At Home On Earth

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Late August and early September is wild rice season in northern Minnesota. Meghan Mitchell, pictured here, scouts for the grain on a lake near Finland, Minnesota, or what the local Anishinaabe people would call “the place where food grows on water.” Read more about the Wild Rice House, part of the Finland Food Chain project, which is aiming to create a model for sustaining the native harvest.

“In nature’s economy, the currency is not money; it is life.” 

— Vandana Shiva, environmental activist

As we move into Labor Day, an occasion for honoring workers and their contribution to society, it seems just the right time to honor those hard workers of the natural world, too (although humans are, of course, natural). Let us celebrate the trees, which absorb carbon and transform it into the breath we pull into our lungs. Let us celebrate the soil, dark and rich with sequestered carbon. And let us celebrate the oceans, which absorb heat and provide food for more than 3 billion people around the world. Nature’s currency also includes the rain that helps our food grow, the sunshine that makes our planet habitable, the birds, the wildlife, and the bugs. Happy Labor Day, Mother Nature. 

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• Homemade Lunchbox Treats

• Dear Dot: How (and Why) to Build Community

• Teen Kayakers Paddle to Save the Klamath (video)

• Harvesting Native Wild Rice in Minnesota

• A Conversation With a Young Climate Activist

• Make Plans for Sun Day

• A Very Cool Lunch Bag

• Land Stewardship as High School Curriculum

• From Drilling for Oil to Pushing for Geothermal Energy

• Save Energy While You’re Away From Home

• What to Do With Leftover Building Supplies

• A Pair of Seniors Changing Their Community

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FEATURED STORIES

BIG IDEAS AND LOCAL CHANGEMAKERS

 Bluedot Living Kitchen

Homemade Lunchbox Treats

Having a couple of easy-to-throw-in snacks for packed lunches can be a lifesaver on busy mornings. These two simple recipes offer low-waste, homemade alternatives to some of the most popular lunchtime treats: granola bars and fruit leather. Nicole Litvack’s riffable No-Cook Chewy Granola Bars have four flavors to choose from, and Annabelle Brothers’s Wild Blueberry Fruit Leathers come together with just two ingredients. 

Get more recipes and ideas for packing a healthy lunchbox.

Land Stewardship as High School Curriculum

Since 2017, a high school in western Massachusetts has been teaching students about land stewardship through a program called ACTS (Agency, Community, Terra, and Social Justice). The school’s nearly 40 acres, which includes vegetable farmland and a small barn that houses sheep, goats, chickens, donkeys, pigs, and cows, are tended by students who participate in fence building, vegetable farming (seeding, growing, and harvesting), barn repair, land management, animal care, and more. Curious about school credit for farming? Read more.

Dear Dot: How Can I Build Community?

Dear Dot,

I keep hearing people talk about how important it is to build community as we confront a warming planet. But I live in a medium-sized city where people keep to themselves, so I’m not sure how to do that … or even really why I should. Help?

–Shawna

Dear Shawna,

I, too, have noticed that the buzz around community-building is growing louder, mixed in with warnings about “collapse” and “breakdown.” But whether or not we’re on the brink of societal and/or ecological collapse, the idea of creating community remains a good one. Assuming we accept the premise that we are lonelier and more isolated (and not everyone agrees that loneliness is, in fact, an epidemic), then community-building seems a good idea to combat that. But even if, instead, we accept Our World in Data’s reportage that loneliness has remained fairly consistent over time, Dot maintains that community-building is still an important piece of climate action. Consider this from renowned scientist, broadcaster, and climate activist David Suzuki, who recently told a reporter, “The units of survival are going to be local communities, so I’m urging local communities to get together.” How can you help create a resilient community? Read on.

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Bluedot climate champ Bill McKibben is urging all of us to get involved in Sun Day on September 21, a day to focus on the power of solar energy, by putting pressure on our elected officials and explaining to friends and family why it’s time to move on from fossil fuels and welcome energy from the sun. Create or find an event near you.

The Keep-This Handbook

A Love Letter to Lunch

My mom used to scribble notes on the napkins she packed with my school lunch. They were short and sweet — “Have a terrific Tuesday!” — and always marked with her signature smiley face: big eyes, a button nose, and chubby cheeks. They made lunchtime something to look forward to. 

She did this until I got to high school, when it seemed much cooler to me to grab a bite off-campus with friends than it was to carry around a brown paper bag. But come college (and all the expenses that go along with it), I quickly realized I could no longer afford cool. Well, I thought, who needs lunch anyway? It’s easy enough to skip, and everyone knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But nothing is more humbling than your stomach growling in the middle of a lecture hall. So, I was back to packed lunches. This time, made by me.

Even without the notes, packing myself a lunch always made me think of my mom. I found that, much like any homemade meal, a lunchbox that is packaged mindfully and filled with wholesome ingredients can be an act of love — for your child or yourself, and for the planet.

Check out some of our favorite planet-friendly lunch gear and our tips for putting together a healthy lunchbox.

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

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

Editors

Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com

Leslie Garrett has been covering climate stories for close to two decades.  She makes her home in Canada, west of Toronto. She’s still figuring out her favorite spot but it’s definitely near the water.

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.

Robin Jones is a Southern California native who served as an editor at Westways magazine for more than a decade. She lives in Long Beach and teaches journalism at Cal State Long Beach.

Emily Cain is a recent graduate of Cal State Long Beach, where she wrote and edited for the university’s award-winning magazine, DIG.

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