Our yard tends to be shabbier than most of our neighbors’, even now that we use a regular mowing service. Dandelions proliferate, and crabgrass competes with the clover. However, for the most part, it seems to be healthy, if not too closely managed. The crabapple and sand cherry trees, and the lilacs, butterfly and bridal […]
Category Archives: environmentalism
When I was in junior high, we moved into a new house much larger and nicer than the one I grew up in. It had a bigger yard and my dad installed a couple of dog pens for his birddogs. My brother and I had to mow the yards, but on my dad’s instructions we […]
Utopias have always been a part of our human delusion, a product of our constant desire to dream big and win. ~ Ruxandra Guidi I took a walk into our backyard, ostensibly checking the garden for ripe veggies, but really just to chill out in the early fall warmth. Seeing I was not doing […]
“The United Nations estimates that humans produce 400 million tons of plastic waste every year.” ~ Susan Shain “Plastic recycling only exists in the minds of public relations agencies that are promoting plastics,” ~ Judith Enck, former E.P.A. official and founder of Beyond Plastics I’ve pretty much quit trying to interpret the little triangles on various products. […]
I try to be diligent about keeping potential recycling materials out of the trash. We compost non-meat or -dairy food wastes and use it for our gardens, and our town provides bins for recycling as part of our routine trash collection. Among my weekly chores is taking out the trash, recycling and compost. I do […]
“We need something greater than people … We need a calling outside of ourselves, to some sort of higher power, to something higher than ourselves to preserve life on earth … People have to love the Earth before they save it … So love is the key. We don’t do doomsday stuff.” ~ Ecologist […]
I met Paul Kilburn at the turn-off into the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, decommissioned a few years before. Paul and his volunteers had permission to collect native seeds from the buffer zone around the facility that had been created to provide both a security barrier from outside intrusion and physical separation from what was […]
“What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.” ~ Havelock Ellis My friend knew where the old dump was outside of Leadville, and any excuse to go into the mountains was okay with me. We stopped on the edge of town and then turned down a dirt track to […]
I remember sack lunches from my school days. PB&J or tuna salad sandwiches wrapped up in wax paper (or those wax paper bags that came out later), or sometimes bologna with a slice of processed cheese. Always on plain white Wonder Bread — the “American way.” Potato chips or Fritos (when they came out, after […]
Neoliberalism, as a loosely defined set of political beliefs, calls for more individual freedom and autonomy, resulting in increased responsibility for each person to address major societal issues. ‘Individualization’ is the process by which responsibility for addressing major environmental issues such as climate change is placed on individuals. ~ Sydney A. Page-Hayes I take […]
Writes of Nature 