It’s hard to believe that in America today 300,000 residents in and around a state capital could find themselves without safe drinking water for days. But that’s what happened one year ago this month in Charleston, West Virginia when MCHM, a chemical used to wash coal, leaked from a storage tank adjacent to the Elk River. State officials issued “do not use” orders for tap … Continue reading The MCHM mystery
Back in the day they used to call it global warming – or even the greenhouse effect, a handy metaphor to explain how the earth’s atmosphere could be warming up. “They” back then meant Sen. Al Gore. In the 1980s I had the opportunity to hear Gore speak at environmental conferences and congressional hearings while I worked for the Ecological Society of America in Washington … Continue reading The weather outside is frightful
Long ago and far away I was a field assistant studying bobolinks for one of my Cornell professors, Tom Gavin, as an undergraduate intern. I went out each morning into dew-drenched meadows at Cornell’s Biological Field Station at Shackelton Point on Oneida Lake, and watched tiny birds that had migrated thousands of miles from their winter home in South America to nest in upstate New … Continue reading Bird sex and bar stools
Every fall for the past 12 years the historic town of Shepherdstown, West Virginia hosts the American Conservation Film Festival (ACFF) for four days. I’ve been involved with ACFF for eight or nine of those years (I honestly can’t remember when I started) as a member of the Board and now as a selector. That means I get to watch all the films submitted – … Continue reading Celebrating conservation film
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, a law that promised to preserve America’s largest wild places in an “untrammeled” state untouched by people. But back in 1964, no one anticipated the Anthropocene of the 21st century – a period in which humans affect every corner of the Earth. Today, global climate change and invasive species from foreign lands (and waters) are … Continue reading Wild things
