By Dr. Robert Thorson Shoot first, ask questions later. That was my first thought when I learned that a big-game hunter from Idaho had shot a hybrid cross between a grizzly and polar bear in the high Canadian Arctic. The hunter, Jim Martell, apparently had violated the hunter’s first axiom: “Know what you are shooting […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Before we change federal administrations, I want to sing the praises of a group that I hope will no longer be needed. I refer to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. This is no sinecure of desk-hugging bureaucrats seeking to pad their salary and benefits. Instead, its members risk retaliation by reporting […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Today is New Year’s Day. For me, it’s usually a low-key family holiday during which we make handcrafted, plate-sized gingerbread cookies. This year I plan to make one of Obama in honor of his inauguration on Jan. 20. That day will mark the beginning a new year far more significant than […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Ahhh! Summer vacation. Time to relax and go fishing. Not quite. Fishing has become so high-tech and scientific that I sometimes wonder why it’s still so much fun. Answer? Because there’s so much learning going on. Fishing technology is fascinatingly complex. There’s high- resolution underwater acoustic imaging. Global positioning systems. Bathymetric […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” If Henry David Thoreau, were alive today, and writing about Amston Lake on the border of Hebron and Lebanon, he might also say: “It is […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Charles Dickens opened his Victorian-era novel “A Tale of Two Cities” with these famous lines: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . .” I found Dickens’ contradictions particularly helpful for understanding the […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson It was a dark and foggy night. The frogs were migrating. Collisions with my car were unavoidable. Hop — Thud — Squish. Frog pizza. Road kill can be pretty gross; especially when a whitetail deer is macerated and smeared over the highway by a tractor-trailer. But there are plenty of silver […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Alternative energy sources are darlings of the media because each has something novel and potentially important to offer society. They enter our lives like rising film stars, rookie athletes or dark-horse political candidates. Only later does the downside of each hopeful promise become apparent. Solar voltaic seemed flawless until New Englanders […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Globalization. For most people, this word describes the expansion and integration of modern commerce and culture. For me, the term is worse than misleading. It’s just plain wrong. If globalization means “the process of becoming a globe,” then this hardly describes what’s happening today. Earth experienced its one and only epoch […]

By Dr. Robert Thorson Remember Sarah Palin’s comment about lipstick on a pig? To my mind, the University of Connecticut’s Hillside Environmental Education Park (HEEP for short) is carefully applied lipstick on the underground pig of its still-toxic landfill. This hog grew between 1966 and 1993 as UConn staff members dumped trash from a generation […]