Life Saves the Planet

As many people know through firsthand experience, we planted the Northeast’s first Miyawaki Forest last weekend. After several months of planning, discussion, and organization, we gathered in Danehy Park in North Cambridge to create the forest. This was the part I participated in, but like so much of our work at Biodiversity for a Livable…

Climate change is already here. Severe weather-related events such as more frequent hurricanes, intense droughts, longer wildfire seasons, and devastating floods are evidence of this statement.  However, not all people are experiencing the consequences of the climate crisis equally. All too often, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) are on the frontlines. Due to systemic…

What can we learn from the monarch butterfly? A few months ago, as the new year rolled in, I reflected on the way we humans use holidays and calendars to mark time’s passage, and how this might look to other creatures whose life span and sense of time is very different.  For example, most monarch…

“Ecological processes are not only more complex than we think. They are more complex than we can ever think.” – Michael Crowfoot, Soil Scientist “On one of my early projects…a scientist friend asked me, how did I know what I was doing, and where did I get the knowledge to understand the system with which…

“We have to do everything we know how to do to address climate change.” – Sir Nicholas Stern But what is “everything we know how to do”? What does “everything” mean? Who are “we”? Until very recently “everything” meant reducing emissions and pulling excess carbon out of the atmosphere. That has slowly begun to change,…

How do you experience your connection to the planet? For me, my sense of intimacy with other life comes from my senses – feeling the sun on my skin, smelling the magnolias blooming in the air, watching day by day and week by week as buds sprout, unfurl, and flower to invite bees and ants inside.…