sid sibo

In South Jersey, multiple partners across Camden County are focused on varied outcomes of a single collaborative project—a watershed improvement initiative aiming to make the long-polluted Cooper River and surrounding waterways one of the cleanest urban watersheds in the country. How can such an initiative fail to attract an array of cooperators? In the wake of recent severe flooding episodes, wastewater infrastructure surfaced front and center, with stormwater management als

When blue-collar workers and environmental advocates work together in what is becoming known as a blue-green alliance, those stories often catch my eye. Despite long-running oligarch narratives attempting to pit these groups against each other, we no longer fall for that ruse. For example, in Becker, Minnesota, one of the Midwest’s biggest solar projects “demonstrates how we can build upon existing infrastructure and workforce expertise to meet growing energy needs, create ec

Hector's Dolphin by Steve Dawson, NEW ZEALAND WHALE AND DOLPHIN TRUST Gillnets are made from nylon and are almost invisible (acoustically and visually) to animals in the water, which is why fishers have long employed them for gathering important food resources from oceans worldwide. For dolphins, however, that has meant decades of dangerous and often deadly entanglements. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, gillnets have been identified as the highest threat to the Maui or Popoto subsp

Getting ready to launch a new book means encouraging readers to open it up and see what's inside. Winter Woods Publishing celebrates the more-than-human world and the ways people weave our lives within the multiplicities our planet contains. In this interview on Tanya Eby Writes, you can hear more about the themes that surface in so many different ways across the stories in my upcoming collection. sid sibo interview

“The real question is whether the ‘brighter future’ is always so distant. What if it has been here for a long time already – and only our own blindness and weakness have prevented us from seeing it around us and within us, and kept us from developing it.” Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless The poet-statesman whose dissidence helped create the collapse of authoritarian Czechoslovakian and Soviet hegemonies was then elected to lead the new Czech Republic. A fellow Czech

The same warped sense of reality—so many times proven wrong—that leads people to establish hierarchies of humankind also clings tightly to its strange belief that humans are the pinnacle of creation. This week’s good news, accordingly, is celebrated both from the perspective of ecological success and as a major win for human rights in the (not-so-) United States. Many people, both living and ancestral, created and continue to defend laws to protect ecological integrity. Among

One of my favorite lines from a favorite Indigo Girls song: If you have a care in the world, you have a gift to bring. We can’t always cite a reason for this caring, and why would that matter? To care, to share our gifts, that is living, to LIVE, to be alive to the many interlinked forms and functions of this singular world. In the face of a context that can feel overwhelmingly opposite to this, our insistence on and persistence in a life of caring is not abdication of “more

Are you ready to join the YAY-sayers? Subscribe to this newsletter for POSITIVE news about People-and-Planet. We are all in this together and we aren’t gonna listen to the endless yammering about how divided we are. Point in case: western Wyoming, where sits my own little cabin on the Pacific slope of the Rockies. Even from here, in only a click or two beyond an article in the High Country News I discovered today’s YAY, with a sweet connection to my own rural electric co-op a

Mycelium photo-- Revolutions happen more frequently than an AI surveillance bot might think. Oh, wait, do they think? But then again, do WE? Or do we just rotate through political-economic systems on a predictable pattern with little change? Remember that Earth rotates, every day, every day. We appreciate sunrise and possibilities--changes, right?--that we might have missed before. Or that have only just become possible, because of other shifting factors. We settle gratefully

Indigenous peoples, with long experience, are leading the way now through tyrannies resurfacing around the globe. Keeping their focus on the future, organizations in Canada, Australia and Alaska prioritize regenerative ways of being rather than trying to face down every new challenge that arises. For the planet, and for people, this visionary approach to today's necessary work is a welcome way forward. Elder Copper Joe Jack, a Ta'an Kwäch'än Council land management planner f

As the year spins ‘round, lists of recent happenings and discoveries—personal and global—proliferate, while each new year rises in front of us with its own uncertainties, its many unknowns. Humans probably have experienced, over time, an evolutionary advantage through our attraction to what seems new, even as those among us who hang tight with what we know also provide useful grounding. Looking over positive news from the past 12 months, a Mongabay article about newly descri

When my attention returned to the Acoustic Burro, curiosity and serendipity sent me stories of courageous role models creating the healthy home we all need. The Global Landscapes Forum introduced me to Célia Xakriabá, now the first indigenous Federal Deputy in Brazilian Congress from the state of Minas Gerais. Since 2023, she’s chaired a parliamentary commission defending Indigenous people’s rights and the planet from which she sees no possible disconnection. “We are the envi

Maybe many governments appear still convinced of the strange and harmful fallacy of human superiority, but that isn't the only story to be found in these tumultuous times. A 2023 treaty adopted by U.N. member states, called Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, shows a path toward the beyond . We can recognize our planet as the inextricably interconnected, nested, grand experiment we know as Life, something far beyond human conceptions of jurisdiction. Th

Books for Winter Reading Storytelling has been a part of human social evolution as long as we've had words, and with the magic of written languages we then spread our ability to share stories well beyond what we might hear around the campfire in our own communities. Opportunities for bringing my favorite writing and authors to people who might not have encountered them yet are always exciting to me, and Writing Heights Writers Association is offering an online class, Beyond H

so many hounds, so little time This one's a little longer than my usual Acoustic Burro; a friend and fellow novelist who works with The Masters Review asked for a piece to include in their "Writers on Not Writing" series. Bonus: same link also gets you words from Emily Mathis. Writers on Not Writing

A fall breeze lifts colored leaves from tall maples, birch, beech and oak trees as an autumn drizzle softens the piles already on the ground, where a friend’s two-year-old dog pounces and rolls with joy. Turtle Island spans all of North America, including my original home ground here along the Kennebec River and the little farm in a high Rocky Mountain valley that has been home now for decades. So much joy in landscapes all across this continent, a place so many people from a

Category Five book cover What a weekend at Jackson Hole Book Festival’s Conversation for the Community . For one, check out featured...

Choosing where we put our attention is an often overlooked superpower. On yesterday's equinox, earth balanced daylight and starlight....

The Acoustic Burro will be on an extended break to focus on the current novel-length project, but we couldn't just leave without...

Having camped among the coyotes, pronghorns & nighthawks, i wandered through the remote restoration work site before anyone else arrived....