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Another reason to consider the meat we eat

Friday, February 12th, 2010

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Recently I was hashing over with a family member about the reasons people are vegetarians, or vegans or mostly veggie. We agreed that people get off the meat, for a variety of reasons, often complex and intertwined, regardless of whether they’re just cutting way back or drawing a hard line deep in vegan territory.

steak

(Image: FoodandWaterWatch.org.)

I proposed that health reasons were the paramount motivator, given the United States’ high rate of heart disease, still the number one killer here. Not to mention our obesity issues. And I was about to further dominate the conversation when my companion blurted that he thought more people were primarily motivated by animal rights concerns, followed by health reasons. Vegetarians think that way, he said.

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Green campuses, future generations and cap and trade

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Green news is just streaming out these days, like a ticker tape parade, but without the paper waste.

Carleton College, in Northfield, Minn.

Carleton College, in Northfield, Minn.

First on my notes, the College Sustainability Report Card people have issued their 2010 list of schools making A’s for green initiatives. Actually, no campus has earned an A yet, but 27 are  getting A-’s for a range of innovative efforts. My native Minnesota has propelled Carleton College, Macalester College and the University of Minnesota into the top ranks. Uffda, that’s exciting.

Depending on your roots and alma mater, you’ll likely find a campus to cheer on. The sheer diversity of activities being launched — from eco-peer training to building retrofits to food co-ops — makes our mouth water for local food and a pesticide-free place to eat it. Kudos to the Gen Y’ers and administrations behind all this.

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Let the sun shine in: See our new solar tunnel

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

By Barbara Kessler

I’ll save the puns and bragging about what a bright idea it was to illuminate a dark interior room with a solar tube. I’ll just cut right to the details of how the process worked, for those who want to know.

Home office before solar tunnel

Home office before solar tunnel; a dark spot

First, a couple guys, or one guy, (or it could be a woman, but the two companies we got bids from sent guys) poke around in the attic above the approximate place where the solar tube will have to travel to carry outside light through the attic and into your dim and dreary space below.

In our case, the installer we chose, a fellow named Juan who has been putting in solar tubes for more than a decade, immediately went to work advising us on the positioning of the tube and assuring us that the light would be sufficiently diffused. He saw that we would be limited by the placement of the furnace in the attic above. But he found a way to angle the tube past a beam and some duct work, so that we could have the light installed where we needed it.

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Copenhagen Accord disappoints many, some praise hard-won first step

Friday, December 18th, 2009
Protest outside the Bella Centre, (Photo: Ainhoa Goma, Oxfam)

Protest outside the Bella Centre, (Photo: Ainhoa Goma, Oxfam)

By Barbara Kessler

Reaction to the Copenhagen Accord from environmental and humanitarian groups blasted through Copenhagen like an icy wind this evening, with several groups expressing bitter disappointment, and decrying Obama for abandoning his pledge to fight climate change.

Others, however, praised the forward motion of the summit’s final day, when President Obama and other heads of state reached an agreement to try to hold global carbon emissions to a level that holds climate change to two degree increase.

Collected here are some of the responses to Obama’s announcement of the agreement this evening in Copenhagen.

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Buy nothing, and reuse something

Monday, November 30th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler

We sat out “Black Friday” this year. It’s becoming a trend at our house. We focused instead on gathering the family for an activity. In this case, we went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox, which, as Roald Dahl and Wes Anderson fans, we couldn’t miss.

The shopper (Photo: Do the Green Thing.)

The shopper (Photo: Do the Green Thing.)

Without ruining it for anyone who hasn’t read the story and plans to see the film, let’s just say Mr. Fox has an Achilles heel. Which got me thinking about our American Achilles heel: Shopping. We get such a thrill out of finding that perfect “thing.” The problem is, we’re addicted. We keep going for the bottle, or rather the cash register, at shorter intervals, seeking that wonderful feeling of …what? Fulfillment? Satisfaction? Contentment? Completion of the Hunt?

I recently blogged about how I wasn’t convinced we should boycott Black Friday. It seemed to me to be unfair to dictate to working families who could use a price break. Shouldn’t they be free to find a good deal on the gifts they are inevitably going to buy for Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever? I still feel that way. Black Friday, handled responsibly, can be a boon to someone on a budget.

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Dreaming of an Energy Smart Christmas tree

Monday, November 16th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler

Remember Chevy Chase’s escapades with a ladder and those strings of outdoor lights in Christmas Vacation? Apparently many Americans would have been happy to help him kick that plastic Santa to death.

A new survey commissioned by GE of 1,050 Americans found that dealing with those tangled, twisty lights appears to be one of the Christmas season’s biggest hassles.

LEDsOf the people who plan to decorate with lights (870), a majority (56 percent) cited untangling last year’s lights as the season’s “biggest hassle”. Others noted that stringing lights on the house or in the yard (47 percent) and stringing lights on the tree (39 percent) as the season’s biggest non-joyous headache.

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Hung out to dry

Saturday, October 31st, 2009
My laundry

My laundry

By Barbara Kessler

Here’s a movie you never thought they’d make.

Coming to the big, or maybe small, screen near you, a film…about…laundry!

With a short opening feature on watching paint dry.

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When green is bad

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

By Barbara Kessler

This summer as I flew over Minneapolis, I looked down fondly at the chain of lakes that beautifies this tidy, progressive city. My second hometown.

I noticed the surrounding land was lush and green. And so were many of the lakes. Wait a minute: The lakes themselves were more green than blue, ringed in pea-soup of algae that was closing in fast on the open water at the middle. This algae-green, sickly green mess set off alarm bells.

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A plea from afar: ‘Our country will not exist’

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler

Many leaders gathered for the Climate Summit in New York this week.

One stood out, forcing us to glimpse a melancholy future in which those who will be hit first and hardest by global change cry out to the world for help. Shades of the Holocaust.

President Mohammad Nasheed of the Maldives, where 350,000 residents stand to lose their country to sea level rises that are certain to occur as the poles melt, is best heard in his own words:

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