The Moss Shall Set Them Free

by Nalini M. Nadkarni

The Moss-in-Prisons project is one part of a nascent effort to counteract the destructive effects of collecting wild-grown mosses from old-growth forests for the floral trade.

The Limits of Ethical Capitalism

by Jeff Goodell

Doing good by doing well isn't necessarily enough.

Sanctuary and the Modern Metropolis

photographs and text by David Maisel

The urban dweller of Southern California now exists in what Davis terms the fastest growing metropolis in the western world, "with a built-up surface area nearly the size of Ireland, and a GNP bigger than India's."

Green Rage

By Matt Rasmussen
Illustrations by Linda Zacks

Were the six environmentalists sentenced to prison in Eugene, Oregon terrorists, as the government claims? Or were they first-responders to a planetary emergency?

The Bare Boughs of Winter Trees

by Roger Pinckney

A deathbed vigil, an unrepentant patriot, and a nuclear madness call forth questions of faith.

The Leadership Imperative

An interview with Oren Lyons, by Barry Lopez

The roots of democracy extend further back than is commonly acknowledged, to a time when leadership, spirituality, and ecology were deeply intertwined.

Tracking Tar

by William L. Fox

Beneath the streets of L.A., geology is dramatic, and more nuanced than Hollywood's most dazzling special effects make it out to be.

Fictitious Landscapes

Paintings and text by Peter Edlund

Revisiting the iconography of Ansel Adams

In Praise of Old Maps

by Paul Gilmore

Revelling in a treasure trove of maps.

Sitting Pretty

by Mac McClelland

Will true love survive a composting toilet and other unknowable but potentially devastating sacrifices?

The Perfect Predator

by Sonia Shah

A mosquito, a parasite, and the misguided ethos that allowed both to prosper.

The Righteousness Fix

by Roget Lockard

From a global perspective, which addiction is setting us up for disaster fastest?

A Quirk in the Law

by William DeBuys

This land was their land—until the gas wells went in.

The Germs of Life

by Lynn Margulis and Emily Case

Whither Wind

by Charles Komanoff

An environmental Don Quixote goes, painfully, from tilting at windmills to believing in them.

Prairie Dreaming

by Hal Herring

To remake a prairie you need time, money, and a historic collision of events.

Winged Mercury and the Golden Calf

by Rebecca Solnit

The mythology of gold didn't end with the ancient Greeks, and the popular version of this element's story in America leaves out a glittering nemesis.

Of Mites and Men

by Bill McKibben

The work of bees has become a global market commodity, as have mite infestation of hives, its cures, and the cures for the cures. McKibben follows the cycle of cause and consequence.

Beyond Hope

by Derrick Jensen

Hope is the antithesis of action. Hope expects that someone else will do the hard work of change, that things will just...get better.

Love Song of the Agave

text and photograph by Douglas Menuez

In the northern Mexican town of Tequila, an unwavering tradition yields a fruit in perfect harmony with its culture.

Slum Ecology

by Mike Davis

The international economic policies that decimated rural infrastructures worldwide have driven hundreds of millions of the poor to already teeming cities.

National Defense

by Kathleen Dean Moore

"Maybe civil disobedience isn't about justice and obligation. Maybe it's about love."

The Nature of Violence

text by Jeffrey A. Lockwood

This thoughtful essay about violence was included in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007.

The Long Emergency

A five-part video exploration with author. lecturer, and de facto cultural historian James Howard Kunstler

Progress Hits Home

Melissa Holbrook Pierson

Did we really trade our birthright for a wider selection of bathmats? A sprawling lament.