Why I don’t use plastic bags at the grocery store
I had a business trip to Nevada. It was in Las Vegas. To make the trip bearable, I needed to take advantage of seeing the natural wonders of Nevada for the first time while there. I would not have gone otherwise! We rented a car to go to the Valley of Fire State Park. It […]
Gatlinburg – The Tourist Trap of the Great Smoky Mountains and an Exciting Botanical discovery
A friend was telling me about taking her son to Gatlinburg for a vacation when he was twelve. In the summer of 1973, I hitched north to Boston to rent my apartment for graduate school. A friend from FSU anthropology was a ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains that summer. I hitched up I-75 and […]
One of the Greatest Evils of Modern Chemistry
Expanded polystyrene (EPS), commonly known as styrofoam, doesn’t degrade or break down over time. This post has been prompted by something that just happened in my doctor’s office while getting a diagnostic test (I’m OK, in fact I’m in great shape and relieved by the test results. The screening test is a good idea. I’ll […]
Central City
Among other disciplines, I studied Botany. I have taught courses on Edible Wild Plants and Field Botanical Taxonomy, or how to use botanical keys to identify plants. The North Florida panhandle is the only place in the United Sates that has ALL genera of carnivorous plants. My favorite place to see them and other native […]
Hybrid Water Heaters – One of the quickest, easiest, cheapest and most effective retrofits you can make to your home to fight Climate Change
Many of you know I was one of the founders of Earth Day in 1970. No, I did not create it, but by then I had gained note as an environmental activist. They wanted that first celebration to occur in an many cities as possible. They recruited me to have a celebration in Miami. We […]
The Ecology of the Everglades
This was a summary of the research we conducted. It is an excellent discussion of the ecology of the Everglades. From some hand-written corrections in my inimitable scrawl on the manuscript I know I contributed to authoring it. The Everglades is commonly considered a swamp. It is not. It is a broad, shallow, slowly-moving river […]
Introductory Lecture to the Man and Environment Course I Taught
This was the introductory lecture to the course I taught in 1969 and 1970 at the Miami Dade Junior College, called Man and His Environment (click here to see the brochure advertising the course). I think it is completely germane to our present day concerns! ECOLOGY Ecology: the study of the relationships between the different […]
Leonard Cohen and Climate Change
I have an overactive mind. One thought races into another in a manic stream of consciousness worthy of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Sunday morning, I am finally watching a DVD of Leonard Cohen’s London concert. Where do I begin about him? A few summers ago, ’18? ’17?, the Jewish Museum in NYC had the most mind-blowing […]
How I Stopped Oil Drilling in the Everglades
From 1967 to 1969 I was part of the Hydrobiology Research Team of the Water Resources Division of the United States Geological Survey of the United States Department of the Interior (Thank you John Wesley Powell!). Our mission was nothing less than coordinating and adding to the knowledge and understanding of the complete ecology of Everglades National Park. For two years of my very young life I got to live a real wilderness adventure.
The African Queen
I was part of a research team in the Everglades National Park from 1967 to 1969 doing the first overall study of the ecology of the ‘Glades. This is one of those stories. During my first visit to Cottonmouth Camp I found out what it was like to be both the new guy on the […]