If humans are to have a future, we must stop the rape and pillage of our mother Earth and then move quickly to repair the damage.
The first action needs to be to stop cutting down forests. We all know by now that “forests are the lungs of the planet.” But how many know that forests regulate the water cycle of the planet?
Water passes through the body of trees, taken up by tree roots, moving up through trunk and branches and out through leaves and needles into the atmosphere in a process called “transpiration.”
Tiny particles of water vapor released from treetops cool the air, rising and coalescing into clouds. Clouds release that water in the form of rainfall, in predictable, manageable amounts like we used to have.
I am a 10-year veteran Airbnb host. We have one guest room that we love to rent out to guests from all over the world. We need the income, and our guests enrich our lives. I have no quarrel with people who rent rooms in their homes or attached...
There is going to be a revolution in farming, and it's going to happen soon. It has to. The revolution is called regenerative agriculture, and the winners will be farmers, soil, bees, and everyone who eats. The only losers will be the pharmaceutical and petrochemical companies that have taken...
What can we do, as individuals, to turn all the rain that a big storm brings into an asset rather than a disaster? After Tropical Storm Irene, towns in Vermont were mandated to come up with plans to deal with flood waters. Sadly, they have been very slow in doing so, but there are many ways they can. One way is to have places where floodwaters can be caught. The Vermont Land Trust put protections in place on Bull Creek...
I woke up on the morning after the Women's March and rallies with genuine gratitude toward Donald Trump and his supporters, who have shown us - in Technicolor, on a jumbotron screen - something that has been operating in this country and around the globe for several centuries. For eight years we liberals have been lulled and cooed into a false sense that the direction of this country either “is not too bad.” Or that it “will get better' or...
I attended a really incredible performance recently: “Luminous Night” by the Brattleboro Concert Choir, directed by Susan Dedell. I was so very moved that I went home and found and purchased all the pieces on iTunes to create a CD of the concert. I must say that Sunday's live performance was of better quality than most of the recordings I could locate - especially the choir, who sang with great depth, sensitivity, and emotional maturity. Bravo, local musicians! How amazing...
I spent the better part of the weekend in shock and grief at the slaughter of innocents in Newtown, Conn. in the days following the shooting. Shock and grief over the killing of children and dedicated teachers, yes, and at the fact that our culture, the country I call mine, has been unwilling to take any meaningful measures to stop the carnage that is repeatedly perpetrated on innocent and unsuspecting citizens, many of them children. We as a nation have...