Today a woman came into the nature center and, after perusing for a good while, came over to the desk to speak to me about a recent trip she’d taken to the Field Museum in Chicago, which is both a natural history and cultural history museum. (I now have a reason to go to Chicago [...]
Archive for the ‘Sustainability’ Category
29 Mar
Do you know who Monsanto is?
If you haven’t heard of Monsanto before, here are some things you should know as an educated citizen. Monsanto is an enormous corporation responsible for RoundUp pesticide and a variety of patented vegetable products. Read that again: patented vegetable products. Monsanto is a purveyor of genetically modified organisms (GMO), which the US government allows them [...]
4 Mar
The Truth About Chickens. (And cute baby chicken photos.)
I’m going to play it cool like I haven’t been MIA for the last week+ and treat you to some gratuitously cute photos. Deal? Okay. I also want to talk to you about chickens. Do you have a minute?
20 Feb
How You Got Fooled into Drinking Bottled Water.
Like many things in American society, bottled water has become a symbol of two things: how easy it is to brainwash our people, and how our society completely disregards its basic necessities to make an easy buck. Bottled water is a campaign to make money based on false information and fear. I learned so much [...]
17 Dec
Sustainability 101: 8 Tips for Sustainable Gardening
In a society hell-bent on making everything convenient, it’s easy to forget how convenient it actually is to simplify. That’s the beauty of sustainability: simplification. It may look like more work but in reality, there are usually fewer future detriments to deal with. We’ve already talked about composting and harvesting rainwater, so here a few [...]
11 Dec
Sustainability 101: Composting
Composting kitchen waste is one of the most well-known and easiest methods of reducing landfill space and recycling matter. If you have kids (or if you’re a kid at heart, like me), it’s rewarding to watch “waste” turn into something usable. Wasted food is one of my biggest pet peeves (and I’m such a bad [...]
7 Dec
Sustainability: Shifting Perspectives
SUSTAINABILITY. What does that word bring up for you? I think for some people it brings to mind eco-terrorism and dirty hippies. For me, it’s really about balance. I’m no expert in sustainable practices, but I have some pretty strong feelings about them, and since you’re unfortunate enough to be following this blog, you’re just [...]
29 Sep
No wolves, no water.
So I’m cheating here by only giving a smidge of the article and not bothering to interpret it, so I’ll give you the link here, and leave you with this mind-blowing snippet. As it turns out, wolves are critical for water. And, as any ecologist with half a brain will tell you, removing a predator [...]
8 Sep
Coyotes and Live Trapping, An Addendum
As if it wasn’t long enough, I wanted to make a side-note on the most recent post about coyotes. Many people suggest live trapping and relocation as a viable option for “controlling” coyotes, but it turns out that live trapping is bad news for our canid friend.
