Collected under the series title Green Ideas, these twenty short volumes gather together a group of complete books, long essays, and portions of longer works into a cohesive whole that would well grace the shelves of all environmentalists, conservationists, naturalists, and any others who would wish to avail themselves of the ideas propounded by some of the most significant thinkers on the subject over the previous century.
While most of us have very likely heard – and even used – the phrase “scorched earth” as a metaphor for some level of damage left in the wake of an action such as the quitting of a job or the breaking of a romantic relationship, there’s a reasonable chance that in doing so we haven’t fully understood the severity of the words we uttered.
When it comes to green American cities, “put a bird on it” Portland is likely to be at or near the top of most any list – any list, that is, that doesn’t take into account the health of the large river that bisects it. I mean, of course, not the Columbia, which flows along the city’s northern border, but rather one of its major tributaries: the Willamette.
In 2014, the city of Flint, by then under the direct control of the state of Michigan since 2011, in an effort to save money while a new pipeline was under construction, had its water supply switched from that of a treated reservoir to water from the Flint River. Due to a pH difference – the river water being more acidic – the lead solder in the old pipes began to leach out into the water flowing into homes, schools, and businesses throughout the city.