Nature

Last January I took pictures of some of the Christmas trees people threw out in my neighborhood. Why do we chop down so many trees just to put up for a couple weeks? You might say to celebrate a Christmas tradition. It only occurred to me later that if Christmas celebrates Jesus's birth in Bethlehem, then a wintry holiday with a fir tree must have different origins. The more I looked up the origins of a Christmas tree, it seems rooted in pagan holidays and goes back a few centuries, not millennia. My point is that traditions change with the time, however eternal we consider them. The pine tree tradition came from a colder climate than Bethlehem, Israel. Well, the climate is changing and chopping…

I doubt anyone disagrees with the New York Times' Editorial Board's criticism in "The Insanity of Taxpayer-Funded Addiction," of the pharmaceutical industry's decades of promoting opioids, profiting from the addiction they're contributing to, and the government subsidizing it. The editorial begins (my emphasis): The pharmaceutical industry was listed as one of the "Contributors to the Current Crisis" in the final report of President Trump's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. The report cites decades of aggressive marketing and industry-sponsored physician "conferences" aimed at expanding opioid use by minimizing the dangers of addiction. Lawsuits by state attorneys general, counties and local jurisdictions allege that the industry fostered the epidemic by overpromoting its products, while raking in billions as Americans became addicted and overdosed.…

It's nearly 70 degrees and nearly November, with warmer days forecast: When I was younger... When I was younger, a warm day in winter was respite from the cold. Today such days are increasingly ominous. Weather isn't climate, but we're having more balmy New Year's Eves and hurricanes threatening Ireland than cold 4ths of July. It motivates me to lower my emissions. I hope others too.

Do you consider acting on the environment hopeless? Even if you don't consciously, many people don't bother trying, feeling that if they change but industries don't or billions of other people don't then what's the point? Success stories Several other large social changes have happened in my lifetime that suggest that change of the scale in time frame that addressing various climate issues needs is possible. Remember that climate change, pollution, litter, ocean acidification, extinctions, resource depletion, overpopulation, and so on are different issues. I'll list a few examples that encourage me. Before you tell me how different the examples are, I know. No two cases are identical. Each takes different strategies, motivations, and so on. My point isn't to say these things are identical.…

I realized another delicious reason to join a CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture, which means a deal where you pay a farm a flat annual fee in return for a delivery each week of that week's produce. I've written about the structure before and my CSA's farm, Stoneledge Farm. Visiting it is one of my summers' highlights. The benefit The farm succeeds when more people want to subscribe. Most people resubscribe. People resubscribe when the food is delicious, fresh, and varied, motivating the farmers to grow food that's Delicious, Fresh, and varied. Farms whose produce sells in supermarkets don't have that incentive. They're motivated to grow food that Can stand shipping, Looks colorful, and Lasts longer on shelves. CSA produce, in my experience,…