…this month by my extended family in Tado, eastern Indonesia, to help achieve my annual goal of carbon-neutral living while conserving biocultural diversity. Why 300 trees? What types of trees? And why Tado?   Three hundred trees represent the number of actively growing woody plants I need to plant to offset the tonnage of carbon […]

This Winter, like all the winters going back for decades, our US Forest Service and our National Parks Service are coordinating the slaughter of American Bison on public lands. Plains Tribes have been asking to receive the “excess” Yellowstone and Grand Canyon National Park bison for many years, and they are rarely – if ever […]

One of the most abundant, nutritious, and freely available foods in California falls on the ground every autumn, and while the squirrels, woodpeckers, and several hundred other species take notice, very few humans still do.   Acorns were the original all-purpose mush, providing protein, carbohydrates, fats, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and niacin. Stripped of their outer shell and […]

  Clear Lake, California’s oldest and largest lake, is experiencing recurrent toxic algal blooms: blooms composed of photosynthesizing algae, including blue-green cyanobacteria. Certain species of harmful cyanobacteria produce toxins known as microcystins that are lethal to humans, pets, livestock, and wildlife. The environmental protection offices of the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Elem […]

With climate change threatening everyone’s future in uncountable ways, and continued government inaction, what’s a conscientious citizen to do? How can we effect change, how can we be the change, one life at a time? Ever since I began a professional focus in the environmental sciences, every year I push myself to change one more […]