“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.”

John Muir, 1915

– from Scott Kinghorn, NPS

From Live Earth and youTube, a tribute to Michele Gardner-Quinn, SCA Intern ‘06, Prince William Forest Park, VA.

by Joshua Stearns, SCA Alumnus and Board Member

Rebecca Solnit recently published an essay called “Maps for the Year Ahead” in Orion Magazine. The piece offers a number of striking observations about space, place, and land in the wake of tragedy. Looking at events like the1906 earthquake in San Francisco and hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, Solnit draws a connection between urban sprawl and the power of natural disasters to make us feel disoriented and, in a very real sense, ungrounded. This reminded me of a friend of mine who led rafting trips. He once told me that each year, and after big rain storm, river guides have to re-learn the river because the river bed changes so dramatically. Solnit’s discussion of displacement and mapping made me wonder how often we have to re-learn our landscape and how quickly it can change.

This is from the opening paragraph of her piece, in which she is describing some of the reactions of displaced people whose communities were devastated by Katrina: (more…)

Trained as a zoologist, Rachel Carson began her career as a contract government science writer at a time when… “wildlife agencies still handed out recipes for the animals they were studying.” (An Environmental Icon’s Unseen Fortitude, Washington Post 5.18.07) She is best known for her still controversial book Silent Spring and its crusade against the widespread use of DDT, but her legacy extends well beyond that. She is widely acknowledged to have been the inspiration for the environmental movement, with the creation of the EPA being only one of the results. “The earth itself needs an advocate,” she said. If she were still alive, I wonder what she would be advocating? What do you think? She was apparently incapable of remaining silent. Would that the same were true for the rest of us.

The Coal War on Appalachia
by Janisse Ray

HAZARD, Ky. – When I arrive at the tiny hangar in Hazard, Kentucky, pilot Susan Lapis is waiting. Lapis has flown in her immaculate Cessna from Bristol, Virginia, where she lives. She’s dressed completely in black, a long black dress with black tights.

When I first met Lapis a few years ago, I called her an angel who watches over the world, because of her work with SouthWings, which ferries reporters and politicians above environmental destruction. I called Lapis a wind goddess, and she laughed.

Now, teasing, I call her a flying nun. “I’m wearing black for Kentucky,” she says.

Lapis straps me in and points out headphones. “Truth is, this hardly needs any words,” she says. Photo: Vivian Stockman/SouthWings, and Orion Magazine (more…)

by Bernie Zaleha, Sierra Club Vice President (2004-2006), Sierra Club Board of Directors, SCA Alumnus

I’ve been a deep ecologist since I first heard the term and its definition. I forget exactly when that was, but I know it was before my summer of volunteer service in 1982 to the SCA in the BLM’s office in Fairbanks, Alaska. Another way of defining deep ecology is as a philosophy that recognizes the intrinsic worth of all of creation, not just the human part. Two months ago, I was asked to speak to Yale Political Union addressing the question, Should the government protect the environment for it’s intrinsic value? The YPU is a raucous bunch. The various factions pound their desks if they like what you are saying, and hiss if they dislike what you are saying, during your speech. I was hissed and pounded simultaneously. After my speech, the YPU passed a resolution that yes, the government should protect the environment for its intrinsic value, instead of merely for its anthropocentric benefits.

So what more is there to deep ecology?

(more…)

by Janisse Ray

Silent Spring opened the floodgates of inquiry into environmental contaminants and their effects on wildlife and humans, an investigation that accelerated in the 1990s. We’ve looked at chemicals in high doses as lethal. We’ve looked at chemicals as carcinogenic. But they may be affecting us in other life-threatening ways.

In the past two decades, study after study has shown what Rachel Carson predicated. Chemicals are disturbing normal hormone-controlled development, affecting gender, sex, and reproduction. And, we are now seeing, low doses are disruption enough.
(more…)

Oh arghh… We’re having an ice storm, I’m trying to work from home, and it’s not going well. I’m back from vacation and feeling a surge of pent up energy to get some work done on SCA’s websites. That, coupled with anxiety about having been away for 10 days has me feeling more than my usual frustration when things go awry, as they have this morning. First the SCA server went down, then I lost my internet connection altogether, and now the power is off. I will be out of business in about an hour when the battery in my computer goes dead.

I guess I could find a pencil and some paper and write the review that I have been promising of David Abram’s book The Spell of the Sensuous, Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. (more…)

…and we hope its grasp.

With this posting on Conservation Nation, we are officially launching a new and improved blog that we hope you will find interesting enough to bookmark and return to often.

Changes include a broad environmental editorial framework to encompass everything from Deep Ecology to composting and lots in between. And, thanks to WordPress’ open source software, it’s all in a new and improved bloggy format.

When I first made the proposal to my department colleagues to broaden our editorial policy, my boss, a veteran newsman, gave me one of his seriously skeptical looks at my use of the term Deep Ecology. In case you would like a clarification, too, I refer you to an excellent and brief definition in Wikipedia of a philosophy that “aims to avoid merely utilitarian environmentalism based on the well-being of humans alone.”

While the language of philosophy can be theoretical and precise, the story in today’s New York Times about plans to exterminate a 5,500 acre prairie dog colony in Kansas is a good illustration of just how messy this issue can get. It pits a charismatic rodent and the endangered black-footed ferret against the also endangered cowboy/rancher and a struggle to save a way of life.

Comments? What would you do? I invite you to post your thoughts by emailing it to webmaster or simply post a comment here. We have open commenting, so it’s easy. I also invite you to share your favorite environmental website link with us, subscribe to an RSS feed so that you know when something new is posted, and email this link to your friends.

Come back soon to find out more about the prairie dogs and read comments.