green your world

Frank Rich, writing in this morning’s New York Times, says:

On the morning after a black man won the White House, America’s tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy.

Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. We felt good not only because we had breached a racial barrier as old as the Republic. Dawn also brought the realization that we were at last emerging from an abusive relationship with our country’s 21st-century leaders. The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place—in cities all over America.

Had I not witnessed such scenes of revelry, I’d suggest that perhaps Mr. Rich was indulging in more than a bit of hyperbole. But watching ordinary Americans dancing in the streets, singing the national anthem, cheering, chanting and even weeping, I was personally reminded of the end of The Return of the Jedi, when the Emperor has finally been vanquished and the Republic restored.

I think it’s hard to overestimate how significant this win is. Come Inauguration Day, President-elect Obama’s team is preparing to overturn 200 executive orders signed by President Bush, many of them related to his administration’s blatant contempt for science.

I am optimistic right now because President-elect Obama comes across as conscientious and well-informed. He knows that we have serious problems, but also that we’re in this together. Take, for instance this comment about climate change, off-handedly cited in Newsweek’s post-election wrap-up (emphasis mine):

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, “I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I'm thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.”

For me what makes Obama’s election so gratifying is that he understands the need for big solutions to complex problems—particularly in regard to climate change and sustainability—but that he is both deliberative and thoughtful in his decision-making process.

Take, for instance Michael Pollan’s recent letter about food policy to the presidental candidates, Farmer in Chief. In his thesis, Pollan reasons that the health of our food supply is a national security issue, and that the way we eat today is inexorably tied to a triumvirate of significant challenges; energy independence, healthcare and climate change.

When asked in a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, if either campaign had responded to the article, Pollan answered:

“Well, I haven’t heard from them personally, but one of the campaigns’ transition team did ask me through an intermediary if—you know the article is 8,000 words—could I prepare a one or two page summary for them. And my response to that was ‘Don’t you have staffers who do that?’

The reason I wrote 8,000 words is because that’s what I needed to tell the story. If I could have done it in one or two pages I would have.”

Pollan never indicates, and Gross never asks, which campaign requested the summary. But we now know that President-elect Obama has read the article, because he cites it in a Time Magazine interview with Joe Klein:

“I was just reading an article in The New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That's just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.”

And what was the McCain campaign’s response? Why derision of course:

“In a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign [responding to the interview], Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, called it ‘ludicrous to blame farmers for obesity and pollution.’

Said Grassley: “It shows that Sen. Obama doesn't have a very good foundation in American agriculture. And people in agriculture need to know that if Sen. Obama is going to get his ideas on agriculture from a professor at Cal-Berkeley, they should think twice about what they are voting for.”

So we had one candidate with an understanding of the complexity of our food system, and the effect subsidies have had both our environment and the types of crops that are produced. And we had another candidate who mocked thoughtful commentary on our intertwined energy, food and healthcare challenges in an effort to score cheap political points with farmers.

Thankfully, the more thoughtful candidate won. And I hope that, when inaugurated, President Obama consults with advocates for a variety of sustainability issues. I am heartened that Vice President-elect Biden has long been an Amtrak commuter, as well as its advocate.

I also hope that Obama will consult with former Vice President Al Gore about his climate change initiatives, and take seriously the challenge to create a new electric grid, based on renewable resources, within the next decade.

Now I know there are some who dismiss this goal as outlandish, economically unsound or even impossible, but as President Kennedy expressed when setting his 10-year timetable to reach the moon, we take on such challenges “…not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Having evoked the Kennedy name, while it may only be a wild-eyed fantasy of environmentalists and tree-huggers, it is refreshing to hear Robert Kennedy, Jr. cited as a potential EPA head in an Obama administration.

As Kennedy realized back in 2003, President Bush has not only squandered a terrific opportunity to protect our natural resources over the last eight years, but has, in fact, exacerbated many of our problems.

While I expect that some of President Obama’s initiatives and appointments will disappoint me, and that congressmen—focused on re-election and the whims of special interests—will sometimes thwart progress, as will a conservative, pro-business judiciary, an understanding of our impact on the environment, and the consequences of our choices is an important first step.

I don’t think all of those reveling Americans were truly celebrating a libration, but rather, in a shared hope for the promise of tomorrow that this election, and specifically the Obama campaign, represent.

As a vegetarian, you get used to being called self-righteous and preachy. You come to expect that family, friends and dining establishments will somehow feel threatened by your choices, even when you suffer silently through their gleeful lack of accommodation for fear of being labeled self-righteous and preachy.

In that vein, it is somewhat amusing to see chef David Chang of momofuku, addressing himself as “Captain Fucking Pork Bun,” explain that even with the rising costs of meat production, “my restaurants still won't kowtow to vegetarians.” OK. Fine. Whatever.

I get commerce. Sell what you like. Obviously I won’t be eating at momofuku, but Chang’s the wunderkind darling of the foodie mags, and there are enough committed carnivores out there that he’s not going to go out of business by refusing to cook for vegetarians.

But does the guy have to be so damn smug about it? Especially when—acknowledging his depression and hypocrisy—Chang concedes that the rising cost of meat production require a necessary shift in our eating habits:

Let's allow these harsh new realities to force us to do something that Alice Waters has been advocating for decades: Let's finally embrace the truth that food is not something to be taken for granted. As a culture, we need to be more curious about where our food comes from. We need to buy from farmers who are trying to do things the right way. We need to think before we eat.

So Captain Fucking Pork Bun, while I’m sorry you’re a self-important—albeit wildly popular—drama queen, and that cooking without your beloved pork makes you feel like you’re kneeling and touching the ground with your forehead, it seems to me that some vegetarians are, in fact, “curious about where our food comes” from and tend to “think before we eat.”

The August 12^th Freakonomics column in The New York Times asked a quorum of experts to predict the future of the suburbs.

Kunstler’s view is predictably, but somewhat convincingly, bleak:

…American suburbia requires an infinite supply of cheap energy in order to function and we have now entered a permanent global energy crisis that will change the whole equation of daily life. Having poured a half-century of our national wealth into a living arrangement with no future — and linked our very identity with it — we have provoked a powerful psychology of previous investment that will make it difficult for us to let go, change our behavior, and make other arrangements.

Though, living in New Jersey, I also found Thomas E. Antus’s tongue-in-cheek predictions both reasonable and chilling. Antus, the administrator of Freehold Township, describes the state's future:

In 40 years I could see living in the world’s largest city, a megalopolis, extending from New York City to Philadelphia and engulfing all of New Jersey. New Jersey could change the state motto to “The Overdevelopment State.” As we already have more cars per square mile than any other state, we could change the shape of the license plates from a rectangle to the outline of a car.

This reminded me of something that I read a few years ago, that New Jersey is on the verge of a “permanent rush hour” as the state becomes even more densely populated. I can’t help but think of George Lucas’s Coruscant, only without the cool flying cars or the even cooler lightsabers. Unfortunately, the character of the government seems about the same.

The difference between Antus’s gridlocked megalopolis and Kunstler’s ghettoized ruins is dependent, I think, on whether we have in fact reached peak oil capacity, and whether the cost of oil will, again, dramatically rise.

If oil prices stabilize or continue to dip, the recent shift to smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles might be set back. Demand for mass transit will slide and Antus’s prediction of “a traffic light on every single corner,” may yet materialize.

Whether you subscribe to Kunstler’s dystopia, or Antus’s, I think Matthew Yglesias has it exactly right:

Rising gas prices and various other considerations have prompted this increased round of speculation on whether the suburbanization of America will reverse, but the right answer needs to take into account the fact that what policy choices we make will have a strong impact on the course of the future.

I know which candidate’s transportation and energy policies I’m more inclined to trust. Hint: It’s not the guy eager for a land war with Russia.

I think that this should probably be filed under “stating the blindingly obvious,” but when The New York Times runs a story which points out that…

In 1970, the average American ate about 16.4 pounds of food a week, or 2.3 pounds daily. By 2006, the average intake grew by an additional 1.8 pounds a week.

Among other things, that's an extra half pound of fat weekly - mostly from oils and shortening. That doesn't count the fat in the extra quarter pound of meat Americans now eat every seven days.

…is it remotely surprising to read of a new study which suggests that all U.S. adults could be overweight within 40 years?

While throwing out absolutes—like 100%—are probably exaggerated, two-thirds of all American adults are overweight today. And thanks to the western diet and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, things aren't likely to change for the better:

“Genetically and physiologically, it should be impossible” for all U.S. adults to become overweight, said Dr. Lan Liang of the federal government’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, one of the researchers on the study.

However, she told Reuters Health, the data suggest that if the trends of the past 30 years persist, “that is the direction we're going.”

Reading this reminded me of one of this summer’s great films, WALL·E. It may seem absurd to label a cartoon as prescient, but not only has the movie accurately pegged our disposable culture’s disregard for the environment, it seems to have nailed our future selves as well.

I don't think I could describe WALL·E’s frightening dystopia any better than Tobin Hack’s commentary on the film in Plenty. He calls our future selves:

…morbidly obese blobs who spend their monotonous days zooming heavily around on hovering easy chairs, watching private TV screens, and drinking meals-in-a-cup. They can’t walk, and have even forgotten how to interact physically with one another, raising the question of how they’ve been procreating for the past few centuries. Machines take charge of their every need to the point (possibly) of no return.

The movie does treat the future’s fatties with some measure of kindness—a choice I suspect was made to avoid alienating the crowds of overweight Americans watching the film whilst gobbling popcorn by the tub, washed down with their meals-in-a-cup reminiscent slurpees.

I think the reason the story works so well is that for a sci-fi cartoon, it comes across as credible. Apart from a few athletes and overachievers, if everybody is fat by 2048, what will we look like in Wall·E’s 22^nd century? How many additional pounds of food will be we devouring each week?

So, what do we do about it? How do we reverse the trend?

Personally, I like Michael Pollen’s advice: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Jonah Lehrer, at The Frontal Cortex draws attention to a new study, which links personal values to taste. Lehrer explains:

…subjects were asked to rate a variety of sausages. People who scored high on “social authority” - they believed it was important to support people in power - tended to label the “vegetarian” sausage as inferior, even when the vegetarian sausage was actually from a cow. Likewise, people who scored low on “social power values” tended to score the vegan sausage much higher than the beef sausage, even when they were actually eating meat. Instead of judging the food product on its merits, they ended up preferring the product that more closely conformed to their value system.

A few years ago, an acquaintance told me a similar story. His father was a food scientist who, in the early 1980s, conducted taste tests for meat substitutes at US shopping malls. Even when served real meat, masquerading as soy, tasters dismissed the food as artificial, and not at all meatlike.

I can relate. Before becoming a vegetarian, I can remember sitting in a Chinese restaurant, disdainfully prodding my tofu and broccoli with a fork. Conversely, I can still feel the sting of disappointment when—after finding a recipe for pork sausage and dutifully recreating the mixture of spices, but for a soy sausage lasagna—my sister disdainfully prodded my creation with her fork.

To be fair, the more processed a food, the easier it is to mimic the original flavor. Does any hot dog really resemble flesh? It’s much harder—though not impossible—to imitate gristle or skin.

So, while a soy sausage might be an objectively suitable meat sausage replacement—and certainly better for the environment—both foods are so highly processed they should be eaten sparingly, if at all.

The original study, authored by Michael W. Allen, Richa Gupta and Arnaud Monnier, can be found here.

Ben Jervey, writing in Good Magazine, describes the motivations of his fellow transcontinental Amtrak travelers:

I counted four types of passengers. There are thrifty ones looking to save a few bucks on plane tickets. There are those who are scared of flying, a group that has no doubt grown in recent years. There are the zealots—without exception, older men—who describe themselves with charming lack of inhibition as “rail junkies,” “railroad nuts,” “train buffs,” or, my personal favorite, “railfans.” The rest—indeed the majority—say they’re here for “the experience.”

Having embarked on a similar rail trek in the fall of 2006, I think Jervey is, more or less, on the money. Apart from the hard-core train enthusiasts most of my fellow passengers intensely disliked flying, wanted to experience train travel or both.

If you’re traveling coach, I suppose that Jervey has a point; train travel is cheaper than airline travel. But frankly, even the world’s longest flights top out at 19 hours. Compare that to a train journey designed to last more than 77 hours, even without the almost certain delays. In my experience this makes a costly sleeper car essential, negating any cost savings over air travel.

In chronicling his experience, Jervey pinpoints several of Amtrak’s biggest challenges. Outside of the northeastern United States, Amtrak must borrow the rail lines from freight companies, whose own schedules take precedent, which translates to major delays. And while the federal government manipulates policy, and lays out all manners of subsidies for aviation and highway transportation, Amtrak remains a poorly funded bastard-stepchild. In their dealings with the nationalized rail service, President Bush and his hopeful Republican successor, Senator McCain, both champion that tired right-wing polemic, privatization.

The more interesting subtext in this story, however, is in the sheer potential for Amtrak’s growth. Look, domestic train travel is clearly unpopular—it’s slow, inefficient and appeals, essentially, to the thrifty, phobics and afficianados.

But taking the train generates about half of the CO₂ that air travel does^[1]. Now a year or so ago that may have driven a few activists to the train, concerned about reducing their carbon footprints, but with rapidly rising gas prices, the demographic of being an activist surely has shifted. Consider this, from The Wall Street Journal:

A report to be released Monday by the Transportation Department shows that over the past seven months, Americans have reduced their driving by more than 40 billion miles. Because of high gasoline prices, they drove 3.7% fewer miles in May than they did a year earlier, the report says, more than double the 1.8% drop-off seen in April.

This report highlights exactly why $4 gasoline, while painful, may be a good thing. ANWR drilling and gas-tax holidays are ill conceived. As U.S. News & World Report explains, The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest estimate:

…says that [ANWR] production could range from 510,000 barrels to 1.45 million barrels per day.

If Congress approved development in 2008, it would take 10 years for oil production to commence, EIA said. With production starting, then, in 2018, EIA said the most likely scenario is that oil would peak at 780,000 barrels per day in 2027 and decline to 710,000 barrels per day in 2030. Currently, the United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day.

Pain at the pump is forcing us to rethink our habits. If gasoline remains expensive, people will be forced to make permanent lifestyle changes. And perhaps, rather than completely dismantle our anemic and outdated—yet energy efficient—rail system, the federal government will be forced to reshape its energy and transportation policies. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the shift in driving habits:

…furthers many U.S. policy goals, such as reducing oil consumption and curbing emissions. But, coupled with a rapid shift away from gas-guzzling vehicles, it also means consumers are paying less in federal fuel taxes, which go largely to help finance highway and mass-transit systems. As a result, many such projects may have to be pared down or eliminated.

On the other hand, even a short respite from higher fuel costs would, at least temporarily, erase the benefits of higher costs—namely, a new awareness of the impact of our choices.

Is it any coincidence that Ford is facing its worst quarterly loss ever, while Honda is showing record profit? For all of their efforts, like collusion with the EPA, American auto manufacturers are now realizing the impact of their short-sightedness.

While some predicted that the impact of $7 or more a gallon would lead to significant change, it’s almost astonishing how rapidly a much smaller price increase has changed behavior. And while poor and rural parts of the country are suffering disproportionately, the long-term impact of fuel costs will be felt by everyone.

To my mind, making gasoline temporarily cheaper or increasing domestic capacity ignores the fundamental issue. Much like low-entry adjustable rate mortgages, we've been conditioned to buy giant vehicles with hidden costs, which we ultimately cannot afford. Pushing the American family into the SUV, or even more generally into the automobile-dependent suburbs is simply not sustainable. And, because these same factors will likely decimate the airline industry, it would be nice to have a back-up plan when, you know, people can’t afford to fly or drive wherever the hell they want to.

The question now is whether we want a cantankerous old coot for president, who seemingly adheres to the Grover Norquist school of policy—divesting the government of all responsibility or authority, until it's small enough to “drown in a bathtub.” Or do we want a leader who:

…supports development of high-speed rail networks across the country. Providing passengers with safe high-speed rail will have significant environmental and metropolitan planning advantages and help diversify our nation’s transportation infrastructure. Our domestic rail freight capacity must also be strengthened because our demand for rail transportation has never been greater, leaving many key transportation hubs stretched to capacity. Obama is committed to renewing the federal government’s commitment to high speed rail so that our nation’s transportation infrastructure continues to support, and not hinder, our nation’s long-term economic growth.

As a final aside, domestic rail service unquestionably has a long way to go before we’re on par with Japanese or European service. Even with funding, it will probably not be a glamorous way to travel for a long time. But, if you’d like to see the possibilities in train travel, though certainly cost-prohibitive, take a look at GrandLuxe Rail Journeys. For those travelers looking for an experience it certainly seems more romantic than riding coach for a cross-continental journey.

The last few weeks at the farm have graced us with both cucumbers and dill, providing us a perfect opportunity for pickling. There are two basic forms of pickling: fermentation or vinegar marination. While marinating is perfect for bread & butter pickles, with both cucumbers and dill at our disposal, I decided to ferment some garlic dill pickles.

Kirby cucumbers and dill from Honey Book Organic Farm

In addition to being delicious, fermented pickles produce lactic acid bacteria. Much like yogurt, homemade pickles are “culture active,” and the beneficial bacteria they produce are a vital component in good digestion and maintaining a healthy immune system.

The ingredients: cucumbers, dill, garlic and salt.

Some months ago, I picked up a Perfect Pickler from our local health food store. The kit contains a lidded glass jar, a porcelain spacer and a fermentation lock. And preparing dill pickles is remarkably easy.
Simply add 4 cups of cold water and 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt to the jar, whisking until blended. Add a bunch of fresh dill, bruising the stems first. Next, add 2 pounds of washed un-waxed cucumbers—preferably the Kirby variety. Finally, slice several cloves of garlic and add them to the mix. That’s it!

The cucumbers, dill and garlic, fermenting in salt water.

Now, put the porcelain spacer in the jar, seal the lid, and put in the fermentation lock, adding some water to the valve. Let the pickles rest in a cool, dry room, away from direct sunlight, and in 4 days you’ll have delicious dill pickles.

The Finished Product

If you prefer vinegar-marinated bread & butter or half-sour pickles, Alton Brown from Good Eats provides excellent recipes at The Food Network’s website. One drawback to this method is that it requires sterilized jars. While not difficult this is a necessary, and time-consuming, step.

And, if you don’t like cucumbers, or can’t find them at your favorite local supplier, you can always pickle beets, carrots or cauliflower. Virtually any vegetable you have access to can be pickled using the proper brine or vinegar marinade.

It’s not so much that the president is intellectually incurious, or that he chooses to ignore any scientific evidence that challenges his narrow world view, but rather the fact that he remains a foul-mannered frat dick:

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

January 20, 2009 cannot come quickly enough.

You’ve heard the old adage, a picture’s worth a thousand words. So I thought, for those of you who haven't yet experienced buying fresh local food from either a CSA or a farmers’ market, that I’d show you this week's family share of produce from Honey Brook Organic Farm.

This week’s crop included lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, basil, kale, cucumbers, dill, cilantro, fennel, parsley, rainbow chard, garlic scapes and radicchio. Keeping in mind that, for a 25 week growing season, this averages to about $24 a week. While some supermarkets might have produce that looks as good, I think it would be very challenging to get as much food for the relatively modest cost.

One of the delicacies from the local farm appears fleetingly in mid-June, the garlic scape. The scape is a long green stalk, which when harvested has a tendency to curl, looking something like a loopy scallion. As garlic grows, the immature scape is trimmed before it becomes hard and papery, allowing for larger bulbs.

The garlic scape seems rare outside of CSAs or farmers’ markets and it seems only recently that chefs are experimenting with its culinary potential. Once people stumble upon the garlic scape and cook with it, they tend to become devoted converts.

Writing for The Washington Post, Kim O’Donnel explains:

While in Miami over the weekend, I received an e-mail from home base with the subject line: Scapes Are Here!

Even at a distance of 900-plus miles from home, I was delighted by the news that one of my long-anticipated produce items had made its annual debut at the farmer's market. The "scape" in question is hardly a typo or a secret code word; it's shorthand for garlic scape, a part of the garlic plant that is a garlic lover's nirvana.

O'Donnel shares her recipe for a Garlic Scape Pesto, replacing the traditional basil leaves with scapes, and the pine nuts with walnuts. The result, while garlicky is not oppressively so and is a nice twist on the traditional form.

A full pound of pasta requires only a few tablespoon of the pesto which blissfully—for such a fleeting harvest—freezes well. The food blog What Geeks Eat offers a variation on Garlic Scape Pesto, and recommends:

…popping some into the freezer to top off my winter soups. I use this pesto on brushetta, pasta, eggs, foccacia, and just about anything I grill like shrimp, salmon, chicken. It’s also fabulous added to mayonnaise and smeared on a big roast beef sandwich.

Melissa Clark, introducing a series of garlic-focused recipes in The New York Times mentions her difficulty in finding recipes featuring the scape:

Since my cookbook indexes came up empty in a search for scapes, I called my dad for advice. “Garlic scapes?” he said. “Do you mean green garlic?”

He was referring to the tender crop of garlic that also appears in the market in spring, bulbs still attached to their green floppy tops. Having become addicted to their juiciness and musky sweetness, I always make a point to buy plenty when I see them.

Clark chronicles a bit of her experimentation before offering a recipe for White Bean and Garlic Scapes Dip. When we tried the dip at home, it came together very quickly and tasted delicious, whether served on dried pita crackers, or with a simple crudité.

While the garlic scape serves as an exciting new avenue of exploration for garlic aficionados, it is also rather mild and a somewhat more delicate form of the flavor. I'd urge those of you who find garlic a bit too overbearing to consider the scape.