When I heard the seven billionth person is due to be born Monday, I thought I must have made a mistake a few years back. “Didn’t I just write a commentary on the six billionth person? Was my math wrong?” My math was not wrong. I wrote that commentary the first week of October 1999. […]
Along toward the end of August, I received an email from my state’s junior senator, Bernie Sanders (I). I look forward to these because a) Senator Sanders is even more PO’ed about the state of the nation than most of his constituents (although right-winger politicians can say the same) and b) he’s not beholden to […]
Quick quiz, two questions: 1 – What percentage of scientists think global warming is occurring? 2 – What percentage of scientists think global warming is caused by human activities? Read those again carefully; it’s not the same question twice. The answers (I won’t make you wait) are 100 and 98. No statistically significant number of […]
It’s August and blight is upon us. The tomatoes have early blight, which is bad, but can be controlled by cutting away the blighted parts of the plant and not (!) composting them. We put them in plastic bags and send them to the landfill. Late blight is worse, usually taking out the whole plant […]
If you just want the bottom line, you can stop reading. The headline said it all. If you like honey and want to keep eating it, buy it now before the price goes up. I attended the summer meeting of the Vermont Beekeepers Association Saturday and the main topic of conversation: no honey. No one’s […]
Duty Now for the Future
My neighbors seemed to hit on a 21st century harvest ritual last Sunday. It was the first dusk of standard time and was getting dark around 4:40. It had been a beautiful day and we’d all been closing our gardens for the season, when I noticed fires burning in a few backyards. It seemed a […]