In my day vocation, I am employed, in part, to plan for a more sustainable future. As I continue to work with a host of colleagues in every walk of life charged to do the same, it sometimes feels it is an understatement to say this is a staggering task. This is not just because [...]
A couple of years ago, my son Logan and I completed the Daniel Pennock Democracy School. The 2-day program is offered by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) in Chambersburg, PA. The notion that nature somehow has rights has captured my imagination since my involvement with the Interfaith Roundtable on Sustainability in 1998, discussed [...]
The December/January issue of Adventure magazine has a great article, Don’t Fence Him In: From prisoner of Panama to power broker: Why Rick Ridgeway traded a life on the edge for a chance to reinvent the wilderness by Mark Sundeen (with photography by Robyn Twomey) about Rick Ridgeway, a guy Rolling Stone called the real [...]
Sustainability is now a mainstream word. People feel the need to put an adjective in front of it, i.e., economic sustainability, or environmental sustainability, I suppose in an attempt to focus its meaning. It is to me a word that connotes far deeper dimensions than many seem to consider—an ethic about how we are to [...]
Some say it’s greed. Some say it’s stupidity. Others blame it on weak regulators.
My view is the root of this dilemma has nothing to do with these.
Its cause is a faulty worldview. A premise rooted in 19th and 20th century thinking that our macroeconomy exists without limits.
This crisis exposes the rotten core of traditional U.S. [...]
Today, MSN ran a piece by Scott Burns, in which he runs back of the envelope calculations to determine that there is enough oil in the middle east to buy the U.S. This is a perfectly reasonable exercise and very relevant today. As a guide to the future, however, I don’t think it helps much.
He defines [...]
In my daytime practice as a professional planner, I see signs that profound shifts in land use are now taking place. Not knowing of any other name for what has begun, I’ll call it “The Great Contraction” as opposed to the syndrome of the last 50 years—”The Great Expansion”. The role of conservation in U.S. culture [...]
As I realize all the folks I have forgotten to acknowledge that had something to do with the launch of this site…
At the top of the list of those I failed to mention is Ridge Schuyler, Piedmont Programs Manager with The Nature Conservancy in Charlottesville. Ridge is the Piedmont Program Director and during 2003-2005, he [...]
My younger brother Joe Collins, a great guy, husband, father, mechanic, commercial pilot, and hobby farmer on Maryland’s Eastern Shore called me tonight to talk about the Conserv website…
Joe: Mike, do you want to hear me tell you how great you are or the unadulterated truth?
Mike: Yes Joe, I need the truth, please.
Joe: Mike, I’m waiting for the [...]
For Ralph, the spirit
Joe, the love
And Lance, the goodwill.
My brother-in-law, my buddy’s son, and my friend, cared deeply about this world. May this project honor their energy.
- Michael Collins