An American hero, Florence Merriam Bailey, set off one of the biggest crazes in American history. Birdwatching. Yes. Birdwatching. There are now an estimated 67 million birders throughout the nation, (about 20% of us) a number that continues to grow. 11-17-22
Thirty-five Rachel Carson Council (RCC) Fellows and staff, all young environmental leaders in their twenties, all Generation Z or Zoomers, listened intently, then fired questions at U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin. 08-09-22
The revelation that the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Roe v. Wade brought me back to the 1990s in the Valley Medical Center in Brownsville, Texas on the U.S.-Mexico border. 05-15-22
I have been trying to write about the glories of spring at least since the crocuses first peeked out at the start of March. Each year, it has become a ritual for me. 04-29-22
In his strong State of the Union speech, rapidly redrafted to focus on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden barely mentioned the environment and global climate change. 03-10-22
I stood in shirt sleeves and watched a honeybee settle into the bright red and yellow camellia blossom in my Bethesda yard. It was about 63˚F, but it was January 2, not April 2. 01-04-22
In the nineties, when it was novel, I used to run around shouting about climate change, “It’s not just polar bears and penguins, it’s people, too!” Editors are still enamored of photos of “iconic” polar bears struggling with melting ice. 07-21-21
The showy blossoms are out, shouting for attention. Released from a weary wet winter, wild cherries, Yoshino cherries, magnolias of many kinds — small, porcelain white or bone china dipped in wine — electrify our streets. 03-29-21
It was President Warren Harding who called for a “return to normalcy,” mangling our language and American history with his extremely popular early use of a sound bite or Tweet. 01-20-21
I have been hopeful throughout the election season that Donald Trump would be rejected by American voters. 01-07-21
In my yard, the golden-centered red camellias bloomed brightly in November. Cherry trees blossomed; roses bloomed. Such reawakening was surely a sign of hope as cars rode in circles, honking and waving signs at the defeat of Donald Trump and the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. 12-20-20
What looks to be a flock of goldfinches flashing yellow lands in a weedy patch on the path at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland. 10-14-20
the ocean of which Rachel Carson wrote is not the ocean of today. 07-15-20
It is eerily still, like the small town without birds or sounds in the opening fable of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, as self-isolation sweeps across the nation, along with the corona virus. 03-30-20
It is an early spring. It has been for some time. Spring this year, thanks to global warming, has been tentative, slowly opening in February, buds and small flowers peeking out a window cautiously, as if a sudden freeze could still nip them in the bud. 03-07-20
I enter the C&O Canal on foot at Lock 10 in Cabin John over a flat wooden bridge and a canal lock with ancient, slightly rusted iron mechanical parts and gears. 01-19-20
I saw my very first Bald Eagle decades ago. It was not soaring majestically but pecking and pulling on a fish by the shoreline of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Eastern Shore, Maryland. 11-11-19
The RCC has been critical of the Trump Administration’s unceasing efforts to roll back, ignore, or weaken environmental policies and regulations and to favor the drilling, digging, blasting, burning, and infrastructure building of the fossil fuel industry. 09-27-19
When Rachel Carson published “Help Your Child to Wonder” in the July, 1956 issue of Woman’s Home Companion, her grandnephew Roger Christie, whom she adopted as her son, was the same age as my grandson, Desmond. 07-14-19
The abbey atop Mont Sainte Odile near Obernai in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace, France, is reached by a winding drive through lush, fragrant forests of fir and pine. 06-26-19
Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden first caused an uproar among environmentalists by hinting he wanted to find a “middle ground” on global climate change. 06-07-19
I am standing at a classic Washington political event, wine glass in hand, next to Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), co-sponsor, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), of the Green New Deal resolution. 05-14-19
The iconic American robin is both a winter resident and spring migrant where I live in Bethesda, Maryland. 03-11-19
As the first snow flurries begin to fall, I rush to put out extra seed in my yard. Within seconds, a junco appears beneath the feeders, as if beamed in from Canada. 02-04-19
This November, my late fall asters are still blooming along with the tattered yard signs of an election year. Their bunches of small, pale blue, daisy-like flowers with yellow centers add bright color as leaves turn brown and yellow and maroon, and cascade to the ground. 11-11-18
Environmentalists have been playing desperate defense since the 2016 election brought a trifecta of right-wing, anti-environmental, indeed, anti-progressive forces to power — the Trump White House, a reactionary 115th Congress, and a similarly tilting Supreme Court. 08-20-18
There are timeless jokes about Washington being built on swampland, or as a site for hazardous duty pay for diplomats before the advent of air conditioning. 07-14-18
True Washington spring weather is late this year. Despite new, record CO2 atmospheric concentrations of 410 ppm in April and warmer than average global temperatures in March and April, the cherry blossoms and warm, sunny weather lagged behind schedule. 05-10-18
Within forty-eight hours, the temperature in Bethesda leapt into the 70s in the midst of February. The Easter Bunny emerges over a month early, bounding from beneath the deck in our neighbor’s yard, sniffing and looking for things to nibble. 02-22-18
Rachel Carson, perhaps the greatest, and certainly the best known, environmentalist of the twentieth century, was deeply opposed to nuclear testing and nuclear war from at least 1946. 01-10-18
Nat King Cole’s old melody, “Autumn Leaves,” is about sadness and loss, lost love, and the waning of summer’s warmth. “Since you went away the days grow long. And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song.” But are those lovely leaves “of red and gold” gone forever? 11-17-17
Rachel Carson knew she was dying as she wrote fondly to her friend, Dorothy Freeman, of their time together. “But most of all, I shall remember the Monarchs.” 10-16-17
President Trump has casually threatened nuclear war before and now has promised formally in a chilling speech at the United Nations to “totally destroy” North Korea if need be — presumably by using nukes. 09-19-17
I should be deeply indebted to Marie Maynard Daly. The problem is, I never even heard of her until this week. 08-15-17
I am one of those unusual fellows who keeps a life list of every bird species I have ever seen. I am a birder, the manly, sporting name that has replaced the old-fashioned and much maligned “bird watcher”. 07-22-17
Enough of being an office-bound environmentalist. I want, no, I need, to get out in the nature that as head of the Rachel Carson Council, I am sworn to protect. 06-06-17
I just saw an incredible chart that showed CO2 in the atmosphere going down and global warming starting to slow and reverse! This is not Donald Trump denial, or some nut proposing we destroy asteroids to save the Earth. 05-10-17
Neil Gorsuch looks like a Supreme Court justice, right? Distinguished, handsome, trim, trim suit, silver hair, silver speaking tones, male, white. 04-16-17
Earth Day Texas (Earth DayTx) is as big and boisterous as the Lone Star State itself. And, it’s as full of contradictions as the contemporary, huge enviro movement. 04-25-17
Watching PEPCO, the local power company, and luxury home developers slowly decimate the mature shade trees throughout my suburban Bethesda neighborhood is making a serious tree hugger out of me. 03-17-17
OK. This is embarrassing. I got excited because I saw a rodent. Understand, it was one I had not seen in nearly forty years. And then it was at night. 11-02-18
Galileo was arrested and excommunicated for challenging, with evidence from his early telescope, the Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine that the sun circled the earth. 08-15-16
Donald Trump is trying to raise my cortisol levels. Or increase my wine consumption. 06-16-16
I have to steal away to the C&O Canal. Global warming has brought me another glorious early spring day, a guilty pleasure of brilliant cerulean skies, warm, bright sun, floral delights, and my first bee and butterfly. 05-04-16
Never heard of Mary Amdur? Neither had I. She is the modern mother of air pollution science who in 1953 stood up to physical intimidation by corporate hired goons. 04-12-16
As an ecologist, I look for the interconnection of things. The smallest changes can signal shifts in the rhythms, the realities of life around us. 03-10-16
08-15-16
Galileo was arrested and excommunicated for challenging, with evidence from his early telescope, the Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine that the sun circled the earth.