“It is past time to broaden the discussion of the human future and connect it to the rest of life.” E.O. Wilson, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life Extinctions. Habitat loss. Climate change. We are wreaking havoc on the natural world. In spite of his dire warnings, E.O. Wilson is relatively upbeat about our chances […]
“Little Egypt came out struttin’, wearing nuttin’ but a button and a bow.” The Coasters As I sang by the bonfire, the adults laughed and the kids were embarrassed. The fire kept us warm in the night breeze off the ocean, and the sand sifted beneath us as we passed the wine around and ate […]
Away out here they have a name for rain and wind and fire. The rain is Tess, the fire, Joe, and they call the wind, Maria. Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe, Paint Your Wagon We had been in Flagstaff all day, and when we got back to Winslow it was dark. The wind had […]
We were walking on the short bluff above the Little Colorado River on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, looking for archaeological sites. Though surrounded by empty desert, we scoured the surface and found plenty of evidence of past occupants. Pottery shards littered the ground among the greasewood wherever the sand had been blown off down […]
The trouble with facts is that there are so many of them. – Unknown Professor Noreena Hertz, University College London, reporting on her recent surveys, described today’s teenage girls as profoundly anxious. The news reports deplored the abundance of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films and TV shows that inundate us with peril and danger at every […]
Writes of Nature 