The tall ship, Tecla, a Dutch North Sea sailing herring dragger built in 1915, was tied by three heavy hawser lines to the ferry quay in Ullapool, Northwest Scotland, a town of white-washed buildings packed together for the herring fishery. Most of us had arrived the evening before and we were ready to sail except…
Federal officials overseeing the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont are scheduled to double the amount of logging in the next five years over the previous five years. Under that plan, as much as 62 million board feet of lumber would be cut from the national forest. Mature and old growth forests are the best…
Climate Change has brought fiercer storms with devastating floods and long-lasting droughts that stressed and killed plants and animals. Once we controlled water. These days, water is in control and is harming us. What if we changed our relationship with water to better understand its behavior? What if we were more respectful and asked, what…
Perhaps the biggest success coming out of the UN Climate Talks, COP27, was the one least likely to succeed – the creation of a Loss and Damage Fund. To be held responsible for another’s loss and damages, such a fund should have been a nonstarter in a society quick to litigate. And it nearly was…
With rising seas, fighting climate change is a participatory challenge of us against the elements. It is all hands-on deck reducing carbon emissions. Friday, President Biden stood by the Red Sea in Egypt before delegates from 197 nations at the UN Climate Conference COP27. With Republicans taking the majority of the House and Congress hogtied…
“Algae eats the fertilizer. Then there are too many algae, no more oxygen and the fish die.” “Carbon capture, yes.” “Do not take away my bees.” “I’ll leave the bees.” “I think water has got to stay at the top. Because we in a drought” “Fertilizer creates sunspills. I feel that could be lower down.”…
The triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution is a threat to everyone, everywhere. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN Three of the world’s greatest environmental problems are increasingly being met and thwarted in residential neighborhoods across Massachusetts. The dastardly trio are nutrient pollution causing harmful algal blooms (ocean dead zones), degradation and…
Off the coast of Maine, an explosive exhalation of air swept my attention over the sailboat’s starboard rail. A broad stretch of hide rose like a pebbled sand bar the length of the twenty-seven-foot boat. The right whale wheeled forward, sliding into opaque water while I stammered and pointed. I was alone at the helm…
