After a Century of Neglect, Americans Are Learning How to Live in the Mojave Again

More People Are Setting Down Roots in a Desert Once Reserved for Mining Towns and Lonely Highways

At first, there was no road at all, just a series of springs where the water table breached the earth’s crust.

At the end of the last Ice Age (about 15,000 years ago), there had been many interconnected lakes, rivers, and springs here in the Mojave Desert. Since then, these extensive waterways have mostly dried up, leaving just two intermittent rivers (the Mojave and the Amargosa) and one permanent river (the Colorado). Yet the desert, where the average rainfall is less than four inches per year, still has over three hundred …

by Fred Landau and Lawrence Walker | February 7, 2019

Are You Cursed If You Steal Rocks From the Petrified Forest?

A Photographer Ponders Beauty, Truth, and the Guilt of Visitors Who Pilfer Souvenirs From the Arizona National Park

by Ryan Thompson | November 7, 2018

In 2011, I was traveling in Arizona photographing meteorites and the misidentified meteorites known as “meteor-wrongs.” My work with the meteor-wrongs went quicker than expected and my wife and I …

California’s Trees Need to Stop Just Standing There

With Humans Unable to Solve the Golden State’s Forest Crisis, Our Woodsy Friends Must Step Up for Themselves

by Joe Mathews | October 15, 2018

Dear California Trees,

When are you going to stand up and take some responsibility for all the damage you do to this state?

It’s not only the blue-purple blossoms that you jacarandas …

At India’s TV Repair Shops, a Worker Discovers Technology’s False Promises

Is the ‘Use-and-Throw-Away’ Consumer Ethos Keeping Us Dependent on Corporate Giants?

by Padma Chirumamilla | October 10, 2018

In a repair shop in South India, an employee was sitting next to me, trying to figure out what was wrong with the circuit board on his worn blue work …

Excavating the Future City

Through His Camera, Naoya Hatakeyama Reimagines and Rebuilds Our Human Environment

October 4, 2018

Japanese photographer Naoya Hatakeyama, who was born in Japan in 1958, has spent decades exploring and documenting the human-made environment, with a particular emphasis on cities. He has explored everywhere …

How Long Can the Military Defend Camp Pendleton?

The Marine Base Sits at a Crossroads of an Urbanizing Southern California Starving for Open Land

by Joe Mathews | September 24, 2018

The American military may be the finest fighting force in the history of the world. But how long can it defend Camp Pendleton?

Marine Base Camp Pendleton is best known as …

The Next Great California Water War Is Starting Underground, in the Mojave Desert

Minerals, Nuts, and the Navy Are at the Center of a Novel Fight Over Groundwater, and Its Governance

Will We Ever Get Sane About Water?

We Have the Means To Keep Ourselves Peaceably Hydrated. The Will, For Now, Is Another Story.

Whose Colorado River Is It?

Dividing Up a Single Water Source Among 30 Million People—and Leaving Some for Nature—Is a Tricky Business

How California Can Teach Itself About Water

The Wet, Wasteful North and the Dry, Conserving South Must Share Perspectives, and Plans

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