ecology – American Dirt.

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36 articles

Urban autumn: when a single favored tree like the gingko provides all the leaf-peeping a city needs.

September 30, 2021 5 Comments

The introduction of landscaping into densely populated urban settings has always been a thorny issue, pun fully intended. Steeped in emissions and incarcerated by impervious surfaces, plant life across urban environments typically only thrives against the odds. Certain flora that can flourish in a suburban front yard are scarce in downtown settings, for obvious reasons:

The oversized rabbits of Valdez, Alaska: from invasive specie to unofficial mascot.

September 18, 2021 5 Comments

Verdant and breathtaking as much of Alaska might be, the Last Frontier is no great shakes when it comes to biodiversity. Such is the nature of boreal forests in general: they typically host few varieties of tree species, although the ones that thrive are as abundant as one might expect in a mostly uninhabited, vast

Conowingo Dam: where clean energy is not just for the birds.

April 23, 2021 11 Comments

It’s rare that a major effort in environmental engineering, no matter how noble the intent or how solicitous the conception, yields absolutely no negative environmental consequences. It’s probably more than rare. I’d wager that such a feat has never occurred. It’s all the more unsettling when one considers such vast civil undertakings as the canal

Graffiti Highway in the Keystone State: the histories of two abandoned roads are as different as their spraypainted messages.

March 13, 2021 14 Comments

In urban America, it’s a common occurrence for an executive body to determine that a small segment of a public right-of-way should no longer function as a transportation conduit. For whatever reason, that 300-or-so feet of roadway is obsolete. Perhaps it’s because it no longer leads to anything; it was a dead-end that provided access

Ravenous rodents resume rummaging amidst the rudimentary and rigorous lockdowns.

November 28, 2020 No Comments

It’s hardly surprising that I might begin a brief blog article with a trash can. Lord knows I’ve featured items even more banal as the central subject. But trash cans in the era of COVID take on an added weight, even when they tend to remain unusually empty. (And COVID is a subject that at

Roadside grave markers in New Mexico: bike or cross, they suggest a story. Which is sometimes better than telling one.

November 16, 2020 13 Comments

Six years ago, the idea of ghost bikes began to haunt my imagination (pun fully intended). These homegrown commemorations intrigued me so much that they served as the feature within my first of many articles for Huffington Post. While that news outlet no longer appears to have the financial solvency to support independent bloggers, the

Seasonal displays during crisis: are DC’s cherry blossoms an act of patriotism or funeral flowers?

May 14, 2020 No Comments

I’ve always been partial to seasonal displays—to any arrangement of objects, shapes, or colors that defies its backdrop and commands attention simply for being different. I think, in recent years, it’s become a more common sighting in grocery stores for all variety of holidays, not just because food manufacturers capitalize on special occasions to market

Pandemic in the park: did restrictions around DC’s Tidal Basin help flatten the curve?

April 25, 2020 6 Comments

Given the patchwork of regulatory subcultures that our country’s federalist system inevitable creates, it should come as no surprise that this vast, diverse country is eliciting widely variable responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, both in terms of the key metrics—confirmed cases, deaths, recoveries—and in the fuzzier, day-to-day manifestation of this most acute of public health

Pollo asado versus petrol: why don’t we see more gas station/restaurant conversions?

March 10, 2019 6 Comments

Brookings, the southwesternmost municipality in the state of Oregon, features a main street with a level of business activity that betrays its general charmlessness. Plenty of similarly sized communities would kill to have a downtown with a low level of vacancy, a fully functional old-school cinema, and even a few white-tablecloth independently owned restaurants.

Landfill diversion: the California approach is gentler than it’s ever bin.

December 14, 2018 9 Comments

By this point, it’s not unusual to encounter a series of trash receptacles in public places, each with distinct labels, allowing passers-by to sort and separate recyclable from non-recyclable waste. On a college campus, it would be far more surprising if a row of receptacles weren’t standing sentinel at every prominent node; the opportunity to