Jeremy Miller

Richmond

Writer, teacher, astrophotographer. Contributor @sierra_magazine. Words @harpers, @newyorker, @orion_magazine, @guardian, et al @ https://t.co/TNphinVGuG

Articles

This Ecologist Is Rewriting the Story of California Landscapes

1 month ago | sierraclub.org | Jeremy Miller

Rick Lanman spends much of his time thinking about the past, imagining the natural splendor of the San Francisco Bay Area before its urban transformation. So it’s fitting that on a warm afternoon, we meet at the Filoli Historic House and Garden, a 1917 Georgian revival–style manor surrounded by nature trails at the base of the redwood-covered Santa Cruz Mountains.
Against the Current

Mar 9, 2025 | sierraclub.org | Jeremy Miller

Roger Castillo drives his dented Ram pickup truck on a steep-sided levee. We are only a few miles from downtown San Jose, California, in a landscape of warehouses and small bungalows. Below, a silty creek flows through heaps of garbage, concrete debris, and countless plastic bags. Along the opposite bank stands a makeshift structure built of cast-off wood and tattered tarps. Castillo, a former mechanic, is a self-trained naturalist.
The Elk Fence at Point Reyes Is Finally Coming Down

Dec 27, 2024 | sierraclub.org | Jeremy Miller

Earlier this month, with no announcement or fanfare, National Park Service workers began dismantling a controversial fence in the northern reaches of Point Reyes National Seashore, north of San Francisco. For more than 45 years, that barrier-eight feet high and two miles long-has hemmed a herd of elk into a 2,600-acre preserve on a windswept peninsula called Tomales Point.
The storm chasers trying to save the world from drought

Oct 3, 2024 | afr.com | Jeremy Miller

Jeremy MillerOct 4, 2024 – 5.00am or Subscribe to save articleEmailLinkedInTwitterFacebookSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Bill Kornell has spent most of his half-century-long career flying into bad weather.
The storm chasers trying to save the world from drought

Sep 26, 2024 | economist.com | Jeremy Miller

Sep 27th 2024By Jeremy MillerBill Kornell has spent most of his half-century-long career flying into bad weather. A former bull-riding champion, the sinewy 80-year-old has been a pilot since the 1960s, when he realised that travelling to far-flung rodeo towns across the American West was more efficient by plane than by car. After an injury in the late 1970s, Kornell left the bull-riding circuit and took a job as a bush pilot, ferrying supplies and commuters deep into the Alaskan interior.
Darkness Visible

Aug 14, 2024 | sierraclub.org | Jeremy Miller

For four years, Dawn Nilson, a Portland, Oregon-based environmental consultant and amateur astronomer, was on a mission for darkness. Starting in 2018, she drove thousands of miles on washboard roads in the empty, sagebrush-stippled reaches of southeastern Oregon. In the black of night, she and a team of volunteers counted every single street and porch light in a 4,000-square-mile area. Back in her office, she pored over maps and satellite images.
A Richmond Creek Gets Spruced Up, for Fish and People Alike

Jul 8, 2024 | baynature.org | Jeremy Miller

Wildcat Creek undergoes about as radical a transformation as a stream can, from its start in the Berkeley Hills to the tidal lowlands of Richmond, where it flows to San Pablo Bay. Beginning as an unassuming little stream near the 1,900-foot summit of Vollmer Peak, in most places it is no more than 10 or 15 feet wide as it cuts through laurel- and oak-shaded, steep-sided canyons in Tilden and Wildcat Canyon Regional Parks.
How Should Colorado Handle Its Booming Moose Population?

May 1, 2024 | smithsonianmag.com | Jeremy Miller

The forest ranger had a troubled look on his face. It was the summer of 2022 and my kids and I were trudging up a steep trail in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, near Denver, when we encountered him. He stood amid a small grove of subalpine fir, clutching a walkie-talkie tightly in his hand. As we came closer, he brought one index finger to his lips and pointed with the other into the distance. “Moose,” he whispered.
Of Moose and Men

Apr 12, 2024 | biographic.com | Jeremy Miller

The forest ranger had a troubled look on his face. It was the summer of 2022 and my kids and I were trudging up a steep trail in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, near Denver, when we encountered him. He stood amid a small grove of subalpine fir, clutching a walkie-talkie tightly in his hand. As we came closer, he brought one index finger to his lips and pointed with the other into the distance. “Moose,” he whispered.
Why Is the Bureau of Land Management Still Clearcutting Piñon-Juniper Landscapes?

Apr 1, 2024 | sierraclub.org | Jeremy Miller

During the last century, federal agencies have undertaken a campaign to destroy huge tracts of piñon pines and juniper trees in the arid reaches of the American West. These hardy native trees collectively cover 100 million acres across the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. In the middle of the 20th century, this deforestation campaign was undertaken overtly in the name of increasing pasturage for cattle.