Tag: 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

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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

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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

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Books

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: An Earth Day Tribute

  I’ve just finished reading Rachel Carson’s classic Silent Spring, written back in 1962, but still timely. President Kennedy read it eagerly, followed by Nixon in a time when presidents read books. (President Obama is another omnivorous reader in our own time.) Nixon was so deeply affected, that he founded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a safeguard. I first became aware of the book … Continue reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: An Earth Day Tribute

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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

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Environment

You have every right to be afraid!

Many of us rightfully fear a Trump presidency for what it may mean for the welfare of our citizenry and nation. Will Affordable Health Care (AHC) and Medicare be on the chopping block? If you’re an undocumented immigrant, will Trump carry out his often repeated pledge to deport illegals and build a wall on the border with Mexico? Will he foreclose on refugees, many of … Continue reading You have every right to be afraid!

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Books, Environment

Macdonald’s H is for Hawks: Finding Passage

The archaeology of grief is not ordered. It is more like earth under a spade turning up things you had forgotten, surprising things come to light: not simply memories, but states of mind, emotions, older ways of seeing the world. –Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk I’ve finished reading Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk and want to weigh in on it like someone who’s … Continue reading Macdonald’s H is for Hawks: Finding Passage

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Environment

Saving Spring’s Envoys: Our Vanishing Birds

We take for granted that birds in the millions returning from their winter feeding grounds in Central and South America will make it back to nest and mate in our yards each spring. The rude reality, however, paints a scenario of thinning numbers as their habitat continues to give way to human incursion; wetlands get drained; toxic sprays are employed; and GMO agriculture reduces the … Continue reading Saving Spring’s Envoys: Our Vanishing Birds

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Environment

Lexington, KY: Reflections on My Old Kentucky Home

I count myself fortunate to live near Lexington, KY. Its assets are many; its liabilities, few. I like its small town feel—no row housing here; no factories puffing their toxins into the air. Though ranked 61 among American cities, currently about 311,000, it’s unique in not having freeways threading its thoroughfares, unlike neighboring Louisville and Cincinnati. To be sure, Kentucky is often synonymous with poverty, … Continue reading Lexington, KY: Reflections on My Old Kentucky Home

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Environment

Reflections on the Supreme Court’s EPA Rebuff

This has been a busy time for America’s highest court, with gargantuan issues–gay marriage, Obama Care, and approval of a controversial capital punishment drug, cases decided by razor thin majorities. No less important, perhaps the most impacting of all, is the Supreme Court’s decision ultimately affecting climate change; namely its one vote majority ruling against the EPA’s Mercury and Toxic Standards (MATS) provision, designed to … Continue reading Reflections on the Supreme Court’s EPA Rebuff

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