Subject: Nature and the Environment

• Whale Tale

  July 20, 2006

• Where are all the acorns?

  The title of this post is basically the question brought up this past Sunday in the Washington Post. The article notes the lack of acorns up and down the east coast and that poor little squirrels are having a tough time coping.As I was reading the article I realized that hey, I haven't seen any acorns this winter in Kansas City either. Forget Washington D.C. -- Kansas City is in the midst of a great acorn shortage as well, and It's not like there's a lack of oak trees lining many Kansas City nei

  December 4, 2008

• Best Canoe Trip

  October 19, 2000

• Best Lawyer

  October 19, 2000

• Squirrels on the menu

  The latest game-meat fad in Britain is squirrel. Yes, cute, precious gray squirrel. Not to be confused with the slightly more cute, slightly more precious red squirrel. Gray squirrels effect the population of red squirrels, and because red squirrels are cuter (just look at picture) the gray squirrels must go -- right into stews and the menus of posh London restaurants.Apparently, it's just coincidence that this gray-squirrel-eating craze coincides with a recession. But desperate times call for d

  January 8, 2009

• Drunk as a skunk? Stoned as a squirrel?

  sportingnews.com There was a time when I was so ridiculously intoxicated that I was accused of being "drunk as a skunk." It never occurred to me, drunk or sober, to wonder where that expression came from. Only later -- with a clear head -- did I learn that its historical roots date back to at least the 14th century, when "drunk as an ape" or "drunk as a mouse" were commonly used. The word skunk, I discovered recently, is of more recent vintage. A reference to the stink-spraying animal, as

  January 26, 2009

• Best Guy to Hire to Get Horrible Wild Animals out of Your House

  October 17, 2002

• Best Picnic Spot

  October 17, 2002

• BPU meets with EPA about alleged clean air violations (updated)

  Nearman Creek Power StationLast week, attorneys from the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities and Environmental Protection Agency met to discuss the notice of violations the EPA sent in November to the BPU. The notice basically said the long-troubled utility company could face millions of dollars in fines for violating federal clean air standards. Chris Whitley, a spokesman for EPA Region 7, told me about the meeting between attorneys lasted three to four hours. He said it was an initi

  February 11, 2009

• Best Place to Teach a Kid about the Laws of Nature

  October 9, 2003

• Shoot Out

  November 20, 2003

• Best City Service

  October 7, 2004

• Best Insect Infestation

  October 7, 2004

• Kung Fu Panda

  June 5, 2008

• Leave Only Footprints

  April 24, 2008

• Looking for Clues

  March 6, 2008

• Wag the Frog

  February 28, 2008

• Bird Tales

  February 21, 2008

• Gonna Need a Bigger Sleigh

  December 20, 2007

• Koalas at the Zoo

  May 10, 2007

• BPU Could Face Thousands In Fines

  A confidential report reveals the utility didn’t follow federal pollution regulations when upgrading its plants.

  March 1, 2007

• Tossed Out

  Katheryn Shields' main environmental staffer wonders why Mike Sanders didn't recycle him.

  March 8, 2007

• One Big Dog

  August 31, 2006

• Shark Bites

  June 22, 2006

• Monkey See

  Whatever the women do in Judy Onofrio’s sculptures, monkeys do, too.

  February 2, 2006

• Circus Act

  Jill Foote-Hutton's Carnivale Pilgrimage is a circ du ceramics.

  November 24, 2005

• Green the Core

  April 16, 2009

• Can Kansas City turn its trash problem into an opportunity?

  April 23, 2009

• Miracle on Ice

  The life of the emperor penguin isn't easy, but it might make yours seem better.

  July 7, 2005

• My Shark Places

  Susan Casey goes into the deep

  June 16, 2005

• Trot Shots

  Kemper Arena hosts Harlem hoopla on Thursday.

  January 6, 2005

• Just Shoot Me

  At Cabela's Yukon Base Camp Grill, the food chain is missing a few links.

  December 18, 2003

• Mean Old Frisco

  UniverSoul's hip-hop circus can't shake old-fashioned allegations.

  November 6, 2003

• Animal Control Freak

  A Jackson County officer monkeys around.

  January 16, 2003

• Predatory Practices

  At WildCare, birds of prey didn't have a prayer.

  October 10, 2002

• Kind Bud

  Author Michael Pollan talks about the persuasive powers of plants.

  June 20, 2002

• Conundrum

  At the same time hundreds of dead gray whales were washing up on beaches, their birthrate was plunging. Theories around, but little hard data has been gathered to solve this environmental puzzle.

  December 20, 2001

• The Whizzers Of Oz

  The Kansas ag industry dumps all over efforts to clean up the state's water.

  August 9, 2001

• Dying Breeds

  Siberian Eskimos on the edge of the Earth and the brink of starvation saved their lives and their culture by reviving the lost tradition of whale hunting. Now they worry the gray whales are poisoned.

  April 5, 2001

• Rabbits Don't Rest

  Ken Ferguson's ceramic rabbits run all over the Kemper.

  December 21, 2000

• Field of Bad Dreams

  Jim Bynum declares a sludge match against the city.

  November 16, 2000

• Strictly Mainstream

  Curbside recycling is the mainstream thing to do.

  August 3, 2000

• Environmental group releases congressional scorecard

  Republicans are anti-environment and Democrats are pro-environment. That is the rhetoric heard in political campaigns everywhere. And with the publication of the League of Conservation Voters environmental scorecard, released last week by the Sierra Club,

  February 17, 2000

• Jungle Heat

  April 30, 2009

• It's probably best to avoid much contact with Missouri's feral hog population right now

  Day four of "Panico 09!" is upon us, and everybody is treating anything having to do with hogs or pigs as un-kosher. So this is as good a time as any to offer good lifetime advice: Avoid Missouri's feral hogs!Yes, Missouri has a small but stout population of wild pigs, just roaming around and waiting to infect city folk with their terrible swine flu. OK, that's not true. Every single case of swine flu in America came from other human beings, not pigs, and there is a very good chance that none of

  April 28, 2009

• Reptiles!

  June 18, 2009

• Environmentalists unearth massive financial problems at Sunflower Electric

  In the marathon controversy over the expansion of the coal-fired power complex in Western Kansas, environmentalists have argued the new facility would be a giant, climate-change-accelerator, coughing up ungodly amounts of the carbon dioxide gas that leads to global warming. Holcomb 1 power plant​But the latest legal filing from Earthjustice and the Sierra Club lays out another reason the monster power plant in Holcomb could be a disaster. Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, the company th

  August 7, 2009

• The Cove

  September 3, 2009

• It's man vs. hog in Missouri

  ​Missouri is going to the hogs. In the midst of a feral hog population boom, the Missouri Department of Conservation is trying to raise awareness about the problems wild hogs are causing in the state. Though 400 hogs have been killed since January 1, the MDC's Rex Martensen believes that's just a stop-gap solution and not the long-term answer:  At some point, we need to have more serious funding for hog eradication, but with the economic downturn that probably won't happen any time soon.

  September 15, 2009

• KC Chamber's green initiative gets a national nod

  ​When the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came out against federal legislation aimed at slowing global warming, Apple kicked its membership and Nike resigned its position on the board. But Partners for Livable Communities, a national smart growth and sustainable development advocacy group, suggested this week that local chambers aren't nearly so backwards when it comes to protecting the climate. A new report from the Washington, D.C., based group argues: There is a powerful -- and perhaps unexpect

  November 5, 2009