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Articles by Michelle Nijhuis

Michelle Nijhuis is the author of the 2021 book Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in the Age of Extinction. Follow her on Twitter.

All Articles

  • Mongo and Found uncover the hidden pleasures of reduce-reuse-recycle

    Flo and Channing, a pair of occasionally employed, twentysomething hipsters in lower Manhattan, live well. At least, they eat well. They favor sushi and vegetarian pizza and soy milk and artisan bread, and they also like to indulge in custard pastries, chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate croissants, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. They're especially fond of waffles. And they eat it all for free. All they have to do is spend a few hours each night lurking outside restaurants, rescuing their favorite menu items from the trash. "Sometimes, people see what we're doing and say, eee-yew, how gross," says Flo. "Other times they offer to buy us a meal. We just say, no thanks, we have plenty of food here."

    Michelle Nijhuis Culture

  • A spotlight on young enviro activists

    David Brower, a pioneer of the U.S. environmental movement, once said that his generation depended on young people “to shape us up before it’s too late.” Though Brower — former executive director of the Sierra Club, founder of Friends of the Earth and the Earth Island Institute — passed away in 2000, his legacy lives […]

    Michelle Nijhuis Uncategorized

  • Michelle Nijhuis reviews Against the Grain by Richard Manning

    What's for dinner at your house? Unless you're a strict Atkins adherent, chances are you've got at least one of the world's four top crops on your plate. Corn, wheat, rice, and potatoes account for about two-thirds of the world's nourishment; from French fries to brown rice, these familiar starches dominate humanity's diet.

    Michelle Nijhuis Food and Agriculture

  • Freecycling groups spurn the landfill and spawn goodwill

    Paint of no return. Let’s say you’re cleaning out your garage. Maybe you run across some old cans of paint and a couple of rickety chairs you’ve never gotten around to fixing. Would the Salvation Army want them? Not likely. You could throw the stuff out, but there’s that pesky issue of landfill space — […]

    Michelle Nijhuis Culture