When you are twenty, you go into the desert to find yourself. When you are seventy, you go to see what’s coming. South of Island in the Sky, north of the Needles and west of the Maze. The canyon lands of the west are desert. I spend the morning [...]
There’s an old adage that says you should never be the first one to tell someone their baby is ugly. Yet, someone has to be first. The messaging of the environmental movement is failing. There, I said it. It’s just an observation. I know it sounds like a criticism, [...]
It’s called the basement of time. I am eight miles and five-thousand feet down the South Kaibab trail at mid-day. The temperature hovers close to 105 °F. My knees ache, and my body is tired. There is a rest house on the trail at this point, but it’s at [...]
I am on a journey through the Southwest. Looking for a little solitude in the desert. The solitude is offset by my conversations with strangers. Where are you from? Isn’t the earth amazing? Which eventually leads to… How do you see the environment? Today, I met Ranger Pete. I [...]
I am camped at sunset in the canyons of the Colorado River, surrounded by massive red cliffs, when I look up. It appears I am witnessing a geological event: the first new volcano in millions of years. Volcanoes typically suppress global warming by reflecting the sun's heat back into [...]
We all have a lot of stuff. Perhaps for evolutionary reasons, we are programmed to accumulate stuff. Maybe, the more stuff we have the more likely we are to survive? Now we even have storage warehouses, where we can store our extra stuff because we’ve run out of room. [...]
I am heading from Portland to Coos Bay, Oregon. Having some extra time, I drive the back roads through what seem like endless verdant forests. The road winds through valleys next to streams, and the forests climb the hills and mountains to the ridgelines. It’s a good day. The [...]
Of course climate change is real. So what? Is this really helping? I’d say no. Part I: Given the appointment of climate deniers to key cabinet posts coupled with the rapid rollback of environmental regulations by the Trump Administration, it feels OK to be angry. Scott Pruitt, the new [...]
I love the ocean. I grew up on the prairie and in the woods, but the ocean calls to me. I’ve tried to share with my children, the beauty and wonder of the world as I’ve experienced it. So my daughter Katie and I hire a couple of kids in [...]
We are three hours south of Medellin, Colombia crossing the Cauca River and heading into the mountains. The Cauca is muddy and roiling from the rains and licks the bottom of the one lane bridge. Another hour and one muffler later, we are still struggling up a two track into [...]
