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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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Friday, April 26, 2024
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“Photographer Brian Kelley is a tree detective,” writes Tessa Permar in The Ancients Among Us. “He scours the internet, searching message boards and online threads to discover the locations and histories of old trees across the country. Kelley is looking for “champion trees” — the oldest and largest of a species in the country — as well as other old trees with unique histories.” He posts these photographs on Gatheringgrowth.org, the website of the non-profit Kelley started to visually preserve the legacy of trees and forests. This tree, swirling and undulating so dramatically you can practically hear it, is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine at Charleston Park in Nevada, and is likely more than 5,000 years old.
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DISPATCHES FROM ALL OVER
SUSTAINABLE LIVING ADVICE
ECO-FRIENDLY RECIPES
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DISPATCHES FROM ALL OVER · SUSTAINABLE LIVING ADVICE · ECO-FRIENDLY RECIPES
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“I speak for the trees.”
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From Dr. Seuss’s book, The Lorax. The rest of that paragraph reads: “He said with a sawdusty sneeze, I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues. I am the Lorax who speaks for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please! UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) would say that The Lorax was his favorite among all his books. It was published in 1971, at a time when Americans were waking up to environmental damage from pollution and development. Today is National Arbor Day (celebrated on different days around the country) and we thought about The Lorax when we read this essay by constitutional law professor Jack Fruchtman, about whether trees should have rights.
Happy Arbor Day — go plant a tree!
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QUICK LINKS |
Skip scrolling! Here's what you'll find in this edition of the Bluedot Newsletter:
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Why buy something new if you can fix what you’ve got? We Bluedotters are spread out from San Diego to Toronto to Boston to Paris, and
many spots in between. Spring has already sprung or close to it in most of these places, so we’re looking around at what we need to do to fully embrace the nice weather. Mending those tears in our screens is at the top of the list. In this video, Mr.
Fix-it offers a simple solution.
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– Illustration by Elissa Turnbull
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Dear Dot,
How long does leftover food last in a refrigerator? Is it important to cover or seal it, and why?
–David
Dear David,
“Food” is a pretty broad category. Some “leftover food,” of course, lasts months, like peanut butter and salad dressings. But Dot assumes you mean leftover things you’ve cooked, like pasta, or chicken, or fish.
While we have already taken a careful look at the myths
and misinformation around expiration dates, and we have provided a handy-dandy guide to avoiding food waste (proper storage is key), you are right to point out that we have not addressed either how long we might safely store leftovers in the fridge
or how to store them appropriately. So let us take this opportunity to remedy that omission.
But first, experts consistently advise us to store food in “sealed airtight containers,” so let’s consider why. While airtight containers don’t actually prevent food from spoiling (bacteria exists within the container), they do prevent any spoilage from contaminating other food. But the real benefit of airtight containers is their ability to contain smells and hydration. A fridge is a dry environment — a good thing! — but we need only leave a sandwich or a piece of cheese unsealed in the fridge to understand the impact a fridge has on a food’s hydration. Airtight containers keep moisture — and odors — in! And … for how long do these leftovers last in our airtight containers? That, of course, depends.
On what? Read on.
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BUY LESS/BUY BETTER:
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Bluedot Living's newsletter may contain affiliate links, including from Amazon, and may receive a commission when you buy a product from our links.
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To celebrate Earth Month, we’re highlighting companies that have great recycling programs — ones that really make it easy to find a home for items that, all too often, might otherwise end up in the landfill.
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Beauty retailer Credo does a great job vetting beauty, skin, and hair brands for sustainability, ethics, and sourcing. They also helped co-found Pact, a nonprofit that collects and recycles cosmetics packaging. You can locate a Pact bin online, or find one in any Credo stores.
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Buy now or
Read our review.
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Our Boston editor
turned us on to these NYC-designed, Brazilian-made vegan sneakers from Thousand Fell. When your shoes have served you fully, you can send them back for recycling and $20 off your next pair.
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Buy now or
read our review.
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Certified B Corp Nimble makes great tech accessories using recycled materials. When you order, they’ll include a mailer that you can send back with old, unwanted tech products that the company will responsibly recycle.
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Buy now or
read our review.
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The Social Hour |
🌻 May brings May flowers and World Bee Day on May 20th! Let's make a beeline to save our buzzing buddies! 🌸🍯 Protect our precious pollinators this May! 🐝
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FOLLOW US
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National Ride a Bike Day is May 1, we’re told. If you have forgotten the deep pleasure of biking, we hope you’ll refamiliarize yourself with it. And if you’re someone who relies on two wheels to get around, we’re with you. There’s something about a bike that takes us back to those early heady days when the training wheels came off and the entire neighborhood, maybe even town, became accessible to us.
With our knees getting creakier, we’re eying e-bikes as our next investment — they offer just the right amount of effort and ease. (Read Jim Miller’s guide to sustainable bikes, and biking, here.)
Send us pics of you on your bike, or even just a shot of your metal steed, to editor@bluedotliving.com. We’ll publish our favorites in an upcoming newsletter.
Until then, happy National Ride a Bike Day on May 1. And see you in two weeks.
– Jamie Kageleiry and Leslie Garrett
Editors
Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com
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Jamie Kageleiry, a longtime magazine and newspaper editor from Martha's Vineyard, says her favorite spot on earth is out on a kayak there, looking at birds.
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Leslie Garrett has been covering climate stories for close to two decades. She divides her time between London, Ontario, and Massachusetts. She’s still figuring out her favorite spot but it’s definitely near the
water.
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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Read past issues of The Hub here.
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Bluedot Living® magazine and bluedotliving.com are published by Bluedot, Inc.
Find more simple, smart, sustainable stories at bluedotliving.com, our Martha's Vineyard website, our Brooklyn website, our San Diego website, our Los Angeles website, our Santa Barbara website, our Toronto website, and our Boston website. Subscribe to any of our newsletters here.
Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com if you’d like to see a Bluedot newsletter or magazine in your community.
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