Traffic Lights Are Never Green

February 28, 2018

When you sit at a traffic light, frustrated that it takes so long to turn green, consider that in one sense it never will. Traffic lights are among mankind’s greatest inventions for safety, and among our worst for the environment. Numerous studies attest to the inefficiency of cars idling in traffic. The amount of fuel […]

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Maintain the Old or Buy the New?

February 23, 2018

When your car has a flat tire, a dead battery, and needs an oil change, you have two choices. Take care of these tiresome but routine tasks, or buy a new car. Few of us can afford the latter option, and even if we did, new cars need maintenance, too. Otherwise we would just have […]

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Environmental Street Fighting

February 16, 2018

Kenny Rogers’ classic tune about the “Coward of the County” concludes with the pearl of wisdom that “sometimes you’ve got to fight to be a man.” As much as we wish otherwise, there are times when fighting cannot be avoided, especially when our safety, families, or even country, are threatened. That’s why many leaders, from […]

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Put Down That Sandwich!

February 7, 2018

John Montagu was a prominent 18th Century nobleman, serving as England’s Postmaster General, Northern Secretary of State, and First Lord of the Admiralty. He financed Captain James Cook’s explorations of the Pacific, was an early supporter of professional cricket leagues, and a great patron of the arts, whose scandalous affair with an opera singer led […]

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Do As We Say, Not As We Did.

February 1, 2018

If your cat kills a bird, could you be fined $15,000 and spend six months in jail? If a bird flies into the side of your house, did you kill it, just by owning the house? If a truck hits a bird, did the company violate federal law? The common sense answer to these questions […]

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Can We Even Recognize Success?

January 24, 2018

Noted physician and educator Lewis Thomas wrote, “We are, perhaps, uniquely among the Earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still.” Other species do not stew and fret over everything as we tend to […]

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Disaster Relief Homesteading

January 19, 2018

Geologists at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources warn that an imminent landslide threatens the homes of about 70 people along a sliver of land called Rattlesnake Ridge. Residents have been offered five paid weeks at a hotel, and most have taken it. They’re still returning home every few days to take care of […]

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Settling the Great Blue Frontier

January 12, 2018

There was a time when people unhappy with their government, and no longer able to tolerate the situation, would simply go somewhere else, and set up their own new communities. That is largely the story of the western frontier, but it is no longer an option – or is it? Today, nearly all the world’s […]

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Natural Solutions to Unnatural Problems

January 5, 2018

A popular definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” A 1983 speaker put it this way: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten.” It may be the perfect definition of our approach to natural resources management. We respond […]

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The Definition of Civility

December 29, 2017

People often bemoan the loss of civility in our society. Webster’s dictionary defines civility as “civilized conduct, especially courtesy and politeness.” We see the decline of civility in everyday encounters, from parking lots to movie lines, but it is especially notable in politics. That’s because civility is vital to a democratic system requiring constant compromise […]

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