BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

WARM PEAR SALAD with GORGONZOLA and WALNUTS

BY ELIZABETH FIEND
Serves 4 as lunch or main course, 6 as a side salad
Time: 20 minutes

Category: Vegetarian Recipe

This salad is all about contrasts.
The pears are served warm, making this a great dish to serve on a chilly, rainy day. The sharp cheese, crunchy nuts and creamy honey-lime dressing each stimulate different taste buds providing satisfaction and a feeling of fullness. I’ve divided up one serving between the cheese and nuts so even thought you’ll be eating cheese AND nuts (both contain fat) you will be getting just the right amount of fat and protein.

There’s an optional fun part in this recipe for the kids too. Instill in them a love for vegetables by having them cut the cucumber slices into stars with cookie cutter.

Salad Ingredients:
½ pound spring salad mix
¼ head endive – tear off and discard ends; break into bite size pieces
1 cucumber (see below for treatment)
1/8 lb gorgonzola cheese – break into pieces
3 pears (any kind) - cut into slices
½ cup walnuts – break into pieces

Dressing Ingredients:
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons lime juice
Blend above with a spoon or small whisk until honey is dissolved, than add:
½ cup buttermilk (or 3/8 cup soy milk plus 1/8 cup lemon juice)
2 stalks scallions diced
1/4 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste

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Each year that today’s scanners are used, 14,500 deaths could result, researchers say. When healthy people are exposed to the radiation, the imaging may create more problems than it solves.

Source: LA Times      Written By Thomas H. Maugh II

Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

Widespread overuse of CT scans and variations in radiation doses caused by different machines — operated by technicians following an array of procedures — are subjecting patients to high radiation doses that will ultimately lead to tens of thousands of new cancer cases and deaths, researchers reported today.

Several recent studies have suggested that patients have been unnecessarily exposed to radiation from CTs or have received excessive amounts, but two new studies published Tuesday in the Archives of Internal Medicine are the first to quantify the extent of exposure and the related risks.

Each year that current scanners are used, researchers reported, 14,500 deaths could result.

In one study, researchers from UC San Francisco found that the same imaging procedure performed at different institutions — or even on different machines at the same hospital — can yield a 13-fold difference in radiation dose, potentially exposing some patients to inordinately high risk.

While a normal CT scan of the chest is the equivalent of about 100 chest X-rays, the team found that some scanners were giving the equivalent of 440 conventional X-rays. The absolute risk may be small for any single patient, but the sheer number of CT scans — more than 70 million per year, 23 times the number in 1980 — will produce a sharp increase in cancers and deaths, experts said.

“The articles in this issue make clear that there is far more radiation from medical CT scans than has been recognized previously,” Dr. Rita F. Redberg of UC San Francisco, editor of the journal, wrote in an editorial accompanying the reports. Even many otherwise healthy patients are being subjected to the radiation, she said, because emergency rooms are often sending patients to the CT scanner before they see a doctor.

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Concerned about Toxins: Check Your Credit Card Receipts

Some — but not all — cash-register and credit-card receipts can be rich sources of exposure to the problematic plastic, BPA, a hormone-mimicking pollutant.

Source:  Science News Written   Written By Janet Raloff    Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

While working at Polaroid Corp. for more than a decade, John C. Warner learned about the chemistry behind some carbonless copy papers (now used for most credit card receipts) and the thermal imaging papers that are spit out by most modern cash registers. Both relied on bisphenol-A.

Manufacturers would coat a powdery layer of this BPA onto one side of a piece of paper together with an invisible ink, he says. “Later, when you applied pressure or heat, they would merge together and you’d get color.”

At the time, back in the ‘90s, he thought little about the technology other than it was clever. But when BPA exploded into the news, about a decade ago, Warner began to develop some doubts.

Research was demonstrating that this estrogen-mimicking chemical was leaching out of polycarbonate plastics, out of the resins used to line most food cans and out of dental sealants. In the womb, this chemical could disrupt the normal development of a rodent’s gonads — or evoke changes that predisposed animals to later develop cancer.

Warner recalls that these reports piqued his curiosity about whether the color-changing papers that were increasingly proliferating throughout urban commerce still used BPA.

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Nature in the City

When the Sharp Shinned hawks are hanging in my, South Philly / Italian Market, backyard I can’t tear my eyes off them!

But I guess a pigeon wing in the peach tree is the down side.

Photo by Elizabeth Fiend

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The Happiest People

To me, it doesn’t seem like a mere coincidence that the people rated the “most happy in the world” live in a country that abolished its army years ago and instead, invested that money into education and sustainable living. Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

Source New York Times Written By Op-Ed Columnist NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF 

SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica

Hmmm. You think it’s a coincidence? Costa Rica is one of the very few countries to have abolished its army, and it’s also arguably the happiest nation on earth.

There are several ways of measuring happiness in countries, all inexact, but this pearl of Central America does stunningly well by whatever system is used. For example, the World Database of Happiness, compiled by a Dutch sociologist on the basis of answers to surveys by Gallup and others, lists Costa Rica in the top spot out of 148 nations.

That’s because Costa Ricans, asked to rate their own happiness on a 10-point scale, average 8.5. Denmark is next at 8.3, the United States ranks 20th at 7.4 and Togo and Tanzania bring up the caboose at 2.6.

Scholars also calculate happiness by determining “happy life years.” This figure results from merging average self-reported happiness, as above, with life expectancy. Using this system, Costa Rica again easily tops the list. The United States is 19th, and Zimbabwe comes in last.

A third approach is the “happy planet index,” devised by the New Economics Foundation, a liberal think tank. This combines happiness and longevity but adjusts for environmental impact — such as the carbon that countries spew.

Here again, Costa Rica wins the day, for achieving contentment and longevity in an environmentally sustainable way. The Dominican Republic ranks second, the United States 114th (because of its huge ecological footprint) and Zimbabwe is last.

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WINDOW FARMS: Grow food in your own window!
source: WindowFarms  posted by VaLerie K

“The material I’m working with is people — creating moments for them to be thoughtful,” says Britta Riley, whose window farms have been displayed in more than a dozen buildings in New York City. Riley and her collaborator, Rebecca Bray, are conceptual artists whose goal is to engage the public in developing simple solutions to vexing environmental problems. By artfully demonstrating how lettuce and tomatoes can be grown in even the most cramped urban spaces, they hope to inspire people to think about where their food comes from — and then take part in producing it. (1)

(2)  “The Windowfarms project broaches both immediate urban agriculture goals as well as a far-sighted shift in attitudes toward the green revolution. We are both starting a windowfarming craze in cities worldwide and hoping to accelerate the pace of sustainable design by having ordinary citizens think of themselves as innovators.”

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Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells
Source New York Times   Written By CHARLES DUHIGG    Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

MORRISON, Wis. — All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe.

There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields. Other farmers receive fees to cover their land with slaughterhouse waste and treated sewage.

In measured amounts, that waste acts as fertilizer. But if the amounts are excessive, bacteria and chemicals can flow into the ground and contaminate residents’ tap water.

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.

“Sometimes it smells like a barn coming out of the faucet,” said Lisa Barnard, who lives a few towns over, and just 15 miles from the city of Green Bay.

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 Happy New Year!
Wishing you a new year filled with all the good things you want.
Thank you for your support. 
With Love, BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

Eat more vegetables in ‘10.

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Holidaze greetings from the Fiends:

Like birds, leave behind what you don’t need to carry. Life is beautiful, enjoy it.
Happiness in the New Year!  Love, Elizabeth and Allen Fiend

Salute from VaLerie K:

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Last Minute Gift Giving:

by VaLerie K

More and more people are giving (or asking for) the gift of a donation to charity for Chanukah, Kwanzaa and Christmas these days, eschewing the materialist mandate to buy more stuff.  Besides choosing national or international charities, consider picking something local.  Here’s some reasons why:

1. Seeing results first hand - rather than getting a newsletter from afar, the recipients of your gift can physically go and see the charity their gift is supporting, and feel a greater connection to why the gift is important.

2. Education - people can learn directly, such as getting a gift donation to a wildlife preserve, and then taking the kids to go see the animals and learn from the nature center.

3. Less junk mail, more trees - small, local organizations are less likely deluge you (or friends in whose names you donate) with mailings requesting more money, and if they do, you can call and talk to someone who will make it stop.  When I donated to a local animal rescue effort, I talked directly with the person in charge of donations, and we set it up so I could give everyone in my family an ‘adoption certificate’ in their names, but the donations would all be grouped under my address, so no one but me would get mailings in the future.

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Climate change causes 315,000 deaths a year

Unfortunately it doesn’t matter how thrifty WE are, how much we recycle, cut down on energy consumption, eat less meat – if industry doesn’t do the same we’re doomed. Climate change will not be fixed unless industry changes. Industry has failed at self regulation, government intervention is the only way. What can you do? People-power will be needed to force governments to enact the necessary regulations.

Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

Source: Reuters.com  Written By Megan Rowling 

Climate change kills about 315,000 people a year through hunger, sickness and weather disasters, and the annual death toll is expected to rise to half a million by 2030, a report said on Friday. The first hit and worst affected are the world’s poorest groups, and yet they have done least to cause the problem.

LONDON (Reuters) -The study, commissioned by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF), estimates that climate change seriously affects 325 million people every year, a number that will more than double in 20 years to 10 percent of the world’s population (now about 6.7 billion).

Economic losses due to global warming amount to over $125 billion annually — more than the flow of aid from rich to poor nations — and are expected to rise to $340 billion each year by 2030, according to the report.

“Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” Kofi Annan, former U.N. secretary-general and GHF president, said in a statement.

“The first hit and worst affected are the world’s poorest groups, and yet they have done least to cause the problem.”

The report says developing countries bear more than nine-tenths of the human and economic burden of climate change, while the 50 poorest countries contribute less than 1 percent of the carbon emissions that are heating up the planet.

Annan urged governments due to meet at U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December to agree on an effective, fair and binding global pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s main mechanism for tackling global warming.

“Copenhagen needs to be the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated,” he wrote in an introduction to the report. “The alternative is mass starvation, mass migration and mass sickness.”

The study warns that the true human impact of global warming is likely to be far more severe than it predicts, because it uses conservative U.N. scenarios. New scientific evidence points to greater and more rapid climate change.

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