Review by Leah Harrigan | There’s a little patch of Earth in the middle of a Harlem block, right on 134th Street, where big things are happening. Once an abandoned city lot, a thriving urban farm blooms with color. This is the hub of Harlem Grown, the true story of how one school volunteer and his students re-imagined a city neighborhood.
By Janot Mendler de Suarez and Pablo Suarez | What does humor have to do with serious stuff like climate change and environmental justice? Short answer: everything. Most people associate ‘humor’ with laughter, fun, or jokes, but when we asked legendary cartoonist Bob Mankoff what he thinks of when thinking about humor, he looked us straight in the eye and replied: Death.
By W. George Scarlett |
There’s a certain irony in the fact that where we find the most diversity in life forms, in nature, we find the least diversity in human life forms – at least in the U.S.. In the U.S., go to national parks or any place where wildness is featured, and the predominant representation is white. And close to home, in cities across the U.S., low-income, racial minority children and youth, compared to their white counterparts, are far more apt to have little connection to green spaces and to the wonders and benefits that nature offers. If, as Richard Louv famously put it, today’s children and youth are apt to suffer from ‘nature deficit disorder’, this is all the more true of children and youth of color. And what researchers refer to as “environmental inequality” isn’t just about not having access to green spaces and nature; it’s also about perceiving green spaces and nature as unsafe and not offering positive opportunities for adventure, exploration, play, and all the other ways that nature has such a positive meaning for so many children and youth who have been lucky enough to not have to deal with racism – institutional or otherwise.
By W. George Scarlett | Sometimes, the need is to act in a single-minded, straightforward way, a way designed to meet a crisis head-on and without delay, a way that says “Stop talking about ‘ought’ and start acting on ‘must’ “. But to do so means setting aside characteristic adult ways of being cautious and going slow.
Over a million students skipped school to protest inaction against climate change in the Fridays for Future movement started by 15-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
