It was in the 1970s, in an essay by Kurt Vonnegut, that I first encountered the metaphor of the canary in the coal mine. In the intervening two decades, its status, for me at least, has slipped from metaphor to cliche. The edges are all worn down and it slides too easily through our conversations […]

One of the things I dislike about being an environmentalist is that environmentalists really can’t improve anything. A clean, free-flowing river is a natural phenomenon, we can’t improve on it. Far from that, we are bold if we imagine returning a polluted river to its natural state. The best we can hope for that river […]

There was an amazing story in the Seattle paper a few weeks ago, about the Trillium Lumber Company of Bellingham, Washington and its plan to cut down trees on Tierra del Fuego – the island at the southern tip of South America. You might think this article was an expose – a logging company that […]

From the earliest days, when our ancestors first swung down from the trees, humans have been aware that eating certain things will induce sickness or death. We share this awareness of poison with many animals. Some veterinarians believe when dogs eat grass, it is because they are suffering gastro-intestinal upset and are inducing vomiting. The […]