Lazy Point Year

Today's On Point program featured an interview with ecologist Carl Safina, who read several passages from his new book, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World. (The odd title refers to his home on Long Island.) I have been thinking for a while about a new approach for my environmental geography course, and this book might just be it. His discussion with Tom Ashbrook is a rich blend of appreciation for the natural world and insight into the ways in which human institutions are ill-prepared to care for it. On the surface, he seems to be echoing what has become a familiar litany of gloomy predictions, but his critique is deeper than most and his insights more poetic. I look forward to reading all about his year of observing what remains of beauty and wonder in this world, and what it has taught him about our tiny but sacred place in the cosmos.