Stories by Scott Huler

We stopped for lunch during the first day of the Lawson Trek on an oyster shoal, an uncharacteristically hot October sun stinging my shoulders, but surprisingly unbothered by four hours of kayak paddling.

We long ago lost the skill of paying for the things we need: I won’t bore you with the statistics of how far we are behind in our infrastructure investments.

Editor's note: For The Lawson Trek, journalist Scott Huler is retracing the journey of discovery undertaken by canoe and on foot in 1700-1701 by John Lawson, the first observer to carefully describe and catalogue the flora, fauna, geography and inhabitants of the Carolinas.

So Toledo and environs goes through a terrible water crisis when nutrient-rich water from farms, lawns, and other nonpoint sources flows into Lake Erie.

MMph. Fnmn, nng, mmmmm, knknknnk. DAYUM, it’s hard talking with tape over your mouth. And now that I’ve ripped the tape off (about the tape more later), I can’t even talk about what I want to talk about.

It’s Infrastructure Week, here, and to me that usually means bad news. I was planning on telling you all the horrible things going on with our infrastructure.

Buckminsterfullerene? Graphene? A negative of all the lost marbles from Hungry Hungry Hippos running off to start a precision drill team? Nope.

I know, he’s just a Tea Party candidate with almost no chance of election, but Greg Brannon, primary candidate for the GOP nomination for the U.S.

When I began writing On the Grid, my book about the infrastructure systems that make our lives possible, I envisioned it as a sort of Peterson’s Guide to the Infrastructure of the Modern World.

So the winter storm that has half the South obsessively checking its phones for NWS updates or Weather Underground forecasts has a name. It is called Leon, and it got that name from the Weather Channel, which is now naming winter storms for the exact same reason that agencies name hurricanes: it makes them easier [...]

The obvious strain on gingerbread houses, jelleybean-and-honey fastening products, and other sugar-based infrastructure systems brings them to our attention during the holiday season.

The enormous winter storm Xaver currently battering northern Europe, coming only a month after another one, brings to mind another famous storm that hit England late in the fall — the unnamed blow that generated Daniel Defoe’s nonfiction masterpiece The Storm, considered by some the first work of modern journalism.

You remember sea-level rise, and North Carolina. I won’t bore you — the legislature was against even measuring it, and a lot of people noticed.

Ok, quick question: What do you know about Typhoon Yolanda? Nothing, right? Guess what — it just went by. I’ll explain, but first: everyone is still working hard to help the people of the Philippines recover from Typhoon Haiyan (here’s a collection of places through which you can help), as well we should.

Last weekend, the Scientific American blogger community blew up as only a blogger community can, over a somewhat complex issue. Many of us are blogging in response, and as much as I hate to I’m joining in the madness.

Do you see this picture? If you look closely enough you can see my adorable children and lovely wife. And they are doing something remarkable: They are walking — walking to school.

Okay you know who’s happy today? The people of North Carolina and the people of Texas, whose legislative antiscience crazy doesn’t seem especially off the hook given the nationwide legislative crazy we have going on.

I’m learning lessons by the bushel basket this fall, on account of I’m getting the chance to officially do something I’ve long done unofficially: beg for the opportunity to pay more taxes.

Yes, yes, yes, new iPhone, new IOS, new stuff, cheap, expensive, blah blah blah. Nobody needs to tell you that your phone is obsolete about an hour and a half after you buy it, and nobody needs to tell you that your old phones either build up in our house (I can put my hands [...]

My friend Mark Turner just finished up his own solar PV roof installation, and like everybody else I’ve been curious about how it worked — and how it’s working out.