Henry David Thoreau wrote these words in 1862. Today, almost a century and a half later, they are more true than ever before. Mining, forest clear cutting, oil and gas development, and road building are destroying the extraordinary and irreplaceable wilderness that is our natural heritage. The Wilderness Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson on September […]
Archive | Mother Nature
What impact does mining have on the environment? Duhhh…
Waste from gold and other kinds of mining pollutes the planet. Miners often use arsenic, a toxic metal, to leach gold from rock, creating a nasty slurry that contaminates drinking water and kills wildlife when it’s released into the environment. Anyone who thinks dousing our waterways or landscapes with such toxic pollution deserves to have his or her head […]
Disney’s Earth Movie Is Breathtaking – but Misses an Opportunity to Educate
Disney doesn’t often make a movie little kids shouldn’t see. But “Earth,” the nature film premiering on Earth Day April 22, falls into that category. Despite its “G” rating, the film is more suspenseful than a James Bond movie — and more stressful, too. As it follows three animal families through a year of their […]
The Amazon is Still Burning – Are you buying tropical wood?
As I flew over the Peruvian rainforest, I kept a lookout for flames. I’d heard that, despite international outrage over the loss of millions of acres of trees, the Amazon basin was still going up in smoke. Now I’d come to see for myself, and it didn’t take long. Out the window of the small […]
EcoMoms Are Everywhere!
Moms have always been the most “eco” people on the planet. Now, they’re forming networks to help support each other’s efforts to “go green” in ways that are actually bring more women into the environmental movement. A recent story in the New York Times focused on the work the EcoMom Alliance is doing to […]
What is it about Rachel Carson that some misguided souls just love to hate?
Rachel Carson, who would have turned 100 years old on May 27, was a marine biologist and award-winning writer who warned the world about the dangers of pesticides and herbicides in her fearless book, Silent Spring. Published in 1962, Silent Spring revealed that toxic chemicals have a long-lasting presence in our water and on the […]
Are We Bulldozing Medicines Before We Discover Them?
It seems second nature to reach for an aspirin to stop a headache or ward off potential heart disease. We can do so thanks to the stately willow tree, the aspirin’s biological source. But what if sources for the medicines that haven’t been developed yet are destroyed before they have a chance to be discovered? […]