With the final leaves of fall on the ground, it’s time to look for owls!
If you’re like me, you may have a case of “weather whiplash” from the wildly fluctuating temperatures.
Most people don’t like insects except when they’re spectacularly beautiful, like monarch butterflies.
Since colonial times the route from New York City to Philadelphia has been a well-traveled corridor, with most of its miles in New Jersey.
You’ve probably heard the bad jokes about New Jersey’s traffic, toxic waste, Turnpike exits and bad smells.
Winter is coming, and wildlife is getting ready.
Autumn is here, and the leaves will soon be down. Time for a massive yard cleanup, right?
Imagine two light bulbs side by side. One is a 12-watt LED bulb and the other is traditional 60-watt incandescent. When the switch is flipped, the two bulbs glow with the same amount of light. But the LED bulb uses 75-80 percent less energy. This means lower electric bills and less pollution.
Bird watchers all over New Jersey have been feeling something amiss.
The signs said it all: “There’s no Planet B.” “The world is changing, why aren’t we?” “Our home is on fire.” “I would be in school if the planet was more cool.”
Farmers have long known that one rotten apple is enough to spoil the whole bunch.
The land conservation community in New Jersey was stunned five years ago when the private, for-profit PennEast pipeline company announced plans to build a gas pipeline across miles of preserved open space and farmland in Hunterdon and Mercer counties.
Your yard may be your neighbors’ envy … beautifully landscaped and well maintained. But if it’s full of non-native plants, to birds it’s a parched desert.
Many things improve with age, like wines, cheeses, friendships, antiques and leather boots. How about forests?
You might think kudzu – jokingly referred to as “The vine that ate the South” – is an exotic sport!
Why did the turtle cross the road?
It’s hard to be optimistic in the face of climate change. For instance, just this past week we learned that July was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth. And rapidly melting glaciers in Greenland are adding billions of gallons to sea level rise, and wildfires are burning out of control …
At New Jersey’s freshwater lakes and reservoirs, summer usually means long days of swimming, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, wading, water-skiing, rafting and paddle-boarding.
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was one of the worst man-made disasters in our history. Due to poor farming practices and many years of drought, topsoil in the southern plains turned to dust and blew away. Failed crops and dead farm animals led to the hunger and misery of the Great Depression.
Anyone who’s planted “garden variety” morning glories knows how easily they grow. These showy annuals climb like crazy and produce lots of seeds. New plants pop up year after year and are almost unstoppable!
Someone once said “the best things in life are free.” But even “free” things like air, water and the quiet enjoyment of nature have tremendous value. And those values can easily be stripped away.
Around the globe, climate change is leading to increased ocean temperatures and more acidic water. The impact on fish and the fishing industry is enormous.
Driving through a garden usually isn’t a commuter experience, but drivers on the Atlantic City Expressway will see colorful patches of native flowers along the sides of the highway!
Placed end to end, the New Jersey rivers and streams proposed for higher environmental protections would stretch from High Point to Cape May and back again – twice!
Would you care if northeastern beach tiger beetles and arogos skipper butterflies disappeared? How about blue-spotted salamanders and southern gray tree frogs, or peregrine falcons and piping plovers? What if bobcats, Indiana bats and North Atlantic right whales vanished?
While Washington turns it back on climate change, New Jersey is busy reclaiming its national leadership role on clean energy.
