Kiddie literature in the waiting room

Thanks to the good influence of my friend Mary Lundeberg, wildlife photographer and author of children's books that teach about nature and the environment, I wound up reviewing the reading materials for kids in the beauty salon and in my dentist's office this week. In the beauty salon, I found Zen Ties by Jon J. Muth a fascinating, charming work of fiction; at the dentist, Dangerous Animals, a non-fiction work by Rebecca Gilpin, so distorts the featured animals in both the text and the illustrations that I’m planning to ask my dentist to remove it from her office.

Happy Earth Day!

The above picture (credited to Anou la Petite Hobo) caught my eye on my Facebook page this morning. Then I spotted guest blogger Harriett Sugarman’s post at the Christian Science Monitor. Sugarman offers some great suggestions for befriending our planet on this special day (I would also suggest that you visit Mary Lundeberg's website, Nature Connections):

Earth Day 2012: A handy list of tips and tricks to help your family go green this year, from gardening to recycling.

Harriett Sugarman

·  Get your “glee on” out in Nature – Get outside, sing a song, do a dance, have a picnic, BBQ, go camping, walk on the beach or take a hike. Whatever gets you there, gather your family and spend some time outdoors. Talk to you kids, introduce them to nature better yet, let them introduce nature to you! Remind yourself and the kids in your life of the treasures nature has given us, and why we need to fight so very hard to protect them.

·  Memory Lane Walk Down the Red Carpet “Favorite Earth Day Movies”– Watch, enjoy, lose yourself in the moment and learn something too. Movies for everyone: The Lorax, Chimpanzee, Avatar, Planet Earth, Wall-E and March of the Penguins. Documentary movies for older kids and adults: Queen of the Sun-What are the Bees Telling Us? Tapped, Gasland, Bag It, An Inconvenient Truth, Revenge of the Electric Car, Moby Duck – Learn something important., and have fun at the same time.

Read more:

Tell Pres. Obama: Don't let Shell drill in the Arctic!

Shell rig on its way to Arctic.

From Credo’s Elija Zarlin:

Dear Virginia,

Right now, Shell's Kulluk drilling rig is getting towed up the Pacific Coast to the Arctic.¹

The Arctic has never been drilled for oil, not even under President George W. Bush. But at the end of March, the Obama Administration approved Shell Oil's inadequate spill plan for the Beaufort Sea.²

Drilling in these pristine waters could begin as soon as this summer. This is the eleventh hour.

But President Obama still has to approve the final Permit to Drill — and a decision could come by the end of this month.

Tell the Obama Administration: Don't let Shell drill in the Arctic. Click here to sign the petition.

The Arctic's Beaufort and Chukchi seas are like nurseries of the earth — providing crucial breeding ground and food supply for countless species of wildlife. Upsetting this habitat would have broad ripples through the wildlife food chain literally across the globe.

Almost exactly two years after the devastating Deepwater Horizon spill, the impacts are still being felt by the Gulf Coast and Gulf marine life. In many ways, we still don't understand the long term damage caused by the massive volume of spilled oil and toxic dispersants.

In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama promised: "I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago."

But there is still no proven way to clean up an oil spill in the extreme arctic environment — which includes hurricane force storms, 20-foot swells, pervasive sea ice, low temperatures and months of darkness.³

It's not late for Obama to call off Shell's drill bits. Tell Obama: Stand up to Big Oil and protect the Arctic. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

President Obama says his energy plan is "all-of-the-above."

But between pushing the southern, export portion of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and now opening the Arctic to drill for oil that won't do anything to reduce gas prices,⁴ it seems a whole lot more like President Obama's energy plan is "oil-above-all."

President Obama needs to stand up to pressure from the oil industry, and admit what we all know: Drilling in the Arctic is a terrible, misguided idea, that's just not worth the risk to this one-of-a-kind area, or the damage we know it will do to our climate. Click below to automatically sign the petition below:
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=5546424&id=38375-4150669-PVvP3Kx&t=10

Thanks for working to move us past oil drilling.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "New era in Alaska drilling looms," LA Times, March 4, 2012
2. "Shell Wins 'Safety' Permit From Obama Administration To Start Dangerous Drilling In Arctic Seas ," Think Progress, March 28, 2012
3. "Arctic "should remain off-limits to drilling"," Oil Change International, Feburary 6, 2012
4. "U.S. drilling won't lower gas prices, study shows," Associated Press, March 22, 2012

Connecting people to nature through photos and stories: The Spirit of the Swan

Mary Lundeberg holding a juvenile swan for banding.

Update: The Spirit of the Swan currently ranks in Amazon's top 100 bird e-books for children.


The mission of Nature Connections, the imprint of The Spirit of the Swan, is “connecting people to nature through photos and stories.”  Co-authors and wildlife photographers Mary Lundeberg and Tammy Wolfe fulfill that mission beautifully in this children’s book in which the text is artfully illuminated with stunning photographs no illustrator could ever hope to match.

Responsible parents and educators concerned about the environment will welcome The Spirit of the Swan as a compelling story that will not only hold the interest of elementary school age children, but will also help them better understand and appreciate the natural world.

The Spirit of the Swan is based on the news account of an illegally shot Trumpeter Swan restored to health, released into the wild, and reunited with his mate. Lundeberg and Wolfe remind their readers that Trumpeter Swans have been reintroduced in the Midwest after being hunted to extinction.

Mary Lundeberg at a gallery reception of her swan photos.

The fictional account of the incident begins with the mating of the two swans, Cob and Penny.  Penny's heart is captured by Cob's "music, strength, and courage." Readers  catch a glimpse of how the male protects his mate and her eggs from predators. In this case, despite Cob's brave intervention, only one egg survives the invasion of an otter. Cob and Penny teach their single offspring Ziggy the spirit of the swan: "strong and joyful."

The family of three is migrating to their winter home when Cob, the leader of the flock, is shot. We witness the rescue of the wounded Cob and the courage of Penny and the young Ziggy, as despite his grief, he continues to grow and develop until his father’s joyful return.

The story concludes with the mating of Ziggy and Sarah and in keeping with the recurring theme of music, we read: “The cycle of life continues as swans sing again in the Midwest. The majestic birds multiply and music fills the marsh.” 

The Kindle edition of The Spirit of the Swan is now available at Amazon.com. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will support the Crex Meadows Wildlife area in Wisconsin.

Preserving the Earth for our children and grandchildren

A gathering of grandchildren at a recent family reunion.

Reading Naomi Klein’s article on “Capitalism vs. the Climate” at the Nation reminded me of the many children and grandchildren present at a family reunion I attended a couple of years ago. With the welfare of our children, grandchildren, and all of life in mind, sensible people need to rise up and support the safety of this blue and green planet against the assault of anti-environmentalists.

You may not agree with everything Klein has to say in her critique of the views from both the left and the right on environmental concerns, but she deserves a hearing. Her thought-provoking article begins with a report from the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change:

There is a question from a gentleman in the fourth row.

He introduces himself as Richard Rothschild. He tells the crowd that he ran for county commissioner in Maryland’s Carroll County because he had come to the conclusion that policies to combat global warming were actually “an attack on middle-class American capitalism.” His question for the panelists, gathered in a Washington, DC, Marriott Hotel in late June, is this: “To what extent is this entire movement simply a green Trojan horse, whose belly is full with red Marxist socioeconomic doctrine?”

Here at the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, the premier gathering for those dedicated to denying the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, this qualifies as a rhetorical question. Like asking a meeting of German central bankers if Greeks are untrustworthy. Still, the panelists aren’t going to pass up an opportunity to tell the questioner just how right he is.

Read more:

An Australian Blogger’s Act of Kindness Toward the Earth

Yesterday, many members of BlogCatalog, a directory of bloggers, responded to an invitation to post about some act of kindness we had performed. I responded with Acts of Kindness Build Community – Online and Elsewhere.

BlogCatalog is providing a listing of participating bloggers and links to their posts. A week before Christmas, it’s a rare treat to read so many accounts of inspiring acts of kindness.

Perhaps because my church group, Groveland Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship in St. Paul, Minn., recently voted to participate in a “green” program titled “Seeds of Mindfulness,” that a post describing an act of kindness toward the planet earth stood out for me.

Suzie Cheel is an Australian whose blog is titled Abundance Highway. In yesterday’s post, she explained: “I have over the past week decided to focus on acts of kindness for the earth. I thought the earth could do with some acts of kindness, so the beauty I enjoy is here for generations to come.”

Suzie’s post reminds us that all of life benefits from any act of kindness toward the earth, and there’s no denying that we human beings exist within nature’s life-sustaining ecological web of relationships.

About Abundance Highway, Suzie writes:

“The mission of the Abundance Highway is to help people achieve financial freedom, making a difference to their lives, which in turn will impact positively on the lives of others and the world. I will achieve this by sharing the successes, setbacks and learnings from my own journey to freedom and abundance, and do this in a way that makes people’s hearts sing and empowers them to live a life without limits.”

To check out Suzie’s blog and read about her act of kindness toward the earth go here.