Alex Shoumatoff

The usual way of growing cotton is highly petrochemical-intensive, requiring 110 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer per acre. Some of the fertilizer is broken down by soil bacteria into nitrate, a toxic and highly soluble chemical that can leach into groundwater or get washed into lakes, creating oxygenless dead zones. ”

There is a lot of interest among the descendants of Holocaust victims in getting back artworks that were looted by the Nazis, for getting at least some form of compensation and closure for the horrors visited upon their families. ”

No golfer's journey is complete without a pilgrimage to St. Andrews, the mecca of the game. This is where it all began, back in the 15th and 16th centuries. ”

Before you rip off three feet of toilet paper, consider that each year 500,000 acres of virgin boreal forest in northern Alberta and Ontario are being clear-cut to make the stuff. These forests are home to some 500 First Nation communities, as well as caribou and bears, moose and wolves, and, in the summertime, billions of songbirds. ”

Even as global warming increases the frequency of El Nino and the Atlantic event, their effects are being amplified by the annual loss of an area of rain forest the size of New Jersey. Less rain falls, and the water runs into the rivers instead of being sucked up by the fungus filaments and tree roots. ”

Elephants are not human, of course. They are something much more ancient and primordial, living on a different plane of existence. Long before we arrived on the scene, they worked out a way of being in the world that has not fundamentally changed and is sustainable, and not predatory or destructive. ”

The plumbing and pluvial dynamics of the Amazon, the largest freshwater system on Earth, are still far from understood. This is partly because it is a semi-open system. Moisture flows in and out unpredictably. A lot of nonlinear feedback loops and 'remote influences' - continental, transcontinental, oceanic, meteorological - come into play. ”

In the '70s, Florida-style golf communities started to be built for America's baby-boomers who were doing well and taking up the game but couldn't get into exclusive golf and tennis clubs and were looking for a nice place to live and raise their families. ”

Nature got it right with the cranes. They have been around since the Eocene, which ended 34 million years ago. ”

The global climate is a complex interactive system, with all kinds of nonlinear feedback loops. ”