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By Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald
In our book The Real Cost of Fracking: How America's Shale Gas Boom is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food, we discuss the de facto moratorium on unconventional oil and gas extraction in New York State and the NYS Department of Health review of the process. On December 17, 2014, the NYS Department of Health announced that the public health review had been completed and the recommendation was made that New York State should not permit high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF). The acting commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said, "I have considered all of the data and find significant questions and risks to public health which as of yet are unanswered. I think it would be reckless to proceed in New York until more authoritative research is done. I asked myself, 'would I let my family live in a community with fracking?' The answer is no. I therefore cannot recommend anyone else's family to live in such a community either." The commissioner of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, Joe Martens, added:
"For the past six years, DEC has examined the significant environmental impacts that could result from high-volume hydraulic fracturing. DEC's own review identified dozens of potential significant adverse impacts of HVHF. Further, with the exclusion of sensitive natural, cultural and historic resources and the increasing number of towns that have enacted bans and moratoria, the risks substantially outweigh any potential economic benefits of HVHF. Considering the research, public comments, relevant studies, Dr. Zucker's report and the enormous record DEC has amassed on this issue, I have directed my staff to complete the final SGEIS [Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement]. Once that is complete, I will prohibit high-volume hydraulic fracturing in New York State at this time."
With those statements, months of speculation ended. This was a considerable victory for the grassroots environmental movement that grew up in response to this issue and indeed for citizens of New York State.
The NYS DOH recognized that "there are significant uncertainties about the kinds of adverse health outcomes that may be associated with HVHF, the likelihood of the occurrence of adverse health outcomes, and the effectiveness of some of the mitigation measures in reducing or preventing environmental impacts which could adversely affect public health." Based on this, they decided that the risks were too great and that science should be allowed to move forward until a more definitive statement can be made. This does not rule out using the practice in the future, it is simply a statement that with this level of uncertainty, we should err on the side of public health. This enlightened approach to public health policy is rarely seen in our society that is largely ruled by politicians who seem to owe more of a debt to corporate interests than to public interest.
For New York State, this means that unconventional fossil fuel extraction will not move forward in the foreseeable future, but it does not prevent other environmental and health impacts from this industry. One of the most dramatic and far reaching controversies is over the storage of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by Crestwood LLC in geologically unstable salt caverns under Seneca Lake, one of the largest of the Finger Lakes in Central New York and the source of drinking water for more than 100,000 people. Seneca Lake has emerged as one of the world's premier wine growing regions and the importance of the wine industry to the economy of New York is growing rapidly. Crestwood's plan to make the Seneca Lake area the major gas storage and transportation hub in the Northeast has run into a wave of protests from winery owners, other business owners in the area, and the public at large. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the expansion of the LNG facility, but the construction of the LPG facility has yet to be approved by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. With all of the questions concerning the safety of storing explosive materials in fragile geological formations, the effects of the surface operations (brine ponds, increased truck and rail traffic, etc.) on the environment, and the impacts of these industrial operations on the burgeoning wine industry, this controversy will continue and intensify.
In addition to these storage facilities, New York State is targeted as the route for a number of new large pipelines for natural gas transport from Pennsylvania to the Northeast both for use in these states as well as for liquefaction and transport to lucrative foreign markets. Along these routes, some of which are formed from eminent domain seizures from reluctant landowners, are compressor stations that are of great concern to residents. Despite the presence of these large compressor stations throughout the country, we know little definitive information about the environmental and health effects for people and animals living in close proximity.
Finally, the massive amounts of wastewater produced in HVHF wells in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio must find a final resting place. This wastewater contains variable amounts of heavy metals, toxic organics, and radioactive material. Some of this waste has found its way to treatment plants and landfills in New York State, none of which have the facilities to treat or test these drilling byproducts. Further, in its previous rendition of the SGEIS for unconventional gas drilling, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation proposed a "beneficial use" of drilling wastewater for road deicing with completely inadequate prior testing.
The fight of environmental groups in New York State to keep out unconventional oil and gas extraction has been won in the short term. The long-term prospects depend on the political winds, future advances in petroleum engineering, and future scientific studies of the safety of the current processes and those that are yet to be invented. In the meantime, the environmental movement in New York will stay vigilant.
Michelle Bamberger is a veterinarian and the author of two books on first aid for cats and dogs. Robert Oswald is a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University and the recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships. Bamberger and Oswald serve on the advisory board of Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy, and live in Ithaca, New York.
Climate change is happening, and faster than scientists expected. Polar ice caps are melting faster, island nations are going underwater, the ocean is acidifying and warming. In the US, we are suffering catastrophic droughts from California to Texas, along with severe flooding in the East. The answer is to stop burning fossil fuels, but the World Meteorological Organization says that, in 2013, CO2 rates in the atmosphere were rising faster than ever. So what can we do? On Sunday, September 21st, hundreds of thousands of people from around the globe converged in Manhattan to show the world exactly how critical the issue of climate change is to them, and to demand action. Beacon's Senior Editor Alexis Rizzuto and Associate Publisher Tom Hallock were there to bear witness. We recently spoke with them about their experiences at the march and why climate change is fast becoming one of the most important issues of our time.
Could you each talk about why you went to the People's Climate March, and what it felt like to be there?
Alexis Rizzuto: It was amazing to be there. The final tally was 400,000 people, and it was just a sea of humanity taking over the west part of Central Park and Times Square, all full of people who believe the same, that we need to make climate change a priority.
I think the point for me and for a lot of other people was that the UN Summit was happening. When I was recruiting people to come to this march, one of my talking points was that we've had twenty climate summits before this one yet the World Meteorological Organization just said in 2013 that our CO2 emissions were higher than ever and rising at a record rate. We need to be cutting emissions but we're doing the opposite.
So far the UN Conferences and Climate Summits have done pretty much nothing as far as a binding global agreement to cut carbon emissions. And so the whole point of this for me was to say to the UN leadership, "We need something tangible to come out of this." There's no more time left for fooling around and inaction and not getting things done. The window is closing. We need our leadership to act.
Tom Hallock: I had planned to go to the march, but as it got closer a million small things called me to stay home. And that is exactly the problem: we are too caught up in the short term to do what needs to be done in the long term. It's easy for all of us to stay home, and it's easy for all of us to feel overwhelmed, and that there's nothing that an individual's effort can do to impact this almost unimaginable problem. Stepping out of my day-to-day busyness to do something bigger was kind of an antidote to my own sense of hopelessness and despair on this issue. It's inspiring to get out and see that you're part of a larger movement and to see the variety of ways that people are tackling it. And to realize that our hope is for people to get involved.
What were some of the things you saw at the march? It was amazing to see the sheer variety and creativity of the people who marched.
TH: One of the things that made the March so effective came from the fact that there wasn't a set of demands. That approach made space for people to participate who came at this issue from a lot of different political, philosophical, and personal viewpoints. The effect was quite powerful. You would have vegans, veterans, communists, socialists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Unitarians, and all kinds of local groups as well as the national organizations like the Sierra Clubs and the Common Cause.
AR: And the groups included not only enviros like 350.org, NRDC, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Environmental Defense Fund, but also teachers' unions, labor unions, nurses' associations, farmers, indigenous peoples' groups, marching bands, bicycle brigades ("the revolution will not be motorized"), floats, puppets, people on stilts spinning wind turbine blades, a melting ice sculpture that formed the words "Our Future," people meditating in a climate vigil, students, monks, Old Lesbians Organizing for Change, Veterans for Peace, religious groups, social justice groups, scientists rolling a chalkboard with the science laid out ("The debate is over"), anti-fracking groups, anti-mountain top removal groups, anti-tar sands, pro-solar and pro-wind groups, people who lived through Hurricane Sandy and Typhoon Haiyan, old people, young people. I saw a toddler in a bicycle seat wearing a helmet made from a globe, people dressed as bees and bee-keepers holding huge tissue-paper flowers, people hanging banners out of windows above the streets, Ricoh's "only solar-powered billboard in Times Square," women in headscarves, the "Raging Grannies…"
TH: You could see different communities coming together around a shared concern about climate change. Some saw excesses of the capitalist system, some saw the impact of wars that have been waged for energy, others were concerned about fracking, or the loss of bio-diversity. There were people whose costumes and skits evoked bees, tapirs, butterflies, polar bears, all kinds of animals. People were really called on to use all of their creative energies to express their concern for the planet. There was a lot of costume, dance, music, theatre, and chanting. I've often been turned off to that as a political tactic because I think it can cause the media to focus on the most extreme thing and to miss the core message. But in this case it seemed appropriate. People were really trying to awaken a larger community—specifically political leaders—to the urgency of this issue. They were doing everything that they could. I really had the sense of people not marching so much as individuals but in groups that had already been doing work on climate change in their communities. In that sense, I felt like the march manifested what was already happening on a grassroots level around the country and around the world.
What was the most powerful moment for you?
AR: For me, the most powerful part of the day was the moment of silence followed by the moment of alarm. At 12:58, everyone fell silent. Sixty blocks of people-packed streets, all mute and raising our arms high, in solidarity with those on the front lines of climate change, those hardest hit and suffering, human and otherwise. Then, at 1:00, we raised the alarm by making as much noise as possible—a roar of outrage from 400,000 voices, horns, bells, drums, whatever we had. Being there on the street, you were only able to see and hear the few hundred people around you, which was powerful enough. But afterwards, seeing the aerial photos and videos from above showing the sheer masses of people brings tears to my eyes.
TH: To see 400,000 people fall silent at the same time in the middle of this huge, busy, and very loud city, was quite powerful. First, there was the power of the silence followed by the immense energy of the sound that broke the silence. There was one guy there who was wearing a yarmulke and blowing a shofar, which is a traditional way around the High Holidays to raise the alarm and focus the community's attention. The breaking of the silence after the March was like one long, loud note on the shofar, intended to wake up the world's leaders to the urgent need for action on this global threat.
What's the next thing that people can do? What can we expect from our leadership?
AR: May Boeve, the executive director of 350.org said, "Today, civil society acted at a scale that outdid even our own wildest expectations. Tomorrow, we expect our political leaders to do the same." Some of them have. At the UN Summit, Obama laid out some aggressive goals for carbon emission reduction, and China's Vice Premier said they want their country's greenhouse gases to peak "as early as possible" and then decline. Some of the largest companies responsible for deforestation, including Cargill, have agreed "to halve tropical deforestation by 2020 and end it completely by 2030." And the Rockefeller Foundation said they would divest from fossil fuels and invest instead in clean energy.
TH: I think one thing is that people will be going back to their communities with a renewed sense of energy, possibility and commitment—talking about the march and looking for actions that can be taken locally. I think it will have an effect that way. Media coverage obviously matters as does the message to political leaders that there is a constituency for this issue that is bigger and broader than they may have imagined.
A lot of time people think that the kinds of changes that are going to be required of us to live within our means from an energy and environmental standpoint are going to be negative, and actually I think a lot of times it's the opposite. Bicycling is a good example. I certainly bike to work because I enjoy it and it's a quicker and cheaper—but it's also good for the environment. Living responsibly can push us to live in ways that are ultimately more satisfying. That was something I felt through the march, that there were new paths that people were advocating, whether it's how you eat or what you use for transportation. Starting to experiment with those things and to actually live a little differently is really exciting.
This Sunday, September 21st, concerned citizens from across the globe are convening in New York City for what's being called the largest climate march in history. Over 100,000 participants will march two miles through the streets of Manhattan "to demand bold action on climate change." For those who are planning to march, or for those who wish to take action from afar, we've compiled a list of essential titles that raise awareness about impending climate change—the most pivotal environmental crisis humankind has yet to face:
In Harvest the Wind, Philip Warburg tells the story of America's energy future as it has not been told before. Cloud County is home to the Meridian Way Wind Farm, whose turbines are boosting farm incomes and bringing green jobs to a community that has watched its children flock to more exciting lives and less taxing jobs elsewhere. This remote corner of Kansas is the first stop on an odyssey that introduces readers to farmers, factory workers, biologists, and high-tech entrepreneurs—all players in a transformative industry that is fast taking hold across America and around the globe.
Across the country, fracking—the extraction of natural gas by hydraulic fracturing—is being touted as the nation's answer to energy independence and a fix for a flagging economy. Drilling companies assure us that the process is safe, politicians push through drilling legislation without a serious public-health debate, and those who speak out are marginalized, their silence purchased by gas companies and their warnings about the dangers of fracking stifled. The Real Cost of Fracking pulls back the curtain on how this toxic process endangers the environment and harms people, pets, and livestock.
Americans see water as abundant and cheap: we turn on the faucet and out it gushes, for less than a penny a gallon. We use more water than any other country in the world, rarely considering the consequences for our rivers, aquifers, and other freshwaters. Blue Revolution exposes the truth about the water crisis—driven by a tradition that has encouraged everyone, from homeowners to farmers to utilities, to tap more and more.
In Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, Fred Pearce surveys his home and then sets out to track down the people behind the production and distribution of everything in his daily life, from his socks to his computer to the food in his fridge. It's a fascinating portrait, by turns sobering and hopeful, of the effects the world's more than six billion inhabitants have on our planet and of the working and living conditions of the people who produce most of these goods.
While much of the global warming conversation rightly focuses on reducing our carbon footprint, the reality is that even if we were to immediately cease emissions, we would still face climate change into the next millennium. In Finding Higher Ground, Amy Seidl takes the uniquely positive yet realistic position that humans and animals can adapt and persist despite these changes. In looking at climate change as an opportunity to establish new cultural norms, Seidl inspires readers to move beyond loss and offers a refreshing call to evolve.
By Anna Morrow
During summers in California's Central Valley, an inland area that spans the length of the state from Bakersfield to Stockton, it's not uncommon to hear a local rejoice when "it will only be 100 degrees today!" The sun is relentless and its heat is stifling, especially during a drought, and especially for the thousands of farm workers who are responsible for nearly all of California's and much of the United States' agriculture.
Now, a report from the University of California, Davis explains that if the drought continues for two or more years, Central Valley farmers will be forced to increasingly rely on groundwater reserves, some of which, we are now learning, may have been polluted by fracking wastewater.
Growing up in the heart of the Central Valley, whose claim-to-fame is being the "Gateway to Yosemite," my preferred remedy for the afternoon summer heat was to frolic in the lawn sprinklers for hours on end, quench my thirst with gulps of water from the garden hose, engineer makeshift slip-and-slides, and bike to the farmer's fruit stand down the road.
The days of moderately worry-free water consumption are long gone as California rightfully encourages reductions in residential water use during this debilitating drought. What I never imagined is that my trips to the farm stand might become a relic of the past not only due to a lack of water, but to a lack of safe water.
Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald chronicle these dangers and other alarming consequences from contamination at fracking sites in their meticulously researched new book The Real Cost of Fracking: How America's Shale Gas Boom is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food. Through a series of interviews, we learn of families who have spent a lifetime building memories in homes that were rendered hazardous to their health and virtually unlivable soon after fracking began in their areas of Pennsylvania and New York. When oil and gas companies move in, property values plummet and many of those interviewed by Bamberger are now too poor to relocate. They are faced with walking away from their homes with nothing, or staying and risking serious, sometimes life-threatening, health issues believed to be caused by fracking—immunosuppression, nosebleeds, vomiting, rashes, burning eyes, loss of smell, and cancer, to name a few. They feel helpless in the fight against big oil companies with pockets as deep as the aquifers they are polluting.
Bamberger, a veterinarian, is particularly concerned with the effects on animals from contact with fracking wastewater. One family's beloved Lab mix, Rex, suddenly died two days after fracking wastewater spilled on their property. Many farmers have been stripped of their livelihood as their previously healthy and once productive livestock die in large numbers or become infertile. Notably, in Louisiana, seventeen cows on the same farm all died within an hour of being exposed to wastewater fluid. A small farm owner in Pennsylvania, exasperated from helplessly watching her animals become sick and die after exposure to fracking wastewater, lamented over what the drilling companies have taken from her: "I've spent forty years of my life to be able to get this, to be able to buy this property and farm this land, to have the American dream. And then the corporations came in and took it away from us overnight."
It's at once sobering and unfathomable to think that California's drought might now be just part of its water problem. Bamberger and Oswald encourage their readers to consider the potential repercussions of fracking wastewater being used in farming and our food supply:
Drilling fluids, fracturing fluids, wastewater, and air contaminants released during drilling operations contain chemicals that are human carcinogens or are suspected human carcinogens and that consequently, crops from exposed fields; milk, meat, and eggs from exposed animals; and fish from exposed waterways should not be made available for human consumption.
This warning is dire for California, which recently announced an emergency shut-down of eleven aquifers that have been intentionally polluted for years through the injection of fracking wastewater. An additional 100 aquifers are simultaneously under review. According to ProPublica, these aquifers, not currently protected by environmental law, may become important sources of water as new technology allows for less costly extraction and treatment for consumption. It is suspected that these contaminated aquifers have been leaking fracking waste and toxic chemicals into fresh water aquifers that are protected by law, and may be used as drinking water.
It is imperative that this groundwater is replenished and protected from additional fracking waste. Unfortunately, according to the UC Davis report, California is currently the only state without a basis for groundwater management.
The Real Cost of Fracking is ultimately a call to action for concerned citizens and lawmakers, and we should all pay attention. Our environment, water supply, health, food, and local summertime fruit stands may depend on it.
Anna Morrow has a BA in English and Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and is a soon-to-be graduate of the Emerson College Publishing and Writing MA program. She is currently the marketing intern at Beacon Press.
Summer is a time for getting outdoors, listening to the birds, taking long walks in the woods or long naps on the beach. And there's nothing quite like reading a book outside, or after a day spent basking in the splendor of the natural world. With that in mind, here are five titles to accompany your summer adventures, or inspire your next trip outdoors:
Before They're Gone by Michael Lanza
In Before They're Gone, Michael Lanza embarks on a one-year journey to introduce his children to the grandeur of America's national parks—before they are radically altered by the effects of climate change. Through these poignant and humorous adventures, Lanza shares the beauty of each place and shows how his children connect with nature when given "unscripted" time. Ultimately, he writes, this is more their story than his, for whatever comes of our changing world, they are the ones who will live in it.
Christine Byl's Dirt Work is a lively and lyrical account of one woman's unlikely apprenticeship on a national-park trail crew and what she discovers about nature, gender, and the value of hard work. The supposedly simple work of digging holes, dropping trees, and blasting snowdrifts in fact offers her an education of the hands and the head, as well as membership in an utterly unique subculture.
Why Do Bluebirds Hate Me? by Mike O'Connor
Why Do Bluebirds Hate Me? is a collection of humorous Q&As about everything you've always wanted to ask about birds and birding answered by Mike O'Connor, the proprietor of Cape Cod's iconic Bird Watcher's General Store, who knows that if you're even slightly interested in identifying birds or attracting them to your backyard with a feeder, then you've also had your share of strange and silly questions about birds and their sometimes inexplicable behavior.
Cabin Fever by Tom Montgomery Fate
Try to imagine Thoreau married, with a job, three kids, and a minivan. This is the sensibility—serious yet irreverent—that suffuses Cabin Fever, as Tom Montgomery Fate seeks to apply the hermit-philosopher's insights to a busy modern life. In his search for "a more deliberate life" amid a high-tech, material world, Fate invites readers into an interrogation of their own lives, and into a new kind of vision: the possibility of enough in a culture of more.
Into Great Silence by Eva Saulitis
Both an elegy and a celebration of a species, Into Great Silence entwines science with matters of the human heart as whale researcher Eva Saulitis chronicles lives of a unique and endangered orca population struggling to survive in Prince William Sound in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Into Great Silence speaks for all vanishing species in an increasingly vulnerable natural world.
By Michelle Bamberger & Robert Oswald
In our soon-to-be released book, The Real Cost of Fracking: How America's Shale Gas Boom is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food, we discuss the laws that affect local control of gas drilling in New York and Pennsylvania. At the time of writing, two cases were before the New York State Court of Appeals that would effectively decide if individual towns in New York could ban gas drilling using zoning ordinances (Mark S. Wallach, as Chapter 7 Trustee for Norse Energy Corp. USA vs. Town of Dryden et al. and Cooperstown Holstein Corporation vs. Town of Middlefield). On June 30, 2014, the decision was announced by the Court of Appeals in favor of the Towns of Dryden and Middlefield. It is important to note that "towns" in New York are subdivisions of counties, and constitute most of the land that is not a city or Indian reservation.
What is at issue is the reading of the "supersession clause" of the NYS Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law (OGSML), which is part of the Environmental Conservation Law 23-0303. The relevant clause in the law is:
The provisions of this article [i.e., the OGSML] shall supersede all local laws or ordinances relating to the regulation of the oil, gas and solution mining industries; but shall not supersede local government jurisdiction over local roads or the rights of local governments under the real property tax law
The large issue was the meaning of the word "regulation." That is, New York has a long tradition of home rule, and towns can create and enforce local laws, including zoning regulations, except when in conflict with state law. If zoning were to be considered a form of regulation, then the town-enacted zoning laws banning gas drilling would be in conflict with state law. However, the town bans were developed based on a careful legal analysis by a team of lawyers, Helen and David Slottje (Community Environmental Defense Council), who, drawing on significant legal precedents, asserted that zoning was a land use issue independent of the regulation of an industry. That is, regulation would determine, among other things, how an industry operates, what safety regulations are in place, and how it conducts business. Zoning simply determines more generally what uses are permitted within particular parcels in a town, and cannot be considered regulation of any specific industry. If one accepts the idea that zoning is not regulation, then why would the legislature specifically give the local government jurisdiction over roads and real property tax law in this clause of the OGSML? Would that not restrict the rights of the town to these two narrow interests relative to oil, gas and solution mining? The Court ruled that the clause giving the towns the right to control roads and taxes actually refers to the regulation of the industry, that is, the state law supersedes all local regulations except roads and taxes but does not prevent local control of zoning. The full decision can be accessed here.
At this time, high-volume horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing is effectively banned by lack of a generic environmental impact statement in New York and is awaiting a NYS Department of Health review of the potential health impacts. In any event, the decision was hailed as a major victory for the grassroots efforts to ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State permanently. Tom West, the lawyer for Norse Energy, was quoted in the New York Times: "In the future, he said, companies will have to weigh whether to invest 'the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars required to develop the resource, only to be at risk of a municipal ban.'"
What is ironic about this statement is that many of the major oil and gas producing states, such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania, currently have some form of local zoning of drilling operations. The difference in New York is not simply the fact that towns can now use zoning to restrict drilling, but, more importantly, the large-scale resistance to unconventional oil and gas extraction in New York will ensure the extensive use (relative to other states) of local zoning to restrict locations that drilling can take place in the event that the current de facto moratorium is lifted.
Michelle Bamberger & Robert Oswald are the authors of The Real Cost of Fracking: How America's Shale Gas Boom is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food. Bamberger is a veterinarian and the author of two books on first aid for cats and dogs. Oswald is a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University and the recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships. They serve on the advisory board of Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy. Bamberger and Oswald live in Ithaca, New York.
Nancy J. Merrick came to Boston recently to talk about her new book Among Chimpanzees: Field Notes from the Race to Save Our Endangered Relatives. Over lunch, she passed around a series of photographs taken by chimpanzee researcher Matthew McLennan. The photos were compelling, showing key members of a chimpanzee group in Bulindi, Uganda. In them, one could see all the intelligence, emotion, and wild beauty that first captivated a young Merrick in 1972, when she was a student of Jane Goodall's at the famed Gombe Stream camp in Tanzania. Chimpanzees—as Goodall and the rest of the world would discover—can fashion tools, solve problems, and have complex societies and relationships. And they share 98% of our DNA, making chimps our closest relatives. The chimpanzees in the photographs seemed to have enough charisma to ignite the imaginations of anybody they encountered. But the photographs also showed a darker side: chimpanzees sharing a road with local villagers while the humans looked on, wary but not surprised.
It's a sad fact that chimpanzees are disappearing at an alarming rate from areas they had previously called home. Exploding human populations have led to vast deforestation and increased conflict with native chimpanzees, who become victim to trapping, poisoning, mutilation, or worse. In Bulindi, where these photos were taken, the chimpanzee population has dropped by a third in just a few years. And interactions with villagers have grown distressingly common as the chimps, desperate for food, look to farmers' crops as the next available option. It's this essential conflict, repeated again and again across Africa, that has led to the current crisis. Chimpanzees are now extinct from four countries, and critically endangered in ten others. A large percentage of the remaining populations live in unprotected, increasingly fragmented forests. During her visit, Merrick impressed upon us the importance of her book's message:
Among Chimpanzees is at once an inspiring chronicle of Merrick's personal search to learn how chimps are faring across Africa and in captivity, a crucial eyewitness account of a very critical period in their existence, and a rousing call for us to join the efforts to be a voice for the chimpanzees, before it's too late:
To read more about the chimpanzees Merrick encountered in the writing of Among Chimpanzees, including the "Bulindi Survivors" pictured above, or to learn more about ways you can help in the fight to save chimpanzees, visit www.chimpsaver.org.
Nancy J. Merrick is an accomplished physician-internist and a reviewer for the Annals of Internal Medicine. She is the creator of ChimpSaver.org, a website teaching users why chimpanzees are remarkable and enabling them to advocate on behalf of chimps and other Great Apes. She is rapidly becoming a recognized leader in the battle to save great apes. She lives in Ventura, California.
By Rob Arnold
As Father's Day approaches, I've been thinking of books I'd recommend to my own father. I have fond memories from childhood of sitting with my father while he watched "his shows," the science and nature and history programming on public televison channels that my other siblings would spurn as too educational to be entertaining. My father, a former Navyman who'd traveled the world in his youth, loved pointing out places he had been to, and I loved discovering a sense of the world through his eyes. Later, after we moved to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, we would go on hikes together and stand at the summits, taking in the vastness. Or we would go fishing together, which seemed mainly an excuse to sit in inflatable rafts and read, or listen as nature filled in the quietness between us. I don't know if I inherited my curiosity of the world from him, or if I was drawn to that part of him that intersected with my own sensibilities. In a way, it doesn't matter. It's the commonality one cherishes.
Here are five titles that, like my father, share a deep interest in the world, or that tell the story of fatherhood itself, with all its memories and complexities and sometime revelations. If your father is anything like mine, I'm sure he would take any of these books, find a quiet place to sit, and then read every word.
The Good Doctor: A Father, a Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics by Barron H. Lerner
As a practicing physician and longtime member of his hospital's ethics committee, Dr. Barron Lerner thought he had heard it all. But in the mid-1990s, his father, an infectious diseases physician, told him a stunning story: he had physically placed his body over an end-stage patient who had stopped breathing, preventing his colleagues from performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, even though CPR was the ethically and legally accepted thing to do. Over the next few years, the senior Dr. Lerner tried to speed the deaths of his seriously ill mother and mother-in-law to spare them further suffering.
These stories angered and alarmed the younger Dr. Lerner—an internist, historian of medicine, and bioethicist—who had rejected physician-based paternalism in favor of informed consent and patient autonomy. The Good Doctor is a fascinating and moving account of how Dr. Lerner came to terms with two very different images of his father: a revered clinician, teacher, and researcher who always put his patients first, but also a physician willing to "play God," opposing the very revolution in patients' rights that his son was studying and teaching to his own medical students.
But the elder Dr. Lerner's journals, which he had kept for decades, showed the son how the father's outdated paternalism had grown out of a fierce devotion to patient-centered medicine, which was rapidly disappearing. As his father slowly died of Parkinson's disease, Barron Lerner found himself being pulled into his dad's medical care, even though he had criticized his father for making medical decisions for his relatives. Did playing God—at least in some situations—actually make sense? Did doctors sometimes "know best"?
A timely and compelling story of one family's engagement with medicine over the last half century, The Good Doctor is an important book for those who treat illness—and those who struggle to overcome it.
Love & Fury: A Memoir by Richard Hoffman
Richard Hoffman sometimes felt as though he had two fathers: the real one who raised him and an imaginary version, one he talked to on the phone, and one he talked to in his head. Although Hoffman was always close to the man, his father remained a mystery, shrouded in a perplexing mix of tenderness and rage. When his father receives a terminal cancer diagnosis, Hoffman confronts the depths and limitations of their lifelong struggle to know each other, weighing their differences and coming to understand that their yearning and puzzlement was mutual.
With familial relationships at its center, Love & Fury draws connections between past and present, from the author's grandfather, a "breaker boy" sent down into the anthracite mines of Pennsylvania at the age of ten, to his young grandson, whose father is among the estimated one million young black men incarcerated today. In a critique of culture and of self, Hoffman grapples with the way we have absorbed and incorporated the compelling imagery of post WWII America and its values, especially regarding class, war, women, race, masculinity, violence, divinity, and wealth.
At the book's core are the author's questions about boyhood, fatherhood, and grandfatherhood, and about the changing meaning of what it means to be a good man in America, now and into the future.
Before They're Gone: A Family's Year-Long Quest to Explore America's Most Endangered National Parks by Michael Lanza
A longtime backpacker, climber, and skier, Michael Lanza knows our national parks like the back of his hand. As a father, he hopes to share these special places with his two young children. But he has seen firsthand the changes wrought by the warming climate and understands what lies ahead: Encroaching tides threaten the Everglades. Yosemite's world-famous waterfalls are disappearing. And it is predicted that Glacier National Park's seven-thousand-year-old glaciers will be gone in a decade.
Determined to show his children, Alex and Nate, these wonders before they've changed forever, Lanza takes his family on a quest to see as many climate-threatened wild places as they can fit into a year, including backpacking in the Grand Canyon and Glacier, sea kayaking in Alaska's Glacier Bay, hiking to Yosemite's waterfalls, cross-country skiing in Yellowstone, and canoeing the Everglades.
Through these poignant and humorous adventures, Lanza shares the beauty of each place and shows how his children connect with nature when given "unscripted" time. Ultimately, he writes, this is more their story than his, for whatever comes of our changing world, they are the ones who will live in it.
Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game by Rob Ruck
After peaking at 27% of all major leaguers in 1975, African Americans now make up less than one-tenth—a decline unimaginable in other men's pro sports. The number of Latin Americans, by contrast, has exploded to over one-quarter of all major leaguers and roughly half of those playing in the minors. Award-winning historian Rob Ruck not only explains the catalyst for this sea change; he also breaks down the consequences that cut across society. Integration cost black and Caribbean societies control over their own sporting lives, changing the meaning of the sport, but not always for the better. While it channeled black and Latino athletes into major league baseball, integration did little for the communities they left behind.
By looking at this history from the vantage point of black America and the Caribbean, a more complex story comes into focus, one largely missing from traditional narratives of baseball's history. Raceball unveils a fresh and stunning truth: baseball has never been stronger as a business, never weaker as a game.
The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker
Winner of the International Labor History Award
Long before the American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a motley crew of sailors, slaves, pirates, laborers, market women, and indentured servants had ideas about freedom and equality that would forever change history. The Many-Headed Hydra recounts their stories in a sweeping history of the role of the dispossessed in the making of the modern world.
When an unprecedented expansion of trade and colonization in the early seventeenth century launched the first global economy, a vast, diverse, and landless workforce was born. These workers crossed national, ethnic, and racial boundaries, as they circulated around the Atlantic world on trade ships and slave ships, from England to Virginia, from Africa to Barbados, and from the Americas back to Europe.
Marshaling an impressive range of original research from archives in the Americas and Europe, the authors show how ordinary working people led dozens of rebellions on both sides of the North Atlantic. The rulers of the day called the multiethnic rebels a "hydra" and brutally suppressed their risings, yet some of their ideas fueled the age of revolution. Others, hidden from history and recovered here, have much to teach us about our common humanity.
Rob Arnold is editor of the Beacon Broadside and digital marketing associate at Beacon Press.
Of all the problems the world confronts today, climate change undoubtedly affects more people, with more potentially dire consequences, than any other single issue.
Yet most people, looking at the EPA regulation that President Obama just proposed for cutting carbon emissions in order to combat climate change, are probably saying: "I don't own a coal plant. This has nothing to do with me."
In fact, the proposal has plenty to do with all of us. And there's a whole list of things we can do to help make the carbon-cutting goals a reality.
(Of course, if you do happen to own a coal plant, or if you are a member of Congress or a state legislature, or an aide to a politician—well, there's even more that you can do.)
One reason there are opportunities for mass activism is that the proposed rule doesn't simply "declare war on coal" (despite the faux-outraged rhetoric from coal-industry advocates). Yes, President Obama is seeking to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 30% (compared with 2005 levels) over the next 16 years. However, states would be able to meet this target through a range of tactics.
For instance, if a powerful local coal lobby blocks any effort to require coal plants to install stronger pollution controls, a state could instead join a regional cap-and-trade program or subsidize alternative energy.
Similarly, any actions that you might take as an individual to reduce your energy use, switch to sustainable sources, or advocate against carbon emissions can be tailored to fit here:
Lobby: Write, phone, e-mail, or send a petition (or do all four) to your state and federal representatives, urging them to support the new proposal. Ask your state reps to vote for a cap-and-trade pact. Find out if any alternative energy bills are sitting around in a committee and cite them by name and number.
Join and donate: Every environmental organization will be putting pedal to the metal—if that can be done in an energy-efficient way—to help move this initiative along (even if some of the groups think it's too weak).
Even without waiting for new state subsidies, reduce your energy usage and use alternative energy… Of course you're doing that already. So now nag your friends. Hey, why not write to your legislators to tell them what you're doing? (Maybe a legislative aide will read your letter and be inspired.)
The planet won't be saved just because some vague, powerful "they" decide to act, or even because President Obama issues an executive order. It will take all of us, pushing in every way we know.
Hear Fran Hawthorne talk more about climate change, responsible consumerism, and her award-winning book Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love on Patrick McCarty's Insight Radio. Skip to 39:20 for "Fran's Corner":
Fran Hawthorne is the author of Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love. This post is adapted from Fran's Corner, her weekly show on the global political-cultural talk show Insight Radio, available on the CNN Website at insighttalkradio.com.
"Even if Stanford [University] divested itself fully of all its stocks, both fossil fuel and nonfossil, it would probably take the market less than an hour to absorb all the shares. It would not lead the executives of the affected companies to engage in soul-searching, much less to changes in operations."
Ivo Welch, a finance and economics professor at UCLA, wrote those sentences recently in a New York Times Op Ed column, after Stanford announced that its $18.7 billion endowment would dump all holdings in coal-mining companies.
But where else have we heard that refrain? Ah yes, about 30 years ago, during the movement to divest stockholdings in companies doing business in apartheid South Africa.
Selling a few shares of stock won't do any good, the refrain goes. Instead, you should do A or B or C...
Back during the South Africa divestiture movement, skeptics said that people who really hated apartheid ought to keep their money in General Motors and other multinationals, and then use their clout to pressure those companies to improve conditions for nonwhite workers. For his part, Professor Welch says that Stanford should invest in "research and development of clean-energy technology."
However, these naysayers are proffering a set of phony choices and premises.
For starters, why can't Stanford do A and B and C?
In fact, why can't individual consumers take multiple alphabet steps, too?
Professor Welch is right that Stanford is a world-renowned institution with tremendous brainpower that could be put to work researching and commercializing more energy-efficient fuels. But meanwhile, the school has to invest that $18.7 billion somewhere.
And maybe $18.7 billion is only a drop in a total worldwide stock-market bucket of more than $60 trillion, but who says Stanford has to be the only institution dumping coal stocks? When enough coal-stockholders sell, the share price drops, which means the coal companies' market value shrinks—and believe me, that will prompt some soul-searching.
As individuals, our little stock portfolios are, of course, even punier than Stanford's. Nor do most of us have the ability to invent better solar panels or windmills. Still, we have a lot of potential power. After all, we have to get to work somehow and illuminate our homes in some manner.
Here are a few things we can do just in the environmental area: Take mass transit, bike, or walk instead of driving; buy recycled paper; recycle and compost our paper, glass, plastic, aluminum, and food scraps; use energy-efficient light bulbs and appliances; turn off lights and appliances unless we really need them; try to reuse, or share, or purchase used goods, to cut back on shopping; and invest in "green" mutual funds.
Ironically, within a few days of Stanford's announcement, four major scientific reports were published, all showing that climate change is happening faster and more powerfully than experts had expected. For instance, West Antarctic glaciers have retreated so significantly that a sharp rise in sea levels is irreversible. Climate change even poses risks to national security, according to a U.S. naval advisory board.
Such warnings underline that not only can we, and Stanford, take all these green steps—but we must.
Hear Fran Hawthorne talk more about socially responsible investing, climate change, responsible consumerism, and her award-winning book Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love on Patrick McCarty's Insight Radio (skip to 37:13 for "Fran's Corner"):
Fran Hawthorne is the author of Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love. This post is adapted from Fran's Corner, her weekly show on the global political-cultural talk show Insight Radio, available on the CNN Website at insighttalkradio.com.
My mom gently shook me awake. It was 5 a.m. "Quick—you're going to miss it!" she whispered excitedly, rushing out of my bedroom and downstairs. I was still half-asleep, but I followed quickly. This had happened before, and I knew I didn't want to miss it.
The coyote was back.
Groggily, I scampered downstairs and sidled up against my mother, who stood with her face squished against a window pane at the front of the house, peering outside. I squeezed my face next to hers. Our noses pressed flat on the cold glass, spreading a fog of collective breath across the pane. I used the sleeve of my Red Sox pajamas to wipe it away. I didn't want anything to ruin the view.
The summer I turned twelve, this was a regular occurrence at my family's house in Massachusetts. Our home, nestled in a heavily wooded housing development and closely bordered by horse farms, was no stranger to wild visitors. Still, the coyote was different from the deer, rabbits, foxes and even wild turkeys that frequently made cameos in our yard.
His presence could draw a twelve-year-old willingly from bed at the break of dawn. He was majestic. His vaulted ears made him look like a king. And he was intelligent. His calculating eyes flashed yellow in the dusky dark as he assessed his surroundings.
But above all, the coyote was dangerous.
Anyone who has seen a mammalian predator—a wolf, coyote, cougar or bear—knows the feeling of awe and fear that I felt as a child, watching that coyote from behind the safety of my front door. The heart beats fast. Eyes grow wide. The spine tingles. Our fascination with predators is obvious, but it's also conflicting. We both fear and respect them. Simultaneously, we find them beautiful and abhorrent.
Wildlife management expert John Shivik has a term for this conundrum. He calls it the predator paradox. At the root of the paradox is one resounding question: Can humans and mammalian predators coexist? Up until now, the answer has been yes—but at a staggering price.
Shivik's new book—aptly titled The Predator Paradox: Ending the War with Wolves, Bears, Cougars, and Coyotes, available now from Beacon Press—explains that predators have long been paying with their lives for their human neighbors' peace of mind. Shivik notes that the U.S. government has been engaged in all-out war against mammalian predators for the past 100 years. Indeed, the government has been using lethal force as its primary means of "predator management" since 1914.
Consider for a moment that 90,000 wolves, bears, coyotes, and cougars are killed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services every year. (The most notorious of Wildlife Services' deadly tactics, aerial wolf hunting, was made famous by Sarah Palin's 2008 endorsement of the practice, which entails gunning down the animals from low-flying helicopters.)
While these animals' rising death tolls go largely unnoticed and unreported by the mainstream media, the rare mammalian predator attack on humans always makes front page news. Intense coverage of such attacks, while understandable, exacerbates already-high levels of public fear of mammalian predators—which, in turn, further entrenches the government's policy of lethal force against the animals.
But, as Shivik argues, the government's mass killing of predators is doing nothing to protect humans from attacks; doing even less to establish a long-term, effective strategy to protect livestock and cattle from predation; and ultimately wreaking havoc on environmental ecosystems that rely on predator species to keep them healthy.
Fortunately, Shivik presents an arsenal of alternative predator management tactics, nonlethal techniques—such as shock collars, physical barriers, "frightening devices," and more—that he's pioneered as a federal and university researcher.
I'm moved by Shivik's insistence that we can coexist with the animals around us. We can lighten up on our fear and embrace our respect of predators. We can use our political power and our creativity to find new ways of interacting with our predatory neighbors that benefit both sides of the equation.
And we can come to a more nuanced understanding of predators, recognizing that while they are indeed dangerous, they are also intelligent, majestic and beautiful. Just like the coyote who visited my childhood home.
Stephanie Mann is the publicity intern at Beacon Press.
Looks can be deceiving. The always tactful and elegant Maria Shriver found out firsthand one day when she called Jane Goodall to the podium in 2009 to award her the Women's Conference Minerva Award. Intending it as a compliment, Shriver offhandedly remarked that despite her "frail" appearance, Jane was a mighty woman.
As Jane took the podium, she remarked that she was anything but "frail," and proceeded to prove it by hoisting the heavy award trophy over her head. She then delivered an energetic acceptance speech and spoke of her tireless 300 day a year lecture tour, describing a schedule far beyond the reach of a fragile woman.
I had to laugh, for I knew the minute that Shriver uttered the word "frail," she had entered dangerous territory. I have had the good fortune to know Jane Goodall for 42 years, and I can guarantee you that she is anything but feeble. Jane runs on sheer determination, even now as she celebrates her 80th birthday.
I am one of her lucky followers who knows an amazing hero when I see one. At age 19, I was privileged to be her research assistant, studying chimpanzees in Tanzania at Gombe Stream Research Center, and later at the Stanford Outdoor Primate Facility. From there, our paths diverged as I became a physician, but our lives continued to intertwine, given a mutual passion for chimps and nature. She involved me in a conference to improve conditions for captive chimps, and we worked together to remind the National Institutes of Health that chimpanzees were poor lab subjects for studying AIDS. Later, my family and I became involved with her remarkable international organization, Roots & Shoots, that provides hope and empowerment to today's youth. Today, I continue to be under her wing as we work to protect impacted forests so critical to the future of man's closest relative, the chimpanzees.
Over these 42 years, I have collected so many memories, heard so many of her lectures, and shared letters and conversations. What a privilege. And from it all, I have culled life lessons taught by Jane that influence me every single day. Here are some of them.
"We must preserve the natural world."
Why is it that we feel a sense of wonder when we swim in crystal blue water, see the intense orange tones of a sunset, or glimpse dolphins swimming in the waves or a hawk soaring in a thermal? Those are the moments when we are awestruck and sense the presence of something from greater than ourselves. Now imagine the world our grandchildren may inherit, likely to be absent tigers, rhinos, elephants, orangutans—perhaps even devoid of man's closest relatives, the chimpanzees. We are, after all, in a "great extinction," a time when iconic large mammals are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Jane reminds us that saving those last great forests—the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and the Indonesian rainforest—is essential, as is protecting the rest of the natural world.
"Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference."
Every one of us needs to take action on behalf of saving forests and species. Even if our individual efforts sometimes feel insignificant, together, we can be a powerful community. But it won't happen if we are looking the other way. Thankfully, new technologies are increasingly making conservation activism as close as your computer. Take, for instance, the just-released Global Forest Watch 2.0 that allows anyone with a computer screen to identify burning and destruction of the world's forests in near real-time thanks to Google Earth technology and NASA satellites. With timely detection of the problem, officials or monitors can be sent to the area to identify the perpetrators and to ensure the illegal activity is quickly brought to a halt and those responsible are held accountable.
"You cannot get through even a single day without having an impact. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."
Jane frequently reminds her audiences that we need to take responsibility for the hundreds of little decisions we make daily in the way that we live. What we eat, what we wear, how we travel—every bit of it has remarkably large consequences and impact. Her new book, Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants, reminds us of the need to protect forests, to live close to nature, and to minimize our footprint on the planet.
"Rules are made to be broken—as long as you proceed in a manner respectful of others."
Anyone who knows Jane understands how vitally she believes this bit of wisdom. She is always willing to fight the good fight for a cause she truly believes in, and willing to take a risk. What she is not willing to do is to damage others in the process. But more of that in the next piece of wisdom.
"Solving problems of chimps and forests requires addressing human issues as well."
People living in the forests surrounding critical chimpanzee habitat are among the poorest on the planet. Consequently, it is short-sighted to develop[ solutions for chimps without addressing the needs of local people. Effective programs must provide win-win solutions for both chimps and people. Thankfully, conserving forests benefits both local people as well as chimps and other fauna, and the Jane Goodall Institute's TACARE Program recognizes just how important this is through the educational, health, and environmental programs it offers.
"Humans have been blessed with enormous brains, capable of understanding and solving so many problems. Yet there is too often a disconnect between our heads and our hearts."
We often lose sight of what is important as we yearn for big and better technology, more "things," and more money. What matters most are our daily acts of kindness and our efforts to maintain our principles and values over time.
What do Jane Goodall and Abraham Lincoln have in common? The belief that the easiest way to rid yourself of an enemy is to make them your friend.
Jane frequently reminds us that you can not make change unless you are sitting down with your adversary, listening to one another, and sharing stories. In the 1980s, she did exactly that, inviting the heads of the world's largest logging companies to meet together privately. Amazingly, they agreed, and out of that meeting grew other meetings and events. Soon new codes of conduct were drawn that called for tree harvesting in a more sustainable way and methods to reduce impact on forest life. Throughout her career, and often much to the outcry of conservation groups, she has sat down with timber, petroleum and lab scientists—and out of it has come important middle ground and progress. In my mind, this is her greatest wisdom.
Over the years, I have known scores of Jane's students, many of whom are now the world's leading experts on primates and their conservation. They are an army fighting for chimpanzees and forests, a group that is truly making a difference. Yet, to my mind, there is not an orator among them who is changing hearts and minds with the enormous magnitude that Jane does. She writes in her book Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey:
"And always I have this feeling—which may not be true at all—that I am being used as a messenger."
I feel certain of it. God Speed, Jane Goodall, on this your eightieth birthday.
Nancy Merrick is an accomplished physician internist and the author of Among Chimpanzees: Field Notes from the Race to Save Our Endangered Relatives, available soon from Beacon Press. She is the creator of ChimpSaver.org, a website enabling users to advocate on behalf of chimps, and is rapidly becoming a recognized leader in the battle to save Great Apes. She lives in Ventura, California.
I understand the United States is having one of those big sports moments when football fans come together to eat their favorite foods and see who will become champion. I believe it's tradition that football and crunchy snacks go together. Why? That's a question too big for an answer. Unfortunately, and especially when children are involved, the temptation is to get that satisfying crunch from chips, or some other form of convenience (i.e.: junk) food.
I admit I have been known to hover too eagerly over the potato chip bowl at children's birthday parties and other events. But I like it when there's a platter of something perhaps a little more wholesome available as an alternative or just in addition to all the other food.
So what if you like football, you like crunchy snacks, but you don't really want junk food?
My offering for something that goes crunch but still elicits a satisfying mmmmm is bruschetta with greens! Don't run away, I'm serious. You'll like it. I promise. And it's easy.
You cook some leafy greens or broccoli until they are a little on the mushy side. The crunch is not in the vegetables, you want them soft. Squeeze the water out of them and chop them roughly. In a pan gently warm some chopped garlic and a generous pinch of dried chilies or some chopped fresh chili in olive oil. Add the greens to the pan and let the mixture cook together a minute. Add a little salt. You want the greens to become infused with the garlicky, spicy olive oil. Then you toast slices of bread. This is where the crunch comes in so you need to use something dense with a good crust, preferably bread that's been baked in a wood oven. In Rome I use Lariano, which is partly whole wheat. Once it's toasted you rub the bread with the cut side of a garlic clove then spoon on some olive oil and smear it around. Top the bread with the spicy greens and shave a sharp cheese on top. I used Pecorino Romano. I sometimes shave on parmesan. It should be something that has a little bite to it and has a crumbly texture.
This is one of those recipes with very few ingredients that when combined seem to add up to more than the sum of their parts. I have seen children devour these things. I've had to knock them aside to get to the platter before they're all gone.
This is not junk food. It's not health food either. It's just really good. And it goes crunch.
Recipe for Bruschetta with Greens
This should be enough for eight pieces
1 bunch of greens, around one pound (broccoli, spinach, or swiss chard leaves)
3 cloves of garlic, 2 chopped and one peeled and cut
½ teaspoon of dried chilies, or 1 small chili of your favorite type (if you like it spicier, add more)
A glug of olive oil (okay, roughly 3 tablespoons), plus a little more for the bread
A generous pinch of sea salt
1 loaf of sturdy bread
Pecorino Romano (or another crumbly, slightly sharp cheese)
Cook the greens till they are soft. Spinach takes only a couple of minutes, swiss chard, depending on the size of the leaves, can take a little longer. If you're using broccoli, test it with a fork. When the fork goes in to the stalks quite easily, they're ready. Drain them. Spinach and swiss chard need to be squeezed until no more water comes out. If you've steamed the broccoli, then there's no need to squeeze it. Chop the vegetables roughly and set them aside.
Put a glug of olive oil in a pan along with the two chopped cloves of garlic and the chilies and warm it on low heat, you don't want to burn the garlic. As soon as you smell that lovely garlic scent in the air, add the chopped greens to the pan along with a big pinch of sea salt. Stir the vegetables around a little allowing them to become coated in the garlic, chili, and olive oil for a minute or two. Then turn off the heat.
Cut the bread into thick slices. Toast them, then rub one side of the bread with the cut side of a clove of garlic. Smear a spoonful or so of olive oil onto the toasted bread. Place some greens on top and then finish off with a few thick shavings of the cheese.
They are so good.
Read more recipes from Jeannie Marshall on the Beacon Broadside
Jeannie Marshall is the author of The Lost Art of Feeding Kids, now available from Beacon Press. She has written for Canadian national newspapers and magazines such as the Globe and Mail and the Walrus. Before moving to Italy in 2002, she was a features writer at the Toronto-based National Post.
During the early days of my life in Rome, before I had a child, when there was just my husband James and I getting to know our new home by walking all over the city, eating in little restaurants, learning to cook by shopping in our local market, among my first impressions of life in this city was the pleasure people seemed to take in the simplest of meals. The anxieties that I often felt about eating, about making healthy choices melted away in the presence of all this delight in food. Objectively, much of the food could be considered healthy—the bean soups, the bitter greens—but health wasn't the objective. James observed that we as outsiders could never completely understand the deep joy the Italians around us experienced when presented with a plate of pasta. A good fresh plate of ravioli with sage and butter continually reminds them of their own lives, their own history; it is a part of who they are.
So when some friends suggested that we spend a Saturday cooking dinner together with our children, I felt it was a good opportunity for my son to see how this attitude toward food is passed to another generation.
Our friend Marco, who would be our chief cook, suggested we make tortellini in brodo. He pointed out that though the tortellini we would eat for the first course are time consuming to make, the second course practically makes itself. Since you make a meat broth for the tortellini, you serve the boiled meat with a flavourful sauce as the second course. If you have the energy to cook some vegetables or toss a salad, you have a very full two-course meal.
First, we started the broth: we placed a beef bone, a piece of beef that came from the upper part of the hind leg (judging by where everyone was pointing to their own bodies when I tried to discern the cut), and a chicken leg with the thigh attached into a pot along with three large, peeled potatoes, three carrots, one onion, and two stalks of celery. We filled the pot with water and set it to boil. Marco turned it to simmer and added some dried juniper berries, cloves, pepper corns, and a small spoon of salt. He said it should simmer for at least two hours.
In the meantime, we made the tortellini. The children, who I realized are used to this sort of weekend activity, ran in and out of the kitchen. There were three of them and they played happily in another room but came to check on our progress, volunteering when things looked interesting. Marco measured flour onto the counter top and we cracked eggs into the center of the mound. At first he had me mix the dough with a fork, gradually pulling the flour into the egg.
Once it started to form a dough, Marco added a little water to keep it pliable but not too sticky. We kneaded it and rolled it into balls and then he flattened the balls enough to start feeding them through the pasta machine to create long, thin sheets of pasta.
The children took turns turning the crank and watching the dough stretch ever longer. Then Marco cut the pasta into squares* and his wife Tiziana plopped little balls of meat filling into the center. (Marco had made the filling ahead of time. In fact, he had made it for Christmas Eve dinner and put the extra in the freezer. His filling was made with ground pork, prosciutto, and mortadella with chopped rosemary.) We estimated that we needed about 200 tortellini for the seven of us. The children washed their hands and started creating them. They folded the dough over the meat and into triangles, pressing the edges to stick together. Then they folded the two side corners up and pressed them together at the top. They worked diligently to create perfect little bundles (and argued about whose were more perfect).
By the time we finished making 200 tortellini the broth was ready. Tiziana strained it into another pot and started cooking the tortellini in the broth while the children set the table. Marco gave the beef bone to our dog Lilla. Then he placed the meat on a platter, along with the potatoes and the carrots. He made a pungent sauce of chopped sun dried tomatoes, green olives, and garlic to go with it—usually it's served with a green sauce made with garlic, parsley, and anchovies. We forgot to make the salad.
Even though we did spend half a day making dinner, it felt like a fun thing to do on a winter Saturday. The children loved making the pasta and declared them to be the best tortellini they had ever eaten. I imagine that an accumulation of days like this, a childhood full of them, is part of what turns out adults who see the meal as something more than just nutrients.
Beef Broth
1 beef bone
1 or 2 chicken legs with the thigh attached
1 ½ pounds of beef, the muscle from the upper hind leg
3 large potatoes, peeled
3 large carrots, peeled
2 stalks of celery
1 large onion, with the ends trimmed but leave whole with the skin still on
1 tsp each of black pepper corns, dried juniper berries, small dried cloves, salt
8 cups of water
Place everything into a stock pot or a very large pot with the water, cover, and turn on to boil. Reduce to a simmer and allow it to bubble for 2 or 3 hours.
Strain the broth into another pot. Remove the meat, potatoes, and carrots, and serve with a salsa verde.
Salsa verde
1 large bunch of parsley (about 4 cups worth)
4 anchovies
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp of capers
3 or 4 tblsp of olive oil
A pinch or two of salt (maybe—taste it first)
Place everything except the salt into a food processor and whiz it up. It might be salty enough from the anchovies and the capers, but if it needs another pinch, go ahead.
10 oz of flour (hard wheat flour, type 00)
3 eggs, plus one yolk
A little water to keep the dough pliable
Pour the flower into a mound on a clean, dry counter or smooth table top. Make a well in the flour and crack the eggs plus the one yolk into it. Mix the yolks with the white with a fork and gradually incorporate the flour into the center with the eggs. If it becomes too dry, add a little water. You want a ball of dough that is pliable but not too sticky. Knead the dough with the heel of your hand. Hold the ball with one hand and push the dough down and out with your other hand. Do this several times until the dough feels silky and smooth.
Divide the dough into five balls. Flatten one of them into a flat oval and start feeding it through the pasta machine. Start with the rollers set at the widest setting. At each pass, adjust the tension so that it squeezes the pasta a little thinner and longer each time. Do this about four or five times until it's a little firmer than paper. Then lay it on a floured surface and cut into squares of about 2 inches. We didn't measure, but just guessed. You need to make roughly 25 tortellini per person. Marco says if you make more, they'll just eat more. We made more.
Pasta filling
1 bunch of rosemary, finely chopped (about two tablespoons)
A clove of garlic, chopped
10 oz of prosciutto di Parma
10 oz of pork loin
10 oz of mortadella
½ cup of grated parmesan
1 tablespoon of butter
A few scrapings of nutmeg
3 eggs
Finely chop the rosemary and garlic together and add a little salt. Rub this all over the pork loin, cover it and leave it in the fridge for two days.
Brush the mixture off the pork loin. Heat the tablespoon of butter in a pan and cook the meat on medium heat. Allow it to cool.
Finely chop the prosciutto, the cooked pork loin, and the mortadella. Place it in a food processor along with the eggs, the parmesan, and the nutmeg.
When it's well mixed, scrape it into a bowl, cover it, and put it back in the fridge for another 24 hours.
Use this mixture as the stuffing for the tortellini.
*Some say that tortellini must be cut into circles, that when they are made with a square that is then folded into a triangle they are in fact tortelloni. And when the ends are folded together and brought to the bottom to cover the point of the triangle, they are not tortelloni nor tortellini but cappelletti. You can sit down with the nearest Italian and a couple of glasses of grappa and argue those distinctions all night.
Read Jeannie Marshall's previous recipe for a winter minestra soup.
Jeannie Marshall is the author of The Lost Art of Feeding Kids, now available from Beacon Press. She has written for Canadian national newspapers and magazines such as the Globe and Mail and the Walrus. Before moving to Italy in 2002, she was a features writer at the Toronto-based National Post.
Editor's Note: Jeannie Marshall's new book, The Lost Art of Feeding Kids, tells the lively story of raising a child to enjoy real food in a processed world, and shows the importance of maintaining healthy food culture. Available now from Beacon Press. See below for more information.
It's winter in Rome. When I was growing up in Canada, winter was something you braced yourself for (and having just spent the holidays in Toronto, I remember why). But winter in Rome is a gentle season. There is a little rain, a little sun, and it gets just cold enough to make soup. In January when I ask people what they're having for dinner, the answer most often is "a little minestra." It's a simple, warming, comforting, traditional vegetable soup that can include beans and pasta. I think it turns up on the table so often in January because it's light fare after all the December excess, it's economical because it uses up the vegetables in your fridge, and yet it's still substantial and satisfying. While there is a method for making a good minestra, there isn't an exact recipe. My son will tell you that it must include zucchini flowers because the first minestra he helped to make at his preschool included them. He still believes they are the secret ingredient in a superior soup. But the slow cooked soup blends the flavors of the vegetables, rather than singling out any individually, into something that is at once distinctly minestra and at the same time slightly different from every other minestra.
Minestra is a way to use up that last quarter of a cabbage, the last zucchini or two sitting in your crisper drawer, even the stems from swiss chard, the cauliflower core, the broccoli stalk, and certainly one of the many parmesan rinds that seem to breed in the tiny freezers of Italian refrigerators. I know some home cooks who save the less beautiful pieces of their vegetables during the week to make a minestra on the weekend.
Whether you buy specific vegetables for the minestra or use up what's in the fridge, the flavor comes from adding the vegetables one at a time to the pot. You either need an interesting conversationalist in the kitchen with you or some good music because cooking the vegetables takes time. (I recommend an Italian crooner like Paolo Conte or perhaps an Italian opera like Rigoletto accompanied by a small child asking for help with his math homework.)
But once all the vegetables are duly softened in the pot and you've added the water, you can leave it to simmer with nothing more than a gentle stir here and there for a couple of hours. It's not a difficult soup to make, but it does take time. Since the flavors develop and deepen if it's left to sit overnight, I'll sometimes make it on a Sunday so that dinner is ready for Monday (or, more likely, we'll eat it on Sunday and again on Monday). Then, I just turn the pot of soup on to warm up while I cut some bread, lay out a little cheese, fill the water glasses, pour a glass of wine for myself, and my husband and light the candles.
Minestra – a sort-of recipe for 6 to 8 servings:
1 large spoon of butter
1 generous glug of olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
2 or 3 large carrots, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
¼ of a large head of red cabbage, diced
¾ cup of swiss chard stems, diced
a few of the large, outer leaves of broccoli, diced, along with the stalk
3 or 4 medium-size zucchini, diced (throw in the flowers if you have them)
3 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
a handful of green beans, diced
a small jar (about 1 cup) of peeled tomatoes, or 5 or 6 fresh plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped
6 to 8 cups of water hot from the kettle (start with 6 cups, if it needs more add as you go)
a parmesan rind (if you have one)
Salt to taste
1 cup of cooked cannellini or borlotti beans
Some freshly ground parmesan to taste
a little more olive oil
Start by gently heating a spoonful of butter and a few glugs of good olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot. Then add the onions, and allow them to cook slowly on the low side of medium heat until soft and golden. You don't want to rush it, so allow 10 to 15 minutes. Add the carrots, and allow them to soften as you stir gently for about five minutes. Add the celery, stir and let soften for about five minutes. These are the essential ingredients to form the base of any good soup; after this the choice of vegetables is up to the cook.
Continuing with my version, add the cabbage, stir, soften. Add the swiss chard stems, stir, soften. Add the broccoli leaves and chopped up stalk, stir, soften. Add the zucchini, stir, soften. Add the potatoes, stir, soften. Add the green beans, stir, soften.
Add the tomatoes, stir, and then add the water and the parmesan rind. Give the soup a good stir, put the lid on and turn it down to low. It should simmer, but very gently.
Now, let it simmer for about two hours. Stir it every now and then; add more water if it seems to be evaporating too quickly. After about one hour, taste it and see if it needs a little salt. The parmesan rind, if you've used it, will add a saltiness to the soup, so salt with care, but don't be afraid to add the salt—it's essential to a good soup. The salt you add to your own homemade soup is a tiny fraction of the sodium in processed soups. But, if you will be dining with a baby or a toddler, wait and add the salt at the end, after you have removed their portion.
Once the soup has cooked for about two hours, add some cooked beans. I happened to have some bortolotti beans left over in the fridge so I used those, but you can use other kinds of beans. Let it cook for another 30 minutes.
Remove the parmesan rind from the pot and discard it. Scoop about ¼ of the soup into another bowl or a pot and blitz it with an immersion blender until it is smooth, or use a blender. (If you are feeding a baby or toddler, scoop out more and they can have a purely pureed bowl of soup.) Add the pureed soup back to the pot and stir.
It's delicious as it is, but is even more hearty with some cooked, small pasta, which you could add to the pot at this point.
Serve with a dollop of olive oil and a spoonful of grated parmesan.
Cut up some grainy, crusty bread, light the candles, and turn the Italian crooner back on the stereo.
When Jeannie Marshall moved from Canada to Rome, she found the healthy food culture she expected. However, she was also amazed to find processed foods aggressively advertised and junk food on every corner. While determined to raise her son on a traditional Italian diet, Marshall sets out to discover how even a food tradition as entrenched as Italy's can be greatly eroded or even lost in a single generation. She takes readers on a journey through the processed-food and marketing industries that are re-manufacturing our children's diets, while also celebrating the pleasures of real food as she walks us through Roman street markets, gathering local ingredients from farmers and butchers.
At once an exploration of the US food industry's global reach and a story of finding the best way to feed her child, The Lost Art of Feeding Kids examines not only the role that big food companies play in forming children's tastes, and the impact that has on their health, but also how parents and communities can push back to create a culture that puts our kids' health and happiness ahead of the interests of the food industry.
Jeannie Marshall is the author of The Lost Art of Feeding Kids, now available from Beacon Press. She has written for Canadian national newspapers and magazines such as the Globe and Mail and the Walrus. Before moving to Italy in 2002, she was a features writer at the Toronto-based National Post.
By Wen Stephenson.
Note: This article and its accompanying updates appeared previously on Wen Stephenson's blog at The Nation.
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
W.H. Auden wrote that, sitting in a dive on 52nd Street nearly three-quarters of a century ago, as the world plunged into darkness on September 1, 1939. I've been thinking of those words a lot lately. Because it feels to me, and many others I know, like we're poised at the edge of another darkness.
It's a darkness already visible, right now, in the Philippines, where thousands are dead and many hundreds of thousands made refugees by the force of a storm like none had ever seen.
And it's a darkness visible in the bright corporate halls of a conference center in Warsaw, where delegates to the nineteenth annual U.N. negotiations on climate change are divided and dithering, even as the window to prevent civilizational catastrophe rapidly closes.
In those same bright halls last Monday, during the opening session, the Philippines' lead negotiator, Naderev Yeb Saño, announced in a powerful and emotional speech that he would eat no food for the duration of the twelve-day conference, or until meaningful action was taken to address the global crisis, and sparked an international outpouring of solidarity.
It so happens that two young friends of mine, Adam Greenberg and Collin Rees, recent Boston-area college grads, are in Warsaw as youth delegates to the U.N. conference with SustainUS, and they and other young people there immediately joined Saño in his hunger strike—and have now been fasting for more than a week. (Adam and Collin are allowing themselves some liquid nutrients so they can keep up the grueling conference schedule.)
By coincidence, it also happens that I spent this past weekend with a core group of about fifty committed student climate organizers from Students For a Just and Stable Future (SJSF) at their fall convergence in Worcester, Massachusetts, as they spent two full days in trainings and strategy meetings to strengthen their network and support the fast-growing grassroots climate movement in New England and beyond. And yesterday, the SJSF groups at Tufts and Brandeis launched a weeklong fast in solidarity with Saño and the people of the Philippines (as well as their friends Adam and Collin), and held a candlelight vigil in Cambridge. (Update: See their "Open Letter: Why We Are Fasting This Week," signed by students at 74 campuses.) They're joined by people throughout Boston and the region, and coordinated fasts and vigils are being planned around the U.S. and the world for Thursday and Friday, the final days of the Warsaw conference.
These students (many of whom I've come to know personally as we've worked side by side in the 350 Massachusetts network) understand full well what's happening to the climate, and are acutely conscious of the fact that time is running out for their generation—and, especially, those that will follow. They know that we simply cannot wait until 2020, or even 2015, to turn things around decisively. It has to be now. And they're prepared to engage in the kind of hard work and struggle that building their movement will require.
In an email last week, Adam Greenberg told me:
I'm fasting because we need to, as Yeb said, stop this madness. I refuse to accept that we can't. I refuse to accept that we won't. I refuse to let the fossil fuel companies win. This is about justice, this is about taking action, and this is about preventing harm both now and in the future. We know what needs to happen. The science and the deadly simple math could not be more clear. Walking away from these talks each year without making progress is morally unacceptable.
I followed up with some questions for the two of them, and Collin Rees was able to respond last night. Noting that expectations for what the UN process can achieve are exceedingly low, I asked if he could describe what the atmosphere at the Warsaw conference was like coming in, and how the devastation in the Philippines and the action by Yeb Saño has changed it.
Collin Rees: Expectations from the UNFCCC are traditionally very low; this has been even more true in Warsaw. There was not a lot of hope for real action coming into the talks; there was some fairly vague talk about a loss and damage mechanism and some small hopes for moving on finance. Ever since Copenhagen expectations have been kept exceedingly low to avoid disappointment—I think they've actually been kept artificially low through this method, and this week has shown us there's still a lot of hope.
People are now talking about real advances in the loss and damage arena, and tangible movement on finance. Discussions on REDD+ has been surprisingly hopeful, and sessions have run late into the night as countries continue debate. It hasn't changed everything and expectations are still low, but I think we're seeing real movement and that's something we can continue to push for as we move into the second week.
I also asked what the goals of SustainUS were for Warsaw, and whether they had changed, and what the US delegation's reaction has been, if any.
CR: SustainUS's goals for Warsaw were largely related to two campaigns—inserting intergenerational equity into the negotiating text for 2015's agreement and sparking a climate conversation in the U.S. about this June's upcoming Clean Air Act Section 111(d) EPA standards for existing-source power plants. Both campaigns have been going well, but the domestic efforts especially have been augmented by Haiyan's devastation and Sano's courageous stand. The media is connecting climate change to real impacts, and the need for climate action is clear. The upcoming EPA regulations are a simple, easy way the U.S. can instantly become a leader on climate action, by implementing aggressive standards that force the worst energy sources out of the equation. These regs will be issued; the only question is how much of an impact they will have. They're a chance to avoid a completely dysfunctional Congress and take real action with immediate impacts.
The large majority of the U.S. delegation didn't show up until this week, so they've been largely absent from the dialogue thus far. We're planning to bring it to their attention, but we're also cognizant of the fact that they've essentially been given their marching orders from Washington and have very little flexibility in their actions here in Warsaw. What we need in the U.S. is aggressive domestic action, so that in the next two years we can come to these negotiations and be a real leader in the international sphere. This fast is about solidarity with climate change victims worldwide, but it's also about getting action back at home (in every country, not just the U.S.).
I asked Collin, as someone in his early twenties, what he wanted people to understand about what's happening there in Warsaw right now—not just in terms of the negotiations, but in terms of what's truly at stake.
CR: We want people to understand that negotiators are coming to the table with full knowledge of the science of climate change and its devastating impacts. They're coming with knowledge of what needs to be done, and the steps that need to occur to get to that point.
They're coming with all of this knowledge, they're waving their arms and giving windy, empty speeches for two weeks, and they're walking away WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING. This is not a process that's subtly flawed, it's a process that's being hijacked by a small group of countries who refuse to commit to action. That's morally unacceptable.
If we don't take action on climate change, we're condemning the entire world to an unlivable future. We're condemning those currently living in vulnerable regions disproportionately affected by the ravages of climate change, and we're condemning all future generations to a world incompatible with life. That's what's at stake here, and that's why inaction is so unacceptable.
[Update, 11/20/13: The Guardian reports that a bloc of 132 poor and developing countries (the G77 and China) have walked out of the Warsaw negotiations in an "orchestrated move," protesting wealthy nations' refusal to discuss "loss and damage" compensation until after 2015.]
* * *
A personal note: As I post this, I'm nearing twenty-four hours without food myself1, as I fast in solidarity with Yeb Saño, the people of the Philippines, people suffering the effects of climate change everywhere—and with these young friends of mine in Warsaw and at home. It's a small thing, not eating for a day or two, by choice. A very small thing. And yet, fasting last week and again now, it has been a profound reminder of my physical connection to, well, everyone and everything.
"No one exists alone," Auden wrote in that same poem, "September 1, 1939," just before the lines about hunger and love I quoted at the outset. It's also worth noting how Auden ended that poem. After telling us that "we must love one another or die," he leaves us in the final stanza with an image that, the more I repeat it to myself, retains an uncanny staying power:
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
"Poetry makes nothing happen," Auden wrote in another famous poem (his elegy for Yeats) earlier that same year, 1939. And yes, I know, my temporary self-imposed hunger doesn't either.
But as all those fasting this week must feel in their guts and bones, it's not really about the fast itself. It's about the flame that started it—and keeps us going.
1. Wen Stephenson ended his fast after forty-eight hours.
Wen Stephenson, a writer and climate activist, is a contributor to Grist and the Boston Phoenix and has written about climate and culture for the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and Slate. Follow him on Twitter.
Editor's Note: We were all shocked to read the recent news that the western black rhinoceros, teetering on the edge for decades, had been officially declared extinct. At Beacon Press, we understand the urgency for ecology and conservation as part of our broader humanitarian mission. What can be learned from the tragedy of extinction? That now, more than ever, we must redouble our efforts to save those species that remain close to the brink: the Bengal tiger, the giant panda, the Sumatran elephant, or—as conservationist Nancy Merrick details below—our closest relative, the chimpanzee.
By Nancy Merrick.
Two-year-old Sara has moxie. Dangling upside down, one hundred feet above the forest floor, she is absolutely fearless even though today is one of her first forays into this African forest.
Not every orphaned chimp discovers their tree-climbing talent so readily, we're told. It all depends on how they were treated, how little they were when they lost their mothers, and their innate nature. But Sara's genes seem programmed for audacity. We gaze upwards to feast on Sara's first time launching from limb to limb as though she were spring-loaded, first time grabbing whole handfuls of fruit while dangling one-handed from a tree branch, and first time nonchalantly scaling upwards into the canopy to dazzle the other chimps.Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary's youngest orphan, and its current reigning princess. Everyone—both staff and chimps—are completely enamored. It would be hard to resist all that resilience bundled up into one furry package. She is one of forty-seven chimpanzees who will spend their lives on this one hundred acre island in Lake Victoria. The chimps have free reign of the forest, returning at feeding times to interface with their human caregivers for the regular supply of favorite foods they offer. But Sara is not a part of this larger group yet. First, she must learn her way around the forest and show that she is ready.
All of these chimps arrived here over the years after being rescued from black market dealers who planned to sell them into the pet trade. All have survived the killings of their mothers, and then been subjected to cruel conditions while their captors looked for buyers. But these forty seven, and hundreds of other sanctuary chimps, are the lucky ones that were spared. They will forge new bonds, and in almost every case, manage a respectable recovery.
We know them all. Sunday, the tall, lanky chimp who loves carrots and once shang-hai'd a fisherman's boat. Pasa, the tool expert, so adept at pilfering food from under the electric fence. Bili, the resident expert at untangling caregiver's shoelaces. Asega, an uncommonly talented escape artist. Tumbo, a former circus chimp who uses his intelligence as a peacemaker rather than to dominate the social hierarchy.
This is the start of yet another journey to gauge the status of East Africa's chimpanzees. Earlier trips have taken my family and I back to Gombe Stream Research Center, where I worked as a college student, for an eventful reunion with Dr. Jane Goodall. We have seen the forests that some of Ngamba's orphans were taken from, and learned why chimps are now endangered. And we have come to understand that efforts to save chimpanzees must also address the immense needs of local people.
Now, on our current three-week visit, we are back to reconnect with our friends—the people and chimps of Ngamba island, and to revisit wild-living chimpanzees lucky enough to live in protected national parks. We will spend time following some of them at Kibale National Park, in a manner reminiscent of the early days of Gombe Stream Research Center. But we will also meet other chimps that are living out a new reality, as they compete with struggling farmers for critical forest land that is not protected.
This is a time when chimps are extinct from four African countries and nearly so from ten others. But it is also a time of inspirational and often eclectic conservationists and of mind-bending new technologies that might just offer solutions. We are here remembering what it was like to walk among the greats in the early days of African discovery, and looking for what the future holds for man's closest relative, the chimpanzees.
Nancy Merrick is the author of Among Chimpanzees: Field Notes from the Race to Save Our Endangered Relatives, forthcoming in Spring 2014, and the creator of ChimpSaver.org, a website enabling users to advocate on behalf of chimps. Rapidly becoming a recognized leader in the battle to save Great Apes, she is also an accomplished physician internist and a reviewer for the Annals of Internal Medicine. She lives in Ventura, California.


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PORT OF SPAIN, TRINIDAD - The West Indies Cricket Board's Regional 4-Day Tournament, Day 1 of Round 7, is now in progress with three matches in Antigua and Guyana, and Trinidad & Tobago:
Click the following links for live video streaming of the matches:
T&T v Barbados...
St John's, Antigua – President of the West Indies Cricket Board Mr. Dave Cameron on a recent visit to Guyana said he was pleased that regional cricket has returned to the Land of Many Waters.
"I pleased that cricket has returned to Guyana. We have witnessed the successful staging of cricket here for the Regional 4 Day and Super50. On behalf...
St John's, Antigua – Prime Minister of Dominica, The Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit has pledged his government's support to the Dominica Cricket Association in establishing a cricket academy in Dominica. He also said that his government will pledge scholarships for the members of the academy to the high schools and the Dominica State College.
ST JOHN'S, ANTIGUA - On Friday last President of the West Indies Cricket Board Mr. Dave Cameron along with Vice President Emmanuel Nanthan paid a courtesy call to Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda The Honourable Dr. Baldwin Spencer at his office in St John's, Antigua. Also accompanying Mr. Cameron and Mr. Nanthan were WICB Director Enoch Lewis, WICB CEO Michael Muirhead and...
DERBYSHIRE, ENGLAND - Out fourth ball for one was not exactly the start anyone had in mind for Shivnarine Chanderpaul's first innings as a Derbyshire player.
But when the umpire raised his finger to an lbw appeal from Jake Ball, that was what happened yesterday in the pre-season match against Nottinghamshire.

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