The Revelator

Twenty years ago this summer, Al Gore delivered environmentalists a jolt of energy with the release of his climate change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The film was an unlikely blockbuster — who knew a slideshow could be so gripping? — that became a commercial and critical success, eventually earning Gore an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize. His 100-minute monologue helped catapult global warming to the center of the political discourse. But if the film landed with bang, it ended with somet

About a decade ago, I traveled through the Rasuwa region of Nepal as a conservation and environmental protection worker. I remember looking at the Himalayas with a kind of pride that is difficult to explain to someone who has never stood beneath them. The mountains seemed eternal. The glaciers looked like frozen rivers from another age. The valleys seemed impossibly deep, the rivers impossibly powerful. I felt proud that these mountains were part of my country. I felt proud that Nepal, a small a

The sound of rubber sandals crunching on dry bamboo leaves echoes in the fading light of Sumur Bendung. Maia Ruda, a 58-year-old mother, walks down a steep, tricky path toward a narrow riverbed in Gunung Batur village, Cilegon, carrying an empty 15-liter (4-gallon) plastic jug on her back. The path gets slipperier and more dangerous as it winds down the valley, where it cuts through mossy stone and damp earth. Photo: Garry Lotulung As the sun sets, other women with their own 15-liter jugs are al

What whale are we talking about this month? Today we’re looking at the elusive narwhal (Monodon monoceros), the “unicorn” of the sea. Oh, come on. There’s no way those are real. I get your skepticism, but narwhals exist. They live in the Arctic, where relatively few people see them. And yes, just as you might see in cartoons, male narwhals have a single spiraling “horn” on the front of their faces. Technically it’s called a tusk, but it’s actually a really long tooth.   View thi

The change of seasons gives us a chance to reflect on the environmental issues that affect us all. Here are several new books about wildlife, climate change, and biological diversity that offer intriguing insights into the transformations occurring in our world and ways we can enjoy, protect, and observe the transformation from summer to autumn. We’ve adapted the books’ official descriptions below, and the link in each title goes to the publisher’s page. You can also find any of these titles thr

In 2024 a team of scientists with a dry sense of humor announced the name of a newly discovered but extinct species: the obliterated whitefish. Extinction is deadly serious, but you have to admit that’s a brilliant name for a species — a name that makes us sit up and take notice of the fact that we wiped that creature out of existence. Wordplay like that, along with other forms of comedy and satire addressing critical issues, can cut through the crap and make us think about things from angles we

This June customs officers in Hong Kong intercepted eight cartons supposedly containing frozen fish fillets on their way from Mexico to Vietnam. The packages, they found, also included 149 kilograms (about 330 pounds) of dried fish bladders suspected to come from protected totoaba, a critically endangered fish species that swims in the Gulf of California. Officials estimated the smuggled fish bladders — organs that help with buoyancy and that are known as fish maw after they’ve been dried — had

On Sept. 16, 2025, an estimated 100,000 people flooded the streets of Cuenca, Ecuador’s third-most populous city, in one of the largest environmental mobilizations in the country’s recent history. Protesters marched under a simple slogan: “We are water.” The demonstration was aimed at stopping mining projects in Quimsacocha, a fragile, high-altitude ecosystem that supplies water to hundreds of thousands of people across southern Ecuador. But beneath the immediate conflict over mining lies a deep

How does a young wolf learn how to be a wolf? Genetics certainly plays a role, but so do the knowledge and techniques passed on by the previous generation of wolves, who teach their young how to hunt, what areas to avoid, and how and when to howl (and what each variation in those howls means). And much like human dialects and accents, wolf howls vary depending on where a wolf grows up. Research published a few years ago found that wolves around the world have at least 21 different types of regio

Originally published at the “Earth Chxrch” page of Neil Young’s Times-Contrarian. Talen is the religion editor at the Contrarian.   The distance between our realization and actualization has changed — and it is a tragic dangerous thing that you and I share. Realizing can come in many forms. With the environmental movement the realization was the reading of Silent Spring. (For others among us, it was Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang.) That book by Rachel Carson made the danger from toxic che

Nestled in the misty, snow-capped Himalayas in northeast India, the city of Darjeeling — the famed “Queen of the Hills” — has long been synonymous with its legendary tea gardens. But tea isn’t the only thing you’ll find on these rolling mountains. A “living fossil” also inhabits this landscape: the endemic Himalayan salamander (Tylototriton himalayanus), whose ancestors roamed the Earth with dinosaurs about 160 million years ago. At first glance these ancient amphibian survivors, all of 6-7 inch

Revelator readers enjoy a love of wildlife and wild places around the world.  Our new Revelator Gallery showcases readers’ wildlife and landscape photos, artwork, and other projects and creative efforts. Here is an American bumblebee foraging in my yard! I was walking around early one morning taking pictures of insects and snapped this one with my phone not knowing who it was!” — Tierra Curry, senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (Kentucky) “A little coyote friend on

In 2008 Ecuador became the first country in history to grant constitutional rights to nature. Rivers, forests, and ecosystems were no longer treated solely as resources to be managed, but as living entities with rights of their own. For some it was a legal innovation. For others it was the return of a worldview that had survived for centuries outside the institutions of the modern state. The question is how an Indigenous understanding of the world was translated into the language of courts, laws

Hugh Safford was hiking at 12,657 feet in California’s Sequoia National Park two years ago when he spotted something strange. It was a young Jeffrey pine, a tree that usually occurs farther downhill. Photo: Hugh Safford. Used with permission. Safford was hiking at treeline, the forest threshold where trees still grow, but fewer and farther between. Only the toughest species can survive the strong winds, heavy snowpack, and freezing temperatures found there. Safford is a forest and fire ecologist

What whale are we talking about this month? Thanks for asking. Last month we talked about Rice’s whales, one of the rarest whale species. This time I wanted to talk about the more commonly seen minke whale — in fact, that’s their official name, common minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata). NOAA Fisheries So … they’re common? Yeah, kind of. No whale species are exactly common these days, but minkes have a population of around 180,000. Their extinction risk has been assessed as “least concern.

Our previous column addressed a reader’s questions about the psychological benefits of green spaces. This time we examine their follow-up question: I guess my secondary question is, can sharing this science help persuade these anti-tax activists? Yes, but it depends on how you present the pro-green space science. You want to win hearts and minds, so tell a story about how beautiful your town will be when it has green spaces in which folks can meet their neighbors, exercise, observe holidays and

By the time Virginia Casper reached her 75th birthday, she’d almost given up trying to move her retirement savings out of fossil fuels. She had been shocked to learn that TIAA (the Teachers Retirement and Annuity Association), which she had always considered a socially responsible company, had at least $78 billion in coal, oil, and gas. Even their “Social Choice” and “ESG” funds were funneling her money into fossil fuel giants like ConocoPhillips and Halliburton. TIAA is not alone. Although 75%

Liz Slooten couldn’t believe how many dead dolphins she was seeing. It was 1984, and the New Zealand-based zoology student was just beginning to study the smallest and rarest dolphins in the world. Now corpses were washing ashore in alarming numbers. Most were found entangled in fishing nets. For others, the cause of death was a mystery. “We started asking the question, what the hell’s going on here?” Slooten remembers. More than 40 years later, she’s still asking uncomfortable questions. Recent

This story was originally reported by Jenae Barnes, Climate Reporter of The 19th. Meet Jenae and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. Anti-abortion advocates, including Republican lawmakers and state officials, want the EPA to review mifepristone as a water contaminant. Scientists say there’s no evidence it harms the environment or people. While there is no scientific evidence that abortion medication is contaminating Americans’ water supply, it has nonetheless bec

The past 30-40 years have been hard on people and their relationships with neighbors and communities. Powerful interests have driven a wedge between people and divided us by promoting self-centeredness and antisocial beliefs. But there are many smart ways we can push this anti-community thinking with grace and empowerment — including the promotion of green spaces. Dear Dr. Green, My town has been pretty good about preserving green spaces, but lately the more MAGA-influenced people in town object