– Doug McConnell

Photo: Pigeon Point Lightstation by Yen-Wen Lu

I watched a piece of CNN’s “Planet in Peril” series last night. I’ve spent quite a bit of time during the past few decades working on programs to help us understand and address the immense ecological crises of our time. In most ways, I haven’t seen much success. While the biosphere doesn’t get any bigger, our appetites for its limited resources seem to grow exponentially. The planet heats, habitats are destroyed and species disappear at rates unprecedented in the past sixty-five million years. Overall, it’s a pretty gloomy picture.

However, there are many signs of hope scattered across the face of the earth. Right here in northern California, I get encouraged every day by the commitments of concerned people and the consequences of their hard work. The Bay Area in particular has long been a leader in environmental action and land conservation. If you visit here these days, (more…)

– Carl Bidleman

Keep watching this space for the soon-to-be-launched Life Outside the Box video series where we’ll introduce you to citizens of the blogging world and find out where they like to go and what they like to do when they manage to get offline.