University of Colorado energy-behaviour researcher Karen Ehrhardt-Martinez — who in June 2011 became director of the Climate, Mind and Behavior Program at the Garrison Institute in upstate New York — believes that society can cut its energy use cheaply by up to 30% through...
Magazine Articles
Appalachia journal, Winter/Spring 2012
From the time Elizabeth and Annie were little, my husband Nat and I took them into the mountains, from Tennessee to New Hampshire. They trudged miles carrying loads. We taught them how to light a stove, collect water, wait out thunderstorms, and walk through wet and cold. The best part, I...
Nature Climate Change, November 2011
The amazing giant saguaro cactus of Arizona’s Sonoran Desert in the southwestern United States does what its human neighbours cannot. It survives
on 8 to 15 inches of annual rainfall. The Saguaro sucks up these rare drenchings through extra-long shallow roots, holding the water deep...
Connecticut Woodlands, Fall 2011
Aldo Leopold was a hunter. The icon of the environmental movement, the man who taught us not to exploit the land but understand its complexities, wasn’t a bloodthirsty killer. He believed that hunting taught us the struggles of the natural world that humans belong in, whether we choose to...
Patch.com, September 6, 2011
The crisis is over, again. The state has reversed its threat to close two historic Connecticut River ferries and instead funded them for another two years. We locals mop our tears and go back to work. We rarely ride these shuttles but we understand what they bring visitors: a 5-minute immersion...
Nature Climate Change volume 1, March 2011
Research psychologist Niamh Murtagh has spent the past few years studying why people find it hard to stop using their cars so much. She wanted her son, Ben, to get to school by walking — a trip of only 15 minutes. Even though Ben did not complain, Murtagh saw that Ben envied his friend,...
Connecticut Explored, Fall 2010
Over the past several years, my pursuit of information about the “real” Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House series of children’s books (written from 1932 to 1943), has led me to restored houses, museums, courthouses, and libraries in Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan,...
The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, June 7, 2011
That morning ritual, reading the newspaper while sipping coffee, already has given way to peering at the computer over the mug. And now the coffee in this ritual, like printed newspapers, is itself in some trouble, and not just because some new chai latte is upstaging it.
Sustained rains...
The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media
A bit of a buzz is making its way through media circles in response to some recent thought-provoking articles on the old principle called the Jevons Paradox, which says that as machines become more efficient and use less energy, society responds by growing and using even more energy.
...
Appalachia Journal
I have learned not to get lost on foot in the woods, but I have never mastered route finding in a car. Road maps never print enough detail; when reality presents unexpected streets and signs, I can’t reconcile them with my broad-brush concept of the route. Sundown strains my sense of...
The Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media
Until BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion in April and continuing oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, many in the news media covered deepwater oil exploration with a sort of awe. The practice, after all, is relatively new — most projects date back to just the 1990s, and a Gulf boom...
Appalachia journal
Warren Doyle's rules for long-distance group hikes
Warren Doyle, age 60, has a crush on Little Debbie, the snack cake girl. His favorite thing to do is to eat a Little Debbie cosmic brownie as he sets out on a cold morning to walk one of his 20- to 30-mile stints. The...
Nature Reports Climate Change
In his new book, environmentalist Bill McKibben says we must abandon the notion that economic growth and environmental sustainability are compatible — only then can we prevent a climate catastrophe.
In 1989, American environmentalist Bill McKibben wrote a book about...
Appalachia journal
Longtime employees of the company that supports the National Science Foundation describe the unique addiction to Antarctica that takes hold
Come work on the coldest, highest, and driest continent in the world. If that entices you, you are not the typical employee....
Appalachia journal
In the mountains, daylight saving time diminishes into the economic gimmick it truly is
WHILE HIKING THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I settled into an odd sleeping pattern. I would fall into the sleeping bag soon after sunset after my dishwashing duty had...
