By Quincy Abramson, UNH Italian Studies & International Affairs Program | JUNE 2017 My maternal grandparents used to live on the beautiful Lake Damariscotta in Maine, and my whole extended family traveled to Damariscotta every Fourth of July to play horseshoes, grill, go boating, and swim. My cousins and I usually swam in the shallow water off a small nearby point,…
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By Elizabeth Sibson, UNH Political Science Program | MAY 2017 “Mercy will we overcome this…one by one could we turn it around?” -Dave Matthews We hear every day about carbon emissions, recycling, and water pollution, but it’s not always clear how our actions connect to these environmental issues. For instance, what possible impact could the music we love have on…
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By Renee Chasse, UNH Neuroscience & Behavior Program | MAY 2017 “Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins as in art with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.” – Aldo Leopold (‘Marshland Elegy’, A Sand County Almanac) When you imagine Nature’s beauty, what do you think of? A rosy sunset…
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mother (n.): an extreme or ultimate example of its kind I love this definition of mother (above) — e.g., ‘the mother of all solutions.’ But, there’s no doubt that the word mother refers first to a woman who has given birth to, or adopted and raised, a child. And any woman who does not fit this definition has (at least once) been…
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Where did the name “compost your phone” come from? Can you actually compost your phone? I’ll speak to both questions, but first… The idea for this site started with my intention to bring more optimism (and hopefully even more fun!) into the conversations I have with students, friends, and colleagues about environmental issues and sustainability. Despite the best efforts to highlight…
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What is sustainability? What does it mean to make personal, lifestyle, and consumer choices that are sustainable? I teach several undergraduate environmental conservation classes, and these questions are at the heart of many class discussions. Each semester, from very early on, I hear my students’ collective desire to figure out what they can do (the positive and negative consequences…
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