“For environmental, business, and political organizations alike, the term that has come to stand for the hope of the natural world is ‘sustainable,’ ” Curtis White writes in Tin House. “But you would be mistaken if you assumed that the point of sustainability was to change our ways.” In the essay that follows, an excerpt from his latest book The Barbaric Heart, White offers a vivid critique of the mainstream response to the environmental crisis.

At the core of our problems, White argues, is something he calls the Barbaric Heart—visible in the ways that our culture considers violence a virtue—and its fundamental discord with the professed values of sustainability. He writes:

The artful (if ruthless) use of violence is obviously something that we admire in those sectors of the culture that we most associate with success: athletics, the military, entertainment (especially that arena of the armchair warrior, Grand Theft Auto), the frightening world of financial markets (where, as the Economist put it, there are “barbarians at the vaults”), and the rapacious world we blandly call real estate development. . . .

The idea that we can “move mountains” is an expression of admiration. When it is done with mammoth machines provided by the Caterpillar Company of Peoria, Illinois, it is also a form of violence (as the sheered mountain tops of West Virginia confirm).

To any complaints about the disheartening destruction and injustice that comes with such power, the Barbaric Heart need only reply: the strong have always dominated the weak and then instructed them. That is how great civilizations have always been made, from the ancient Egyptians to the British in India to Karl Rove and George Bush.

It’s a whirling, complicated critique—but wholly worth reading. Tin House also followed up with White in a delightful e-mail interview.

Source: Tin House

Wind turbines don’t just collect energy. They collect attention. Environmental Building News writes in its May issue about the ways that many big green structures nowadays are incorporating “building integrated” wind power into their designs—and not always to generate much power but rather to make a loud and public statement about their greenness. EBN’s headline calls it “The Folly of Building Integrated Wind,” and for this rather staid publication that’s a pretty damning indictment.

Editor Alex Wilson, who reported the piece, doesn’t arrive at his conclusion lightly, however. In typical EBN style he come at the issue from an objective, information-driven approach that parses the pros and cons of wind turbines on buildings before concluding that “it’s usually a bad idea.”

“A green building is not green because it has [solar panels] on the roof—or a ground-source heat pump or a vegetated roof or integrated wind,” writes Wilson in his editor’s column in the same issue. “It’s green because it has an energy-conserving envelope, because it relies on natural daylighting, because it effectively controls unwanted heat gain, because it reduces dependence on automobiles, because it’s compact and resource-efficient, because it’s healthy, and because it’s stingy on water use. The heavy lifting in green design has to come from these measures, not from the window dressing. … Construction budgets are tight these days. Let’s not squander these limited budgets on high-profile visual statements.”

Source: BuildingGreen.com

Image of Bahrain World Trade Center by Ahmed Rabea, licensed under Creative Commons.

When an author comes out with a book called The Vegetarian Myth (Flashpoint Press), as Lierre Keith has, you know she’s not treading lightly, and the book is every bit as hell-raising as its name suggests. Keith comes from an ex-vegan perspective in this takedown of vegetarianism and veganism, and she acknowledges right away that she’s in for some pushback:

It’s not just the amount of information that makes the discussion hard. Often the listener doesn’t want to hear it, and the resistance can be extreme. “Vegetarian” isn’t just what you eat or even what you believe. It’s who you are, and it’s a totalizing identity. In presenting a fuller picture of food politics, I’m not just questioning a philosophy or a set of dietary habits. I’m threatening a vegetarian’s sense of self. And most of you will react with defensiveness and anger. I got hate mail before I’d barely started this book. And no, thank you, I don’t need any more.

Keith goes on to make her case, which basically is this: 1) Vegetarianism will damage your body. It damaged mine. 2) Our bodies are made to eat meat. 3) Converting to a vegetarian or vegan diet isn’t healing the planet if all you’re doing is eating veggies, fruit, and annual grains grown by large and distant megafarms, as most food is—even the stuff at the “natural” food store.

She is ultimately a radical environmentalist, which isn’t surprising since the book is published by Flashpoint, the imprint run by radical green author Derrick Jensen, who is quoted on the jacket front saying, “This book saved my life.” Keith suggests that as important as food choices are, bigger steps are needed to stave off environmental collapse. Namely, refrain from having children; stop driving a car; and grow your own food.

Oh, and by the way:

“Agriculture has to stop. It’s about to run out anyway—of soil, of water, of ecosystems—but it would go easier on us all if we faced that collectively, and then developed cultural constraints that would stop us from ever doing it again.

“Where I live, the wetlands need to return to cover the land in a soft, slow blanket of water. … The rivers need to be undimmed. And the suburbs and roads need to be abandoned. I have no great solution for how to make that economically feasible: I sincerely doubt it’s possible. I only know it has to happen, no matter how much we resist.”

Source: Flashpoint Press

Far from the mall-pocked, highway-scarred backwaters they’re made out to be, small cities should be a cornerstone of America’s sustainable future. Renewable energy sources like geothermal and solar often require abundant, cheap land, making small towns ideally situated to take advantage of a green revolution.

Urban planners and policy makers are making a mistake by neglecting small towns, Catherine Tumber writes for the Boston Review. Many people suffer from a kind of “metropolitan bias,” giving disproportionate funds and attention to big cities. “Smaller cities located in the heartland could one day anchor a regional agricultural shift from industrial monoculture to more localized biodiversity,” Tumber writes, and could show the way toward a more sustainable future.

Gainsville, Florida, (population 120,000) for example, is “gearing up for a solar power boom,” Mariah Blake writes for the Washington Monthly, “fueled by homegrown businesses and scrappy investors who have descended on the community and are hiring local contractors to install photovoltaic panels on rooftops around town.”

The key to Gainsville’s success is a “feed-in-tariff” policy that requires local power companies to buy renewable energy from independent producers. The policy, pioneered in Germany, is fueling investment in green technology at a time when much of the corporate investment for renewable energy has dried up.

Image by  Kate Mereand , licensed under  Creative Commons .

Sources: Boston Review, Washington Monthly

Green buildings are needed to move the country toward sustainability, but if the buildings aren’t beautiful, they won’t be green for long. Architecture professor James Vines asked Kriston Capps in the American Prospect, “If it isn't art, it's not sustainable, because who's going to keep ugly buildings around?”

Green building design isn’t advancing as quickly as green technology, according to Capps, in part because the top-tier architects like Frank Gehry aren’t trying. Some just don’t like working in local or sustainable materials. Instead, green buildings are often built by younger architects with fewer resources. So far, the great design hasn’t been forthcoming.

Image by Payton Chung, licensed under Creative Commons.

Source: The American Prospect 

Like a cap-and-trade system for fishing, individual fishing quotas (IFQs) are an innovative way that ocean conservationists are fighting overfishing.

Current fishing seasons tend to encourage a zero-sum view of fishing, where fishermen try to catch as much as they can in the shortest time possible. This depletes fish stocks, and threatens biodiversity. In an IFQ system, the government would regulate how much fish—including the nasty bycatch of unwanted animals—that fishermen could haul in. The latest issue of Earth Island Journal explores the strategy, and finds that IFQs give fishermen a stake in the long-term sustainability of fish, because the more fish there are in the sea, the more wealth there is for everyone.

Image by Philippe Gabriel, licensed under Creative Commons.

In such depressing economic times, the phrase “money can't buy happiness” is at once wishful and trite. But it's worth a shot to at least try to let go of our national money obsession and instead focus on quality of life, isn’t it? That's why Yes! magazine has devoted their entire Winter 2009 issue to “Sustainable Happiness,” the balance between happiness for humans and the planet they inhabit.

Articles include one family’s success with a “no-buy” Christmas and a list of “10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy” with basic-but-true ideas like “Savor Everyday Moments” and “Avoid Comparisons.”

Image by Sabrina Campagna, licensed under Creative Commons.

Phil Werst knows a lot about sustainable cuisine. As the general manager of Minneapolis’ Common Roots Café, Werst is charged with designing made-from-scratch menus that make flavorful use of local bounty and organic ingredients. Several times a week, you can find the eco-minded chef cycling back from the farmers market, his bike trailer loaded down with the season’s goodies.

We told Werst about our Sustainable Seafood special project—an online repository of recipes, news, and resources inspired by our recent excerpt of Bottomfeeder: How to eat ethically in a world of vanishing seafood—and the chef agreed to dream up something delicious for Utne.com’s readers. This past Saturday, he showed Utne librarian Danielle Maestretti and me how to prepare Baked Trout with Roasted Root Vegetable Farro Risotto and Butternut Squash Puree.

A word of warning: I nearly died of happiness when I shoveled the first bite of Werst’s dish into my mouth. The roasted root vegetables heartily stood up against the dense, nutty warmth of the farro risotto, and the butternut squash puree, a food too often prepared overly sweet, was refreshingly spiked with apple cider vinegar and a hint of cayenne. And the fish, well. Fresh from Star Prairie Trout Farm, the trout wasn’t just amazingly tasty—it was surprisingly easy to prepare. (If you’ve never removed pinbones before, Werst demonstrates the technique in a video below.)

Baked Trout with Roasted Root Vegetable Farro Risotto and Butternut Squash Puree

Serves six.

Trout and Farro Risotto: 4 medium carrots; 2 bulbs celery root; 4 medium parsnips; 3 tablespoons olive oil (plus some for drizzling); 1 medium yellow onion, diced; 2 cloves of garlic, chopped; ½ teaspoon chili flakes; ½ teaspoon fennel seed; 2 cups organic farro, dry; 1 cup mild white wine; 1 quart vegetable stock; 3 cups arugula; 1 tablespoon unsalted butter; 3 whole trout; Salt and pepper

Butternut Squash Puree: 1 medium butternut squash; 1 cup vegetable stock (plus some for thinning); ¼ cup apple cider vinegar; Pinch cayenne; 2 tablespoons maple syrup; Salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

The butternut squash will take the most time in the oven, so begin by chopping the squash in half and laying it face down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Put the squash in the oven. You’ll roast it until a knife inserted offers little resistance, 45 minutes to an hour.

Peel the carrots, parsnips, and celery root bulbs. Slice the parsnips in half lengthwise, and then again; remove the woody core. Chop all the vegetables into quarter-inch cubes. Toss them with 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, and some fresh-cracked pepper. Transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and put them in the oven. They’ll roast for 15-20 minutes, but keep an eye on them. The cubes should be tender but not crispy.

While your vegetables are roasting, bring the vegetable stock to a simmer in a medium saucepan. As the stock warms, place a large pot over medium heat—this is where you will cook the risotto. When the large pot is hot, add 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add the onions and garlic, stirring until translucent. Add the chili flakes, fennel seed, one tablespoon salt, and farro. Stir for two minutes and then add the white wine. Stir until the wine is almost completely dissolved. Ladle in warm vegetable stock 1 cup at a time, stirring frequently. Remove from heat when the grain is cooked but still slightly chewy. Stir in the unsalted butter and set to the side.

Provided they’re done cooking, pull the squash and the roasted root vegetables out of the oven and set aside to cool—it’s time to prepare your trout. You can purchase trout fillets with the pinbones already removed, but it’s really quite easy to prepare your own. Werst demonstrates the technique:

Place the trout fillets skin-side-down on a parchment lined baking tray. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil, and season lightly with salt and fresh-cracked pepper. Depending on the idiosyncrasies of your oven, the fillets will take 8 to 12 minutes to bake. When they are done, the flesh will be opaque pink and firm to the touch. Bake until cooked through and remove from the oven.

While the trout is in the oven, remove the seeds from the cooled squash. Scoop out the squash meat and put it in a food processor. Add 1 cup of vegetable stock and apple cider vinegar. Puree for 30 seconds. Add cayenne and maple syrup. Puree again. The squash should be silky smooth and slide easily off of a spoon; add additional stock as needed. Salt to taste.

Stir the roasted vegetables, arugula, and ½ cup butternut squash puree into the farro risotto. Salt and pepper to taste.

In large pasta bowls, place one cup farro risotto in the center, and gently transfer a trout filet on top of the grain. Drizzle generously with butternut squash puree. Note: Excess puree, thinned with additional stock, will make a delicious soup.

Launching today, the Green Report Card website promises to rank 300 colleges in terms of their sustainability, helping eco-conscious high school seniors make the right choice.

Green Report Card was created by the nonprofit Sustainable Endowments Institute, a project of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. The college rankings are formulated using information gathered from the College Sustainability Report Card 2009, which evaluates schools in nine key categories: Administration, Climate Change and Energy, Food and Recycling, Green Building, Student Involvement, Transportation, Endowment Transparency, Investment Priorities, and Shareholder Engagement.

Factors affecting a school’s grade range from the presence of “green dorms and car sharing,” according to the program’s press release, to “shareholder advisory committees and renewable energy investments.” Small liberal arts colleges like Carleton and Oberlin were among the 15 schools that got A grades, joining the ranks of such state schools as the University of Washington and the University of New Hampshire, and Ivies like Harvard and Brown.

Peruse the Report Card to see how your current or former institution fared. (I’m embarrassed to say where I went to college, since my alma mater got a D-minus. Ouch!)

Image by redjar, licensed by Creative Commons.

One of the most influential actors in the mainstream environmental movement has taken a radical turn in his views on the subject. James Gustave “Gus” Speth—whose contributions to environmental causes include cofounding the Natural Resources Defense Council, serving as a policy advisor to the Carter administration, and founding the environmental think tank World Resources Institute—is now pushing for a take-to-the-streets approach to the environmental crisis.

A dean at Yale University is not the most likely of candidates to call for civic upheaval, but Speth’s passion for the environment and his unyielding desire to save our planet from destruction leads him to a conclusion that is slowly becoming more prevalent in the mainstream movement. In an interview with Jeff Goodell in the Sept.-Oct. Orion (not yet available online), Speth shared his vision for a citizen-led movement that reimagines our current economy and state of mind in favor of environmental sustainability. This vision is spelled out in his new book, The Bridge at the Edge of the World (Yale University Press, 2008).

“The fundamental thing that’s happened is that our efforts to clean up the environment are being overwhelmed by the sheer increase in the size of the economy,” Speth tells Goodell. “And there’s no reason to think that won’t continue. So we have to ask, what is it about our society that puts such an extraordinary premium on growth? Is it justified? Why is that growth so destructive? And what do we do about it?

“Capitalism is a growth machine. What it really cares about is earning a profit and reinvesting a large share of that and growing continually … . And so all of these things combine to produce a type of capitalism that really doesn’t care about the environment, and doesn’t really care about people much either. What it really cares about is profits and growth, and the rest is more or less incidental. And until we change that system, my conclusion is that it will continue to be fundamentally destructive.”

Speth proposes we look for a “nonsocialist alternative” to capitalism. This revised capitalist system would require a series of transformations:

“The first would be a transformation in the market. There would be a real revolution in pricing. Things that are environmentally destructive would be—if they were really destructive—almost out of reach, prohibitively expensive.

“A second would be a transformation to a postgrowth society where what you really want is to grow very specific things that are desperately needed in a very targeted way—you know, care for the mentally ill, health-care accessibility, high-tech green-collar industries.

“A third would be a move to a wider variety of ownership patterns in the private sector. More co-ops, more employee ownership plans, and less rigid lines between the profit and the not-for-profit sectors.”

To get there, though, requires more than just policy orchestrated by the people on the top. Beyond his call for a serious bottom-up grassroots effort that “shakes up people’s consciousness and forces us to rethink what’s really important,” Speth also believes that a fundamental shift both in environmental groups’ focus and in our society’s values are crucial to saving the planet.

“I think that the environmental community needs to see political reform as central to its agenda, and it doesn’t now…the other thing that needs to happen is that there needs to be some fundamental challenge to our dominant values. It’s been addressed by religious organizations and psychologists and philosophers and countless others for a long time. But until we reconnect in a more profound way with ourselves and our communities and the natural world, it seems unlikely that we will deal successfully with our problems.”

Image by scottfeldstein, licensed under Creative Commons.

The Prix Pictet is a heck of a photography prize. In its first year, the award promises a purse of 100,000 Swiss francs to the winner, and for all shortlisted photographers, an exhibition at the Palais de Toyko in Paris. The prize is for work that communicates urgent messages about sustainability, what the Prix Pictet website calls “perhaps the greatest single issue of the twenty-first century.” Indeed.

Over here at the Palais de Utne in Minneapolis, we weren’t surprised at all to see two of our favorite environmentally conscious photographers make the cut. Chris Jordan and David Maisel were shortlisted for the prize last Friday, with 16 other photographers, selected from a field of more than 200 nominated artists hailing from 43 countries.

Jordan is a Seattle-based photographer and artist whose series, “Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait,” we featured in our Sept.-Oct. 2007 issue. In that series, Jordan makes numbing statistics visible, shrinking an emblematic image and reproducing it thousands, even hundreds of thousands of times. (Stretched across a 60 by 80 inch panel, for example,1.14 million tiny folded paper bags represent the number used in the United States every hour.) The work that earned him a spot on the Prix Pictet shortlist is his book In Katrina’s Wake: Potraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006). The inaugural Prix Pictet theme is water.

Maisel landed his shortlist position with pieces from “The Lake Project” and “Terminal Mirage,” part of his “Black Maps” series—surreal aerial photography of environmentally impacted landscapes. Utne’s readers will recognize one of his nominated photographs; Terminal Mirage 19 ran on the back page of our May-June 2006 issue. Later that same year, we did a story about Maisel’s evocative “Library of Dust” project, photographs of urns housing the unclaimed cremains of patients of the Oregon State Insane Asylum. The decaying copper canisters bloomed with otherworldly color.

The winner of the Prix Pictet, sponsored by Swiss bank Pictet & Cie in association with the Financial Times, will be announced on October 30, 2008.

Developing nations will soon benefit from personal stoves that combine energy efficiency and sustainable business models. Triple Pundit highlights efforts by EnviroFit and the Shell Foundation to distribute clean-burning biomass stoves in India.

EnviroFit, a Colorado-based nonprofit manufacturer, first became known for retrofitting two-stroke engines in Southeast Asia. Its stoves are designed to harness the power of “wood, crop waste, or animal dung” and produce nontoxic exhaust. This is valuable to India and other developing countries, where toxic indoor air pollution claims millions of lives every year. EnviroFit and Shell hope to subsidize the $12 to $50 cost of the stoves for families in need and eventually expand the program to Latin America and Africa.

Biomass stoves are part of an alternative-cooking trend that harnesses old technologies in new ways. Utne blogger Erik Helin pointed me to a spread in BackHome (article not available online) featuring the latest solar cooking technology, ranging from expensive high-tech cookers to do-it-yourself contraptions made from windshield shades and other materials. We’ve come a long way from the lukewarm hot dogs yielded up by the tin-foil-and-shoebox cookers my sixth-grade science class constructed.