Category: Environment

Environment

Everything’s on Fire: Devastation in Argentina’s Paraná River Delta

We’ve been hearing a lot about recent fires rampaging California, the “new normal” as they now call it. But the new normal is actually worldwide. Just now, only because I read in Spanish daily, did I become aware of the widespread fires sweeping vast areas in South America that dwarf what’s been happening in California. While most of you know about the Amazon fires in … Continue reading Everything’s on Fire: Devastation in Argentina’s Paraná River Delta

RJLeave a comment
Environment

Strokes of Havoc: The Felling of Trees

Mary Oliver wrote appealing nature poems, several of them featuring trees.  Take her opening lines of “When I am among the trees,” for example, crafted in simplicity, yet resonant of the capacity of trees to yield serenity: When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. … Continue reading Strokes of Havoc: The Felling of Trees

RJLeave a comment
Environment, Health, Lifestyle

Business as Usual: Lockdown Unenforced

As experts have warned and a rogue president, prioritizing reelection, has ignored, recharging the economy when Covid-19 continues to ravage has exacted a surge in the pandemic’s victims, with a new wave anticipated this fall. But Americans are its lead cause, a spoiled populace ignoring the laws governing exit from the crisis, wearing a mask in public, practicing social distancing, limiting unnecessary activity. Fifty states, … Continue reading Business as Usual: Lockdown Unenforced

RJLeave a comment
Environment

The Fate of our Animal Friends in Pandemic Times

The untold suffering of our animal friends, victims of collapsing slaughter houses in the wake of mass worker viral infections, is so manifest it shouldn’t be ignored. It isn’t just Asian wet markets that need closing, though China bristles in denial, but industrial farming here at home, latent with cruelty, harbinger of disease, pervasive in despoiling the earth and advancing climate change. We rightly become … Continue reading The Fate of our Animal Friends in Pandemic Times

RJLeave a comment
Environment

Is Anybody Listening? Voter Apathy on Climate Change

American media should be ashamed! Here we are, facing an unparalleled survival crisis, yet the absence of climate change from Thursday’s Democrat debate. (No opportunity for discussing the Green New Deal.) Then there is the apathy of many Americans. Three recent state voter surveys sadly show the absence of climate change as a top five issue for prospective voters. Meanwhile, the Trump assault on environment … Continue reading Is Anybody Listening? Voter Apathy on Climate Change

RJLeave a comment
Environment

Setting an Example: Berkeley Outlaws Natural Gas

The Berkeley City Council has unanimously voted to ban natural gas in all new construction, a move critics say imposes higher utility costs on the poor. Beginning January 1, 2020, new homes, townhouses and small apartment buildings will be without hookups for stoves, hot water, laundry and heating. The ban ultimately includes large commercial structures and apartment dwellings. Electricity is the name of the game. … Continue reading Setting an Example: Berkeley Outlaws Natural Gas

RJ1 Comment
Environment, People

And a Child Shall Lead Them

Today, May 24, was another walk-out-of-school day for thousands of children in 110 countries, urging their governments to take quick and meaningful action to avert environmental catastrophe. If only the politicians, and us, for that matter, would listen. It’s certainly, if nothing else, gotten the climate crisis considerable media attention. Of course, it’s 16-year old Greta Thunberg of Sweden who started it all and is … Continue reading And a Child Shall Lead Them

RJLeave a comment
Environment

Trophy Hunting Looms for Grizzly Bears

Averaging 800 pounds, powerful and fast moving, voracious defenders of their young, grizzly bears are a North American treasure deserving of our awe and worthy of preservation. Native Americans held them sacred and embedded them in their legends, dances and paintings. Although they hunted them for food, clothing, and jewelry, they saw them as avatars of strength and courage conferring protection as the physical embodiment … Continue reading Trophy Hunting Looms for Grizzly Bears

RJLeave a comment