In the first half of this post, I explored my limited familiarity of Afghanistan’s pedology—the physical characteristics of the soil that allow scientists to place regions into different taxonomies, governed at least in part by a variety of temperature and moisture regimes. Without using any more terms that strain my word processor’s spell check feature,
While topography can pose a variety of impediments to human settlements, we have attempted to overcome or at least tame most of them over the years. Whether it is overcoming the propensity for flooding in a mountain valley, dredging a swamp to capitalize upon a critical river arterial, or precariously perching a structure atop a
Hardly a month goes by—perhaps more like once a week—without some new artistic endeavor depicting contemporary life synecdochically through paved surfaces. We can all think of one. Whether the first that comes to mind for you is a song by Joni Mitchell (or maybe David Byrne), a Terry Gilliam movie, or a Kurt Vonnegut novel,
Several months ago, I featured two examples of integrating sustainability and conservation into the built environment through civic participation in a blog post. The Greensburg, Kansas example that I featured has been relatively high profile. By most measurements, it remains the most ecologically friendly small town in America: since recovering from a catastrophic tornado, Greensburg
In less than a decade, the color/adjective in this blog entry’s title has infiltrated common parlance so effectively that practically anyone who regularly tunes in to a national media source is well aware of the word’s ascension to a widespread lifestyle choice. Long the dominion of ideologically driven crusaders who often saw ecological insensitivity as
“Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks that wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile [sic] inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in
When a specific site survives as evidence of early colonial settlement, it usually requires far less effort in this day and age to convince the American public that it’s worth preserving—major initiatives to restore Mount Vernon, colonial Williamsburg, or the Vieux Carre in New Orleans come to mind as some of the earliest instigators of
While I’ve borrowed other people’s pictures in the past as a basis for analysis, this may be the first time in which the revelation itself is not my own. I had been living in New Orleans for six months at the time a friend came down to visit. After spending the first night in the
I have up to this point generally shied away from the topic of urban sprawl because I see it as a hydra with no easy or politically viable solution. Then it occurred to me that few of my blog topics merit a quick fix, and, even though my own views on suburban growth no doubt
Perhaps humankind’s ambivalence toward wilderness is best manifested in our perception of what is truly beautiful. A single person could gaze admiringly at both Bryce Canyon and the Gardens of Versailles for their beauty, despite the fact that the external forces that created them couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to one another. Ideally the undiscerning
In the first half of this post, I explored my limited familiarity of Afghanistan’s pedology—the physical characteristics of the soil that allow scientists to place regions into different taxonomies, governed at least in
While topography can pose a variety of impediments to human settlements, we have attempted to overcome or at least tame most of them over the years. Whether it is overcoming the propensity for
Hardly a month goes by—perhaps more like once a week—without some new artistic endeavor depicting contemporary life synecdochically through paved surfaces. We can all think of one. Whether the first that comes to
Several months ago, I featured two examples of integrating sustainability and conservation into the built environment through civic participation in a blog post. The Greensburg, Kansas example that I featured has been relatively
In less than a decade, the color/adjective in this blog entry’s title has infiltrated common parlance so effectively that practically anyone who regularly tunes in to a national media source is well aware
“Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks that wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile
When a specific site survives as evidence of early colonial settlement, it usually requires far less effort in this day and age to convince the American public that it’s worth preserving—major initiatives to
While I’ve borrowed other people’s pictures in the past as a basis for analysis, this may be the first time in which the revelation itself is not my own. I had been living
I have up to this point generally shied away from the topic of urban sprawl because I see it as a hydra with no easy or politically viable solution. Then it occurred to
Perhaps humankind’s ambivalence toward wilderness is best manifested in our perception of what is truly beautiful. A single person could gaze admiringly at both Bryce Canyon and the Gardens of Versailles for their