Recently Bank of America said it would no longer finance surface mining projects that bury streams, yet President Bush ratified a change in federal law that takes away a buffer that protected mountain streams. Jim Minick suggests we need to take back the moral high ground. Minick teaches English at Radford University in Virginia. 668 words.
Tundra swans fly to the Chesapeake's rivers from as far away as Alaska's North Slope, looking for the perfect place to winter. Their long migration tells us something about the value of protecting forests, a place these big waterfowl would never land, writes Tom Horton in this 697-word commentary.
The cold that has gripped the Mid-Atlantic the past weeks has one good effect - it slows the spread of an invasive species that is killing millions of majestic hemlocks across the East. Cindy Ross reminds us how devastating invasive species can be, and says the hemlock wooly adelgid might rival the chestnut blight in the damage it does.
In this season in which we sing "Joy to the World," Liza Field finds herself baffled by radio preachers who come down hard on nature and call environmentalists "a cult." After all, the Bible talks about God's presence in nature, she notes. And, if the earth is the Lord's, she wonders, wouldn't believers want to protect the place?