SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES

When she planned the Bluedot Living trip to B Bar Ranch in Montana, Bluedot founder Victoria Riskin scheduled several activities, including horseback riding and hiking. But, she says, she would have been satisfied if the group had arranged just one excursion: wolf viewing in Yellowstone National Park with Doug Smith, the legendary wildlife biologist who, in 1995, helped lead the release of the first wolves to return to the park in 70 years. “When we reached the viewing position, they set up high-powered spotting scopes with practiced ease, and then — there they were. Three teenage wolves, tumbling and leaping on one another in the open meadow.” It was a moment, Victoria explains in an essay about her time at the ranch, that reminded her of the importance of conservation, community, and the “conviction that when human beings are given the chance to step into nature, something can shift.”

Keep reading.

“Climate change is the ultimate betrayal of intergenerational equity. It imposes costs on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentive to fix.” – Mark Carney from his book Values: Building a Better World for All.

Check out Bluedot contributor Cleo Carney’s conversation with her father before he became Canada’s prime minister.

• Living Through Europe’s Record-Breaking Heatwave

• The Magic of Mushrooms

• Climate Conversation: Cleo Carney Talks Climate with Her Dad, Mark Carney

• Where Wolves Roam and Cattle Graze

• Why Paint a Landscape?

• Riffable: Plant-Powered Protein Bowl

• Podcast: Why Mushrooms Should Be on Your Menu

• Dear Dot: Is It Safe Yet to Eat a Salad? 

• Climate Quick Tip: Burn Less Gas (and Save $$)

• Room for Change: Nursery Rooms

• A Bluedot Guide to Back-to-School Season

• What You Can Do: Check Tire Pressure to Reduce Fuel Consumption

FEATURED STORIES

BIG IDEAS AND LOCAL CHANGEMAKERS

Join a community creating real change, one everyday action at a time. Bluedot Living equips readers with practical resources, inspiring stories, and solutions that work — 98% say we have helped them make planet-positive changes. Become a member for as little as $5/month to support hopeful climate journalism and enjoy exclusive member benefits.

Bluedot Kitchen

If you’re a new parent (or new grandparent), you’re likely trying to make sense of what it is you need and how to ensure all of it is safe. Not to mention wanting to do everything you can to make the planet a better place for your little one to grow up in. Bluedot’s Room for Change series is long overdue (wink, wink) in delivering this guide to outfitting a nursery, including what to look for, what to avoid, and retailers we trust.

Read the story.

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Illustration by Elissa Turnbull

Dear Dot,

Where do you suggest buying “safe” greens?

– Janet

Dear Janet,

There are a lot of us — more than 22,000 across 15 states — who’ve spent our summer not on a beach but on our toilets, thanks to an outbreak of cyclosporiasis from contaminated lettuce, which causes, among other symptoms, “explosive diarrhea.” 

No sooner did we think it was safe to leave our bathrooms than we got news that jalapeños are the latest Trojan horse, this time carrying salmonella. 

The contaminations have been traced to a company called Taylor Farms and specifically to farms in Mexico. But because Taylor Farms products are sold under some private labels — including in stores dotted around the country, such as Wal-Mart and Trader Joe’s — it’s reasonable to wonder how safe the produce is at your local grocer.

Though the lettuce recall seems to have been thorough and successful — “That product is off the market, so I think there’s absolutely lower risk for cyclospora in terms of eating lettuce,” Kali Kniel, a professor of microbial food safety at the University of Delaware, told Wired magazine — there remains the jalapeño contamination, along with potential contamination of parsley and cilantro in North Carolina. 

What’s a greens-loving consumer to do? Keep reading!

What You Can Do: Check Tire Pressure to Reduce Fuel and Save Money

🛞 Keeping your tires inflated to the right pressure helps them last longer, even adding thousands of miles to their life. 

🛞 Rotating your tires every 5,000 to 8,000 miles (get an alignment if necessary) helps you avoid uneven wear and also extends the life of your tires.

🛞 A single tire underinflated by about 8 psi can increase fuel consumption by up to 4%. 

Tire pressure fluctuates with temperature, so check it about once a month. You can do it yourself with a tire pressure gauge or take it to a service center. For more information, including a video of how to DIY, click here. 

Get more of Bluedot Living delivered directly to your inbox. From The Weekly news hub to Bluedot Living Kitchen and the biweekly Buy Better Marketplace, and more, we offer a range of newsletters tailored to your interests and wherever you are on your sustainable living journey.

The Keep-This Handbook

Back-to-school season is upon us! Between the catchy commercials and those first-day jitters, many families get caught up in the excitement and end up replacing perfectly good belongings with an annual shopping spree. Check out our Guide to Back-to-School Season for tips for reducing waste and saving money this fall.

(National) Parks and Recreation

I spent a lot of time thinking about national parks this week, from working on Bluedot founder Victoria Riskin’s story about B Bar Ranch right outside Yellowstone to reading about the efforts to stop construction of a border fence in a remote corner of Big Bend. 

Not that long ago, I didn’t know much, or even think much, about national parks. But then, one summer, I picked up a freelance editing job for a local company (really, just a couple of guys) creating audio tours of national parks that people could play in their cars as they drove from one significant site to the next. I edited scripts about Yosemite, Badlands, Joshua Tree, Bryce Canyon, Grand Teton, and many more. The gig turned me into a National Park Service devotee.

I was dazzled by the stories the audio tours told. Every night I kicked off dinner-table conversations with some new tidbit about the wolves in Yellowstone, the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia, or the dark skies and starry nights in Big Bend. When my family started planning vacations, I’d argue for Zion, Hawaii Volcanoes, Acadia, Death Valley. (I got them to visit the first two with me; I’m still working on the other two.)

That job ended when the owners moved on to other pursuits, and I went back to editing and writing stories about all kinds of things, not just national parks. But I never lost my fascination with our country’s wide-open spaces, and I’m delighted when I get to edit a Bluedot story about a national park (like Victoria’s essay, and this story about Lassen).   

Are the national parks, like Wallace Stegner said, “America’s best idea”? That’s a big claim, worth debating. But there is something magnificent about every single one, and that’s not an exaggeration. Here’s hoping the bipartisan coalition turning back the bulldozers in Big Bend continues to hold strong.

Enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you next week.

– Robin Jones (and Emily Cain, Leslie Garrett, Jamie Kageleiry) 

Editors

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