The planet looks like it has been badly handled by a fiddling giant. Our sticky fingerprints are all over it. Chemicals, dams, and rats imported in the hulls of ships have reshaped everything under the sun. The recent photos from Artemis II might have shown a familiar blue planet, but zoom in a little closer, …
Our Place Among the Deer
Sarah Aronson is the talented host of Grounding, a podcast on climate change and mental health. I met Sarah eight years ago when she was the anchor of The Write Question, a Montana Public Radio show on books. We had a wonderful conversation about a work on nature and technology I had just published, The …
“Not the Dark Ages”
Science is still doing great things! A few weeks ago, I was thrilled to join Justin Angle and Amy Martin, of the Peabody award-winning podcast Threshold, for a live recording of A New Angle. The event, sponsored by Climate Smart Missoula, was part of Climate Solutions Week. Amy and I talked about some of the …
Can Carbon Capture become Respectable?
Last summer, I visited America's first commercial carbon capture plant in Tracy, California. Heirloom Carbon use ground up limestone to capture 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. It's a trial run for a plant planned for Louisiana that could ultimately capture 300,000 tons each year when fully developed. The strangest thing about a technology …
The Decision To Electrify Your Life
I could be one of those annoying people you love to hate. I’m vegetarian, I grow food in the backyard, and I have solar panels on my roof. I offset the natural gas I use for heating each year and keep the thermostat low in winter. I proselytize regularly about the dangers of climate change …
Putting Carbon Back Where it Belongs
Once you start dipping into the literature on animals and the carbon cycle, it's hard to stop. The relatively new field is packed with eye-popping numbers. A paper published in February notes without drama that “....the total carbon stored in wild mammals and birds is equivalent to roughly eight hours of current anthropogenic fossil fuel …
Christopher J. Preston 