In this article, historian Kate Brown considers the connections between plants, biospheres, and the politics of breathing. “What can the history of controlled environments tell us,” she asks, “about how we understand the planet today?”

In this issue of Mendocino Environmental Center Newsletter, Susan Crane discusses who are the real vandals; Vicki Oldham writes about Clinton’s Forest Plan; and Mary Pjerrou brings up the issue of logging companies using new tactics to avoid the Timber Harvest Plan (THP) process.

Trees are also entangled with politics. In “An Otherworldly Species: Joshua Trees and the Conservation-Climate Dilemma” historian Thomas M. Lekan discusses what he considers a false choice between climate protection and conservation.

In this Springs article, English literature and blue humanities scholar Steve Mentz reflects on his time as a Landhaus Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center, and the bond he developed with the Steinsee.