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The core narrative of climate change is one of urgency: “we need to act fast because it’s almost too late.” This urgent time frame is unquestionable. Indeed, climate change could and should have been solved decades ago. It may seem heretical, then, for an environmentalist to question this narrative of “acting fast”—but this is exactly what I’d like to do.  I want to question our society’s default process when confronted with urgency: fast action. The narrative of speed embodies a subtle dissonance—because the Western, capitalist, […]

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Headlines in past weeks have touted reduced greenhouse gas emissions as COVID-19 halts travel and industrial activity. If not for the suffering and death, the pandemic could be a climate activist’s dream: grounded flights and idle cars. It’s tempting to see emissions reductions as a silver lining in this bleak time, but the Wall Street Journal reports that past economic slowdowns have caused only temporary reductions in emissions. A few months of reduced emissions will mean nothing if we return to business as usual once […]

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This animated adaptation of my favorite short reading, “The Man Who Planted Trees” by Jean Giono, won an academy award in 1987. In my opinion, the translation is the best out there: similar to the most common one, but more accessible in its English. A transcript wasn’t available online, so this morning, I transcribed it to include in my readings packet for the field. I hope you enjoy it! Many years ago, I set out on a walking tour high in the Alps, a region […]

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Originally published in Sierra Magazine, Fall 2014 I spend my life taking people into wilderness. I am a 23-year-old outdoor educator, and my students are people not much younger than myself: teenagers and twenty- somethings. Every time, whether we’re out there for a week or a month, there’s always a night when we lie on our backs and stare up at the night sky. The stars out there are like powdered sugar. The silence consumes us until somebody says, “I don’t want to go back.” […]

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