Letters From The Earth

  • Evian spelled backward

    I was going to discuss the ROI on EPR in this column.  Some of you would say, “What’s he talking about?” Very simply, the return on investment on extended producer responsibility. But, right now we’re sitting on a powder…
    Calvin Frost 07.10.19

  • Chemistry is the culprit

    There’s something going on that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m going to divert from my “scheduled” topic, but it’s necessary. I’ve been reading about chemistry (Bill and David, do you remember Chemistry 101…
    Calvin Frost 05.31.19

  • Garbage patch gyres

    My wife invited me to join her to watch a movie at a recent Garden Club meeting.  The movie, “Bag It,” was about plastic contamination in oceans. (What else at a garden club meeting, right!?) It was very graphic and had me thinking a…
    Calvin Frost 04.05.19

  • Taking responsibility

    If we’re committed to a world, a planet in balance, how in the world do we do it? Well, certainly it takes a “pure” committed Huawei, not the one that we’ve recently come to know in the US.  The Huawei I wrote about earli…
    Calvin Frost 03.14.19

  • This is not about China

    Wow, a flurry of emails from you regarding my last column on Chinese domination of the solar industry. And, most recently, the controversy surrounding the arrest of Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, of Huawei. Lots of spirited comments, but at l…
    Calvin Frost 02.01.19

  • China means business

    In my last column I wrote about the importance of photosynthesis.  I said photosynthesis “is the essence of life.” I spent most of the column discussing the biological process of photosynthesis and the importance of sun energy as the…
    Calvin Frost 11.16.18
  • Improving photosynthesis

    Improving photosynthesis

    Photosynthesis is the essence of life, in more than one way or another. In photosynthesis, plants use the energy of the sun to turn air and water into sugar, the food that plants use to build their tissue that feeds the world.  When we emit carb…
    Calvin Frost 10.12.18

  • Sustainable investing

    Sally came to dinner the other evening. We don’t see her as much now that Bob is gone.  She lives north in the summer, south in the winter and west in between. Who knows where she is or when? It was kind of fun to semi-listen to her update…
    Calvin Frost 09.10.18
  • A monster of a problem

    A monster of a problem

    Folks, we have a problem. Neither the “love” potion as postulated at the royal wedding by the Most Right Reverend Michael Curry, the presiding head of the American Episcopal Church, nor the love messages from Bob Dylan and others of 50 ye…
    Calvin Frost 07.13.18
  • Passing Gas, Keeping Score

    Passing Gas, Keeping Score

    First, apologies for that photo in the April issue. Suffice it to say, I had no idea our editor would connect it to my comments on California’s Cap & Trade scheme, as well as my admiration for Governor Jerry Brown. Nor had I looked closely…
    Calvin Frost 05.25.18
  • Californication

    Californication

    There’s a wonderful article in Mother Jones called “Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” Mother Jones has always been one of my favorites: liberal, investigative, irreverent, and holds no hostages. In this case, however, Gabriel Kahn was…
    Calvin Frost 04.09.18

  • Taking on a new life

    In my last column I wrote about a study on the incredible growth of the plastics industry and a similar growth in plastics going to the landfill. The study concluded: “Thus without a well-designed and tailor-made management strategy for end…
    Calvin Frost 03.09.18
  • Plastic parallels

    Plastic parallels

    In my last column I mentioned that “the current linear plastics system is broken.” Sadly, like so many other truly important contributors to our society (and let’s not debate the degree of importance), many of our developments since…
    Calvin Frost 01.26.18

  • Poetry, waste and waxworm smoothies

    I think it is more than appropriate to begin my last column of 2017 with a poem by Matthew Olzmann of Dartmouth College. It’s a cry for change and a voice we need to hear and heed. “Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now” fir…
    Calvin Frost 11.17.17
  • Green Chemistry, Continued...

    Green Chemistry, Continued...

    “Give us all a reverence for the earth as your own creation, that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others.”
    Calvin Frost 10.06.17

  • Biology and Balance

    Earlier this year I mentioned that I would write a column on “bio” or green chemistry. It’s complicated and requires a chemistry primer. But, the real key, after you understand the chemistry, is that bio technology helps make life c…
    Calvin Frost 09.11.17

  • Dear Mr. President

    A look at President Trump's position on the Paris Accord.
    Calvin Frost 07.14.17

  • Carbon tax: the political football

    President Sean Decatur of Kenyon College joined the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (i.e., the Paris Accord for colleges and universities) because he wanted his college to “work toward achieving a net zero c…
    Calvin Frost 05.30.17

  • Learn from the twitterpated Tom Clarke

    How many of you know what “twitterpated” means? I’m being serious. Twitterpated means “infatuated or obsessed, in a state of nervous excitement.” Look it up. Of course, you’ll need Frost’s New World Dictionar…
    Calvin Frost 04.07.17

  • Making sense of the future with Sidely

    I have a simple pattern that I follow when trying to write these columns. I sit at my writing desk, which looks out onto our backyard reflecting on the complexity of worldly issues while enjoying the peace and beauty of our gardens and back nature ar…
    Calvin Frost 03.13.17