Vermont Environmental Consortium

April 18, 2007
Chelsea Green's How-to Manuals for Planet Earth
by
Daniel Hecht

Ironically, I didn’t really discover one of Vermont’s treasures until I visited a bookstore in Portland, Oregon. I had heard of Chelsea Green Publishing and had lived forty minutes’ drive from their main office for two decades, yet I’d never read one of their books.

But as I browsed the shelves at Powell’s Books, my eyes were snagged by a series of lovely covers and intriguing titles, and on closer inspection I discovered that the books came from right here in Vermont.

Chelsea Green’s story is a classic, only-in-Vermont saga. From its humble beginnings in 1984 as a small town cottage industry, the house has established itself as the pre-eminent publisher of books on sustainable living.

When Margo and Ian Baldwin moved from Brooklyn to Vershire in the early 1980’s, they arrived with backgrounds in, respectively, human biology and psychotherapy. Their decision to start publishing books from their house in Chelsea was “fairly whimsical,” Margo says: “We were just trying to figure out how to make a living in Vermont and to do something we were passionate about.”

Their first publications were widely varied -- fiction and non-fiction, diverse subjects and styles -- but eventually they realized they had to specialize or go under. Though both Margo and Ian were long-time environmentalists, it wasn’t until the early ‘90s that they decided to focus on environmental issues and solutions.

The shift helped, but even then Chelsea Green was a hit and miss, pinch-penny operation, largely because they were ahead of the curve of environmental awareness. But they stuck with an old-fashioned view of publishing -- that it should derive from an individual passion, that it’s okay to publish from your home because it is and ought to be a family-based, household art (publishing companies are still called “houses”) -- and made their company grow.

In fact, Chelsea Green has doubled its sales in the last three years. Incredibly, it has done so in an era when the publishing industry is increasingly pessimistic, when books are being eclipsed by electronic media.

Today, Chelsea Green’s slogan concisely states their focus as “the politics and practice of sustainable living.” A survey of their 400 titles reveals a concern with sustainability from perspectives that are at once technological, philosophical, personal, and political.

If you’re interested in renewable energy, Paul Gipe’s Wind Power is the best treatment of the subject that I know of; Greg Pahl’s Biodiesel is so informative that the copy I displayed at a recent international environmental conference was stolen by an enthusiastic attendee. Solar electricity is thoroughly covered in Practical Photovoltaics and The Solar House; for an overview of all renewable energy technologies, The Citizen Powered Energy Handbook is terrific.

The subject of green buildings is well represented. Many are how-to books on building with straw bales, cob, and rammed earth, or constructing environmentally-friendly houses using conventional materials (Making Better Concrete: Using Fly Ash for Higher Quality, Eco-Friendly Houses). But the catalogue goes deeper, exploring practice and spirit, person and planet, in books like The Natural House, The Handsculpted House, and The New Ecological Home.

Another big section of the list is devoted to food, again coming at the topic with an outlook that is distinctly Chelsea Green’s. The Contrary Farmer, This Organic Life, Wild Fermentation, The Herbalist’s Way, books on beekeeping, artisinal cheese, food preservation: They not only offer useful information, they put food growing in a political, economic, and philosophical context. Farms, food, and freedom, can’t have one ‘thout t’other.

You might think of these books as how-to manuals for planet Earth.

The political titles have a definite left-leaning slant. Even these, though, transcend stereotypes and hew to a moral scheme that combines progressive politics with a deep respect for traditional values and libertarian principles. Incorrigibly pro-democracy and community-oriented, the books still emphasize a solutions-oriented, get-it-done approach: Edens Lost and Found: How Ordinary Citizens are Restoring Our Great American Cities; The Company We Keep: Reinventing Small Business for People, Community, and Place.

Recently, the company has begun a major effort to embrace greener business practices. It’s not easy in a waste-intensive industry, but as their catalogue says, “The future is green. (It’s the new fiscal black.)” Using recycled paper is a start; more important is challenging the long-standing industry practice of discarding or pulping millions of unsold books annually. Adopting new sales and return policies, advocating for industry changes, Chelsea Green hopes to minimize this waste of forest and of energy.

Certainly, Chelsea Green’s success has been served by a historical moment in which, suddenly, a lot of people recognize the importance of these subjects. But it’s also a matter of attitude. I think it’s another demonstration of the value of that distinctly Vermont approach – doing things our own way, hanging tough, making do, telling it as we see it, and never being afraid to put our hands to the work that needs doing.

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Daniel Hecht is a novelist and executive director of Vermont Environmental Consortium. For more information on any Green Grapevine topic, contact vec@norwich.edu.

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