Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
We are happy to welcome Ellen Sandbeck, author of "Green Barbarians"
to the Inkwell.vue.  

Ellen Sandbeck is an organic landscaper, worm wrangler, writer, and
graphic artist who lives with (and experiments on) her husband and an
assortment of younger creatures including two mostly grown children, a
couple of dogs, a small flock of laying hens, and many thousands of
composting worms in Duluth, Minnesota. She is the author of "Slug
Bread & Beheaded Thistles," "Eat More Dirt," "Organic Housekeeping,"
and "Green Barbarians."

Leading our discussion is CJ Phillips.

CJ has been a denizen of the Well for over 15 years and is presently
one of the cohosts of the Gardening conference.  She lives in the Bay
Area and usually spends her days working on a book about Chinese
food... that is, when she's not posting about her rabbits and guinea
pigs and endless appetite for good food and gopher-proof plants.

Thank you both for joining us.
  

    
Thank you Lisa, I am very happy to be able to participate!
  

    
Hi and welcome, Ellen.  I've been devouring your book, "Green
Barbarians," since it addresses in a really unique way many of the most
pressing problems of the day: global warming, how to live with less,
pandemic flu, and healthy sources of food.  First off, this is a
striking name for a book, "Green Barbarians: Living Bravely on Your
Home Planet."  How would you describe the scope of your book?
  

    
I would describe the scope of my book as rather expansive,  because I
researched and wrote it with the hope that it would help  change
readers’ worldview, and alter their angle of attack when they are
addressing problems.
  

    
Speaking of angle of attack when addressing problems, with all of this
year's scares about H1N1 (aka the swine flu), the timing for this book
couldn't be better.  What's your take on the worldwide hysteria over
this particular flu, and what were the main causes for all the hype?
  

    
Influenza epidemics have indeed killed millions of people in the past,
and it is a pretty sure bet that someday a truly dangerous flu strain
will hit again. However, this year’s flu hysteria, in the U.S. at
least, seems rather unnecessary, since the H1N1 vaccine is a pretty
good fit for the virus. Yes, millions of people were not able to get
the vaccine in a timely fashion, but the real problem was this
country’s totally inequitable and inefficient “health care system” 
rather than this particular flu virus.  At some point, we will
certainly face a truly dangerous biological threat, and whether that
threat is an extraordinarily virulent flu virus or an act of
bioterrorism, our  present “system” of health care is completely
inadequate to deal with it. When there is an epidemic EVERYONE needs
fast and efficient access to adequate health care, and we can’t even
manage that when we are not trying to deal with a deadly epidemic. In
the event of an epidemic or an act of bioterrorism, everyone within our
borders would need to be treated and/or vaccinated in an efficient and
timely manner. It is not merely selfish and cruel to deny health care
to everyone within our borders--no matter who they are or how they got
here--it is also stupid and dangerous.

As for the what were the main causes for all the hype, I'm not sure,
but the hype is definitely helping the chemical companies sell lots of
sanitizers adn disinfectants!
  

    
Ha!  I'm sure you're right on that point.

I really have enjoyed how you tamp down paranoia about such things as
dust and dirt at the same time that you show how we're not paranoid
enough about the insidious chemical additives that can be found in many
of the products that we use (such as rBGH in cow's milk,) or the
really scary diseases that seem to be popping up with alarming
frequency due to corporate greed (such as salmonella-infected eggs), or
the self-inflicted harm that is promoted by the food industry,
including bottled drinks.  If you were to recommend a series of baby
steps people can take to start to reboot their lives and make
themselves happier and healthier, what would they be?
  

    
I'm glad that you think I'm tamping down the paranoia, I'm certainly
trying to do so!

A series of baby steps to help people start off on a braver foot might
start this way:

Stop watching or reading (or at least believing) advertising—the big
guys are just trying to scare you into buying their dangerous,
expensive @#$#&*. If people are trying to sell you something, ask
yourself what their motivation might be: are these people truly
concerned about your wellbeing, or are they just trying to pry open
your wallet?  If you are a female of reproducing age, and there is any
possibility that you are, or might become pregnant, don’t use
cosmetics, fragrances, or personal care items that contain phthalates,
new studies have shown that pre-natal exposure to phthalates can not
only cause genital abnormalities in males, but pthalate exposure can
also induce brain abnormalities that cause behavioral problems such as
ADD, hyperactivity, and increased aggression. Phthalates are solvents
that are used to help lotions penetrate the skin, that help “fix”
fragrances, and that help keep nail polishes flexible and durable.

Don’t worry so much about what the neighbors might be thinking about
you. The sad truth is that they probably aren’t thinking about you at
all—they are probably thinking about themselves.  The people who love
me and whom I love don’t care that my t-shirts don’t glow in the dark,
and why would I care what the other people think?
  

    
hi ellen --- just wondering if you have gotten any reactions from
any pediatricians or parenting groups to the book. 'let your kids
grub in the dirt!' to me seems sound advice --- but very different
from what helicoptering parents might want to allow...

also, thank you for writing this. i feel i now have something
i can tell people to read, when trying to explain all kinds
of interconnected environmental issues...
  

    
Hi Loris--

No, I haven't gotten any reactions from any pediatricians or parenting
groups yet. I am not a famous writer, and my book has only been on the
market about a month, so not that many people have actually read it
yet! So yes, please, do tell people to read my book! Thank you!

My progeny are both in their twenties now, but when they were small, I
considered it my duty to raise them to be both physically and mentally
healthy. The hovering style of parenting does not, I think, increase
either physical or mental resilience. We all need to work against
resistance in order to become strong. Our immune systems need real work
to do, just as our bodies and our minds need exercise. Without real
resistance, we tend to invent our own problems--our minds invent
neuroses, our immune systems go on high alert and we become allergic or
asthmatic or get auto-immune disorders, and our bodies may
spontaneously create pain.
  

    
Hi (loris), and welcome to the discussion.

Ellen, much like Barry Glassner's "Culture of Fear," your "Green
Barbarians" is a look at how Americans in particular have been directed
toward a psychology of constant unease, either about how clean our
kitchens are, how we smell to others, or what we consider to be
nutritious food.  What are some of the things that we as consumers can
do to combat this fear?
  

    
Before you begin panicking, ask yourself a few simple questions in
order to figure out whether or not the advertised danger actually poses
a threat to your well-being. For instance, if the terrifying issue at
hand is: “Bacteria are floating in the air in your living room!”  and
the solution being presented is to buy an antimicrobial aerosol to
spray in your living room, you might ask yourself the following
questions, in order to establish whether this supposed threat existed
in your grandparents’ day, whether they survived it, and whether the
proposed solution makes any sense.

a. “Were bacteria floating in the air in my grandparents’ house?” The
answer is yes, bacteria were floating in the air in my grandparents’
day. In fact, we live on the bacteria planet—they were here first, and
they own it; we mammals are very recent arrivals. 

b. “Did my grandparents survive this danger?”  The answer is yes,
because you are here. 

c.  “Is this aerosol spray going to make me healthier?” The answer is
no, because inhaling aerosol sprays is not, and never has been, a
health-inducing practice. 
  

    
Ellen, I haven't read the book yet, but I am planning to.

On that last point, I completely agree with you about asking ourselves
the question "does the proposed solution make any sense."  Asking
ourselves if our grandparents had the problem and survived it, though,
makes less sense.  People tend to be pretty bad about analyzing
probability, anyway, and that question encourages anecdotal thinking. 
(My grandparents survived being bombed during WWII, so WWII couldn't
have been that bad.  Or my dad's crib had lead paint on it, and he's
not dumb, so all this hoopla about lead paint is nonsense.)
  

    
I'm sorry I should have made it more clear--I meant "threats" that are
not caused by humans. So, perhaps I should have gone back farther than
grandparents. How about, my great, great, great, great, great, great,
great, great,great, great.... grandparents had bacteria floating in the
air of their cave, and obviously they survived. Lead paint and WWII do
not fall into the category of naturally occurring phenomena that
advertisers are trying to scare us about.
  

    
Ellen, I'd like to ask about a point that you made earlier:

<Our immune systems need real work
to do, just as our bodies and our minds need exercise. Without real
resistance, we tend to invent our own problems--our minds invent
neuroses, our immune systems go on high alert and we become allergic
or asthmatic or get auto-immune disorders, and our bodies may
spontaneously create pain.>

Are you saying that allergies, asthma and autoimmune disorders are
caused by lack of exposure to germs, viruses, and so on? 
  

    
Thanks, Ellen.

I'd still say, though, that our great, great, great...grandparents
also had "natural" things like smallpox and the plague that they
survived.

(I'm saying this only to argue with that one question--I think you are
absolutely right about the over-reliance on things like antibacterial
soap and Lysol spray.)
  

    
Ellen, I'm really enjoying your book, and not only because I hate to dust!
Do you see Green Barbarianism becoming a movement or a lifestyle choice
similar to people choosing to be vegetarian/vegan?
  

    
If I may segue in another question since vegetarianism was mentioned,
I've noticed that in spite of the fact that groups such as the Sierra
Club and the Audubon Society have found direct links between the meat
industry and greenhouse gases, Ellen, you don't bring this up in "Green
Barbarians."  What are your ideas on this, and how important is
radically cutting down on meat consumption to saving the planet?
  

    
WOW! So many questions at once! This is great! I think I'll respond to
each person in order in a separate reply. So here goes:


Maria, in answer to #15, I think, if you don't mind, I will quote from
page 12 from the introduction to "Green  Barbarians," because the
issues you have brought up are actually part of the central core of the
book. 

"Our greatgrandparents, who clearly understood that the only true
reason for housekeeping is to maintain health by keeping vermin and
diseases at bay, would, I think, be completely baffled by current
housekeeping practices. Modern sewage systems and vaccines should be
making us the healthiest, most carefree people on the planet, but we
are not. We are still prosecuting our "spring cleaning" with
Inquisitional vigor, as if our homes were begrimed by a winter's worth
of coal dust; as if cholera, polio, typhus, diptheria, and the Black
Plague were lurking just around the corner."

The vaccination section of "Green Barbarians" runs from pages 227-231.
I've actually been writing about the beneficial effects of exposure to
dust, dirt, pets and other non-human organisms since I first wrote and
self-published "Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles" in 1995. I also try to
practice what I preach: I eat carrots right out of my garden, I just
brush the large pebbles and sand off them first, and I regularly lick
my fingers after I have been feeding my composting worms... I figure my
guts need all the help they can get!
  

    
Hi Divinea! For some reason your posting escaped my notice earlier. 
 Yes, I am indeed saying that allergies, asthma, and autoimmune
disorders my be caused by lack of exposure to germs, viruses, dirt,
pets, intestinal parasites, and minor viral infections.
This idea has been dubbed the "hygiene hypothesis," and there is
plenty of evidence that suggests that these sorts of auto-immune
disorders, in which the body reacts either against normally harmless
substances, such as, for instance, dog dander, grass pollen, or
peanuts, as if they are deadly poisons, and mounts an all-out histamine
assault on the invader, (allergic reaction), or, in the case of
auto-immune disorders, such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease,
type 1 diabetes, and possibly rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system
begins attacking the body's own tissues.  

We mammals evolved along with intestinal parasites, and we have always
been exposed to viruses, dust and dirt. Our immune systems mature only
when exposed to a variety of other organisms, and if that exposure
comes later, rather than in infancy, our immune systems may remain in a
permanent state of immaturity, and never learn to remain calm when
faced with an unfamiliar, though harmless, "other." 
  

    
Hi Lisa,

In answer to your question #16, yes, I am definitely hoping that Green
Barbarianism will become a movement or a lifestyle choice! I certainly
think it's a lot more fun to be a bit gutsier and less finicky rather
than worrying about everything all the time! Worry and fear are very,
very strong poisons--we need to just do the best we can, and then just
enjoy our lives! 

For instance: we had a Green Barbarians booklaunch/costume party a
couple of weeks ago. There were prizes for the best Green Barbarian
costumes (if you want to see them, check out my "Green Barbarians"
Facebook page.) and I encouraged the owners and employees of local,
sustainable businesses to come--they were welcome to wear their
advertising t-shirts, hats, aprons, or whatever, to bring their
advertising brochures. The local independent bookstore sold my books, a
self-published author sold his books ("60-minuter Venison," by Mitch
Kezar and Steve Stortz. If you need a gift for a hunter, this is
definitely it). Local musicians played while lots of locally produced
chocolate, kimchee, smoked salmon, beef jerkey, and more, was eaten. 
Many people sat right down in the comfy sofas and started reading
"Green Barbarians" Everyone had a wonderful time, and lots of great
green networking got done. The blacksmith who made the grand prize for
the costume party got THREE commissions during the party, members of
the press got lots of leads for great stories, and many people were
introduced to local businesses they hadn't known about. The party was
such a roaring success that we are now talking about doing more "Green
Barbarians Networking Parties," perhaps on a quarterly basis. The local
public radio station and the local whole foods co-op are interested in
being involved.

If anyone is interested in having their own Green Barbarian networking
party, please contact me on Facebook, and I can send a few prizes for
the costume contest.
  

    
ellen

- i hadnt realized until i read your book that laundry -soap- had
disappeared. i think i sometimes see some boutique version in natural foods
stores --- but ivory soap no longer exists?
- to be all green stepford wife, what are your feelings about borax?
i -love- the stuff
- agreed that -soap- is the greatest public health technological invention
ever. i dont use hand sanitizers, but i do see a lavender-based natural
one in use around here in ecotopia...thots?
  

    
I miss real soap powder too.

This morning a related news announcement came in to the Salon.com
editorial press release mail.  It speaks to this conversation and the
concerns of the book in several ways: 

  Today, the United States Senate committee on Environment and 
  Public Works held a hearing looking into the current science on 
  public exposures to toxic chemicals. Advocates are awaiting 
  introduction of federal legislation to reform the nation's badly 
  broken system of regulating toxic chemicals. And internationally, 
  companies are preparing to comply with Europe's new chemical 
  regulations (known as REACH).

  "The bottom line is that hazardous ingredients that have not been 
  tested for long-term health impacts, like asthma or even birth 
  defects, are being used in some cleaning products," said Erin 
  Switalski, executive director of Women's Voices for the Earth. 
  "Consumers have a right to know if they are spraying their kids' 
  high chairs with toxic chemicals. Without full ingredient 
  disclosure from these companies, there's simply no way to be sure."

More interesting facts about this legal battle and the attempt to
enforce neglected laws already on the books in NY state at 
<http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2010/environmental-and-health-groups-fa
ce-off-against-household-cleaner-giants-in-court.html>

It's nice to see these issues being taken seriously on the legislative
level too.
  

    
Hi CJ!

In response to your question #17 about vegetarianism and the role of
the meat industry in global warming:

I have been reading up on agricultural subjects since 1981, and I am
thoroughly convinced that it is impossible to farm or garden in a
sustainable manner without animal input. A farm without animals is
simply a different kind of unsustainable factory. I am not, of course,
in favor of raising meat animals as if they were robots or potted
plants, inhumane practices are not just cruel, they also damage the
environment and produce very low quality meat. 

There are landscapes that are totally unsuitable for any type of food
production other than grazing animals, and if the number and type of
animals are suitable for that particular landscape, the grazing animals
can actually improve the health of the land.

What is really vital to saving the planet is educating and empowering
women and increasing the availability of birth control. Reducing the
amount of land required to feed each person, all the while turning
arable land into cities to house more and more people, is not really
“saving the earth” is it? I believe in acting in a way that increases
joy and decreases suffering. An ever-increasing human population does
not seem to be increasing the amount of joy in the world. 
  

    
Hi Loris, in response to your posting #21 about the disappearance of
laundry soap in the U.S. Unfortunately it is true, Ivory Flakes are no
more, they've been off the shelves since 1978. It took me a long time
to realize it too--it's so much easier to notice when something appears
rather than when it disappears, unless the disappearance is part of a
magic act! There very well be boutique versions in some natural foods
storea. It is entirely possible to make your own soap flakes by shaving
or grating a bar of castile soap, however.

I love borax! It's great stuff!

Hand sanitizers... well, if the lavender-based one actually contains
enough lavender to kill germs, it may be quite hormonally active (see
pages 49-50 of Green Barbarians) and would probably not be a good idea
for children, men, or women who have a high risk of breast cancer. 

I am really not fond of hand sanitizers--in the absence of soap and
water, I'd much rather rub my hands in good, clean dirt, or spit on my
hands and then rub them briskly on my pants! If I happened to be in
polite company, I'd settle for just rubbing my hands very briskly on my
pants, or a napkin, or a piece of paper, or on a piece of apple, which
could then be composted or discarded. A friend of mine wipes his hands
on his cat, that would work too. The key to germ eradication is
friction!
  

    
Hi Gail!  In reply to posting #22:

Wow! That's great! It's about time this country started taking the
threat of toxic chemicals in our consumer products! Our laws are
horribly behind those of most of the civilized world in this arena, and
I am quite embarrassed about it, frankly.