Winter 2013
Table of Contents
What Would Nature Do?
In Depth
Explore Section
You Are Where You Live
How the sky, rain, geography, and cultures of our place shape us.
Susan Griffin
A Living Sewage Treatment Plant? These People Grew One
Every flush of a standard toilet creates a several-gallon problem. Instead of wasting water, plants and animals can transform human waste into water rated pure enough to drink.
Claudia Rowe
Just the Facts
To Save Our Ecosystems, Stop Overloading Them
Left alone, natural systems keep nitrogen, carbon, and other key ingredients of life balanced.
Doug Pibel & Madeline Ostrander
People Used to Sleep Twice a Night, With a Break in Between: 7 Ways to Connect With Our Wild Human Roots
Color like a butterfly, eat like an ancient healer, and other ways to rediscover your inner wildness.
Fabien Tepper & Shannan Lenke Stoll & Valerie Schloredt
Sex in the Wild (a First-Hand Account)
What I learned about love from a hermaphrodite, a cannibal, and a dizzyingly diverse array of sea creatures.
Eva Hayward
Robot Dogs and Other Weird Creatures Bring Nature to the City
How to create a world where people fly, salamanders text, and trash is useful.
Natalie Pompilio
What Would Nature Do? Not Wall Street
Models for a healthy down-to-earth economy are all around us.
David Korten
Want Sustainable Fish? Barn-Raised
Aquaponics takes advantage of nature’s processes to fill Americans’ growing appetite for fish—without overfishing or destructive farming.
Katherine Gustafson
Invasive Species: If You Can’t Beat ’em, Eat ’em
Species like green crabs, feral pigs, snakeheads, and zebra mussels cost $120 billion a year in damage. For a cheaper alternative, try eating them.
Joe Roman
12 Steps to Create a Backyard Permaculture
Author Peter Bane grew more than 150 species on less than 2,000 square feet. Here are 12 tips to get you there.
Doug Pibel
Vandana Shiva: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest
We need to value nature’s biodiversity, clean water, and seeds. For this, nature is the best teacher.
Vandana Shiva
Solutions We Love
Explore Section
“You Are Safe With Us”: How Ordinary Iraqis Rescued U.S. Civilians in the Midst of War
In 2003, Iraqi townspeople, having just lost their hospital in U.S. air strikes, saved the lives of three wounded U.S. peacemakers. Seven years later, the Americans returned—to thank them.
Greg Barrett
Should Chiapas Farmers Suffer for California’s Carbon?
A California proposal would offset the state’s climate-altering emissions by paying for forest conservation in Chiapas. Could there be unintended consequences in a region with a history of human rights abuse and land grabs?
Jeff Conant
People We Love
People We Love
Designing nonviolent ways for humans and animals to live in harmony—in the city.
Fabien Tepper
People We Love
People We Love: Asa Needle
Leading teenagers in the clean-up of their hometown, Worcester, Mass.
Laura Beans
People We Love
People We Love: Leia Lewis Henderson
Nurturing African-American culture through gardening.
Laura Beans
Culture Shift
Explore Section
Yes! But How?
5 Parlor Games to Make Your Gatherings More Fun
Spoons, sardines, telephone charades, and other activities to put a boost in your get-togethers.
Fabien Tepper & Laura Beans
Pete Seeger: “You Stick Together ’Til It’s Won”
Gleaned from letters, essays, and articles, “Pete Seeger: In His Own Words” reveals how the celebrated folk singer has considered, at every turn, what it means to sing out in a world where the din of injustice is deafening.
Kim Ruehl
