Have you heard the phrase “beyond organic” and wondered what it means? If so, you have sympathizers among some certified organic farmers who believe it confuses consumers. Oregon-based organic farmer Katie Kulla writes for In Good Tilth about “beyond organic” and its effect on farmers like herself who have jumped through all the hoops to become certified:

A growing number of non-certified growers seem to express hostility toward the word “organic” and their inability to legally use it—negativity perhaps best typified by their use of the phrase “beyond organic” to describe their practices. The claim has been increasingly common in media coverage of small farmers as well—perhaps most famously in Michael Pollan’s descriptions of farmer Joel Salatin in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. … 

While some might not think twice about the phrase “beyond organic,” I have been bothered by its use and its significant implications. When my husband and I [proprietors of Oakhill Organics] discuss the organic label with customers today, we hear that many people think organic “doesn’t mean anything anymore,” or that they’re worried the meaning is being diluted, but they’re not sure why. I have to wonder how much of their confusion and cynicism can be attributed to the “beyond organic” phrase and the subsequent criticisms of the USDA organic program that often accompany its use. 

Kulla goes on to deflate some of the myths surrounding organic certification. She convincingly argues that:

• While organic certification is rigorous and means extra paperwork, it is not terribly onerous and is “ultimately positive.”
• A trained inspector can spot things that a consumer can’t, even if the consumer is, for example, a member of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm and can visit and observe the operation.
• Certification is simply not that expensive, especially when federal reimbursements available to many farmers are taken into account.
• Certification leaves some decisions up to the government, but the alternative is “an unregulated word usable by anyone as a marketing boost.”
• Big business may stand accused of inappropriately using the organic label on processed foods, but again, that’s no reason to ditch—or dilute—the label.

Kulla is well aware that she’s treading on sensitive turf, but she stands her ground. “I’m not attempting to start a ‘holier than thou’ argument,” she writes. “Actually, ‘beyond organic’ is quite the ‘holier than thou’ statement in and of itself. It only has meaning in opposition to ‘organic,’ and its use directly comments and passes judgment on other farms.”

Source: In Good Tilth (article not available online)

Image by dyobmit, licensed under Creative Commons. 

If the dormitories from Tempohousing look like relics from a cargo ship, that’s because they are. In 2007, the Dutch company converted 1000 shipping containers into housing for students in Amsterdam. The narrow yet fully appointed single-occupancy units are stacked up like Legos and arrayed around a central courtyard to provide light to each room and a safe place for socializing and bicycle storage. Each dorm can be put together in under six months, and easily relocated.

(Thanks, WorldWatch.)

Source: Tempohousing

Image by Tempohousing, used with permission.

It’s clear from the outcome of the Copenhagen talks that the world’s political leaders are not going to lead the way in fighting climate change. What is needed instead, Fred Branfman writes in Sacramento News & Review, is a broad-based “human movement” in which ordinary people recognize the urgency of acting now to avert catastrophe.

Branfman’s essay, “Do Our Children Deserve to Live?,” was in fact written and published in early December, before the Copenhagen summit began, yet the writer boldly—and correctly—predicted the talks would fail. He already recognized that there simply wasn’t enough societal pressure and self-awareness of our grim predicament to effect broad change:

Our basic problem is that the sudden advent of the human climate crisis invalidates our basic beliefs about humanity built up over millennia. We cannot yet see that we are no longer who we think we are. That today:

though we believe we care for our offspring we do not;

though we wish to be remembered well we will be cursed;

though we believe we love life we embrace death;

though we hope to make history we are annihilating it; and

though we seek to contribute to our communities we are destroying them.

Our greatest challenge is to adjust ancient belief systems to the new climate realities that have undone them. If we can break through our fog and clearly see the existential threat we pose to our children, presently unthinkable actions to save them may become possible. But if not, we will remain locked in our cognitive cattle cars, moving inexorably toward the loss of everything we hold dear.

Branfman’s essay, though it unfolds slowly, is ultimately one of the most powerful and articulate calls to action on climate change that I’ve yet seen. It has kicked off a vigorous discussion at the News & Review and at Alternet, where it was reprinted, and Branfman is now exploring ways to actually build the “human movement” he outlined in the piece. (E-mail him at fredbranfman[at]aol.com if you have ideas to share.)

My only reservation is with the child-centric framing of his main point. While I’m a father myself, and “doing it for the kids” is a time-tested method of attracting sympathizers, I worry that it leaves out of the picture everyone who doesn’t have kids—by choice or not—and it might even have the effect of alienating some of them. We need all hands on deck to make the sort of change Branfman is proposing, so I think it’s worth emphasizing that it’s not just about children per se—it’s about the very fate of the whole human race.

Source: Sacramento News & Review

Earlier this month, I blogged about bike lanes in the sky. That’s exactly what it would take to get me biking in Delhi, India where 130,000 people—mostly pedestrians and cyclists—were killed in crashes in 2007. All the same, they’re giving bike lanes a try, reports Streetsblog:

One month after a local bicycle advocacy group, the Delhi Cycling Club, sent a list of demands to the Delhi government, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit announced that all major streets will be retrofitted with bike lanes. "In a city like Delhi, cycling would be the most effective mode of transport to combat pollution and congestion on the roads," wrote Dikshit.

From press accounts, it's not exactly clear whether the new network would consist entirely of physically separated lanes, which currently exist along the city's bus rapid transit corridors.

A network of physically separated lanes would be especially useful in a city where traffic laws go largely unenforced. There are 110 million traffic violations in Delhi every day, according to the Guardian.

Delhi 's investment in a cycling future comes not a moment too soon. Last year's introduction of the Tata Nano, a car priced at $2,000, has threatened to flood the city's already full streets with even more automobiles and even worse gridlock.

Source: Streetsblog

If you are into absurd but irresistible solutions to major urban problems, you’ll want to check out Martin Angelov’s award-winning proposal for a bike lane in the sky.

“The first crazy idea which came to my mind was to make flying bicycle lanes,” he explains to ArchDaily, “using steel wire, something like ski lift but working on the opposite principle in which the wire is static and it doesn’t need electricity.”

Yes, he’s serious. And yes, it’s awesome.

(Thanks, The Rumpus.)

Source: ArchDaily

Deforestation can be easy to ignore when it happens in far-away places. People might be quicker to act, however, if their hometowns were being destroyed. In a beautiful video (best viewed on full-screen mode), artist Maya Lin brings the idea of deforestation to some of the most famous parks in the world. It’s part of the What Is Missing project, trying to create a memorial to the species going extinct throughout the world.

Maya Lin - Unchopping a Tree from What is Missing? Foundation on Vimeo.

(Thanks, Kottke.)

Source:  What Is Missing?  

Not all abandoned factories and lots are going to waste. Christopher Weber reports in E magazine on projects underway that are designed to transform abandoned urban industrial sites into vibrant ecological habitats. He says scientists who’ve studied the sites are discovering many have key ecological connections, such as being located beneath to major flyways of migratory birds, or housing specific species of wildlife. Weber also highlights this particular rehabilitation success story:

One of the most spectacular—and unlikely—examples of industrial habitat can be found in Denver at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. Beginning in 1942, the arsenal produced nerve gas and other chemical weapons for the U.S. Army. By the time it time it closed in 1992, these 27 square miles had become one of the nation’s most poisonous landscapes.

Today, the reclamation process is almost complete. Just 11 miles from downtown Denver, the old arsenal draws scads of tourists. The stars of the show are two wobbly, cinnamon-toned bison calves born this summer. They brought the self-sustaining bison herd to 29 animals; managers expect it [to] reach 200 some day. “We’ve restored their habitat back to short-grass prairie, the way it looked in the late 1800s,” says Sherry James, visitor services manager for the refuge. “The fact that we’ve cleaned up the arsenal to the point that we can reintroduce bison—and they’re thriving—that’s amazing.”

Source: E magazine

Image by kodiax2, licensed under Creative Commons.

Electric vehicles are coming to the United States. If steps aren’t taken, though, the cars could cause blackouts and may not help the environment as much as promised. The new EVs need a lot of power to charge, and people want their cars to charge quickly. Turning on just one EV charger "is like adding three new homes to a neighborhood," according to IEEE Spectrum, "and that’s with the air conditioning, lights, and laundry running." If there were an influx of new EV cars, it would put a massive strain on the power grid—especially street-level transformers—and could cause blackouts.

And where does the energy come from to power all those cars? About half of electricity in the United States currently comes from coal power, and that won’t likely change with the introduction of the new cars. So unless big changes are made soon, the new EVs won’t be all that green.

Source: IEEE Spectrum 

You can’t grow crops in a desert, right? You can if you grow desert crops. Farmer Mark Moody is staking out a local food niche by cultivating mesquite, the scrubby and tough little tree, in Arizona’s Sonoran desert, reports High Country News. He processes the tree’s slender pods into a gluten-free, high-protein flour and has other plans for mesquite products, which according to the magazine are many:

The mesquite tree is one of the Sonoran Desert’s most useful plants. Southwestern tribes harvested it for centuries. The whole tree can be utilized — the pods ground into a sweet, nutty flour, the yellow catkins used to produce honey, and the cherry-brown hardwood sawed into furniture and flooring, not to mention used for sweet-smelling firewood and grill flavoring.

In addition to his own orchard plantings, Moody wild-harvests (with Park Service permission) mesquite pods from native stands along the Colorado River. “The Indians call this the tree of life,” he tells High Country News, and predicts, “In the next three years, mesquite will be common in everybody’s kitchen.”

Take a trip to Moody’s mesquite orchard by watching the accompanying video report “The Mesquite Wrangler,” an online extra produced by former Utne Reader intern Cally Carswell.

Source: High Country News

Image by cogdogblog, licensed under Creative Commons.

After we reprinted an article that Momo Chang wrote for Hyphen about nontoxic nail salons in our January-February 2010 issue, a reader responded: “I found myself looking for a listing of green salons and spas, or at least a resource as to how to find them. Is there a resource for this information that could be published as an addendum to this story?” Here is Momo Chang’s thoughtful response. -- The Editors

Unfortunately, there isn't a list of ecofriendly nail salons and spas in the country because there is no way to certify or standardize what makes a "green" salon at this point. A salon may call itself "organic," "green," or "ecofriendly," but customers would have to see for themselves what the salon is really doing. The salon mentioned in the article is one that health advocates have visited and have determined is ecofriendly and green.

A popular industry magazine, NAILS, has a website called The Conscious Salon that does provide a list; however, I don't know how they are checking the salons and what standards they are using, so I didn't include it in the story. A lot of businesses explain on their own websites what they are doing. 

There are some groups trying to come up with a certification standard for green nail salons. It's currently in the works in California. In general, being "green" includes sustainability features (bamboo floors, recycling, etc.), nontoxic products (nail polishes without formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate, toluene for example), ventilation (at least two fans installed into the walls or ceiling), hygiene (wearing gloves, footspas cleaned in between customers or using simple buckets instead of the whirlpool footspa), and other factors including fair labor standards.

There is a nifty website that covers all kinds of personal care products and brands. It's a database where you can search for products or the types of products you're using (for example, if you type in "nail polish," a list of brands come up). 

You can also read the original article published in Hyphen, which is a bit longer.

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 UtneCast 36: Frances Moore Lappe Gets a Grip / Vieux Farka Toure Remixed: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode, you’ll hear Leif Utne’s recent conversation with Frances Moore Lappé, bestselling author of Diet for a Small Planet, about her brand new book Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad.

And for this week’s review, Utne Reader senior editor Keith Goetzman takes a look at the album ReMixed: UFOs over Bamako, featuring various DJs’ takes on the music of Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré.

Episode sponsor: Mother Earth Coffee & Tea

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 UtneCast 28: The Future of Fair Trade / How Green is Your City? / Cuban Funk: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode, we take a look at the future of Fair Trade. It’s about much more than just coffee and chocolate. But what is it really? And where is it headed? Host Leif Utne talks to a student activist promoting Fair Trade; a spokesperson from TransFair USA, the group that certifies Fair Trade products in this country; and two companies that are pushing the movement in new directions — Oké USA, which imports Fair Trade fruit, and Fair Trade Sports, which imports soccer, volleyball, rugby and other sports balls.

Then you’ll hear from Warren Karlenzig, chief strategy officer at SustainLane and lead author of the recent book How Green Is Your City? 

And Bennett Gordon reviews a sizzling new compilation of 1970s Cuban funk music titled “Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba,” available on the Canadian label Waxing Deep Records.

Episode sponsor: Equal Exchange

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 UtneCast 25: Paul Hawken on Building the World's Largest Movement: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

Feature Interview: In episode 25, my guest is Paul Hawken — activist, green businessman, eco-philosopher, and author of two of the seminal works on the green economy: The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism. His latest book is just out, titled Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being; And Why No One Saw it Coming. Hawken makes the case that the disparate movements for ecological restoration and social justice are merging into one massive global movement. In the book, he attempts to count and classify both the number of organizations in this movement (he estimates about 1.5 million) and the diversity of issues they work on (at least 400).

To help build the connective tissue that ties this movement together, Hawken’s nonprofit Natural Capital Institute has just launched a related project called WISER Earth (WISER = World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility), which aims to build an interactive directory of all 1.5 million groups in this global movement. The institute’s staff has seeded the database with profiles of over 140,000 organizations. But realizing they couldn’t possibly do all the research or legwork needed to grow the database to include all the groups they believe are out there, NCI has opened up the system so that, like Wikipedia, anyone can create or edit an organization’s profile. And they have added tools that make it easy for organizations to use the database for their own purposes. After WISER Earth gets up and running, NCI plans to launch WISER Business and WISER Government, as clearinghouses for information about best practices in sustainability for businesspeople and policymakers.

Music Review: Joe Hart joins us again with a review of the new album by his newest drug of choice: Los Angeles-based crooner Eleni Mandell.

Housekeeping Note: Starting today, we’re posting new episodes on Wednesdays, a day earlier than before, to coordinate the schedule with our weekly online publication, the Utne Web Watch, which also goes out on Wednesdays.

Episode sponsor: Mother Earth Coffee & Tea

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 UtneCast 23: Hazel Henderson: Growing the Green Economy: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

In episode 23 Leif Utne interviews Hazel Henderson, a pioneering green economist and author of many books, most recently “Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy.” And Utne Reader’s film reviewer Anthony Kaufman joins us with a look at the environmentally-themed South Korean monster movie “The Host.”

Episode sponsor: Mother Earth Coffee & Tea

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 UtneCast 20: West Bank Story: Making Sweat-Free T-Shirts for Peace?: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

It’s Thursday, March 8, and in this, our 20th episode, Leif speaks with Adam Nieman, founder and president of NoSweat Apparel, a Fair Trade, sweatshop-free clothing company, about his new economic solution for promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace. And music reviewer Keith Goetzman gives us a peek at the new album from the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra.

Episode sponsor: Mother Earth Coffee & Tea

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 UtneCast 19: Eric Utne Calls for a New Peace Corps for the Earth: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

[Reposted with correct audio link -LU] In episode #19, Leif interviews his own father, Eric Utne, the founder of Utne Reader, about Eric’s new project, the Earth Corps for Global Service. In the March/April issue of Utne, he and Carol Bellamy, a former director of the Peace Corps and UNICEF, penned an essay titled “Ask What You Can Do for Your Planet?” in which they call for the creation of a new Peace Corps for the whole Earth. And music reviewer Keith Goetzman takes us to Belize for a taste of the funky guitar and vocal stylings of Andy Palacio, an Afro-Caribbean musician working to preserve his traditional Garifuna culture.

Episode Sponsor: Mother Earth Coffee & Tea

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 UtneCast 14: Green Slopes: Ski Resort Scorecard Ranks Eco-Heroes and Villains: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode: Host Leif Utne interviews Ben Doon, research director of the Ski Area Citizens Coalition, which recently published its seventh annual scorecard ranking 77 Western ski resorts on their environmental performance. And Keith Goetzman reviews a fantastic retro ‘70s reissue from Jamaican keyboardist and songwriter Jackie Mittoo.

Episode sponsor: Mother Earth Coffee

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 UtneCast 13: Urban Turbines: Wind Power in the City?: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode: Host Leif Utne speaks with journalist David Brauer, author of the article Props to the People (Utne Reader, Nov/Dec 2006) about the latest trend in alternative energy: urban wind power. And Keith Goetzman is back with a review of the newest album by British pop songster Robyn Hitchcock. Email us your feedback at utnecast[at]utne.com.

Episode sponsor: Mother Earth Coffee

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 UtneCast 11: Voices of the Bioneers: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode, Leif Utne reports from the recent Bioneers conference, including the voices of several of the inspiring activists and innovators he met there who are at the leading edge of environmental and social change. And contributing editor Joe Hart reviews the new album Shaken By A Low Sound, from the Boston-based Old Time sensation Crooked Still. Episode sponsor: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings

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 UtneCast 06: Arctic Explorer Will Steger on Global Warming: Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download

In episode 6 of the UtneCast, host Leif Utne pays a visit to the home of arctic explorer and environmental activist Will Steger, who has dedicated himself to documenting the effects of global warming on the fragile polar regions. Check out the website for his current project (and upcoming expedition) at www.globalwarming101.com. And senior editor Keith Goetzman returns with a review of the latest album from Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs, titled "Under the Covers." Send us your feedback at utnecast@utne.com.

There's a new concept infiltrating the climate change conversation (pdf), and it has the potential to change the conversation altogether. It’s time to give sustainability a rest and start talking about resilience, Rob Hopkins writes in Resurgence.

“The term ‘resilience’ is appearing more frequently in discussions about environmental concerns, and it has a strong claim to actually being a more successful concept than that of sustainability. Sustainability and its oxymoronic offspring sustainable development are commonly held to be a sufficient response to the scale of the climate challenge we face: to reduce the inputs at one end of the globalised economic growth model (energy, resources, and so on) while reducing the outputs at the other end (pollution, carbon emissions, etc.). However, responses to climate change that do not also address the imminent, or quite possibly already passed, peak in world oil production do not adequately address the nature of the challenge we face.”

The concept takes into account how systems can survive disturbances intact, and Hopkins says the framework is crucial to communities’ chances of thriving “beyond the current economic turmoil the world is seeing.” A supermarket is a good example of how to explain this new kind of thinking, he says:

“It may be possible to increase its sustainability and to reduce its carbon emissions by using less packaging, putting photovoltaics on the roof and installing more energy-efficient fridges. However, resilience thinking would argue that the closure of local food shops and networks that resulted from the opening of the supermarket, as well as the fact that the store itself only contains two days’ worth of food at any moment – the majority of which has been transported great distances to get there – has massively reduced the resilience of community food security, as well as increasing its oil vulnerability.”

Source: Resurgence

By combining a solar panel with a dog sweater, Erik Schiegg turned his pooch into a little solar-power generator. After spending just $60, Schiegg’s reports on his YouTube page that the sweater generator works in cloudy weather and “my Android-phone is charged in no time.” He also suggests that farmers could strap solar panels onto their animals to collect electricity, too.

You can watch the video below:

(Thanks, Make, via Recombu.)

Source:  Erik Schiegg  

Some of us are more committed to recycling than others. And yet I ask, who among us is so committed that they are recycling their plastic caps? That’s right, the plastic caps from your water, your soda, your shampoo, your lotion bottles. Ah—just as I thought.

Fear not, eco-transgressor. Even if your local recycler doesn’t take them, a new program run by Aveda will. Aveda, which has brought a fair number of plastic caps into the world with its hair-care and body products, began the Recycle Caps With Aveda program after finding that most plastic caps are not recycled, and that many of them “migrate into our rivers and oceans” where they harm wildlife and the environment.

The collection point for the program is schools, where caps are amassed and then sent to Aveda’s recycler and used to make new caps. Learn more about the program, including which caps are eligible and how your local school can get involved, at the Recycle Caps With Aveda website.

Now, about those tea-bag wrappers and bent paperclips you always toss …

Source: Aveda

The recession has put a big crimp in the timber industry of the Northeastern United States—which is good news for the trees, right? Not necessarily, writes editor Stephen Long in the Winter 2009 issue of Northern Woodlands, a magazine targeted toward forest land owners in that region.

Long points out that unlike the West, little Eastern land is publicly owned, and most of the region’s rich forests are in private hands. Many of the individuals and families who own these timber stands sell off logging rights to make some of their income, and the associated “forest based manufacturing” industry is the primary rural economic engine in New York and northern New England, contributing $14.4 billion to the region’s economy. But the recession has taken a huge hit on this engine, and Long worries that “if the forest industry fails, there’s nothing standing in the way of a wholesale sell-off of forestland.” The result, he contends, would not be good for the region or the environment:

It’s a time-honored rural tradition to sell off a building lot when the going gets tough, because land is often a person’s only savings account. … This ordinary rate of parcelization, however, will progress geometrically if we all lose the opportunity to sell timber. Parcelization is a cause, and fragmentation is the effect. As parcels are developed, driveways and dwellings fragment the natural system. All of the ecosystem services that accrue in an intact forest are compromised in a fragmented landscape that becomes not rural but suburban. The process would also quicken the erosion of the culture and backwoods ethos that is cherished by those born here and has been a drawing card for many who’ve moved here.

Bit by bit, as we learn how interconnected all of the parts of the system are, we come to an ever-expanding definition of sustainability. It’s not really a paradox—though you’d be forgiven if you thought it one—that the people who cut down trees and turn them into products are the single most important and effective means for keeping this forest intact.

Source: Northern Woodlands