On this day in 1952, a decade before she catalyzed the environmental movement with "Silent Spring," Rachel Carson received the National Book Award with a stunning speech about the inherent poetry of science and wonder as an antidote to our self-destruction.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/11/30/rachel-carson-national-book-award-speech/
https://www.threads.net/@mariapopova/post/C2r5YrFuwF2/
Monday, January 29, 2024
What if We Don’t Drain the Swamp?
"…It became much harder last year to protect wetlands in the United States. In Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Supreme Court held that wetlands without a "continuous surface connection" to "waters of the U.S." — a term whose definition changes according to political whim — aren't covered under the provisions of the Clean Water Act.
The decision was a gift to developers, significantly weakening the power of the Clean Water Act and putting at least half of all U.S. wetlands at risk. The Natural Resources Defense Council called it "the most important water-related Supreme Court decision in a generation." In a concurring opinion, even Justice Brett Kavanaugh recognized its likely impact — to human beings, if not to wildlife. The decision, he wrote, would have "significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States."
In addition to gutting the Clean Water Act, the decision highlights one of the greatest flaws in how this country has traditionally treated wetlands. For too long, we have considered them one of two things: waterways with a clear commercial use that therefore deserve protection, or hindrances to development that can be dredged or filled and paved over to build another highway or another hotel or — thank you, Joni Mitchell — another parking lot. If ever we have needed a World Wetlands Day, it is now.
As the rain fell last week, I kept thinking of the children. Not just because they will inherit what's left of the world we have protected so poorly but also because they seem to understand what we still do not: that we are animals like any other, enmeshed with the wild world.
Called to water."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/opinion/wetlands-mining-ecosystem.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Thursday, January 4, 2024
Told Ya So: The Prescient Posters of the Environmental Movement
Graphic artists have been helping call attention to climate change for decades, and a new exhibition charts the evolution of their pleas.
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