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In our line of work — environmental journalism, that is — it’s often hard not to feel heartbroken about the environmental crises unfolding all around us. Which may be why Lurie Mazur’s interview with climate scientist Susanne Moser really touched us. It’s not that Moser sugarcoats things in their conversation — she readily admits to her own grief around human-caused climate change. But she also digs into the varied forms that hope can take, the countless climate solutions we have yet to try, and the value of fear. So if you’re feeling down about things these days, do yourself a favor and give it a quick read.
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Here in California, where the Journal is based, surfers are a dime a dozen. In the Bay Area, it seems every beach has its own resident surfers, and the same can be said of beaches up and down the coast. Now, thanks to a nifty new technology that attaches to surfboards, these dedicated wave-riders can join the ranks of citizen scientists, gathering important information about ocean health while they do what they love. As Kim Feldmann reports, the “smartfin” technology can currently gather data about water temperature and location, and should soon be able measure other things like salinity and pH too. Now that’s tubular!
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By now we all know that spending more time outdoors and less time in front of our screens is good for our overall wellbeing. But, as agricultural ecologist and author Gary Paul Nabhan says, while getting out is great, there’s one more thing you should be doing — getting in direct, physical contact with the soil. “Good old dirt,” he writes, “enriches the gut microbiome, the community of microorganisms that inhabit our digestive tracts.” And a healthy gut microbiome, it turns out, is important to our overall wellbeing. We hope you find some time to get your hands soiled this weekend!
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The Deer Camp: A Memoir of a Father, a Family, and the Land that Healed Them is a powerful, moving account about a broken family — a philandering father, his long-suffering wife, and his three sons who carry a deep anger towards their dad but crave his love at the same time — and a patch of degraded Maine woodland that heals them. Journalist and author Dean Kuipers’ memoir is very much in line with Nabhan’s thoughts on the restorative power of land.
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Christopher Ketcham was a regular Journal contributor for many years (now that he’s a big name, we can no longer afford him!), so we were thrilled to receive a copy of his debut book, This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West. Written in true Ketcham style (read: borderline misanthropic), the book details, with much outrage, how public lands in the US are under assault as never before from federal land management agencies, Big Green groups, and ranchers. Ketcham, whose writing is being compared to that of his hero, Edward Abbey, makes a passionate call for protection of America’s last wild places.
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Greta Thunberg singing! Well, not quite. The straight-talking teen climate activist puts words to music composed by the UK indie pop-rock group The 1975 in the opening track of their new album Notes on a Conditional Form. All proceeds from the Thunberg single, called Wake Up, will go to the youth activism group Extinction Rebellion.
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