Viewing Posts from December, 2011
Larry Gibson is an environmental hero. He didn’t ask for the “job” of bringing attention to the Appalachian tragedy of mountaintop removal. It came to him, his family, his backyard. It came to his mountain in West Virginia.
One very simple way to look at the problem is to say that we lack work-life balance when we experience a disharmony between the way we live at work and the way we live elsewhere. More specifically, the amount and quality of the time, energy, resources, and effort expended for...
At the end of 2009 the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math among 34 nations on education standards. It doesn’t take a genius to see that we are falling behind.
Have you seen anything in the past two weeks on the front page of the New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times about the climate change talks? No? Neither have I. This is somewhat curious since all three of these cities are at sea level and can anticipate...
In Vermont, there’s an old expression. “Welcome to Vermont, now please go away.” I think it was taught to me by my grandfather, a gruff longtime resident of Jericho. He espoused the same attitude about visitors to his property, even towards his young “uncivilized” (his words) grandsons.
I love the holiday season. Where I grew up, Christmas was the major family holiday with a concentration of visits to the pub followed by overeating and naps. The holiday itself was centered on gift giving surprises, food preparation, more imbibing, and attempts to find batteries which were not included...
This fall, NRG Systems employees met in a Vermont Reads group to discuss Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and its portrayal of America’s racism on that classic novel’s 50th anniversary. The two previous years, readers explored the experiences of Kosovo War refugees and the forced internment of Japanese-Americans during World...
I recently had the opportunity to participate in two protests in Washington, DC to raise awareness about the Keystone XL pipeline and the dangers this project presents to the environment and climate change. The protests were organized by 350.org, whose mission is to build a global grassroots movement to solve the...