Jacy Reese wants to end animal farming. You can tell, because that is the title of his new book: The End of Animal Farming. Reese is a committed “effective altruist,” which means that he spends his time thinking about what actions will most efficiently help as many sentient creatures as possible and eliminate the most […]
Eco
I wrote this piece a year ago at the end of an exhausting story about the end of a species. I was angry and despondent. I wish I could say that a year has changed my perspective. Scientists have spotted a surprising six individuals more during their expedition to the Upper Gulf this year. But […]
David Grinspoon is a comparative planetologist and an astrobiologist. He’s also a big book nerd, and his love for both fiction and nonfiction are proudly on display in his own book, Earth In Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet’s Future. The book was recently featured in an ongoing series on “Resistance Reading” selected by authors and published […]
Note: This post originally appeared in December of 2016. I find a stick and use it to break up the dry twists of coyote scat I have found on the trail. Shit is nature’s obituary page. In each pile are the traces of lives recently lost. In this particular excreta I find a sprinkling of […]
You know it’s bad when you have to dig a hole and crawl in to survive. That’s what is going on in a creek bed at the bottom of the canyon below where I live. The creek stopped running a little more than a week ago. I walked down the other day and lifted […]
After seven years living amongst our neighbors to the south, I have recently returned “home” to the US of A. I say “home” because I’m a West Coast kid and now I live in Baltimore, which is nothing like the West Coast. Honestly, I culture-shocked less moving from California to Mexico City. And also, because […]
I am so angry, so sad. Today I drove my two children to the first day of a weeklong day-camp with a nature theme. They are learning about local species, pressing flowers, that kind of thing. The teachers expected that the kids would spend most of the day outside in nature. Instead, the kids will […]
This post originally ran May 31, 2012. But you won’t even notice. Worm sex is perhaps the most evergreen of evergreen topics. My husband and I often take nighttime walks. On one such walk, I noticed something strange on the ground. It looked like a shiny stick. I leaned in for a closer look and […]