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Celebrating Earth Day 2014
Ecologists and entomologists. Natural history buffs. Bloggers with green thumbs. We’re among many WordPress.com users focused on nature and the environment. Today, let’s celebrate the work of some of these bloggers.
The Contemplative Mammoth
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Conservation paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill is interested in how landscapes change through space and time. You might recognize her blog, The Contemplative Mammoth, from reading her recent piece on “just-so stories” — the entertaining (yet factually inaccurate) tales that people tell to explain the natural world. We enjoy Jacquelyn’s thoughtful narratives and discussions on a variety of topics, from the timescales of climate change to failed plant sex. Her writing is intelligent and accessible — a great mix to keep readers engaged.
Milkwood
On Milkwood, a family in Mudgee, a town in New South Wales, Australia, chronicles life on a farm and shares homesteading resources for both urban and rural living. You’ll read about best practices on everything from natural beekeeping to permaculture design to vegetable gardening.
Magic beans! Image by Milkwood.
If springtime inspires you to go outside and get your hands dirty, just sift through the site — you’ll find DIY projects galore, from making a worm tower to growing mushrooms in a laundry basket.
Travels with the Blonde Coyote
A science writer with a nomadic spirit, Mary Caperton Morton of Travels with a Blonde Coyote is currently exploring the backroads of the West, from New Mexico to Alaska, while living out of a tiny teardrop trailer. With her background in geology and biology and love for traveling and trekking, she combines travel and nature writing with stunning photography on her blog.
Image of Zabriskie Point, Death Valley, CA, by Travels with the Blonde Coyote.
From her series on the Grand Canyon to a post on petroglyphs to a piece on hiking with dogs, Mary has an archive of great posts documenting her outdoor adventures.
More blogs on nature and the environment
- The Garden Smallholder: The site of UK gardener Karen, who maintains a rural village garden in North Bedfordshire.
- Dust Tracks on the Web: Writing and photography by natural history enthusiast Janson Jones.
- Beetles in the Bush: The blog of agricultural entomologist Ted MacRae, who focuses on beetle taxonomy.
- Watershed Moments — Thoughts from the Hydrosphere: Memoir and nature writing from Canadian environmental scientist Sarah Boon, whose expertise is in cold regions hydroecology.
- Grist: A site for environmental news and commentary, on topics ranging from energy and politics to food and green living.
- April 22, 2014
- Community, WordPress.com, Writing
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My blog Living Lightly (www.pczick.wordpress.com) often contains environmental posts. My novel Trails in the Sand also explores the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its devastating effect on the wildlife.
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Treehugger & The Alternative are two more amazing blogs that deal with green living topics.
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A melancholy and ironic piece I wrote this morning:
http://cyranowriter.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/lots-of-earth-but-no-water-revolutionary-improverse-haiku/
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I really love my home: mother earth and she is constantly changing, adapting, moulding in response to the weather and human activity. Thanks for sharing! Very impressive and important work.
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We urgently need to address manmade global warming and climate change. Here is a blog on making this year climate year: http://ufbutv.com/2014/01/11/make-2014-the-climate-year/
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Yes, let’s give the earth not so much a party as a rest. The poor planet needs to stop working so hard to repair our wrongs.
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Earthbound
“As the crow flies.” Is lost on us
Except to explain distances and remind us
Of the simplicity of our nature that we are
Always earthbound in one way or another.
Yes we have machines that take and keep us
Off the ground for periods of time,
Some even can put us into an orbit
Around the globe but it too eventually
Dissipates against the constant pull
Of nemesis gravity which seems to lend
A permanent humility to being human
And comes between us and our dreams
Of soaring effortless among the clouds.
In part is why we believe in and honor
Angels with so much awe and deep respect
If we believe in such beings because
They, to our minds, can simply come and go
At will just by the flexing of their wings.
But being earthbound if one thinks about it
And bothers to look around is not such
A sorry state as we might make it seem.
Think of all the wonders we would not know
If all we did was fly above the world,
The secrets of its wonders we take so much
For a given as if it all were a birthright
To do with as we willed ourselves to do.
Think instead it is where we spend our lives
In joy and sorrow, in laughter and in pain.
Where the natural beauty that surrounds us
We somehow take for granted as being part
Of what it is to be the human caretakers
Of the brilliance of a bright blue orb floating
Like the jewel it is in the dark coldness of space.
By, K. A. Brace
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Some people really take our environment for granted. People contribute to The destruction of our precious planet every day whether we are aware of it or not. It is really nice to celebrate earth’s day.
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Thank you. It should be an everydy celebration, just as women’s rights, and the protests for peace. >KB
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Thank you for today’s post. Earth Day 2014 reminds a few aged ones of the inaugural one.
Thankfully, it’s lasted and, as if a fine wine, even gotten better with time. Alas, all is not well with the world. Earth Day’s days are numbered. Too little, too late, one might have written of it … were there anyone around … at such time.
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A WP Environmental Blog: When Did Earth Day Become So Lame? http://enviroethics.org/2014/04/22/blog-when-did-earth-day-get-so-lame/
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I love your cover picture. I’m an Oregonian and live just down the road from Crater Lake. It never gets old going to explore this great place and all the areas around here.
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My blog on World Earth Day 2014 : http://liveandexpress.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/on-the-event-of-world-earth-day-2014/
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So amazing!!! Thanks for featuring these great blogs. I was just now turning over in my mind the question, “what SHALL I read on this rainy afternoon at the laundromat?” And **presto**, you’ve provided it!
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My blog is mainly used for poetry. I break them up into categories, one of which is all about nature: http://louisebleger.wordpress.com/category/poems/nature-poems/ .
I am very inspired by the natural aspects of the planet and I feel being in nature is one of the best ways to relax and free your mind. Our earth is the one way we are all connected. Definitely something in need of protecting. Nothing brings you back down to Earth, quite like Earth itself 🙂
Happy Earth day! Love our planet
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Thanks for the http://dusttracks.com nod! I really do appreciate it. Also: http://theblondecoyote.com is a FANTASTIC blog. Mary is an awesome writer and blogger. I’m thrilled to see Travels with the Blonde Coyote featured so prominently. Just awesome!!! Happy Earth Day, everybody! And happy reading!
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Where the organized moment of seeing meets the eternal. Wonderful. Cheers, Laurie Keim
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All I see are chemtrails.
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I was lucky enough to attend the first Earth Day at my college. I remember it so clearly. Several 100 of us standing around the flag pole listening to several of our science professors. It was an exciting and frightening experience. Global Cooling was upon us and it was caused by human impact on the earth. Glaciers and starvation was inevitable and the only thing we could do is cut back on carbon based fuels. Our 12 mpg cars must be scrapped. Now that I look back on the first Earth Day’s theories and this winter’s weather, Global Cooling may be closer to the truth than today’s Global Warming. Keep trying guys!
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Our Mother Earth is in great danger…and we have to come to the realization that we are the ones to begin to make a difference. Industry, commercial farming, etc. have no interest except in profit, and only attend to the wounds when they either are caught with the knives or think they can rally more profits from bandaids. The possibilities are endless: urban farming, organic farming, using the earth gently, reforestization, recycling, these are all beginning steps to reverse the damage that we have contributed to. Energy sources of course are part of this issues, and we should reconsider where we live and how we use fossil fuel.
Today is Earth Day, but every day should be Earth Day.
Lady Nyo….http://ladynyo.wordpress.com
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Earth came from water and fire and it blends into a beautifully written landscape by the creator above.
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I love this post about celebrating Earth Day! I think it’s important that every age group is aware of how special this day is. Although we should be taking care of planet earth EVERY day, it’s nice to have one specific day with multiple activities surrounding the cause.
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Thank you so much for the signal-boost!
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