:
RSS
March, 2008
-
Bamboo Bike Fever
I have a problem. I have bamboo fever.
Let me explain.
I'm in the process of moving to a house in NW DC. It's beautiful there, and well designed -- the row houses butt against each other, sharing radiant heat, there's a park at the end of my block, and the sidewalks are well shaded.
But compared to my location in NYC, where the train shuttled me easily between home and work, I live in a veritable wilderness. The bus is far away. And the metro -- well, forget it.
And so I'm trying to figure o...
-
Lights Out for Global Warming
Homes, businesses, and towns, from Mongolia to the Vatican to the United States will fall dark in five days time. But ‘tis not a plague on all their houses causing the coming darkness, rather, it's global warming. Sort of.
On Saturday, March 29th, during the hour of 8-9PM, citizens around the globe are being asked to turn off their lights “to deliver a powerful message…about the need for action on climate change.” The event, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, is called Earth Hour. ...
-
New Family Values?
Reading Andrew Revkin's blog the other day, I got uncomfortable. Granted, for an environmentalist, this isn't a new feeling. When you're attempting to safeguard the earth against collapsing fish stocks, rising sea temperatures, a changing climate and disappearing forests, managing discomfort becomes your stock and trade.
But this was about population. Even amongst friends, this can be an uneasy conversation.
At a time when environmentalism is no longer the hobby of the radical few, but is eme...
-
Urban (Wild) Animals
If you enjoy quirky animal stories, this L.A. Times article about pigeons on birth control is for you. The pigeon population has so overwhelmed Hollywood, the city began distributing birth control to keep the procreators in check. Reports Francisco Vara-Orta:
“The pilot program to get pigeons on the pill is well underway, with $50,000 in donations pledged from area business improvement districts and concerned residents, said Laura Dodson, president of the Argyle Civic Assn., the Hollywood n...
-
Lions, and Cheetahs, and Elephants -- Oh My!
A memory: My college roommate and I were camped high in a quiet corner of the Smokies, enjoying postprandial tobacco and passing a wineskin of Jim Beam between us. As dusk deepened, we looked out over an expanse of Blue Ridge topography that tumbled away into the distance, and talked about the conservation ethic, whether or not it would take sufficient hold among the masses fast enough to keep landscapes like this one intact. "Bet on places that have charismatic megafauna," was Erik's sardoni...
-
Save the Salmon
The way I tell the story, the day my father removed my last diaper he placed a fly rod in my hands. Since then, I've cast a line over nearly any open body of water I can find. He nurtured an avid fly fisherman, sure, but also an avid environmentalist.
And so I was sad to see this headline: "Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace" above an article that described the virtual disappearance of the Chinook salmon from the Pacific Northwest. "The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fa...
-
Cityscapes and Landscapes
Here we are: my first post to the On Earth blog. Doug and Laura, two of my editors, recently asked me to post, and post regularly here. Could I blog? Sure, I said, no problem.
But then, as I walked past the open office doors here at NRDC's New York headquarters, where OnEarth magazine's editorial offices are housed -- past the policy experts, the scientists, and lobbyists who have been fighting on behalf of the environment as long as I've been alive -- I paused. What could I possibly blog ab...
-
Drugs in Our Drinking Water: You Heard It Here First
Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that more than 41 million Americans are drinking water that contains prescription drugs -- everything from mood stabilizers to sex hormones to antibiotics. The story is on the front pages of the Washington Post and New York Times, and atop user-edited news sites like Digg, Newsvine, and Slashdot. Good post at Daily Kos on the subject, and treehugger warns that bottled-water marketers will likely use this to promote their product.
But as regular reader...
-
One for the Climate Warrior's Toolbox
Almost every day, I peek at Digg.com's Environment page to see what's caught the fancy of its huge pool of users. It's a young, tech-savvy audience that's neither high-minded nor replete with deep-green environmentalists, and on most days the "top stories" leaderboard is fairly well dominated by the lurid, the lowbrow, and the gadget-geeky. But on occasion the crowd will also surface some unusual treats.
That was the case this morning, when -- mixed in with items such as "California cows star...
Behold, The Lord God Bird