Lynn Margulis died in late November 2011. She was a longtime friend of Chelsea Green Publishing, and collaborated with us on the Sciencewriters Books imprint to develop outstanding science books for the general public.

A recent article in Orion (”State of the Species”) by Charles C. Mann, captured some of Lynn’s unbending scientific mind matched by an equally caring and playful spirit. Mann lives in Amherst and would often encounter Lynn while walking through town.

What follows is a brief excerpt from the article, but if interested you can also listen to Mann talk about Lynn in this Orion podcast interview about the article.

Bacteria and protists can do things undreamed of by clumsy mammals like us: form giant supercolonies, reproduce either asexually or by swapping genes with others, routinely incorporate DNA from entirely unrelated species, merge into symbiotic beings—the list is as endless as it is amazing. Microorganisms have changed the face of the earth, crumbling stone and even giving rise to the oxygen we breathe. Compared to this power and diversity, Margulis liked to tell me, pandas and polar bears were biological epiphenomena—interesting and fun, perhaps, but not actually significant.

Does that apply to human beings, too? I once asked her, feeling like someone whining to Copernicus about why he couldn’t move the earth a little closer to the center of the universe. Aren’t we special at all?

This was just chitchat on the street, so I didn’t write anything down. But as I recall it, she answered that Homo sapiens actually might be interesting—for a mammal, anyway. For one thing, she said, we’re unusually successful.

Seeing my face brighten, she added: Of course, the fate of every successful species is to wipe itself out.

Pure Lynn.

When Lynn died, she left behind a groundbreaking scientific legacy that spanned decades and inspired thousands of scientists, environmentalists, writers, and thinkers around the world. This unique anthology, collated by her son Dorion Sagan, includes essays that cover her early collaboration with James Lovelock, her critique of neo-darwinism, her support of David Griffin’s critique of the official account of 9/11, her love of Emily Dickinson, her inspiration of young scientists, especially women, and much more.

The book includes contributions from Dorion Sagan, Jorge Wagensberg, Moselio Schaechter, Andre Khalil, James Lovelock, Bruce Clarke, Niles Eldredge, Michael F. Dolan, Jan Sapp, Michael J. Chapman, Martin Brasier, Denis Noble, Josh Mitteldorf, Stefan Helmreich, William Irwin Thompson, David Ray Griffin, John B. Cobb Jr., David Abram, Peter Westbroek, Rich Doyle, Joanna Bybee, Terry Y. Allen, Penny Boston, Emily Case, David Lenson, Betsey Dexter Dyer, and Lynn herself.

Below are some early reviews, and praise, for this tribute to Lynn’s lasting legacy.

“Margulis’s complex personality beguiles, frustrates, charms, and elevates various writers, resulting in a stunning portrait that no single remembrance could have captured.” — ForeWord Reviews

“Her insistence that most evolution involves symbiogenesis led to a lifetime of debate. It also leads to some inspired writing in this book of essays. This is a captivating read for anyone interested in what powers great scientists.” — Publishers Weekly

“I can’t imagine what the world of biological science in the twentieth century would have been had Lynn Margulis not come along. In this volume, we can read about some of the vast range of intellect she influenced.” — Wes Jackson, president, The Land Institute

“Lynn and I often argued, as good collaborators should, and we wrangled over the intricate finer points of self-regulation, but always remained good friends, perhaps because we were confident that we were right.” — Dr. James Lovelock, contributor, and author of The Vanishing Face of Gaia

“It was life—profligate, teeming life in all its weirdness—that held the magic for her, not this featherless biped with its confused aspirations. Lynn intuited and doggedly gathered evidence to show that most anything we two-leggeds take special pride in—our capacities for cogitation, conviviality, and culture—had been invented, eons before, by the microbial entities that compose us.” — David Abram, contributor, and author of Spell of the Sensuous

“It’s the ideas that really matter—and Lynn certainly had hers. They were novel and profound, and she simply wanted all the rest of the world to adjust their thinking to accommodate and embrace what she saw were the simple, beautiful truths that she had uncovered.” — Dr. Niles Eldredge, contributor, and author of Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life

“I hope that in due time she will be recognized as one of the greatest scientific thinkers of our time.” — Ernest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia

To see “indomitable Lynn” for yourself, watch this video of her debate with Richard Dawkins at Oxoford.

And for sense of the reverence and love the book contains, read Dr. James Lovelock’s essay, On Lynn.

Do you remember the story of the little red hen?She found a grain of wheat, and wanted to turn it into bread. She tried to get her friends in on the action, but they were lazy or uninterested — or maybe they were gluten-intolerant and she just didn’t realize that.

Anyway, she had to do all the work herself, from planting the wheat to harvesting it, to milling the flour and finally, baking the bread. She wins in the end though, because when all her hungry friends come by all excited for some fresh bread she’s like, no way guys, I’m going to eat it all by myself too!

We hope your friends won’t be so unhelpful, because there’s nothing better than breaking bread with loved ones — even better if you’ve made it from scratch. And EVEN better if you did in fact grow those grains yourself.

To celebrate Homemade Bread Day, we’ve put a selection of books on sale to take you from seed to scrumptious loaf. The books below will be on sale for one week, at a discount of 25%.

Reg. Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $0000

Small-Scale Grain Raising: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers, Second Edition

First published in 1977, this book—from one of America’s most famous and prolific agricultural writers—became an almost instant classic among homestead gardeners and small farmers.

Now fully updated and available once more, Small-Scale Grain Raising offers a entirely new generation of readers the best introduction to a wide range of both common and lesser-known specialty grains and related field crops, from corn, wheat, and rye to buckwheat, millet, rice, spelt, flax, and even beans and sunflowers.

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Reg. Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World

The Art of Fermentation is the most comprehensive guide to do-it-yourself home fermentation ever published. Sandor Katz presents the concepts and processes behind fermentation in ways that are simple enough to guide a reader through their first experience making sauerkraut or yogurt, and in-depth enough to provide greater understanding and insight for experienced practitioners.

Once you’ve harvested your grain of choice, you can add flavor and nutrition to your bread by fermenting the flour before you bake it. Get the tips on starting and maintaining a healthy sourdough here.

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Reg. Price: $39.95 Sale Price: $25.97

Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry

Home Baked is more than a bread cook book. The authors are reminiscent of the little red hen from the fable: they grow, harvest, and grind the grain they use to bake the beautiful, organic, and unique breads featured in the book.

Perfectly timed for the growing interest in Scandinavian, and particularly Danish, cuisine, Home Baked is a must-have book for any bread lover’s library.

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Reg. Price: $18.00 Sale Price: $13.50

Build Your Own Barrel Oven: A Guide for Making a Versatile, Efficient, and Easy to Use Wood-Fired Oven

You’ve got your homegrown, naturally-leavened dough rising away in the kitchen, but your homemade bread mission can still go one level of DIY farther: build your own efficient, wood-burning oven to bake it in! Not even our hero the little red hen was that badass.

In this new book, Max and Eva Edleson offer a comprehensive guide for planning and building a practical, efficient and affordable wood-fired oven. The barrel oven offers surprising convenience because it is hot and ready to bake in within 15-20 minutes and is easy to maintain at a constant temperature.

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Reg. Price: $35.00 Sale Price: $22.75

The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens

Daniel Wing, a lover of all things artisanal, had long enjoyed baking his own sourdough bread. His quest for the perfect loaf began with serious study of the history and chemistry of bread baking, and eventually led to an apprenticeship with Alan Scott, the most influential builder of masonry ovens in America.

Alan and Daniel have teamed up to write this thoughtful, entertaining, and authoritative book that shows you how to bake superb healthful bread and build your own masonry oven.

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“Since the first toss of the atomic dice at a desert test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, incalculable harm has been done to our planet—its air, its water, its land, and its peoples. Tragically, much of this damage will remain as an invisible legacy that will shadow the lives of our children for generations. But if we continue to marshal our outrage, energy, and intelligence in the cause of principled and progressive change, there is still time to start turning our poisoned planet away from the deadly atom and toward a future where the sun shines far brighter than the lethal core of a reactor. We must demand a new paradigm for planetary survival, and a large part of that transformation will require a new conservation ethic and renewable renaissance.” — From the Introduction to Nuclear Roulette

Nuclear energy has entranced the industrialized world since it first emerged as a (supposedly) safe and benign use of the horrific power unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Praised as pollution-free, and “too cheap to meter,” atomic power seemed almost too good to be true. And it was.

Gar Smith’s new book, Nuclear Roulette: The Truth about the Most Dangerous Energy Source on Earth, is now available in our bookstore, and it explains with crystalline clarity the reasons why this magical energy source is too dangerous to use. From the insolvable problems of storing radioactive waste products, to weapons proliferation, to the surprising fact that if you look at the total life cycle of a plant nuclear power isn’t even efficient, the book lays out a strong case against this power source.

Also featured in the book are the five worst reactors in the country. Including the infamous Entergy plant Vermont Yankee.

Below is the Foreword by the late Ernest Callenbach and Jerry Mander, as well as Gar Smith’s introduction to the book.

Nuclear Roulette: Foreword and Introduction

Renewable power is always better than fossil fuel power, but even solar and wind can stir up environmental concerns. Here in Vermont, where ridgeline construction is limited and restricted, residents are increasingly seeing their beloved landscapes interrupted by wind turbines. Meanwhile, activists in the southwest are seeing huge solar installations disrupt the delicate desert ecology.

But these sorts of massive-scale projects are not the only way to do renewables. Small-scale projects that are funded, planned, and supported by local communities are much more sustainable, and, in the wake of Superstorm Sandy may be more resilient to get back online in the event of knockout storms.

This Friday, November 16th, join Greg Pahl, author of Power From the People, for a webinar on the subject. The talk starts at 10 AM PT, 1 PM ET, 18 GMT.

Communities across the United States are taking power into their own hands by organizing, financing, and launching their own local renewable energy projects! In this webinar, energy expert Greg Pahl will describe the best practices and lessons learned from the community-owned wind, solar, and biofuel projects featured in his latest book, Power From the People (Chelsea Green, 2012). Pahl’s book is part of our Community Resilience Guide series we’re co-publishing with the folks at Post Carbon Institute.

In fact, check out the recent Grist article written by PCI’s Asher Miller about just how we can take the lead from Bill McKibben and divest from Big Oil by investing in our own backyards. Miller cites some of the many examples in Pahl’s books where communities are already doing this - to much success.

This event will comprise a 30 minute presentation followed by a live Q&A. Join by going here at the time of the presentation where you will be able to login and participate.

You’re a beekeeping, seedling starting, chick brooding, sauerkraut-making master, but there’s always another skill you could add to your homesteading repertoire.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to build a straw bale guest house, or a wattle-and-daub woodshed. Or you’ve been thinking about what it would take to grow your own grains as well as your own greens.

Well, homesteader, this is your lucky day! There’s still time to sign up for our latest giveaway to win a selection of books to teach you just what you need to know. We’ve teamed up with the folks at Mother Earth News to offer the following books to one fortunate winner this month.

Chelsea Green publishes standby favorites like Eliot Coleman to more recent “instant classics” like Sandor and Harvey’s books.

The contest ends in mid-November so don’t delay.

Sign up here for your chance to win.

Here are the books:

Up Tunket Road: The Education of a Modern Homesteader

By Philip Ackerman-Leist

The inspiring true story of a young couple who embraced the joys of simple living while also acknowledging its frustrations and complexities.

The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World

By Sandor Ellix Katz

Quite simply the most comprehensive guide to do-it-yourself home fermentation ever published.

The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times

By Carol Deppe

Filled with detailed information about growing and using five key crops: potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and eggs.

When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency

By Mat Stein

A comprehensive primer on sustainable living skills—food, water, shelter, energy, first-aid, and more.

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses

By Eliot Coleman

Grow produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized un- or minimally-heated greenhouses.

Small-Scale Grain Raising: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers

By Gene Logsdon

Logsdon covers the basics of grain production—planting, dealing with pests, harvesting, processing, storing, and using whole grains.

Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture

By Toby Hemenway

Learn how to apply basic permaculture principles to make your garden more diverse, more natural, more productive, and more beautiful.

The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit

By Stephen and Rebekah Hren

Transform your home with projects both small and large, listed by skill, time, cost, and energy saved.

The Small-Scale Poultry Flock: An All-Natural Approach to Raising Chickens and Other Fowl for Home and Market Growers

By Harvey Ussery

The most comprehensive and definitive guide to date on raising all-natural poultry.

Top Bar Beekeeping: Organic Practices for Honeybee Health

By Les Crowder and Heather Harrell

Provides complete information on hive management and other aspects of using innovative and natural top-bar beehives.

Don’t forget to share the giveaway with your gardening, farming, and fermenting friends. Good luck, and happy homesteading!

The holiday season is upon us, and soon your family and friends will gather for feasts to ward off the coming chill of winter.

Food brings us together, especially during the holidays. Too many of us have forgotten how to make things from scratch, or never experience the joy that comes with making a special meal with ecologically-grown or raised, local ingredients. To re-ignite your passion for food, this email contains recipes for corn bread, “roots” beer, blue cheese, as well as inspired locavore twists on classic recipes for turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and more.

Take a look at the menu we’ve put together with full recipes below:

Happy reading from the folks at Chelsea Green Publishing!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out our full list of books on sale here: http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/sale

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~ Starters ~

Simmered Mushroom Trio with Garlic Crostini

From Cooking Close to Home

From Cooking Close to Home: A Year of Seasonal Recipes

Start your Thanksgiving meal with a crispy, savory, vegetarian appetizer.

Wild mushrooms are simmered with garlic and onions in this simple, healthy recipe from Cooking Close to Home. 

Authors Diane Imrie and Richard Jarmusz are the chef/nutritionist team who have won awards for revolutionizing the food served at Vermont’s largest hospital. Lucky patients at Fletcher Allen are now served healthy, organic, local, and delicious meals.

The cookbook takes you through the seasons, and is the perfect accompaniment to a CSA membership, or a great gift for the locavore on your list.

Get the recipe here…

Rindless Blue Cheese

From Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking

From Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking: The Ultimate Guide for Home-Scale and Market Producers

A cheese plate is an easy, crowd-pleasing appetizer. But what if you made one of the cheeses yourself?

If you started this blue cheese today, it might not quite be ready by Thanksgiving, but it’s a great example of the kind of valuable, in-depth, beyond-beginner-level information you can find in Gianaclis Caldwell’s new book. With Caldwell’s welcoming tone, excellent information, and the book’s beautiful design, Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking will help you make the cheeses you’ve always wanted to.

“Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking is the one book that tells you everything you need to know to become an award-winning cheese maker. Caldwell’s practical and straightforward explanations make this entire book (along with its amusing anecdotes) a great pleasure to read. Among the recent bounty of books on cheese, this one is a must-have.” — Max McCalman, author of Mastering Cheese

Want to make your own blue cheese? Get the recipe here…

Roots Beer

From The Art of Fermentation

From The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World

Impress your family at the table this Thanksgiving when you share a bottle of homemade root beer, or “roots” beer, as Sandor Katz would put it.

“A traditional root beer is a sweetened and fermented decoction of flavorful plant roots. Contrary to the commonly known singular “root” beer, various roots have been and can be used. As a matter of fact, mixing together more than one type of root yields a better flavor than a single root alone.”

This easy recipe comes from Katz’s new book, The Art of Fermentation, a New York Times bestseller and the most comprehensive guide to fermentation ever published.

Make your own sweet, bubbly root beer. Get the recipe…

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~ Main Dish ~

Turkey and Gravy: Straightforward, Simple and Delicious

From Long Way on a Little

From Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lover’s Companion for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously

From farmer and author Shannon Hayes, author of Radical Homemakers, comes Long Way on a Little, or as we like to call it, “the only meat cookbook you’ll ever need.”

Hayes raises beef on her farm in upstate New York, and has been spreading the gospel of grassfed meat for years. Grassfed meats require a little extra care in cooking, but reward you with a depth of flavor, and more nutrients than grain-fed meat. In Hayes’s new book, she covers special lost skills such as how to render fat into lard, how to make broth from bones, as well as recipes for cooking pasture-raised beef, pork, poultry, and more.

This simple recipe for Turkey and Gravy will help you make the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving meal delicious.

Get the recipe… 

Walnut Sausage Stuffing

From The Farmer and the Grill

From The Farmer and the Grill: A Guide to Grilling, Barbecuing and Spit-Roasting Grassfed Meat…and for saving the planet one bite at a time

In The Farmer and the Grill, Shannon Hayes shares even more tips on preparing grassfed meats.

Complement Shannon’s turkey recipe from above with her rich Walnut Sausage Stuffing.

“Cook the stuffing separately. I know a lot of folks like to put the stuffing inside their holiday birds, and if Thanksgiving will be positively ruined if you break tradition, then stuff away. However, for a couple reasons, I recommend cooking your stuffing separately. First, everyone’s stuffing recipe is different. Therefore, the density will not be consistent, which means that cooking times will vary dramatically. I am unable to recommend a cooking time, since I cannot control what stuffing each person uses. Also, due to food safety concerns, I happen to think it is safer to cook the stuffing outside the bird.”

Get the recipe for Walnut Sausage Stuffing… 

Mashed Potatoes for Twelve

From This Organic Life

From This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader

Joan Dye Gussow is one of the leaders of the organic food movement. She has taught nutrition for decades, but is perhaps better known for her garden on the fickle Hudson River. Sometimes the Hudson floods her potato patch, but still Joan gardens. In this brief excerpt from her book This Organic Life, Gussow realizes that she long ago crossed a threshold, “we had reached a point where we simply never bought a vegetable.”

She includes her easy recipe for Mashed Potatoes for Twelve (with enough left over for Mashed Potato Cakes) and we thought it was the perfect addition to our Earth-conscious Thanksgiving menu. Bonus points if you grew them yourself!

Get the recipe…

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~ Side Dishes ~

Little Lemon Rolls

From Home Baked

From Home Baked: Nordic Recipes and Techniques for Organic Bread and Pastry

Serve these savory rolls, laced with lemon zest, alongside your turkey and gravy for a burst of flavor.

Home Baked is more than a bread cook book. The authors are reminiscent of the little red hen from the fable: they grow thegrain, harvest the grain, grind the grain and bake the bread, all on their beautiful island farm in Denmark.

The recipes are simple, but in the tradition of Nordic cuisine many incorporate fresh, wild ingredients such as nettles, elder flowers, and wild leeks.

Get the recipe… 

Cornbread

From The Resilient Gardener

From The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times

Carol Deppe teaches gardeners how to do more than just grow lettuce and herbs. Her latest book, The Resilient Gardener, seeks to share her wisdom for growing all the food you need — even if you suffer from food allergies such as gluten intolerance.

With guides to growing, harvesting, preserving, and storing five key crops, The Resilient Gardener is an excellent sourcebook for those trying to feed themselves from their own land.

Corn is one of Deppe’s key crops, and she has carefully bred the perfect varieties for different uses like polenta and cornbread. This recipe, Carol’s Universal Skillet Bread, is versatile enough to be used for sandwiches as well as a tasty, gravy-absorbing side dish — and it uses no wheat or artificial binders.

Get the recipe…

Cranberry Sauce

From Full Moon Feast

From Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection

Balance the unctuousness of your grassfed turkey with the bright acidic tang of cranberries. Either as a sweetened sauce, or a savory relish, these little American natives are a classic garnish for Thanksgiving meats.

Native Americans prized cranberries for their ability to remain edible and unspoiled for months, which made them an excellent food for traveling and a good source of nutrients over long, hard winters when fresh fruit and vegetables were scarce.

Jessica Prentice’s recipe for cranberry sauce is simple and traditional. It uses maple syrup and honey instead of sugar, which are both sweeteners easy to make on the homestead scale.

Get the recipe…

Kale Salad with Apples, Feta, and Walnuts

From Wild Flavors

From Wild Flavors: One Chef’s Transformative Year Cooking from Eva’s Farm

Chef Didi Emmons is known for crafting delightful, fresh, and unique dishes, and her latest cookbook, Wild Flavors offers exactly what the title proclaims.

Wild Flavors chronicles a year Emmons spent learning about new herbs and vegetables from organic farmer Eva Sommaripa. Eva’s passion for the earth, and her delicious produce, inspired Didi to take her cooking to new places.

Serve up Didi’s Sauteed Kale Salad with Apple, Walnuts, and Feta alongside your other dishes for a healthy, bright green dish.

Get the recipe…

Roasted Root Vegetables

From Full Moon Feast

From Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection

In Full Moon Feast, accomplished chef and passionate food activist Jessica Prentice champions locally grown, humanely raised, nutrient-rich foods and traditional cooking methods. The book follows the thirteen lunar cycles of an agrarian year, from the midwinter Hunger Moon and the springtime sweetness of the Sap Moon to the bounty of the Moon When Salmon Return to Earth in autumn.

This recipe from is perfect for anyone tending a root cellar. Simply combine enough of your favorite roots to feed your guests. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, rutabagas, carrots, beets, parsnips and more all combine beautifully together for a simple and satisfying side dish.

Get the recipe…

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~ Dessert ~

Lost Nation Cider Pie

From The Apple Grower

From The Apple Grower: A Guide for the Organic Orchardist, Second Edition

Your classic apple pie gets an interesting spin from apple (and peach, and plum, and pear, and berry) expert Michael Phillips. Try his recipe for Lost Nation Cider Pie.

Phillips’s book The Apple Grower has long been the best resource for anyone interested in growing these ubiquitous fruits organically. Now aspiring orchardists can learn about other tree fruits, and berries, (and even more about apples) with Phillips’s new book The Holistic Orchard.

If there’s anything that will inspire you to start growing your own fruit trees, it’s a tangy, scrumptious pie. Enjoy!

Got pie? Get the recipe…

 

 

New and Noteworthy Book Sets on Sale:

Leading the vanguard for food freedom, especially for those who believe in the health benefits of raw, fermented foods, is the Weston A. Price Foundation. Named after a dentist who studied traditional foodways and discovered that processed foods and wheat and high-tech fats were not present in the healthiest, non-industrialized diets, the Weston A. Price Foundation has chapters around the country, and gathers them all together for a conference each year.

This year’s conference is in Santa Clara, California, and three Chelsea Green authors will be speaking.

Come hear the gospel of fermentation from Sandor Katz on Friday, November 9 from 10AM-Noon. Katz’s new book The Art of Fermentation is a New York Times Bestseller, and has been inspiring fermentos everywhere to try new recipes and discover frisky new beneficial microbes to befriend.

Learn about the blessings and challenges that come with the territory of running a small-scale dairy from Gianaclis Caldwell on Sunday, November 11, from 4:00-5:20PM. Caldwell is the owner and cheesemaker at Pholia Farm in Oregon, and her new book, Mastering Artisan Cheesemaking caused early reviewers who got it to respond primarily in exclamation points and smiley faces. Okay, not quite, but if you read the praise the book garnered from expert cheesemakers and ‘mongers you’ll see what we mean.

And finally, listen to a rallying keynote speech from anti-GMO crusader Jeffrey Smith on Sunday evening at 5:30 PM. Smith has been eloquently waging war against GMO foods for years, with his books and videos decrying the corruption and danger these high-tech, low-nutrition foods contain. This year, Smith has been campaigning in California to support Proposition 37 to label GMO foods in the state. By the time of the Weston Price conference we should know the fate of Prop 37, so it’s hard to say whether this keynote will be a victory yell or a call to regroup and start the fight anew.

Chelsea Green is a longtime supporter of food rights and ideas for healthy eating that follow traditional notions — not industrial era fads. We’ve collected our best food and health books in an easy-to-read catalog which you can download here.

Get all the conference information here, and stop by our booth if you’re around! Staffers Michael Weaver and Jennifer McCharen will be there to sell books and answer questions.

Lynn Margulis: The Life and Legacy of A Scientific Rebel is now available in our bookstore.

Publishers Weekly recently praised the collection, saying, “There are two kinds of great scientists, writes former American Society of Microbiology president Moselio Schaechter in this eclectic, sometimes electrifying, book about biologist Lynn Margulis. There are those making ‘impressive experiments’ and those making ‘groundbreaking theoretical syntheses.’ Margulis was the latter….This is a captivating read for anyone interested in what powers great scientists.”

Collated by Margulis’s son Dorion Sagan, the book includes contributions from many of Lynn’s colleagues and friends — all of them revolutionary thinkers of one kind or another. This unique anthology includes essays that cover her early collaboration with James Lovelock, her critique of neo-darwinism, her support of David Griffin’s critique of the official account of 9/11, her love of Emily Dickinson, her inspiration of young scientists, especially women, and much more.

Other recent reviews have also praised this collection of essays as a fitting tribute to a rebel who influenced, and inspired, many.

“Taken as a whole, Sagan’s collection is a fitting tribute to a woman whose life and legacy have touched so many others,” noted Foreword Reviews. “As [Sagan] notes, her indomitable spirit lives on through her children, grandchildren, colleagues, and students—and most of all, through the work that she championed so well.”

Don Mikulecky wrote this thoughtful and in-depth review of the book for DailyKos, saying, “If you know about Margulis’ work you still need to read this book because it is a multifaceted view of this magnificent person and her ideas and puts her wok into a context that enriches our understanding.”

Margulis was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983, received the prestigious National Medal of Science in 1999, and her papers are permanently archived at the Library of Congress. Less than a month before her untimely death, Margulis was named one of the twenty most influential scientists alive— one of only two women on this list, which include such scientists as Stephen Hawking, James Watson, and Jane Goodall.

Less than one week remains before the 2012 elections. Last month we rounded up the ballot initiatives we’re most concerned about. How are these campaigns faring as the final weeks pass? Here’s a quick update on key issues important to the sustainably-minded.

THE FIGHT AGAINST GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS HEATS UP IN CALIFORNIA

The biggest issue facing homesteaders and anyone who cares about the state of agriculture today is encapsulated by California’s Proposition 37. This bill is the first serious ballot initiative ever to insist that foods containing genetically-modified organisms be clearly labeled so that consumers can choose whether or not we want to eat them.

For months, the pro-labeling cohort in California was polling way ahead of the opposition — but since the opposition is funded by big biotech corporations to the tune of millions of dollars, that overwhelming support has been eroded by misleading TV ads and even by illegal tactics such as impersonating government agencies in mailings.

Luckily, there’s still time to convince voters that the bill is important, and even if you don’t live in California you can help! Volunteer to phone bank for the issue, calling undecided voters and convincing them to vote yes on Prop 37. Find more information here.

Chelsea Green carries a number of books and DVDs on the trouble with GMOs. Author Jeffrey Smith’s books are still some of the best available, and his filmed talks are informative and inspiring. Take a look at the book Genetic Roulette, the DVD of the same name, and Seeds of Deception.

Coming next spring, Steven Druker’s new book Altered Genes, Twisted Truth will be another great resource for the movement. Currently, the first eight chapters of the book are available as an ebook sample, available for Kindle, Nook, and Kobo.

POLLS SHOW WIDESPREAD SUPPORT FOR MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION

Marijuana is Safer argues that the public health problems caused by alcohol are far worse than those caused by pot, yet pot users are treated like criminals law enforcement. It doesn’t make sense, and for years campaigns to decriminalize the use of marijuana have been popping up across the nation. This year, according to NORML, polls are showing that many of the initiatives have enough support to pass. Of particular interest in 2012 is Colorado’s Amendment 64. From author Paul Armentano’s organization NORML:

“NORML enthusiastically endorses the Amendment 64. It restores the rights of adults who find marijuana a safer alternative to alcohol and tobacco. It preserves the rights of patients for whom marijuana is a safe and effective alternative to potentially addictive and fatal prescription drugs.”

Is there a measure on the ballot to end the war on pot in your state? Take a look at the various campaigns listed by NORML, here.

BINDERS FULL OF WOMEN?

Women’s rights are, unfortunately, up for grabs this election year as well. Not directly, but if you believe the campaign rhetoric then a vote for Mitt Romney for President is a vote against the historic Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. Not to mention conservative lawmakers continued absurd failure to grasp basic biology, or the fact that rape is — quite simply — a terrible crime.

Women’s rights issues are family issues, as President Barack Obama has been repeating for weeks. Madeleine M. Kunin’s book The New Feminist Agenda comes from exactly the same standpoint: in order to ensure women are treated equally, their role as family caretakers must be acknowledged and accommodated. For far too long women have been forced to make the impossible choice between career and motherhood. It’s time to re-imagine what equality looks like, and although we’re not in the business of endorsing candidates around here, we think it’s fairly clear that America isn’t going to solve these problems with nothing but “binders full of women.”

Corporate head offices full of women, Senate seats full of women, heck, even an Oval Office full of women? Now, that might do the trick.

ON POLITICS AND POWER IN GENERAL…

The national elections are filling the airwaves with “stuff”, as Joe Biden so politely put it in the Vice Presidential debate, but the high-rolling, high-tech campaigns are not the only realm of politics — and the power struggle embodied by the Democrats and Republicans is not the most important battle.

Chances are your hometown has some decisions to make too. Our new book Slow Democracy is a breath of fresh air in these times. An excerpt recently posted on CommonDreams explains the concept here.

“We propose Slow Democracy.  We recognize that the term is its own punch line: isn’t government agonizingly slow already?  Joking aside, our democracy has much to learn from the paradigm shift of the various “slow” movements.  Instead of seeing politics as the exclusive province of Washington, we should focus on the democratic possibilities in the neighborhoods and towns right where we live.  Local communities have the ability to address fundamental issues and create real change. Many of them have already done so.”

Read the rest of the excerpt at CommonDreams.org.

Never forget, even when you’re asked to make an absurd choice between an unsatisfying and deceitful incumbent, and a duplicitous, cynical newcomer, real power comes from within.

Bruce E. Levine articulates this in his latest book Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite. His recent article made waves online by asking the question, why are Americans so easy to manipulate?

The answer, according to Levine, traces the dodgy history of behaviorism in psychology, which rose alongside the consumer culture we’re so enmeshed in today.

“The corporatization of society requires a population that accepts control by authorities, and so when psychologists and psychiatrists began providing techniques that could control people, the corporatocracy embraced mental health professionals.”

Read the entire article here.

Levine’s ideas touch on controversial subjects such as the likely uselessness of psychiatric drugs, and the collusion of government with corporate oligarchs, but his message is empowering. If we open our eyes, come together, and stop accepting injustice, we can win, and we can fight for a better world than any political campaign is selling.

“It was life—profligate, teeming life in all its weirdness—that held the magic for her, not this featherless biped with its confused aspirations. Lynn intuited and doggedly gathered evidence to show that most anything we two-leggeds take special pride in—our capacities for cogitation, conviviality, and culture—had been invented, eons before, by the microbial entities that compose us.”

—David Abram, contributor, and author of Spell of the Sensuous

When scientist Lynn Margulis died last year, the world lost a true intellectual revolutionary — but her vibrant legacy lives on.

Margulis’s son and longtime collaborator Dorion Sagan collected essays from his mother’s colleagues and friends, and compiled them into a beautiful tribute. To celebrate the book’s arrival, we’re putting Lynn Margulis: The Life and Legacy of a Scientific Rebel on sale this week for 25% off.

Sagan remembered his mother in an “evolutionary eulogy”, adapted from what he told his children after Margulis’s passing.

Your grandmother was so smart, talked so fast, and about so many subjects that hardly anybody—maybe even not she herself—could always understand everything she said.

She said: “Evolution is no linear family tree, but change in the single multidimensional being that has grown to cover the entire surface of Earth. ”

She said: “The idea that we are ‘stewards of the earth’ is another symptom of human arrogance. Imagine yourself with the task of overseeing your body’s physical processes. Do you understand the way it works well enough to keep all its systems in operation? Can you make your kidneys function? . . . Are you conscious of the blood flow through your arteries? . . . We are unconscious of most of our body’s processes, thank goodness, because we’d screw it up if we weren’t. The human body is so complex, with so many parts. . . The idea that we are consciously caretaking such a large and mysterious system is ludicrous.”

Read the entire essay at Seven Pillars House of Wisdom.

Lynn Margulis touched the lives of many scientists and other thinkers, many of whom contributed essays to the book. James Lovelock, who first articulated the hypothesis that the Earth’s many interconnected biotic systems essentially behave as a unified organism (what came to be known as the Gaia Theory), write in the excerpt below about first meeting Margulis.

Lynn Margulis: Essay by James Lovelock