As of late, a very large portion of the continental U.S. is extremely cold. Wind chills have fluctuated from the teens to -20’s. There is an actual super fun formula based on the National Weather Service and Environment Canada to figure out wind chill, and it looks like this: 35.74 + 0.6215T – 35.75 (V^0.16) + 0.4275T (V^0.16). Without even using that, we all know it is wildly cold out there. Why is  it so darn cold? Aren’t we experiencing global warming? Yes. Yes, we are. To be more...

As I looked out my window at the two feet of snow that vanished in a single day of January rain, it occurred to me that our winters are trying to tell us something. For generations, winter in western New York followed a dependable script. Snow arrived early and stayed. Temperatures remained cold enough to freeze lakes, slow wildlife, and send plants into dormancy. Spring waited its turn. Nature understood this rhythm, and life revolved around its reliability. Winter was not simply a season –...

You’ve heard me extol the virtues of nature-based solutions to environmental problems plenty of times. Much of our habitat restoration work and other best management practices intentionally favor natural approaches over engineered, hardscaped alternatives. And for good reason: many of the environmental challenges we are trying to fix – flooding, erosion, poor water quality – exist because the natural systems that once prevented them were removed or degraded. Riverbank restorations, stormwater...