people of faith engaging creation and justice
The Memorial Day deluge in Colorado Springs, 1935
Just as Memorial Day grills are firing up all across the country, here’s some more doomsday evidence that massive inundation of millions of homes and the mass extinction or migration of hundreds of millions of people is virtually inevitable within the next 50-100 years. Quite possibly within my lifetime.
The UN told us years ago in a nonpartisan study called Livestock’s Long Shadow that
“Cattle-rearing generates more global warming greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than transportation.”
In case you missed it… animal agriculture contributes more emissions than do automobiles, trains, and planes combined. Further, the so-called livestock sector
“produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.”
Happy cows — if any there be –, local cows, organic cows, grassfed cows: they all produce these emissions. (It’s humorous even to say that, given that we’re talking about methane here, but the consequences are anything but).
As far as I can see, there is no “good” milk, meat, or cheese, at least from the point of view of this issue. We need to learn to grill justly. And soon.
Having grown up near grandparents and cousins (&c.) who farmed, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to return to my ancestors’ farming ways. My first thought every spring is that the daffodils have bloomed and need picking, even though I haven’t lived near those daffodils for years. And around this time of year, my mind turns to dewberries, blackberries, cherries, figs…all long-lost friends, and it would sure be nice to reconnect with them.
Full disclosure, though, that part of what drives my reveries me here is not just an idle Golden-Age-seeking “return to roots” mentality but looking forward, as well, with an uneasiness about how dizzyingly far removed we’ve climbed from our foundations when it comes to food: we speak of “farm to fork,” but at the end of the day we pat ourselves on the back for making that distance fewer than 100 miles.
Enter the CSA! We were super-stoked to pick up the first installment of nature’s bounty at the shiny, hip town center that houses our local farmer’s market. Our anticipation was partially related to delay on the CSA farm’s part, because various issues regarding weather–you know, the seasons–had prevented the first crop from coming in by two weeks. (Just like with everything else, the farm reminded us, “girls rule” is the rule when it comes to Mother Nature.) And our anticipation was certainly rewarded: dark orange carrots, beautiful lettuces, tiny green onions (I just cooked & ate them all), and grocery-store-fine broccoli.
But what struck me most was the way that the goodness was conveyed… .
We received our CSA share in a plastic bag reusable, biodegradable, compostable bioliner (meant for us to reuse, biodegrade, or compost) contained in a box (to be returned) off of the back of a truck. Everything was washed and sorted and stackable. It was almost as if–or rather, it OBVIOUSLY WAS the case that–the farm we had chosen to sponsor wanted to make everything look as fair, as well-regulated, and as convenient as possible.
This sort of presentation is gratifying to a city dweller with too much clutter and not enough space. (In our heart of hearts we really all want to live like Kanye.) And indeed on that very same day I ran across Urban Farm Magazine, which taught readers how to grow chili peppers at home. What seems missing, so far, however–and, I suspect, will be even if we visit the source of our food–is the sense of mystery acknowledged and so quickly swept aside by our CSA’s quip about besting Mother Nature.
Children (like we were) in rural areas experience this mystery as wonder or at least a sense of closeness, when they pause to think of it at all; adults who have to put food on the table for their families no doubt experience it, on occasion, as fear. But there’s no mystery at all, I fear, in a cardboard box. You can’t unload the sublime from the back of a truck.
it takes a village
In order to advance our discussion here and in the nonvirtual world, we need more discussion partners. We’ve all taken a bit of a hiatus in the late spring (with Susan in Vietnam, etc.) but it would be worth considering how to proceed.
To this end, I offer for your consideration…. The Frugal Goddess blog. The goddess has thousands of fans and loads of comments, which she has earned by offering homespun (and often very useful) bits of advice here on wordpress about how to organize and manage a household in a frugal and just fashion. (And by synchronizing her posts on Facebook: ahem, Susan?).
I was drawn to her blog by the much-commented post on food waste (one of our Greenblade goals is to talk about food disposal as well as cultivation and preparation), but the whole thing is worth a look, partly just by way of lowering expectations on ourselves. (Over-educated perfectionist wordsmithies, we.)
Goddess if you are checking your back-tracks to these links, please bless our blogs on your way out…
(Closer to our neck of the woods is another frugality blogger (who also seems able to operate about ten other blogs at the same time): the Freaky Frugalite. I wonder what part of Upstate New York she’s in.)
For weeks, I was looking forward to the Albany hydrofracking rally on May 2nd. A friend who works in state government said that rallies were getting more common. “Does that mean that legislators are starting to tune us out?” I asked. No, he answered, but nor are we changing anyone’s mind. People who are against it are against it. And people who are for it are for it. For a moment, I was deflated. But then — there are lots of people for whom this issue isn’t the deal-breaker I think it is. That means that they’re there to be converted. (She thinks, strategically.)
That in mind, I got ready for my road trip. A road-trip buddy was recruited. Clever sign ideas were brainstormed and put onto paper. A proper-for-the-anticipated-68-degree-weather-yet-still-cute outfit was chosen. I told my co-workers where I was going and asked if I’d loose my semi-Federal-employee job if I got arrested, and enjoyed their looks of “oh, I didn’t think Elizabeth would do something like that.”
The rally attendees about half-filled the green we were standing on, which is overlooked by State governmental buildings. Would Governor Cuomo come out, I wondered? (A girl can hope that she’s there the moment he decides that he won’t be able to win the presidency without our 31 electoral votes and will move to protect the whole state’s water supply.) We listened to speakers, we clapped to songs, Food Not Bombs handed out free peanut butter sandwiches and someone in an Elmo costume told us not to frack with kids (right on, Elmo!) My dress proved to be a bad decision (wind + a dress = I can’t hold up those signs I worked so hard on.)
We lined up for the march to a gas company’s office, and when we arrived, with people peering out their windows (I waved, nobody waved back) a representative came out to “talk.” Since I first learned about fracking, the people of towns that have had hydrofracking have been my heros. Their homes are now worthless, their health impacted, their faith in their government and in legal protection shaken… And they take time out from work, endure threats, speak in public (God knows I couldn’t do that last one) to try to prevent it from happening elsewhere, and to maybe get some acknowledgement of their ordeal. So it was an almost holy opportunity when someone from Dimock, Pennsylvania (the wind was against me, I couldn’t hear his name or see him) stood in front of this man with a Mason jar of fracked water and asked for an explanation.
Even as the crowd pressed in on him (a few feet separated him from us and there were no cops nearby that I saw) and I strained to hear the exchange, what struck me was how sad he looked. Maybe it was a feeling of being threatened that I saw in his face, maybe it was concealed disdain – but what I saw at that moment was sadness. I don’t think he wants to leave nothing good behind when he’s done drilling. I don’t think he wants a hundred people chanting “more lies, no surprise!” like got started after a few moments of him talking. If he’s sad, he has good reason to be. If he’s not, why the heck isn’t he? An 80-some-odd-years-old woman was in the middle of everything, her “stop fracking!” sign in her lap as she was pushed in a wheelchair by a fabulously awesome assistant. She could have slapped some sense into him. But he didn’t listen to us, and we didn’t listen to him. This isn’t something I’m happy about, but it is what it is.
I’ll link here to the best part of the day- a reminder that hydrofracking is a reflection of a perverted relationship to the earth and with each other, that there are safe solutions to the energy crisis that already exist, and that there are more people who realize this than who don’t. Take a look. And next time there’s a rally and you’re my road-trip buddy, remind me not to wear a dress.
