Category Archives: Nature

The Windmill That Spoke to the Sky

The Windmill That Spoke to the Sky

A Nine-Year-Old’s Curious Journey into the World of Windmills, Clean Energy, and Big Dreams

A thing I really enjoy is building things and learning how they work. A few weeks ago, I made a small windmill at home using cardboard, paper, a motor, and a straw. It was part of a DIY project I did for fun, but while doing it, I got super curious—what are real windmills like? How do they help us? Are they just toys, or do they do something important? That’s when I started reading and exploring everything I could about windmills, and now I want to share it all with you.

A windmill is a machine that uses the wind to spin blades. This spinning action can be used to do work like grinding grain, pumping water, or even generating electricity. In modern times, windmills that create electricity are called wind turbines, but the idea behind them is the same—using the natural power of the wind to help people. I think that’s pretty amazing. Wind is free, it’s everywhere, and it doesn’t pollute the air like cars and factories do.

The first windmills were made more than a thousand years ago. They were used in Persia (which is now called Iran), and they looked very different from the wind turbines we see today. Those early windmills had vertical sails and were mostly used to grind grains into flour. Later, in the Netherlands, people built big wooden windmills with huge blades that turned in the wind. These were used to pump water and keep the land dry. Some of those Dutch windmills are still standing today, and they look like something from a fairy tale.

I was curious how they actually work. I found out that when the wind blows, it pushes the blades of the windmill, making them spin. These blades are attached to a shaft, kind of like a rod. When the blades spin, the shaft spins too. In old windmills, this spinning would turn gears that crushed wheat or pumped water. In new wind turbines, the shaft is connected to a generator, which creates electricity. So, the wind isn’t just blowing for fun—it’s doing something useful!

After learning all this, I felt like building a windmill wasn’t just fun—it was powerful. When I put my little windmill near the window, and the breeze made the blades spin, I imagined it talking to the wind and saying, “Thank you for the energy.” I know that sounds funny, but it felt magical. My windmill didn’t power any lights yet, but it did make me feel like an inventor.

One of the best things about windmills is that they are good for the Earth. They don’t make smoke or dirty gases like cars or factories. They don’t use fuel that can run out. Wind is a renewable energy—which means it never ends. That’s why scientists and engineers are building more and more windmills all over the world to help stop climate change. Windmills help keep our air clean and reduce global warming. That’s a big deal.

I found out that in India, places like Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have huge wind farms—these are places where many wind turbines are lined up in rows. Other countries (like USA, China, and Germany) also use a lot of wind energy. Some wind turbines are even built in the sea! These are called offshore wind farms, and they float and spin in the ocean wind. That’s so cool, right?

There are also amazing facts about windmills that I never knew. For example, the biggest wind turbine in the world has blades longer than a football field! And one wind turbine can make enough electricity to power hundreds of homes. In Africa, some kids even made windmills from scrap to power lights in their villages. That made me think—if they can do that, maybe I can build something that helps people too.

Even though I’m a kid, I believe we can do our part. We can learn about clean energy. We can use less electricity and waste less water. We can build small windmills at home or school. We can talk to our friends about why wind energy is important. And maybe someday, some of us will grow up to become scientists or engineers who build even better wind turbines.

So now, when I see a windmill or a picture of a wind turbine, I don’t just think of spinning blades. I think of teamwork between nature and humans. I think of a world where we don’t pollute the air, and we live in harmony with the sky, the wind, and the land. I imagine windmills waving at the clouds, saying, “Let’s save the planet together.”

That’s why I called this story, “The Windmill That Spoke to the Sky.” Because in my imagination, that’s exactly what it does.

—Parth Singla, Age 9, Haryana, India.

Precious Planet Earth: Our Only Home

Precious Planet Earth: Our Only Home

Text by Arun N. Toké, editor; Photos by Paul Dix, Oregon.

A Rainbow at Sunset, Montana, the Big Sky State

Happy Earth Day 2026!

Planet Earth, our only home has been around for about 4.6 billion years. Since its beginning, there have always been constant changes on the planet. Early in Earth’s history, most changes were geological or astronomical, but over time, life and the biosphere have become significant drivers of change on our planet. 

With the beginnings of the industrial revolution, the human embrace of a collective growth mindset, and the subsequent emergence of multinational corporations and large-scale international trade, we have become the primary driver of changes to our global home.

With an exponentially-increasing human population, now approaching 8.4 billions in 2026, the extraction, production, and consumption of fossil fuels, minerals, plastics, and other chemicals have skyrocketed. Our carbon footprint is continuing to rise and carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases are accumulating in our atmosphere and changing local and global climates. The impacts of pollution on the air, water, and land is observable globally and our collective actions (as well as inaction) are altering ecosystems and the biosphere. The human-caused climate change is occurring and its impacts are already being felt in vulnerable coastal areas, along ecological boundaries, and in our cities. Major consequences of climate change will be felt around the globe in a matter of decades.

Unfortunately, the majority of our governments, corporations, and businesses, either ignore the understanding gained through scientific knowledge and computer modeling, pretend to be ignorant of its consequences, or push off action to future generations. They keep on doing business as usual—growth, growth, growth. Wanting more profits and more control over the market, they go for more production, more consumption, and as a result, greater impact on the Earth’s natural systems. The current U.S. leaders side with corporations over future generations of people, favoring ecologically-suicidal fossil fuels—oil, fracked gas, and coal—over renewable energy like wind mills and photovoltaic (solar) power.

Emissions from a Steel Factory

Aluminum Cans and Beer Bottles in the Backyard a Bar in Montana

Everything is interconnected in nature: weather systems, ocean currents, and the cycles of important chemicals (water, nutrients, metals, etc.) are all mediated over long time periods by the Earth’s geology and make our Earth a unified system capable of nurturing diverse fauna and flora over hundreds of millions of years. But humanity, with our amazing ability to invent and create technological know-how and build huge systems to serve our ever-growing population, has reached a state where we’re able to alter the very environment that has enabled our growth. The planetary system has ways to balance the short term ecological changes that we have made in the last 200 years, but they operate over timescales (millions of years) that are inaccessible to us. As a result, we cannot rely on natural cycles to solve the serious problems we have created. We must be proactive to protect society and the natural cycles and systems as we know them. Else, life on this planet would become hard to sustain in many regions. It would need to be supported by artificial means because of life-threatening storms, huge temperature fluctuations, and large-scale habitat destruction. 

In this photo essay, we offer a glimpse of our precious planetary home. But having experienced various parts of this beautiful home of ours in real life, we know the limitations of this virtual medium. This visual-only medium is unable to fully convey the multi-sensory, magnificent nature of the Planet Earth! We want all of us to experience it in real life, because we know that when we’ve experienced it, we’d love it! And when we love nature, we’d do all we can to preserve its beauty, its wholesomeness.

We wish you a beautiful Earth Day, every day!

Nature is Priceless! A Demonstrator Raises Nature Awareness at the Oregon Coast

Mt. Aconcagua, in Argentina (elevation 22,858 ft.), is the highest peak in the Americas.

The Jirishanka Peak (almost 20,000 ft.) in the Andes, Peru, South America

Amboseli National Park, Kenya, Africa

Two Giraffes in Masai Mara National Game Reserve, Kenya, Africa

A Lioness Pride in Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, Africa

Volcan de Fuego, Guatemala, Central America

Volcan de Fuego, Guatemala, Central America, is an active volcano.

Bison Roam in the Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Yellowstone NP is 2.2 million acres in Size

An Intense Lightning Storm in the Big Sky State, Montana

Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska

Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood (Oregon), and Mt. Adams (Washington), an Aerial View

A Windmill Farm in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon, has a 450 MW generating capacity.

Text by Arun Narayan Toké, editor, Skipping Stones, and photographs by Paul Dix, nature photographer and world-traveler, Oregon.

The Climate Collapse Presidency

Editor’s Note: To observe the Earth Week and Earth Day 2026, we republish this timely but grim warning from a well-respected columnist, Thomas Hartmann. It was published in The Thomas Hartman Report on February 1, 2026. Unfortunately, preserving the planet’s livability continues to be a steep, uphill battle. Our only hope is that the humanity will wake up NOW and shoulder the responsibility of saying NO to the suicidal path taken by our government and business entities before things get any worse!

The Climate Collapse Presidency

“Climate change is the single greatest threat to a sustainable future but, at the same time, addressing the climate challenge presents a golden opportunity to promote prosperity, security and a brighter future for all.” 

  —Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General, Remarks at Climate Leaders’ Summit, April 11, 2024

The greatest existential threat humanity faces isn’t hiding in a military bunker or a terrorist cell. It’s in plain sight: the accelerating collapse of our only home’s life-support systems.

Trump’s first term was environmental arson. He gutted the EPA, installed fossil fuel executives in key positions, shredded over one hundred environmental protections, and abandoned the Paris Climate Agreement.1 Scientists were silenced. Research was suppressed. The words “climate change” vanished from government websites as if deleting terms could delete reality.2

When confronted about climate’s role in the devastating 2020 wildfires, Trump smirked: “I don’t think science knows, actually.”3 Tell that to thirteen-year-old Wyatt Tofte, who died in Oregon’s inferno embracing his dog as he tried desperately to save his grandmother.4 As our Western skies turned blood-orange, Louise and I choked from a summer of wild forest fires, and record hurricanes pummeled our coasts, Trump mocked renewable energy and praised coal.

But his second term has proved apocalyptically worse. By April 2025, Trump had reinstated his “Schedule F” executive order, purging government agencies of climate scientists.5 His new EPA administrator—­formerly chief counsel for a coal conglomerate—is suspending methane regulations, gutting emissions standards, and fast-tracking permits for drilling in previously protected Arctic wilderness.6 The phrase “climate emergency” is now prohibited in federal communications, while years of expensive-to-compile government climate data are being systematically altered, hidden, or outright deleted.

Climate collapse reveals democracy’s most fundamental challenge: can we save our planet for our children and grandchildren when fossil fuel profits demand Republicans force inaction? The answer is becoming horrifyingly clear as tipping points approach: permafrost is thawing, ice sheets are destabilizing, and ocean currents are weakening.7

These aren’t distant threats: they’re happening now, accelerated by policies designed to benefit the donor class while sacrificing everyone else.

This betrayal falls hardest on poor and minority communities. Environmental justice and racial justice are inseparable.8 Studies consistently show that communities of color consistently face the highest levels of air pollution, toxic waste, and climate disasters while having the fewest resources to fight back. And to add further injury, Trump and Musk have now gutted FEMA.9

As droughts intensify, coastlines disappear, and climate refugees multiply, the social fabric unravels. Democracy requires at least a modicum of stability, but climate chaos breeds authoritarian “solutions.” The Pentagon itself identifies climate change as a “threat multiplier” that endangers national security. Scientists warn we have less than a decade to halve emissions before crossing irreversible tipping points.10

Our children will judge us not by our tweets or culture wars, but by whether we protected their right to a livable planet. The machinery of climate destruction doesn’t operate in isolation: it’s connected to the plutocracy that captured our courts, the propagandists who poison our media, and the authoritarians who threaten our democratic foundations.

This is the ultimate test of our republic: Can we break the stranglehold of fossil fuel money on our politics? Can we choose a habitable planet over quarterly profits?

Time is running out, and the climate doesn’t negotiate. Physics doesn’t care about political convenience. Either we reclaim our democracy from corporate capture and dark money in politics, or we surrender both a livable planet and our system of government to collapse.

© 2026 Thomas Hartmann, Oregon. Thom Hartmann, educator and commentator, is the author of a highly respected book: The Last American President. And this article makes the Chapter 11 of the book, and it was published in  The Hartmann Report, a reader-supported publication where all weekday articles are free and available to everyone. Reprinted with permission of the author. Opinion expressed is not necessarily that of Skipping Stones, Inc.

In A Winter Wonderland

In A Winter Wonderland

The winter is here, and there is snow.
I hope for a white Christmas this year.
It’s freezing; the temperature is low.
I want to go outside, but “No, no, no!”
I forgot my jacket, “Oh dear!”
The winter’s here, and there’s snow.
Through the windows I see Christmas trees that glow.
Now is the time of good wishes and cheer.
It’s freezing; the temperature is low.
The winter’s here, and there’s snow.
Sitting inside with hot chocolate, watching a holiday show.
For me, winter is nothing to fear.

By Neila Ebadian, age 11, Washington.

Four Poems by Mayank Yadav

Mother

Mother is the one who cares for me
She keeps me safe, like a big tree.
Her smile is soft, her heart is kind
She always has me on her mind.

SHE teaches me what is good and what’s bad
She is always with me when I’m sad.
God says he can’t be everywhere
So he gave me a mom who always cares and shares
Who helps me grow, layer by layer.

She is important because she loves me everyday
She teaches me what’s right in a simple way.
Sure, She scolds me a little
But she’s always with me when I’m ill.

You are useless if your mom becomes sad because of you
Mom is like a diamond, always cherish and know her value.

By Mayank Yadav, age 12, Jharkhand, India.

Student life

Student life is not easy at all,
Sometimes we rise, sometimes we fall.
We smile outside and try to be strong,
But inside we feel something is wrong.

We study hard day and night,
Still grades decide if we are “right.”
We get tired but don’t give up,
We keep trying and keep growing up.

Some days we feel happy and bright,
Some days we cry alone at night.
YET every day teaches us something new—
How to be brave, and how to push through.

Student life has pain and fear,
But also hope that keeps our heads above water.
One day all our hard work will matter,
And the world will see how far we can soar.

By Mayank Yadav, age 12, Jharkand, India.

A Middle-Class Family

We don’t have gold or cars so wide,
But we have love and joy inside.
Papa works hard from morning till night,
Mummy’s care makes everything right

School bag old, but dreams so high,
Wishing stars in a small sky.
We save, we share, we sometimes wait,
Still smile together, call it fate.

No big house or fancy ride,
But strong hearts walk side by side.
Festivals simple, but full of cheer,
Happiness grows when all are near.

We may not be rich in money or fame,
But middle-class love is never lame!

By Mayank Yadav, age 12, Jharkand, India.

Under the Water

Under the water, deep and wide,
Fish and turtles swim and glide.
Crabs walk slowly on the sand,
Jellyfish move like a magic band.
Octopus hides behind a rock,
Starfish sleeps near a sea-shell clock.
Dolphins jump and play all day,
In the ocean, far away.

Waves above and calm below,
Under the sea, the magic flows.
Seahorses float, so small and sweet,
Tiny shells lie near their feet.
Bright blue fish go zip and zoom,
Dancing gently in ocean’s room.
Come with me, let’s take a ride,
To the sea world, deep inside!

By Mayank Yadav, age 12, Jharkand, India. He lives in the Province of Jharkhand, in an extended family—with his father (Ranjan), mother (Kumari Sangita), older sister (Shreya Ranjan), grandfather (Kedarnath), and grandmother (Bina Devi).

One Earth

One Earth

We have a wonderful Earth
And we should try to preserve it
So more babies can be birthed
And introduced to our Earth
Our wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Earth
We have a beautiful Earth
With large, green grasslands and rainforests
And elegant blue oceans
With those always present sea-green waves
And filled with living beings to support
Our sweet, sweet Earth
There is much knowledge
Science, astronomy, mathematics
And they are just a small part of the knowledge
On our smart, smart Earth

Who knows what we can achieve?
All we know is we can go above and beyond
Who knows what more there is for us to discover?
Who knows how far we can go?
Let us keep on learning and understanding
And discovering new ways
To protect and preserve nature on
Our sweet, wonderful, beautiful Earth
Our dear, kind, gentle Earth
Our amazing, sustaining, ever-providing Earth
Our smart, dazzling, awesome Earth
Our Earth!

By Elodie K. Cotton, grade 7, Connecticut. Elodie is also our student intern.

In Defense of Dirt: Rewilding Our Children

In Defense of Dirt: Rewilding Our Children
Before their Bodies Forget

 From Finnish forest floors to Michigan creek beds, the science is clear:
real dirt is medicine, memory, and the immune system’s original teacher

By Thom Hartmann, author, speaker, activist, and educator

I grew up on the edge of Lansing, Michigan, with a stream just down the road and woods that felt like a secret frontier. We all did: the neighborhood kids, barefoot in the damp grass after rain, boots mucked up with creek-silt, hands scrubbed raw from climbing fallen logs and digging in the undergrowth. Getting in the dirt was part of childhood. We didn’t ask permission from microbes.

So when I read the recent report in The Guardian about Finnish nursery experiments transforming children’s health by simply letting them play in real soil, sand, leaves and forest-floor, I felt the past crash into the present and I knew again that the story of our species and our health lies in that innocent, messy contact.

In Finland, at a daycare center in Lahti (north of Helsinki), the researchers from the Natural Resources Institute of Finland adopted a radical experiment: rip out the asphalt, dig into the soil, roll out a live carpet of forest-floor moss and blueberry bushes, build compost heaps for children to feed, invite the kids to play, dig, muddle, get their hands in it.

The result, in a two-year study of three- to five-year-olds, was striking: children in the “rewilded” yards had fewer disease-causing skin bacteria (like Streptococcus) and showed stronger immune regulation (increased T-regulatory cells) within weeks. Gut microbiomes were healthier, inflammatory-associated Clostridium levels dropped.

This is the antithesis of today’s “modern” societal perspective on childhood and nature.

On the one hand, we have the modern obsession with pristine, sanitized lives: rubber-surfaced playgrounds, plastic mats, antibacterial everything. On the other, there’s the simple fact that our inner biology, our immune systems, our gut and skin microbiomes, were forged in the wild: the wild of forest floors, streams, soils, plants, bugs.

As I argued in my earlier essay “It’s All One Thing – The Story of the Worms” here in Wisdom School, our estrangement from that substrate is the seed of auto-immune disorders, of chronic inflammation, and a body that’s forgotten it’s actually part of nature.

In Michigan I was lucky: the woods and stream were mine for the exploring. I remember fingers crawling over moist logs, the smell of leaves turning, the damp cold run-off water slipping under my boots. I didn’t know at the time that those experiences were more than play: they were calibration.

They were training my immune system, teaching my skin and gut to know what nature looked like and smelled like and felt like. To know that dirt is not an enemy. And those childhood experiences are probably why I’ve never been troubled by autoimmune disorders or asthma.

So let’s call this what it is: a radical restoration. Not of some exotic wilderness, but of our lost contact with the natural microbial terrains that co-evolved with our species. The Finnish results are more than a Kindergarten trend; they’re a signal of what our children—and we all—are missing.

Here are some of the stakes:

  • When kids play in dirt rich with soil microbes, their immune system steps into a healthier balance: fewer disease-causing bacteria on the skin surface, greater regulation of internal immune responses.

  • The “outer layer” of biodiversity—soil, plants, forest floor—directly influences the “inner layer” of biodiversity in our bodies, our skin, gut, and airways. This is co-evolved, not incidental.

  • The modern shift away from exposure—to “sterile” play surfaces, indoor confinement, sanitized surfaces—may appear benign, but it’s been quietly shaping the epidemic rise of allergies, auto-immune disorders, and inflammatory diseases that both disturb the quality of life and can shorten lifespan itself.

  • This is not just personal wellness: it’s ecological and societal. The health of children, the immune burdens we carry, the resilience of future generations: all of this ties back to whether we let the next generation touch the living earth.

  • In the Finnish classroom yard they said: “We’re moving the action from inside to outside. We want to show the children nature so they learn about it.”

That sentence is packed. Show the children nature. Let them learn through contact, through play, through mess. Not as a museum piece, not as a “nature corridor” behind a fence, but as the ground they run on, dig in, climb across, whose bugs and fungus mix with theirs.

So, I want to issue a personal call to you—if you have children, nieces, nephews—or if you’re planning for grandchildren—or if you’re simply human, who used to feel the dirt under your fingernails and the creek cold on your shins—do this: Let the next generation get messy.

Plant a compost heap. Bring real soil into the sandbox. Create a border of moss and stones. Let the rain puddle, let the bugs crawl, let the children burrow. Let the forest floor not be exotic but ordinary.

I remember that stream down the road from the house I grew up in, the woods on the edge of Lansing, the sticky Michigan clay, the little fish, frogs, and crawdads under rocks, the mud mixing into water. I remember coming home with smudged socks, grass stains and a face kissed by sap.

I didn’t know at the time that I was feeding my immune system. I simply knew I was alive and it was a thrill.

We’ve forgotten that aliveness. Our culture has prized immaculateness, separation from the “dirty” wild, the exclusion of microbes like we exclude strangers. Yet the wildness is in us. The soil is in us. We’re made of the same living matrix as the tree roots and the beetles and the moss. Broken contact with that matrix isn’t harmless: it’s a literal loss.

In the wise old words I referenced in “It’s All One Thing”: “When we remove ourselves from that web of life, we do so at our own peril.”

The Finnish story is not just cute or scientific: it’s urgent. Rebuild our contact with the living earth. Let children scoop sand and soil, let them bury their hands, let them build mud-cakes like Aurora in Finland’s day-care. Laugh as they smear soil on their faces. It’s not chaos: it’s calibration.

Yes, modernization has brought us many gifts. Clean water. Sanitation. Vaccines. But modernization taken too far, with too much separation from our biological roots, leaves us with immune systems that misfire, bodies that mistake harmless soil microbes for threats, children who never taste actual dirt. The Finnish experiment is clear: get back to the soil, get back to the forest floor, get back to the messy, ordinary earth.

And the earth—our living earth—benefits too. More forest-floor carpets. More compost heaps. More kids playing outside, fewer rubber mats, fewer sterile boxes. We begin to treat biodiversity as not just glamorous (rainforests, coral reefs) but local (yard patches, old tree stumps, rain puddles). We begin to remember that our health is tied to the health of that biodiversity.

So my invitation to you: On your next weekend, find a patch of ground the kids (or you!) can mess with. Dig into it. Feel the soil. Let a leaf rot into the compost. Let worms do their work. Let the world pull you back. Because we’re not apart from nature: we are nature. And when we pretend otherwise, we hurt ourselves and the world around us.

It’s time to stop treating microbes as abstract threats or invisible villains. They are—and have always been—our companions, our allies, our ancestral family. The Finnish children’s laughter in the sandy forest-floor yard is our ancient laughter too.

Let’s dig in.

—Thom Hartmann, educator and commentator, is the author of many respected books. Reprinted with permission. To receive new Wisdom School posts you can become a free or paid subscriber of this reader-supported digital publication, The Wisdom School: What It Means To Be Human. All Wisdom School articles are free and available to everyone. Copyright by Thom Hartmann, 2025.

The Humane Hoax

The Humane Hoax: Animal Industry’s Labels and Lies

By Hope Bohanec, author and activist, Oregon

As consumers become aware of the animal agriculture industry’s cruelty and environmental impact, clever industry marketers adapt with “humane” labels, small-scale tall tales, and other feel-good falsehoods. The term “humane hoax” is defined as new language and labels in animal product marketing that convey a false narrative of humane treatment and sustainable management of farmed animal operations. The marketing language and euphemistic labels tell a story of a supposed distinction from conventional animal products. But the reality on the ground, in the manure pits, during the mechanical milking, and inside the terrifying slaughterhouse, is fundamentally unchanged, despite promises to consumers of something new. Humanewashing and greenwashing are becoming more prevalent and pervasive than ever.

Also encompassed in the concept of the humane hoax is the new trend of people attempting to “do-it-yourself” with backyard farmed animal raising and slaughtering, generally with good intentions, but all too often, with cruel consequences. It has never been more important to educate people on the truth behind the industry lies, and people are hungry for the truth.

Overview:

In the time since I wrote the first book on the subject of the humane hoax, called The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat?, consumer awareness of the suffering of farmed animals has grown exponentially and so has the “alternative” animal product industry. “Cage-free,” “Certified Humane,” and other comforting labels are no longer elusive—dusty items only seen in the back corners of health food stores. They are now as common and numerous as cattle on a feedlot, spotted in common places like Walmart and your local coffee shop. In 2010, eggs labeled cage-free were a mere four percent of the market; that had risen to sixteen percent by 2017. The industry predicts that to meet consumer demand, cage-free production will be seventy-five percent of the market by 2026.

It is a hopeful sign that consumers are demanding better treatment for animals, but the actual difference in the life and death experience for a cow or a chicken with humane labeling is sadly minimal. I have done extensive research on this issue, interviewed numerous stakeholders, and personally visited multiple animal operations, and concluded that these unregulated labels mean very little, if anything at all, for the animal’s experience. I have examined this particular area of farmed animal advocacy, having written the first, and one of the only books on the topic, and having been professionally involved in the field for over two decades. I found, for example, that comparing hens confined in battery cages to those in cage-free barns bodes only slight improvements and those differences can vary widely from farm to farm.

Animal activists have time and again exposed the horrors of egg-laying hens crammed tightly in battery cages, with only the space comparable to a crowded elevator to live in. In response, the shrewd marketers representing the egg industry have distorted the story, altered the labels, and changed consumers’ conceptions. Instead of rejecting the inherent cruelty of commercial egg production, shoppers have been deceived by the fictitious choice of a seemingly “humane” alternative of “cage-free”—but the reality for the birds, however, is bleak.

The difference in the experience of a bird in a conventionally managed operation versus a cage-free one is negligible. Despite the optimistic label, most chickens in cage-free egg facilities still live in miserable overcrowded conditions in massive windowless buildings. Their eyes and throats burn from the ammonia gas released from their accumulated waste. They never feel the sun on their wings or experience a simple satisfying dust bath. Irrespective of any label, all the chickens still go to a brutal slaughter at a very young age. We must not let the deception of “new” marketing eclipse the fundamental cruelty of animal agriculture. The perception invoked by the “cage-free” label—that the birds are now living a good life—is a decidedly false one, a mirage created by the interaction of euphemisms and consumer hopes in the absence of accurate information.

As animal agribusiness attempts to wash the blood off its hands with a new fabrication of fresh farming methods, consumers, activists, and other caring people must educate themselves about the new narratives that the industry continues to weave. This anthology features a range of knowledgeable authors who are at the forefront of this marketing shift, chronicling every aspect with in-depth analyses and intellectual rigor. Among other topics, the book explores how so-called alternative animal agriculture intersects with feminism, affects the environment, is represented in the media, and impacts human and non-human communities alike.

On Contributors to the Anthology:

This anthology has an impressive list of contributing writers who are a diverse assortment of activists, academics, authors, and campaigners. They range from radical protesters to educating advocates to professional scholars in the academy. Of the seventeen expert contributors, eight are published authors, five leaders of advocacy organizations, eight have Ph.D. degrees, and three have masters. What they all share is a forward-thinking vision and common concerns with animal agriculture’s marketing shift from big to small, from industrial to local.

The Humane Hoax contains essays by noted animal rights and environmentalism figures like Carol Adams, Robert Grillo, Sailesh Rao, Karen Davis, and Christopher “Soul” Eubanks. Some of the contributors have done extensive peer-reviewed research on the subject while others have been working with farmed animal advocacy for decades thinking deeply about this issue. Still others are rescuing farmed animals directly from local and small-scale farms, witnessing first-hand the undeniable suffering that is commonplace in animal farming.

The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs; edited by Hope Bohanec. The book is available as a paperback and also as an e-book from Lantern Publishing & Media; lanternpm.org.

The Silent Conversation Between You and Your Bones

The Silent Conversation Between You and Your Bones

Every Impact Is a Message: Stay Alive, Stay Strong, Stay in Motion

 By Thom Hartmann, Wisdom School

As Louise and I have aged (our 54th wedding anniversary is in two weeks), we’ve noticed that one of the biggest challenges is keeping our posture straight and our bones from getting brittle. There’s science behind this challenge, and it gives us all suggestions for “keeping young.” 

Bone is one of the few tissues in the human body that remains alive and dynamic from birth to death. It’s not the rigid, inert structure most people imagine when they think of skeletons. In fact, it’s constantly growing, dying, dissolving, and rebuilding itself through a delicate dance between two main kinds of cells—osteoblasts and osteoclasts. 

This balance is what keeps us upright, protects our organs, and allows our muscles to move us through life. But as we get older, the harmony between building and breaking begins to shift, and the results can be devastating. Understanding how that process happens—and how we might slow or reverse it—is one of the quiet frontiers of aging science.

Bone is built primarily by osteoblasts, the construction workers of our skeleton. They take raw materials—calcium, phosphate, and collagen—and create new bone matrix. This matrix starts out soft, like scaffolding, then mineralizes into the hard tissue we recognize as bone. Opposing them are osteoclasts, which act more like demolition crews. They dissolve old or damaged bone so it can be replaced. 

In a healthy adult, these two systems are in balance: every bit of bone that’s broken down is replaced by new bone. But that balance depends on a complex interplay of hormones, mechanical stress, and nutrients that becomes harder to maintain with age.

When we’re young, our bodies prioritize growth and repair. Hormones like growth hormone, estrogen, and testosterone all signal bone-building cells to stay active and reproduce. Even the act of moving—walking, climbing stairs, carrying groceries—tells our bones to stay strong. 

Osteoblasts thrive on impact; they literally sense mechanical stress and respond by building more bone where it’s needed. That’s why astronauts lose bone density in zero gravity and bedridden patients lose it quickly in immobilized limbs. Bones are designed for stress. They grow from it, adapt to it, and depend on it.

But aging quietly changes the equation. By the time most people reach their 40s or 50s, osteoblasts start slowing down while osteoclasts keep right on working. Estrogen and testosterone, which protect against bone loss, begin to drop. In women, the sharp decline in estrogen during menopause often leads to an acceleration of bone loss so dramatic it can reach one to two percent per year. 

The result is a net thinning of the bones that can culminate in osteopenia or osteoporosis. What’s more, osteoblasts themselves become less responsive to mechanical stress and less efficient at mineralizing new bone, while their numbers dwindle with each passing decade.

Yet, there’s another layer to this story that is both hopeful and cautionary. Bone cells are not fixed in number; they arise from progenitor cells—stem-like precursors in the bone marrow and periosteum (the thin tissue surrounding bones). These progenitor cells can, under the right conditions, become new osteoblasts. 

Exercise, especially high-impact weight-bearing exercise, stimulates their differentiation. Nutrients like vitamin D, calcium, and magnesium fuel the process. Even exposure to sunlight, through its effect on vitamin D synthesis, plays a critical role in signaling these cells to mature. In a very real sense, every step we take outdoors in the sunshine is a small act of bone regeneration.

On the other hand, disuse and a sedentary lifestyle send the opposite message. When bones aren’t stressed, the progenitor cells shift toward becoming fat cells instead of bone cells, and osteoclasts take over the stage. 

This explains why modern sedentary living, coupled with diets low in essential minerals, has created an epidemic of bone fragility even among people who think of themselves as healthy. 

It also explains why impact—whether from walking, jumping, or resistance training—isn’t just good for muscle tone; it’s a direct message to your bones to stay alive.

There’s a growing body of research exploring how bone regeneration might be enhanced as we age. Some of it focuses on pharmacological ways to stimulate osteoblast activity or block osteoclast overactivity, like the bisphosphonate drugs or parathyroid hormone analogs now used for osteoporosis. Others look at stem cell therapies that could replenish the aging pool of bone-forming cells. 

But many of the most effective tools we already possess are natural. Regular resistance training, adequate protein intake, and maintaining proper levels of vitamin D and K2 can have profound effects on bone density. The simple act of impact—bones striking the ground, muscles tugging on tendons, joints bearing weight—remains the single most powerful way to keep bones young.

The idea that bone “knows” when it’s being used and responds accordingly is one of nature’s most elegant feedback loops. It means that our skeleton is not a fixed thing but a living organ that senses and adapts to our behavior. 

When we stop moving, bones interpret it as a signal that they’re no longer needed and begin to fade away. When we challenge them, they thicken, harden, and renew themselves. Even in old age, this feedback loop can be reawakened, though the gains are slower and more fragile than in youth.

In the larger metaphor of life, bone regeneration is a quiet but powerful reminder of resilience. Every day, millions of microscopic breaks form in our skeleton, and every day they are healed. It’s a never-ending cycle of destruction and renewal that mirrors our emotional and spiritual lives. The same principle applies: stress and impact, handled well, make us stronger. Avoiding stress entirely—physical or emotional—leads to a kind of decay. Growth comes from the right kind of pressure.

So while supplements and science continue to explore the biochemical angles of bone regeneration, the most profound lesson may be a behavioral one. Move every day. Load your bones. Walk, climb, stretch, lift, push. 

Feel the impact of your feet on the ground, because your bones are listening. They respond to every signal of life you send them, even late into old age. They want to grow. They’re built to grow. But they require our participation—the literal weight of our will—to keep doing it. 

In the end, strong bones are not just the foundation of our physical structure but the embodiment of our relationship with gravity, effort, and resilience itself.

—Thom Hartmann, educator and commentator, is the author of many respected books. Reprinted with permission. To receive new posts you can become a free or paid subscriber of this reader-supported digital publication, The Wisdom School: What it Means to be Human, where all articles are free and available to everyone. Copyright: Thom Hartmann, 2025.

 

 

Elegy for the Fragile Universe

Elegy for the Fragile Universe

By William Pan, grade 7, Washington.

How will the world end?
Will it end with alien settlers
from another galaxy?

Or will it be our own
war-torn fault, the world’s
sparkling Hawaiian sunsets

and buzzing Chinese streets
melting and emptying
any number of ways? Now

that Earth has warmed
like sand condensing
into a fragile universe

of glass, we are sturdy
yet fragile. We scowl before
we embrace. We pray

between arguments while saving
the world. Will we have to
flee this green haven? Will we

have to ribbon our faith
into the carbonated air? Or
shall we fit another

planet more to our liking?
Is any of this needed
to save us? Will this stop us

from existing, or can we stop
ourselves? Whether the world dies
or not, we must

cherish what we have—
whether the world succumbs
to bots or we continue

to laugh at movies
and jokes with each day

—William Pan, grade 7, Washington. He writes: “I wrote (this poem) because I realized that we need to unite to stop climate change from ruining our world… I have written many poems and short memoirs that explore culture and family. I am drawn to poetry because I can play with language and build imaginative worlds that enable me to explore things I can’t explore in the real world.” William has recently joined us as one of our student interns.”