I was devastated to learn last week that the number of monarch butterflies who made it to their winter stomping grounds in Mexico plunged 59% from 2012 to 2011, continuing a downward trend of several years. In New York where I live, the parade of monarchs passing through each spring and fall is our Great [...]
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The Perils of Bird Migration
Migration is a risky business, as I’ve had the chance to experience vicariously this fall via Osprey’s Journey, a website I helped design that is tracking the migration of an osprey from Jamaica Bay in New York to South America. He goes by the name of Coley and though I’ve never seen him in the [...]
Coley the Osprey’s Migration
The development of lightweight solar-powered GPS transmitters in recent years has enabled scientists — and the bird-loving public — to discover where ospreys go when the weather turns cool and how they get there. One migrating osprey being tracked right now is “Coley,” who was equipped with a GPS backpack in May. After a summer [...]
Avoiding Factory Farm Foods
If you believe that it’s wrong to subject animals to a lifetime of pain and deprivation, you should be very careful about what you eat. Virtually all animal foods in this country — not just meat, but milk, cheese and eggs — are produced by a system of agriculture that subjects farm animals to just [...]
Share Your Plant and Animal Sightings
Your wildlife photos and observations are the makings of real science — even those of common species such as the house sparrow. Don’t keep them to yourself and your Facebook or Flickr friends. Join Project Noah and share them with the world or use them to help build the Encyclopedia of Life. It’s fun, but [...]
Saving Jamaica Bay
I often think we undervalue the nature spots that are not wildernesses — the ones in and near cities and towns. Not only do these underappreciated places provide precious habitat for wildlife within the built environment, they also give humans respite from the hustle-bustle of modern life. Jamaica Bay in New York City is one [...]
Wild Animals in Our Midst
What should communities do when deer habitat disappears and the animals spill out into yards, parks and streets? In the area where I grew up (Essex County, New Jersey), the community recently responded with deer hunts. The alternative — giving the deer contraception — was rejected due to cost. I was horrified. Not so long [...]
Orca Watching PDF for Distribution
I’m posting a pdf of my column on the risk to Southern Resident Killer Whales from whale-watching boats and the alternative — land-based whale-watching. Feel free to print and distribute it to anyone who might be interested. Orca Watching — with No Harm Done
Orca Watching with No Harm Done
This summer, I had the time of my life on a whale-watching boat trip to see orcas around San Juan Island. The orcas I saw are known as Southern Residents — a sub-group or maybe even sub-species of killer whale (the other name by which orcas go). Much to my chagrin, I later discovered.that the [...]
Favorite Nature Spots
About 14 months ago, I had the idea of sharing favorite nature spots among readers of This Green Life using Google Maps as the vehicle. This nature map has received some 300 odd contributions and is still going strong today. It includes recommendations of many amazing places I’d never even heard of. Finding them isn’t [...]
ABOUT
This Green Blog is the companion blog to NRDC's This Green Life, a green living column written by Sheryl Eisenberg for the Natural Resources Defense Council. (Subscribe to get it for FREE each month.)
Sheryl has also written "Greentips" for the Union of Concerned Scientists and designs websites for environmental groups and others with her firm, Mixit Productions.
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