By David Spector For the Gazette February 4, 2022 Listen at dawn. From southernmost Canada through much of the eastern United States (and parts of northern Central America) you might […]
By Billy Spitzer For the Gazette February 4, 2022 A few years ago, I watched a fascinating series of interviews with Apollo astronauts as they talked about first seeing the […]
By Monya Relles For the Gazette January 21, 2022 At a meeting of the Western Massachusetts Youth Climate Summit team last summer, Clover Hogan, executive director of the group Force […]
By Tom Litwin
Time can pass slowly while waiting for the light to change at Northampton’s very busy King Street/Bridge Street/Damon Road intersection. Cars and trucks are stopping and going, turning left and right, from all four compass points. An ambulance’s siren puts the whole intersection on alert. A train passing through the Damon Road crossing has me looking at my watch. Sitting at this intersection, I marvel at how our lives, culture, economy and the automobile are so enmeshed.
By Christine Hatch
In early December of 2009, my colleagues and I had spent the day in a high tiny headwater stream in Great Basin National Park listening to elk bugling all around us while we did our work. That evening, at dinner in Baker, Nevada, we heard the hunters at the bar complaining, “I didn’t see a single elk all day long!” Elk season opened that day, and all the animals were inside the safe boundaries of the national park. Nature knows things. Learning to listen to nature’s unexpected wisdom has fueled my passion for science.
By Chris Volonte
Moving through New England in a wave each fall is a petite predator that might be one of the most frequently overlooked birds in Massachusetts. Measuring 8 inches long and weighing less than two tennis balls, northern saw-whet owls breed in southern Canada and the northern U.S., and at high elevations such as the Appalachians. They have large gnomelike heads, big eyes, soft feathers and a tendency to sit tamely when a person is near. They’re nocturnal, inconspicuous and — if you’re lucky enough to see one up close — impossibly cute.
By Katie Koerten
I’m a really big fan of color. When people ask me what my favorite color is, I explain, “Well, I have different categories of favorite colors.” The kids in my nature programs nod in understanding. You see, favorite things are important to kids, and you have to be specific when you’re talking about them. For example, my favorite color in the nature category? Blue.
By Joshua Rose
This year, Massachusetts saw two species of insects arrive unbidden. One of them has been the subject of great attention, with warnings in advance, newspaper headlines about its arrival, and alerts from the state government. The other snuck in under the radar, barely noticed except by obsessive naturalists. One is a potential menace that could cause millions of dollars’ worth of damage; the other is potentially beneficial, including eating the first. One is native to the U.S., historically occurring south of New Jersey; the other had never been seen on this continent before 2014, previously found no closer to here than Japan. One feature that they share is that both can thank humanity for letting them reach Massachusetts.
By Michael Dover
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson’s Science Advisory Panel reported to him on the risks posed by rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, which Johnson included in an address to Congress. Decades later, the U.S. still lacks a comprehensive climate policy and strategy. The country is arguably more polarized than it was during the Vietnam War, and climate action is caught up in that divide. Given this history, anyone could be forgiven for giving up hope. But climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University sees the world differently. Born in 1972 — seven years after Johnson’s speech — and raised as an evangelical Christian, Hayhoe is the epitome of hope. Don’t call it optimism — she’s as realistic as they come when she tells us what’s in store if we don’t act to curb greenhouse gas emissions — but both her faith and her experience in talking to a wide diversity of people give her hope that humanity can meet this challenge.
By Kelsey Wentling
Recently, on a jog along the Mill River in Northampton, I ran by three bags of dog poop neatly lined up on a log and arranged in a rainbow sequence: green, blue, purple. The sight was almost beautiful, had it not been for the plastic and animal waste waiting to be ferried into one of Northampton’s most precious ecological resources just feet away. It bothered me— it really bothered me.
Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax