Author archive: Mike Kensler

"The winter solstice celebrates the return of hope to our land as our planet experiences the first slow turn toward greater daylight…. Pause now to sit in silence in the darkness of this space. Let this space be a safe enclosure of creative gestation for you." From The Circle of…

In September I attended a Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Climate Change Conference where I heard Paul Hawken speak about his new book, Project Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. His ideas had a huge impact on me. I left the presentation thinking very differently about how to…

“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.” ~H.G. Wells A depiction of the Luafmaschine. A 200th anniversary slid by this summer without much notice for the invention of a taken-for-granted transportation device that changed the world, and today…

“Food fraud, or the act of defrauding buyers of food or ingredients for economic gain… has vexed the food industry throughout history.” -- Renee Johnson, “Food Fraud and ‘Economically Motivated Adulteration’ of Food and Food Ingredients” This summer I read a fascinating and eye-opening book, Real Food Fake Food, by…

“There is as yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it.  Land … is still property.  The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.” -- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949 Sustainable landscapes result when…

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”  - Winston Churchill People in the United States only spend about 10% of our time outside of buildings.  To me that is a rather shocking statistic.  We may not give that much thought, but as Churchill observed buildings have an enormous impact…

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”    Maya Angelou I love Maya Angelou’s description of a successful life: not just surviving but thriving; with passion, compassion, humor, and style.  Our vocation,…

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” The ghost of Jacob Marley, speaking to Ebenezer Scrooge ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas…