“A WILD SCENE OF CRAG AND MOUNTAIN,” THE ROUGHLY THOUSAND SQUARE MILES THAT COMPRISE ENGLAND’S LAKE DISTRICT INSPIRED THE IDEALS OF THE ROMANTIC ERA AND FORMED THE ROOTS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT. by bruce stutz With Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal in hand, I set out from […]
Category Archives: Nature and Environment
Transylvania: Welcome to the Future
A dictator wanted to raze it with bulldozers. Investors wanted to turn it into a theme park called Draculaland. In a forgotten pocket of Central Europe, villagers struggle to preserve a way of life that leaves only the lightest of footprints on the land. The […]
Britain’s Elusive Eco-Town Dream
Where the Past Meets the Carbon-Neutral Future Once the train gets beyond the outskirts of London, the English countryside comes into view, a panorama of low rolling meadows, slow-winding streams, and tidy hedgerowed fields spreading beneath dark barreling rain clouds. Cows and sheep graze sodden […]
Adaptation Emerges as Key Part of Any Climate Change Plan
After years of reluctance, scientists and governments are now looking to adaptation measures as critical for confronting the consequences of climate change. And increasingly, plans are being developed to deal with rising seas, water shortages, spreading diseases, and other realities of a warming world. by […]
The New Urbanists: Tackling Europe’s Sprawl
In the last few decades, urban sprawl, once regarded as largely a U.S. phenomenon, has spread across Europe. Now an emerging group of planners is promoting a new kind of development — mixed-use, low-carbon communities that are pedestrian-friendly and mass-transit-oriented. by bruce stutz The mood […]
Green Roofs are Starting To Sprout in American Cities
Long a proven technology in Europe, green roofs are becoming increasingly common in U.S. cities, with major initiatives in Chicago, Portland, and Washington, D.C. While initially more expensive than standard coverings, green roofs offer some major environmental — and economic — benefits. The low scrubland […]
New York City Girds Itself for Heat and Rising Seas
By the end of the century, New York’s climate could resemble that of present-day Raleigh, North Carolina and its harbor could easily rise by two feet or more. Faced with this prospect, the city is among the first urban centers to begin changing the way […]
Finding New Species: The Golden Age of Discovery
Aided by new access to remote regions, researchers have been discovering new species at a record pace — 16,969 in 2006 alone. The challenge now is to preserve threatened ecosystems before these species, and others yet unknown, are lost. by bruce stutz Even as biodiversity […]
Mysteries of the Deep
As scientists work to unlock the secrets of how climate change is affecting the oceans, they may have found an improbable new power tool: bacteria The surfaces of the world’s oceans are vast, but the depths are far vaster. And for scientists who suspect that […]
Europe’s Black Triangle Turns Green
For two days it has been cold and pouring continually, but each morning the caravan of scientists rolls out from the inn on the square in the small northwestern Czech village of Horni Blatna and heads an hour north into the mountains. At the group’s […]
Oregon’s Secret Harvest
Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, matsutake and other rare mushrooms are prized delicacies — not to mention big business. I arrive too late. It’s seven o’clock in the morning and already the mushroom pickers have bought their permits and headed up into […]
Creature of the Deep
It’s been around since the dinosaurs, but it may now be close to extinction. What can we do to save the amazing sturgeon? My first encounter with this ancient chimera came on a research vessel trolling just outside New York Harbor, within sight of Coney […]