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Imagine a Day Without Water has rolled round once again. While to many of us envisioning a day without water is as mind-boggling as contemplating the grandeur of the cosmos, it is for billions of people an all-too-present reality.

The problem is manifold, although there are two basic prongs to this century’s coming “water wars”:

1. Water scarcity: Some populations simply don’t have enough water to drink, bathe, hydrate their animals and irrigate their crops.
2. Water quality: Some regions do have enough (or at least some), but it is filthy and fouled from human and animal waste, trash and pollutants.

Neither situation, needless to say, is desirable. It’s time we did something about it and became better stewards of the Earth today.

The monarch butterfly is a threatened species that serves as a litmus test for the environment. Is it possible that they could make a recovery? And if so, what does that say about our environmental efforts? Our two-part series explores just that.

Download the free PDF to share with your friends and colleagues here!

The iconic monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus), with its black-and-white-edged wings and bright orange, stained-glass window centers, is synonymous with America. Traveling from Southern Canada all the way down into Mexico on the annual migratory route, these bright and cheerful pollinators truly are airborne royalty.

Sadly, monarch butterflies are also in terrible danger.

There’s a different way to ranch, but you’re probably not familiar with it.

Carbon ain’t where it’s supposed to be anymore. For hundreds of millions of years, plants and other life forms fixed carbon and trapped it in the ground. This environmental balance was once the norm worldwide.

But now we rely heavily on agricultural and industrial practices that release carbon into the air, adding to the greenhouse effect and climate change as a whole. This is true on a global scale.

Among the problems are heavy till operations and ranching, where large herds of beef cattle stomp carbon-fixing plants into the ground, killing them and creating dense and compacted soils that lead to depletion and desiccation.

For that reason, raising cattle has a less-than-pristine reputation these days. The erosion, the deforestation, the methane ... it’s not a pretty picture.

Or is it?

Some 4,000-5,000 species of bees are native to the United States (with around 500 of those residing in Illinois) and their habitat is disappearing quickly. Needless to say, we’re not cool with that.

When you think of bees, it’s a safe bet you see honeybees swarming over the outside of a hive. Videos from elementary school showing them performing their intricate dances to indicate sources of pollen, direction and distance. Perhaps a bumblebee or two.

But these simplistic images of pollinators held by most Americans – and others around the world – are problematic. Not only are they limited in the extreme, but they lend the impression that all bees are social creatures.

The reality is far more complicated. While honeybees and bumblebees are certainly social, most bees are actually solitary. That means aside from mating, they live, eat and sleep alone.

(And not in a sad way. They’re making a choice, okay??)

Even more problematic: Because we fail to recognize the importance of native solitary bees, we don’t do much to accommodate their habitats (many of which are in steady decline). And if we want to keep enjoying, you know, food … then that needs to change. It’s time to learn how to create nesting habitat for native pollinators.

Ipe is a supposedly sustainable darling of the landscaping, outdoor living and homebuilding industries, but is it really all it’s cracked up to be? We’re going to be blunt: No.

Ipe.

If you’re even tangentially related to landscape architecture, home and outdoor living design, or carpentry, then you know about ipe. Also known as Brazilian hardwood, a name that hearkens to its origins, it grows in Central and South America, largely Brazil.

In other words … the Amazon. One of the world’s most important ecologies in terms of both genetic diversity and environmental benefits (you know, when it’s not on fire, as it has been recently.) It is bigger than Earth’s next two largest rainforests combined; it covers 40 percent of South America; it’s estimated to have 16,000 tree species and 390 billion individual trees.

It is a total boss of a rainforest, in other words – and we really don’t want to kill it.

Right? RIGHT??!

… right.

And to that end, it’s time to stop using an environmentally damaging wood posturing as a sustainable choice. If we want to make the most responsible choices and steward the world responsibly, we need to take a closer look.

Turns out getting back to nature isn’t just a mood booster; it can actually help you improve your health. Enter forest bathing, the hot new way to commune with Mother Earth.

Anyone who has ever pulled out of a fussy nosedive by going for a walk in the woods already knows that time spent in nature is good for your mood. In fact, research shows that you can even moderate mood disorders with plenty of time outdoors.

If that sounds simple enough, well, it is. Recently, though, health advocates have taken a more prescriptive approach: forest bathing.

Most people know that America used to be prairie, but most don’t know the incredible richness of diversity that these endless grasslands comprised.

To hear the colonists of the 18^th and 19^th centuries tell it, America was at one time a vast expanse of virgin forest and grassland.

Then there are more recent historical accounts, such as Charles C. Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, which holds that all that untenanted space was an illusion. Rather, Native Americans had stewarded these lands for 20,000 years – and were only absent due to very recent cultural influences and devastating disease.

Those Native Americans intentionally set controlled burns that held back the advance of forests in the Southeast, Midwest and West, leading to billions of acres of gorgeous and diverse prairie.

Whatever version of the anthropological record you choose to believe, one thing’s for sure: From coast to coast, America used to boast grasslands of epic proportion. Equally certain: Most of them are now gone, with devastating consequences for the health of humans, animals, plants, pollinators and the ecosphere as a whole.

It’s time to bring them back.

Genetic diversity is critical to the long-term health – and even survival – of the ecosphere. Here’s how to make a difference through native gardening.

Native gardening.

If it hasn’t yet fired your imagination, we don’t blame you.

For one thing, smelly hippies talk about like all the time.

Also offputtingly, it seems to fuel a whole new spendy sector of Big Horticulture, and who wants to give their dollars to that?

And perhaps of greatest concern for the devoted gardener, it just seems so … leafy. I mean, can we get a flower once in a while?

These are some of the most prevalent myths about native gardening: that it’s crunchy, that it’s expensive, that it’s boring.

That’s not necessarily true, though. Native gardening is much more than a dry fad promulgated by back-to-the-landers who have no real concept of the urban environment; it’s one of the most important things you can do to help the world, reduce monoculture in cities, create broader-sweeping green infrastructure on roofs and in built environments, and increase genetic diversity today.

And you can do it right at home.

Cultivars are everywhere in nurseries and garden centers, but should you use them in a garden geared toward pollinators? Spoiler alert: no, and here’s why.

So you want to plant a pollinator garden. You like the idea of the birds and the bees hangin’ out right beyond your living room window or just past the kitchen stoop. Heck, the butterflies and beetles are welcome to join the show as well! Let’s get alllllll pollinated up in here.

Only one problem:

You’re not using the right plants.

Whoopsie.

This is a common mistake that new gardeners make. It even happens to experienced green thumbs, who are used to making seasonal (or monthly, or weekly, or daily … ahem, never mind) trips to the garden center. The problem can be summed up in a single word: cultivars. And when it comes to a healthy pollinator environment, cultivars just don’t play nice.