The Environmental Parent, Trapped
It’s the middle of September, the world is in chaos, and I can’t stop looking at my phone. That’s not because I’m checking my email or twitter, anxious to see the latest in the constant churn ...
Dan Klotz
Undeveloped wilderness never needs fixing
Southern Utah is known as red-rock country, a place of magical canyons and arches sculpted from red sandstone, amidst sagebrush desert. And yet, in my travels in and through these fantastical places, it is the yellow sandstone of the Grosvenor ...
Conflicts of interest could, possibly, trump climate change denial
Over the weekend, Donald Trump’s Palm Beach country club, Mar-a-Lago, was the location where he interviewed two candidates for National Security Advisor. The previous weekend, the club’s open dining room was where Trump and his advisors discussed how ...
The environmental parent trap
This summer, I was intent on taking my daughter backpacking. Every summer I’ve tried to bring my family into the woods for either camping or hiking or backpacking; sometimes the effort is a success, sometimes not. But this summer ...
In Defense of Greenspace
Tuesday, November 17, is the deadline for proposals to knock down hundreds of trees and pave over a stretch of the popular Capital Crescent Trail in Montgomery County, Maryland. If that sounds kind of backwards, well, it is. The planned conversion ...
The world’s tropical forests should not fit in your grandmother’s attic
In Indonesia, forest fires have spiraled out of control throughout much of the country. These fires were started as a way to clear the forests and peat swamps and replace them with palm oil plantations and other agricultural development, but ...
Can Ultimate Frisbee Greenwash the Olympics?
The Ultimate Frisbee community has been buzzing this week with the news that the International Olympics Committee (IOC) has finally recognized its sport. Critics wondered whether a defiantly counter-culture sport can continue to grow as part of mainstream culture, and ...
Will Reform at FIFA Shrink the World Cup’s Environmental Footprint?
Pretty soon now, environmentalists won’t have Sepp Blatter to kick around anymore. But, surprisingly, they never really did. Blatter resigned last week as President of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), the organization that runs the World ...
Climate Hopelessness is a Work of Fiction
Fiction writer Jonathan Franzen’s latest essay for The New Yorker on the hopelessness of climate change opens with a complaint about new football stadium being built for the Minnesota Vikings. The stadium will be built with glass walls that ...
Indonesia’s Indigenous Communities Use Ecotourism To Secure the Rights to their Land
From Chandra Kirana in Bogor, Indonesia. Six Indigenous communities have launched an ecotourism initiative that would show off their ancestral forests in a bid to develop alternate economic models that local government in Indonesia could embrace, moving away from extractive ...
Under-the-Radar Environmental Stories for 2015: The Furtive Five
Between crazy weather, international events, and global agreements, 2014 was a year in which climate change took center stage. Whether it was a catastrophic drought in California, accelerated ice melting in Antarctica, or even record-breaking heat disrupting the Australian Open, the ...
You Cannot Save the Climate Without Trees
The People’s Climate March that trumpeted its way through the streets of Manhattan yesterday was led by communities on the front lines of climate change—and Indigenous Peoples were at the forefront of this group. The tropical forests where ...
Political and Weather Climates are Changing, But at What Speed?
The weather in Washington, D.C. finally turned hot in September, just in time for Congress to resume. We enjoyed an unusually moderate summer this year, with many days topping out in the high seventies or low eighties. Plenty of ...
A Bottom-Line Focus For Solving Mining Conflicts
The lure of precious metals and other natural resources has long been a source of conflict in Latin America, from the Andes to the Amazon and most everywhere else. But new research has begun to put a price tag on ...
Worst Weather Ever: Has It Become a Cliché Yet?
The troubles of Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, are getting drowned out by the clamor generated by the superstorms Typhoon Haiyan and Cyclone Phailin. A crisis is still a crisis, however, even if it is not punctuated by 150...