Category Archives: subdivisions

How green was my lawn?

Posted on September 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

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

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Posted in roadkill, roads, smog, sprawl, subdivisions, suburban sprawl

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Environmental groups’ study says subsidies, high crop prices lead to habitat loss

Posted on August 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

And there is only, what, one percent of the original tallgrass prairie left today? What a damn shame. Read more here.

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Posted in land ethic, land preservation, prairie, protected areas, public land, public lands, subdivisions, subsidies, suburban sprawl

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roposed development a big test for Adirondack Park Agency

Posted on January 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

I can easily imagine many of the towns/cities in which I lived or visited during my 26-year career in the U.S. Air Force as simply caving in should a mammoth nature-destroying development ever come to their backyards. Not so in the Adirondack Park, which is across Lake Champlain from where I am typing this. Americans tend to easily forget, or just overlook, the fact that Nature is not making any new land these days. Once natural land has been built on or paved over, that’s the end, and Wild Nature is once again diminished. Read about the proposal to build a nw housing empire at Tupper Lake in the Adirondacks.

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Posted in Adirondack Park, Adirondacks, development, habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss, subdivisions, suburban sprawl

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The border fence vs. migratory wildlife

Posted on December 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

The fence, a favorite of rght-wingers in Congress, is the one that lines the order between the U.S. and Mexico. Predictably, it’s not good for wildlife, as this article explains very well.

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Posted in protected areas, protected land, public land, rewilding North America, roads, Sonoran Desert, sprawl, subdivisions, urban sprawl, wild nature, wildlife crime, wildlife habitat, wildlife issues, wildlilfe migration corridors

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Welcome to America, land of the car and the car and . . .

Posted on December 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

This is what results, almost always, when lanes are added to an existing roadway in hopes of relieving congestion: More congestion. And more sprawl. Andmore strip malls. And more gas stations. And . . .Image

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Posted in carbon, carbon dioxide, carbon emissions, cars, crude oil, scars on the land, subdivisions, suburban sprawl

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Susquehanna River carrying huge plume of muck into Chesapeake

Posted on September 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

And all my former neighbors in the tiny borough of Conyngham may have contributed by having the lawn chemical men “treat” their dandelion-free lawns for the fall. Meanwhile, the Chesapeake Bay awaits the muck, which NASA is helping track via satellite photos. Read the dirty muck story right here.

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Posted in Clean Water Act, sprawl, subdivisions, suburban sprawl, Susquehanna River, water pollution

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Floodwaters in Chesapeake watershed makng bad situation worse

Posted on September 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

Every new parking lot and strip mall makes it worse, but most elected leaders, especially in Pennsylvania, think only of the property tax dollars that new sprawl development brings into their municipal treasuries. What a debacle.

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Posted in clean water, Clean Water Act, road ecology, roadkill, roads, streams, subdivisions, suburban sprawl

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Quote of the week

Posted on June 22, 2011 | Leave a comment
“I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work.”
– James Howard Kunstler,
from The Geography of Nowhere

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Posted in greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gases, growth, James Howard Kunstler, migration barriers, noise pollution, off-road cowboys, off-road vehicle abuse, peak oil, sprawl, subdivisions, suburban sprawl, transportation issues, urban sprawl, walk, walking, water pollution

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A thought for the day

Posted on May 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

From a news story about the recent tornadoes (something I never saw in my three years of living in central Oklahoma):

Urban sprawl into the countryside has increased the odds that tornadoes will affect more people, said Joshua Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colo. He likened the situation to barrier islands, where more and more homes are being built in areas prone to hurricanes.

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Posted in climate change, global warming, subdivisions, suburban sprawl

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Putting wildlife first: A case study from Idaho

Posted on March 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

This article highlights the benefits to wildlife and people of public investment in preserving natural lands. I know the spot described in this article only too well, having once lived not too far from it. Anyway, the case study explored in this piece shows once again the worth and value of the public investing its money in saving open space and wild, natural land.

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Posted in Fish and wildlife, fish and wildlife funding, Idaho, Idaho Fish and Game Department, Idaho wildlife, land ethic, land preservation, subdivisions, suburban sprawl, urban sprawl, wild nature

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