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
September 2, 2024
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist September 2, 2024 | 3:00 pm We’ve learned a ton about carbon since 1925. Human activities, we know, have increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere by a third since the Industrial…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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May 6, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” — Eleanor Roosevelt I just returned from a weekend…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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April 22, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) You’ve heard it already: the pronouncement by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that we have only 11 years to control climate change. If by…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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April 8, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Clap your hands if you enjoy paying taxes. Crickets. You can imagine that the Wall Street Tax Act, recently introduced to tax the…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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March 25, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) When I was growing up, trash was becoming visible as a public issue. Moviegoers commonly left trash behind in the theater. Beaches were…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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March 11, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Last Christmas my daughter presented each of us with identically wrapped small boxes. Could be socks, a framed photo, or a light book.…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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February 25, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) What do zebras and Feb. 29 have in common? Zebras are rare among equines for their black and white stripe pattern. Feb. 29ths…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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February 11, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) In the excitement of this year’s welcome and feared rains, you may have missed a spectacular event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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January 28, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Decades ago, my I husband and I attended a cocktail party in Cincinnati, where we’d recently moved from California. Our distinct memory was…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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January 17, 2019
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Divorce is like a death in the family. Long-term dreams evaporate and financial stability is threatened. Even if it’s best for your future,…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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December 14, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Why do we have to refrain from romaine and require farmers to plow under hundreds of heads? A couple of weeks ago, the…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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December 3, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) The rotund Santa Claus we know and love is a fitting mascot for the bloated Christmas traditions we have developed over the last…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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November 19, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Santa Barbarans may not pack as much heat as the average Joe, but most of us pack groceries. Ever since we figured out…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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November 2, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Colorful voting material has been filling our mail boxes and email inboxes for weeks, not to mention phone and even text messages. I…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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October 22, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Have you ever scrutinized your medical bills to decipher the data? The “Amount owed by Patient” may be the first place your eyes…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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October 8, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Like Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, I escaped my attacker. Like Dr. Ford, I was in high school: age 16. That morning until the…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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September 25, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) Where can you travel for world-class biking with ocean breezes, mountain challenges, and views around every corner? Santa Barbara fits that description, and…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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August 27, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) My favorite type of column dovetails an ecological topic with an economic one. It’s not a stretch: the words have the same root.…Read the restReading Time: 3 MIN
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August 13, 2018
By Karen Telleen-Lawton
by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here) I’m not sure what to make of Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. The book is a cognitive…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.