Roger Hammer is searching for wildflowers. A wilderness photographer since 1972, the tall, sturdy 70-year-old has spent much of his life in the world-famous swamps of South Florida. With a long gray ponytail swaying across his back, he steps over the soft, algae-covered slough floor about 60 miles west of…
It starts out as a light wind and a few small waves lapping the shore. But in less than a minute, the minor storm becomes brutal. Howling winds turn the water choppy and rough and storm surges are so massive that they consume a small house. With 157 mph winds,…
Florida has gone almost 10 years since receiving a direct hit from a hurricane. The last time a cane actually touched our shores was when Hurricane Wilma made landfall in late October 2005. That’s an awfully long (though not necessarily scientifically strange) gap for hurricanes in Florida. The world and…
Hey Miami, hear those mangos falling and exploding on your roof? That can only mean one thing: Hurricane season is here. So are the same stories you read every year about the need to stock up on the basics: water, canned goods, flashlights, and other items on your average hurricane supply…
Animal rights activists for years have complained that an orca named Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium has been held in unsafe conditions. Now, an investigation by federal authorities into the safety of the trainers who perform with the killer whale has lead to a big change at the park. A…
Florida Republicans haven’t exactly been making headlines for their progressive action on climate change. But a lone Republican has begun to push for action within his party. Representative Carlos Curbelo, who represents Florida’s 26th Congressional District, which stretches from Miami to Key West, says he understands climate change is “a…
A few months after Hurricane Sandy bared down on New York, killing over 150 people and wreaking $65 billion in damage, city leaders cried for help to make their city more flood-proof. Dutch expert Henk Ovink answered. Ovink had helped make his homeland, where 55 percent of the country is…
Florida’s finally getting closer to totally eradicating the Giant African land snails that have plagued the state since an outbreak in late 2011. The snails were first found in Coral Gables, a year after a religious leader named Charles L. Stewart of Hialeah smuggled them into the country and made…
Legendary Florida environmentalist Nathaniel Reed has added his voice to the chorus of disapproval for Florida’s legislature, saying their failure to enact key legislation — as the House quit early over a Medicaid funding fight — has made the state “the laughing stock of the country.” Among the many bills…
Miami is a trashy city. That’s not an insult. It’s just a fact. There’s literally trash everywhere. People apparently just love chucking stuff on the side of the roads and only rarely do people bother to pick it up. It’s easy to ignore when you see it everyday and most…
There’s only around 160 Florida panthers left in the wild thanks to us humans have encroached on their territory. We’ve tried our best to make it up to them by listing them as an endangered species, but even then someone occasionally (and presumably not on purpose) hits one with their…
The future’s looking brighter for solar energy at the University of Miami, with a solar-power charging station and bench set to come to campus soon. The technology will allow two people at a time to sit and charge their smartphones and other small devices, both during the day and at…
Florida Gov. Rick Scott was the target of a Presidential dig Wednesday during Obama’s speech in the Everglades. The occasion was Earth Day and Obama didn’t miss the chance to take a whack at a governor who has reportedly forbid staff from even mentioning climate change. “Climate change can’t be…
Today is Earth Day, a holiday that should resonate in a city that takes such pride in its local environmental beauty. Miami is the only metro area in America sandwiched between two National Parks, and in many ways Miami has done a decent job in the green department. Our air…
Ah, Earth Day. A perfect time to put throw some jam band vinyl on the record player, get out those old hemp necklaces and pay a visit to the local farmer’s market. And, if you’re in South Florida, to spend a few moments pondering how mankind’s wanton destruction of its…
Biking along a tranquil, green path in South Miami sounds pretty enjoyable. Next to a series of massive, 10-story nuclear power transmission lines? Perhaps not so much. That’s a real possibility facing the Underline, a project to transform the underutilized land below Miami’s MetroRail from the Miami River to Dadeland…
Hurricane season 2015 starts in just a few weeks and so far, most experts are forecasting another sleepy storm period in the Atlantic. But another study out this week makes it clear that it would only take one monster ‘cane to wreak an insane amount of damage in booming South…
New studies emerge by the week illustrating how Earth’s climate is changing. Sea levels are rising, and the only real question is how quickly and whether low-lying regions — like, you know, the entire state of Florida — will have time enough to react to save themselves. The only significant group…
Just a few paces from busy Brickell Avenue, Ishmael Bermudez crouches behind his little clapboard house and drinks serenely from a hose lowered into the ancient bedrock. Skyscrapers drape his property in shadows. Across the street, a Metrorail train clamors to a stop at an elevated station. All around, construction…
Miami is definitely a city that places a high importance on the body, and apparently most locals are treating theirs like a temple. That’s at least according to Livability.com who ranked Miami as the fourth healthiest city in America. Perhaps that’s not much of a surprise for a place where…
Coral Gables residents have been fighting the city tooth and nail for months to clean up and reopen Merrie Christmas Park, a small green space contaminated with everything from arsenic to cadmium. Amid legal threats, the city caved in October and — with the help of an anonymous donation — agreed…
Florida certainly is a melting pot, and apparently that even holds true for invasive species. Scientists recently discovered that two types of invasive termites have started to interbreed in Florida, an extremely rare occurrence. How could this happen? Well, global warming might be to blame. Formosan subterranean termites and Asian…
