climate change – Peaceful Reader

Happy Earth Day!

The world is still sheltering down, trying to stay safe from Covid-19 yet climate change is still the biggest issue we need to face head on. 50 years ago today people showed up and proclaimed their concern over environmental problems at the time. Read this article from The Hill which talks about how we can get more people mobilized around climate change. Most of us are together in our earnestness to #StaySafeatHome and the same can happen with climate change. There are many Earth Day activities taking place around the world usually and this year is different as you will have to find ways to celebrate solo. The Earth Day organization has a live event happening as we speak until 8pm tonight with many other ways to get involved included on their website and the National Parks Service has many suggestions.

I think many people at home have new skills emerging which can help our connection to the earth. I see lots of posts on social media about baking bread, creating meals together, lots of walks, more downtime together and maybe some of those new learned habits will carry over. If people are willing to hunker down to stay healthy this potentially could lead to be as concerned over the environment. What new environmental crisis will follow? Instead of just waiting idly by for it to hit us; now is the time to get on board. I know I will talk a walk today in one of our many local nature centers. I’m going to follow along with the Live event on the Earth Day website and just try to be more informed. I want to go look at plants to start gardening but I have many seed packets leftover from previous years and I’m going to plant those first. I’ll get to the greenhouse at some point but I really am trying to stay home as much as possible. Find a way to celebrate with family and friends even just by discussing it. Keeping that awareness alive is most important right now. Science matters.

Let's get political!!

One day last Spring while folding laundry I channel surfaced looking for something to grab my attention. I found this guy that I didn’t know at all speaking with Trevor Noah, one of my favorite people, and I stopped to listen and was so moved I had to know more. If you are on the fence or simply need to know more here is that interview:

In Iowa as in other caucus states we are inundated with candidates, their messages, their meetings, and their staffers. It’s hard to get away from yet as I canvassed the other day I met more than a few people who had never caucused ever and who really had no interest in candidates that were running. This was a little shocking to me except I’ve always been interested. Politicians have everything to do with our daily lives even though people may not realize it. I think this presidency has a least been a much needed sometimes brutal wake-up call on how influential a candidate can be. Think of the tidal wave of inhumanity caused by the person in the White House now. From immigration to climate change this person continuously is on the wrong side of history.

Mayor Pete for me is the ideal presidential candidate; he is extremely smart, well-spoken, balanced, with a healthy love of country that does not bypass the rest of the world. I believe he will be a great president for all Americans because he has a concern for everyone. He is empathetic and I see this at events when he speaks one-on-one with people and with how he weights issues. His youth appeals to me as I think that is what we need to move us forward in a big way. I encourage you to look into Mayor Pete if you have any hope to change our current presidential situation. I have in the past been on the Bernie bus and at one time was an Elizabeth Warren fan; at this present moment though I believe Pete is the one to win and change our entire political climate. And we need that. We don’t need same old, same old. We need brighter and better. If I’ve nudged you at all please take a look at Mayor Pete’s website and let me know your thoughts.

Hello April

We are happy you are here! I love all the seasons for a variety of different reasons and Spring has special qualities as the earth wakes back up sending green shoots out everywhere. It’s about coming back to life after the long winter deep sleep. And yet even though it feels like Spring today with birds chirping, warm weather mixed with a little rain ~ Groovy Girl doing homework outside at the patio table ~ we have to be ready for anything as last year we had a heavy snow fall right in the middle of April. I’ll wait until May 1st to take off my snow tires.

In my last two posts I’ve put my thoughts out there about garbage bags and the need to find one that composts everything inside of it. I want to take this idea one step farther and propose that all new plastic items be made out of plastic that already exists. I am a huge recycler of everything the recycling center says that I can recycle. My family and research shows that our recycling program is a bit broken. Landfills are overflowing and people all around the globe produce way too much trash. Too many single use items everywhere. So my proposal means that all single use items like those stupid crinkly plastic bottles should be universally created from existing plastic already out there. This would give purpose to recycling again.

People could get paid for bringing in pounds of plastic collected instead of it ending up in our waterways and eventually the ocean. This reuse idea would use far less petroleum and while factories would need to restructure to be able to reuse the plastic instead of creating new ~ it would be worth it because there would be a constant influx of old going to make new. And I still think some plastic items just need to go like plastic grocery bags. Kudos to cities that have already banned them and stores that encourage you to use what you have or what they offer like boxes. Perfect. I would decree this if I were to be elected president or Queen.

Oh, it just started to pour outside and I love that sound. That is a sound of Spring ~ hopefully not enough to cause any floods. Groovy Girl and I are on just a major rush of trying to find healthy ways to live our life without being earth destroyers. She’s interested in finding sustainable and recycled clothes. It’s just good to think about ways we can all be more earth-friendly.

I spent the weekend out of town in the major metropolis of Davenport, part of what is known as the Quad Cities. Groovy Girl had a dance competition event on Saturday. We found a good Asian place to eat and had a lot of good mama/daughter time. I had fun watching all the dancing but it also gives me a good chance to read. I am almost finished with Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Wow. This was my Book of the Month Club selection for March and if this is a sign of what’s to come I am very happy. This novel is so good and fun to read. I have about 3 friends in mind to pass it on to after my husband finishes it. It’s a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll so it isn’t for everyone but for me, it took me places I hadn’t thought about for years. So beautiful.

Happy peaceful week everyone!

June book reviews for YOU (happy reading)

I’ve only read three books this month. They were really good books though. Technically I finished four but the Bill Browder book, The Red Notice, was a crossover from May. I’ll still tell you about it though.

1. The Red Notice; a true story of high finance, murder and one man’s fight for justice by Bill Browder (2015): Born into a communist-leaning family Browder grows up seeing what it is like to rebel against the norm but to rebel even further Browder chose a career path profession just to annoy his dad; he picks commerce. The first half of the book Browder tells his family story and how he rose to be the first major investor of Western money into Russia and the second half of the book deals with the downfall of this great plan and the imprisonment and eventual death of his friend and lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. I enjoyed this memoir, even though I thought Browder wasn’t the greatest story teller. Reading this book gave me a clear mindset on why Putin felt the need to tangle himself into U.S. elections and will continue to torment and push buttons just because he’s found a way.

2. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (2003): Tristan read this years ago and devoured the series. I’ve always wanted to read it but who knows why? I didn’t pick it up until this summer after 2 teachers raved about it to me after a teacher meeting. They were shocked that I hadn’t read it; That was the push I needed so I brought it home that very last week of school. I loved it. I dig fantasy and this book was no exception. Eragon, Brom, Saphira, Murtagh and Arya were all interesting characters and I look forward to reading the next two in the series. Even though Paolini was young when he wrote this I think it stands the test of time.

3. The Girl who drank from the moon by Kelly Barnhill (2016): I loved this fairy tale {and that gorgeous cover art} in which Xan and Luna save themselves and change the world together. Centuries ago a world was created by evil people and the unwitting townsfolk believed the stories that were told to them about an evil witch who needs a sacrificial baby each year so as not to destroy the town. Xan is this witch but she rescues the babies and takes them to new families because she thinks they’ve been abandoned. And so it goes for many years until one family fights back and one mother doesn’t give up hope. A good reminder, from a fairy tale world, to not believe all that you are told! Read more great things about this book at NYT, EW, and the Washington Post.

4. American War by Omar El Akkad (2017): I read a NYT article about great new dystopian books and this one was at the top of the list. Like fantasy, I’m a big fan of the altered worlds created in good dystopian novels. This one lacks the gruesome gore of The Hunger Games but certainly lays out how a fight over energy and ravaged ecosystems could separate the North from the South in a way that causes longterm war within our own border. Read other great reviews here on NPR, SF Chronicle, and the Washington Post. I’m not quite finished with this one yet and plan to finish today.

In Madison I did purchase several books and I have stack of books to read for school. What are you reading this summer?

Book Club Book + Salad recipe

We recently gathered together on a snowy Monday night and discussed Flight Behavior (2012) by one of my favorite writers, Barbara Kingsolver. Our book club was whittled down to just a hardy few as the weather had taken a turn for the worse mid-afternoon. I braved the cold and the icy roads just to talk about this book but also because I’d made an amazing salad to share. We go potluck at these gatherings and I hadn’t been the only one thinking salad or healthy. We shared a brussels sprout salad, a beet salad, a delicious spinach dip, and a light-tasting 5-flavor pound cake. Our plates were pretty as we sat to discuss the book.

Flight Behavior follows Dellarobia Turnbow as she picks her way through her unhappy marriage. One of the symptoms of her sadness is to seek out small-time crush-worthy men in her rural Tennessee community. At the opening she is headed into the woods to meet up with her latest crush, the telephone man, to see if they want to take things one step further. On the way up the mountain that sits right on her family’s property to meet him she stops to breathe and is overwhelmed by a phenomena~she can’t tell if it is fire but something strange has the mountain top trees all lit up. This oddity gives her pause to change her mind and head back down the mountain away from the sin she was thinking of committing.

Dellarobia is a fascinating character that grows immensely during the course of her story. Kingsolver truly is a master storyteller weaving an array of unique characters into a timely and thought-provoking event. What Dellarobia glimpsed on the mountaintop was Monarch butterflies all come to roost on her husband’s land. The migration of this butterfly swoops through Mexico every year for thousands of years and this year they didn’t make it there.

Today on this bitterly cold day I’m not going to make a crack about how global warming can’t be true as it is freezing outside! We are by our very existence altering the course of our earth by the products we use, clear-cutting whole mountaintops of trees, car emissions, food production, energy, and coal plants. It is taking a toll on our home; our world and this fact comes home to roost for Dellarobia as she watches and learns more about this magnificent butterfly.

I loved the climate conversation this book brings to light but on a more simple note Dellarobia’s relationship with her children takes on a magical quality for me. She begins as a mother who is pained by her son Preston’s constant questioning of the universe, making her slip out the back door for a “secret” smoke. She loves her children at all stages throughout but her appreciation for their natural childish qualities readjusts Dellarobia’s thinking. As the butterflies transform her and remind her of what she can still be she emerges as a mother who stokes her own son’s curiosity fueling it with thoughts, theories, and books to pour over. Dellarobia looks at even the little Cordelia, still in diapers, with new and glowing eyes. Hope has sprung and Dellarobia sees a future for her children and herself.

The book is breath-taking and yet I have other Kingsolver stories that I love more-that’s how talented she is. Read NPR’s review.

The salad:
adapted from Yoga Journal (Feb. 2014)

Feel-Good Quinoa Pilaf

1 cup quinoa
1/2 head radicchio, cored and thinly sliced
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 T extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup dried tart cherries (expensive-could substitute dried cranberries)
1/4 cup pistachios (shelled, of course)
3 T fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 tsp sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

1. Put quinoa in a fine mesh strainer, and rinse well under cold water. In a saucepan, bring two cups of water to a boil over high heat. Add quinoa, and reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer until grains are tender and water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Transfer to a large bowl and fluff with a fork to separate grains.

2. Add radicchio, vinegar, olive oil, cherries, pistachios, and parsley to bowl, and stir to mix well. Season with salt and pepper. Serve warm or at room temperature. Delicious!

I made a double batch for book club because we have twelve members and since only half of them showed up I had half a bowl left for lunch during the week. My husband tried it and loved it also.

from Yoga Journal “with melatonin-rich dried cherries, pistachios, which contain B-6, and protein-rich quinoa, this easy weeknight pilaf has nutreints to help you sleep soundly, keep your memory sharp, and maintain healthy muscles.”

Book + Salad = healthy humans
Have a peaceful day.

Another HOT book to explain climate change…Winston of Churchill; One Bear's Battle Against Global Warming

by Jean Davies Okomoto

illustrated by Jeremiah Trammell

(2007)

Churchill’s a large great white bear who” hunts the Hudson Bay near the town of Churchill in the Canadian province of Manitoba.” He’s obviously like the polar bear president because all the other polar bears listen to him as he explains why their icy habitat is melting more and more every year. He gets them all fired up; “We will fight for ice,” boomed Winston. “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight on the hills. We shall never surrender.” (9) Yeah! The bears are filled with hope and excitement that change will come. Except one little bear in the back asks two important questions…”we don’t live on an island” and “who are we fighting?”

Winston explains that one, he was speaking metaphorically about the island and two, people are melting the ice with their cars and smoke stacks and deforestation practices. The whole time Wiinston is speaking he is sucking on a big old cigar. See, even Winston needs to make a change and Winston’s wife isn’t going to let him forget it. She won’t participate in the demonstrations he has planned until Winson quits smoking! As she points out the cigar is an “instrument of pollution.” (17) Eventually the polar bears protest in front of all the nice tourists that come to see them and hopefully, they take the message to heart.

Each of us, while we try to be eco-smart, aren’t perfect and could probably do just one more thing to prevent climate change. While I read this book I couldn’t help but be reminded of my latest favorite commercial. I don’t watch very much television but I think this one came on during the Super Bowl and I fell in love. with the polar bear. in the Leaf commercial. Do you know the one?

Don’t let the cuteness of the polar bears detract from their message…we all need to work hard to be earth-friendly so there’s less melting, less pollution, less habitat loss. While writing this I read an article at National Resources Defense Council’s website and watched this video about our changing weather. I know lots of people who don’t believe in climate change but for me as an environmentalist I don’t know how we can’t be effecting the earth at an alarming rate with all we pour into and take out of our one amazing planet.