iEatGreen - 08/03/11

My guest today is Bill McKibben, the author of several books on the environment, including The End of Nature and Eaarth. He is also the founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. Time Magazine called him 'the planet's best green journalist' and the Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was 'probably the country's most important environmentalist. Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, he holds honorary degrees from a dozen colleges, including the Universities of Massachusetts and Maine, the State University of New York, and Whittier and Colgate Colleges. Immediately after college he joined the New Yorker magazine as a staff writer, and wrote much of the "Talk of the Town" column from 1982 to early 1987. Twenty years ago, Bill wrote his first book, The End of Nature, which offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. It is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has been printed in more than 20 languages. Those warnings went mostly unheeded. Now, in his latest book, Eaarth, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth. Beginning in January 2007 he founded stepitup07.org to demand that Congress enact curbs on carbon emissions that would cut global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. With six college students, he organized 1,400 global warming demonstrations across all 50 states of America on April 14, 2007. Step It Up 2007 has been described as the largest day of protest about climate change in the nation's history. Bill is a frequent contributor to various magazines and has been awarded the Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowships, and won the Lannan Prize for nonfiction writing in 2000. He has honorary degrees from Green Mountain College, Unity College, Lebanon Valley College and Sterling College. Bill currently resides with his wife, writer Sue Halpern, and his daughter, Sophie, in Ripton, Vermont. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College. This week's recipe. Gazpacho - Cold Vegetable Soup 1 Cucunmber 1 Green Pepper 1 Red Pepper 1 Vidalia Onion 3 Tbs Olive Oil ½ jalapeño pepper 2 t. salt 1 Large Can Fire Roasted Tomatoes 2-4 Tbs Fresh Dill - Chopped 2-4 Tbs Fresh Parsley - Chopped Juice from 1 Lemon Fresh Pepper to taste Org. Tomato Juice - optional Pulse the first 7 ingredients in a food processor until well blended. Add the can of fire roasted tomatoes and continue to pulse. Add the dill and parsley to taste. Add the fresh squeezed lemon and pepper to taste. Add organic tomato juice or organic tomatoes if you would like it thinner.