PinnedMember-onlyIs Anywhere Safe from Climate Change?My search for an acre of escape — It was the rock that caught my eye. Dappled with lichen and lighted by the afternoon sun, it appeared to be the perfect place for contemplation. A spot where you could sit and write your novel, ponder your place in the universe, and perhaps reach some kind of equilibrium with…Climate Change4 min readClimate Change4 min read
PinnedMember-onlyShould Dads Still Teach Kids to Fish?Every Father’s Day I ask myself this question — Forty-odd years ago, while aboard a fishing boat with my father on Long Island Sound, I felt a pull on my line like none I’d ever felt before. And then another. And another still. The wild world had hit my line with all its abundance. I reeled hard and with…Sustainability8 min readSustainability8 min read
PinnedMember-onlyWhen Nature Goes BigWe must let the wild world reach its full potential — Every once in a while, in this highly diminished world of ours, one comes across something in nature that has been allowed to reach its full potential. It’s happened to me in the Singer Tract of Mississippi where the sewing machine giant had deeded a swath of cypress to the…Climate Change3 min readClimate Change3 min read
PinnedMember-onlyHow to Throw Back a FishCatch-and-release can be kill-and-waste if you’re not careful — Sometimes I wish that the fish on the end of my line was the one that got away. Take a night earlier this month. It was the full moon out in Montauk, Long Island, a time and place which east coast anglers know is a nearly unbeatable combination. The strong…Conservation4 min readConservation4 min read
Published in Forge·PinnedMember-only12 Things to Do Instead of Picking Up Your PhoneThis is the year to de-center your smartphone — For the sake of yourself and your country, it is time to get off your phone. Yes, I know you needed to see the latest inquiries into January 6th, the most recent QAnon theories, the debunking of those theories and then the debunking of the debunking. Then perhaps you’ll want…Digital Detox6 min readDigital Detox6 min read
11 hours agoMember-onlyHow to Make your Seafood More LocalHint: start with the squid — Even as a local food movement continues to grow all over the US, the squid many of us love to eat deep fried, grilled or thrown into a stir fry, are being caught, frozen, sent to China, unfrozen, processed, refrozen and sent back to the United States in giant 50,000-pound…Food4 min readFood4 min read
3 days agoMember-onlyChina’s Threat to Russia’s AmazonPutin and Xi’s “new levels of cooperation” spell disaster for the Siberian taiga — When exactly will the forest end? I had this thought 30-odd years ago while crossing the Russian taiga on the Trans-Siberian Railroad from St. Petersburg to Irkutsk. For hours and then days, the massive boreal aggregation of pines and firs, hemlocks and spruces strobed past the train’s windows — a…Climate Change3 min readClimate Change3 min read
6 days agoMember-onlyBail Out the Writers!Silicon Valley Bank is the least of our worries — Another year, another bank bailout. With Silicon Valley Bank in flames, Credit Suisse on the dole and a host of other mid-range financial institutions teetering on the edge of solvency we are again forced to look deep into the nation’s economic infrastructure and fleece the taxpayer for one more go…Writing6 min readWriting6 min read
Mar 14Member-onlyMyself Described to Me by AIWhat ChatGPT thinks of my work — Recently an old friend who works extensively with ChatGPT in his high school writing class, asked the AI to describe me and my work. The results were basically accurate if a little fawning. Am I being trolled? Paul Greenberg’s writing style is characterized by a blend of journalistic rigor, personal…Chatgpt1 min readChatgpt1 min read
Mar 10Member-onlyAll ReturningA poem from COVID’s worst months — “O-oh sweet Canada, Canada, Canada,” Sings the white-throated sparrow From Manhattan’s southern tip. All the bluster has gone out of the City’s roar. Even a bird can out-sing it. I board the empty Rockaway ferry. A gannet, our local albatross, glides alongside. With its neck crooked it scans the New…Pandemic Stories1 min readPandemic Stories1 min read
