressed in both Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian ethics.”

The definition of “Epicureanism, based on the teachings of the Athens-based philosopher Epicurus, flourished from about the fourth century BC to the third century AD” is similar to the descriptions of voluntary simplicity one hears today. Its founder, “Epicurus[,] pointed out that troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle tend to outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it. He therefore concluded that what is necessary for happiness, bodily comfort, and life itself should be maintained at minimal cost, while all things beyond what is necessary for these should either be tempered by moderation or completely avoided.”

This tradition has also been carried on by a number of religions and philosophies–Shakers, Mennonites, Amish, Harmony Society, and Quakers. And this philosophical orientation is familiar to many Americans through the writings of Henry David Thoreau, a naturalist and author, who advocated a life of simplicity in his book Walden (1854).

In England, a number of advocates followed the philosophy of simple living–Henry Stephens Salt, Edward Carpenter, William Morris, and the members of “The Fellowship of the New Life.”[7] “C.R. Ashbee and his followers linked simplicity with the Arts and Crafts Movement[8].  In the 1930s John Middleton Murry and Max Plowman practised a simple lifestyle at their Aldephi Centre in Essex.

During the 1920s and 1930s in the United States, the Vanderbilt Agrarians of the Southern United States advocated a lifestyle and culture centered upon traditional and sustainable agrarian values as opposed to the progressive urban industrialism which dominated the Western world at that time.

From the 1920s to the 1960s, a number of modern authors articulated both the theory and practice of living simply, among them Gandhian Richard Gregg, economists Ralph Borsodi and Scott Nearing, anthropologist-poet Gary Snyder, and utopian fiction writer Ernest Callenbach,” who wrote the book Ecotopia, [for which our program has been named.]

[Our guest tonight, Duane Elgin wrote what is considered to be the most highly influential book in the current movement, Voluntary Simplicity, in 1981.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living#History

In September of 1995, Carey Goldberg wrote “Choosing the Joys of a Simplified Life”  for the New York Times. Goldberg reports that in the summer of 1995,

“pollsters announced the striking results of a survey measuring patterns of consumption. From a nationwide cross section of Americans, 28 percent said they had downshifted and had voluntarily cut back on their income in some way over the last five years to reflect changes in priorities.”

“Commissioners of the poll, the Merck Family Fund . . .  said the 800-person focus group and telephone sample also indicated that 82 percent of Americans agreed with the statement ‘We buy and consume far more than we need.’. . .

Many of the downshifters were parents who had cut their consumption to reduce working hours, thereby gaining time with their children. But many were also just responding to the yearning “to reduce stress, get more balance, get a saner life,” said Juliet B. Schor, a Harvard economist who wrote the “The Overworked American” (Basic Books, 1993)

Voluntary Simplicity is an idea more ancient than Ecclesiastes, with stops at Buddha, Jesus, the Puritans and Henry David Thoreau. What is different these days, say those who are charting the trend, is that the seemingly unnatural choice to slow down and cut down shows signs of going broadly mainstream, across age groups and class lines. And, they say, it is taking on new power in light of Americans’ growing environmental awareness.[...]

The Trends Research Institute of Rhinebeck, N.Y., [chose] Voluntary Simplicity as one of its top 10 trends of the 90’s. It predict[ed] that by the end of the decade, 15 percent of America’s 77 million baby boomers [would] be part of a “simplicity” market for things like low-priced durable gardening and home products that are short on slickness and status.[...] Gerald Celente, the director of the institute, [predicted that] youngsters . . . in their early teens . . . [were] going to buy into the idea that we’re overconsuming,” he added. “This is the first group that’s been indoctrinated green.”

Since the end of the conspicuously consuming 80’s, a striving for simplicity and thrift has been showing up in fields as wide-ranging as construction (architects note a tendency to renovate rather than to build) and physical fitness (witness the growing popularity of walking, a sport that requires nothing but a pair of shoes).”

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/21/garden/choosing-the-joys-of-a-simplified-life.html

Our Discussion with Duane Elgin

Duane Elgin, is author of Voluntary Simplicity. The book was first published in 1981 and a revision has recently been released. He’s also author of Promise Ahead, Awakening Earth, and The Living Universe.

1. As we were researching the world of voluntary simplicity, we found references to you all over the web. You’ve been involved in thinking about this for about 30 years. What got you interested in voluntary simplicity?

2. You frequently use the term a “garden of simplicity” to represent the many faces of this movement. What are some of the manifestations of simple living?

3. One of the things we associate with the history of this movement is from some of our friends in the 60s—people who decided to “drop out” or those who decided to move “back to nature.” But you emphasize that simplicity doesn’t mean living in poverty or apart from society. Do people have to give up creature comforts to live simply?

4. How has the movement changed over the past 30 years?

5. Your characterization of voluntary simplicity includes a strong spiritual element. How central is spirituality to voluntary simplicity?

6. In our opening we described forms of simple living over millennia—including Greek philosophers, religious groups in Europe and America, and Henry David Thoreau.. How does our unique moment in time shape new notions of voluntary simplicity?

Voluntary Simplicity in Practice

1. Tell us about some of the inward riches that people discover when they seek voluntary simplicity.

2. You also emphasize community throughout the book. Describe how community and voluntary simplicity work hand in hand.

3. You distinguish between regressive, cosmetic, and deep simple living. Can you explain those?

4. Can you give us more examples of voluntary simplicity? What can we do to get started? And if we have listeners who already have ideas, but need to take that next step toward living simply, what suggests do you have?

Duane Elgin is the author of the recently revised and re-released Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich. It’s published by Harper.

Do-It-Yourself Voluntary Simplicity
(Can there be any other kind?)

We want to recommend several websites for those who would like to learn more and DO more (or less)!

One of the most useful websites we found was SimpleLiving.net. Our guest tonight Duane Elgin is a “partner” in this group, which is celebrating its 14^th Anniversary. In addition to a list of resources in simple living, green living, gardening, country living, and cooking and food, the site offers  various ways of interacting–Discussion Forums, Study Groups & Circles, Blogs, and Listings for events, workshops, speeches, appearances, announcements, on-line classes, gatherings and more from authors and organizations in the simplicity and sustainability movements.

SimpleLiving.net also has an informative newsletter. It includes suggestions and testimonials, as well as guidance on the various issues those who want to live simply can make use of.  A testimonial by Dan Ryan, a former Mad Man Ad Executive who now works as a full-time artist, discusses his ‘Journey To Financial Integrity.” It began in 1994 after he read, Your Money Or Your Life in 1994. He says:

At the time, I was buried in a large mortgage, credit card debts, student loans, car loan, and house down payment loan to Dad. Needless to say, I was receptive to a new way of thinking and living.

I should have known better — I was part of the whole problem! I was a Senior Creative in the advertising machine. I created the ads which seduced people into a lifestyle of endless consumption. I hated the industry, my job, the hours, and the whole mess!” . . . . Now, he says, “I’m avowed cheapskate and proud of it! My cars are ten years old and will run for another ten if I can make them..” . . . .

There are thousands of people out there living like I was in the ’90s. They are up to their eyeballs in debt, trapped in a lifestyle they resent. They have done nothing wrong. Heck, they were seduced into the idea that Bigger is Better! . . . .

It’s like I tell my son: You can have whatever you like…just pay cash and buy it used.”

A weblogger, Katy Wolk-Stanley writes daily as  “The Non-Consumer Advocate.” In the LivingSimply.net newsletter she writes:

Want to start living the green life?

Retailers would have you believe green living is all about organically grown hemp sheets and sustainably harvested bamboo living room sets.

Wrong!

The best green purchase you can make is the one not taken.”

She is part of  “world wide non-consumer group called The Compact. (Buy nothing new.) Since joining in January 2007, “I’ve only bought a few new items here and there.”[...] She advocates that the

next time you’re about to buy a brand-new product, pause a moment to think whether it could be found used.

Or maybe even not bought at all.”

Ann Haebig looks through the sites discussion forums to report on what people are doing in the “do-it-yourself” realm. She says she

was struck by how active our members are. We do a lot of things for ourselves, whether for reasons of frugality, self-sufficiency, or the simple pleasure of a task well done. Here’s a sample of some of the things we’re doing:

* We’re helping the environment by switching from disposable sanitary pads.

* We’re getting healthier by making our own energy bars, granola, and yogurt.

* We’re building our community by figuring out how to meet other simple livers and how to talk to them once we do.

* We’re becoming more self-sufficient by raising chickens for meat, building our own seed starting setups, and growing much of our own food.

• We’re also cutting our water bills by reusing greywater and making rain barrels.

She concludes: “What a fascinating and dynamic bunch of people! These folks truly are making the changes the world needs. This collection of topics demonstrates how many things we can do that benefit our finances, our health, and the environment.”

If you’re looking for ways to live more simply, you might want to check out this website: LivingSimply.net

Playlist for Ecotopia #70: Voluntary Simplicity

1. Hallelujah       2:57  MaMuse       All The Way

2. Give Me the Simple Life (Live At the Crescendo)   1:54  Ella Fitzgerald      Twelve Nights In Hollywood

3. Life Uncommon       4:57  Jewel       Spirit

4. Simplicity       4:48  Shawn Pander      Memories 4 Sale

5. Rag & Bone    3:48 The White Stripes       Icky Thump

6. Weave Me the Sunshine    4:28  Peter, Paul And Mary       The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

7. Bridge Over Troubled Water      4:51  Simon & Garfunkel       Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits

8. This Life 4:30  Bruce Springsteen      Working On A Dream

9. Life Is a Song Worth Singing      6:03  Johnny Mathis     The Essential Johnny Mathis

11. Garden Song 5:34  MaMuse   All The Way

12. You’ve Got a Friend        4:33  James Taylor     Mud Slide Slim & The Blue Horizon Rock

13. Sunshine On My Shoulders (Digitally Remastered)       5:11  John Denver       Definitive All-Time Greatest Hits

Our Discussion with Scott Slovic

On the phone with us is Scott Slovic, professor of literature and the environment at the University of Nevada, Reno. Thanks for joining us, Scott.

1A. You are a professor of literature and environment. Can you tell us a little more about your field? How long has it been around? What do you study?

1B.  In a recent conversation we had, you argued that the humanities must be seen as an integral part of the world, not as a decorative bauble or mere entertainment.  How does environmental literature engage what some call “the real world?”

2. What approach do you take in teaching literature about the environment? Are courses political? historical? cultural?

3. What is ecocriticism? How does that function in the field of literature and environment?

4. You’re currently teaching, lecturing, and writing a book on the Literature of Sustainability? Could you tell us what your focus is there?

Recommended Readings from Scott Slovic

The Literature of Sustainability

Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth. Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006.

Hersey, John. My Petition for More Space. New York: Knopf, 1974.

Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. 1957. New York: Viking, 1997.

Meloy, Ellen. Raven’s Exile: A Season on the Green River. 1994. Tucson: U of Arizona     P,

2003.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. 2006. New York: Penguin, 2007.

Powers, Richard. Gain. New York: Picador USA, 1998.

Quammen, David. The Song of the Dodo: Island Biography in an Age of Extinction. 1996. New

York: Pimlico, 1997.

Steingraber, Sandra. Living Downstream: A Scientist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer    and the

Environment. 1997. New York: Vintage, 1998.

Stafford, William. “Maybe Alone on My Bike.” 1964. Smoke’s Way. Minneapolis: Graywolf,

1983. 29.

Susanka, Sarah. The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live. Newtown, CT:

Taunton, 2001.

The Literature of Energy

Bergon, Frank. The Temptations of St. Ed and Brother S. Reno: U of Nevada P, 1993.

Brower, Kenneth. The Starship and the Canoe. 1978. New York: Harper Perennial, 1983.

Gaines, Susan. Carbon Dreams. Berkeley, CA: The Creative Arts Book Company, 2001. Gelbspan, Ross. Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists, and Activists

Have Fueled the Climate Crisis—and What We Can Do to Avert Disaster. 2004. New        York: Basic Books, 2005.

McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. 1989. New York: Anchor, 1997.

McPhee, John. The Curve of Binding Energy. 1973. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.

Smil, Vaclav. Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties. 2004.

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

Weisman, Alan. Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea

Green Publishing, 1998.

Food, Sustainability, and American Culture

Andrews, William L., ed. Classic American Autobiographies. New York: Signet Classics, 1992.

Berry, Wendell. Remembering: A Novel. 1990. Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 2008.

Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation. 1993. Fifth Edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008.

Crevecoeur, Hector St. John de. Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of

Eighteenth-Century America. 1782. New York: Penguin Classics, 1981.

Klindienst, Patricia. The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the

Gardens of Ethnic Americans. Boston: Beacon, 2006.

Ozeki, Ruth. All Over Creation. New York: Penguin, 2004.

Nabhan, Gary Paul. Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods. New York: Norton, 2009.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. 2006. New York:

Penguin, 2007.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.

Steingraber, Sandra. Having Faith. New York: Berkley, 2003.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. 1854. New York: Dover, 1995.

Ecocriticism and Theory (with selected samples of environmental literature)

Adamson, Joni, Mei Mei Evans, and Rachel Stein, eds., The Environmental Justice

Reader. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2002.

Adamson, Joni, and Scott Slovic, eds. Special issue of MELUS 34.2 (Summer 2009).

ISSN: 0163-755x. Contact: melus@uconn.edu

Alaimo, Stacy, and Susan Hekman, eds., Material Feminisms. Bloomington: Indiana UP,

2008.

Buell, Lawrence. The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and

Literary Imagination. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005.

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth, Renée Gosson, and George Handley, Caribbean Literature and

the Environment: Between Nature and Culture. Charlottesville: U of Virginia P,

2005.

Dobrin, Sidney, and Sean Morey, eds., Ecosee: Image, Rhetoric, Nature. Albany: SUNY

P, 2009.

Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, eds., The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in

Literary Ecology. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996.

Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth. Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2006. ISBN: 1-59486-567-1.

Heise, Ursula. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the

Global. New York: Oxford UP, 2008.

Hogan, Linda. People of the Whale. New York: Norton, 2008.

Ihimaera, Witi. The Whale Rider. Orlando: Harcourt, 2003.

Lynch, Tom. Xerophilia: Ecocritical Explorations in Southwestern Literature. Lubbock:

Texas Tech UP, 2008.

Nabhan, Gary Paul. Arab/American: Landscape, Culture, and Cuisine in Two Great

Deserts. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2008.

Sturgeon, Noël. Environmentalism in Popular Culture: Gender, Race, Sexuality, and the

Politics of the Natural. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2009.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. 1854. Boston: Beacon, 1997.

Williams, Terry Tempest. Finding Beauty in a Broken World. New York: Vintage, 2008.

Wolfe, Cary. Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and

Posthumanist Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.

Tonight our focus is on the Wild and Scenic Film Festival, “Fresh, Local, Wild,” which will be taking place in Nevada City this coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  We’ll chat with Kathy Dotson, Director of the Festival, and with three filmmakers whose work will be shown over the weekend.  In addition, our music tonight comes from the film “Back to the Garden,” created by one of our guests.

Our Questions for Kathy Dotson.

• Please give us a brief history of the Festival—which is in its 8^th year. (Please also tell us about the grant you’ve received from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.)
• What are a few of the highlights of this year’s festival?
• What’s the cost of passes to the festival?
• Where can people buy passes and learn more about the festivbal program?

www.wildandscenicfilmfestival.org

Our Questions for Filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson

Kevin is director of Back to the Garden, which will be showing at the Wild and Scenic Festival at 9:38 am Sunday, the 16^th.  And our music breaks tonight are performed by Band of Annuals from the soundtrack to that film.

• Your film is about a bunch of aging hippies who have been searching environmental utopias since a healing gathering in Washington in 1988, and you have a lot of then-and-now footage. Please tell us about how you came to make this film.
• How did you meet these folks in the first place?
• How easy or difficult was it to track them down?
• Please tell us something about their stories.  Did they find what they were looking for?  Are their Ecotopian dreams working out?
• As a filmmaker, you presumably shoot a lot of film and then winnow it down to your final print.  Please tell us something about that process.  Why did you make the choices you did for the film?  What was left on the cutting room floor?
• Do you try to send a message?  Or do folks have make meaning for themselves?
• What other projects do you have in the works at Heaven Scent Films?
• Tim Cash will be present at the film showing in Grass Velley at 9:38 am on Sunday morning.  Who is Tim and what his connection to your project?

Listeners who would like to learn more about the film can go to http://backtothegardenfilm.com/

Our Questions for Filmmaker Kevin White

One of the filmmakers in attendance at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival will be Kevin White, premiering his film A Simple Question: The Story of Straw.

• The Story of Straw is about a watershed restoration project launched over twenty years ago by some fourth grade kids and their teacher. The project has grown over the years, and you document that in your film. Please tell us about the film and what it covers.
• Did you talk with any of the original fourth graders who launched the project?  If so, are these people still involved with the project or, more broadly, with the environmental movement?  Who are the people continuing the project today?
• We’re interested in how a documentary filmmaker goes about his work.  How much footage did you shoot?  Did you have a pattern or vision in mind before shooting?  Did you have some fortuitous or unplanned events?
• How do you whittle down all your footage into a coherent package?  Do you try to deliver a specific message?  Or, perhaps do you just let the sound and images work on the viewer?
• Did you have to leave some great stuff on the cutting room floor?
• What project(s) are you working on now?

A Simple Question: The Story of Straw will be premiered at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival, with two showings, 1:47 pm Saturday and 1:10 pm Sunday.  Interested listeners should also check out the film’s website: www.asimplequestion.org/

Our Questions for Lisa Madison

Lisa Madison, who is the Distribution and Outreach coordinator for a film by Ana Joanescalled, simply Fresh. It is receiving a great deal of praise in the environmental movement as being in the genre of Food, Inc. (which recently showed here in Chico), but with an emphasis on the practical, the do-it-yourself.

• Please tell us about Fresh and what we can expect when we see it.
• You have some major names in the alternative food movement in the movie, including Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin. How did your team reach them, and why do you think they wanted to be in the film?
• The film has also been praised for being optimistic.  What do you see as its optimistic strong points?
• Does it provide guidance for the individual who wants to eat healthy, local, and safe?
• Filmmaker Ana Joanes says on your web site that she’d like the film to reach one million people. As distribution and outreach coordinator, you’re probably faced with this daunting goal.  How’s it going?
• Please tell us a little about your educational discussion guides and other resources for people who want to use the film.
• Your website also has a petition to the Department of Justice (which we’ve signed) concerning corporate control of ag. Please tell us more about this aspect of your project.
• Are there other points you’d like to make about FRESH, in particular, or the healthy-local-safe food movement generally?

It will be screened at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival this Friday at 8:31 pm and again Sunday at 2:18 pm.  Listeners can also check out their website, which is http://www.freshthemovie.com/

Playlist

Our music tonight comes from the soundtrack to Back to the Garden, by Kevin Tomlinson.  The musical group is Band of Annuals from their Let Me Live album.  The cuts include:

“Let Me Live” 3:24
“David’s Country” 3:32
“Don’t Let Me Die” 5:52
“Blood on My Shirt” 3:21

The closing theme, as always, is “Weave Me the Sunshine” by Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Tonight’s topic on Ecotopia is “A Sustainable Northstate New Year,” and we’ll have several guests from the community talking about their Ecotopian visions for the coming year.  First we’ll talk with Chico Mayor Ann Schwab about priorities for the city. Second, we’ll meet with Nicki Schlaishunt and Mary Muchowski of the Butte Environmental Council about their new year’s resolutions.  And then we’ll talk with Gerard Ungerman, Chico filmmaker and the moving force behind a new Green Transition Chico initiative.

Our questions for Ann Schwab:

With us in the studio now is Chico Mayor Ann Schwab, who, among myriad other assignments for the City, is Chair of the Sustainable Task Force.  Welcome, Ann Schwab.

• We know that you are deeply committed to sustainability issues, but we’d also like to explore some of the economic, social, and other issues that you see as important. Please tell us what you see as the major problems/issues facing Chico in the immediate future.  What’s on the agenda in the next several months that people should know about?

• Please also tell us about your vision of the longer range future for Chico and the northstate. Megalopolis?  Oasis of sustainability?  Armed camp?

• Obviously growth is a big issue. What are the Planning Commission’s next problems or issues. Can the “green line” hold?  How can Chico’s infrastructure not only keep up but evolve in sustainable ways?

• What issues are coming to the Sustainable Task Force in the next year or so?  What will its Climate Action Plan contain?

• What’s the economic future?  Where will new or alternative jobs come from in Chico?  As with the WalMart case, what kinds of tensions do you see among  jobs, sustainability, and growth?

• What can Chicoans and Northstaters do to participate fully in the processes of (sustainable) government?

Our questions for Nicki Schlaishunt and Mary Muchowski:

Your topics on the Butte Environmental Council website include:

• Land use
• Toxins and health
• Transportation
• Water
• The vernal pools
• Bidwell Cleanup
• Endangered Species

And others.  We don’t have time to talk about them all, so please give us some idea of what you see as the major issues and problems coming up next year.

Other issues:

• Big business and environmental activism—how can you compete?
• California budget crisis.
• Federal support for local environmental projects.
• How can people become involved in the work of BEC?

http://www.becnet.org

Our questions for Gerard Ungerman:

One of the most exciting new projects in our part of the world is Green Transition Chico: Their theme is “Chico is our Community; its Sustainability is Up to Us All.  The leader of this project is Gerard Ungerman, filmmaker.  Welcome Gerard.

• Please tell us something about the Green Transition Chico project.  How did it begin?  What are the goals?  Who is involved?  Who can be involved?
• How does the website work?
• What’s your personal vision of a sustainable northstate.  Do we become a gated or armed state and sustain ourselves?  a model for other communities?
• What’s the link to the global green transition movement generally?
• Is Green Transition apolitical?  asocial?  What are its links to, say, social, racial, and economic justice?

http://www.greentransitionchico.org/

Playlist for Eco #66: A Sustainable Northstate New Year

1. You’ve Got To Be Strong   4:02  The Dillards     Roots And Branches/Tribute To The American Duck

2, Utopia    4:58  Alanis Morissette    iTunes Originals – Alanis Morissette

3. Worldwide Connected       5:06  The Herbaliser    Something Wicked This Way Comes

4. Beautiful Day  4:08  U2    All That You Can’t Leave Behind

5. Auld Lang Syne       2:36  Straight No Chaser    Holiday

6. Weave Me the Sunshine    4:28  Peter, Paul And Mary    The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

7. Glorious  5:19  MaMuse    All The Way

9. The Road to Utopia  4:54  Utopia   Adventures In Utopia

10. Land of the Future  5:14  Josh Lasden & Synoptic   Futuristic Music EP Part 2

As we do at each change of the season, we will devote tonight’s program to poetry, essay, story, and music focusing on the arrival of winter in these, the shortest days of the year.  In previous programs we’ve talked about the science and culture of winter solstice, so tonight we will focus more on what happens in winter, to people, to plants and animals, and to the earth itself.

Global Weather for December 23

We’ll start with the global weather.  What will tomorrow’s weather be around the world?  And depending on where you are, in the southern or the northern hemisphere, will you  be stuck in ice and snow or enjoying a day at the beach?

It’s not good beach weather in Moscow tomorrow.  The high will only 35 degrees farenheit, with and snow changing to rain. The overnight low will be 8 degrees.   The winter sun won’t appear until 8:38 am local time and will set at 3:58 pm, so Muscovites will have only 7 ½ hours of daylight.

In Sydney, Australia the other side of the world, you’ll have a high temperature  of 86 degrees and a balmy low of 68. The sun will come peeking in your bedroom windows at 5:38 am and won’t go down until 8:38 in the evening, giving you about 15 hours of daylight.

In Kabul, Afghanistan, there will be mostly sunny weather, but it’s cold, with a high of 34 degrees and a low of 15.  The sunrise and sunset are a lot like the Northstate, rising a little before 7 am and setting around 5 pm .

Way to the north and east of Afghanistan, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia you won’t see the sun until almost 9 am, with sunset about five.  You’ll experience a mix of sun and clouds, but your high temperature will be a bone chilling 10 degrees and your overnight low minus 13 degrees fahrenheit.

At the other end of the globe, at Base Esperanza, Antarctica, it’s summer, but that means a high of only 37 degrees, low of 30, with rain mixed with snow.  Nevertheless, the sun comes up at 5:30 am and does not set until 2:04 am the next day, giving you almost 20 hours of sunshine.

In South America, you’re also enjoying the long days of summer, where Santiago, Chile, will have a lovely high of 77 degrees, a low of 48.  Rio will be even warmer, with a high of 88 and a low of 70, but you can expect Thundershowers.  One continent to the east, you can also expect thunder showers in Johannesburg, South Africa,  with high of 84 and a low of 62.

Back in the northern hemisphere, Beijing, China can expect cloudy skies, with a high of only 37 degrees and a low of 14.  Closer to the equator, but still in the northern hemisphere, Hanoi, Vietnam will be mostly sunny with a high of 59 and a low of 55.  You’re getting almost 12 hours of sunshine in Hanoi, with the days and nights of just about equal length.

And in Hawaii, USA, you also experience equal days and nights, about 11 ½ hours of sun. And because of its proximity to the equator, Hilo, where Susan’s brother, Mike lives, you’ll utmost in mellowness, a high of 73 and a low of 72, clear skies with a chance of misty rain.

Elsewhere in the United States, in the deep south, Eclectic, Alabama will be partly cloudy with a high of 57 and a low of 53

While in Deadhorse, Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle, where our daughter-in-law’s father works, the temperature is icy cold, with a low of 5 degrees farenheit and a high of only 10. The skies will be partly cloudy, but in terms of sunshine, Larry cannot expect a sunrise until next January 19—it’s dark 24 hours a day in Deadhorse.

You probably know from watching Monday night football that it’s mighty cold on the east coast of the U.S. and in Washington, D.C. they received a record 23 inch snowfall over the weekend.  But in sunny California, San Diego solstice weather is bright and sunny, a bit chilly, perhaps, with a high of 57 and a low of 45, but warming up for the PGA golf tour at Torrey Pines in a few weeks.

And lastly, as we complete our survey of the incredible range of temperatures and sunshine on the planet, here in the Northstate, on the valley floor we can expect sunny weather tomorrow, with an overnight low right at the freezing point, 32 degres, warming to a semi-comfortable 52 degrees by midday.  Of course, just a few miles up the road in the foothills, there is a freeze likely with a low of 28 and a high of 48.  And a few miles beyond that, in Lassen Park,  look for lows between 12 and 22 degrees, northeast winds 10-20 mph, with gusts up to 35.  Tomorrow the high will be 41, but those same winds will make it feel totally brisk.

Prose and Poetry About Winter

We are drawing on a compilation by poet Michael P. Garofalo of Valley Spirit Center, Red Bluff, on his Green Way Blog.    http://www.egreenway.com/months/winter.htm

Of the cold and dark of winter, Ruth Stout writes:  ”There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you …..  In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.”

Henry Mitchell says: ”Turn down the noise.  Reduce the speed.  Be like the somnolent bears, or those other animals that slow down and almost die in the cold season.  Let it be the way it is.  The  magic is there in its power.”

Dame Edith Sitwell agrees: “Winter is the time for comfort – it is the time for home.”

A 9^th Century Irish poem reads:

“The stag bells, winter snows, summer has gone

Wind high and cold, the sun low, short its course

The sea running high.

Deep red the bracken; its shape is lost;

The wild goose has raised its accustomed cry,

Cold has seized the birds’ wings;

Season of ice, this is my news.”

George Meredith writes of the winter night sky:

“Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive

Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.

It is a night to make the heavens our home

More than the nest whereto apace we strive.

Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,

In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.

They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:

The living throb in me, the dead revive.

Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath,

Life glistens on the river of the death.

It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,

Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs

Of radiance, the radiance enrings:

And this is the soul’s haven to have felt.”

Winter in the High Sierra has also been a time of mortality. Many of us know a little of the ill fated Donner Party in 1848, but few know the full details.  Here’s the story as retold  www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk: Warning: This story does describe some of the episodes involving cannibalism, which has brought the Donner Party such infamy. Read the full story at:   www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk.  We also highly recommend reading the classic history of the Donner Party, George Stewart’s Ordeal by Hunger. It is also well worth a trip to the Donner Lake State Park museum, which documents the Donner party. There you can visit some of the sites where the cabin’s stood and look at a statue commemorating the Donners—that statue has a fourteen-foot base, which is the estimated level of snow at Donner lake that fateful winter of 1846.

Here’s a poem by Christina Rosetti’s poem, now the lyrics to a carol:

“In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago.”

In this next reading, Alice Walker helps us think about the earth as a whole, a place that humankind has sadly exploited, but a place where a spirit of Ecotopianism can help us not only survive, but live in harmony with nature.  This essay is entitled, “The Universe Responds, Or, How I Learned We Can Have Peace on Earth.” You can find it in At Home on the Earth: Becoming Native to Our Place, edited by David Landis Barnhill (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999, pp. 208-12).

And in the next group of readings, we focus on the Garden in Winter:

Here’s another poem, this about the garden throughout the year, by pre-Raphelite Christina Rosetti

“January cold and desolate;

February dripping wet;

March wind ranges;

April changes;

Birds sing in tune

To flowers of May,

And sunny June

Brings longest day;

In scorched July

The storm-clouds fly,

Lightning-torn;

August bears corn,

September fruit;

In rough October

Earth must disrobe her;

Stars fall and shoot

In keen November;

And night is long

And cold is strong

In bleak December.”

Barbara Winkler reminds us that in December:  ”Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a  miracle … a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a  bud straining to unfurl.  And the anticipation nurtures our dream.”

And Winkler’s dream is echoed by Edna O’Brien, who writes:  ”In a way Winter is the real Spring – the time when the inner things  happen, the resurgence of nature.”

Romanic poet John Keats writes:

“Shed no tear – O, shed no tear!

The flower will bloom another year.

Weep no more – O, weep no more!

Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.”

While an anonymous poet reminds us that California is different from many places, for:

“Still in bloom–

California flowers dance

to winter song”

Rosalie Muller Wright observes in Sunset Magazine:  ”January is the quietest month in the garden.  …  But just because it looks quiet doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.  The soil, open to the sky, absorbs the pure rainfall while microorganisms convert tilled-under fodder into usable nutrients for the next crop of plants.  The feasting earthworms tunnel along,   aerating the soil and preparing it to welcome the seeds and bare roots to come.”

In Maine, Katherine White writes of snowbound times:  ”From December to March, there are for many of us three gardens – the garden outdoors, the garden of pots and bowls in the house, and the garden of the mind’s eye.”

Writing in 1895, Canon Ellacombe also spoke of gardents in the memory: “And these memories and associations that our flowers give us are   independent of seasons or of age.  They come to us as well in autumn and winter, in spring and summer; and as to age, the older we get the more, from the very nature of things, do these memories increase and multiply.”

Katherine White talks of another form of mental gardening in winter:  ”As I write, snow is falling outside my Maine window, and indoors all around me half a hundred garden catalogues are in bloom.”

And Hal Borland agrees:  ”There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter.  One is the January thaw.  The other is the seed catalogues.”

In his book, The Sensuous Garden, Monty Don, explains:  ”Winter is the season dominated by bare soil: the whole gardening cycle begins with the care and preparation of the earth during winter   so that it will feed plants the following year.  One of the things I enjoy about digging (and there are lots of things I enjoy about it) is the smell of the earth that is released by the spade cutting in and  lifting clods that have been buried for a year.  Not only does the  soil itself have a real scent, but the roots of the crop or plant – even weed – that has been growing there will also contribute to the  mix, creating something new out of the vague remnants of last season’ garden.

And Ruth Pitter writes of digging in her poetry collection, The Diehards:

“We go, in winter’s biting wind,

On many a short-lived winter day,

With aching back but willing mind

To dig and double dig the clay.”

Shakespeare, too, teaches appreciation of the winter moment:

“At Christmas, I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May’s newfangled mirth;

But like each thing that in season grows.”

And his contemporary, Francis Bacon says:  ”There ought to be Gardens for all Months in the year, in which,  severally, things of Beauty may be then in season.”

In his 16^th century poem, Ode to the West Wind, John Davies calls on the winter winds to bring us spring:

“O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth.”

And Anne Bradstreet says simply:  ”If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.”

And we close our celebration of the winter solstice with this poem by California poet Ernest Trejo, from the California Humanities Council’s anthology: Highway 99: A Literary Journey through California’s Great Central Valley.

Autumn’s End

It begins when the TV mentions the name of my street,

Saying in passing that the woman next door has died.

Yes, the one whose name I never knew, the name

That even now escapes me. I will watch the leaves from her ash trees pile up all winter.

Now deer start to come down from the high country

To a place between snow and this valley lost in fog.

And my shaggy dog scuttles between rooms.

Then there’s the ants. When winter stumbles on them

They go under into their caves, tunnels,

And immense corridors.

And what happened to mosquitoes? Where have they gone with all the blood collected?

Now there’s a long peace in corners and basements

Where we won’t dare to step in,

Black widows nest there with their young.

Outside my window a few leaves hang on.

Doubting so many things I wait for winter.

Watergrass is sprouting everywhere, even on the ground where the nameless woman hides from winter.

Playlist for Ecotopia #65 Observing Winter