EcoHearth: Come Home to the Earth

“People have tried and they have tried, but sex is still not better than sweet corn.” These words, spoken by Garrison Keillor, adorn one of the many banners that hang on an eight-foot-tall imposing steel fence surrounding a parking lot in Seattle’s University District. Six days a week, these banners mark this patch of asphalt as a place of fervent, if not incongruous, support for local organic agriculture. However, each Saturday morning, every square inch of pavement between those banners is covered by trucks, tents, people and, most importantly, food. It was here, at the University District Farmers Market, where I bought the corn that made me consider Mr. Keillor’s quip more seriously. Read on…

Here's the problem with wildlife—they prefer things wild. Turns out, undomesticated animals don't like roads or condos or, well, visitors. They thrive in what ecologists call "contiguous wilderness," meaning nature unbroken, uninhabited and, these days, highly unlikely. Take the Florida black bear; with a home range of close to 100 miles, this thing is no couch potato. But come on—100 miles of contiguous wilderness? With all the trees that need logging and the beachfront property that needs developing, isn't that just a tad excessive? Read on...

"Dear Dolly,
It seems that the US Food and Drug Administration, in all its wisdom, has decided that US citizens will be safe eating cloned animal products. Yes, Dolly, that means ewe, your lambs and even your immaculate lactation. Move over, Chicken McNuggets®, you pioneers of homogeneity. Henceforth, diversity, individuality and even evolution are out. You showed the way, Dolly, and genetic-uniformity is in! At Safeway, we can celebrate with simultaneous glee the supersized super-beef and the super-buxom boneless chickens of the future, pink and wiggly in the Styrofoam tray, copyright pending and no rooster required." Read on…

Let me start by saying what sustainability is not. It is not endless consumerism based on the pharmaceutical industry, plastic bags, traffic jams, war, clear cuts, chemicals, genetically modified food, rising sea levels, sweatshops, shopping malls, the homeless, power, oppression and the decimation of the natural world. Sustainability is also not earth shoes, organic eggs, hybrid cars, carbon credits, hemp clothing, a green Apple Mac Book™, consumer co-ops, E85*, B20** , compact fluorescents, recycling bins or reusable shopping bags. [* 85% denatured ethanol and 15% gasoline fuel blend; ** 20% biofuel and 80% petroleum diesel fuel blend - Ed.] Read on...

In the 1970s, the alternative agriculture movement was limited to a small group of idealogues among the more affluent members of society. Over the past three decades, it has slowly moved into the mainstream, and by 2002—the year the federal guidelines for organic production and certification were created—a set of universal norms was established that greatly facilitated the mass marketing of organic goods to an already thriving market. Read on…