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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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Friday, February 16, 2024
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Such a striking image — a person holds a cocoon with a silkworm inside. In a women-run cooperative in India, the tiny creatures are lovingly reared to maturity and allowed to fly away as moths before the women use the empty cocoons to produce silk. Though we think of silk as luxurious and refined, producing raw silk is typically downright cruel. Read more about the ancient methods these women use to produce silk ethically.
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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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“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”
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—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Christmas Eve sermon, 1967
Perhaps you’ve never heard this speech before. We hadn’t. It was preached on December 24, 1967 at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. It would be King’s last Christmas sermon.
It was a plea for recognition of our interdependency, for seeing those around us — those around the world — as neighbors. It is a message as necessary now as it was then. “We aren’t going to have peace on Earth,” he said that night, “until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.” (The speech in its entirety is well worth your time.)
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QUICK LINKS
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Skip scrolling! Here's what you'll find in this edition of the Bluedot Newsletter:
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It’s still (cashmere) sweater season. Keep yours lasting longer:
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To keep your cashmere lasting longer, don’t wash it after every wear, only use water and baby shampoo, and dry on a rack or towel. For more Bluedot Climate Quick Tips, click here.
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THE BLUEDOT KITCHEN
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Prioritizing seasonal and local ingredients gives you sustainable eating at its very best. California recipe contributor Nicole Litvack shared this dish of Reverse-Seared Winter Squash and Burrata (a winner for us in any season). Last February, on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rachel Vaughn, a Massachusetts-based contributor, sent us this story about going to the Polish-Ukrainian border as a volunteer with World Central Kitchen (WCK), and making traditional honey cake for displaced Ukrainians. “Our slices of cake were tucked into small square brown paper bags,” she wrote, “easy to grab and go. Sometimes you’d find Ukrainians and Polish volunteers having a slice of cake together in a
WCK tent along the border path. … We had volunteers from around the world as well as Ukrainian staff. This cake was something everyone was comforted by.”
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Dear Dot: Is it Okay if I Plant Seed Paper?
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– Illustration by Elissa Turnbull
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Dear Dot,
I recently received a card that’s printed on “seed” paper — that paper that has wildflower seeds embedded in it that we, presumably, should plant. But with all the talk about planting native species, I’m unsure if I should. What do you say?
–Sandy
Dear Sandy,
The year was 2013. Katy Perry had just edged out fellow pop star Justin Bieber for most popular Twitter account holder. Dot could often be heard singing along to Roar, Perry’s anthem to empowerment. But with Perry at her zenith, Australia banned the singing sensation’s CD (remember those?) from entering the country. The country had nothing against the music on “Prism,” but rather had a problem with the CD itself, which came packaged with a piece of seed paper and a message to plant it and “spread the light.” Catchy, huh? Not enough to make the Australian authorities fans.
“Seeds or plant material of international origin may be a weed not present in Australia or the host of a plant pathogen of biosecurity concern,” a department spokesperson told news.com.au.
In other words, spreading light wasn’t the concern; potentially spreading invasive plants was. Is seed paper a Trojan horse for invasive plants?
Read on to discover what Dot learned.
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BUY LESS/BUY BETTER:
Cleaning Up Your Laundry Routine
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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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We were delighted to see that the New York Times product review site Wirecutter recently added Bluedot fave Dirty Labs to its list of top-five laundry detergents. This week, you’ll get discounts on Dirty Labs — and two other BuyBetter clean laundry essentials — with code BLUEDOT.
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Great Detergent
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Wirecutter writes that “this hyper-concentrated liquid detergent is an effective stain remover, with cleaning power that rivals our top picks.” We love this plastic-free brand, which comes in sophisticated scents, as well as a fragrance-free option. Save 15% with code BLUEDOT.
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Buy now or
read our review.
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Darling Dryer Balls
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Friendsheep has elevated dryer balls to an art with its beautiful colors and patterns. Colorful dryer balls also serve a practical purpose: They’re much easier to find when you’re folding! Check out the cute décor and pet toys, too. Save 10% with code BLUEDOT.
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Buy now or
read our
review.
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Microplastic Minimizer
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Buy the Cora Ball once and leave it in your washing machine. It will capture almost a third of the microplastics your clothes shed during each cycle and prevent them from being released into the water. Amazing, right? Save 15% with code BLUEDOT.
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Buy now or
read our review.
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The Social Hour
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Climate concerns are becoming increasingly relevant in our daily lives. From where we are choosing to live, to the appliances we use, and the energy sources that power our homes, it's time to make sustainable choices.
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FOLLOW US
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Happy Presidents Day
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“We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources,” Teddy Roosevelt wrote years before becoming president. “But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone … when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields…” Roosevelt as president would create the United States Forest Service and establish 150 national forests, fifty-one federal bird preserves, four national game preserves, five national parks, and eighteen national monuments, in the end protecting close to 230 million acres of land.
Hats off to Teddy and all the presidents and lawmakers before and since who’ve pushed to protect our natural resources.
If you’d like to support our efforts to bring you climate solutions stories (and no paywall!) you can contribute here. Thank you!
Enjoy the long weekend, and we’ll 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.
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