Seventy people were arrested in front of the White House this morning in what marks the beginning of the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of the climate crisis. Peaceful demonstrators, including scholar and author Bill McKibben, were arrested for protesting against (more…)

Living in a large city like New York, LA or DC has its perks: museums, films, music, lectures, public transportation.  There’s an amazing amount of human diversity crammed into a relatively small geographical space. The culinary options alone are worth the experience.  However, there’s an obvious lack of green space and available land for growing food. Asphalt, pavement, highways and overpasses, parking lots and high-rise buildings leave most of the soil compacted below an impenetrable layer of human “progress.”   In many cases, the soils that do remain are heavily contaminated with the legacy of decades of industrial activity – lead, mercury, petrochemicals, to name a few – which make eating vegetables grown there a serious health risk.

In response, a growing wave of urbanites around the country are re-assessing city spaces and growing food in the most wonderful and peculiar places.  (more…)

For the past few years, I’ve had the great pleasure of providing photography for the Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC), a legal non-profit organization working to protect the environment and natural resources of the Pacific Northwest.  Every fall, NEDC hosts a retreat at Camp Westwind – near the Cascade Head and the mouth of the Salmon River on the north Oregon Coast.

The weekend is a mix of outdoor adventure, great food, and panel discussions addressing many of the environmental challenges facing the region.  Here are a few images from their story.

by Andrew Burdick

I remember, as a child, the family Christmas tree was a big deal. We would drive to the local market where rows of freshly harvested trees leaned solemnly in the chilly December air. Picking the right tree was crucial. My father explained: look for the right height and shape, stay away from the trees that are shedding their needles. Once home, setting up the tree was a shared ritual. (more…)

Photos and Text by Andrew Burdick

It’s 4:30AM, in the dark and chilly pre-dawn mist. A giant 18 wheel industrial dump truck lumbers its way through the streets of downtown Portland, its cargo covered by a taught black tarp stretched and tied over the enormous trailer’s steel girth. Near the middle of the Burnside Bridge, the behemoth slows and figures into an awkward k-turn like maneuver, so that the trailer sits at a slight diagonal consuming all four lanes. Inching backwards, the rig comes to a stop with the cargo bay doors in its rear hovering just inches from the bridge’s cement south side guardrail.

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