Righteous Porkchop

The first time I heard anyone talk about industrial pig factories it was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. What he described was so unfathomable I reasoned it must not be true or he was exaggerating. Or something. The speech was likely made at the same time the author of Righteous Porkchop, Nicolette Hahn Niman, worked for Kennedy at Waterkeeper Alliance as a staff attorney and head of a national campaign to combat pig factories.

Maybe I haven't been paying attention between the time of that speech half a dozen years ago and two weeks ago when I picked up Righteous Porkchop. I thought the pork industry had cleaned up its, please excuse me, cleaned up its shit for all I heard about it.

They haven't.

Righteous Pork may change that. NHN spends the first half of the book describing her work with the pig factories and the people and communities who worked alongside her. Which is why I didn't want to put the book down. It's not all pretty reading but the people and communities affected by the factories are.

In some ways the story is an unfolding drama. I found myself more than once, okay, a lot, routing for the local communities but NHN also shows the corner the factory owners have gotten themselves into and I couldn't help but route for them too; that they could find a way out. No one is having a good time.

There's a little bit of spying; quite a few bad politicians. There's a guy hired by the pork industry to tail NHN to community meetings. Eventually someone does have a good time and there's romance too.

The later part of the book visits industrial chicken and fish, factory dairies and beef. Did you know that it's a widespread practice to feed factory hens red dye to make the yolks of their eggs yellow? I had no idea. I also learned the correct terminology for the animals on a dairy. They are not all cows.

There's a lot to learn from Righteous Porkchop. It's a smart book with history.

My only criticism is Niman Ranch beef comes across too precious in Niman's telling. In one example she praises a retailer for carrying Niman beef, overlooking the foreign imports in their produce department. That would have been fine but she goes on to knock the produce department of another retailer that doesn't carry Niman beef.

And I loved this book. It's an important read revealing the truth that corporate meat producers don't want us to know. It's to their benefit to keep us ignorant. Righteous Porkchop's changes that though, one knowledgeable page at a time.

Rated: Four and a half stars.
Recommended: For everyone; vegetarian and meat eaters alike.

Monday Roundup

My hairdresser said, Mercury is in retrograde. Communications may be skewed." I'm sure that explains the reason I can't make it all the way through a book lately.

I started Blue Gold, The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water. Very interesting. Depressing. I lost all hope for future civilizations. For some reason I never considered all the water we'll ever on the planet is already here. I thought God renewed it every few years. Or something. It's embarrassing. I returned the book to the library.

Next I checked out Eugenia Bone's book, Well Preserved, Recipes and Techniques for Putting Up Small Batches of Seasonal Food. Nice pictures. The recipes were mostly not food I would eat though. Fresh asparagus and squash blossoms are great; but canned? I did however make two of her recipes from the newspaper; brandied peaches (I used rum) and poached pears. Not my usual fare but they were easy to make. And good. The asparagus are probably good too. I returned the book the next day.

Two weeks later I'm 36 pages into Cheap, The High Cost of Discount Culture. So far it's about the history of retail. I'm sticking with it. I read a mean spirited review of it in an LA newspaper that stunned me. The writer justified the destruction that went along with cheap, claimed it as our American right to pay less. I lost all hope for future civilizations. Again.

My lapses in hope are short lived however. The fact that authors devote their time to study, research and lifting the veil on the myths that surround us is cause for hope. Regardless of how the planets are aligned.

Have you read anything hopeful? Helpful? Despairing? Let us know.

Food, Inc.

I have a crush on Eric Schlosser. I know he's not a movie star or even a farmer but he's got a way of talking about farm workers rights and corn that makes me soft inside. And then when he says, "Monsanto," and his hand flexes into a fist; what can I say?

I'm his.

I didn't read the book but I saw Food, Inc.. Not only does the movie star Eric Schlosser but Michael Pollan was there too. And so was Joel Salatin. They're the three stooges of the know-your-food movement. And I mean that with the utmost respect. These guys were awesome but they're funny too.

The movie was everything a sustainable food girl could want and yet it was just a taste of how food makes its way to the plate. There was a vignette on factory farmed animals, on the treatment of farm workers, of the growing rates of diabetes as a result of cheap food. There was a vignette on GMO's, on government subsidies, on the source of ingredients in food. The movie stayed succinct but could have taken off in any direction for hours. And I would have stayed for all of it.

There were a couple of times I covered my eyes, a couple of times I covered my heart. And a few times my own fist flexed into a fist and I wanted to punch the air and yell, "Yeah. Tell 'em. Way to go!" And then I would get all googley eyed when Eric Schlosser returned to the screen.

The most surprising information was related to the treatment of the migrant farm workers. Forget about how we treat the animals we eat, or the pesticides and fertilizers being flushed into our water ways. Forget about the destruction of top soil and the inability of farmers to save seeds because a patented GMO seed has blown onto their property. Forget about all of that and there are the human beings that handle the food. I wanted to cover my eyes, my heart and ears all at the same time.

The movie is not doom and gloom however. The Stoneyfield Farms guy is one happy dude. And the guys from Walmart? Complete comedic relief. Sure, there are challenges. When hasn't there been? But Food, Inc. is hopeful for the mere fact that it was made. That it's being distributed to major markets. That's it's been reviewed and talked about and linked all over the place.

A friend told me a year and a half ago that the sustainable food movement would never go mainstream. "It's just a trend," this friend said. This movie is not however a trend. It's ambitious, it's smart and hopefully it will whet the appetite for mainstream to start lifting the veil between kitchen tables and food producers everywhere. Hopefully it will raise the momentum of people voting with their forks for fair food that is considerate of all beings.

But mainstream better stay away from Eric Schlosser. He's mine!

Recommended: For people who eat.
Rated: 4 Stars (I don't want to set expectations too high and parts of it are a bit corny!)

From The Bottom Up

If you are looking for inspiration, look no further than From the Bottom Up: One Man’s Crusade to Clean America’s Rivers. The book grabbed me from the beginning with the introduction and brief synopsis, but even moreso when Chad shared his parent’s simple philosophy that was taught to him. That “you can improve the world by persistent endeavor.”

The translation of ideals into action is a theme that follows the book throughout the pages. His one simple mission, to clean up the shores of his beloved Mississippi River and recycle the trash began with just his two hands and grew into a full fledged non-profit. His organization, Living Lands and Waters is still going strong with other environmental projects under its wing such as the Million Tree Project, environmental workshops, and cleanup events.

Chad grew up on the Mississippi, just a mere 67 feet from it in East Moline, Illinois. His back yard and playground became part of his spirit and soul, a connection that later brought about a deep desire to heal the shoreline. He was always a bit of a doer, given the charge to clean up shoreline seaweed at just age 10. This motivation later translated into action followed by awards, even one such as the Jefferson Award for public service shared by the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates.

The story is very readable, and flows well through the entirety. It is full of humor, stories, and many a fact and figure. I enjoyed the additional pictures that provided a depth to the events. Most importantly, I found it inspiring because I see myself and each of us in the pages of this book. One of my favorite Gandhi quotes, “You must be the change that you want to see in the world,” was on my mind at many points of this book. We can all be part of the changes that we need on every level be them big or small.

No, his path was not always easy. In the beginning he was one person grunting and struggling to remove pieces and parts of our debris out of waters that he considers home. His sponsorship began with one small corporation willing to give, and grew bit by bit. His story grew as more people heard and relayed the message. He has removed refrigerators, bowling balls and even a horse head from the shores to leave a cleaner and safer place for humans and wildlife.

His looks and charm have been compared to movie star status, but his path lends itself to a modern day folk hero for the rest of us. I think it is a story worth reading, and a mission worth being inspired about.

Rated 5 out of 5 for all readers.

A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry

I know that my fellow Wormers have been talking about cherry picking, but how about picking a Cherry? Lynne Cherry that is, one of my favorite eco -styled writers for children. A River Ran Wild: An Environmental History is a hot pick for kids right now as parents explore ways to talk about ecology, pollution, and how we can change the world one river at a time.

Cherry traces the history of the Nashu River in New England from a beginning as a special place for Native Americans. It was a lush green place filled with wildlife, fertile in natural bounty for man and animal. As the area was settled the Nashu became a dumping spot for various industrial plants such as a dye factory. The wildlife died or left as the Nashu became a place of decay and pollution.

Hope springs in that we see the Nashu healed as citizens demanded change with the passage of clean water and pollution laws. The Nashu was gradually restored as people worked together to change the situation both for themselves and for nature.

I do find this book, despite a few technical flaws, appealing to use with children. You can read the main body of the text in a small group or lap situation and older children will be fascinated with the illustrative style. Look closely at the cover picture above and it will reflect the style of the entire book. The small blocks around each picture will document inventions used by industries, what was happening in each time period, and other facts of note. Older readers will find themselves explore the book several times and learning new information each time.

If you want a hopeful book about making a difference, this one is one for you.

Other books by this author I'd happily "Cherry" pick are:

The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest
Flutes Journey: The Life of a Wood Thrush
The Sea, The Storm and the Mangrove Tangle

I haven't read her new book about changing climate yet, but I'm trying to get my hot little hands on a copy. It is titled How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming. I do know this author deals with environmental issues in a very kid friendly way, so I'm hoping this will be a good read for older child that are discussing what they hear 'round the composter.

Your local library should have copies of these books in their kids section. Parents and teachers can get a good deal of mileage out of her works both for information and inspiration.

Book Review: Blue Gold

Are you pondering what book to read next? Ponder no more. Theresa from Pondering the Myriad Things tends to write well thought out, insightful book reviews about truly interesting green reads. That was why I asked her to be our next guest reviewer. She does not disappoint here with a powerful review of a powerful book.

For some time now I've been concerned about food issues, both personally and globally. A lot of my new learning has taken place in this area, as I figure out how to grow and store at least some of my own food, connect with my local food producers and eat a more localized diet. I'm also struggling to eat more mindfully, in appreciation of the food I am privileged to have available to me.

While I've been learning and doing those things, my husband Gord has been quite interested in things to do with water, and so it was he who bought and read this particular book about a year ago. It's been sitting around the house since then, beckoning me, but it was Green Bean's Be a Bookworm Challenge in May of this year that gave me the final motivation I needed to dive into this book at last. And now I think that water issues just might be my own personal Greenpa-esque "iceberg" to push on, since....well, you can't have food without water. It just doesn't get any more essential than water.

Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water was published in 2002 and it is written by two Canadian authors, Maude Barlow (founder of the Blue Planet Project) and Tony Clarke (Executive Director of the Polaris Institute). It is chock full of both Canadian and international examples of the problems related to the commodification of water. The book's main premise is that since the year 2000, when water was deemed by The Hague's World Water Forum to be a human "need" but not a human "right," water became just another commodity, for sale like anything else.

The authors point out that the travesty of this Forum was that while it was touted to be a global government initiative, in reality it was "convened by big business lobby organizations...and the discussions focused on how companies could benefit from selling water to markets around the world (p.79)." Companies like Vivendi and Suez, the world's biggest private water 'service' organizations, as well as the conglomerates of Nestle and Unilever were in attendance. The conveners of the Forum pushed hard to have water declared a need, not a right, so they could have the authority to provide water 'services' on a for-profit basis, to those who could pay for it. If water had been declared a human right, then governments would have been responsible for ensuring that all people, regardless of the ability to pay, would have access to clean, safe water supplies. The authors point out that, "the story of what happened at the World Water Forum is the story of the separation of water from the land and from 'the commons' to which it belongs (p. 80).

"The book is divided into three large sections: The world's water supply crisis, the politics of water and its sale and distribution, and some principles and ideas as to how citizens can reclaim water as part of the public commons.

World Water Crisis: In the first section, the authors describe the life-giving nature of water and how ancient peoples knew how important water was to their very survival. Water and its symbolism have entered into most religious and spiritual traditions, for good reason. For most of history, humans have been acutely aware of their need for water and have treated it respectfully and conserved it carefully as a result. But in more recent history humans have treated water with the same exploitative attitude as they treat fossil fuels and the soil. We extract more and more water from underground aquifers as we continue to pollute our surface water (rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands, etc.). The authors note that "31 countries in the world are currently facing water stress and scarcity (p. 24)." They foresee that by the year 2025, two thirds (!) of the world's population will be "living in conditions of serious water shortage (p. 24)." "Aquifer overdrafts, massive urbanization, and unchecked pollution are withdrawing supplies for the world's water account, just when we need to be saving more (p. 25)." The authors go on to describe the numerous problems with wetland degradation, toxic runoff and other forms environmental damage that are compromising the remaining supplies of fresh water. The Alberta Tar Sands are one example cited of this type of damage; every year the tar sands projects deplete enough fresh water to supply a city of 70 thousand people for 20 years! And the water can't be returned to the watershed where it came from, because "it contains concentrated levels of minerals, as well as pollutants from the oil-drilling process (p. 14)."

The Politics of Water: In the second section, the authors describe in detail how agreements like NAFTA, the upcoming FTAA and other free trade arrangements (some out in the open, some behind the scenes) have set the stage for transnational conglomerates like Vivendi, Suez, Enron and RWE-Thames to obtain government contracts to provide their citizens with 'water services.' These contracts have certain profit margins in them that are guaranteed by the government of the country in question - paid for by citizens' taxes of course. Then, when the government insists that the company meets its contractual obligations (i.e., that water and sewer services be provided to all citizens, not just the ones who can afford it), the companies raise water prices to ensure their profit levels are maintained. Soon, only the rich can afford clean and safe water. The water and sewer services of many people get worse. And to add insult to injury, the water corporations are even enabled, by the free trade agreements, to sue governments of sovereign nations for impeding the free flow of commercial trade! Some governments (e.g., Bolivia), with the help of massive citizen uprisings, have been able to cancel the contracts and boot out the water company, but this hasn't happened very often. The World Trade Organization and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are also large contributors to the problem. These organizations have made it compulsory that countries privatize their water systems in order to comply with 'development' goals set as part of their international aid and debt restructuring processes.

This, the second major section of the book was particularly maddening and disheartening. There was just case after case cited about how multinational corporations and agencies such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank and even the UN "serve to transfer political power from governments to corporations" (p. 175). Everything is for sale. They also talk about the destruction wreaked by international dam projects, George W. Bush's plan for a North American Water Corridor (i.e., redirecting north-flowing water towards the south) and companies like Coke and Pepsi who are repeatedly draining the aquifers of places in the developing world in order to keep making and selling their carbonated beverages. They cite one horrifying example where a mother can't afford enough water to drink, so she has little in the way of breast milk for her child, and the child is instead fed with Coke.

The Way Forward: The third section of the book focuses on how to shift our relationship with water and what collective action we can take. It outlines some of the things citizens and countries have been able to do to stop the privatization of their water supply and what citizens need to demand of their politicians before it is too late. Water is too important to life on the planet to be subordinated to the principles of the marketplace. The authors state, "Water must be declared and understood for all time to be common property. In a world where everything is being privatized, citizens must establish clear perimeters around those areas that are sacred to life or necessary for social and economic justice. Equal access to water is absolutely central to both life and justice." (p. 208)

The authors stress that we humans must renew our ties with nature and once again revere water's sacred place in it. They have developed ten principles on which humanity can proceed toward this new water ethic:

1) Water belongs to the earth and to all species.
2) Water should be left where it is wherever possible.
3) Water must be conserved for all time.
4) Polluted water must be reclaimed.
5) Water is best protected in natural watersheds.
6) Water is a public trust, to be guarded by all levels of
government.
7) Access to an adequate supply of clean water is a basic human
right.
8) The best advocates for water are local communities and citizens.
9) The public must participate as an equal partner with governments to
protect water.
10) Economic globalization policies are not water-sustainable. (p.221)

The authors conclude the book with a chapter on what people can do to move the world and its governments toward acknowledging these ten principles and actually changing how they handle water-related issues. Most of the methods they propose involve communities and countries taking political action in the form of, for example, supporting the anti-dam movement, opposing commercial trade in water, fighting for national water protection acts, and consistently confronting the IMF and the World Bank. The authors have what they call a 'beautiful dream:' that resolution of water issues in the world through the community-based enactment of the ten principles actions will:

become the source of global peace....finally humanity will bow before Nature
and learn to live at peace within the limits Nature gives us and with one
another; and that through our work together, the peoples of the world will
declare that the sacred waters of life are the common property of the earth and
all species, to be preserved for generations to come (p. 250).

I found this book to be densely packed with information -- so densely packed that it took me over two months to work my way through it. The information in the book is very precise and specific, and the authors are clearly dedicated and passionate about their work. They make a powerful case for an urgent and pressing water crisis that could well take most of humanity by surprise if we don't act soon (especially since the world is more focused on oil than on water these days). But a major drawback of the book, as I see it, is that its clarion call for change is getting buried under the overwhelming mounds of information it contains. In reading this book from cover to cover, you can't help but sense the urgency of the problem. But because of its density, I don't think many people will read the book all the way through unless they are specifically researching water issues or are just determined to get through it one way or the other (like anyone who is still reading this review!). Let's just say it didn't take long for me to clue in to why this book was in the bargain bin when Gord bought it. This is too bad, because it is an important book with a vital warning.

A second drawback of the book is its lack of information on what individuals can do to change their relationship with and usage of water. This may be because the authors are focusing on more coordinated community efforts, but I was 'thirsting' for some information on what I could do myself right now other than just stop drinking bottled water altogether, boycotting Coke and Pepsi, and stepping up my overall water conservation efforts. On the other hand, maybe it's up to each one of us to decide how the author's ten principles can best be enacted in our own lives, households and bioregions.

In rating this book, I'd give it a 3 out of 5 for readability, but a 5 out of 5 for comprehensiveness, and I'd recommend it for moderate or heavy duty green reading.

At the risk of waxing on far too long, I leave you with my favorite chapter of the Tao Te Ching in the spirit of rekindling our appreciation for the deep sacredness of water:

The highest goodness resembles water
Water greatly benefits myriad things without contention
It stays in places that people dislike
Therefore it is similar to the Tao
Dwelling with the right location
Feeling with great depth
Giving with great kindness
Speaking with great integrity
Governing with great administration
Handling with great capability
Moving with great timing
Because it does not contend
It is therefore beyond reproach

(Tao Te Ching, Chapter 8, as translated by Derek Lin)

Theresa
myriadthings.blogspot.com