People are rarely what they appear to be. This seems odd: Even though I write about environmental issues a fair bit, I don’t care much for nature, personally. Never go on strolls through the woods or hikes through the hills. The snippet of green space inside D.C. traffic circles is about as much as I can…Continue Reading…
Jackson Lears has a must-read essay in the current issue of TNR that leads off: In contemporary public discourse, concern for “the environment” is a mile wide and an inch deep. Even free-market fundamentalists strain to display their ecological credentials, while corporations that sell fossil fuels genuflect at the altar of sustainability. Everyone has discovered…Continue Reading…
Maybe it’s all the cold medication I’ve been on the last few days, but this reference to “fake plastic trees” as one potential geo-engineering solution to global warming, triggered a memory of Martin Krieger’s classic 1973 essay in Science magazine, entitled, “What’s Wrong with Plastic Trees?” I remember my head nearly exploding as I read…Continue Reading…
This is a pretty big generalization coming from a wildlife professional: Most Americans know very little about wildlife and nature, and this affects their ability to make intelligent, rational, and well-considered decisions. Also, I don’t think that intelligence + knowledge of nature necessarily = “rational, well-considered decisions.” In Boulder, Colorado, where I just spent a year,…Continue Reading…