Regardless of your time zone, closet GOP affiliation, feelings toward Al Gore, aversion to science or secret desire to live in a modern-day Water World, I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow to catch The Climate Reality Project‘s “24 Hours of Reality.”
What is it?
24 Presenters. 24 Time Zones. 13 Languages. 1 Message. 24 Hours of Reality is a worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. It will consist of a new multimedia presentation created by Al Gore and delivered once per hour for 24 hours, representing every time zone around the globe. Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate. We will offer a round-the-clock, round-the-globe snapshot of the climate crisis in real time. The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality.
Now, I don’t expect you to run out and purchase a copy of “An Inconvenient Truth” (yes, there were a few errors in it) or begin buying carbon offsets for your daily commute. Just spread the word, tune in and perhaps learn a little something. Or simply make a post about it to piss off your Palin-loving, “I-know-climate-change-is-a-hoax-beause-it-snowed-this-year” Facebook friends. We all know it’s fun to read their comebacks — especially the ones that cite Glenn Beck as a legitimate source.
What’s that? You’ve already seen “An Inconvenient Truth”? Why should you watch? Well, word on the street is that Gore has some new slides in his PowerPoint presentation. *Commence jumping up and down.*
Still not convinced? Tweet me and we’ll turn it into a drinking game*. #climaterealityshot For every new slide you identify, that’s a shot! If you’re under 21, well, you’re just going to have to watch for the pure fun of it. After all, climate change is cool…well, actually it’s kind of hot at times…er…you know what I mean.
*I’ll be joining you in spirit — not spirits. Wednesday is a workday!
At 11:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001, I sat down in my Western European history class. I was one of a handful of freshmen in the class and one of the few students to show up that day. I’d torn my eyes away from the nonstop news coverage and gone to Gambrell Hall out of some mixture of good-student obligation and a loss for anything else to do besides watch my country bleed on live television.
I took my assigned seat in the middle of the auditorium, roughly 12 rows back. The large screen at the front of the room was displaying CNN’s live coverage; my professor stood in front of it, the orderliness of the class before him juxtaposed with the chaos behind. He explained that today we’d put our lesson on the French Revolution on hold to discuss the tragedy unfolding before us in real time.
As he spoke, the tall, red-haired upperclassmen assigned to the seat to my right sat down, pulling off his headphones. He was usually late, but always friendly and quick to inject a witty comment into the lecture. But today he was silent, his eyes wide as he stared at the smoldering New York skyline screen before him.
“What’s going on?”
I wanted to ask how he could’ve missed this. Had he just woken up, put on his headphones and run straight to class? Had he not seen the delivery trucks parked in the middle of campus, doors thrown open, radios blaring? Had he not heard the inescapable nervous chatter that filled the hallways? Had he not seen his red-eyed classmates wandering out of the student union?
“Planes flew into the World Trade Center,” I replied. Surely he knew.
“What? What part of the Trade Center?”
“Both the towers — they collapsed. They’re gone.”
He started to stand up and then seemed to change his mind, sitting back down in his seat. “My parents work there,” he finally whispered. A moment later he stood up and he left.
That’s my most vivid memory of 9/11.
As everyone who talks about that day will say, it started out like any other day. I woke up at what I thought was an ungodly hour, showered, threw on clothes and grabbed a granola bar to munch on while I rushed to my 8:00 class. I was on my way to University 101, a seminar for freshman transitioning to campus life. I was 18 and a print journalism major at the University of South Carolina.
I couldn’t tell you what we discussed in class that day — my mind was wandering, undoubtedly calculating how much of a nap I could get in before my history class — but I remember the professor from next door bursting into our classroom and announcing that the World Trade Center had been bombed. At these words, our professor dismissed us early, but most of the students and I lingered outside the next-door classroom, watching the small TV suspended in the corner.
Smoke was billowing from the North Tower, debris was blowing in the wind, and we couldn’t look away. Reports were coming in that a plane had hit the WTC — we weren’t bombed — but this didn’t make sense. How could a plane accidentally run into a building? I was about to walk back to my dorm, figuring I could turn the TV on there, when the newscaster’s voice became frantic, and as we all watched a plane hit the second tower.
It wasn’t an accident.
Some of my classmates were crying, others were hurriedly dialing cell phones — waking up their roommates, calling their parents, checking up on friends and family in New York. I hurried back to Columbia Hall, and as I passed students, it was easy to tell which ones know and which ones were still blissfully unaware. But they wouldn’t be for long. Maintenance and delivery trucks parked outside the Moore School of Business had left their doors open and radios on, and the lobby of my dorm had its tiny TV blaring. For the first time since I’d moved into the building a few weeks ago, the girl working the front desk didn’t greet me with an obligatory “good morning.”
When I reached my dorm room, my roommate, Stefanie, was sitting up in bed, staring wide-eyed at the television. Her mom had called and woken her. We watched in silent horror as the towers burned, rubble tumbling from the building, and then we both gasped — we were almost sick — as we realized that what we’d mistaken for falling debris were actually human bodies. The heat and the smoke were too much to bear, so people were throwing themselves out of the windows and plummeting to their deaths.
I’ll never be able to erase that image from my mind.
Within minutes reports were coming in that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and it’s at that moment that I realized it wasn’t over. It wasn’t just an attack on New York — it was an attack on America — and we didn’t know who was going to be hit next.
Stacey Armstrong, me, Stefanie Parker and a friend a month later in October 2001
Sure, the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., is an unlikely target for a terrorist attack, but that didn’t make us any less fearful. The year 2001 was pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter, pre-smartphone — I didn’t even have a cellphone — but we had Internet. My roommate and I were reading local news reports, which were being updated every few minutes, and we were chatting with friends and classmates on AIM.
“Lindsey said the Statehouse and government buildings are being evacuated, and that’s just two blocks from here!” (This was true.)
“Katie says the police are welding manholes shut all over the city! Why would they do that?” (This was true.)
“My uncle says the planes are probably heading to Shaw Air Force Base. It’s one of the largest bases in the country and it’s just 30 miles away!” (This was never proved to be true.)
So, yes, we were safely in South Carolina’s capital city, but we were terrified. Our state leaders were leaving, the city felt it necessary to weld our manholes shut, and we didn’t know what we were supposed to do. Pack our bags and head home? Go to class? Watch the horror unfold on TV? We opted for the latter.
We saw the South Tower come crumbling down in a magnificently horrifying display. We heard screams of terror and people calling for friends and loved ones. At one point the scene was completely engulfed in thick black smoke, and we were taken back to the newsroom where a shaken news anchor looked back at us. He was used to fluff pieces, human-interest stories. Not this. When the camera came back on, New York City was unrecognizable. It was coated in ash and debris, people were covered in thick gray powder. They were running and bleeding and scared, but they were also pausing to give the fallen a hand; they were pulling together amid the nightmare.
Moments later the anchor said a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania and my stomach twisted. Seconds later he said it might have hit near Pittsburgh. I grabbed the phone and begin frantically dialing my brother’s number, but I couldn’t get through. The network was overloaded with everyone calling friends and family.
I continued to hit redial over and over and over again while reloading the CNN.com homepage, but it hadn’t even mentioned the Pennsylvania crash. Stefanie and I were both crying again.
United Airlines Flight 93
I called my mom at the hospital where she worked. She knew about New York and the Pentagon, but she hadn’t heard about Pennsylvania. She told me to calm down and that she was sure Jarrod was fine. But I could hear the fear in her voice.
For the next few minutes, I sat and watched the news unfold, waiting to hear something about the crash in Pennsylvania and hoping the next report would be a retraction. After all, the media had been making announcements — about bombs and more planes — and retracting them all day. Finally, they confirmed the crash was in Somerset County, which I’d never heard of. I hurriedly pulled up Mapquest and discovered that it’s 80 miles from Pittsburgh. I breathed a sigh or relief, knowing he was OK. Still, I needed to hear his voice so I kept calling my brother. None of my calls would go through.
I had the pleasure of attending the AJC Decatur Book Festival this weekend, meeting some of my favorite authors and taking away a little bit of writing advice and inspiration as well. I kicked off the festival in an amazing way by joining the lovely Vania Stoyanova and some of her YA author and book blogger friends for breakfast. It was fun matching Twitter photos with faces and recognizing writers from the back pages of their books — plus, the J. Christopher’s fruit cornucopia was delicious as usual.
Over the course of the festival, my friend China and I attended some panels, talked books with fellow YA lovers and tried not to go too fangirl when we spotted our favorite writers casually strolling the streets of Decatur. And here are some of the things I learned — from the experts. Some are things we’ve all heard before, but I know I can do with a little reminder now and then. And a signed book or two sure doesn’t hurt.
Tension is important … but so is kissing.
Beth Revis and Myra McEntire bantered throughout their talk on “Past and Future Loves,” with Beth repeatedly saying how she loves to kill off characters and “blow stuff up” while Myra argued that as a writer, she just wants to “get to the kissing.” But while Myra’s editor encouraged her to move back the kissing in “Hourglass,” increase the tension and leave the reader wanting the kiss just as badly as the protagonist, Beth’s editor said that “Across The Universe” was missing a little something and Beth joked that it needed more death and destruction. What did her editor want? More romance. More kissing.
The lesson here: Action, adventure, magic, intrigue and plot twists are just as important as the romance — even if it’s not the main storyline. And sometimes you just need to make the reader wait for it. After all, the anticipation and the build-up are so much better than the actual kiss.
There are many paths to publication.
Perhaps one of the most comforting (and slightly unnerving) things I learned was how different — and difficult — a novelist’s journey to publication can be. Take Beth Revis for example. She wrote 10 manuscripts over 10 years. The tenth one was finally published. Can you imagine dealing with that kind of rejection, but remaining so dedicated to your dream? Talk about earning it! Then I heard Jennifer Jabaley tell the story of her first novel: She was home with her newborn son and looking for something to do so she decided to write a book. Pretty soon she’d written “Lipstick Apology” and before she knew it, she had an agent and a published manuscript. Bubbly, peppy and adorably blonde, Jennifer joked that people probably compare her to Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde,” saying they must ask, “Do you think she woke up one morning and said, ‘I think I’ll write a book today’?”
Here’s what I’m going to take away from this: The first book could be the one. If so, that’s excellent. Rock on! However, the ninth, tenth or eleventh book could be the one. It might be a discouraging journey at times, but if you stick with it you’re going to get there.
Teens can fall madly and deeply in love…and it can last.
I had my share of boyfriends in high school, but I was never in love with any of them. Perhaps I bought into what my mother always said and didn’t believe that teenagers could fall in love. Perhaps my high school boyfriends were really nothing more than homecoming dates and an obligatory reply to the age-old question of “what was your first kiss like?” Regardless, I was struck by something Stephanie Perkins said. I’m paraphrasing here, but this is the gist of it: “Teens really can fall in love. I got married as a teenager — don’t tell your parents I said that — but I married my best friend and we just celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary.” And Beth Revis? She married her high school sweetheart, too.
If you’re writing YA, you’re not just writing lust or puppy love, you could be writing a true love story. Just don’t forget to blow some stuff up, too.
Sometimes you just can’t help but write from experience.
I have a lot of words under my belt — news articles, magazine features, blog posts, unfinished manuscripts, angst-ridden teen poetry that I really need to burn already, etc. — and it all has a little bit of me in it. It might be the way I phrase things, my overuse of the em dash or my tendency to use words I learned only for GRE test-taking purposes, but it’s definitely there. And it tends to creep into the fiction I write as well. Whether it’s putting a little bit of you into your protagonist, assigning a personal experience to a character or killing off a whole lot of people in your WIP when you’ve just had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, it’s there.
I know I’ve done it, I bet you’ve done it, and published novelists have too. Elizabeth Eulberg, Stephanie Perkins, Jennifer Jabaley and Terra McVoy all owned up to. We’re writers, it happens. Your art can easily become a reflection of you and your experiences, which can be both a blessing and a curse.
Don’t alienate your audience.
While I met some super duper, amazingly friendly, way-talented authors this weekend, I also met some who were…uh…not-so-amazing. (Yeah, that’s a nice way to phrase it.) You see, I heard people like Myra McEntire and Elizabeth Eulberg speak whose novels I’ve never read, but after hearing their insight and witnessing their personalities, I can’t wait to read their work. They love what they do and they love their fans — what more could a writer or reader want? And Stephanie Perkins and Beth Revis totally lived up to my author-crush expectations — they, too, are doing what they love and loving their audience for supporting them.
But I met other published authors this weekend (none of whom I’ve named in this post) — as well as book bloggers and aspiring novelists — who had a different sort of outlook. There was a holier-than-thou attitude that permeated our conversations. There were judgmental questions like, “Oh, you haven’t read my book? Well, why not?” and looks that clearly said, “You’re not a best-selling author? And you’re here why?” Not cool.
If you’re writing YA — or any genre for that matter — if you’re attending book festivals and interacting with fans, bloggers and aspiring novelists (you know, your very demographic), then at least convincingly feign interest in them or offer some sort of gratitude for their readership. Luckily, these people are few and far between — 99.9 percent of the writers I met were truly awesome people who were overjoyed that readers wanted to talk to them or have them sign a book. As for the others, guess what? You just lost a potential reader.
Overall, the festival was awesome, I have some freshly signed books on my shelves, and I was so inspired that I actually woke up this morning and added 3,000 words to the WIP I haven’t touched in a more than month. The only downside? I wasn’t lucky enough to acquire one of the 20 copies of “Lola And The Boy Next Door” that were briefly for sale. Unfortunately, a mere three to four people snatched up all of them. Oh, well. There’s always pre-ordering.
Photo: Terra McVoy, Elizabeth Eulberg, Stephanie Perkins and Jennifer Jabaley at “A Real Girl Conversation About Writing Real Girl Books”
A lot was happening in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend. We had Black Gay Pride, the SEC Kickoff Game, Drive Invasion, the AJC Decatur Book Festival and Dragon*Con. (Basically the city just brought together a whole lot of people with similar interests.)
I couldn’t resist the book festival, but the allure of grown men and women essentially celebrating Halloween for four days — and the opportunity to dress as a Harry Potter character — was also too much for me. Which is why I spent Saturday night at Dragon*Con.
Dressed as Tonks.
And it was…
amazing.
Naturally, I ran into Hagrid while I was there, and when I inquired about his very convincing Hagrid voice he informed that it was the product of too much Jack Daniel’s and a pack of Marlboros a day.
I must confess that I couldn’t have come up with the title of this post just a few days ago. On Saturday night we were invited to a party on “Alderaan” and the reference had to be explained to me. Don’t worry, though, I have actually seen Star Wars — unlike a certain someone who very kindly designed my “Weird Sisters” T-shirt. ♥
I decided to bake my mom a birthday cake on Friday before I made the trip to my hometown of Greenville, S.C., to visit her. Of course, now that I’m on a DIY kick and shun most processed food, I had to bake the cake myself. From scratch. And vegan.
My mom loves strawberry cake with cream cheese icing, so I decided to attempt it. Vegan cream cheese? No, not quite. While the actual cake is vegan, and while I used vegan butter for the icing, I did use real cream cheese. It’s my mother’s birthday cake after all. My very Southern mother who kindly quit throwing ham bones into the green beans and cooking casseroles with cream of chicken soup when I became a vegetarian 14 years ago.
So I scoured the web for a good strawberry cake recipe and ended up creating a recipe of my very own, which means I attempted to bake a cake from scratch for the very first time without any guarantee that my recipe would even work. Luckily, it did.
And it was delicious. I have dreams about this cake. I would actually sleep between warm layers of freshly baked vegan strawberry cake if I could! And I’m going to share this wonderful recipe with you.
Vegan strawberry cake
Ingredients
3 cups self-rising flour
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups pureed organic strawberries, strained*
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Egg replacer equivalent of 4 large eggs, beaten
*red or pink food coloring
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray three 8-by-2-inch round cake pans
2. Stir together flour, sugar, oil, pureed strawberries, vanilla and eggs replacer
3. Divide batter evenly among oiled pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes, rotating the pans periodically to ensure they bake evenly. A toothpick should come out clean when inserted into the middle of the cakes, and the top should spring back when gently pressed.
4. Let cakes cool and then flip them upside down, remove pans, and allow them to cool on the other side.
5. Prepare the frosting and ice cake layers.
* Strawberry cakes often call for strawberry gelatin, which gives the cake a pinkish color; however, gelatin isn’t vegan. Instead, you can add a few drops of red or pink food coloring to give your cake a brighter pink color.
1. Combine cream cheese, butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and beat until smooth. Beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth.
2. Add a little bit of soy milk if you want thinner icing and beat again.
When I first considered purchasing a domain name — way before I even knew what I’d do with it — I naturally decided to get lauramoss.com. The only problem was another Laura Moss already had it, some photographer. So I dropped in my middle initial, saw the domain was available and snatched it up.
Years later I joined Twitter and thought I’d give it another shot. Surely the still-life photographer Laura Moss hadn’t scooped that user name up! But she had…or some Laura Moss had, perhaps the soap opera actress. Regardless, it’s one who clearly has no interest in sharing her life in 140 characters.
So I joined Twitter with my old AOL handle — we’re talking back in the day when AOL required a floppy disk and a dial-up connection — and tweeted a few times. However, my user name was “Arual” followed by some random string of numbers. Yes, it was my name backwards. At some point I realized this was borderline ridiculous — I was tweeting, not sending emoticons to my old AOL BFF CheeryHaze1992.
So I changed my Twitter name to my actual name, dropped some difficult-to-type underscores between letters and gave it a go. Luckily, I eventually had the sense to lose the numerous underscores and just use “J,” my middle initial, which also happened to be my email address and my blog domain. So simple. So obvious. So why the hell did it take me so long to catch on? There’s really no excuse.
You see, I got my master’s degree in journalism and integrated marketing communications, and if you take only one thing from an IMC class, it’s this: Be consistent. You have to be consistent in your branding and the message you’re trying to communicate. This why successful brands use the same logos, colors, fonts, etc. That’s why when you see a Coke ad, you immediately know it’s a Coke ad. That’s one reason why Coke has some of the highest brand recognition — and brand equity — in the world.
What’s the lesson here?
1. Use your name — or the name you want to be recognized by, write under, etc. — on social media. You may not buy into the whole “you as a brand” idea that so many marketers, academics and so-called social media experts are pushing down your throat. That’s fine. But if you want to build a brand — as a writer, designer or knitter of cat sweaters — then use the name you’re going to use on your novel, website or sweater tag.
I decided to pull this post out of the draft folder when I saw that Kristen Lamb had recently written on the subject. She totally says it better than I, so check out her post — especially if you’re a writer! Here’s the gist of what she says: “There is only one acceptable handle for a writer who seeks to use social media to build a platform, and that is the name that will be printed on the front of your books. Period.”
Can you imagine if I’d clung to “Arual”? Ugh. “Yes, that’s right. I only write books for dyslexic YA readers. It’s a very niche market, but I’ve sure got it cornered!”
2. Be consistent. This doesn’t just apply to having your Twitter handle, blog URL, email and MySpace name all consistently be “CatKnit4U.” It means that if your blog header features your business logo and a tabby in a turtleneck, then your Twitter background probably shouldn’t be a photo of a sunset or a dog in a raincoat. It’s not about looking professional — although if you’re running a business, it’s something to consider — it’s about consistently communicating your brand.
I don’t know what a dragon driving VW bus that has “Pancakes $1″ painted on it communicates about me as a brand. Probably a bunch of nonsense. But I use it here, on Twitter and on Tumblr — plus I have it tattooed across my chest. (I might be lying about that last one, but as I only post topless photos of myself on very special occasions, it will probably forever remain a mystery.)
I have no intention of one day displaying this illustration across the cover of a book, so maybe it’s doing more harm than good. But Cody designed it for me years ago, it’s awesome, and I LOVE it! And, hey, at least I’m being consistently weird, right?
Basically, the Campaign is a way to link those of us in the writing community together with the aim of helping to build our online platforms. The Campaigners are all bloggers in a similar position, who genuinely want to pay it forward, make connections and friends within the writing community, and help build each others’ online platforms while at the same time building theirs.
I’m looking forward to meeting all of the third round’s participants, checking out their blogs and learning about their writing journeys. (And I’d like to extend a special welcome to my fellow YA dystopian writers!)
For those of you I don’t know, you can probably already tell that I don’t blog about just writing. I’m more than just a writer and so I post about a variety of things in addition to my writing: environmental issues, cats, recipes, cats, trips I’ve taken, cats, etc.
I write from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. for my full-time job and then often come home to knock out some words on the WIP, so from time to time I like to write about things that aren’t, well, writing. So feel free to skip posts about my cats, my aversion to plastic and my obsession with men dressed as whooping cranes, if you wish!
If you do read those non-writing posts, don’t hesitate to leave comments like, “Laura, why are you posting more photos of your cats when you should be working on your WIP? If you’re going to be a creepy cat lately, you might as well be a published creepy cat lady.” (I won’t be offended — I need that kind of encouragement.)
I’ve been on a Moukisac-giving spree lately.* If you recently had a birthday or anniversary, you likely received an “eco-friendly shopping bag system” and feigned excitement and appreciation for the gift. (Unless you’re my sister-in-law — in which case I had to ship you Moukisacs three months prior to your birthday so you wouldn’t buy your own and steal my only gift idea.)
If you’re unaware how awesome — and fun to pronounce — Moukisacs are, let me bombard you with more information than you actually want. They’re reusable bags and produce/bulk bags that wrap up into this nifty little bag that you can even wear as a purse or fannypack if you so desire. Please, please please, do not desire the latter.
How do I love these so much? Let me count the ways… (Elizabeth Barrett Browning is turning in her grave right now.)
Having my reusable bag and produce bags together means I never arrive at the store or farmer’s market and realize that I’ve left one or the other at home. However, I have had those times where I leave both at home. Perhaps if I wore mine as a fannypack I could avoid this problem…
Not only can I throw broccoli, tomatoes and apples in there, but I can also purchase bulk items like rice and lentils! Isn’t it every girl’s dreams to have a bag that holds both fruit and lentils?
You can throw them in the washing machine!
They make a statement. People don’t notice the lack of plastic packaging and processed foods in your cart, but they do notice your bags of oats and cucumbers in reusable produce bags. I’m often asked where I got them and then I get to be all, “OMG! Moukisacs are super neat and have drawstrings and you can put them in the washing machine. And look: My lentils are in here!” *shakes bag vigorously* (Yeaahh…it can be a little overwhelming to talk Moukisacs with me at the store.)
You can get Moukisacs in a variety of colours. That’s right: colors with a “u!” This mostly excites me because I feel like I’m purchasing magical reusable bags from DiagonAlley.com instead of Moukisac.com. You see, in my mind, anything in British English is automatically Harry Potter-related. (I admit, these bags aren’t local — they’re made in Vancouver — but I think their awesomeness outweighs the lack of localness.)
They’re entertaining. I was shopping at Kroger recently and a large, loud woman and her leopard-print-jumpsuit-wearing friend saw my bags and howled with laughter. They told me the bags were “hilarious.” I don’t know about you, but if I can bring a smile to someone’s face and do something nice for the planet, I consider the day a success.
(No, I’m not endorsed by Moukisacs, but I would make an excellent — albeit, overly enthusiastic — spokeswoman.)
*Consider this post fair warning if you plan to invite me to your housewarming, bridal shower or child’s birthday party. I read somewhere that little kids love reusable bags.
I was recently asked how my passion for all things green and my job at an environmental website mesh with some of my other interests — namely, my YA lit addiction and Harry Potter obsession. That got me thinking, and you know what? The world of Harry Potter is actually pretty green.
Let me explain. (Oh, I’ve really outnerded myself this time.)
Transportation
The Hogwarts Express: The train that transports students to Hogwarts was built in 1936 and powered by a steam engine, according to Harry Potter Wikia; however, by the 1990s it was running exclusively on magic. While the Hogwarts Express is cinematically depicted with smoke billowing from it, this is clearly just a bit of Hollywood embellishment. (Although, steam engines have inspired alternative fuel sources.)
Seeing as magic releases no detectable carbon emissions or any other greenhouse gases, this undoubtedly one mean green “steam” engine. (Prior to 1936, students arrived at the school “in any manner they pleased” — with the exception of apparating onto school grounds, of course. Yes, I’ve read “Hogwarts, A History.”)
Broomsticks: This popular mode of wizard transportation is also emissions-free, and unlike an emissions-free electric car that recharges on a fossil fuel-dominated power grid, you don’t even have to plug it in — it’s powered completely by magic.
On the other hand, brooms — like so many other consumer goods — are made from wood. It’s probably safe to assume that not all broom-makers would use locally sourced, Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood, but for the sake of argument, let’s take a look at the most coveted of wizard brooms, the Firebolt. This broomstick boasts an ash handle and a tail of birch twigs, and both ash and birch can be found in the UK and are not considered threatened woods, according to Friends of the Earth. I’d say that’s one sustainable flying broomstick!
The Floo Network and flying cars
As China pointed out in the comments, the Floo Network is another low-emissions form of transport. While even small fires do contribute to air pollution, that’s nothing compared to actually driving to Surrey from Ottery St. Catchpole. But I must commend Arthur Weasley for his purchase of the 1959 Ford Anglia 105E because it actually gets 41.2 miles per imperial gallon. Not bad at all for a flying family car!
Food
We’re never told exactly where wizards get their food, but surely there’s a market or grocery store nestled somewhere in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade — after all, wizards can’t exactly eat what the local apothecary is selling. Although lacewing flies are edible, I think we can all agree those are better left to polyjuice potion.
Now, while I can’t argue that all wizard food is organic, locally sourced and free of excessive packaging, I can attest that some of it is. For example, both The Burrow and Hogwarts have gardens and the occasional chicken running around. Fresh vegetables and free-range eggs, anyone? And while eating meat is hardly an environmentally conscious choice, I think it’s safe to say that all the dead fowl hanging in Hagrid’s hut weren’t shipped from a factory farm.
And remember those pumpkins Hagrid grows in “The Prisoner of Azkaban?” He doesn’t spray them with pesticides or inject them full of growth hormones; he simply uses an engorgement charm to help them “swell to the size of garden sheds.” Those aren’t just exceptionally large pumpkins — they’re exceptionally large organic pumpkins. Not even Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, would dare feed her precious plants chemically enhanced fertilizer. She keeps it all natural with dragon dung, her “preferred type of fertilizer,” according to “The Goblet of Fire.”
While it would be planet-friendly to simply conjure food from thin air and skip any and all chemicals, pesticides, carbon miles, etc., wizards just can’t do that. After all, as Hermione reminds us in “The Deathly Halllows,” food is one of the five exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration.
Wands
As all Potter fans know, a wand contains a magical core — typically a phoenix feather, unicorn hair, dragon heartstring, veela hair or threstral tail hair. While it’s conceivable that veela could be kept in miniscule pens much like modern-day calves and that phoenixes could be shoved into tiny cages much like egg-laying hens or be euthanized for their feathers (you know, like we’re doing in the name of fashionable hair), a close reading of the text lends itself to the theory that these magical creatures are treated with respect and never harmed for wand-making.
In “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” Ollivander tells Harry, “It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other.” He did not say, “It so happens that when I attempted to wrench feathers from that phoenix in its tiny cage, I managed to get another feather — just one other.” Although unicorns are hard to catch, Professor Grubbly-Plank managed it just fine, but there’s no need to pluck hair from its mane or tail when you happen open it easily enough. As Hagrid says, it “gets pulled out of their tails, they catch it on branches an’ stuff in the forest.” And surely an “‘air from ze ‘ead of a veela” would be nearly impossible to acquire against the veela’s will. They’ve got some nasty tempers, am I right?
As for the wood, we can draw a similar conclusion to that we did with broomstick manufacturing. While it’s possible that Ollivander is using sustainable FSC-certified wood, there’s just no way to know. But it would be quite unmagical for him to be contributing to deforestation, and thankfully the wand shop is not on Asia Pulp & Paper‘s client list.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
The Weasleys may not have two knuts to rub together at times, but on the bright side, it enables them to live a much greener lifestyle. They buy used books and secondhand robes, and Mrs. Weasley darns socks and knits sweaters. The Weasley children may long for new broomsticks and more fashionable dress robes, but it’s commendable that the family isn’t widely participating in a throwaway culture of mass production and consumption. All the Weasley’s need is a bit of rebranding: Their robes aren’t secondhand — they’re vintage. That furniture isn’t old; it’s antique. They could buy expensive clothes at muggle shops, but DIY is so in right now. Knitting is trendy, you guys! Now let’s go yarn bomb Knockturn Alley!
Although I can’t quite compare the wizarding world’s use of resources to say, Native Americans’ use of every part of the buffalo, I will argue that wizards seem to be fairly thorough when it comes to using every part of an animal. You don’t just slay a dragon for its hide, make some gloves and boots, and then send the rest of its carcass to the local magical landfill. Oh, no. There’s heartstring for wands, liver for blast-ended skrewt feed and teeth for “horrible great fang” jewelry — not to mention all those potion-making ingredients. And then a certain someone came along and discovered the 12 uses of dragon’s blood. You see? Dumblebore is all about sustainability!
Causes for (green) concern
Animal welfare issues: I’d be a terrible witch because I would undoubtedly be looking for TVP replacements for bat spleens and vegan alternatives to eye of newt, and I’d be throwing around “relashio” curses in attempts to save that poor abused dragon from Gringott’s. Yes, these things are necessary for potion-making and vault security, but that doesn’t mean it’s morally or environmentally justifiable. On the bright side, I’m sure the Hogwarts house elves would be only too happy to cook me up some locally sourced vegan meals — they’re exceptionally helpful like that. (Then again, as a card-carrying member of S.P.E.W., I might have some reservations about that.)
Water usage: Not surprisingly, the books never address magical water treatment methods — they have better stories to tell — but we do know a little bit about the plumbing at Hogwarts. For instance, we know that the pipes are large enough to easily accommodate a basilisk, which does seem a bit absurd from an architectural standpoint. (That’s what happens when you let a Slytherin handle the plumbing.) We know that the prefect’s bathroom features a “swimming-pool-sized bathtub,” which is a little much, am I right? Save water, bathe with a friend, Harry! (Moaning Myrtle doesn’t count.) But perhaps this excessive use of one-time water usage is offset by the fact that Hogwarts students rarely seem to bathe. While bathrooms are referenced numerous times in the books, I don’t recall anyone toting around towel caddies or slipping on their shower shoes. Hey, I’m not judging — Hogwarts is located in a cold climate, and many people believe the daily shower is no longer necessary in modern society. The students are just doing their part to conserve water, and I can respect that.
But what’s most concerning about the Hogwarts water situation is that the sewage apparently flows directly into the lake, as illustrated by Moaning Myrtle’s trips to the lake whenever “someone flushes [her] toilet when [she's] not expecting it.” That’s hardly sanitary — there’s a giant squid, merpeople and grindylows trying to live down there! Ugh. That’s a serious health code violation, which means that the second task of the Triwizard Tournament was clearly a danger to public health.
Waste: Speaking of sanitation issues, where does all the Hogwarts trash go? The used parchment, the half-eaten treacle tart, the slimy things that Snape doesn’t pickle in a jar? Are the house elves composting? Do red wigglers in the wizarding world have magical digestion capabilities? Are there sanitation wizards performing vanishing spells? Is the trash buried, burned or dumped in the wizarding landfill alongside Voldemort’s body? There’s just no way to know! But I bet it’s simply magicked away — unless we’ve run into another exception to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration. Perhaps Pottermore will shine some light on this puzzling waste issue.
While I could go on at length about the green and not-so-green aspects of modern magical life, I’ll call it a day for now. Did I miss something? Do you have pressing questions about recycled parchment or hippogriff welfare? Let me know and I’ll try to address it.
Regardless of your time zone, closet GOP affiliation, feelings toward Al Gore, aversion to science or secret desire to live in a modern-day Water World, I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow to catch The Climate Reality Project‘s “24 Hours of Reality.”
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