Category Archives: sprawl

Thumbing-your-nose-at-nature sprawl development

ImageI found this roadside billboard in the sprawl-happy former sagebrush-dominated desert south and west of Boise, Idaho, a few months ago. It reminds me of the bumper-sticker slogan, “Cut down all the trees and name the streets after them.” Welcome to McMansion USA.

‘Future of Hunting’ conference set in Bismarck, N.D.

Often forgotten in confabs like this one is this: There will be no hunting if all the habitat is lost to sprawl, paving, roads, pollution, climate change, and more. There is no grand secret, but lost amid all the yelling about a president’s alleged taking of personal firearms and other right-wing lies is this: Saving habitat is key. And restoring lost habitat is also on the mark.

How green was my lawn?

This op-ed explores the current direction of “environmentalism” in light of the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.”

Wildlife cops investigating Golden Eagle killings in/near Utah

This case focuses on the deaths of at least 12 Golden Eagles. And the shooting of eagles, Bald or Golden, is a federal crime. So now we wait for the killer/killers to be found and prosecuted. It’s bad enough that fish and wildlife habitat itself continues to be killed, from coast to coast. Read about the Golden Eagle case.

Citizens or government scientists: Who does better in selecting candidates for Endangered Species Act protection?

American citizens seem to do as good a job as government scientists in selecting candidates for federal protection. That’s the gist of this article. The statistics may say one thing, but that’s hardly the whole story. Still absent from most mainstream media reporting is this: What led to a given species’ population dive? In the balance of things, more imperiled flora and fauna benefits through citizen participation. After all, there are only so many fisheries and wildlife biologists on the staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And Republicans’ non-ending desire to de-fund, as much as possible, agencies like Fish and Wildlife, only makes the campaign that much harder.

Billionaire’s donation of land jumpstarts wildlife preserve for Fish and Wildlife Service

This donation of 90,000 acres to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a really big deal, especially when considering just closely the region in southern Colorado has been eyed as “raw land” by developers, road-builders and other assorted land rapists. This is the sort of thing that legitimately takes space on page one, rather than the latest celebrity marriage or crime spree or free advertising for a fast food chain disguised as a news story.

Is silence going extinct?

The question is posed in the headline to this NY Times feature and the answer, as far as I am concerned, is yes. Yes it is.

The sidewalk: For walking, or parking the car

I photographed this scene just down the street from our home in Pennsylvania – on the cul de sac just down the street. This scene illustrates what has happened in many municipalities to the very notion of a walkable town. It has been taken over by the motor vehicle. Why walk, and burn calories after all, when you can drive a hunk of steel and plastic and burn a fossil fuel and pollute. Makes sense, doesn’t it?Image

Getting Arctic oil drilling right

The NY Times, in this editorial, gives its blessing – mostly – to offshore oil exploration along the north shore of Alaska. And the editorial presses for safety and planning and all that jazz. But there’s no talk of conservation, of finally allowing people to live in mixed-use communities where zoning allows them to live in apartments above grocery stores, as one example. And there is no talk in the editorial of what the car has done (and continues to do) to the American landscape and our natural heritage (as in exurban sprawl).

Volunteers work to save terrestrial critters from mankind (motor vehicles)

This article, from today’s NY Times, does a nice job of highlighting the field work of dedicated volunteers – some of whom actually qualify to be called herpetologists – in saving migrating salamanders on their way to vernal pools. This annual event is happening right now in some southern states and when warm spring rains come the season will continue here in Vermont and the rest of New England.