Category Earthcare

Extirpated, Eradicated, Extinct

We were walking down our pasture loop yesterday, and for some reason, I remembered when we first walked this path in 1999, we often saw flying squirrels that would drive the dog-of-the-day crazy. Not any more. It’s been years since…

Global Syn-WHAT?

The phrase “global syndemic” immediately drew my sustained attention when it first appeared as a result of an initiative and study produced by the science journal Lancet in January of this year. tldr: Scroll down to the 3 minute video…

Sustainable Prosperity

There are many who don’t hear the music; and many of the more powerful who hear it, and don’t want to get to the end of the dance. It is a new rhythm and meter called the Next Economy. And…

The Wraiths of Riches Who Rule the Earth

…Brazil has elected a new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who favors abolishing protected indigenous lands. He has promised to scale back enforcement of environmental laws, calling them an impediment to economic growth, and has made his intentions for the Amazon…

Alone in a World of Wounds

The more a person knows about the complexity and fragility and inter-dependent webs within the living world, the more outrage and sadness and sense of powerlessness they are likely to suffer. Aldo Leopold said it well: “One of the penalties…

The Smaller-Hammer Approach

Don’t get me wrong: the bigger-hammer folks still prevail in the arena of strip-mining the soil for maximizing profit from monoculture-derived soy, corn, cotton and the like. And granted, the insects and weeds still either have or are evolving the…

THE LAST STRAW of ONE Lifetime

I pledge: to never again use a new plastic straw. I made that commitment–regrettably and only after decades of knowing about the Great Garbage Patch in the Sargasso Sea, and since, about the other floating islands the size of Texas…

Take It to the Limit One More Time

Planet Earth has always operated within limits–almost like an organism. But too there have been “accidents” that overwhelmed natural processes and created eons of disorder. Runaway climate shifts of the past carried the land or sea beyond a state where…

On Walking the Talk in 2018

And so, like many of you, I struggle to find balance, courage, and focus for the coming year. And I see work (a few items listed below) that is worthy of my time–a commodity in somewhat short and uncertain supply…