If you’re a regular reader of Today OnEarth (and you should be -- sign up in the box to the right!), you know that our editors are always looking for the most interesting, entertaining, and important environmental stories of the day -- plus cute animal videos. So when it came time to pick our favorite science and nature stories of 2012, there were a lot of good ones to choose from. Some of our contributors will be publishing their personal picks this week, but here’s a roundup of favorites from far and wide. Let us know what you think we’ve missed in the comments below or by tagging them #greenreads on Twitter.
“The Perilous Journey of Wyoming’s Migrating Pronghorn,” by Emilene Ostlind and Joe Riis (High Country News)
Writer Ostlind and photographer Riis spent two years tracking the 150-mile migration of the pronghorn to and from their wintering grounds in Wyoming, from Grand Teton National Park across the Gros Ventre Mountains and through the Green River Valley to the bare hills and sagebrush flats around Rock Springs. A well-written, scientifically significant, and -- to anyone who has seen this beautiful creature trying to navigate the natural gas fields of the Pinedale Anticline and the semitrucks barreling along highway 191 -- deeply moving study of the most important large animal migration in the country. --George Black, executive editor
“The Green Cowboys,” by Todd Wilkinson (Christian Science Monitor Weekly)
Last time I flew out to Montana, I got a rare first-class upgrade and found myself seated next to a New York hedge fund manager who told me he had just bought several thousand acres of land in the central part of the state and was raising cattle. There are a lot of people like this in the West these days -- Wilkinson calls them the “New Age boutique” ranchers. But he doesn’t waste time mocking them (tempting though that may be). Instead, his story is a rich and fascinating look at a new breed of cattle ranchers like Zachary Jones, who grew up roping steers and stringing barbed wire fences and is now dedicated to the sustainable management of his family’s fifth-generation ranch near the Crazy Mountains. --George Black, executive editor
"Forecasting Denial," by Jeff Goodell (Rolling Stone)
A fascinating analysis of a disturbing trend: the preponderance of TV meteorologists who deny the anthropogenic origins of, or sometimes the very existence of, climate change. Goodell affirms the wisdom behind the proverb "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing," as he discusses how and why your friendly, smiling, blow-dried weatherman -- typically armed only with whatever minimal scientific background was required for him to obtain his degree in the watered-down discipline of "broadcast meteorology" -- may believe that climate change is a manufactured crisis, or even a sinister hoax. According to Goodell's article, more than a quarter of TV meteorologists call global warming a "scam," and fewer than a third of them believe it's caused by human activity. The fact that these axe-grinding non-scientists are often "as close as [many Americans] are going to get to real scientists," according to one analyst Goodell interviews, is cause for real alarm. --Jeff Turrentine, articles editor
“Will the West Survive?” by Mark Binelli (Men’s Journal)
I spent a lot of this year editing stories about how bad things are getting out West -- drought, wildfires, water shortages, you name it. Mark Binelli wraps all those problems together in one big depressing package. It’s sort of the road trip from hell -- and it lays out a map for the all the problems we can no longer avoid as a very large portion of our country continues to get hotter and drier, with no relief in sight. --Scott Dodd, OnEarth.org editor
“Whisper of the Wild” by Kim Tingley (New York Times Magazine)
I first learned of threatened soundscapes a few years ago as an editor for Wildlife Conservation magazine. How sad, I remember thinking, that we could make a place look as good as “new” -- restore its forests, grasslands, or marshes and re-introduce some native species -- but never return the land's former music (or even realize that we haven’t). In this piece, Kim treks through the remote Denali National Park in Alaska, where the omnipresent hum of airplanes even peters out, and searches for the “compositions nature would play without us.” -- Melissa Mahony, OnEarth.org associate editor
“The Dust Bowl,” by Ken Burns (PBS)
The stunning impact of Hurricane Sandy provided an interesting perspective on this documentary about the worst man-made ecological disaster in U.S. history. Told partly through first-person accounts and raw footage, the film powerfully communicates the costs -- human and monetary -- of the damage we can cause through environmental recklessness. --Jon Mark Ponder, editorial assistant
"Raising Crane," by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich (Radiolab)
I had read about whooping cranes before -- about how there were once just 16 of the birds left in the wild and about the extraordinary (and ludicrous) lengths biologists were going to in order to bolster the population. I had even seen photos of crane-suited scientists piloting some kind of ultralight aircraft to lead a migrating flock to its destination in the wild. But I'd never really understood -- or, frankly, cared about -- the plight of the cranes, until I heard Andrea Seabrook describe (with all of Radiolab's trademark audio production flourish) the scenes in the refuges and research centers where costumed scientists do whatever it takes to bring these beautiful birds back from the brink. --Ben Jervey, online correspondent
ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, edited by Tom Butler and George Wuerthner (Post Carbon Institute)
The essential guide to energy literacy -- featuring both a stellar cast of environmental writers, scientists, and policy experts, and more than 100 brilliantly awful large-format photographs that examine where our energy comes from and the dangerous side-effects of extracting and distributing it (yes, including renewables). The book elegantly critiques the notion of endless economic growth and makes a compelling case for restraint in the name of biodiversity, beauty, and resilience. If ENERGY weren’t the size and weight of my bedside tabletop, I’d be pushing it under the nose of everyone I met. It’s that important. --Elizabeth Royte, contributing editor
“Superhero of the Sea,” by Nathaniel Rich (New York Times Magazine)
Rich turns all that scientists don't know -- and aren't really clamoring to find out -- about the immortal jellyfish into a whimsical, funny, and moving meditation on life and death through one scientist's quest to "determine how the jellyfish rejuvenates itself" so that human beings can "evolve and become immortal ourselves." The piece didn't make me think that the scientist was going to succeed in making us live forever -- rather, his efforts provided an opportunity to explore the mysteriousness of life in both its human and jellyfish forms. --Kim Tingley, online correspondent
Image: SurFerGIRL30
