Carmen Kohlruss

Oct 2, 2024 | civileats.com | Carmen Kohlruss

On a sunny California day, Ricky Bobby the goat chomps across a hillside with the speed and pizazz of his NASCAR driver namesake from Talladega Nights. Along with his fellow herd members, all employed by the nonprofit Happy Goat to reduce wildfire risks, Ricky Bobby is doing what he does best, gobbling up weeds, shrubs, and leaves from low-hanging branches. No plant appears to be too much of a challenge, including poison oak and spiky live-oak leaves.

Oct 1, 2024 | civileats.bluelena.io | Carmen Kohlruss |Ben Seal |Hannah Wallace

Tom Huang is assistant managing editor for journalism initiatives at The Dallas Morning News, where he is leading a fundraising campaign to support local news and community engagement. As an adjunct faculty member of The PoynterInstitute, he organizes and teaches seminars for professional journalists on writing, reporting and editing, and coaches the Local News Innovation Program, which helps newsrooms make the transition to sustainable digital publishing.

Apr 20, 2024 | sierraclub.org | Carmen Kohlruss

After stopping in Mariposa for breakfast, writer Carmen Kohlruss gets checked back onto a YARTS public transit bus before traveling into Yosemite National Park via the Highway 140 route. Yosemite National Park’s most famous sights—and the majority of its millions of annual visitors—congregate in a tiny sliver of the space, iconic Yosemite Valley. This wonder of the world is a mere seven miles long and, on average, just one mile wide.

Feb 23, 2024 | sierraclub.org | Carmen Kohlruss

The sequoia groves and endangered animals found in California’s Giant Sequoia National Monument are imperiled by a pair of logging projects, conservation groups argue in a new lawsuit that asks a federal judge to put a stop to the proposed tree cutting. The lawsuit—filed Thursday, February 22, by the Sierra Club, Earth Island Institute, and Sequoia ForestKeeper against the US Forest Service—calls the proposed logging “unprecedented” in the national monument.

Feb 10, 2024 | tricycle.org | Carmen Kohlruss

On a trip to Montana to teach the dharma, Tibetan Buddhist leader Gochen Tulku Sangngag Tenzin Rinpoche recognized a tranquil spot south of Glacier National Park. He had never been there before, but he recalled it from a vision he had had as a child—a peace garden nestled in a mountainous valley—and knew that this is where it belonged. The Garden of One Thousand Buddhas rests in the Jocko Valley, surrounded by Rocky Mountains reminiscent of the snowcapped Himalayas of Tenzin’s homeland.