What is Life?
So, what is Life? To me, it’s a staggeringly impressive trick that the universe can perform, playing by the normal rules utilizing the normal material. Wow. Lucky us!
Environment featured
The Great Lady of Deep Ecology has left us
Joanna, a shining being, even in her absence, becomes more present. This was her final gift—to reveal the ambiguity of being/not-being, the forever fragile home of the deepest grief, the greatest love and the most profound compassion. To live in that ambiguity with the same compassion that flowed from the heart of her being becomes our charge to go forth now.
Discovering the Magic of Quinta Vale da Lama
My time at QVdL reinforced everything I believe about ERC’s approach to restoration. We’re not just planting trees or improving soil – we’re building resilient communities that can adapt, learn, and scale their impact.
‘I Didn’t Know I Was Sitting in a Pool of Poison’
In 2016, high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—PFAS—were discovered in Monette’s drinking water well at her home in the upstate New York town of Petersburgh, along with the wells of many of her neighbors. Petersburgh’s municipal water supply was also tainted, as was the Little Hoosic River, where Monette liked to cool off. “I didn’t know I was sitting in a pool of poison,” says Monette, a 68-year-old retired elementary school art teacher who taught at a local school district.
Why flash flood warnings will continue to go unheeded
As climate change makes flash floods and other extreme weather events more common and deadly, researchers across the country are struggling with how to effectively communicate risk to the public, without losing their trust through over-warning.
WWF’s top leader promises change from fortress style model to people-centered conservation
WWF is a big, diverse organization. But what drives me are the places — Cameroon, Brazil, the Coral Triangle in Asia. And in those places, the communities are the best conservation leaders.
Adapting to climate decline
We must adapt to the reality of climate breakdown so that we are ready for disasters. Because if we are not ready, they will be much worse.
Going Beyond Grass: Turning Lawns Into a Pollinators’ Paradise
What was once habitat can become habitat again. Habitat that helps sustain pollinators (and therefore a host of other species) can be created — or restored — just beyond the front porch.
Future Sustainable Neighbourhood
We may be very smart creatures, but we are still fundamentally animals in a landscape. If modernism ever de-complexifies, as many think it will, like all civilizations in the past, we would be smart to set in place now the infrastructure, skills and knowledge we’ll need to thrive – together.
The European Commission’s Dangerous Step Back: A Greenwashing Gift for Corporations
In a move that threatens to undermine years of progress toward environmental transparency, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has recently decided to withdraw the much-anticipated Green Claims Directive. This directive, which aimed to hold corporations accountable for misleading sustainability claims, was an essential step toward ensuring that companies align their actions with the urgent need to protect our planet.
Wild Civilization and the Poet-Farmer
The archetypal, self-governing citizen in SMPLCTY is the poet-farmer (or poet-carpenter, etc.), who lives simply in a material and energetic sense, contributes to necessary economic production and community governance in non-hierarchical conditions, and who otherwise explores the good life through creative activity and aesthetic experience.
The potential of bioregional, collective and small-scale, natural fibre systems
We can create conditions of emergence for a democratic, cooperative, commons-based, ecological clothing culture. To achieve this, international knowledge exchange will be sought alongside local experimentation. With determination, cooperation, and careful planning, new fibre systems will be possible.
