And Do You Wear the Green?

A version of this post originally appeared in the Round Robin, the magazine of the American Women’s Club of Zurich and is meant chiefly for those of you living in Zurich.

Some years ago I had the good fortune to see the “Monet’s Garden” exhibition at the Kunsthaus in Zurich. As I floated from picture to picture, drunk with the beauty of it all, it suddenly came to me that Monet was an environmentalist. His works are a paean to man’s constructive interaction with nature, both in the making of his gardens and in painting them. Because we’re conscious, we’re not just a part of nature; we bear a responsibility to keep it intact. But this does not have to be grim or self-denying; it can, and ought to be, joyful. It’s quite possible that you are an environmentalist and don’t even realize it. Let’s look at some of the ways those of us here in Switzerland may give a new meaning to the wearing of the green.

You may be an environmentalist

-if you eat food that is good for you. It is logical that pears picked yesterday in Thurgau and offered at your town’s market will provide you with more vitamins and taste better than pears picked several weeks ago half way around the world. As for the environment, transport over long distances contributes to global warming and air pollution. If you choose local, organically grown food you’re choosing a win-win situation for you, the environment and the local economy. And now comes the rub – what if you have to choose between organic and local? Here you may have to compromise, deciding which is more important in a particular situation.

Or let’s consider some of those European fish with lots of good Omega-3 fats: sardines, herring, and oysters. Guess what salt-water fish are not over fished? That’s right , wild North Atlantic sardines, European farmed oysters and MSC labelled herring. Then there is the well-known fact that we should cut down on red meat for the sake of our arteries – which thus releases grain to feed people instead of beef cattle. It takes between seven and 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef, a practice that cannot be continued in the future, when food shortages will loom.

-if you like to swim in Lake Zurich and hike in the mountains. Swimming along, gazing at the Alps in the distance, you’re enjoying the fact that clever technology makes it possible for some half million people to live around the lake and not only swim in it but get their drinking water from it with a minimum of purification. The human mind is capable of creating amazing technology - needed in all areas of modern environmentalism. Or, as you stand in a mountain meadow and gaze at those same Alps, rejoicing in clean air. And then – you turn and gaze at Zurich down below, and what is all that smoggy stuff covering the city? We breathe that? Such a moment makes a far greater impression than all the statistics in the newspaper about the air pollution resulting from driving.

-if you serve your guests those parsnips, several tomato varieties and psychedelic striped beets belonging to the Pro Specie Rara vegetable line. They appear to be “designer veggies”, but are in fact old varieties being produced again, and are available at Coop supermarkets. By including them in your weekly menus, you are doing your bit for biodiversity, one of the most pressing needs of our time.

-if you wear eco-cotton because it is kind to your skin. Now you are ranging out into the world away from Switzerland. You’re literally wearing the green. The same thing applies to using body care products without perfumes, colouring agents and the like because your skin likes them. The environment appreciates them too.

-if you enjoy the works of Farley Mowat and Bill Bryson. Try Never Cry Wolf by Mowat. Written in 1963, this amusing (there is a recipe for “Souris à la Crème”), but also enraging and true tale is still relevant today, when sheep farmers in many countries, worried about wolves decimating their herds, are pitted against conservationists who want to protect the dwindling wolf population. Bryson has written at least 5 books of which Sarah van Schagen, writing in GRIST online magazine in 2005, says “…Bryson’s voice becomes a sort of environmental conscience for unsuspecting readers.” In a Sunburned Country describes the teeming, unique life of the Australian continent, A Walk in the Woods makes you think about land management, while A Short History of Nearly Everything discusses, among nearly everything else, human responsibility for taking care of the planet. I’m a Stranger here Myself was written after Bryson returned to the States after 20 years abroad, and is a wry look at such American foibles as blithely wasting energy and hating to walk anywhere. Bryson is always entertaining, even when he is at his most serious.

So what do you think – are you an environmentalist?