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The climate crisis magnifies my respect for the free 29-minute film Earthrise, from the collection “Top 10 Films to Watch This Summer” noted by globalonenessproject.org Executive Director Cleary Vaughan-Lee as “[our] most-watched films used by teachers from this past school year.” For teachers, here is my community-building prompt after showing the film. Ask students “What have you…

If you are just tuning in to the climate crisis, it may be difficult to process “we are already off the cliff” according to reporter Dahr Jamail, winner of the Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism for his work in Iraq and the Izzy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Media in 2018. It is unknown…

Yesterday my landlord informed me my hot water heater broke and flooded my apartment so there is mold to the ceiling and water everywhere. Most things I owned had to be taken to the dump. Now tell me the bad news, I thought. It gave me more compassion for families in New Orleans and Houston. To…

September 16, 2019 Update: Democracy Now! published an interview with Subhankar Banerjee:   “Biological Annihilation”: The Danger of Opening Alaska’s ANWR to Oil & Gas Drilling. July 26, 2019 Update: politico.com published “How Science Got Trampled in the Rush to Drill in the Arctic” by Adam Federman with photographs by Nathaniel Wilder and video by Peter…

 Andrew Critchlow’s July 9, 2019 S&P Global article is “OPEC is playing into [16-year-old] Thunberg’s hands on climate change.” Here are gems from the article: “The head of the oil cartel [OPEC’s Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo]– which pumps just under a third of the world’s crude – was quoted last week saying that attacks leveled at producers by…

Many have heard of the June/July 2019 European heatwave, heat records in Alaska, and recent California tidal mussels cooked in shells. Regarding background, according to BBC Studios “3000 people died in Paris on one excessively hot Monday in 2003,” and according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), that event “was the hottest in continental Europe since at…

Thanks to Oregon naturalist and writer Tim Fox for emailing me this great Kingsnorth essay “Life versus the Machine” from Orion (winter 2018). Orion noted on their Facebook page it “has become one of our most-read articles this year.”  I read each word slowly with interest. The details and themes are powerful as usual for him. I especially like…

I fished for halibut June 20 out of Newport, Oregon. About 35 years ago I ran halibut, salmon, rockfish, and mermaid charters for Tradewinds just north of here in Depoe Bay. Above is a 76-pounder I caught on one of my days off fishing with Minor Meador snd Frankie Hargitt. Delicious fish. Great people. Good…

June 19, 2019 Update: I recall one sad evening when my partner of 6 years, the artist Shura Young, died unexpectedly from stroke.  Breakfast and laughter followed by hospital nightmare. “There are no words,” I told my artist mother.  “There are words,” my mother replied.  I feel that sadness looking at Sam Panthaky’s photo of…