Every other Sunday, Bluedot Living Martha's Vineyard will share stories about local changemakers, Islanders’ sustainable homes and yards, planet-friendly recipes and tips, along with advice from Dear Dot. Did your friend
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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“The Walk Home,” by Jack Yuen
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Neither of us are on-Island at the moment, but this image brings us home. We used this Jack Yuen painting for Bluedot’s In a Word: Psychogeology essay. “I cannot offer you a definition of psychogeology,” Leslie Garrett writes, “because the word is not in the dictionary.” Kim Stanley Robinson, who coined the term, wanted to define how we are shaped by the places where we live or have spent time. “Psycho, as a prefix, refers to relation to the mind or the soul. Geology broadly means the substance of the Earth.”
Even if you’ve only spent a few days in a place, “If you’re still preoccupied with [it] and how you felt in that place after a long period of time,” Richard Powers (author of The Overstory) said in an interview, “that’s got to tell you something.”
It’s how we each felt after our first visits to the Island — a sense of knowing ‘this is where I belong.’ And even now when somewhere else for a few days or months, we carry this sense of place with us. Or, as Robinson puts it, “You can try to explain it, but it’s more of a gestalt. And that’s psychogeology.”
Have you experienced psychogeology — whether here on the Vineyard or somewhere else in the world? We’d love to hear about those places that just said “home” to you, or how it felt to return to Martha’s Vineyard. Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com.
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My grandfather was Scottish, from Scotland, and was famously thrifty. Nothing went to waste. He was a tailor, and I have several quilts made from two-inch square samples of men’s suit fabrics — scratchy, but warm.
His daughter, my mother, was the same, going so far as to hang plastic bags out on our clothesline to reuse. (For the entire neighborhood to see, much to the chagrin of my brothers and me.) In the 70s, her thriftiness merged with the burgeoning environmental movement and her reducing, reusing, and eventually, recycling became mainstream.
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So a few years ago, when we were about to launch Bluedot Living, Laura Roosevelt pitched an essay to me about her mother the pinchpenny (and early environmentalist). I immediately said yes. Here’s an excerpt (and that’s Laura, left, with her sister and mom who recycled her own wedding
dress to wear at her daughter’s nuptials):
“Self-reliant and resourceful, she learned to do things herself rather than pay others to do them. She rewired broken lamps. She repainted rooms. She kept chickens for eggs and meat, and grew much of our produce in her own vegetable garden, making sure to plant crops ample enough to allow for canning for the winter. She learned to sew, and made much of our clothing, griping about having to buy my school uniforms, which she considered overpriced. When she bought clothing for herself, it was always on sale, and if someone admired one of her evening gowns, she’d take pride in announcing that she’d found it marked down three times at Loehmann’s.
“Grass clippings from lawn mowing, pulled weeds, raked leaves, and shredded newspaper were also compost fodder, as was hair harvested from our hairbrushes and the cat brush. (“It’s full of nutrients!” my mother swore.)”
You’ll want to read the whole essay!
Have a great vacation if you’re headed off-Island during the school break.
By the way, Bluedot Living is launching an annual Green Guide on Nantucket this summer! Talk to Josh Katz (josh@bluedotliving.com) if you’d like to let Nantucketers know about your green business.
See you in a couple of weeks!
–Jamie Kageleiry (and Leslie Garrett)
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Proper storage means you can avoid wasting food:
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Use glass or plastic containers for saving food leftovers and avoiding the waste of single-use plastic. Bluedot loves Stashers! For more Bluedot Climate Quick Tips, click here.
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Paid Advertisement
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Silent Treatment
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From leaf blowers to underwater sonar, ours is a noisy world. The European Environmental Agency ranks noise second in its list of environmental exposures most harmful to our health. Read our data-driven story on how noise is infiltrating so many of our spaces … and the ways silence offers refuge.
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BUY LESS/BUY BETTER: Top Online Shopping
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The Bluedot Marketplace includes affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of our links, we may earn a commission, essentially a small digital finder’s fee.
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This week, our Marketplace editor shares three of her favorite marketplaces. These online stores feature thoughtfully curated brands that prioritize eco-friendly materials, ingredients, or manufacturing processes. If you’d like to shop online without the stress, start here.
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The One-Stop
Shop
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Wooden toys, reusable paper towels, silicone baking sheets, toothpaste tabs, organic cotton socks, rubber pacifiers, latex pillows, compostable phone cases … EarthHero has almost everything.
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Buy now or
read our
review.
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The Hippest
Marketplace
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Montreal-based Goodee carries hip decor, gardening tools, and other useful objets from around the world. We love the focus on what Goodee calls endangered and heritage crafts, which represent a third of the items they sell.
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Buy now or
read our review.
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The Affordable
Online
Grocer
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Thrive, a membership-based market, offers a plethora of quality items at great prices (vitamins in particular are a steal). The yearly fee quickly pays for itself. Try the house label for organic oils, nuts, and dried fruit.
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Buy now or
read our review.
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DEAR DOT: Is Organic Food Really Better?
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– Illustration by Elissa Turnbull
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Dear Dot,
I’m a Harvard alum and a recent article in the Harvard Gazette indicated that organic food is no better than conventionally grown. What say you, Dot?
–David
Dear David,
Dot, for one, would be sorely disappointed if I was paying a premium for organic food and got nothing for it. And I’m sure that the 40 percent of Americans who buy at least some organic food would agree. In Canada, it’s a whopping two thirds who “regularly” buy organic! But let’s recap the Harvard Gazette article you cited for the rest of our readers and then dig into the issues.
The article makes a couple of claims about organic food: 1) That according to a review of 237 studies, organic foods have not shown greater nutritional value than nonorganic foods, and 2) that according to a United States Department of Agriculture survey, chemical residues on nonorganic foods do not exceed the level that the Environmental Protection Agency deems safe for consumption. Chances are you’ve heard about the controversies surrounding RoundUp — numerous studies have linked exposure to the chemical glyphosate (found in RoundUp) with neurotoxic effects. And apparently, most of us have been exposed, because glyphosate has been found in 80 percent of U.S. urine samples. It’s worth noting, however, that there is a bit of disagreement around the health impacts of glyphosate exposure. EPA reports have called the chemical “unlikely to
be carcinogenic to humans,” while the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has deemed it “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
It’s a fascinating question, David: is organic really better than non organic?
Read on for Dot’s
answer.
See more Dot here. Got a question
for her? Write her at deardot@bluedotliving.com
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Sign up here for Your Daily Dot newsletter! Get a daily dose of Dot's eco-friendly wisdom when she answers your sustainability questions.
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BLUEDOT KITCHEN
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This week, we celebrate recipes from some of our off-Island contributors. Could rabbit be a food of the sustainable future? Join our new Cambridge-based contributing food editor Caroline Sorbom (pictured here), who cooks with the planet in mind, as she investigates.
“I spent many years working for the culinary historian, author, and doyenne of French cooking, Anne Willan,” writes California contributor Nicole Litvack. “The cheese board was a favorite part of our workday lunches and nothing was ever wasted there. When there were enough odds and ends of cheese too small to really eat but too delicious to throw away, we would make what she lovingly referred to as ‘cheesy bit quiche.’ We’d chop or grate all of those final bits and bake them into pie pastry with a lucious and savory custard. The result was an insanely rich and buttery tart birthed out of things for which we might otherwise have no use.” Read Nicole’s step-by-step guide to assembling the perfect no-waste kitchen quiche.
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Good Libations: Irish Whiskey Goes Green
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If you’re thinking ahead to St. Patrick’s Day, study up on the Irish whiskey industry’s commitment to sustainable practices. The company that makes Jameson’s, for instance, plans to become Ireland’s first carbon-neutral distillery by 2026. Maybe mix up a Tipperary (recipe included) and offer some cheers to that!
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HANDBOOK
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Thoughts turning to planting? Check out the Seed Library at the West Tisbury Public Library. And for more Island eco-resources, consult Bluedot’s Ultimate Simple, Smart, Sustainable Handbook to Martha’s Vineyard.
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What’s Behind the Name “Bluedot”?
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“There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world,” astronomer Carl Sagan wrote in 1994’s Pale Blue Dot. “To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” Sagan’s humbling words inspire us to deliver stories to you that reflect his and so many others’ work to cherish this blue dot. Please consider forwarding this newsletter to your friends and family to share and inspire real-world eco-actions we can take at home and in our Martha’s Vineyard community.
Thanks for being part of our Bluedot community!
–Jamie Kageleiry and Leslie Garrett
Editors, Bluedot Living Martha’s Vineyard
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Jamie Kageleiry, a longtime magazine and newspaper editor from Oak Bluffs, says her favorite spot on earth is on the trails around Farm Pond, and out in a kayak there, looking at birds.
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Leslie Garrett has been covering climate stories for close to two decades. A newcomer part-time to the Vineyard, she’s still figuring out her favorite spot but it’s definitely near the water.
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