This day dawned cool and cloudy, the season bending toward fall. In my many long years of visiting and then living in Wisconsin, I found that summer lay somewhere between Memorial Day and Labor day, but those two weekends often fell outside it. On morning like this, old badgers could almost be forgiven for not believing in global warming. This is a late summer day as we have come to expect them here.

Today’s weather says little about climate, and Wisconsin is not the world, but even in our little part of it, the weather has been passing strange. Spells of heavy prolonged rain intersperse with days of humid heat and those occasional bright dry days we love here, followed by more humidity, heat and rain.

The previous two summers were comfortable, cool and dry most of the time except for those gouts of incredible heavy rain that washed away Lake Delton and so much else. Odd that climate models predicted global warming would bring on such conditions.

Dear EarthTalk: Apparently boxed wine (instead of bottled) is becoming all the rage for environmental reasons. What are the eco-benefits of boxed wine over bottled?
Justin J., Los Angeles, CA

With more and more wineries offering organic varieties to lower their eco-footprint, it’s no surprise that they’re looking at the environmental impacts of their packaging as well. The making of conventional glass bottles (and the corks that cap them) uses significant quantities of natural resources and generates considerable pollution. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the process of manufacturing glass not only contributes its share of greenhouse gas emissions but also generates nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and tiny particulates that can damage lung tissue when breathed in.

Beyond manufacturing, the transport of wine in glass bottles across the country and around the world also takes its environmental toll. According to wine writer Tyler Colman, upwards of 90 percent of American wine is produced on the West Coast, but then shipped to the East Coast where the majority of wine consumers live. Trucking all these heavy glass bottles generates a much larger carbon footprint, ounce-for-ounce than the transportation of much lighter boxed wine. Almost half the weight of an ordinary case of wine comes from the bottles; about 95 percent of the weight of a case of boxed wine is the wine itself.

It’s delightful to receive gifts. The best are often uncalled for surprises. They don’t come attached to a holiday or birthday. They are tokens of pure esteem brought in honor of friendship or thanks. Over the past couple of years, I’ve received some amazing and joyously beautiful gifts. It’s risky to mention any specifically, because obviously that opens the door for accidentally forgetting one and making the giver feel bad.

Nonetheless, for the sake of this month’s column, I’ll just cast my gaze around the little area where I sit and mention those I can see. These are in no particular order of value to me, just the ones I see as my random gaze is cast about the space.

Over my right shoulder and adorning the wall in my table nook is an absolutely incredible 2’ X 2’ square Nepalese mandala, made ever so carefully by young monks at a Himalayan monastery where a dear friend taught English two years ago. Mind you, this is the stuff of angels. It shows detail words cannot possibly describe. The tiny symmetrical symbols of eastern spirituality “go deep” into a magical recess so intuitive to me that it is like a magic carpet. This was a gift of honor given to the “senior teacher” at the religious school high up in the sacred mountains halfway around the world. To give this up was an expression of mighty caring. It would have been near to impossible for me to have done so, but he gave it to me, and such an honor it is.

By Deborah Adams

As we gear up for another school year with new clothes, new school supplies, new faces… try adding a new attitude to the ‘school supply list’ – one that includes “compassion”, “kindness”, and “love”. May sound like some peace-loving hippy slogan from the sixties, but research from the University of Wisconsin Madison has proven that thoughts of compassion have positive effects on our brain tissue by creating global coordination of brain activity inducing both short and long term positive changes in our brain.

Compassion focused meditation has been shown to trigger Neural Synchrony in our brain which  is a mechanism in which groups of neurons in our brain which oscillate at different frequencies, begin to fire in phase. Think of it like the coordination of jazz musicians who are playing and improvising together, it’s a kind of transient coordination that takes place. This is a great place for our brain to be as it is associated with higher mental activity such as attention, learning and conscious perception. All things that would be great “back to school” tools for all ages.