Category: Essays

A dried bud of cannabis. Image from Creative Commons.

The Cannabis Frontier

For 40 years California’s Emerald Triangle has provided the one critical environmental factor required to grow cannabis: isolation. That’s about to change.

An aerial view of Ocean City, Maryland, showing typical coastal development.

The First Green Developer

Charles E. Fraser built a South Carolina beach resort privileging environmental protection, leaving a complex legacy for conservation and development today.

Female Birds Sing, Too

When a long-dominant theory about sexual selection’s role in the evolution of bird song is corrected, what happens to conventional ideas about the sex of singing birds?

Built to Last

How concrete changed perceptions of knowledge and labor in a modernizing society.

Rhythms of Time Along the Water

The Center for Culture, History, and Environment’s Place-Based Workshop on the Mississippi River this summer inspires reflections on Mali’s critically important Niger Delta floodplain.