[Copenhagen, December 8. Image via Getty]

A girl stretches up to the top of a globe to point out Denmark while her friend giggles at an art installation entitled 'Cool Globes', an exhibition about combating global warming and climate change in Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen on December 8, 2009. The Copenhagen summit, COP15, opened Monday involving 192 countries attending talks, including about 100 leaders to discuss emissions cuts and financial measures to combat climate change. AFP PHOTO/ Adrian Dennis (Photo credit should read ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images)

[Copenhagen, December 7. Image via Getty]

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK - DECEMBER 07: A member of an environmentalist group pretends to be dead during a protest demanding a real climate deal during the first day of United Nations Climate Change Conference on December 7, 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Politicians and environmentalists meet for the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 that runs until December 18. (Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images)

A team from the University of Rochester tested pregnant women's urine to determine their fetuses' exposure to phthalates. They found that boys exposed to high levels were less interested in "boys' toys" like cars, trains, or guns, and less likely to engage in "rough and tumble" play. The boys were apparently more interested in "gender-neutral" pursuits like sports. The scientists found no effect on girls.

While it's nice that the reactions to the study describe sports as "gender-neutral," it's a little odd that they describe the effect of phthalates as "feminizing." Elizabeth Salter-Green, of the British anti-chemical group CHEM Trust, says of the research,

We now know that phthalates, to which we are all constantly exposed, are extremely worrying from a health perspective, leading to disruption of male reproduction health and, it appears, male behaviour too.

This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true 'gender benders'.

The fact that phthalates can affect boys' behavior at all is disturbing, especially given that the compounds are found in common items like shower curtains and plastic furniture. Coupled with their known effect on baby boys' genital development, this new research seems like more than enough evidence to ban their use entirely (the EU already bans them from cosmetics and toys), and to study other industrial chemicals with more scrutiny. But is it true that the compounds are "feminizing" boys, perverting their "natural" male roughness and gun-love and replacing it with girlier, softer interests? Insofar as phthalates — especially the compounds DEHP and DBP, found to be harmful in the study — can mimic estrogen, it seems that sex hormones and their analogs can affect children's play. But that still doesn't mean that we need to divide children's playthings into boys' toys and girls' toys, or that we need to think of a change in male behavior as — horrors! — boys turning into girls. Any change in boys' behavior brought on by environmental toxins is cause for concern, regardless of whether it "feminizes" them.

Toxins In Plastic 'Feminise Boys' [BBC]
Chemicals In Plastics ‘Feminising' Baby Boys, Says Study [Telegraph]

[Barcelona, November 2. Image via Getty]

Environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) activist performs for a protest during a UN conference in Barcelona on November 2, 2009. Representatives of some 180 countries kick off five days of climate talks today, the last UN session before a December conference in Copenhagen tasked with beating back the planetary threat of global warming. AFP PHOTO/JOSEP LAGO (Photo credit should read JOSEP LAGO/AFP/Getty Images)

Now, my criticism isn't with the Marie Claire piece itself. The ideas presented in the Guide are sound ones, some rehashing familiar territory if you have been paying attention to the food debates:

No need to ditch your favorite grocery store. About 75 percent of American supermarkets carry some organic food, and many of the big chains boast their own affordable organic brands (e.g., Safeway's O Organics, Stop & Shop's Nature's Promise). Stick to the periphery of the store-the most heavily processed foods are shelved in the middle. Imagine you're trolling the aisles with your great-grandma in tow, suggests sustainable-eating guru Michael Pollan in his book In Defense of Food (required reading for the au naturel set). If she wouldn't recognize something as food-read: Gummi Bears or Cap'n Crunch-think twice before picking it up.

And there were some tips that bear repeating over and over again, particularly if you are trying to figure out how to green your eating on a budget:

Organic produce, starting with whatever you eat most often. Keep in mind the Environmental Working Group's "dirty dozen"-fruits and veggies found to have the most pesticide residue, even after washing: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots, and pears. It's fine to buy nonorganic, thick-skinned fruits like avocados, bananas, and pineapples.

However, the discussion around eating normally stagnates here, where most of our dialogue about food becomes what to eat, and what not to eat, and not about the changes to our culture that changed the way we think about food. Our attitudes toward consumption, family, and gender roles also influence what and how we eat, but rarely do we venture into exploring those aspects of food.

What about discussing the return of a social food culture as opposed to a convenience food culture? Micheal Pollan advocates for these things, but many of these ideas cannot be divorced from the social changes that accompanied our initial change in food culture. As Kate Harding wrote, in a critique of Michael Pollan's NYT Magazine piece:

Pollan takes pains to assure us that the large number of women now working outside the home is only partially responsible for this trend, and that he's not calling for women to get back into the kitchen or anything. He's calling for everybody to get back into the kitchen — or at least one cook in every household, and if that happens to be the woman, well, he didn't make the rules! To be fair, Pollan would probably not be such a fierce advocate for home cooking if he didn't enjoy it himself, but I still can't help thinking his penis is showing when he describes Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" — which also debuted in 1963 — as "the book that taught millions of American women to regard housework, cooking included, as drudgery, indeed as a form of oppression." Funny, I always thought Friedan became a feminist icon because she articulated what millions of women already felt, not because she brainwashed them into believing that repetitive, menial, unpaid labor might not be the best use of their talents.

Kate makes some salient points here, particularly later in the piece when she discusses the work of Peg Bracken, whose "I Hate To Cook Book" was popular back in the day. Often, it is difficult to divorce the politics of cooking from the act of cooking. Even in my tiny little household, with two people who both enjoy cooking, it is easy to begin to feel like your kitchen has somehow become a battle ground over gender roles, starting with the seemingly innocuous question, "Are you making dinner?"

In addition, our cultural attitudes toward food has changed significantly along with the increased focus on work. Jan Chipchase - whose blog, Future Perfect, is dedicated to exploring cultural norms and interesting applications for everyday things - provides a succinct illustration of how our food culture can change over time. He posts this picture, and writes:

It might look innocuous to you, and yes it's in keeping with the blurring of what we consider to be 'normal' to do in home and work spaces - but this 'express' cereal is a home breaker. Simply put, it supports the practice of eating at your desk away from the family. And in many ways its a continuation of the decades-long term trend (in the UK at least) of shifting from a cooked breakfast - where the family gathered to eat, to cereals - which supported independent eating times.

For everything that enables time shifting, consequences.

Now, having instant breakfast cereal or microwaveable meals is not the end of the world. However, the rise of convenience food and drive-throughs did spark a major change in how we viewed food and meal times. Slowly, our culture transitioned away from the idea of communal meals and toward more individualized meals, eaten on the go, in cars, or alone.

I interviewed Bryant Terry, author of Vegan Soul Kitchen, and he explained that a large part of his influences creating his cookbooks and his menus (which often come with soundtracks) is trying to re-create the food heritage that we are losing:

When you talked about diets changing and adapting, it made me think about the way in which African-Americans, like most Americans, saw the globalization of agriculture, the mechanization of agriculture and the industrialization of food over the past three or four decades as a good thing. It's cheap, it's fast, it's convenient - hey, what's wrong with this? We're modern and we want to be with the times. And we wholeheartedly embraced this in many ways - not everyone, but we really embraced it. And it's not just African-Americans. It's so many people of different backgrounds. When I have been giving talks lately about this issues, it resonates with people from Appalachia, it resonates with immigrants from Latin America, it's something that is of concern in so many different cultures and communities that in all cases, we need to figure out how can we re-embrace those old ways. How can we get back to the ways that sustained our parents, and our grandparents?

And I think, most importantly, what we've lost is our sense of community and sharing and connecting, because that was so embedded and ingrained in all the other things around our food systems and those are things we have to be re-embracing in these next moments, in this period of economic strife and people tightening belts. If we're going to get through it, I think we really have to think how can we be in relationship with our neighbors and all of these formal and informal kinship networks to help each other?

Much of the existing discussion of food focuses on the individual, what each person needs to be putting in their own personal refrigerator. But by shifting the conversation to a larger dynamic, we can start engaging with food on a much deeper level. There needs to be the acknowledgment that some people just flat out do not like to cook. And that's fine! Not liking cooking is being framed as an individual failing, but really it is a missed opportunity. People who don't cook can still advocate for better prepared foods, a wider variety of affordable food in their neighborhoods, and still contribute to neighborhood initiatives like a community garden. (My own personal friends circle can be divided into those who cook, those who bake, and those who purchase and prepare the drinks. All vital roles.)

We've done quite a bit of talking about food and the environment - let's start trying to mature the conversation.

The Girl's Guide to Eating Green [Marie Claire]
Michael Pollan wants you back in the kitchen [Broadsheet]
Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch [New York Times]
Breakfast: Home Breaker [Future Perfect]
An Interview with Bryant Terry on Race, Class, Food, and Culture - Part 1 [Racialicious]

One fashion insider has seen the light, and with the zeal of a convert, is preaching the Gospel of sustainability! A former influential fashion editor, Charty Durrant writes in Resurgence mag,

As a fashion editor of twenty years' standing I have found it extremely uncomfortable to admit that the seemingly harmless fashion industry is actually driving our demise. It is at the heart of all that ails us; pull at any social or environmental thread, and it will lead you back to the fashion industry.

We've talked a good bit about the consequences of fast fashion and the virtues - green, moral, aesthetic, and philosophical - of returning to a simpler and higher-quality way of being. A few months ago, I forswore fast fashion, and, Katy Perry-style, I liked it. The first few weeks were embarrassingly challenging, since I was used to breezing through Forever21 on my lunch break, or picking up basics at H&M. But weighing purchases, buying for quality and thinking about what I need have, in fact, saved me some money and made me feel better about what I wear. I went into Forever21 last week, by way of experiment, and I was shell-shocked: stuff felt so crappy! All the mass-market creativity looked so soulless! I bought a $7 necklace!

I got my just desserts when I got a rash, and then it hooked on the back of a chair and broke. But it did underscore the challenges of giving up easy gratification. Even stepping into that Forever21, I began to doubt myself, to crave novelty, to need a hit of of-the-minute. Which, apparently, runs pretty deep as we've come to take constant novelty as our due. Says Durrant,

As the ‘trend frenzy' deepens, we can see that fashion is no longer about style and self-expression: it is primarily about judgment – self-judgment and judgment of others. A toxic media reporting how women ought to look, and celebrity obsession further enforce this strange new paradigm...In the end the true antidote is to adopt an attitude of voluntary simplicity. A manner of living and being that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich. A way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct conscious contact with every part of our lives.

That's all well and good. But the sad truth is that things aren't quite this simple, and she's talking about two issues, the philosophical and the gray-shaded reality. I used to be all about the boycotts, but a global industry is built on the backs of our fast fashion addiction, and wearing locally made, good-quality clothing in New York doesn't guarantee a better life for anyone - in many cases, quite the opposite. If we boycott, it must be mindfully - and not in a vacuum. Inaction, at the end of the day, is still that. Yes, research companies, and support those fighting the good fight and running good factories, rewarding and reinforcing rather than just punishing. Is "fast fashion" bad? Sure, but as a phenomenon, it's less evil than the specifics of unsafe, unsanitary working conditions or companies who fail to pay a living wage. We need to think not just of our own souls and worthiness, but of real issues like the economic viability of those people who produce clothing. Boycott? Simplify? Yes. But also research, donate, and be mindful of shades of gray. Most of all, let's break our addiction to easy answers.

Dressing Ourselves To Death [Utne]
The Tyranny Of Trends [Resurgence]

Organic And Fair Trade Clothing Directory [Resurgence]

Related: Do You Know Where Your Clothes Come From?
We Love Cheap Stuff, But Fast Fashion Is Hard To Defend
Slow Hand: Native American Dresses, Forever21, Kilts, And The Recession

In answer to the first question, the Slate's Nina Rastogi says: go ahead, chow down on some bacon. Well, kind of. The greenest meat is actually poultry, because it's so efficient: a calorie of chicken protein requires only 5.6 calories of fossil fuels, as opposed to 20 to 40 for beef. But pork is also somewhat more environmentally-friendly than beef, because pigs fart less and breed more than cows. Methane gas expelled by livestock contributes to global warming, and the more offspring an animal has per year, the fewer resources expended on breeding. Sadly for hamburger lovers, beef is the worst offender. It's bad for humans, as underscored by a new study (although, to be fair, this study also fingers hot dogs, which everyone knows are made of lips and assholes), and it's also bad for the planet. Cows use the most land, cause the most global warming, and contribute most to a kind of water pollution called eutrophication, which can kill fish.

Speaking of fish, how should we feel about eating them? According to a new report, fish feel pain, possibly in a way similar to humans. Fish who received morphine before being burned seemed chilled out (sorry) throughout the procedure and afterwards, while non-drugged fish showed "defensive behaviors, indicating wariness, or fear and anxiety" after their watery torture.

But Ariane Sherine, in an excruciatingly punny piece for the Guardian, says this news won't matter to most people. Sherine uses herself as an example: "fish don't elicit the same emotional response as mammals and birds," she writes, "and because of this, I've always eaten them but rarely meat." Ok, confession: though I used to be a vegetarian, I too eat fish. I don't do it because I think they don't feel pain  I'm sure they do. I do it for the selfish (or, as Sherine would say, "shellfish") reasons that I was having trouble staying healthy and eating with friends and family as a pure vegetarian. I pay attention to sustainable seafood guidelines, because my initial vegetarianism was an environmental, not a moral choice. I don't feel as virtuous as I did when I was a beans-and-tofu girl, but I can exercise again, my cholesterol is lower, and I don't get in fights with my dad when I go home.

Sherine says, "no matter how much pain creatures we view as 'food' are scientifically proven to experience, 94% of us will go on fuelling demand for them, sticking our fingers in our ears and yelling, 'la la la, they taste nice, so shut up and let me eat them!'" I don't think that's entirely true. I think articles like Rastogi's show that people are looking for ways to balance their desire to eat some animal products with their desire to not live in an all-Katrina-all-the-time global-warming hellscape. And if, as Michael Pollan says, Americans going meatless just one night a week would be like taking 30 to 40 million cars off the road, I'd rather champion Meatless Monday than wage a war for universal vegetarianism that, frankly, I'm never going to win.

The Kindest Cut [Slate]
Study: Fish May Feel Pain Much Like Humans [UPI]
Are Fishes' Feelings A Red Herring? [Guardian]
Paying A Price For Loving Red Meat [New York Times]

What differentiates Phillips's experiment from the legion of others of its ilk is that Phillips and her husband decided to "eat conscientiously for a month, not just on our regular grocery allotment but on the government-defined, food-stamp minimum: $248 for two people in our hometown of New Haven, Conn." They started with zero food and bought "the SOLE-est products available  that is, the sustainable, organic, local or ethical alternative." They made dal, chili, and biryani, and finished the month with $1.20 left over.

But what exactly does "they" mean here? It's possible she's just using the first person singular for simplicity's sake, but it sounds like it fell to Phillips, not her husband, to implement most of the changes. "I relied on the sort of reasonably flexible schedule that is a luxury in far too many households," she writes, "and I started with some basic cooking knowledge" [emphasis ours]. She also refers to "my Chinese fried rice and Italian risotto." She mentions only one contribution from her husband: microwaving his own oatmeal, after she shows him how. One Salon commenter sums up the apparent inequality this way:

Now women are being called upon not only to manage the eco-cleanliness of their families domiciles, but also to manage the ethical qualities of their families food choices: a leftist version of "Better Homes and Gardens".

Not every household where the woman does the cooking is an inequitable one, but from personal experience it seems to me that the current pressure to eat locally, organically, sustainably and well weighs much more heavily on women. My ex was into bike-riding and recycling, but he thought farmers' markets were lame  if I wanted us to eat local tomatoes, I had to go and get them by myself. And my dad, an environmentalist and general bleeding-heart who has always done half the childcare, cleaning, and cooking, used to refuse to cook for me after I went veggie.

This imbalance happens because women still cook and shop for groceries more than men, but also because some men  even men who are otherwise progressive  look down on sustainable eating, or the work that goes along with it. Plenty of guys still agree with Jessica that vegetarians are sissies, and riding a bike or even retrofitting a car to run on vegetable oil may seem cooler than picking out locally grown fruit. So while eating sustainably benefits everyone by slowing climate change, right now it may also make things harder on women.

There's hope, though. Vegan Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and his foe, omnivore/sustainable food advocate Michael Pollan, are both dudes. And my dad, once a die-hard meat-eater, recently purchased a vegan cookbook as part of his new project to "eat lower on the food chain." Perhaps caring about food miles and pesticide runoff will one day be considered manly. For those of you who think about such things, do you notice a gender gap in ethical eating? And what do you think we can do to close it?

Can We Afford To Eat Ethnically? [Salon]

Earlier: Can Female Vegetarians And Male Carnivores Ever Find True Foodie Love?

In "Do Worry. Be Happy," Lisa Chase writes about Transition, a movement based on the idea that world oil production is declining, that we need to learn to live on much less oil, and (this is the "be happy" part) that we are totally capable of doing it. The key, according to Transition founder Rob Hopkins, is producing more stuff locally, relearning to do things ourselves (like growing food), and developing resiliency. A resilient culture, says Hopkins, is "a culture based on its ability to function indefinitely and to live within its limits, and to be able to thrive for having done so." This sounds a lot like today's popular buzzword, sustainability, with a little adaptability thrown in the mix. It also sounds kind of appealing.

Chase thinks that resiliency and community are linked, that the challenges of the future will force us back into a closeness with our neighbors that modernity has destroyed. She writes:

When I try to conjure the times that New York has felt communal to me in the 16 years I've lived here, I can think of three. The first was during the weeks after 9/11. The second was during the 2003 blackout, when people fired up their grills and invited their neighbors over to eat candlelit feasts of all the food that was going bad in their refrigerators. The third time was November 4, 2008, when Barack Obama was elected and New Yorkers spilled into the streets cheering and hugging and honking their horns in impromptu parades. It took seismic events to bring us out of our houses and actually act like neighbors. In that sense, I guess I am optimistic that global warming and Peak Oil probably will push us into one another's arms.

Chase's list made me think of the times Iowa City has felt communal to me. I came up with three pretty quickly. One is the same as Chase's: election night. Iowans too took to the streets on November 4, for a night of hugging friends, yelling with strangers, yelling with friends, and hugging strangers. The night was doubly special for us because we were part of the Iowa caucus that was so instrumental in getting Obama on the ballot in the first place. Caucus night involved plenty of its own yelling, some of it angry, and it also involved the owner of our local liquor store giving a pro-Obama speech during which he wore a wine cork in his hair and used the word "table" at least ten times (the table: he will bring you to it). But, for the sake of threeness, let's call election and caucus night one thing.

The second time was during the flood last June. Once the Iowa River had swallowed our park and began menacing houses and buildings, everyone from college students and hippies and kids and old people converged on downtown to help sandbag what we could. With a whole bunch of other volunteers, I helped pass books and dissertations from the basement of the university library to safety on the upper floors. One kid next to me kept hoping to find his dad's chemistry dissertation from the seventies. We managed to empty the basement before the floodwaters showed up  then I went to help a bunch of other people tie sandbags. Sandbagging with strangers is a great way to take your mind off the raging UTI that you get every goddamn summer  it's also a great way to remind yourself that there are times when people unquestioningly help each other with no expectation of a reward.

The third time was just a couple of weeks ago. The Mountain Goats came to play our yearly music festival, Mission Creek, and John Darnielle asked the assembled crowd what we were going to do after the show. Someone yelled "Get gay-married!" It sounds a little crass when I type it out (not a lot of gay couples, after all, announce their intention to get "gay-married") but at the time we took it for what it was  a celebration of a right that had been denied Iowa's citizens too long. Everyone cheered, and Darnielle played a song in honor of the decision. That night I was one of many people celebrating together the righting of a wrong, and I got a sense not only of joy but of collective relief  it was one of the most powerful experiences I've ever had, and one of the most communal.

What's common to all these events  and Chase's experiences as well  is that they reminded us that some things affect all of us. Sometimes it's easier to remember this in a smallish town. In Iowa City, the communal spirit tends to be obvious: the post office thanks me for complaining to them, and a woman recently stopped me at the food co-op to let me know the brand of rain boots I was wearing could be slippery. But even in big cities  or in suburbs, which can often feel more isolating  I think community still exists, though it may be underground a little. And I think  or at least I hope  it will only grow stronger as we realize that what's happening to our planet is happening to each and to all of us, and that we all need to do something about it. I don't know if that something is necessarily producing everything locally (there are problems with this approach too), but I do believe that it will require us to think about one another in a way that we sometimes get out of the habit of doing. And to help us get back in the habit, can you think of times when your city or town or suburb felt truly communal?

Do Worry. Be Happy. [Elle]

According to Reuters, "overweight people eat more than thin people and are more likely to travel by car, making excess body weight doubly bad for the environment, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine." First, overweight people don't necessarily eat more. And second, rather than telling people to lose weight so they can drive less, why not just tell them to drive less? Cut out the middleman! Contrary to stereotype, plenty of overweight people already enjoy biking, walking, and other environmentally friendly pursuits  can't we just make these options more attractive by, say, designing walkable neighborhoods, offering incentives to bike to work, and creating more bike paths? And what about increased funding for public transportation? Telling people to put down that cheeseburger and save the environment just sounds like a great way to shift the responsibility for climate change off onto individuals, rather than enacting large-scale policies that could actually fix the problem.

But why build a bike path when there's a groovier way to save the world  a "1970's lifestyle!" According to the BBC, back in the 70's the UK had "a 'normal' adult population, where only 3.5% are classed as obese." "In the 1970s," says Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the Faculty of Public Health, "we had bigger portions of vegetables and smaller portions of meat and there's been a shift in the amount of exercise we do." If people's bodies have changed since the 70's, we should probably look at the reasons why  like longer work hours and walking-unfriendly communities. A lot of these issues, if addressed, might help stop climate change anyway, irrespective of their effects on our weight. But if you really want to burn calories while living a 70's lifestyle, there's always disco.

Stay Slim To Save The Planet [Reuters]
1970s Lifestyle 'Protects Planet' [BBC]

Barron YoungSmith gives the example of a hypocritical environmental consultant who has the gall to pursue a cross-continental relationship even as she preaches conservation.

Consider what happens when these two fly to see each other once a month. Since greenhouse gases emitted from high-altitude airplanes are thought to have several times the impact of ground transport, a carbon offset company would pin their romantic travels with the equivalent of 35 metric tons of CO2 each year. If that responsibility were divided evenly between the two, our sustainability consultant's lifestyle would be about six times worse for the environment than that of the average gas-guzzling American—and up to 10 times worse than that of the average San Franciscan. (Indeed, for her, breaking up would be about 10 times better for the environment than going vegetarian.)

Oh, and if you're driving? Even worse, you heedless solipsist! Indeed, by roughly calculating the number of long-distance couples in the country and tallying up the damage their travel has done, YoungSmith figures such hapless folks are pretty much single-handedly destroying the earth for the future generations they're so selfishly intent on begetting. The answer, of course, is a "Date Local" movement akin to our new conscientiousness about food and growing awareness of manufacturing practices.

Let's start thinking about "sex miles": Just how far was this person shipped to hook up with you? And how many times more efficient would it be to date someone within a 100-mile radius? If the movement spread globally, mirroring either the decentralized development of Local Food co-ops or the manifesto-and-chapter model that built up to the Slow Food movement's mega-confab this summer, its environmental benefits could multiply many times.

And, he adds, it wouldn't just help the planet: dating local would increase people's socialization - the implication is that such sad-sacks are slaves to their computer monitors — and the amount of sex they had, which would in turn result in important health benefits. Naturally, the author's tongue is, if not firmly, at least slightly in cheek: even he acknowledges the obvious drawbacks of enforcing such a policy:

Of course, like many eco-conscious attempts to instill social virtue, this proposal runs the risk of killing romance. Many a true human thrill—the high-octane cheeseburger! the long shower! the Chevy Suburban!—has been deflated by green evangelists out to render the personal political. And, in a way, long-distance dating is romantic precisely because it expends so much in the way of resources and effort...No, our Date Local movement won't be overbearing. It shouldn't try to break up every cross-country love odyssey. Instead, it will discourage this special type of conspicuous consumption at the margins, nudging people toward the realization that breaking up is in their own, and enlightened, economic self-interest.

In fact, the piece had the opposite effect on me: it made me realize that LD daters are one of the most marginalized and maltreated of subspecies! No one needs to be told the benefits of living in the same place! Does YoungSmith think people choose the agony of separation and loneliness deliberately? For the thrill of stressful travel, the inadequacy of scheduled phone calls, the awkwardness of getting to know each other anew each time and then the pain of parting after a visit? While there may be a few blithe souls who like the detachment of such a relationship, no one I know has regarded it as anything but a necessary evil. And leaving as huge an environmental footprint as he suggests? Most of us should be so lucky: we're at the mercy of high airfares and punishing work schedules. The LDR is one of the few things which has been unambiguously aided by modern technology — couples separated by necessity, or lonely folks who've had to look far afield to find love — and if anything, this beleaguered population should be getting a dispensation rather than a lecture!

This said, I'm all for Mother Earth and so I suggest that the rest of us form a counter-campaign: conserving a bit more to make up for our friends who can't. "Going Green for LDR" we'll call it, and live twice as locally if need be! Heck, I won't even take a car back from Ikea tonight if it means one couple can drive another two miles to see each other! We could even donate airmiles! "Dating locally", after all, doesn't make most of us feel smug — just lucky.

Date Local [Slate]

First of all, it should be said that if there's a great mania for prehistoric living - or, “paleofantasies”- we've missed it, “10,000 B.C.” and the Cave Man Diet notwithstanding. But if author Marlene Zuk is to be believed, people are taking the notion of "green" to the extreme, and are attracted to the idea of a time when "life used to be more in sync with the environment."

Zuk suggests that some of this is genetic:

That beer gut? It comes from eating too many processed carbohydrates; our bodies evolved to eat only unrefined foods, mainly meat, and we get out of kilter veering from our ancestral diet.

But such idealization is, of course, well, idealized: "The notion that there was a time of perfect adaptation, from which we’ve now deviated, is a caricature of the way evolution works." Scavenging carcasses is not only unappealing, but merely one step in human evolution. Common bromides like the unnaturalness of consuming dairy or the proportions of foods we're meant to consume are themselves based on very little; "we know little about the details of early family structure and other aspects of behavior...Which of our human ancestors are we using as models?" More to the point, "the notion that there was a time of perfect adaptation, from which we’ve now deviated, is a caricature of the way evolution works."

However tenuous the claims of a caveman revival, it is true that there's a general, vague Rousseau-like wish for a time before we ruined everything. Which is natural, if unproductive. Zuk's irritation is as a scientist: she views such idealization as reductive and simply inaccurate. We say: sure, we'd like to be kids sometyimes, too, but you can't go around in a stroller dressed as a baby. (Well, and keep a job.) For our part, we'll take great literature, music, art and sarcasm...and the ability to make change, as well as the wisdom to regret it.

The Evolutionary Search for Our Perfect Past [NY Times]

Leibenluft presents us with a hypothetical: to make lo mein or to buy it. He finds that both have downsides (packaging; energy-inefficient appliances as opposed to the wasted food when cooking for one) and that ultimately it's kind of a wash. As he concludes, "what you eat almost always matters more, environmentally speaking, than how you eat it." That said, the energy overhead at a restaurant is enormous, so "environmentally speaking", it's a definite luxury.

Financially speaking, too: for most of us, the issue is probably at least as much fiscal. While it's a myth to claim that home cooking is always cheaper - anyone who's done it knows you have to scheme - cooking in a batch and eating off of it is far more cost-effective than getting takeout for each of those meals. We get takeout, for the most part, when we don't have time to cook, or if we are ill, or at the office, rather than as a day-to-day alternative. Certainly I for one am not going to order in Chinese when I have the time and energy to make from-scratch lo mein. Basically, it seems like if you have to ask "can I justify this on environmental grounds," you already know what the answer is. For my own part, I have a harder time justifying making a delivery guy bike through freezing rain so I can get a burger without leaving the house. As is usually the case with guilt, it's expensive (tip-wise). Much cheaper all around to sacrifice novelty (which is what we're really talking about here) and cook something for eight. Since I'm currently plowing into my third day of vegetable stew, I'm in a position to sermonize!

An Order Of Lo Mein With A Side Of Guilt [Slate]

The Times piece, unsurprisingly, is a cute collection of yuppie-kids-say-the-darndest things anecdotes; children berating their parents for taking wasteful baths or allowing delivery services to use plastic bags. Inundated with green messages at school, on TV, and surely from their families, these kids have taken to greening with an evangelical zeal that allows for no compromise. Often, the bemused parents say, the one track mindset, however virtuous, leads to embarrassment when kids lecture neighbors, or discomfort when they want expensive innovations like Hybrids and solar panels.

Of course, what the piece does not acknowledge is that these kids — whose parents answer to descriptions like writers, stay at home moms, "a professor of furniture design," and "an executive with a solar energy company" — are hardly the norm. They live in brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods and prosperous commuter suburbs. I very much doubt that children from lower-income families, whatever they are learning at school, are as prone to pester their parents for such worthy luxuries as solar panels. After all, what the children in this piece are doing, quite obviously, is parroting the essential worldview of their parents —albeit with a kid's simplistic, inflexible and ultimately purer mindset. The parents' feigned bemusement doesn't do much to hide their evident pride in their children's civic-mindedness. Yes, it's very cute that one little girl dries her clothes on a clothesline in her room, or another won't let her parents buy an SUV. But it's a lot easier when you have the option of a dryer on cold mornings, and the money to buy an SUV if they wanted, to say nothing of small changes like energy-efficient light bulbs and "walking to school" instead of driving. These are luxuries. Necessary ones, ultimately, but the tone of the piece still rubs me the wrong way.

Look, it's amazing and encouraging that children care about the environment, and their awareness augurs for a responsible stewardship. But it's not really news that the children of wealthy, environmentally-conscious parents have developed a similar awareness, untempered by adult constraints. So much more interesting would be to see whether a similar awareness has developed in other communities, or families where green concerns were not necessarily a priority for older generations. In other words, whether there's actually been any change. The piece touches on some peoples' concerns that teaching "greening" in public school is a waste of taxpayer dollars, especially when math and reading are lagging; I'd be much more curious to know how much time such initiatives are even getting in the schools where those scores are lowest. Kids imitating their parents is not news. Kids being self-righteous tyrants, as I know all too well, is pretty old news, too.

Pint-Size Eco-Police, Making Parents Proud And Sometimes Crazy [NY Times]

Early in his career, Stevens was one of the many researchers struck by the markedly high incidence of breast cancer among women in the industrialized world, in comparison with those in developing countries... A few years later, he persuaded the authors of the Nurses' Health Study, one of the largest and most rigorous investigations of women's medical issues ever undertaken, to add questions about nighttime employment, and the study subsequently revealed between working the night shift and an increased risk of breast cancer.

The Dark Side [New Yorker, print only]
Related: Night Shift Not Kind To Melatonin [USA Today]