sustainability

People, places, and projects that help us understand the challenge of sustainability. While I focus on environmental sustainability, there’s plenty here about social and economic issues, too.

A place to call home

Looking at this photo taken outside the Jane Hotel in New York reminds me of a time when I was at home in a city I haven't been to since the week before the US lockdown in March 2020. I lived around the corner with my then partner, and we had seen the effects of extreme weather the autumn before, when Hurricane Sandy flooded lower Manhattan. We were unable to return to our building for nearly a month. Here's what I wrote at the time: 12 November 2012 The need [...]

June 12th, 2021|Categories: The Search for Community|Tags: , , , |

A Smaller Circle

I have wanted to use this story about the ducks in Boulder creek for years, and doing so in a UK magazine called Resurgence/Ecologist really brought things full circle. I was living in Boulder when I was asked to write the only other thing I

April 28th, 2013|Categories: The Search for Community|Tags: |

The greenest places on earth

I suppose Great Barrington, the small New England town where I run Berkshire Publishing, might be said to qualify as one of the greenest places on earth. Not only because it is so beautifully, lushly, abundantly green right now, but because it's in the heart of the only region on the planet that has been reforested over the last century or so. I was stunned by this when I first moved to New England in 1991. England, where I'd lived till then, is of course a "green and pleasant land." [...]

July 5th, 2010|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: , , |

A festive New York launch for the Berkshire Encyclopedia of China

I'm on my way to New York for a remarkable "Berkshire" event tomorrow: a China celebration in New York on May Day that brings the renowned author Simon Winchester, a resident of the Berkshires and a friend of Berkshire Publishing, to a lunch hosted by Jones Day and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Here's the invitation. More about the synchronicities tomorrow -- along with photographs! We are pleased to invite you to a luncheon program to hear renowned author, journalist, and broadcaster Simon Winchester discuss his latest book, The [...]

April 30th, 2009|Categories: Oddments|Tags: , , , |

The inside word — behind the scenes at Berkshire Publishing

Here's an e-mail (or email -- the difference being the subject of yet another editorial conversation!) exchange between senior editor Mary Bagg and project coordinator Bill Siever, both veterans of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of China, and one of our copy editors. This discussion will give some insight into the details we handle here, and the care and good humor that go into getting our articles into shape for publication. Hi all, I know you've been waiting all day for the skinny on "however vs but": (Karen, considering we think alike [...]

April 30th, 2009|Categories: Oddments|Tags: , , |