Define “ethical food.”

The further food has to travel, the worse it is for the environment, right? It’s the reason we equate shopping locally with being ethical. Problem is – it’s rarely that simple. As Robin McKie outlined at the Guardian back in 2008, it’s quite possible for air-freighted food to be greener than locally-sourced produce – so working out which is more ethical can be tricky, to say the least.

Part of the issue is what constitutes “ethical.” Are we talking about nothing but carbon footprints, or are we factoring in the human cost? After all, the positive economic impact on local businesses is part of the argument for shopping locally – so could the reverse be true? Could there be a situation where the right thing to do is ship food in from elsewhere?

That could be the case with Greece, as Adam Davidson suggested at the New York Times this week. EU law stipulates that for feta cheese to be legally permitted to carry the name, it must come from Greece. That hasn’t stopped other countries producing their own carefully rebranded feta-clones, of course – but since the luxury food market is all about authenticity, Greece has an opportunity to make a dent in its formidable economic deficit.  It could export of its most famous – and uniquely branded –  foodstuffs, from feta to Kalamata olives to the regional olive oils still regarded as the world’s finest, and it could do so at luxury-goods prices. In doing so, it would improve the lives of countless Greek workers, many of which are already turning back to the land to make their living…

What’s wrong with this picture? Greece’s regulatory infrastructure is shambolic, corruption remains a major issue (so some of that money would inevitably be creamed off the top by the unscrupulous) and this potential “agricultural revolution” requires solidarity and a leader – but as Davidson suggests, it’s tantalizing that part of the solution to Greece’s current woes could come from the very things it’s been doing so well for thousands of years.

If we decide burning extra carbon to help a beleaguered country is the ethical thing to do, of course.

Image: Linda Cronin

The post Local Food Is Ethical? Tell That To Greece appeared first on EcoSalon.

The good old days?

How in tune were our ancestors with being good stewards of the planet? Things were better in the old days. People were more in tune with the natural world, the air was cleaner, the land less harassed by our demands upon it. The world was, in short, greener. We’ve all heard it before – but is it true? Of course it is – except when you start looking at the details. Don’t go putting our ancestors up on a pedestal of eco-friendly excellence before you know a little more history.

Greece is a land burdened by expectations. Not only do its current inhabitants have to deal with an economy so tattered it may even spark power cuts, it simultaneous has to carry the mantle of being the cradle of civilization for the Western World (further hammered home by the upcoming London Olympics). The ideas of the Greek philosophers guided the development of medieval scientific thought – particularly Aristotle – through the European Renaissance, before the physical sciences gathered momentum under the ideas of luminaries like Galileo and Newton. The Romantic period further reinforced Greece’s golden status – the term Arcadia, taken from the name of an administrative area in Greece, came to represent a perfect balanced relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world. Ancient Greece, it is implied, was where people got it right for a change.

You know what’s coming, don’t you? Classical Greece had an enormous problem, and it was this: it was a dreadful place to grow things. Greece is largely a land of barren, rocky hillsides thinly covered by nutritionally depleted soils. This agriculturally fragile state of affairs meant the land couldn’t support large, evenly spaced populations, and that led to the development of the famous polis city states of Greece – Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Mycenae and others. When these cities reached the land’s carrying capacity, its people had to expand, fueling colonial conquests and arguably all sorts of innovations to make the most of scarce resources.

It’s a stretch, but you could argue that democracy came about because Greece is a crummy place to be a farmer.

So the Greeks were simply unlucky to live on soil that couldn’t support them? Not so. As happened elsewhere in Europe, the prehistoric peoples of Greece chopped down a lot of trees – in such quantities that the soil simply couldn’t recover. Pollen evidence recovered from the bottom of a lake in the Argive plain told a story: the existence of deciduous oak trees until the 4th Century BC, at which point they were replaced with hornbeam, pine, scrub oak and heather – vegetation associated with cleared or disturbed land. If some colossal climatic catastrophe was at fault, all of Greece would have been similarly affected. But it wasn’t. These changes were localized.

Furthermore, archaeological evidence from settlement patterns across Greece show broken occupation, periods of settlement and abandonment – and these can be tied with environmental indicators of local soil erosion patterns. In other words, ancient Greek farmers appear to have cleared the land for crops or animals, and when the soil eroded away as a result, they abandoned it – and that was the environmental legacy facing Classical Greece, a largely barren land that had never recovered from early efforts to farm it.

So much for Arcadia.

Images: dominiqs, byrdiegyrl and Serendigity.

The post Ecological Lessons From History: Greece Has Crumbled Before appeared first on EcoSalon.

The Grand Tour and beyond.

We’re all familiar with the rolling hills of Tuscany, the cliffs of Santorini, the Eiffel Tower in Paris. But Europe is so much more than classic postcard images. As the continent’s Eastern half becomes more accessible, spots like the ports of Dubrovnik, the caves of Slovenia, and the Renaissance towns of the Czech Republic are becoming more popular as travelers venture off the traditional backpacker’s route. As everywhere, sustainable tourism practices are needed to protect this region’s intense natural beauty.

(above) Appenzell Innerrhoden, Switzerland

Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK

Telc, Czech Republic

Cyprus

Bua, Sweden

Reykjavik, Iceland

Istanbul, Turkey

Mariazell, Austria

Kiev, Ukraine

Crete, Greece

St. Petersburg, Russia

The Pyrenees, Aquitaine, France

Wick, Scotland

Aalesund, Norway

Berlin, Germany

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland

Capri, Italy 

Karkonosze, Poland

Postojna Cave, Slovenia

Paris, France

Margam Park, Wales, UK

Dresden, Germany

Barbarin, Spain

Berg, Austria

Florence, Italy

Copenhagen, Denmark

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Luster Kommune, Norway

Porto, Portugal

Boka Kotorska, Montenegro

Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

Lanzada, Spain

Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy

Moscow, Russia

Skradinski Buk, Croatia

London, England, UK

Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russia

Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Santorini, Greece

ALSO CHECK OUT:

40 Gorgeous Photos of North America

40 Gorgeous Photos of Asia

40 Gorgeous Photos of Latin America

25 Photos of Islands Threatened By Climate Change

The post 40 Gorgeous Photos of Europe appeared first on EcoSalon.

10 global events we were all intrinsically part of.

What makes an event memorable? How does a “happening” sear into our collective mindset and take up permanent residence in our hearts and in our souls? Most often, of course, we are not personally there to witness or directly experience occurrences of global importance.

How many of us were in Cairo’s Tahrir square as protests raged earlier this year?

Who among us lost a loved one or ate radioactive food in Japan, or suffered pangs of hunger in East Africa?

In our media-saturated world, memorable events – indeed memories themselves – are delivered to us via an increasingly wide range of words and pictures, bits and bytes, accounts that stream to our attention, some touching us for a moment, some for a lifetime. Here’s a look at our Top 10 (in no particular order), with links to the stories and accounts that made them indelible to us.

1. March of Horrors: Japan’s Suffering

A tsunami generated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northeast Japan killed nearly 20,000, caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage and triggered a nuclear power plant disaster that unleashed radiation into the environment. Within hours, videos of the unimaginable waves crushing the Japanese shoreline flooded world consciousness via YouTube and other Internet outlets.

2. The Harder They Fall: Arab Spring

Beginning with a small demonstration in Tunisia that grew to topple a regime, flames of unrest spread to Egypt, ousting dictator Hosni Mubarak, and then to Bahrain and Yemen. Eventually Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi would be dead, and even today, Syrian protesters remain caught in a bloody battle with dictator Bashar al-Assad. Did social media enable and perhaps even spark these events?

3. European Disunion: Economic Crisis in the E.U.

The global economic downturn wreaked havoc in the European Union where austerity measures in Greece resulted in riots and protest, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was driven from office, and measures taken by Germany and France exacerbated an ongoing fissure between the E.U. and Britain. Meanwhile, disagreement about how to avoid a catastrophic meltdown flared across the Atlantic, as opinions about what to do remained as numerous as there are pundits and stakeholders.

4. Wanted Dead: American Operation Kills Osama Bin Laden

In May, American helicopters bearing a special operations team raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, whose followers carried out the 9/11 attacks. Within hours his body was buried at sea, and images of the corpse suppressed. Instead, a powerful and now-famous image of White House personnel – including president Barack Obama and Secretary of state Hillary Clinton – remotely watching the mission was made public.

5. The Fruit of Invention: The World Mourns Loss of Apple Founder Steve Jobs

The world lost some great minds to cancer and health issues as 2011 wore on, including writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens and Czech playwright, dissident and politician Vaclav Havel. But, despite the sense that “it was coming,” the loss that seemed to most deeply move our high-tech world was that of innovator, inventor and Apple Founder Steve Jobs. As news of his death spread across the internet in October – in part via millions of his own inventions – biographer Walter Isaccson’s iBio hit the presses, eventually to set new sales records.

6. From Wall Street to Main Street: Occupiers Take a Stand

Beginning with a September protest in a New York City park near Wall Street, what became known as the “Occupy” movement quickly spread to many major American cities and beyond. The “leaderless” protests are said to represent “the 99 percent” against the richest 1 percent of Americans, who benefit from corporate and political corruption and greed at the majority’s expense. In November, images of a campus police officer at the University of California Davis pepper-spraying students went viral over the internet, instantly becoming a rallying point for the movement.

7. Us vs. Them: Obstructionism Paralyzes Washington

Despite being fractured between party traditionalists and Tea Partiers, a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives shackled the hands of Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Senate. On issues ranging from the economy to the environment, American leaders reached a seemingly endless stream of stalemates. Most notably, the President unveiled a massive jobs bill that was labeled dead-on-arrival by members of both parties. The New York Times commented on the political gamesmanship, and EcoSalon presented the many rifts dividing America.

8. Weather, Weather Everywhere:  Climate Change Marches On

With drought in Texas, killer cyclones in the Philippines, and monster floods in South America and Thailand, 2011 was another year in what seems like an annual escalation of climate change and severe weather. Perhaps the most wrenching weather-related disaster was the return of drought to the Horn of Africa. Data continues to show the impact humans have on the world’s climate, yet deniers continue their war on science. In October, EcoSalon named names.

9. We are the World: All 7 Billion of Us

As the human population reached the 7 billion mark (with 3 billion more projected by the end of the century), debates about resources and birth control reheated. Can our planet sustain such exponential growth? In its inimitable way, National Geographic gave us the story in pictures.

10. Ask and Tell: End of Anti- Gay Military Policy in the American Armed Forces

After 18 years of controversy, the Pentagon repealed its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in September. After encouraging those who have been expelled under the policy to reenlist, President Barack Obama declared: “We are not a nation that says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We are a nation that says ‘out of many, we are one.'” An MSNBC story covered a historic kiss.

Images: TenSafeFrogs, Official U.S. Navy Imagery, S a l e e m – H o m s i, PIAZZA del POPOLO, bkusler, lwpkommunikacio, bogieharmond, Alex Barth, kevin dooley, woodleywonderworks, Beverly & Pack

The post The 10 News Stories of 2011 You Shouldn’t Have Missed appeared first on EcoSalon.

I am always drooling over, swooning for, and lurking on This Is Glamorous. This flawless blog by Roseline Lohr is bursting with gorgeous, feminine, and (of course) glamorous interiors, photography, and fashion.

And every now and then, while I peruse, something makes me exclaim, “This is Glamorous and GREEN!” That’s right, this award-winning design blog and place of beauty is sprinkled with little doses of green allure. Roseline has featured several eco-chic products (I am completely taken with these decanter pendants), but don’t be limited to this category alone – there are lots of stunning sustainable interiors and fashions, like this dwelling in Greece. The images in this post (as seen on This is Glamorous) are from the private residence of Marilyn Katsaris, and it’s stunning. I wonder if she takes reservations?!

These pictures make me want to visit Greece, bask in the soft blues and tender greens. For now, I will have to settle for visiting This is Glamorous, basking in the gorgeous views and soaking up a delicious dose of Roseline (well, soaking up everything really).

(Photography by Yiorgos Kordakis. See more of this alluring home and devour the details on Yatzer.)

The post This Is Glamorous appeared first on EcoSalon.