Articles by Elizabeth Sawin
Elizabeth Sawin is a mother, biologist, and systems analyst. A member of Cobb Hill Cohousing, she lives on an organic farm in Hartland, Vt. She works at the Sustainability Institute, a think-do tank founded by Donella Meadows.
All Articles
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Price tags don’t tell the full story
I have a young friend who, I think, will never eat another banana without thinking a great deal about its history. Going bananas. On a trip to Belize, Hannah and other home-schooled teenagers saw monkeys, the rainforest, and Mayan villages. But the memory that seems to stand out most vividly is of a banana plantation. […]
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Taking on the erosive cycle of contemporary politics
Every day I try to protect my children from problems I didn’t create and cannot solve alone. I spread cream on their skin to shield them from the ultraviolet radiation that sneaks through our thinning ozone layer. I try to feed them food free of pesticides and hormones, but I know their bodies are exposed […]
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Humans are gobbling up too much of the sun’s energy
The energy of the sun, captured by plants and passed on to animals, powers everything in our world — dolphins leaping out of the ocean, geese moving across the sky, people stirring their morning oatmeal. Set in our ways. Photo: Art Wolfe, Inc. This truth contains beautiful poetry: It teaches us that in our children’s […]
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Now that's a reason to be jolly
This holiday season, we’re bombing Afghanistan, and perhaps contributing to mass starvation there. We stand apart from the rest of the world on climate change, ignoring the melting ice at the North Pole and rising global temperatures. As if the killing and bombing and starving weren’t bad enough, we’re not just at war with other […]
