Mud Season Solace
I have a bowl of paper whites, Of paper-white narcissus; Their fragrance my whole soul delights, They smell delissus. E.B. White, “Window Ledge in the Atom Age,” 1946 Winter may finally be over,...
Author: Marina Schauffler
Politicians at Sea
The politics of climate change are starting to resemble the surface of a melting glacier split by crevices. We appear to be at a shear zone, a major discontinuity between the perspective of most...
Bridging Chasms: An Open Letter in Support of Science
After a recent conversation with a self-described “climate agnostic,” I found myself trying to articulate why that was not a tenable stance. I wrote that person a letter and am sharing it beyond the...
Getting brighter about LED bulbs
“There is no such thing as a free lunch,” biologist Barry Commoner wrote in 1971, proposing that as one of four “laws of ecology.” We’ve had decades to absorb that lesson but it still...
Facing Student Debt with Eyes Wide Open
“What education giveth in terms of freedom and opportunity, student debt often taketh away.” – Zac Bissonnette, Debt-Free U Too many high school students stumble through applications for college loans with far more optimism...
A Time for Rethinking
“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be...
An Essential Prescription
In a fluorescent-lit room decked with posters, people slouch in their seats, shoulders rounded and spines curved. A few bent forms prop their heads on elbows, seemingly unable to sit up without support; others...
Good Riddance
It’s always an ironic postscript to Thanksgiving: the raucous Black Friday stampede at the starting line of a month-long shopping marathon. How quickly our gratitude for blessings descends into a sharp-elbowed scramble to acquire...
