‘Where Should I Live?’

So make that neighborliness, backhoes, and a devotion to the world around us, which remains beautiful even this savage summer. We’re in a mess, but together we have some chance of working our way out of it.

The River

The once marshland again longs to fill itself

with water, and up in the mountains

among the shoulder blades of the earth

energy lies clotted behind the dams

awaiting surgery…

Pay attention and adapt

We’re in the chaos. But there is no reason not to expect order to flow from the simple rules of biology and physics. Just pay attention to the patterns in your surroundings… and then, logically, adapt. That’s following the science.

Farm like an Ecosystem

From my vantage point — which is sitting in the chicken yard, eating just-harvested mulberries, my fingers all blue — farming within an ecosystem can be joyful and meaningful, life-affirming. It should be an integral part of the way we feed the world and revitalize our degraded land.

Depoliticize to Decarbonize

Too often in an effort to save Mother Nature, we forget about human nature. Solving problems with rolling out clean renewable energy is less a matter of the physical sciences than the social sciences—overcoming users’ habits and project resistance at the local level.