As a biologist and a mom, I don't take the ecosystem for granted. It’s a delicate balance, and I remind friends and family that we cannot pollute the air around us and expect to outlive the consequences. We will suffer. Our children will suffer. In the last decade and a half, the number of heavy […]

  I find it both beautiful and terrifying that our world is such a delicate balance. Yet, we as humans have thrown it off. It’s terrifying because of what our future will be if we deny the inevitability of man-made pollution that leads to climate change. It’s beautiful because we have the tools to protect […]

After 16 days soggy straight days of rain here in North Central Ohio, the beginning of school caught me by surprise. Our summer passed in the blink of an eye, and now I'm walking my son to his Pre-K class. Of course, with all the requisite paperwork, the question of whether or not we'd need transportation […]

My preschoolers ask a lot of questions. Parents know that their children's curiosities come in the form of relentless questions. On a recent trip to Lake Erie to visit the beach I had spent many childhood summers, the questions started as soon as we got on the highway when my four year old noticed the […]

As a Republican, I am keenly aware of the controversy in Washington between the parties concerning a plan to combat climate change. As I watched President Obama's speech, I deeply appreciated that our President emphasized that climate change used to be a bipartisan issue. He discussed the hard work of Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and […]

When I was a college student, acid rain was a buzzword for pollution that fell from the sky. It was a topic we briefly touched on in Ecology class, accompanied by a warning — if things didn't change in our environment, the US would soon experience the adverse effects of acid rain. To be honest, […]

In a survey by the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, of 726 Republicans or Republican-leaning Independents, it was found that a slim majority of the participants (52%) believe that climate change is real. As a Conservative Republican, this statistic saddens me because it 

Life by it's own design is cyclical. Spring follows Winter. Birth leads to Death. In a way, I find this comforting, I like to know what comes next. What I do not like, is when we are given a chance to correct a problem in our world and we do, but only for a short time…then […]

This past year, we upgraded the insulation in our home and added a new energy-efficient furnace. Although Ohio's winter wasn't that harsh, with temperatures similar to those in 2011 and 2012, I was interested to see what these changes would mean for our wallet. Since our home has a newly improved seal from outside weather, […]

When I was a college freshman looking for extra credit, I stumbled into my campuses Environmental Stewardship Society's service project. It set out to clean up the creek bed that ran through campus. As a student growing up in an evangelical home, finding a group of Christians caring for the Earth was thrilling. After college, […]