Category Archives: the land

Here’s a graphic from my equaintance Bill Patzert at JPL that explains as succinctly as possible why this year’s vaunted El Nino may miss us entirely, but leave the Northwest drenched. (Click to enlarge.) It goes with a fine story in this morning’s LATimes by Hector Becerra. I’m working another angle on this story; ifContinue reading “O El Nino, Where Art Thou?”

What does it mean to say that a movie, or a photograph, or a book, or any such human work, is "environmental?" Because the word cuts both ways. If I direct a movie that looks hard at the way oil is produced in the Middle East–the deals that must be made, the deaths that mustContinue reading “the earth’s embrace”

Who can say what this signal really means? The skies of late have been a little mysterious, but gorgeously so…

The fall colors have yet to show in Southern California…and yes, you wise guys, SoCal does have fall colors. Specifically, in the sycamores and black walnuts, both of which are abundant in Ventura County. But in the Midwest, where my good friend August Jennewein now lives, they have arrived. Aug, an excellent photographer, took thisContinue reading “Sunday Morning on the Planet: Fall Colors”

From Buck Forester’s astounding photostream on Flickr. The guy calls himself an amateur. I’m not sure I can accept that! This is a shot of Banner Peak, and the sky over Thousand Island Lake, taken from the John Muir Trail.

Back in l985, the Pope said that St. Francis should be the patron saint of ecologists. This brings to mind the famous story about St. Francis preaching to the birds. According to Wikipedia, that story is probably folklore, but it is a story with roots in fact (St. Francis had no interest in money, andContinue reading “Sunday Morning on the Planet: St. Francis”

Just another evening at Kirk Creek in Big Sur. Sunset magazine calls this site, on a bluff off Highway 1, the prettiest campsite in California. For car camping, I’d have to agree. The irony is that the five of the best sites are reserved for hikers and bikers, but if these sort of brave soulsContinue reading “Sunday Morning on the Planet: Kirk Creek”

That’s from Mahatma Ghandi, via Subhankar Banerjee‘s knock-out site. (You might recall that Banerjee’s photos of the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee became controversial–too beautiful, perhaps–when they were posted at the Smithsonian.) Here’s one to hold your attention, while I’m off up the coast for a couple of days.

A nice graphic from JPL of the central Pacific from September 1997 and September of this year. It’s easy to see why Bill Patzert and his colleagues are predicting a mild event. Rain for the Southwest, they say we’ll likely see, but nothing like the disastrous year of l997-l998. But we had a mild ElContinue reading “El Nino, Then and Now”

After burning through a month’s time, 259 square miles and over seventy million dollars, the Day Fire is history. Crews are heading home, scientists are assessing the damage, and homeowners in this area are heaving a big sigh of relief. What put the fire out? Not the thousands of firefighters, the countless helicopters, engines, andContinue reading “Turning the Page on the Day Fire”