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Winter 2013

Table of Contents

What Would Nature Do?

North Carolina Appalachians. Photo by Dave Allen / Shutterstock.

You Are Where You Live

How the sky, rain, geography, and cultures of our place shape us.
Susan Griffin
Flowers in Toilet photo by YLINPHOTO

A Living Sewage Treatment Plant? These People Grew One

Every flush of a standard toilet creates a several-gallon problem. Instead of wasting water, plants and animals can transform human waste into water rated pure enough to drink.
Claudia Rowe
Just the Facts 64
Just the Facts

To Save Our Ecosystems, Stop Overloading Them

Left alone, natural systems keep nitrogen, carbon, and other key ingredients of life balanced.
Doug Pibel & Madeline Ostrander
iPhone With Butterfly

People Used to Sleep Twice a Night, With a Break in Between: 7 Ways to Connect With Our Wild Human Roots

Color like a butterfly, eat like an ancient healer, and other ways to rediscover your inner wildness.
Fabien Tepper & Shannan Lenke Stoll & Valerie Schloredt

Sex in the Wild (a First-Hand Account)

What I learned about love from a hermaphrodite, a cannibal, and a dizzyingly diverse array of sea creatures.
Eva Hayward
Natalie Jeremijenko photos by Balazs Gardi

Robot Dogs and Other Weird Creatures Bring Nature to the City

How to create a world where people fly, salamanders text, and trash is useful.
Natalie Pompilio
Nature Economy.jpg

What Would Nature Do? Not Wall Street

Models for a healthy down-to-earth economy are all around us.
David Korten
Fish and Salad

Want Sustainable Fish? Barn-Raised

Aquaponics takes advantage of nature’s processes to fill Americans’ growing appetite for fish—without overfishing or destructive farming.
Katherine Gustafson
Invasive Species Collage

Invasive Species: If You Can’t Beat ’em, Eat ’em

Species like green crabs, feral pigs, snakeheads, and zebra mussels cost $120 billion a year in damage. For a cheaper alternative, try eating them.
Joe Roman
Permaculture Chickens photo by Paul Dunn

12 Steps to Create a Backyard Permaculture

Author Peter Bane grew more than 150 species on less than 2,000 square feet. Here are 12 tips to get you there.
Doug Pibel
VandanaOutside.jpg

Vandana Shiva: Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Forest

We need to value nature’s biodiversity, clean water, and seeds. For this, nature is the best teacher.
Vandana Shiva

Solutions We Love

Explore Section
Hug photo by Jamie Moffett

“You Are Safe With Us”: How Ordinary Iraqis Rescued U.S. Civilians in the Midst of War

In 2003, Iraqi townspeople, having just lost their hospital in U.S. air strikes, saved the lives of three wounded U.S. peacemakers. Seven years later, the Americans returned—to thank them.
Greg Barrett
Painting photo by Jeff Conant

Should Chiapas Farmers Suffer for California’s Carbon?

A California proposal would offset the state’s climate-altering emissions by paying for forest conservation in Chiapas. Could there be unintended consequences in a region with a history of human rights abuse and land grabs?
Jeff Conant
David Feld
People We Love

People We Love

Designing nonviolent ways for humans and animals to live in harmony—in the city.
Fabien Tepper
People We Love

People We Love: Asa Needle

Leading teenagers in the clean-up of their hometown, Worcester, Mass.
Laura Beans
Leia Lewis Henderson
People We Love

People We Love: Leia Lewis Henderson

Nurturing African-American culture through gardening.
Laura Beans

Culture Shift

Explore Section
Parlor_650.jpg
Yes! But How?

5 Parlor Games to Make Your Gatherings Ƶ Fun

Spoons, sardines, telephone charades, and other activities to put a boost in your get-togethers.
Fabien Tepper & Laura Beans
Young Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger: “You Stick Together ’Til It’s Won”

Gleaned from letters, essays, and articles, “Pete Seeger: In His Own Words” reveals how the celebrated folk singer has considered, at every turn, what it means to sing out in a world where the din of injustice is deafening.
Kim Ruehl
The Good Food Revolution Book Cover

Book Review: Inside Will Allen’s Good Food Revolution

Like growing vegetables from seed to harvest, overhauling the country's food system takes time.
Laura Kaliebe