At the Frontlines of the Global Transition
Before the country scrambled itself into an almost unrecognizable mess. Well before actually, there was a place on Chicago’s South Side called Theresa’s Lounge where every weekend the city’s best Blues were played in a deep song voice and a melancholy tone. Junior Wells and Buddy Guy were regulars. So was James Cotton. I was once at Theresa’s in 1982 with a friend when Cotton walked in off the street, took his spot on stage, …
Earlier this year I was awarded an investigative fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation to pursue the causes and serious consequences of farm-related nutrient pollution in the nine-state Corn Belt at the center of the country. The project, undertaken with the collaboration of Circle of Blue, The New Lede, and The Guardian, builds on what I learned in 2022 reporting for Circle of Blue on phosphorus contamination for “Danger Looms Where Algae Blooms.” When I …
BENZONIA – This could have been a miserable Thanksgiving. It’s not. On November 8 sane Americans voted their disapproval for the dreadful politics of MAGA America. Never more so than in Michigan. Even in our three-county corner of the lower peninsula Democrats and sufficient numbers of disgusted Republicans voted to reject election-denying, Trump-supported candidates and re-elect the incumbent Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. Having cast off the psychic weight of election dread, …
For decades, Americans mostly turned a blind eye to the industrial-scale livestock production operations that churn out cheap supplies of meat and dairy for the masses. Occasional opposition to local pollution problems and the casual animal cruelty that characterize conventional US dairy, hog, and poultry production did little to alter practices that are embedded in the rural landscape. That may be changing. A wave of frontline resistance is now breaking across the Upper Midwest and …
In 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified phosphorus and nitrogen discharges from U.S. farmland as the single greatest challenge to our nation’s water quality. That assessment followed years of confirming high concentrations of farm nutrients in surface and groundwater reserves, and dozens of peer-reviewed epidemiology studies that cited both compounds as a threat to public health. The agency proposed to identify those responsible and develop strategies to reduce nutrient pollution. That plan died the following year. …
HONOR — On a bright autumn afternoon Platte Lake is a stirring statement about the excellent condition of Benzie County’s natural resources. Its broad waters are stunning alpine blue. Its shoreline brims with the splendor of maple leaves, a fluttering hoard of yellow, orange, and red. But more than the fortunate convergence of thick forest and fresh water is at play on and around the 2,500-acre lake. The commanding beauty also is the result of …
“When the celestial passes close everybody will stop and want to be the comet.Maybe then the type of mattress won’t matter.”Brandon Rushton from What If There’s Something Out There BENZONIA — Brandon Rushton, who is 33 years old and a poet of national distinction, writes with the awareness and power of a young man determined to diagnose America’s endemic bafflement. His collection of essays and poetry, “The Air in the Air Behind It,” was published …
Carlos Antonio Santiago was born on September 29, 1955 in his mother’s home in Ponce, Puerto Rico, the ninth of 12 children and the eighth of ten boys. His mother, Ana Rivera, rented rooms in her two houses and cooked for her tenants. His father, Carlos Santiago Fraticelli, was a commercial fisherman by day and operated entertainment enterprises around Ponce. When Carlos was eight years old, his parents moved with three of his brothers and …
Earlier this month, last week in fact, Yvon Chouinard announced he and his family are changing ownership and management oversight of their company to enable more investment in securing the global environment. It’s a novel and enlightened business strategy for Patagonia, executed by a man who’s led an adventurous life of real value to the world. I write this to note that Yvon brought his gifts to my home region in Northwest Michigan in 1999 …
More than 30 years ago James E. Hansen, the eminent American physicist, told a U.S. Senate hearing in the hot and dry summer of 1988 that the Earth was warmer than it had ever been since the invention of modern instrumentation, and that “with 99 percent confidence†the cause was human-induced global warming. As a moment in contemporary American environmental history, Hansen’s appearance before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources ranks with the …
