Fwd: My family’s mutiny against the turkey

[Loretta Lohman]

Plus, contemplating my niece’s solar-powered future.

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Dear reader,

This year, I’m thankful that my family members and I have admitted to each other that we don’t want to eat a turkey for Thanksgiving. Instead, we’re skipping straight to the good part: pie. So instead of roasting a bird until it's thoroughly dried out, we're baking a potluck dessert buffet. The plan is to play Bananagrams and eat sugar until we feel sick.

I’m also thankful for my 10-week-old niece, who resembles me in important ways: She’s affectionate with her loved ones. She has the long fingers of a musician. And she’s extremely food-motivated.

As I get to know her, I keep thinking about this line from an article by Jeff Masters: “the earliest the climate might stabilize is in the mid-2070s.”

My niece has an excellent shot at living into the 2070s and beyond. I like to daydream about a future in which we've done it – we've stabilized the climate. Imagine the 2070s with me: My niece's hair has gone gray, gas stations are relics – as rare as pay phones are today – and solar panels are as common as birds in the sky.

Yes, she and the others of her generation have endured countless wildfires, floods, and heat waves. But they have taken care of each other as best they could. And now, finally, they can gaze into a future in which climate change is no longer an ever-worsening threat to everything they love. Instead, they can carry on with the normal business of being human: making art, bickering about stupid things, trying new food, loving their children.

The work we’re doing in the 2020s to create this future: It’s for you, babe.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!

– Sara Peach, Editor-in-Chief

Your Thanksgiving guide

A few Thanksgiving- and family-related favorites from over the years:

Nineteenth-century wisdom helps a grandmother find hope

As a Chicago teen in the 1960s, Susan Goldberg perfected the art of rolling her eyes at her mother, who seemed stuck in 19th-century ways. Her friends’ families were enjoying the conveniences of modern living, such as buying soap from the grocery store. But Susan’s mom, Margaret, was still making soap at home out of rendered pork fat.

To Susan, her mom’s penchant for reusing every bit of plastic or fabric that came through the door seemed out of step with the new world of disposable plastic and single-use consumer goods. But Margaret was just carrying on the homemaking skills she’d learned from her own mom, Susan’s grandmother, Marie.

Born in Iowa in 1887, Marie grew up in a time when few could have foreseen the existential crisis that burning fossil fuels would cause – yet concentrations of carbon pollution in the atmosphere had already begun to slowly creep up.

Back then, what’s now called “living sustainably” was really just “living.” Marie took care of her home the way many people did – growing and preserving food from her garden, darning socks instead of buying new ones, and collecting rainwater to do laundry.

“My uncle would always bring my grandma whole-wheat flour in 50-pound flour sacks,” Susan Goldberg said. “She baked the most amazing breads, pies, cakes, cookies – everything – almost every day in her kitchen with natural flour. And then she’d use the fabric sacks the flour came in to make tons of quilts, clothes, aprons – anything you could think of out of this fabric, so it was constantly recycled into something useful.”

As Susan grew into early adulthood, she found that she loved the feeling of turning an old curtain into a beautiful new dress or reusing business envelopes to write letters to her aunt. She dropped the eye-rolling and embraced her mom and grandma’s thrifty sensibilities.

And when she became a mother herself, she taught her own kids simpler ways of living. ... Read on.

🎙️Climate change poses new problems for Massachusetts cranberry farmers

Warmer temperatures and more periods of drought are making it increasingly difficult to grow and harvest the iconic crop.

Climate change and food prices

An analysis of how extreme weather is related to spikes in food prices, from our friends at Climate Central.

🎙️Delicious ways to reduce food waste this Thanksgiving

You can put potato skins, turkey bones, and more to good use.

🎙️Are sweet potatoes a climate-resilient crop of the future?

They thrive in hot temperatures, within limits.

🎙️The lasting influence of the Tofurky

The tofu-based roast debuted a quarter century ago.

‘My sister says global warming is a lie. How do I talk to her?’

Advice on connecting with family members.

How to talk about climate change: Ask questions

This simple strategy will help you start low-conflict conversations about the planet’s gnarliest problem.

Help Americans hear the truth about climate change

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Will you make a gift today to support the truth?

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What is a family in a time of climate change?

Insights from couples therapist Orna Guralnik:

What is a family? - YouTube

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