December 23rd, 2010

Climate change seems to have fallen off the political map lately. But it remains the urgent issue of our time. Indeed, it is the issue that will determine “our time.”

Several books released this year reflect this reality. And yes, reading them can be grim going. There are no requisite Hollywood endings, only monumental problems, from the highest melting mountain glacier to the deepest toxic dung lagoon (the proverbial pile of poo) of the animal factories. There are rising oceans, onerous heat, desertification, walloping storms, vanishing forests and depleted soil — enough pestilence and disaster for a Bible update.

But weighted as they are with mind-boggling issues, and warnings that we must attend to our planet or veer into disaster by 2020 or 2030, they do offer hope, opening up new ways of thinking and illuminating pathways forward.

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November 7th, 2010

What if we could reinvent Thanksgiving Day’s traditional dishes? Could we replace baked yams topped with melty marshmallows with something natural and organic? Could we convert Mom’s canned green bean casserole into a healthier, Earth-friendly dish – complete with crunchy onion bits on top? What if we asked some of the best-selling organic cookbook writers in the country to overhaul our Thanksgiving table?

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July 7th, 2010

‘Tis the season of farmers’ markets. Last week I moseyed on down to the Southampton (NY) farmers market and picked up some tasty, locally produced cheese that melted in my mouth with a delicious tang. But that local dairy farmer and others like him could become an endangered species if we continue on our current carbon-spewing energy path. Cows don’t produce much in very hot weather and scientists say that “heat stress and other factors could cause a decline in milk production of up to 20 percent or higher” in the Northeast under a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. That’s a big deal: dairy is the largest agricultural sector in the region, producing some $3.6 billion dollars annually.

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November 18th, 2009

I’ve been diving back into my dog-eared Joy of Cooking lately, giving these tried-and-true recipes little eco-twists along the way. For Thanksgiving this year, I’m bringing the apple pie, made from Joy’s simple recipe with a few tweaks.

Anna Lappé brings 'Joy' to an Earth-friendly pie. Photo by Bart Nagle

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