By Tim Lydon Climate-related disasters are on the rise, and carbon emissions are soaring. Parents today face the unprecedented challenge of raising children somehow prepared for a planetary emergency that may last their lifetimes. Few guidebooks are on the shelves for this one, yet, but experts do have advice. And in a bit of happy […]
By Clara Chaisson Photographer Terry Evans has been piecing together prairies for more than 40 years. After she first encountered the plant life growing in these iconic midwestern habitats in 1978, Evans memorized their “names like poems”: the silverleaf scurfpea, a dark-violet wildflower; the prickly pink catclaw sensitive briar; the white orchid known as nodding […]
By Robert M. Thorson When Americans quote writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau, they often reach for his assertion that “In Wildness is the preservation of the world.” This phrase elicited little response when Thoreau first read it during a lecture in 1851. A century later, however, it had become a guiding mantra for the […]
This Saturday, November 17, is National Take a Hike Day. Hiking is a great way to stay healthy, reconnect with nature and remind yourself of what we’re trying to protect. In honor of the day, here are the EcoWatch team’s favorite hikes, and the ones at the top of our bucket lists. Olivia Rosane, Freelance […]
By Patrick Rogers The fact that nature and nation share a common root—the Latin verb nasci, “to be born”—might rate as trivia to most people. But in the context of early American art, at least, the connection has profound cultural meaning. Paintings of natural vistas, from New York’s Hudson Valley to the purple mountains and […]
By Karen Reed Friends and coworkers have plants in their home or around their office. You may have considered it yourself, but then remembered that they require care and attention. Do you really have that time? Do you really want greenery in your home, when it looks so beautiful outside? Well, there are a number […]
By Marlene Cimons An individual tree has roots and, of course, it doesn’t move. But trees, as a species, do move over time. They migrate in response to environmental challenges, especially climate change. Surprisingly, they don’t all go to the Poles, where it is cooler. As it turns out, more of them head west, where […]
By Reynard Loki, Independent Media Institute There is growing evidence that our addiction to cellphones could be impacting brain functionality and be the cause of stress, anxiety, insomnia and a lack of attention and focus. Now a new report has found that we’re not the only living things to be affected by our increasing dependence […]
By Patrick Rogers The rooftop garden of the Swiss Institute Contemporary Art gallery in New York looks much like you’d expect of a newly renovated former bank building in lower Manhattan. Rows of simple aluminum planters line the small rectangular space, sprouting leafy greenery that frames views of the busy streets below. Yet this ordinary-looking […]