“What America Lost When It Lost the Bison,” The Atlantic
Unlike many other grazing animals around the world, scientists have found bison don’t follow, or “surf,” new and nutritious plants that arrive in the spring around the plains. The animals’ might and unique nature practically stomp greens into submission, creating a far more nourishing landscape around themselves — to the benefit of others. —Walker Orenstein, workforce and environment reporter
“The Zeitgeist of Grief,” Geez Magazine
Lane Patriquin is an artist and activist in Canada, and here they write about using a grief framework for understanding climate despair. Activist work tries to avoid defeatism, but in doing this it can also avoid grief. Patriquin says grief could instead help our species to think about radical changes that won’t avoid collapse but will deal with its aftermath, and give us room to deal with longstanding conflicts. —Jonathan Stegall, user experience engineer
“The most remote emergency room: Life and death in rural America,” The Washington Post
Eli Saslow of the Washington Post embedded with Avera eCare in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to see how emergency room doctors treat patients in rural hospitals hundreds of miles away. With the decline of doctors willing to work in rural areas, this center provides emergency services for 179 hospitals in 30 states. “They wear scrubs to look the part of traditional doctors on camera, even though they never see or touch their patients.” —Peter Callaghan, state government reporter
“The everything town in the middle of nowhere,” the Verge
You wouldn’t typically think of Roundup, Montana, a town of about 1,800 north of Billings, as a tech-driven economy. Yet, its entrepreneurial townsfolk have made it an epicenter for facilities that package stuff bought for resale on Amazon by third-party sellers. The jobs pay a lot more than most of the minimum-wage gigs in town, and the town now processes twice as many packages each day as it has residents. —Greta Kaul, data reporter
