Read about it. Whatever the cause, it is spreading and has become a nuisance in other areas of the country and the world.

• Rock Snot

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Puffins are getting a second chance to repopulate their old territories in Maine, with the help of biologists and volunteers. Each summer a fearless group of workers returns to the islands that are their breeding grounds in order to protect these birds from predators. The once common birds were hunted by humans for their meat and feathers and were nearly extinct in their US habitat by 1901. So, early in the 1970s, and intrepid biologist, Stephen Kress started a program to bring them back to their former American territories. Read on for a little inspiration, and hope that even if humans did throw things out of balance, perhaps nature will be able to return it between the puffins and their predators, the black gull.

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We all have to take into consideration how our lifestyles affect the environment, because it is suffering at an unprecedented rate. If you listen to economists, the only way we can sustain our current “quality” of life, is to ensure the consistent growth of the economy. That means that you and I must buy, buy, buy…and then buy some more. Well, we have been doing a stellar job of it so far. Think about it, how often do you leave your house without returning with something from the store? We Americans have become so divorced from nature that going out often means going to a store to buy something somewhere, not to go to a state or national park or preserve to hike, walk, canoe, camp or take our children to play. When we live this way, we are not just consuming goods, we are consuming the environmental resources that it took to make those goods. So, everything we buy is an important consideration, because our society has grown into one where national industries manufacture virtually everything we consume. Our food is a huge issue these days. The energy and resources in maintaining a meat-consuming culture are much, much larger than a mostly plant-consuming one. But, even if you are eating plants, they are often not locally grown, and so must be shipped across the country with the use of lots of fossil fuel. Our houses are full of things that cannot be easily recycled. And, finally, our houses use huge amounts of energy for heating and cooling, for electricity and for heating our water. Most houses are not built to sip energy, but to gulp it as if it were limitless, just as our cars are designed to be far less energy efficient than they could be. Running your air conditioner? Well, you are helping to create the demand that leads to mountaintop removal for coal to run your AC.

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