Thanksgiving is just around the corner. The cynic in me says that besides sharing our gratitude, it’s also the national holiday when we celebrate family dysfunction. This is especially true for those of us concerned about the environment, climate, and the earth. Our national discourse has been reduced along [...]
As big as Keystone XL and DAPL, do we need another pipeline from the world’s dirtiest source of oil? I sat through most of the testimony in the public hearings on Enbridge’s request for a “Certificate of Need” for their Line 3 oil pipeline replacement in northern Minnesota. Arguments [...]
It’s Thanksgiving and it’s snowing outside: the kind of big, soft peaceful flakes that make you think of your childhood. Then Uncle Ralph puts his hand on your shoulder and says, “Maybe Trump fixed it. Doesn’t look like global warming to me?” Your mother shouts from the kitchen trying [...]
We are all going to die. That’s a fact. All of us also need to lose ten pounds, exercise five times a week, quit smoking and stop listening to identity politics media. As humans, we are one of the few species that can project and imagine the future. And [...]
I love words. I listen to their songs for hidden stories. Like the sounds of water laughing over rocks. The forests speak to me. Yellow aspens chatter. The pines whisper. White clouds are clean and pure. So in the environmental movement, why do I often hear, “We catch more [...]
Once, I was traveling through Qamani Tuaq in the Kivalliq region of what is now Nunavut, the former Canadian Northwest Territories. I met an Inuit native there whose name was Ikutaq (or some close approximation). He might have been twenty or seventy, the elements chiseling their harsh breath on [...]
Cradled between three birch trees is where they will find me. I look at my rifle. A bolt action 30.06 manufactured by the Savage Arms Company of Connecticut. It has a Redfield 4x telescopic sight and is accurate to 200 yards. It can kill anything from prairie dogs to [...]
Imagine waking up one day, and being faced with another new environmental crisis… say, saving the beavers, who might be faced with extinction. Imagine that you call attention to the plight of the beavers, and scientists do some research to uncover the causes of the beavers’ demise. Then people, [...]
Most of my friends are apoplectic over actions taken by the current administration toward the environment. They can’t understand why anyone in their right mind would remove stream protections or “OK” the Dakota Access Pipeline. To them, that makes no sense. In my last post, I talked about frames [...]
