Nothing ever goes “away.” There’s always some place downstream. These ecological truths came home to us in the eastern United States last week, as the smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away darkened the sky and made the air outside hazardous.

Our thoughts are with all those who remain on the frontlines of such anthropogenic disasters. We’re grateful here in Baltimore for clean air and good weather when we have it, and we invite those of you here to join us this week for a lakeside picnic and social gathering. 

We also invite you to check out and make use of a new feature of our online community space. People have asked about ways to share works in progress, and opportunities for collaboration. We’ve created a Project Forum board to host such announcements and exchanges, which we hope will seed new and unexpected connections.

We also have a much simpler interface in place now for people to post their own Stories on the EDC blog. Architect and EDC curator Cristina Murphy is keeping a journal on an energy-conscious construction project in Italy. Anthropologist Niloofar Haeri has written a thoughtful new reflection on the difficulties of the term “degrowth.” What might you share?