nature

Take a Hike Day Is Around the Bend. What’s Your Dream Hike?

Take a Hike Day Is Around the Bend. What’s Your Dream Hike?

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 […]

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    Culture Clash: Nature and Civilization Face Off in the Art of Michael Wang

    Culture Clash: Nature and Civilization Face Off in the Art of Michael Wang

    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 […]

    7 Smokable Plants You Can Grow That Aren’t Marijuana

    7 Smokable Plants You Can Grow That Aren’t Marijuana

    By Brian Barth Here’s a non-trend that you’d think would be more hip: tobacco-free herbal smoking blends. Quite a few plants may be safely, and pleasurable, lit up in a pipe or rolling papers. Those listed below are legal, unregulated, and totally safe to use. They are also non-hallucinogenic and non-addictive—perhaps that explains their lack […]

    If Meditation Is Not Your Thing, Try a Walk in the Woods

    If Meditation Is Not Your Thing, Try a Walk in the Woods

    By Karin Klein There are times when I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel at odds with the world, irritated by the people in it, in a funk about myself and what I’m achieving or, rather, not achieving, overwhelmed by the obstacles and complications of life. Happiness seems like an entirely elusive […]

    Spending Time Alone in Nature for Mental and Emotional Health

    Spending Time Alone in Nature for Mental and Emotional Health

    By Brad Daniel, Andrew Bobilya and Ken Kalisch Today Americans live in a world that thrives on being busy, productive and overscheduled. Further, they have developed the technological means to be constantly connected to others and to vast options for information and entertainment through social media. For many, smartphones demand their attention day and night […]

    The MacLehose Trail Is Hong Kong’s Great Escape

    The MacLehose Trail Is Hong Kong’s Great Escape

    By Mike Ives Gauzy lights flicker in the fog, outlining a summit. Otherwise, darkness. The only sounds I can hear are my breathing and the rustling of my windbreaker. A rocky chasm yawns below me, just steps from the trail. For a moment, I imagine that I’m watching a search party traverse a remote wilderness. […]

    What Is Acoustic Ecology? We Have 5 Questions

    What Is Acoustic Ecology? We Have 5 Questions

    The sound of ants communicating with each other by scraping their legs on their bodies. The echoes under the surface of a small freshwater pond. The sound of a pine forest dying. These are just a few of the sounds David Dunn has investigated in his decades as a composer, musician, acoustic ecologist and audio […]

    Slow Motion Ocean: Why Are North Atlantic Currents Weakening?

    Slow Motion Ocean: Why Are North Atlantic Currents Weakening?

    By Alex Kirby The Gulf Stream is slowing, the North Atlantic is cooling. An international scientific study has found new and harder evidence that one of the planet’s key heat pumps, the currents which exchange warmth between the tropics and the Arctic, are weaker today than at any time in the last thousand years. The […]

    Giant Sloth Fossils, Mayan Relics Discovered in World’s Largest Flooded Cave

    Giant Sloth Fossils, Mayan Relics Discovered in World’s Largest Flooded Cave

    Archaeologists exploring the world’s largest flooded cave—discovered last month just outside of Tulum, Mexico—have found an impressive treasure trove of relics. The vast, 216-mile cave actually connects two of the largest flooded cave systems in the world, the 164-mile-long Sistema Sac Actun and the 52-mile-long Dos Ojos system. Aside from an extensive reserve of freshwater […]