If I hear someone say that the climate is an existential crisis one more time, I am going to puke. I don’t much like the word environment either. It has four syllables. Think about how I feel about the word environmentalist. It has six! OK, this is a bit [...]
The real debate around the climate crisis is not whether it’s happening, but how to get people to act. So the most important question for climate communicators is how do we create urgency and action without creating paralyzing fear or apathy. One side, catalyzed by David Wallace-Wells article in [...]
Ford just invested $500M in Rivian, a startup making electric pickup trucks and SUVs. Rivian expects to sell 20,000 trucks in 2021. EV enthusiasts should be encouraged, right? But something is missing from this good news. The thing that is missing is sound. The US automotive industry spends $5B [...]
I am saddened by the destruction of Notre Dame. Not because I am a religious person. I’ve had the opportunity to visit holy places around the world: The Wailing Wall, and Temple on the Mount, the Kiyoto Shrines, or the Great Kiva at Chaco Canyon. But I am struck. [...]
Do you like The Green New Deal and ham?* I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like The Green New Deal and ham…. Would you like them Here or there? … Sam! If you will let me be. I will try them. You will see. Say! I [...]
For a while there has been popular speculation that utilities were in a death spiral. They have been hit with pollution regulation, clean energy mandates, higher fuel costs and disruption from clean low cost distributed renewable energy. Their primary purpose has been to “keep-the-lights-on,” and the world is changing [...]
On April 1st, 1940 in the small village of Ihithe, Kenya, a young girl was born. Her name was Wangari. Her parents were proud, and this is the way it is for all of us. We are the product of the hopes and dreams of our ancestors. While some [...]
Walking through the forest, I am at peace. A soft carpet of red pine needles mutes my footfall, while my eyes follow the trail ahead. It turns and twists organically following the Cascade River valley a hundred feet below. I grew up as a feral child. Like Tarzan, I [...]
The feathers of a sparrow drift down like snow out of a sky made bluer by yellow leaves and white clouds. A victim of a Cooper’s hawk. Life seeking and reducing everything to amino acids. The Junko is oblivious. The energy of the sparrow will power the hawk for [...]
The world is green, cool and humid. The land falls away over a valley, and beyond that, another and another. I ask the driver of the Land Rover to let us off a couple of miles from our camp at 10,000 feet. We are on the slopes of Mount [...]
