North America’s beauty spreads from sea to shining sea.

When wanderlust strikes, there’s the tendency to picture oneself overseas. My personal fantasies bring me to deserts in Morocco, beaches in Goa, hole-in-the-wall salsa clubs in Havana. I tend to forget the bounty of natural beauty that exists right here in North America. These pictures showcase the stunning vistas, cultural relics, and breathtaking natural phenomena that exist right at our front doors, or at least within a few hours drive.

(above) Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, USA

San Jose del Cabo, Baja California, Mexico

White Sands, New Mexico, USA

Washington, D.C., USA

Venice Beach, California, USA

Crater Lake, Oregon, USA

Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA

San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, White Water, California, USA

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, USA

Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Banff National Park, Canada

Coyote Butte North, Arizona, USA

Henkel, Colorado, USA

Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

Kent, Washington, USA 

Pagosa Valley, Colorado, USA

Lackawanna State Forest, Pennsylvania, USA

San Francisco, California, USA

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Santa Cruz, California, USA

Galveston, Texas, USA

Cape Elizabeth, Maine, USA

Bitterroot Mountains, Montana, USA

Cimarron National Grassland, Kansas, USA

Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Yosemite National Park, California, USA

U.S. Route 66, Arizona, USA

Mule Canyon, Colorado, USA

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Everglades, Florida, USA

Sequoia National Park, California, USA

Anne’s Beach, Florida Keys, USA

South Dakota, USA

Quechee, Vermont, USA

Riverwood Park, Mississauga, Canada

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Bountiful, Utah, USA

Big Moose Lake, New York, USA

New York, New York, USA

Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, USA

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ColumnWhy is it that America is only known for hamburgers and hot dogs when we have a burgeoning foodie culture?

A surprising discovery when I lived in France was L’Americain. In the land of gourmet cheeses and perfected baguettes, food is more than something that you just consume for nourishment; it’s art. Which is why I was a little shell-shocked the first time I came across L’Americain, a late night favorite, post-pop music dance party, made up of a baguette stuffed with hamburger meat, french fries and ketchup.

If the French vision of American food had been unclear before, after this particular sandwich run in, it was very clear. For the French, there was no point in glorifying this version of junk street food, when they could just call it what they thought it represented: America.

As a nation, we have often been at the bottom of the list of culinary tradition. Sure, at home we’ve created a foodie culture and mastered combining dishes from around the world, but abroad, there remains a view that we’re all about pizza, hot dogs and chips. Our global foodie reputation is defined more by sugar and fat than by local ingredients with a cosmopolitan twist.

In fact, enter any “American” food store in another country and you’ll get a handful of classic ingredients. I’ve seen everything from swirled jars of peanut butter and jelly to marshmallow cream (things my American counterparts would never dream of buying at home), and much less abroad. But the international crowd loves this stuff. One of my best Swedish friends has specifically requested that next time I come visit she wants Reese’s Miniatures and several bags of Sour Patch Kids.

What is it that has made the rest of the world crave some of our most terrible exports and glaze over our more respectable creations? You don’t see Alice Waters shrines or bookshelves stocked with Mark Bittman translations abroad, but you’ll most certainly come across a sampling of the following.

Hamburgers

McDonald’s has swept the world like a virus, but it’s not just Big Macs that have made their way around the world. Grab an “American” menu in Southeast Asia and you’re sure to find some version of a meat patty wrapped in a bun. For some reason this American classic has other people hooked, albeit poor spellings on menus and misconceptions of what a bun should look like.

Pringles

It’s not just chips in general, but there’s something about “once you pop you can’t stop,” that has seduced the international consumer. Turns out they’re marketed in at least a hundred countries and bring in $1 billion in sales. Sure, in other countries the packaging is often smaller,  because other places know better than to serve up ten servings in one container that we’re sure to down in a single sitting — but those brightly colored canisters with the goofy, mustached man are all over the place.

Mediocre – yet complicated – coffee drinks

Leave it to the global coffee chain Starbucks to make it perfectly acceptable to order a caramel machiatto in countries where coffee consumption is holy. The result is, well, abhorrent. Thanks to the chain it’s trendy to cruise the streets of Paris with a disposable cup and you can now buy Frappacinos in Guatemala. The company’s new instant product alone was responsible for $100 million in global sales last year.

Peanut Butter

It seems like such a staple product and yet for many it’s a luxury. Some love it and some hate it, but peanut butter to Europeans is just as exotic as caviar and foie gras are to many Americans. Try tracking it down outside of the U.S. and you’ll have a difficult time, and yet somehow, everyone knows about it. A former, very typical French roommate of mine (he wouldn’t dream of keeping his smelly cheeses in the refrigerator), thought there was nothing better on his weekend brioche than some good old Jiffy, imported by friends of course.

But forget our foodie reputation for a second.

Although it would be great to be known for all the fantastic, organic and healthy items that many American chefs whip up on a daily basis, wanting to be respected for our food culture is almost a little vain. What we should be more concerned with is how we’re physically impacting the rest of the world.

With obesity rates skyrocketing around the world, and often attributed to imported food, maybe it’s time we took a step back and asked ourselves what we want our global food influence to be.

Hot dogs and high fructose corn syrup? Changing what’s on our plates at home has a larger influence than we may think.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, taking a conscious look at what’s bubbling in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Images: USDA China, permanently scatterbrained, Brett L., Like_the_Grand_Canyon, Alaivani, egarc2

A common form of illusion occurs when content is seen without context. Take, for example, how we perceive the size of an object. When we see an image of, say, an apple, on its own, without another object to compare it to, we mentally assign a certain size to the fruit based on our past experience with apples. If it looks really ripe and juicy and colorful, then we see a nice, big apple. But place it next to an extra-large orange and we see a different truth: our apple may in fact be very small. Compare the apple and the orange and the illusion is shattered.

I remember the first time I visited Cairo. I was still in my teens, and coming from the Midwestern United States I was immediately stunned by, among so many things, the masses of people and the poverty relative to the States. I had the sudden realization that most of the world lived more like this and not the way I lived back home. Illusion shattered.

Think about how you live and then visit ifitweremyhome.com. We introduced this site to you last last year to give you some idea about the size of the BP oil spill (“The Oil Spill Next Door: Size Matters”). We told how, with a click of your mouse, you could place a template of the map of the spill over your hometown – voilà, context. (From where I sit, near San Francisco, the damage engulfs Lake Tahoe and reaches all the way to Reno. That was one big apple.)

The site, developed by Andy Lintner and designed by Annette Calabrese, now has more to look at with a robust system that allows for the comparison of where and how you live to the farthest reaches of our planet. (The “disasters” function now also includes last summer’s devastating Pakistan flood.) In just a few minutes you’ll be able to do some serious work on the get-some-perspective front by doing things like this: Click U.S. Click Egypt. Learn many things, like if you were born in Egypt instead of the United States, you would use an average of 89.64 percent less electricity.

Here are 10 more U.S.-to-the-other-guys comparisons (based on averages) that’ll take the shine off of some of your illusions:

1. In South Korea, you would have a 55.91 better percent chance at being employed.
2. In Russia, you would die 12.08 years sooner.
3. In Morocco, you would make 90.09 percent less money.
4. In Germany, you would have 40.64 percent less babies.
5. In Romania, you would be 83.33 percent less likely to have HIV/AIDS.
6. In Canada, you would spend 45.33 percent less money on health care.
7. In Norway, you would experience 44.44 percent less of a class divide.
8. In Australia, you would have a 23.94 percent less chance of dying in infancy.
9. In China, you would consume 90. 43 percent less oil.
10. In France, you would have 17.92 percent more free time.

“The lottery of birth is responsible for much of who we are,” says the site’s homepage. It then asks the questions: “If you were not born in the country you were, what would your life be like? Would you be the same person?” Good questions, to be sure. How about this one: If you are who you are, but become better informed about the experiences of others with whom you share the planet, would you do anything differently?

Image: Dano

Drive small and thrive might well be the European motto. Green actions speak louder than words in Europe when it comes to energy and consumption and walking the walk. They ride bikes and walk more than we do to get around, use and waste less of our limited resources, have a different sense of space. Just don’t throw around terms like green and eco expecting everyone there to know what you mean.

Throughout my travels in Italy, the term “eco” got lost in translation – and I resorted to hand signs and terms such as nature and sun power to investigate the Italian practices or describe what I do for a living. Still, many signs show Europeans have as beat when it comes to practicing restraint in their lifestyles and consumption.

It could simply stem from resources like water and petrol being considered more precious. As a college student in England, I was told my gin and tonics lacked ice because freezing water for cocktails was frivolous. I suppose this also explained the dull hair many of us have witnessed in our European travels. Fewer showers are another concession to save. In this sense, French cologne is indispensable and might also be lauded as green.

Also woven into the culture is smaller, more economical cars and homes, due to population density, higher fuel costs and necessity. Honda Civics might be considered an adequate family car – not the minivan, which would be more for tourists. If you aren’t walking, biking or taking public transit, as more Europeans do as a matter of practicality and habit, then you are most likely tooting around in a compact (although power counts in certain circles where larger BMWs hold status).

“Whether in crowded cities like Rome or Budapest, or centuries-old villages, people get around on their own power,” notes eco travel writer, Wendy Worrall Redal. “It’s easier than negotiating jammed streets, finding scarce parking and paying $10 a gallon for gas. Age has nothing to do with it; you’re as likely to see a wrinkled grandmother toting a wheeled market cart or pedaling her cruiser, as you are more youthful cyclists.”

Here are some comparisons:

Banning Cosmetic Chemicals

Activists trying to rid our shelves and salons of toxic chemicals point to the fact the European Union has banned 1,100 chemicals in cosmetics, while the  Food and Drug Administration in America has only banned ten. The nasty agents the FDA approves cause cancer, birth defects, genetic mutation and organ damage. It appears our regulatory system has no authority to test cosmetic chemicals or require companies to conduct safety testing before selling. Definitions also vary. The FDA defines cosmetics on vague lingo to minimizing government interference form profiteering, while the The European Union Cosmetics Directive clearly puts thee health of the consumer first. Why are their laws more stringent? Undoubtedly the same reason why the government is loose on meat protections. It’s all about the money.

Cleaner Vino

First, there is the innate friendliness bred into the land. France was the first country to introduce anything remotely close to our concept of “organic” wine. Vineyards of the Loire region that involve small, organically-farmed estates, avoided pesticides as a matter of conscience to produce their grapes at a time Americans were pushing baby formula and frozen dinners. Beyond the spraying, is the transport of the bottle. A study analyzing wine carbon suggests East Coasters (New Yorkers and Miamians) are better off buying a Bordeaux than a Napa-based wine because the greenhouse gas emissions from shipping are far less than those from trucking.

Reduced Aviation Emissions

Speaking of transport, the European Union has led the way in reducing aviation emissions through its cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide. Starting in 2012, all international flights landing in the Union must meet regulations capping emissions at 97 percent of the baseline (95 percent by 2012). The plan called for airlines with carbon shortfalls to purchase additional permits from European markets. Meanwhile, airport operator BAA has invested $1.65 billion on a green makeover of its terminal Heathrow East to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent. As the new home of Star Alliance Airlines, the upgrades involve solar panels on the roof, north-facing windows for natural lighting, and a new energy center using renewable resources for heat and air.

Eating and Drinking Less, Without Disposables

I will never forget a Weight Watchers meeting in which a member brought in a biscuit from England, saying they don’t supersize their teas with ginormous American-size chocolate chip cookies. The fact Europeans consume less food and walk more means they don’t struggle with diets the way Americans do. They also shun to-go cups, even at panini or espresso bars where if you need a paper cup to dash out, then you are clearly in too much of a hurry. Pasta isn’t piled sky high on a plate, but often served in an appetizer size portions, unless requested otherwise by an American. Again, the concept less is more is ingrained in the mentality – the same one that prefers quality over quantity. Sure, they smoke like fiends, but that’s another story.

Euro Trash: Switzerland Scores High on Recycling, While Europe As a Whole Lags

While there is a tendency to use less, Europe on the whole does seem to be lagging behind in the areas of recycling and composting trash. The BBC reported only 17.7 percent  of England’s households recycle, while the U.S recycles 28 percent of its waste. Still, Switzerland stands out as one country that is making strides, recycling 80 percent of its PET bottle drink containers, higher than the European average of 20 to 40 percent. The Swiss incentive is not just environmental, but also financial, since recycling is free while all trash bags require a sticker that cost one euro apiece. Without the stickers, trash will be left out to rot.

Images: pedrosimoes; Uggboy; idhren; my pouss; Mariamonastery; Kecko

Don’t be hating on Scrooge. There might have been some green blood flowing through that iniquitous heart of steel.

True, Ebenezer was a clueless curmudgeon, hardened by celibacy and tortured by a dysfunctional relationship with money. An abusive boss and cynical social recluse, he shunned the caroler’s tin cup and community connection, holing up in his work space and bed chamber, destined to die unloved and alone.

In short, he acted like an ass – an ass with some weird-ass dreams. That’s what you get for eating kidney pie before bed, you old meanie. Any good EcoSalon vegetarian could have told you that.

But in revisiting the new 3-D animated Disney remake of A Christmas Carol with my 10-year-old daughter, Lauren, I detected traces of green in Scrooge’s social gaffes. Once we got past the unnecessary harshness of the production, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring the agile Jim Carrey, I found a new appreciation for Scrooge’s commendable frugality.

He boasted a spare old house with no central heating and a vintage wardrobe. He steadfastly refused to associate personal happiness with material accumulation. Anyone who subscribes to Ad Busters (including my husband, Edwin) applauds these traits.

It is no coincidence the book, America’s Cheapest Family, is becoming a favorite read as the nation’s recession drags on. We yearn to learn how to be tight wads, too, and not to part so easily with our hard-earned cash.

True, Scrooge also withheld giving emotionally, but it can be challenging giving of one’s soul when its casing has been neglected for decades. A dearth of sex can make us stingy. I’d share my thoughts about this with you, but first I need some sex.

In terms of his anti-social life, I can’t say I blame him for rejecting his nephew’s festive fetes which encouraged insensitive guests to join a rousing guessing game of Charades at someone else’s expense.

There are no excuses for how the boss man treated Tiny Tim’s nice dad, Bob Cratchit, forcing him to work long hours and holidays at a poor wage, except for the fact I see this all the time in the American workforce as over-worked retail cashiers and migrant workers suffer at the hands of the profit-hungry corporate machine.

Perhaps the best argument that Scrooge was not just mean, but also rather green, was his strict no gift policy, a trend that is catching on as a rising number of celebrants choose to pass on amassing more junk they simply don’t need.

Some, like my friend’s 8-year-old son, Samuel, need more prompting than others. His mom, Susanne, convinced him to throw an “eco birthday party” last week (below) with paperless invites, no presents and a fun craft project of constructing a solar car.  In the end, she says, he got the message that sustaining is better than receiving.

Other friends of mine turning 30 or 40 or 50 are happily forgoing gifts and stating so on invitations with notations that say stuff like, “No presents: Your presence is all we need.” There was a funny Curb Your Enthusiasm addressing the issue at a party for an injured Ben Stiller, who was peeved when Larry David took him at his word and nixed the gift. At least old Scrooge withheld with conviction.

Who decided honoring one another requires spending money on new things? Here is a cashmere sweater and a diamond heart pendant to say you are special. Here is an electric razor, a Snuggie, an iPod, to make sure you know.

If you don’t agree Scrooge was a tad green, you might concede that the moral of the Dickens tale qualifies: Giving is a state of mind.

Giving from the heart, not the pocketbook, is the true message of Christmas – the message articulated by Christ and Buddha and other teachers who demonstrated how to be a kinder, gentler, carbon mass.

When Ebenezer turned the corner that fateful Christmas morning and became decidedly present, his new-found sense of positive Karmic energy was the gift that touched his community, even more than the massive goose he bought for the Cratchits or the cash donation he pledged to the needy. A re-birth is always something to celebrate, whether you’re talking about an old dog like Scrooge or the beloved planet.

This is the latest installment in Luanne Bradley’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Images: Disney, Luanne Bradley, HBO

It has all the straight-faced sincerity of a legitimate PSA – the weepy, corny variety we usually see before a feature film.

But this mock Public Service Announcement – called Protect Insurance Companies – hits home with the kind of wake-up-and-smell-the-corruption sarcasm that makes you want to storm Washington and burn flags once again (even though we never really do it).

Written by Lauren Palmigiano, Chad Carter and Peter Koechley, it features Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm and other stars making the claim for why insurance executives shouldn’t have to sacrifice their profits and benefits for Obama’s health reforms.

The actors tells us as the health care debate heats up, we have to remember who the real victims are: the insurance companies, who have been looking out for us for so long. It’s time we look after their interests.

“Why is Obama trying to reform health care when insurance companies are doing just fine making billions of dollars in profits?” asks Ferrell. “Insurance company CEOs have the right to their American dream!”

Among the dreams cited, $500 million in your pocket, several homes and a zoo in your yard for exotic animals like white tigers and Pigmy horses.

Among the most laughable lines of this send up (sponsored by Moveon.org) is that insurance companies offer great variety. “They can change the price and terms of your plan at any time or stop covering you all together. Do you want to get rid of those options?”

Is this a good way to get the word out? You betcha!

Fighting for a hybrid in every garage is cake compared to the battle to allow an outdoor clothesline in every yard. Still,  advocacy groups like Project Laundry List are urging a return to the days before newfangled cleaning machines drained our electric bills and resources – a time when nobody flinched at the sight of a big bra or jockey shorts flapping in the wind.

Why do these soldiers refuse to fold?

The advocacy group New American Dream calculates that if every American home switched to cold water for four out of five loads, together we can save $6.7 billion per year and keep nearly 50 million tons of carbon out of the atmosphere – the equivalent of removing 10 million cars from the road.

If only 40% of those households also line dried their clothes, the annual carbon savings would more than double.

Founded by Alexander Lee of Condord, NH, Project Laundry List has established a website that tracks states with ordinances banning outdoor clotheslines, such as Oregon. You can watch a compelling CBS video on the site of a feature Bill Geist did about a Bend woman engaging in civil disobedience in her subdivision by fighting for her right to conserve energy.

Nationwide, some 300,000 communities with home owner associations restrict outdoor laundry hanging, according to the Community Associations Institute.

Lee and others argue it is ridiculous to have to fight to hang clothes in your own backyard, and has spurred a national movement of likeminded enviromentalists. He has gone so far as to suggest the Obama White House reinstate clotheslines on the lawn as it once had in the early 1900s. You can vote for this as well, on the site.

Lee and his Laundry List have weight behind them with board advisors that include famed forward thinker,  Dr. Helen Caldicott and Dick McCormack, a former Vermont State Senator who re-introduced the Right to Dry bill in 1999, which his brother had introduced almost 10 years earlier. It resulted in passage this year, making it no longer a crime to do the right thing.

Helping push the bill along in Vermont was the owner of the wholesome Vermont Country Store. Owner Lyman Orton has written editorials in his national catalog and other media to egg on  homeowners to “set up a clothesline and hang your wash out even if you live in a neighborhood or subdivision where doing so is prohibited.” He asks rhetorically, “Is it not the height of snobbery to ban hanging clothes out to dry?”

Even before Vermont lawmakers got their act together, Orton was selling clothesline products, such as sheets specifically designed to billow in the breeze.

There are many such “Laundry Heroes” identified by Project Laundry List, including actress Daryl Hannah, Vermont Governor Jim Morris and Premier Dalton McGuinty of Ontario, Canada (above), who signed a rule allowing millions in the Province of Ontario to hang dry to their heart’s content.

To review more of the group’s accomplishments, check out the site and see what you can do to further the cause. Your backyard is standing by and waiting for you to feed it a line.

Ontario premier lifts outdoor clothesline ban (CTV.ca)

Images: Cyron, Vermont Country Store, CTV