Ecologically Speaking

摘要

For a short two-week period every spring, before the leaves burst their buds, the warm spring sun penetrates the deepest nooks and crannies in the small cottage where I live. Its rays illuminate the grit and cobwebs that have accumulated over the long, dark winter. Sparkling dust rises toward the sun as if it was a cobra under a flutist's spell. For this brief interlude in May, anything seems possible. The barren maples, ash and elms that tower above me don't obscure the sun or block my view. Swollen leaf buds hold only promise. I can see the forest and the trees.rnThis issue of Alternatives shares this clairvoyance. It's as if the sunshine has exposed the ideas of all my favourite environmental writers and thinkers, and is enticing fresh concepts out of all those hidden nooks and crannies. Passion fills the pages of this issue of the magazine.