zithromax online
May 06th, 2012 | Author:

I still have dirt under my fingernails, dirt that my pink nail brush couldn’t quite reach even with furious brushing, dirt that likely lingers with bacteria that would make a hypochondriac shudder, a clean freak, well freak, but for me serves as a reminder of a day spent under a veiled sky pleading for the sun to come out while transplanting sorrel, helping five-year-olds press radish seeds into the earth, and even digging for worms.

Photo Image: psmag

It was a good day. But almost every Saturday during the growing season is a good day, because I get the absolute bliss of working in a botanical garden.

My friends don’t understand it.

How after a full week’s work, I can voluntarily sign away my Saturday’s as well.

It’s not for the money.

There’s something important, something primal about being outside, about getting dirty, that we as Americans stuck behind our screens – computer, television, telephone – lose touch of. Even environmentalists aren’t immune. As we grow intellectually more aware of the planet we’re trying to save, our direct experience, interaction, relationship with that planet dwindles to what we can see on Google Earth.

It’s an awareness of this paradoxical situation  - that we’re growing more aware of the environment even as our interaction with the natural world declines –  that makes my most recent read –  My Green Manifesto: Down the Charles River in Pursuit of a New Environmentalism - so fabulous. Gessner narrates a recent trip down the distinctly urban Charles River as a reminder that while protecting the wilderness “out there” is important, so too is getting to know the wilderness “right here”. He’s not alone in this assessment, Paul Kingsworth over at Orion in his piece  Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist hi-lights this problem as well.

When you intellectualize the environment, along with the good – a better framework for understanding natural systems – at least two problems emerge.  The first is that protecting the environment becomes like eating your vegetables – something you have to do for health, because it’s good and not because well it has value in and of itself.

Here’s the thing.

I love veggies. On more than one occasion - last night for example , after a dinner of chickentikka masala spiced chicken served on a bed of mashed cauliflowers (mashed with just a hint of shredded parmesan cheese) and a side of roasted broccoli (with plenty of red pepper flakes), I’ve emerged feeling  guilty because I’ve learned to associate delicious, stomach busting meals with “unhealthy.” Except, it was not only delicious, it was fantastically nutritious. A meal I’d happily eat again, and again, and again.

Like eating our veggies we have associated protecting the environment with guilt. Something we feel bad if we don’t do but ignoring how awesome the environment is.

Climbing trees, floating in watering holes, watching chipmunks, these are all things that delight.  Why wouldn’t we want to keep these around?

The other problem is that it acts like we human beings aren’t part of the environment, leading us to ignore the natural systems right beneath our noses. People – even New Yorkers – are always shocked when I point out that the Bronx River is a fresh river that one can go kayaking on, or that a new species was just found in Central Park. Even in the most urban environs humans and the environment coexist.

April 28th, 2012 | Author:

I was thinking today about language, and how language shapes not only what we believe but also how we relate to the world.

Specifically, I was thinking about tension and how easily we say that we “hold” tension in a part of our bodies – our backs, our arms, our legs.

We never speak of holding peace, of our bodies being vessels of pleasure. As close as we get, I think, is to say that someone is filled with good cheer. That’s pretty old fashioned lingo though, and what exactly is cheer anyway ;) .

I was thinking about how this extends to how we view humans and the environment – as two entities that are constantly in conflict with each other. Humans destroy nature; some so-called realists even say that the best thing we can do for the planet is to get rid of all humans.

But that isn’t true.

I mean yes, people can be an incredibly destructive force to our planets larger ecosystems.

Duh.

But we can be dramatically healing as well. In fact, in regions in which indigenous people live in keeping with their traditional ways, biodiversity (that is the diversity and health of a multitude of biological life forms)  is actually higher than neighboring ecosystems.Humans can sustain ecosystems.

To say that “humans”  are destructive is to label all of us, even the ones not dumb enough to poop where they eat (i.e. not us) with the same brush.

Our language does something else. It also makes it seem like there’s fundamentally something wrong with us – like at our core – allowing us to view our inevitable demise by our own unenvironmental hands as a foregone conclusion.

It isn’t.

If we get smarter, savvier, and if we learn to view ourselves as part of nature as a part from nature, then well… there’s hope. And if we get smart soon… there’s more than hope.

April 27th, 2012 | Author:

April 25th, 2012 | Author:

I keep joking that my life is complete because I was on C-Span. But, well, I was on C-Span. Which is pretty awesome.

It was part of the panel I was on with Ed Humes and Anna Sklar as part of the Los Angeles Festival of books.

You can catch the full video over here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/kendrapierrelouis

April 25th, 2012 | Author:

I meant to have this up in time for Earth Day, but with traveling, working, and deleting all of my bookmarks making accessing the administrative portion of my website a pain, I wasn’t able to get it online. On the plus side, it’s still early in time for World Environment Day.

The Futility of Earth Day

It’s nearly Earth Day, the annual exercise during which we supposedly honor the planet.

We will dredge trash out of rivers and streams, clean up beaches, plant trees.

We will pledge to walk more and drive less, to eat organic, to recycle more, and to give up bottled water.

We will talk about green jobs.

We will go to fabulous festivals filled with eco-statistics printed on paper that someone will smugly inform us is 100% recycled.

Did you know that recycling a single aluminum can conserves enough energy to keep one 100-watt light bulb powered for four hours? That recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees?

There will be millions of sheets of paper.

There will be cups that look every bit to the naked eye like regular plastic, but will in fact have been wrested, as if by magic, from the tall, feathery fronds of the plant that we call corn.

Did you know that these cups are compostable?

There will be booths sponsored by supposedly eco-friendly companies peddling aluminum water bottles, t-shirts spun from discarded soda bottles, body washes made from Himalayan herbs, organic food delivery companies. There will be a shocking number of hemp based food companies.

Did you know hemp is a wonder plant that can be spun into rope, woven into fabric, and pressed into chip form? The chips taste good with hummus.

We will taste, and listen, and talk, and buy, and ultimately leave buoyed by a hope of a greener tomorrow. It is a hope that we will leave tucked away like our shiny new water bottle, until next year’s Earth Day.

What we will not do is question.

We will not question if the compostable cups ever actually make it to a compost bin, or if they’re just thrown out like normal waste to wile away in landfills where they will take forever to degrade. We will not question if it makes sense to use disposable cups at all.

We will not question the wisdom of “eco-friendly” water bottles made from virgin aluminum that is complicit in the wholesale destruction of vital planetary ecosystems including the Brazilian Rainforest and Jamaica’s Cockpit County. We will marvel at how soft our soda bottle t-shirt is, but not pause to wonder why disposable soda bottles exist in the first place. We will not question the wisdom of shipping herbs from the Himalayas to Paris, New York, or Boise, to coat our bodies for mere seconds, so caught up as we are in the fact that “this stuff’s non-toxic.”

We will not question that shopping, even green shopping, when contrasted with the scale and pace of our environmental destruction is a bit like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teaspoon.

This is not a consumer opportunity.

This is not a market niche.

This is about the very survival of human society.

Scientists agree on this much: by nearly every measurable indicator, humanity has wrought enough environmental damage as to bring our continued future (in any significant measure) into real question, unless we fundamentally change our relationship with this planet that we call home. The issue extends beyond global warming to the loss of forests, increasing rates of desertification, erosion of fish stocks, soil loss, resource depletion, biodiversity, and water scarcity. Water. We have screwed up the environment so badly that we are running out of water.

These issues are intertwined with each other, and with us and our compulsion towards consumption. Yes, what we consume matters – but so does how much we consume.

It’s a message that doesn’t sell t-shirts, curry the favor of the business minded, but it is the one message, if acted upon quickly, that may do something that 43 years of Earth Day celebrations have not accomplished.

It may save the planet.

April 08th, 2012 | Author:
April 29, 2012
5:00 pmto7:00 pm

The fabulous Firedoglake is hosting me in a virtual salon on April 29th at 5:00pm EST.

FINALLY! A book promo I can do from the comfort of my home in my PJs.

Category: Events  | Leave a Comment
April 08th, 2012 | Author:
April 12, 2012 9:00 pmtoApril 16, 2012 9:00 pm

On April 12th at 9pm EST (6pm PST) I’m speaking on Virtually Speaking. I will be presented simultaneously in the virtual world of Second Life, which means I will have an avatar. How cool is that!

Picture Courtesy of Curtis Kennington

Category: Events  | 3 Comments
March 12th, 2012 | Author:
April 19, 2012
1:00 am

More details as they become available…

Category: Events  | Leave a Comment
March 05th, 2012 | Author:

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Green Washed by Kendra  Pierre-Louis

Green Washed

by Kendra Pierre-Louis

Giveaway ends March 13, 2012.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

February 26th, 2012 | Author:

My friend, a self-proclaimed environmentalist, believes that because she drives a Prius she should be allowed to run over small children.

An explanation is in order.

Experiments, such as those conducted by Lawrence D. Rosenblum, a perceptual psychologist based out of the University of California-Riverside, have found that while your average gas powered automobile can easily be heard cruising down the side street, hybrids and their electric engines often can’t be heard at all. They, many argue, pose an increased risk of turning pedestrians – particularly children, the visually impaired, and the physically handicapped – into accident victims. This has prompted legislation to introduce artificial sounds into quiet vehicles so that they can be more easily heard. My friend hates this law.

more…

February 24th, 2012 | Author:

Photo Credit Mira

In a move likely designed to showcase not only their love but also their access to Scrooge McDuck levels of cash, hip-hop power couple Jay Z and Beyoncé have built quite the nursery for their newborn daughter, Blue Ivy. The likely gold encrusted showpiece spans a cavernous 2,200 square feet or almost double the size of the average New York City home of 1,124 square feet and a mere 100 square feet smaller than the average American home. Given a space that big, Blue Ivy had better learn how to turn a few cartwheels.

This is just rich people doing rich people things that have no effect on the rest of us, right? Wrong.

more…

February 22nd, 2012 | Author:

The Canadian Tar Sands, epitomized in the work of the great folks over at 350.org’s work against the Keystone XL Pipeline, are a uniquely dirty source of oil energy.

They release more carbon than regular sources of oil, and not to mention do all sorts of questionable things to the areas water supplies and larger ecosystems.

Recently a University of Victoria researcher came out with a study, that says, in essence that burning tar sands oil is still better than burning coal.

more…

February 20th, 2012 | Author:

To RSVP or for more info head over to eventbrite.

February 16th, 2012 | Author:

A few years ago I was hit by a car.

Photo Credit: Erik Gonzalez

I was on a bicycle.  This was during the Transportation Alternatives New York City Century so there were a lot of cyclists on the road. The car made a right turn, without signaling, turning the multi-ton, dark colored, late modern sedan into my right land hugging light weight mountain bike and after I skittered down the road, left me sprawling in the middle of a three lane boulevard.

more…

February 15th, 2012 | Author:

Over at New.Clear.Vision.  David Swanson writes one of the first reviews of Green Washed. The review is overall positive (yay!) and he makes some interesting observations as to moving forward from where we are/framing a solution.

Check it out!

Category: My Writing  | Tags: ,  | Leave a Comment