Exploring the Writing of
Karen Telleen-Lawton
Exploring the Writing of
Karen Telleen-Lawton
Karen Telleen-Lawton writes to understand the environment around her. Her aspiration is to be persuasive, stimulating, entertaining, and sometimes provocative. Nature is her most influential teacher.
Published Most Recently
April 22, 2024
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
Call me provincial, but I believe the Gibraltar Road bike ride stacks up well against any road ride in the world. The landscape of rocky hillsides and canopy of coast live oaks fronted by the…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
Canyon Voices - Writings from Rattlesnake Canyon
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED ARTICLES BOOK: CANYON VOICES THE VOICE
COMMUNITY•ECONOMICS•ENVIRONMENT
Plastic Free July
JULY 13, 2020 BY KAREN TELLEEN-LAWTON NO COMMENTS
By Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
The ubiquity of plastics made its greatest impression on me five years ago on a visit to Easter Island. Twenty-one hundred miles west of mainland Chile, it is one of the most remote inhabited places on earth.… Read the rest
READING TIME: 3 MIN
COMMUNITY•HEALTH & FITNESS•JUSTICE
The Library
JUNE 29, 2020, BY KAREN TELLEEN-LAWTON NO COMMENTS
By Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist Published: June 29, 2020 4:00 p.m.
The public library was my first love outside the family. My relationship mirrored what Susan Orlean describes in “The Library Book”: “I loved wandering around the bookshelves, scanning the spines until something happened to catch my eye.… Read the rest
READING TIME: 3 MIN
BIODIVERSITY•CLIMATE
EMERGENCY•ECONOMICS•ENVIRONMENT•JUSTICE•UNCATEGORIZED
Triple Emergencies II
JUNE 1, 2020 BY KAREN TELLEEN-LAWTON NO COMMENTS
By Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist June 1, 2020
In the last column, I wrote about the co-incident and related global emergencies of pandemics, climate change, and biodiversity loss. A friend asked me to help her understand the relationship. I struggled a bit to provide a clear explanation.… Read the rest
COMMUNITY•ECONOMICS
•JUSTICE•UNCATEGORIZED
Black Lives Matter
JUNE 29, 2020, BY KAREN TELLEEN-LAWTON NO COMMENTS
By Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist June 15, 2020
Last week, my email teemed with what I feared were mere platitudes about Black Lives Matter from
organizations with which I’m involved. Everyone is “sorry,” no one “has been doing enough.”… Read the rest
READING TIME: 4 MIN
RECENTLY PUBLISHED
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December 4, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) When my daughter faced the perennial childhood question of what she wanted to be when she grew up, she insisted her goal was…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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November 13, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Examining your finances takes fortitude. It requires examining your wallet and looking into the mirror and into your heart. What are your goals…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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November 1, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Do you ever wonder if those online petitions work? Thanks to a young Santa Barbara native, Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org, they often do. Rattray…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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October 8, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) If every picture tells a story, a library’s worth of books was written last month in the undulating seas off the South Coast.…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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September 10, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Last year around the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I read a moving opinion piece by Dean Obeidallah. He is an award-winning comedian, he has appeared…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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August 20, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) I’m not saying all reverse mortgages are bad. The idea has merit — allowing cash-strapped seniors to stay at home by borrowing against…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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August 7, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) I have to admit I was tepid about reading The Patient’s Checklist: 10 Simple Hospital Checklists to Keep you Safe, Sane & Organized. Planning…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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July 23, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Traipsing around the Channel Islands for the Channel Islands Naturalist Corps, I help visitors understand the effects of isolation on the botany, archaeology and history of…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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June 25, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Baby boomers have been blamed for everything from overloading the public schools in the post-World War II era to the difficulty of employing millions…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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June 11, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) It takes awhile for new designations to find their way to common observance. If I reminded you that February is Black History Month…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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May 28, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) “In technology, we spend so much time experimenting, fine-tuning, getting the absolute cheapest way to do something — so why aren’t we doing…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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May 15, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Most of us look forward to retirement, but retirement planning can be a grind. Seventy million Americans rely on 401(k)s to fund at…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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May 7, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Sometimes what’s sustainable is a good laugh. Recently I guffawed at a New Yorker cartoon and slipped it onto my husband’s dresser. Close your eyes…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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April 10, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Officially, the recession has been over for a couple of years, but high unemployment carried its bite long afterward. Now, after peaking as…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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March 26, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) In honor of the looming tax deadline, here’s a limerick from a humor blogger named Madeleine Begun Kane, called “Dear IRS”: Dear folks at the…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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March 12, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Santa Barbarans love to peer out over the ocean. It’s a live masterpiece — the finest in landscape painting dovetailing the best of…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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February 14, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) “The Robot Will See You Now: How Non-Medical Technologists Are Revolutionizing Health Care.” The provocative lecture title for a recent MIT Enterprise Forum Central…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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January 31, 2012
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) When farmer Mark Tollefson of Fairview Gardens met us early on a chilly January morning, I didn’t know what to expect. My husband, Dave, had contacted Craving Adventures co-founder…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
Canyon Voices - Writings from Rattlesnake Canyon
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED ARTICLES BOOK: CANYON VOICES THE VOICE
COMMUNITY•ECONOMICS•ENVIRONMENT
Plastic Free July
JULY 13, 2020 BY KAREN TELLEEN-LAWTON NO COMMENTS
By Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
The ubiquity of plastics made its greatest impression on me five years ago on a visit to Easter Island. Twenty-one hundred miles west of mainland Chile, it is one of the most remote inhabited places on earth.… Read the rest
READING TIME: 3 MIN
COMMUNITY•HEALTH & FITNESS•JUSTICE
The Library
JUNE 29, 2020, BY KAREN TELLEEN-LAWTON NO COMMENTS
By Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist Published: June 29, 2020 4:00 p.m.
The public library was my first love outside the family. My relationship mirrored what Susan Orlean describes in “The Library Book”: “I loved wandering around the bookshelves, scanning the spines until something happened to catch my eye.… Read the rest
READING TIME: 3 MIN
BIODIVERSITY•CLIMATE
EMERGENCY•ECONOMICS•ENVIRONMENT•JUSTICE•UNCATEGORIZED
Triple Emergencies II
JUNE 1, 2020 BY KAREN TELLEEN-LAWTON NO COMMENTS
By Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist June 1, 2020
In the last column, I wrote about the co-incident and related global emergencies of pandemics, climate change, and biodiversity loss. A friend asked me to help her understand the relationship. I struggled a bit to provide a clear explanation.… Read the rest
COMMUNITY•ECONOMICS
•JUSTICE•UNCATEGORIZED
Black Lives Matter
JUNE 29, 2020, BY KAREN TELLEEN-LAWTON NO COMMENTS
By Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist June 15, 2020
Last week, my email teemed with what I feared were mere platitudes about Black Lives Matter from
organizations with which I’m involved. Everyone is “sorry,” no one “has been doing enough.”… Read the rest
READING TIME: 4 MIN
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
ktl@canyonvoices.com
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances, and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.
A variety of experiences over many (!) decades have influenced her views. Telleen-Lawton holds an undergraduate engineering degree from Stanford University as well as graduate degrees and certificates in environmental policy, economics, business administration and financial planning.
Until her retirement in 2022, Telleen-Lawton was the principal of Decisive Path Fee-only Financial Advisory. She writes regular articles on environmental, economic, and financial planning issues in local, regional, and national publications such as Santa Barbara’s Noozhawk, Stanford Magazine, and a national senior writing syndicate. Her book, Canyon Voices – the Nature of Rattlesnake Canyon, was published by Mission Creek Publishing in 2007. Inspirational writer for her work include John McPhee, Anne, Terry, etc . . . [I’ll look on by bookshelf]
Telleen-Lawton’s volunteer activities include various board and committee functions at All Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, Channel Islands Nationalist Corps, and PSC Partners Seeking a Cure. She was a proud saxophonist with Prime Time Band for seven years before passing her horn to her granddaughter. Her most important influence and best friend for the past 47 years is her husband David.