There’s no better time than summer to indulge in a sliver of chocolate cake, so rich in contrast to the simplicity of the gingham tablecloth and the mason jars overflowing with wildflowers.   This cake is made without using wheat, corn, or dairy ingredients, yet it is unmistakably, deliciously, chocolate.

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These days, Jane Goodall spends most of her free time traveling the world to speak to youth about the importance of environmental conservation.

That is, if you can call it free time. She might be going on 75, but she keeps the tightly packed schedule of a woman less than half her age. From book tours promoting her most recent book on vegetarianism to college lectures (where she gladly demonstrates her famous chimpanzee greeting call) to a morning giving positive feedback to youth about a classroom nature or community project, Dr. Goodall, or Dr. Jane, as her many friends and fans call her, has dedicated her life to making the world a better, greener, happier place.

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Growing up in the suburbs of Virginia, I didn’t even hear of Winter Solstice till 9th grade or so. I associated this mysterious Winter holiday with equally mysterious people…pale nerdy folks who liked to wear purple velvet clothing and buy dragon figurines and miniature crystal balls from New Age bookstores at the mall. They called themselves Pagans, and more specifically, Wiccans.

Though I wasn’t raised Christian, I still took on the same dismissive attitude as my local Bible-toting community, thinking of people who worshiped nature as eccentric, campy folks who should be left alone to perform their inconsequential hocus-pocus spells and rituals.

As I got older and became an environmentalist, the Winter Solstice did strike a bit more genuine interest within me; friends of mine- scientists, yogis, Christians, Jews, and treehuggers alike- were celebrating the Solstice in nightclubs, houseparties, and quiet gatherings in nature. I liked that Winter Solstice revelers were actually acknowledging some natural phenomena, something about planetary movement and time. I have been invited repeatedly to these soirees over the years, but never attended- the “hokiness” factor of my childhood kept me closed to the exploration.

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This month Eco Fashion World is featuring the celebration issue stating:

“Green glitter is in the air, it’s time to celebrate! Last month, Americans made the whole world proud and hopeful by coming together to vote for a new president who represents a real potential for change. Some may say that nothing brings people together like adversity, but the electric current that swept through the world on the 4th was pure joy.”

On the EFW cover

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Pittsburgh, PA.  A place known for its peoples’ good ol’ blue collar fervor, our enthusiasm for everything from our football team (STEELERS!!) to our beer (Iron City) to our hoagies (Primanti’s, brother!).  We are thus naturally inclined to encourage bombastic public demonstrations of our affection–in this case, in celebrating ourselves!

I viewed the record-setting Pittsburgh 250 fireworks display from a wonderful vantage point on the North Shore, as I cheered my city on from the balcony of McFadden’s with a massive group of Couchsurfers visiting Pittsburgh for their regional meet-up weekend.  All the while I was marvelling at the bright splashes and the thundering bursts–thirty minutes in duration!–the thought kept flitting across my mind: “what exactly is IN that massive smoke cloud pooling across the river?”

The Composition of Fireworks, a page compiled by Reema Gondhia at Imperial College in London, gives you the factual rundown of the makeup of fireworks.  A firework’s chemical arrangement, however ingeniously designed to manifest our titillating visual delights, provides some unsettling names–chemicals with long rap sheets from research institutions indicating their threat to living systems.  Read on for some distrubing examples.

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Nearly half a century after her landmark work with chimpanzees in Tanzania, “Dr. Jane” as she’s more often known, is traveling the world with a message that “peace is possible.”

This message is inspiring many to join Roots & Shoots, the Jane Goodall Organization’s international youth activism program. Roots & Shoots supports grassroots activities and projects that benefit the environment, animals, and communities.

On September 21st, Roots & Shoots groups and other individuals around the world will symbolically join Dr. Jane in a call for peace from communities the world over. Groups from Tanzania to Tennessee will make and fly Giant Peace Doves, like the one pictured here.

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While recording interviews for our Greening the Golden Years podcast series, I received an email from a senior, Mr. John Lane, who’s become very interested in a group called “PETH,” but he failed to say what it was all about. So, being the curious one, I called him and had the most “interesting” conversation. Look out, PETA — here comes the People for the Ethical Treatment of Hops.

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Enjoy the day, and, have one for the hops.

In fact, in many ways, there is more reason for optimism for the fate of our species and the planet now than at any point in the last several centuries. These are the views found in Dr. Seymour Garte’s new book, Where We Stand, a surprising look at the real state of our planet.

The book is a response to a real dilemma in the environmentalist community: pessimism and the apathy spawned from a sense that the challenges we’re facing are insurmountable. We seem to move from crises to crises (acid rain to ozone thinning to climate change to species extinction) with a mounting sense of panic and despair. But hasn’t the environmental movement accomplished anything since its birth? Isn’t anything getting better?

This book answers both questions with an emphatic “yes!” Dr. Garte makes a persuading case for optimism about the state of the environment and the quality of human health worldwide. The book finds compelling good news on the subjects of hunger, disease, toxins, biodiversity, population growth, and other issues of environmental ecology and human welfare. We should all celebrate the successful reduction of ozone thinning agents, the hard-fought protection of many endangered species, the elimination of lead from gasoline and paint, and the sanity that prevented nuclear warfare and a nuclear winter in the ‘60s and ‘80s.

Despite all the good news that Dr. Garte offers, he urges that the purpose of the book is not to lull readers into a sense of complacency or to give a false sense that environmental issues are will solve themselves. We’re reminded of ongoing threats to environmental and public health at the end of each chapter in a section simply titled, “The Bad News.” Perhaps one take-home message is that we can solve (and have solved) some very daunting man-made environmental issues, but solutions don’t just happen over night; they are the result of hard work from many different people and industries.

Environmental crises require attention and action from a number of different sectors of society, says Garte. Firstly, the scientific community more fully explains the causes of environmental issues and suggests possible courses of action to remedy the problem. Next, environmentalists and non-profits make the issues known to the public, push lawmakers to pass appropriate legislation. Then lawmakers, who have the power to pass regulations to protect the public from an unhealthy environment, pass legislation to do so. Business responds by developing the technologies to make environmental sustainability goals possible. Finally, it’s back the to environmentalists to try to keep everyone honest and the scientists to double check and continue their work.

Dr. Garte offers a refreshingly rational and level-headed approach to dealing with environmental crises. He peppers the work with personal anecdotes that illustrate practical and impractical responses to environmental issues. He argues, for example, that a complete “back to nature” approach that involves an abandonment of modern technologies is neither practical nor particularly useful. Clearing forests with stone axes and fire is no more benign than culling them with modern lumber machines. With these examples, the author makes the argument for the importance of an objective understanding of our impact on the planet and regulations that control this impact.

Some of the most captivating portions of the book are those that give in-depth analysis of specific environmental issues. For instance, Chapter 9 explores the histories of three hazardous substances that have been successfully reduced in the environment: lead, CFCs, and tobacco smoke. These were effective little vignettes that read like short stories with happy endings. After 8 chapters covering topics ranging anywhere from the AIDS epidemic to deforestation, it was a welcome change of pace to pause and focus on a few topics in this fashion.

But if there’s something for everyone to like in Dr. Garte’s book, there are also details with which various parties are sure to disagree. For instance, notion that the health of a nation can be gauged by the amount of meat it consumes per capita may raise more than a few eyebrows in the vegetarian community. There are several other small but poignant assertions that may start heads shaking. These include the claims that ground water has been mostly undrinkable for the majority of human history and that wild foods are inferior to foods from domesticated plant species.

Critics may also point to possible oversimplifications in favor of the positive. In a very brief discussion of surface water, the author sites a twofold increase in the number of lakes, ponds, and reservoirs in the U.S. as a positive development without giving much of an explanation why. “Because water is always precious to living things” doesn’t do justice to the author’s ability elsewhere to provide clear and convincing reasoning.

It must have been difficult for the author to shepherd his argument through the vast and complex fields of the environment and human health. The book offers a window on a plethora of environmental issues and their resolutions. Therefore, readers with a stronger interest in one field than another may wish to use the book as a reference tool for ways in which matters regarding that field have improved. For instance, readers interested in air quality may be fascinated to learn the severity of air quality issues in the 1950s and a brief history of the ensuing air quality acts in Europe and North America. Other readers may choose to skim or skip over these sections in preference for a discussion on how infectious diseases have been reduced.

With these criticisms in mind, Dr. Garte deserves praise for delivering a book from the perspective of an environmentalist, which offers hope for the future. It’s easy to get lost in a sense of despair or even what the author describes as “grim satisfaction” at the conclusion that there’s nothing we can do now to save the planet. With unhealthy and certainly unhelpful attitudes such as these circulating, Dr. Garte’s book acts like a sort of booster shot of optimism. It’s a celebration of how far we’ve come and a reminder of what’s possible.

For many, this Sunday will bring the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Dr. Jane Goodall. Participants in the Los Angeles event will join Dr. Goodall and hundreds of others in celebrating peace, while around the world dozens of other groups will host similar events. If you’d like to attend the L.A. event (free admission), visit the event’s website, or simply arrive at the location pinpointed on the maps below.

If you’re not in the Los Angeles area, you can still join Dr. Goodall this weekend in a celebration of peace. The Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots program, a grassroots action organization, echoes U.N. Peace Day (September 21) with family-friendly celebrations in many locations throughout the world.

What makes the Roots & Shoots peace celebrations truly special is their unique way of conveying the message that peace is possible. Participants fly handmade, white, cloth dove puppets in a visually spectacular demonstration of the global desire for peace. Giant Peace Doves, as they’re called, boast a 20-foot wingspan and are made largely from recycled materials. Three to five people carry each dove atop 10-foot poles, giving the impression of a giant bird in flight. Witnessing hundreds of Giant Peace Doves flying together, as will happen in Los Angeles, is a truly inspiring experience.

You can learn more about Roots & Shoots’ celebration of U.N. Peace Day at the organization’s website. There, you can find listings of Peace Day events, photos of past Peace Day celebrations, information about the event in Los Angeles, and even instructions for building a Giant Peace Dove of your own. For more information, you can also contact the folks at the Jane Goodall Institute Monday through Friday at 800-592-JANE.

Jane Goodall first gained worldwide attention as a primatologist when, studying chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Kakombe Valley, she discovered that chimps use tools to “fish” for edible termites. News of the discovery overturned the notion that making tools is an exclusively human characteristic and redefined our basic notions about what differentiates our species from others. When it became clear that the chimpanzees Dr. Goodall was observing were in grave danger of vanishing underneath the growing footprint of human settlement, she became engaged in efforts to secure their survival. She has since become a prominent advocate for primate protection, environmental conservation and human rights. Each September, Dr. Goodall joins members of her worldwide grassroots action and youth empowerment program, Roots & Shoots, to celebrate U.N. Peace Day. This Sunday, September 23, is the first time that Dr. Goodall will attend Los Angeles’ event.

References and Resources:

Home | The Jane Goodall Institute

Home | Roots & Shoots

Photo Sources:

Maps from Google

Kofi Annan | Flickr

Jane Goodall | Flickr