More on climate change and gardens

The issues of climate change and growing your own garden seem inexorably linked. Here, speaking to the issue of climate change and "what we should do," is the recent opinion piece "Why bother?" by Micheal Pollan. Putting the weight of the world's future on what individuals do or don't do with a vegetable patch is a heavy burden. But Pollan argues for the collateral benefits as well:

But there are sweeter reasons to plant that garden, to bother. At least in this one corner of your yard and life, you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen. Chances are, your garden will re-engage you with your neighbors, for you will have produce to give away and the need to borrow their tools. You will have reduced the power of the cheap-energy mind by personally overcoming its most debilitating weakness: its helplessness and the fact that it can’t do much of anything that doesn’t involve division or subtraction. The garden’s season-long transit from seed to ripe fruit — will you get a load of that zucchini?! — suggests that the operations of addition and multiplication still obtain, that the abundance of nature is not exhausted. The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.

TK: We will all have gardens if it means we can avoid having a big climate change tax imposed on us. I rather think Pollan's quaint solution is preferable to the big government response.

Sustainability - why, why, why?

A blog post asks the same question Dogbert does about sustainability (What's in it for me?) but comes up with a more selfless answer. From Pete Burden in the UK:

Why does this all matter? It’s a question that rattles around in the back of my mind a lot.

I am convinced by the urgency of doing something positive, and I can see that there is a huge opportunity waiting. But I really like the “why?” question. Was it Ricardo Semler - of Seven Day Weekend fame - who said his company’s strategy is to ask the question “Why?” repeatedly when faced by any new initiative or problem? I think he said it helps them prioritise, and ensure they only spend time on the things that give the most real benefits. That’s something I guess we would all aspire to.

And it’s such a simple technique.

So “why” do something about climate change? Why do something about poverty? Why try to seize the sustainability opportunity, when there are probably plenty of easier ways to make a living, and probably easier ways to make money, if that is your goal too.

I read a little piece by Rosie Boycott the other day in a very good book called “Do good lives have to cost the earth” by Andrew Simms and Joe Smith. I wouldn’t normally have much time for something written by a former editor of the Express newspaper. I can’t be bothered with newspapers at the best of times, let alone the Express. But she reminded me that the reason we need to do something in the UK about climate change is partly to show our leadership to the rest of the world. This in turn reminded me that we need to do the same about sustainability in general, even though the UK is a small country with relatively little impact on these global matters.

So one answer to the question “why? is that we should do it because we can - we have the wealth and security. And we also should do it because we have a responsibility and an opportunity to show leadership to business people all over the world.

If we in the developed world can’t make good sense and good lives out of the opportunities arising from sustainability, how can we expect others to do the same? And, with the size of the opportunities and the size of the problems, we really need these others to be part of the solution too.

Pick your own - back in vogue?

The u-pick operation can never market itself like a trip to the grocery store. It is a weekend day trip, preferably accompanied by kids. It is making memories, picking blueberries for an hour or so then eating them on the way home. Yet the u-pick is getting some press as a cheaper alternative than a trip to the supermarket. Check this story from WPSDTV.

Another news item for fruits and vegetables today was the advice to omnivores to be a sometime vegetarian: "For better health, be a part time vegetarian." by Gale Maleskey, MS, RD. I think a better term of art is needed than "part time vegetarian." Are you still a part time vegetarian while downing a quarter pounder? This column was posted on a Web site optimistically called www.stopagingnow.com. The author had this "bottom line": the plant based diet offers the best protection against some of the most common diseases of aging. Count me in..part of the time, at least.


"We can all be gourmet gardeners." This story from The Telegraph of the UK is a nod to the accomplished green thumb. "A vegetable patch, allotment, fruit orchard, or even a few pots on the windowsill, allow us the pleasure of handpicking fruit and vegetables and putting them straight onto the plate."
But don't make it sound so easy..The next tomato I harvest from a backyard plant will be my first. In what seems to be a great reader interest promotion, The Telegraph is launching a Food Garden Competition, with judging done by a panel including a chef, organic farmer, head gardener and a journalist. Here is some advice on options:

Another option could be to replace the front lawn with vegetables. This need not consist of a sea of Brussels sprouts and bare soil nudging up against the parked car, but could take the form of a few marginally raised fixed beds. I have seen front gardens devoted to a mass of vegetables and they can look amazingly good.

Amazingly good, but better than a green blanket of weedless turf?