Environment

The surprisingly resilient corals of Cuba. The greenest office building in the world. Italian wall lizards colonizing suburban New York. The ascent of the green roof industry. Roadkill as a wildlife indicator. My favorite ecology-related articles have told the surprising stories of unnoticed, overlooked or underestimated inhabitants of the natural world, while many of my environmental stories have explored the fast-evolving green building industry and the factors influencing environmentally-friendly consumer behavior. My work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Newsday, The Guardian, NBCNews.com, bioGraphic and ENSIA.

Featured Stories

Farm to reef

bioGraphic, May 8, 2018

Understanding why so many of Cuba’s reefs have thrived while many elsewhere have not could prove pivotal in the fight to preserve the marine wonders here and around the globe. Among the potential contributing factors that scientists have identified, new research efforts are revealing connections between the country’s farming practices and its flourishing seas.

Exploring the mysteries of Cuba’s coral reefs

Science News for Students, March 15, 2018

Researchers from the United States and Cuba are teaming up on new projects and calling for more cooperation to help Cuba preserve its unusually healthy corals. By working together, the researchers hope to shed new light on important species that live on or near the reefs. What they learn could help scientists protect other ocean animals around the world.

Americans have a nature problem. Is ‘biophilic design’ the solution?

NBCNews.com, March 8, 2018

For people disinclined or unable to spend time outdoors, an emerging architectural movement called biophilic design aims to incorporate a bit of nature into our buildings. Perhaps ironically, the trend has been embraced by some of the same tech giants whose products have helped fuel our nature-shunning addiction to technology.

Can the Bullitt Center prove that it pays for buildings to go ‘deep green’?

The Guardian, April 23, 2015

There’s no question they save water, energy, waste and emissions – but proving the greenest buildings also save money is tricky.

Inside the green schools revolution

Mosaic, November 3, 2014

It’s not a new idea, but still a radical notion to many: What if classrooms and other public buildings designed to minimize their environmental impact also maximized the health of their occupants, whether students or workers?

Code green

ENSIA, October 28, 2013

As buildings push the sustainability envelope, longstanding regulations get a critical eye.

A building not just green, but practically self-sustaining

The New York Times, April 2, 2013

When an office building here that bills itself as the world’s greenest officially opens later this month, it will present itself as a “living building zoo,” with docents leading tours and smartphone-wielding tourists able to scan bar codes to learn about the artfully exposed mechanical and electrical systems.

Subtly selling ‘green’ to the flat screen crowd

The New York Times, April 10, 2012

A convergence of clever advertising and engineering advances in televisions, appliances and housing components is allowing green marketers to recast high-efficiency options as practical problem-solvers for the home rather than as saviors of the planet. Newly honed pitches steeped in consumer psychology are linking up the traits people crave — cutting-edge quality, say, or convenience — with the energy savings and reduced emissions championed by environmentalists.

The self-sufficient office building

The New York Times, October 4, 2011

One of the most highly anticipated development projects in the Pacific Northwest is still little more than a grid of concrete and rebar at the edge of the Capitol Hill neighborhood here. When completed near the end of next year, though, the six-story office building may be the greenest commercial structure in the world.

Q and A: The Rambunctious Garden

The New York Times "Green" Blog, July 28, 2011

An interview with environmental journalist, Emma Marris, author of the book, “Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World.”

Related Photo Gallery

Green roofs popping up in big cities

MSNBC.com, April 15, 2008

The Washington Nationals’ new baseball stadium opened the 2008 season with one. Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics will feature many more. And earlier this year Minneapolis decreed that the city’s voluminous Target Center arena will have one too. Suddenly, green roofs are sprouting across North America.

A flat you can’t repair [PDF]

Newsday, December, 2003

At 55 miles per hour on the Northern State Parkway, the identifications must be made swiftly and decisively. Raccoon. Squirrel. Raccoon. Uh, squirrel? Call it a URP. For the uninitiated, URP stands for “Unidentified Road Pizza,” at least according to Brewster Bartlett, also known as Dr. Splatt.

Associated Awards

Newsday Publisher’s Award,
Team Enterprise Reporting, “Our Natural World” Series, 2003

The lizard king [PDF]

Newsday, May 2003

Two years before astronauts walked on the moon, a few dozen colonists took their first small steps onto another foreign landscape. The exact details are lost to legend, but the settlers soon discovered that Garden City wasn’t such a bad place to land. For a lizard.