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 …
Wildlife as a Philosophical Matter
Anyone who loves wildlife in the West should pay attention to what has been going on around Yellowstone National Park. Montana’s position on wolves has, to put it delicately, taken a ‘hard turn.’ This needs to change. The 2021 Montana state legislature crafted aggressive laws to reduce the state’s wolf population. Wolves can now be …
Crucible or Nightmare
Albert Borgmann returns for another guest post on The Plastocene. He investigates whether the temporary reductions in carbon emissions due to coronavirus lockdowns can be made to last. Covid-19 could be a crucible for American culture, and it could be a nightmare. If a crucible, it will refine the gold of our lives from the …
How to Keep Returning Wildlife Wild
For the latest post on the Plastocene, I'm linking to a piece I published yesterday in The Atlantic on the complicated question of how to keep wildlife wild on a crowded planet. We go to restoration sites in Italy and the UK, before bringing the lessons back to Montana. Saving nature clearly ain't what it used to …
An Owl with a Parachute
I never knew a northern spotted owl could parachute vertically through the forest. This delightful image came from a researcher who spent eight years studying the owls in the Oregon Cascades. He had personally witnessed a descent and could hardly contain his excitement when he told us about it. To find the reticent Strix for …
Orangutans, Human Landscapes, and the Processes that Made them Both
In a recent article in Anthropocene Magazine about the future of orangutans, Brandon Keim observes “the key to their survival is us not killing them.” You would be forgiven for thinking that Keim is a master of the blindingly obvious after he offers a statement like this. We all already know that orangutans don’t fare …
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Christopher J. Preston 