When we talk about old-growth and virgin forests, we often think of the massive redwoods and sequoias out West. The eastern United States was heavily logged in the 19th and early 20th centuries, so that the trees we see in this part of the country today are relative youngsters - decades rather than centuries old.

But not everywhere. Remnants remain of the forests that practically blanketed the East when European settlers arrived. Some are on steep slopes, in deep ravines or other remote, hard-to-reach places. Others are relatively easy to get to.

One's right here in Maryland - about 40 majestic acres of largely untouched eastern hemlocks and white pines at Swallow Falls State Park, near Oakland in Garrett County.

Joan Maloof, a biology professor at Salisbury University, has made a career of studying trees and forests. She's passionate about old growth and is working now to develop a network for protecting them. She's written a first-person guide to some of these overlooked pockets of biodiversity and wonder.

Among the Ancients, Adventures in the Eastern Old-Growth Forests takes the reader to one stand in each state east of the Mississippi River. Maloof recounts their history and the people who've fought to preserve them, and she details their current condition. Some are pristine, others threatened and abused. Maloof reflects in her chapters on the values of forests.

"Imagine an organism that can live three times longer than the longest-lived human," she concludes in her chapter on Swallow Falls. "We need to recognize that in trees, and honor it."

She gets personal as well, describing how the old woods touch her and shape her own outlook on life. Her visit to Cook Forest State Park in southwest Pennsylvania, for instance, makes her imagine she's one of the seven dwarves in the cartoon classic "Snow White."

She writes: "...the chipmunks were scampering along beside me, the birds were chirping and hopping on the trail in front of me, and patches of moss were glowing green from teh slender beams of light that made their way through the canopy far overhead. I felt almost as if I had been drugged. I was so filled with joy I had a cheek-splitting grin on my face."

If you'd like to meet the author, Maloof will give a reading at the Barnes & Noble at 1819 Reisterstown Road in Pikesville on Wednesday (July 13) at 7 pm.  To hear her now, tune in here to listen to an interview public radio's Marc Steiner did with her recently.  And you can read more of Joan Maloof's insights and observations on her blog here.

(Cover photograph courtesy Ruka Press)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Ecologist and author Sandra Steingraber will be in town Wednesday May 18 to talk about her new book, Raising Elijah - Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis. 

Currently scholar in residence at Ithaca College in New York, Steingraber has explored in her writings the links between the environment and health.

Her first book, Living Downstream, An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, used her own experience as a cancer survivor to examine the environmental links to cancer.

In a later book, Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood, she tackles fetal toxicology in the context of her own pregnancy. She's the mother of two.

Her latest work, Raising Elijah, strives to connect parenting to public policy on the environment. She links many childhood health issues, such as asthma and developmental problems, to environmental factors, including air quality and chemical contamination.

She'll speak at 7 p.m. at the Enoch Pratt central library downtown. Her talk is part of the Sustainable Speakers series presented by the library in partnership with Baltimore Green Works. For more, go here.

(Photo by Dede Hatch, courtesy Sandra Steingraber)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
        

Some skeptics think climate change is nothing but fiction.  But a Baltimore author has penned a novel about rising temperatures, coastal flooding and social upheaval in hopes of making the harsh consequences of global warming more real to people.

Dana M. Stein says he wrote Fire in the Wind to “dramatize the way climate change will affect daily life,” though he confesses, “It was a big leap for me to do it.”

That’s because it’s a first novel for Stein. He’s executive director of Civic Works, a Baltimore nonprofit that runs what it calls an “urban service corps,” enlisting young adults and teens in community service, greening and education projects. He also happens to be a lawyer and a member of the House of Delegates representing northwest Baltimore County.

“This is the first time I’ve written anything except an op-ed for a local paper,” he says. But he was moved to write, he says, because as he spoke with young people about climate change, he found many of them had a hard time caring about the issue, in part because they just couldn’t imagine how it might affect them personally.

"When I"ve discussed climate change at schools," he told me in an email, "some student say that its impact is too far off for them to visualize what might happen."

Continue reading "Local author tries fiction to make climate change real" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

 Do dogs take a bigger bite out of the Earth than gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles? That's the contention of a pair of academics in New Zealand, who figure that a medium-sized dog has twice the eco-footprint of a Toyota Land Cruiser.

In Time to Eat the Dog, the real guide to sustainable living, Robert and Brenda Vale calculate that it takes roughly 2.1 acres to produce all the meat and grains consumed by a typical medium-sized pet pooch in a year, compared with about an acre needed to produce the energy burned in the SUV. 

The pair, architects who specialize in sustainable living at Victoria University in Wellington, don't just pick on dogs, but go after all pets as another form of conspicuous consumption that's taking a toll on the planet. They suggest those who care about living sustainably but just can't live without a pet consider sharing one with others.  Or, they add, get pets that serve a dual purpose, of companionship and food, like say, hens.

Hmm, our two Corgis better watch out.

For more on this, go here and here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Books, Going Green, News
        

With international climate talks just a month away, the American Association for the Advancement of Science is hosting an art and educational exhibit at its Washington headquarters to help adults and children alike see what's at issue.

"Climate Change in Our World” displays five-foot high images and explanatory text depicting some of the climate-change effects already being seen around the planet. The photos are taken by award-winning environmental photojournalist Gary Braasch, who has been documenting climate change and its solutions for a decade.  The images are from a book by Braasch, Earth Under Fire. Pictured above are villagers huddled on an eroding island in Bengladesh.

Along with those images are others targeted at youngsters entitled: “How We Know About Our Changing Climate.” It contains photos from a young-reader science book of the same title co-authored by Braasch and Lynne Cherry. The book tells how scientists are observing changes in nature related to global warming, and explains how young people can learn more and take action themselves.

The exhibit also includes films produced by Cherry, "Young Voices on Climate Change." Pictured here is Clarissa Klein, a California Girl Scout in one of the films whose troop - in a switch from the usual cookie drive - distributed 5000 compact flourescent light bulbs door to door.

The exhibits are open for viewing starting today (Nov. 18) through March 15, 2010 in the gallery at the association's headquarters, 12th & H Streets NW (just north of Metro Center station), Washington, D.C. Gallery hours are 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday.  But there's a special public opening reception today (Nov. 18) from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. 

(Photos used by permission of Gary Braasch & Lynne Cherry)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Books, Events
        

The folks at B'more Green invited me to visit from Read Street and suggest books with a green living theme. Here are some intriguing releases; I'll be back on a regular basis with new recommendations for your bookshelves. Let us know if you've found other good reads -- in fact, mention one in a comment here and we'll pick a lucky soul for a giveaway.

Running the Numbers: an American self-portrait by Chris Jordan. This visually arresting book accompanies a museum show in which Jordan illustrates the immensity of our wastefulness. In one image, the artist morphs Seurat's "A Sunday on Grand Jatte" by using cans of Sprite, Coke and other drinks in pointillist style to depict the 106,000 aluminum cans used in the U.S. every 30 seconds. Other images continue the environmental theme, though some stray into topics such as handguns and the Iraq war. The traveling show is now at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History; the closest it gets to Baltimore is Haverford College next January.

Farm City by Novella Carpenter. The book begins: "I have a farm on a dead-end street in the ghetto." That's a pretty good summary of her mission to create GhostTown Farm, an unlikely agricultural outpost in Oakland. Carpenter, who studied with locavore guru Michael Pollan, writes of the contrast between gritty city and vege-topia -- what Pollan calls "a mind-meld of Fifty Cent and Wendell Berry."

Continue reading "Books for green living" »

Posted by Dave Rosenthal at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Books