Curating the very best reads weekly from our daily recommendation engine, We Heart This.

#doseofcute

Don’t Talk to the Baby Porcupine Before It Has Its Coffee

by Madeleine Davies at Jezebel

#stillprochoice

Obama on Roe vs. Wade

by Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky

#moresalsa

Tacos Are Good for Activism Too

by Cord Jefferson at GOOD

#thepaualdeenrevelation

What Chefs Are Really Eating

by Frank Bruni at the New York Times Sunday Review

#handdrawnlittleprince

It Is Only With the Heart One Can See Rightly

by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings

The balance of sustainable fashion lies within your every purchase.

A year or two ago this article would have been entitled “Fashion Giants Ride Sustainability Wave.” At this stage in the game talking about companies like Wal-Mart, Target, H&M, Gap Inc doing their bit is like greenwashing the chairs on the Titanic. With climate change officially confirmed, fashion companies have an irrefutable responsibility to green their manufacturing and products. But, given the choice, would they?

We often go back and forth discussing the future of the fashion industry here at EcoSalon. I don’t know if the model is broken and needs to be dumped on its stylish head, or if we can fix it with some earnest action and better designed products. Maybe both need to be happening at the same time. You can do both by going ahead and protesting against the concentration of wealth among the privileged few by shopping local fashion from small independent merchants this holiday season, but also check out the fruits of the big brands’ eco initiatives. Their partnerships to minimize energy waste and hazardous chemicals help to encourage eco-fashion at reasonable prices too. Well, some of them.

Here are the latest developments from three of fashion’s well-known brands, Levi’s, Havanianas and Manolo Blahnik.

Levi’s goal is to support the 300 million people currently engaged in cotton farming around the world.

At a cocktail reception last week, Levi Strauss & Co. announced that 2 million pairs of its Denizen and Levi brand jeans now contain a blend of cotton certified by the Better Cotton Initiative. In partnership with other leading brands such as H&M, Adidas, IKEA and organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, Solidaridad and PAN-UK, they’re adhering to the standards of Better Cotton – cotton grown in a way that is less harmful to both the environment and some 40,000 farmers in India, Pakistan, Mali and Brazil. Levi’s executives say their goal is to eventually support the 300 million people engaged in cotton farming around the world.

Sales of Havaianas limited edition “Conservation International” collection have raised approximately $100,000 per year for the Brazilian marine organization.

According to an article in the New York Times yesterday, Havaianas, the Brazilian company that makes about 200 million pairs of flip-flops each year, has just introduced Eco Havaianas that are made from scrap materials incurred during regular production. Other products include Havaianas IPÊ, which designates 7 percent of its revenue for the Institute for Ecological Research in Brazil. Another style, the CI-Brazil, funds projects for the protection of local endangered species and in its first year sold more than 500,000 pairs.

The shoes are sustainable. Is the price?

Fish skin is very much the medium of the moment with Alexander Wang unveiling a collection of sneakers with fish skin detailing for Spring 2012 and Sex in the City favorite, Manolo Blahnik, announcing recently that he was using the “fish leather” in his new range of eco shoes. Made from sustainable tilapia skin, raffia and cork, the collection is part of a collaboration with eco designer Marcia Patmos. Patmos told Womens Wear Daily, “I love the idea of Tilapia skin because it is a by-product of the food industry that would otherwise be discarded, but it’s actually a beautiful material perfect for small leather goods’. The shoes will be sold at Manolo Blahnik shops for $895, WWD reports.

There is an unspeakable tragedy going on in Japan right now. It will continue to unfold before our eyes in the days, weeks, months, years, and even decades ahead. It will reach the coast of America. This may sound alarmist, but it isn’t. As the New York Times reported this morning:

“The fast-moving developments at the Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, catapulted the 4-day-old nuclear crisis to an entirely new level, threatening to overshadow even the massive damage and loss of life spawned by a devastating earthquake and tsunami.”

Now nor ever is the right time for panic. The multiple stricken reactors might not melt down. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t continue to emit health-threatening levels of radiation. If the wind shifts, and that radiation heads inland, people will be migrating from their homes, villages, maybe even cities. To where?

What are we to do? What can we do?

First, of course, we have to do whatever we can to help Japan. It’s the third richest economy in the world, but every dollar, every package, every plane or ship that lands with relief supplies will be welcome, not just for the physical support, but for the moral support. If they want to send over exchange students, we should take them. If Japanese businesses need help, their competitors here in the United States should help. If you’re a person of faith, pray.

And here in America? The current nuclear disaster is in Japan, but we have our own problems. Would you light a lump of coal and put it on your kitchen table while your family was in the house? Why is there more air pollution in the Powder River Basin of Idaho than there is in Los Angeles? What are we going to do if hydraulic fracking many hundreds of feet underground releases gas and toxic chemicals that contaminate one of our rivers?

Coal and natural gas are no healthier than nuclear power. At the end of the day, across the planet and across what will be the couple centuries of world history of burning massive amounts of fossil fuels for power, fossil fuels will end up impacting far more people than nuclear power.

America needs to do what it has always, until recently, done best – lead. We need to get out of the dirty, dangerous, unhealthy fuels of the past and lead the way into a clean, healthy and prosperous new energy future. We need to support the people, the politicians, the companies and the organizations that are trying to get us there.

Image: Hogeasdf

Debating the meaning of fashion in January is just asking for trouble.

Perhaps it’s our Christmas shopping hangovers or those New Years resolutions to tackle our overflowing closets or maybe (excuse me) some Pollyannaish theorizing that we should stop accumulating and live more simply, but it seems the typically insatiable fashion media’s lust for consumerism has turned to ennui. Call it a break from the exhaustive attempt to lead readers to thoughtless splurges and instead to buy less – but better.

WWD’s Rosemary Feitelberg asked “six innovative thinkers to pinpoint issues and opportunities into which fashion executives would be wise to tune.”

Illustrating the restrained mood of today’s more conscious consumer, John Ross, CEO of Interpublic-owned Shopper Sciences, offered, “Social media is also breeding social activism, adding a whole other layer to the shopping conversation.” He continues, “People are asking themselves if they are making responsible decisions. Is child labor being used? Are workers allowed to organize? Are health and safety practices in place?”

Then the New York Times extolled the practical virtues of convertible fashion in Ruth LaFerla’s article “Convertible Clothing Is a New Twist for the Cost-Conscious.” The article describes the trend of pieces worn “like soft-skinned transformers that can be hitched, tied, buttoned or draped to take on a variety of forms and uses.”

Referencing the demands and “inventiveness is an expression of a D.I.Y. mind-set,” LaFerla writes, “In a value-driven economy, fashions that can be tweaked to travel from workplace to gym and to cocktails are certainly compelling. And this trend, once perceived as a novelty at best, is attracting a new generation of light-traveling frequent fliers and canny frugalistas.”

Finally, the excellent Sarah Mower writes for Vogue an unusually wallet-friendly online guide to “reshuffling our own clothes and accessories” in “Do Try this at Home: Tweaks and Tricks to Make Your Wardrobe Work for Pre-Fall.” The accompanying slideshow advises us to recycle our existing stuff; like skinny ankle-cropped pants that “pair excellently with all the pointy stilettos you have somewhere in your wardrobe,” or that the tunic trend means “there could be a new whole new life for the short dresses which have been retired to the back of the closet” and lastly, stopping us from Goodwilling our old Ethnic prints by asking… “Own anything in paisley or ikat or the like? Haul it out right away.”

When I was in high school a few buddies and I finagled our way from Detroit to D.C. to represent Somalia at the Model United Nations. I won’t go into all the sordid details; it’s enough say that the trip is affectionately known in our historical canon as “Fear and Loathing in Washington.”

It was the Year of the Refugee, so we had scored big with our randomly assigned country as Somalia was the unfortunate host of millions of displaced persons. During the first day’s plenary session, we thought it would be a good idea to break the ice by sending a note via floor page to our nemesis, Ethiopia, a country we were at war with and in real life had severed all ties: “Party in our hotel room tonight! Go OAS!” Yes, that refers to the Organization of African States, and no, the hostile delegation did not think this funny.

Within moments of reading our missive, one of our adversaries rose to his feet shrieking to the Chairman: “Point of order! Calling for the immediate censure [or whatever] of Somalia for attempting to initiate contact!” Evidently, we were not allowed to even pass a note to our (c’mon, not really) enemy and we were embarrassingly taken to task in front of the session. We immediately struck back by pointing out to the same Chair the “Ethiopians” failure to wear neckties. This breach of decorum was, it turned out, as grave an error on their part as was our failure to not communicate. Needless to say, we Somalis learned our lesson and avoided our fellows from the Horn of Africa – and co-creators of the world’s largest refugee problem – for the rest of our time in Washington.

No meaningful resolutions were passed.

I recall this story in the light of WikiLeaks’ recent release (to five major news outlets) of a large number of United States diplomatic cables between the State Department and its operations around the world. The “leaks” are the beginning of the third in a series, following the exposure of Afghan War and Iraq War documents earlier this year. The incident has become a global sensation, bringing to light the way in which diplomatic activity is conducted – and calling into question the security of intra- and international communications surrounding that activity. (Adding to the drama was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s recent surrender to British authorities as a result of a sexual assault investigation in Sweden.)

High school memories aside, I do recognize the gravity of the situation here, and I, for one, am as dazzled as anyone by the savage behind-the-scenes elicit interactions, horse trading, strong-arming and bribery that seems to be the norm when it comes to what our American delegations – from the United Nations in New York to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun – like to call “delicate negotiations” or “meetings of the minds.”

Of course, we at EcoSalon are concerned about the diplomacy around climate change negotiations – and as the data comes in regarding what went down in Copenhagen, for example, we’re seeing quite a troubling picture. By way of background, the accord, which allows each nation to choose a target for greenhouse gas cuts, was designed in part to make it easy to get countries likes China and rapidly developing nations on board, though many feel it falls way short of needed measures. Moreover, opponents said it would get in the way of extending the binding provisions of the Kyoto Protocol – placed on richer nations – and it was thus opposed by many poorer countries.

Here’s what we know from the Guardian (guardian.co.uk), one of the five news organizations that has access to the leaks: The United States began “a diplomatic offensive” to get the accord signed and cables show that the U.S. sought “dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming.” This included going after “human intelligence” from UN diplomats. One cable “names specific countries of interest, including China, France, Japan, Mexico, Russia and the European Union, and seeks biographical details of individuals such as credit card and frequent-flyer numbers. It also seeks compromising intelligence on the officials running the climate negotiations, such as ‘efforts by treaty secretariats to influence treaty negotiations or compliance.’”

Meanwhile, the “Basic” nations (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) mounted their opposition. Says another cable: “It is remarkable how closely coordinated the Basic group has become in international fora, taking turns to impede US/EU initiatives and playing the US and EU off against each other. Basic countries have widely differing interests, but have subordinated these to their common short-term goals.”

And then there was another huge player, Saudi Arabia. A cable from Ambassador James Smith says, interestingly, that officials from the oil-producing giant “have suggested that they need to find a way to climb down gracefully from the country’s tough negotiating position. … Saudi officials are very eager to obtain investment credits for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and other technology transfer projects.”

The bottom line is that everyone was maneuvering hard. Some nations were even willing to sell their vote to the highest bidder.

Ugly, huh?

But here’s the rub, and the question on the street in Cancun, where this year’s conference is currently underway. With the fear that back-room dealings might be exposed to the public – including the benign, the ugly muscling and the sometimes uglier beddings among those who don’t want anyone to know that they’re engaged in any contact – could progress be slowed to crawl, or even doomed?

What role could secret talks play in allowing an obstructionist country to “climb down gracefully,” or the U.S. and the E.U. to work together to prevent a China from killing a (more comprehensive than Copenhagen) deal? Or who’s to say that less-developed nations (perhaps even outwardly adversarial ones) ought not to be able to secretly gather in their own smoke-filled rooms to circumvent the agendas of richer nations? After all, from the Middle East to Middle America, anyone familiar with diplomatic negotiations knows that a lot of trees are often quietly felled in very private forests before breakthroughs occur.

This is not to say that exposure of dirty deals and powerful countries abusing less-powerful ones isn’t a good thing. In fact, the WikiLeaks witch-hunt and censorship effort is somewhere between abhorrent and Orwellian.  But some players would tell you this: If next year’s dealings in Durban – where real, binding breakthroughs are not out of the question – were to be conducted with the presumption of complete transparency, progress might be no more than an elusive dream.

So here is the essential quandary of the Wikileaks phenomenon. Says Julian Assange in yesterday’s The Australian: “The truth will always win.” Nice sentiment. Will it? So much of what has been revealed is opening the world’s eyes to the gruesome underbelly of how nations deal with each other to manipulate people and populations to the benefit of the greedy and the powerful. Yet the question remains, without the ability for nations to conduct business in private, would certain essential bridges never be built, subterranean ties never be made, diplomatic infrastructure never exist that could open doors to change and allow for conflict resolution?

There’s a lot of support for WikiLeaks out there. And there are a lot of critics. But there are a lot of mixed feelings, as well. “What ifs” are easy, but I have to ask these questions: If every Soviet constituency knew of Mikhail Gorbachev’s interactions with Washington, would he have made it to the finish line? If certain Republicans knew of Richard Nixon’s interactions with Mao Tse-Tung, would relations with China have opened? How much sooner might Anwar Sadat have been murdered had his back-room dealings with Menachem Begin been revealed? There are no easy answers, but there’s a lot to consider, as well as a lot of trust going on that publications like the The New York Times, Der Spiegel and the Guardian will be making some wise decisions.

In the meantime, in the world’s diplomatic circles the question continues to be asked, often in secret: “Can we talk?” The answer:  “Maybe. Depends who’s listening.”

Image: p373

In an overly consumptive American society, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out why we’re so far behind other countries when it comes to zero waste. We consume so much, that we never take inventory of what we already have.

So it should be no surprise that according to a recent New York Times article about Fashion Tries On Zero Waste Design, “Nearly every leading zero-waste or less-waste designer hails from another country, including Mark Liu, Julian Roberts and Zandra Rhodes in England; Susan Dimasi and Chantal Kirby in Australia, Ms. McQuillan in New Zealand; and Yeohlee Teng, who is working in New York but was born in Malaysia.”

The article brings up some really great questions about how fashion is interpreted and at the most basic, the pattern.

While many in the fashion industry are starting to stand tall on their green toes – implementing organic fabrics, using less energy, and making significant changes when it comes to their carbon footprint – excess fabric, which translates to tons of waste over a design career, is often overlooked. While all these strategies are optimistic and good, creating well thought out patterns that use less waste may be a better option.

Next month, Timo Rissanen, a Finnish designer whose blog promotes  “Fashion creation without fabric waste creation through design practice,” will be Parsons the New School For Design’s first-ever assistant professor of fashion design and sustainability offering one of the world’s first fashion courses in zero waste. (Rissanen might want to bring his soon to debut book ”Shaping Sustainable Fashion: Changing the Way We Make and Use Clothes,” co-written by Alison Gwilt along for the ride).

The class will be co-taught with Scott Mackinlay Hahn, a founder of the organic fashion label Loomstate.

The duo hopes to inspire in budding student designer’s minds that zero waste is possible and can be achieved with the end product being something of beauty. They plan to start with an iconic American wardrobe staple, a pair of jeans.

The New York Times says the “Students in the class will explore how to change the way jeans are made and cared for, from sourcing fibers that have not been exposed to pesticides or fertilizers, to how frequently consumers wash their denim. The top design will be manufactured at Loomstate’s California factory and sold next spring at Barneys New York.”

Inspiration enough for students to work harder than they ever have.

Image: Timo Rissanen (New York Times)

A routine morning click on The New York Times turned up a tiny story buried deep in the day’s news this past April. Nothing more than a blurb in a little roundup called WORLD BRIEFING | EUROPE, the headline read: “Britain: Inquiry Finds No Distortion of Climate Data,” informing me that “a second inquiry has cleared climate researchers at the University of East Anglia of allegations that they distorted the scientific evidence for human-caused global warming. “˜There was no hint of tailoring results to a particular agenda,’ an independent panel of scientists said in a report submitted to the university on Monday.”

My first thought was, “Wow, how’d I miss the first inquiry?” I’m usually on top of this kind of news. I wondered what page that story was on. Then I got angry. For how long and for how many news cycles were we inundated with “Climategate?” Beginning last November, the “scandal” spent months coloring the global warming “debate,” providing rocket fuel for naysayers, creating an entire “elitist lefty scientists lie!” industry. T-shirts and stickers declared: “Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, Global Warming,” “Green is the New Red!” “Global Warming = Global Hoax!”

So now, for a second time, the “story” behind the global headlines – Grand Conspiracy Perpetrated on Human Race! The Fix is in! It’s All a Big Green Lie! – is debunked! And we get it in WORLD BRIEFING | EUROPE. Word count: 94.

My Facebook post that morning? “Given the amount of copy dedicated to this ‘scandal,’ it’s so nice to find this paragraph buried in the NYT‘s ‘brief’ section.”

The link didn’t get much response from my 327 friends (I know, I’m picky), but at least they paid more attention than the media. Snippets from my wall:

“Thank you for posting this. I was considering this morning how we, socially, seem primed to immediately think the worst of people and then demand that they explain themselves.”

To which: “Indictment is news. Exoneration is not. Sad thing is this ‘story’ continues to be used in misinformation campaigns regarding global warming. Trumpeting this inquiry’s conclusions has true news “˜value.’ NYT drops the ball here.”

The point was eventually well made a few months later by Joe Conason in Salon: “‘Climategate’ debunking is (or should be) major news: The e-mail ‘scandal’ burned scientists on front pages last winter. But editors have buried a series of rebuttals.”

In the story, he points out: “Newspapers, magazines and newscasts ought to be informing the public, fairly and dispassionately, about the series of events that cast fresh doubt on the doubter lobby.”

This is important. That “doubter lobby” was at its zenith late last year and early this. Self-declared independent thinkers were swayed, programs reconsidered, cash flows affected. That bogus story had big old legs and it ran its ass off for months.

Ninety-four words.

So now it’s yesterday, I’m scanning the web and I find this on Green Energy News: “EPA Rejects Claims of Flawed Climate Science.”

Here’s the scoop: Ten “groups,” including the State of Texas, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Coalition for Responsible Regulation et al (sic), and the Ohio Coal Association, petitioned the EPA to reconsider its “Endangerment Finding,” which basically says greenhouse gases are hurting us and that we’re responsible for creating them. The petitions asserted that the science used to reach these conclusions is faulty, at best, and that a conspiracy pollutes, so to speak, information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.”

The EPA’s response boils down to: “We’ve looked at your assertions and have this to say re your petitions: Wrong!”

Green Energy News summarizes a few of claims; here’s one example: “Claim: Petitioners say that emails disclosed from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit provide evidence of a conspiracy to manipulate global temperature data. Response: EPA reviewed every e-mail and found this was simply a candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets. Four other independent reviews came to similar conclusions.”

The nine others claims and responses were similar in tone and dismissal.

Stop the presses, right?

Here’s some news for today: With only a few minor exceptions, I don’t see this story getting any serious play anywhere but in the green press. And here’s the problem: In the case of greenhouse gas emissions, the media’s infatuation with inane claims and so-called smoking guns, and lack of any use for sane, consistent scientific assertions can prove fatal to the debate, if not our quality of life.

I often ask myself why people continue to get away unchecked with referring to evolution as a “theory.” Here’s the deal on that one, folks: It’s not a theory any more. And neither is global warming. We have the science. Asked and answered. Data is in. And if we’re going to give our collective attention to those who make a lot of noise asserting otherwise, shouldn’t we give them the same attention when they’re kicked to the curb?

Image: Joel Bedford

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, than who takes better care of planet Earth? This squabble of the sexes has surfaced on the internet in recent months, with commentators pointing to the fairer sex as the keeper of the environment. But do gendered discussions about the environment miss the forest for the trees?

In an article this week on The Huffington Post, Jennifer Grayson, founding editor of The Red, White, and Green, discusses the notion that women must be greener than men because men have been responsible for two recent environmental catastrophes: the BP oil spill and the Massey coal mine explosion in West Virginia.

“…I don’t believe that either of these examples proves that men are somehow less likely environmentalists than women,” Grayson writes. “In my mind, they only demonstrate two inconvenient truths: 1) Women are still poorly represented in leadership roles in large corporations (to wit: 29 female CEOs in the Fortune 1000); and 2) A lot of large corporations are too greedy to put environmental concerns before their bottom line.

While Grayson checks off male and female contributions to the environment (like Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring), she concedes that men and women might handle their environmental concerns differently, with men focusing on big picture eco concerns and women taking small steps to green their lives.

“I’ve witnessed this in my own life: My mother-in-law, to her credit, willingly jumps on almost any eco-improvement I’ve written about, especially when it comes to household purchasing. No change is too small – organic milk, BPA-free cans, biodegradable doggie doo bags – you name it,” Grayson writes. “My father-in-law, on the other hand, isn’t as excited by recycled wine totes (although I’m sure he uses them), but he does boast a fabulous career in the green energy sector.”

A January article in the New York Times hammers the point home: women want to green their lives, while men want to green the world. Marital strife ensues.

“Christienne deTournay Birkhahn, executive director of the EcoMom Alliance, an organization based in Marin County that provides education to women who want to have their families live more sustainably, finds that disputes over how green is green enough often divide along predictable lines by sex,” reads the article, “Women often see men as not paying sufficient attention to the home. Men, for their part, really want to make a large impact and aren’t interested in a small impact,” she says.

This eco discord plays out in predictable ways – woman wants to save water, man likes to take long showers, woman complains, man refers to her environmental awakening as a “high-priestess phase.” Or, woman wants to recycle yogurt cups, man tosses them in the trash to “bait” her, woman complains, man tells her that her efforts won’t make a difference for the environment.

While believable, these tiffs should be taken for what they are – ho-hum marital disputes – rather than indications of broader interactions between men and women regarding their relationships to the environment. The notion that women zero in on small ways to change the environment fits nicely into the “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” theory that women keep track of their relationships through an elaborate subconscious point system, one in which emotional bonds are strengthened by a series of tiny gestures from their male mates: flowers, compliments, chivalry. Women, it follows, are quibbling, nitpicky nesters, ladies who want things just so in their relationships and homes. Greening the home? Just another way for women to get their control freak on.

In this template, men are the big-picture thinkers, cultivating closeness with their partners through lavish love displays: trips to the Bahamas, diamond rings. They express their concern for the environment in parallel strokes: Recycling? How about engineering a new recycling system?! Men are the visionaries, the ones who cultivate renewable energy sources while their wives tend to the backyard chickens. 

While these stereotypes about men and women boil down complex interactions into a set of simple gender rules – creating expectations for men and women that dog them throughout their relationships and careers – they also do a disservice to the environment. With all this hype about who cares about what, we forget why we should care at all.

Image: Ed Yourdon

Anyone who has been to Costa Rica can understand why the people are happy. The natural surroundings are beautiful and well maintained and there is a commitment to peace (the country abolished its armed forces in 1949).

Because of these and other reasons, an op-ed article in the New York Times reports the Dutch sociologists who run the World Database of Happiness lists Costa Rica as the leader in happiness out of 148 nations. On a 10-point scale, ticos earned 8.5, followed by Denmark at 8.3. The report says the U.S. ranked 7th at 7.4, while Togo and Tanzania trail at 2.6.

Apparently a focus on sustainability in preserving its natural landscape and the choice to dissolve the army and invest instead in education has lifted the spirits of the Central American nation’s people. Such heartening prioritizing has allowed the country to score at the top in other happy indicators, such as one that calculates “happy life years” (the U.S. comes in at 19th and Zimbabwe is last) as well as the “happy planet index” operated by the  New Economics Foundation.

According to columnist Nicholas Kristof, “Rising education levels also led the country to preserve its lush environment as an economic asset,” and the country is “an ecological pioneer, introducing a carbon tax in 1997.”

He points out that this commitment to the environment has bolstered rather than threatened the Costa Rican economy, adding that it is one of the few tourist countries seeing migration from the United States. In fact, it has seen such an influx, it has had to take steps to keep its parks and rainforests from feeling the strain of too much impact.

Image: Thombo 2

]]> http://ecosalon.com/costa-ricans-blow-their-horn-considered-happiest-people/feed/ 1 http://ecosalon.com/alice-waters-activist-angel-or-foodie-fascist/ http://ecosalon.com/alice-waters-activist-angel-or-foodie-fascist/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:00:29 +0000 Vanessa Barrington http://www.ecosalon.com/?p=12393

Poor Alice has been getting beaten up regularly these days, particularly after her recent appearance on 60 minutes. On the show, she came off as quite out of touch with how normal people live. In essence, she said that she chooses to spend more money on good food and, well, why shouldn’t other people?

She even made an unfortunate comment about how some people prioritize buying two pairs of Nike sneakers. After mulling over the show, reading the many opinion pieces all over the web, and thinking about what she has accomplished, I still don’t really know where I stand on the issue, so I thought I’d put it to you readers.

Without at doubt, Waters lives in her own rarefied world. Berkeley has a year-round temperate climate and an abundance of farmers’ markets. She has a lovely house with a gorgeous kitchen, complete with open hearth. I’m sure she worked hard over the years to get where she is, but now she has personal assistants and staff to take care of the boring little details of life, so she may not have a very good grasp on the struggles of us everyday plebes who have to get to work on time, keep the house clean, pay bills, answer our own emails and feed our kids, while also making sure they get back and forth to all their school activities. And I’m pretty sure she regrets having made that comment about Nike sneakers.

In a recent piece in the New York Times, her insistence on serving only local, organic food in our nation’s truly abysmal school cafeterias is a little nuts considering how far they have to come. I think she probably truly does believe everyone deserves good, wholesome, organic food, but this piece read rather disingenuous, like it was a response to the criticism she’s been getting.

On the other hand, we have Waters to thank for things like locally-grown baby salad greens, the joy of knowing where our food comes from, the pleasure of enjoying the best ingredients cooked as simply as possible and most recently, the fact that the Obamas are planting a vegetable garden at the White House (she has lobbied for this since the Clintons lived there). For people who care about food, she is a hero.

The Edible Schoolyard she founded in Berkeley is a triumph, and she had a big hand in the fact that 85,000 people showed up to Slow Food Nation last summer in San Francisco. The fact that 60 Minutes is covering local, organic food is a huge step forward.

I think we need many changes in this country in the way we eat: in schools, in hospitals, in grocery stores, and convenience stores, and our own kitchens. We need individuals to jump on board and we need different government policies around food.

But every individual working on these changes needs to do it from where they are. Alice is simply making changes where she lives. Maybe other communities less blessed cannot replicate her Edible Schoolyard, but if she inspires some teachers and parents to work with kids to plant a few seeds, perhaps that’s better on balance. Or is she so out of touch she alienates the very people she’d like to inspire?

Image: San Francisco Chronicle / Carlos J. Ortiz