Nature & Wildlife
I’ve always been drawn to what we call “earth colors”—soft browns, olive greens, muted oranges, dusty pinks and corn-husk yellows. Colors have been on my mind because I recently moved to the Pacific Northwest into an older home that needs paint and some new carpeting.
Conservation
Plastics are the most prevalent type of marine debris found in the Great Lakes and in the oceans. Plastic pollution pieces come in all shapes and sizes, but those that are less than 0.2 inches (or five millimeters) in length—about the size of a sesame seed—are called “microplastics.”
Conservation
Deep beneath the waters of the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) and atop a submerged volcano, an ancient coral reef was just discovered by an international group of scientists. It’s the first to be documented inside the protected area since it was established in 1998.
Conservation
Teaching our children to care for the Earth and its many natural habitats is probably the best investment in the future that we could ever make.
News & More
Whale sharks are the biggest fish and shark in the world. Adults can weigh 41,000 pounds and average about 40 feet long, but they may grow as large as 65 feet. According to World Wildlife Fund (WWF), these gentle giants roam all the planet’s tropical oceans, generally alone.
News & More
Whales are fascinating beings. After living on the land for a while, their ancestors chose to go back to the sea; they have their own, complicated cultures; they help us and our planet by sequestering carbon dioxide; and they seem to have forgiven us for the many horrific crimes that we’ve committed against them.
Latin America
The longest recorded migration by a mammal was made by a gray whale. In 2015, a female made a journey of nearly 14,000 miles from Russia to Mexico and back. (Zebras hold the longest linear—endpoint to endpoint—land mammal migration at 300 miles round trip.)
Conservation
For almost 24 million years, say scientists, coral reefs have functioned relatively unchanged. That is, until the 1980s. Starting in that decade, tropical coral reef coverage around the world has declined by about 30 to 50 percent.
Conservation
More than eight million tons of plastic debris end up in our oceans every year. Present in nearly every oceanic layer, plastic garbage today accounts for nearly 80 percent of all waste found in our oceans.
Asia & The Pacific
Ah, summer. Time to enjoy the long days of sunlight with outdoor picnics, paddling, and swims in lakes and pools. In this second season of the year, we take in lots of fresh air—and apply lots of sunscreen.
Conservation
Maps are far more than sets of instructions on how to get from Point A to Point B. They tell stories. And whether they’re digital or paper maps, the tales they spin range from absurd to fun on one end of the spectrum and from informative to sobering and shocking on the other.
Conservation
There’s a famous, one-word line in the 1967 movie The Graduate, when a well-meaning man advises a young college student, played by actor Dustin Hoffman, to think about the direction of his future. “Plastics,” the man says. It seems as though that future is here. Today, our culture is subsumed by the ubiquity of plastics.
