Over the past year or so, the Colorado River has hit a number of historic firsts, none of them good. In 2021, the water level of Lake Mead, which is fed by the Colorado, located on the Arizona-Nevada border, and distinguished as the largest reservoir in the U.S., dropped to an all-time low. States on the […]
It’s not even novel to say it anymore: top national parks are experiencing an overcrowding dilemma. In 2021, forty-four National Park Service units set visitation records, and, for the first time in history, Great Smoky Mountains crossed the 14 million visitor mark. Last year, 50 percent of total recreational visits occurred in just 6 percent […]
Perhaps you, like me, have been getting flooded by Earth Day ads. There is so much you can do to save the planet, they scream. Pay money to plant a tree! Come to a Zoom meet and greet with tech bros who are making sustainable apps! Watch Nascar drivers race a supposedly carbon-neutral car! Buy […]
In 2018, former President Barack Obama sat down with David Letterman on the pilot of the comedian’s Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. It was Obama’s first talk show interview since leaving office, and the most revealing insight into what Obama’s long post-presidency might look like–he was only 55 years old at the end […]
The welter of Interstate 10 drowns out Yolanda Davis-Overstreet’s voice as we pedal beneath an ivy-laced underpass on the cusp of South L.A. I’m following her mauve city bike north on Redondo—we’ve just left West Adams Boulevard, the main drag through her childhood stomping grounds of the same name—and we’re heading for New Los Angeles […]
German climber Alex Megos is perhaps best known for putting down one of the hardest routes in the world, Bibliographie (initially thought to be 5.15d, a grade climbed only once before, but eventually determined to be 5.15c), in Céüse, France, in 2020. The 28-year-old is also a regular on the competitive climbing circuit and one […]
I’m not sure that the trend has survived the pandemic, but for a while it was common to see NBA players toss their headbands into the stands, post-game, to the delight of certain dedicated fans. Call it a holy relic for our secular, sports-addled age: a branded, sopping halo of terry cloth, straight from Lebron’s […]
In February 2021, when President-elect Joe Biden nominated Deb Haaland to become the 54th secretary of the interior, the left and right staked out familiar turf. A one-term Democratic congresswoman from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Haaland had become a darling to environmentalists. She supported the Green New Deal, called for a fracking ban on public lands, […]