Nature and the Environment

Latest Articles

Days of future past

'SF-1970' at the Harvard Film Archive
Science-fiction films have been with us since Edison’s 1910 version of Frankenstein , but they bloomed in the ’Nam era, nourished by a volatile cocktail of cultural ingredients.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON | June 26, 2010

Strange trips

Seeking the Pine Tree State’s weirder side
If you want this summer’s eerie subject matter to hit a bit closer to home, or a bit closer to reality, check out Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State , by Michelle Souliere (The History Press; $17.99).
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 16, 2010

Layers of buying local

Going green
When we drink a glass of organic milk, or eat organic pork sausage with our organic scrambled eggs, it’s easy to forget what goes into securing that “organic” label.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 09, 2010

Review: Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo

Pallid documentary on Japan's insect obsession
The cheeky title conjures up belovedly tacky 1950s Japanese sci-fi films, but Jessica Oreck’s actual effort is a pallid, thinly poetic documentary essay about Japan’s obsession with insects.
By GERALD PEARY | June 01, 2010

High and low culture from Japan

Art of the Hole Dept.
Attention, admirers of quirky kitsch and over-the-top aesthetics: hit PAUSE on that Belle and Sebastian record for a second.
By LANCE GOULD | June 02, 2010

Warning buzz

Going Green
Right now there are millions of bees pollinating blueberries in Maine.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | May 12, 2010

Cape Wind: It’s Complicated

Obama gave the green-energy project a green light. Now, a slew of messy coalitions are going to battle over the future of clean energy.
Thousands of years ago, the terrain beneath what is now Nantucket Sound was dry, and populated by the ancestors of the Wampanoag people, who continue to revere it.
By VALERIE VANDE PANNE | May 07, 2010

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Nature studies

New works by Catherine Hamilton and Susan Twaddell
“A bird feeder,” Hamilton writes in her artist statement, “creates an intensified microcosm of the trials and hardships of avian existence.”
By GREG COOK | May 05, 2010

Lady of Leisure’s Prison Memoir

Crook Book Dept.
In prison, Piper Kerman had to get used to, among other trials, a bathroom infested with insects.
By VALERIE VANDE PANNE | May 05, 2010

Quivering timbers

A suspended forest in Brunswick
What’s a tree without roots? Usually it’s the kitchen cabinet or a sheaf of inkjet paper, but for Maine artist Jacob Galle, the answer is a lot less complicated.
By NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | April 28, 2010

Headphones TNG

Think Sound
New Hampshire green-tech nerd Aaron Fournier has an undeniable pitch for his new company, Thinksound, and its line of cool-daddy wood-grain headphones.
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 27, 2010

Eco-friendly

The second coming of organic beer
Once upon a time, before the heyday of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, all beer was organic. And now organic is back for good.
By JOSH SMITH | April 21, 2010

Sightings | City of Straw

Jagjaguwar (2010)
City of Straw works less like a conventional album of songs and more like a portal torn into this esteemed NYC-based experimental trio’s ominous world of heavy industrial noise that stays open for just 40 minutes.
By JONATHAN DONALDSON | April 15, 2010

Going Green Guide

Big Fat Whale
Paint some leaves on some shit
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | April 15, 2010

A wind farm — and a governor’s legacy — hang in the balance

Not Easy Being Green
With Governor Carcieri’s second and final term coming to an end, it is time to think about the “L” word — legacy.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | April 08, 2010

The ‘new Providence’?

Angel rising. Plus, the IRS blues, after the flood, drilling Obama, and Tiger talk
WRNI political reporter and Casa Diablo regular Scott MacKay was the first pundit to make the observation to your superior correspondents in the summer of 2002 that we were “about to witness either the last election of the ‘old Providence’ or the first election of the ‘new Providence.’ ”
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | April 08, 2010

It’s the rain and snow, stupid

Plus, hard times for the Blackstone
For those morons who say after a blizzard, “How’s that for global warming!” may we point out that one of the harbingers of climate change is the severity of storms that we experience.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | March 31, 2010

Island ventures

USM show uncovers Peaks
Living on an island can be like living in your parents’ basement.
By NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | March 24, 2010

Hog wild on the farm

Going green
Perhaps because it's more difficult to do at home, perhaps because for some it's a question of ethics or squeamishness, perhaps because eating less meat is one of the top things we all could do to help the environment, but we don't talk as often about organic, eco-friendly livestock farming.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | March 17, 2010

Beautiful garbage

‘Trash’ — and more — at AS220 and Project Space
"Trash" at AS220's Project Space (93 Mathewson Street, Providence, through January 29) focuses on our love-hate relationship with garbage
By GREG COOK | January 20, 2010

Cambridge finds it ain't easy being green

Greater Boston's Gas-House Gang
The hype leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Congress in Copenhagen last month reached near tsunami proportions, but in the end, the gathering went out like a neap tide.
By TOM MEEK | January 13, 2010

An unlikely clash: wind developers and environmentalists

Wind Dept.
The growing push for wind power in Rhode Island is creating friction between wind developers and an unlikely group of critics: environmentalists.
By STEVEN STYCOS | January 13, 2010

Of Doctor Tremendanus and the giant furry jellyfish

Monsters, Inc.
It was New Year’s Eve and in the belly of the Roxy nightclub, away from the teeming Bright Night crowds, there were monsters on the loose: creatures with protruding noses, googly eyes, and spindly legs.
By ABIGAIL CROCKER | January 06, 2010

The power of ignorant thinking

Big Fat Whale
Global warming is a lie
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | December 30, 2009

Faltering steps forward

Going Green
As in many other sectors, the green world in 2009 was marked as much by bluster as by tangible positive action.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | December 22, 2009

Group hug

The crooked folk of Cuddle Magic
Things aren’t always what they’re called — we know that flying fish don’t fly and starfish aren’t even fish.
By JONATHAN DONALDSON | December 15, 2009

Book Review: The Tin Drum

Günter Grass and Tin Drum 2
There are — and have always been — two Günter Grasses. There's the Grass who was born in Danzig and the Grass who was born in Gdansk.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | December 15, 2009

Let's Get Raw

Do It Clean Dept.
Couldn't score a seat at the Climate Change Conference underway in Copenhagen, but still want to reduce your carbon footprint? Perhaps you need to eat it raw.
By TOM MEEK | December 16, 2009

Change? What change?

Operation Afghan Tragedy. Plus, getting steamed over global warming and men in tights.
Nice to see Goldman Sachs employee Barack "President" Obama get rolled by Gen. Stanley McChrystal so we can send more troops to Afghanistan on a hopeless mission.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | December 16, 2009

Séance

Rachel Berwick conjures ghost birds in Zugunruhe
Rachel Berwick's art is concerned with conjuring ghosts — in particular the spirits of creatures or peoples near extinction or already died out.
By GREG COOK | December 09, 2009