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THE TELECOMMUTING WRITER

Margaret Atwood

The novels of Canada’s most famous literary talent often paint a dire portrait of the planet years in the future and maimed beyond recognition. Margaret Atwood doesn’t have it in for the environment. Her “speculative fiction” genre novels come out of a love for the environment and serve as a warning to change our ways. By reducing her own travels, carbon-offsetting when she can and using telecommuting tools, Margaret lives that lesson daily.

THE MOMENT: “He [my father] was a forest entomologist. They were avid gardeners all their lives, they had a city garden and a country garden. They grew a lot of vegetables. I remember in the Depression and the war, a lot of people grew a lot of vegetables.”THE MISSION: “I carbon offset. But there are mixed views about that. But again, the travel is actually quite small. If you carbon offset and also do extra insulation on your house, you’re probably a bit ahead of the game.”THE HABIT: “If you take a small child, and I mean under two, out into nature, you will see instant interaction. They’re much less bored when they’re outside. And plastic gizmos are really no substitute unless you bring a child up entirely surrounded by plastic gizmos and they don’t have any chance to turn on their epigenetic biophila switch. Just as if you bring a child up completely isolated from language, they won’t be able to talk because it goes by developmental stages. So the biophilia switch is turned on early in life, or it’s not. Maybe you have a mommy who says, ‘Eww, dirty. Don’t touch that. Come inside it’s safer there.’ Maybe you have that, and get really scared of being outside. But that’s not a natural thing for people. It’s much more natural for them to be comfortable outside.”

MIDDLE: GRAEME GIBSON, BOTTOM: GRAEME GIBSON, NEXT PAGE: GEORGE WHITESIDE

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Living Me To We | Morning

“People talk about the environment as if it’s something separate from them. But actually, you are a part of the environment.”

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Morning | Living Me To We