CHRISTCHURCH, N.Z. I’d been in New Zealand two days, and there’d been two shark attacks in Australian waters.  The latest victim, a good-looking snorkeling guide who seemed remarkably cheerful about the whole business (“Must have great pain meds,” my hostess said), couldn’t wait for his arm to heal so he [...]

This photo is of me sailing in the Columbia River Gorge, a national scenic area in Washington and Oregon. Sailing is a way to feel connected to a place and experience it in a way that you couldn’t otherwise. It has taught me a respect for natural forces, whether it’s the current, the [...]

On a run this past weekend along San Diego’s Mission Bay, I wondered how the water and beaches were able to stay clean despite the huge numbers of people (who are missing from this picture because it was 8 AM) that visit Mission Bay during the summer. Businesses have a [...]

The second-largest killer of children under five is easily preventable and treatable (read more), yet it kills 4,000 children each day. This killer, diarrheal disease, causes death by severe dehydration, and especially affects young children due to their weakened immunity and high surface area to body mass ratio.  During the [...]

Creating a sustainable system starts with planning. The system must be able to perform self-maintenance or coincide with factors in its environment that will preserve it. Eventually the system should generate associations with other aspects of the environment in which it resides to form parallels between itself and other facets [...]

Even though the Bay Area along with most of the western United States is a near desert, we don’t tend to think much about water.  Of course during the rainy season we might get soaked to the bone or see streams near overflowing.  And in the summer we might experience [...]