Joanna Detz

My musings on pessimistic optimism and local media on the occasion of @ecorinews.bsky.social 16th birthday.

A Complete and Utter Breakdown: That’s the Hope When It Comes to Compostable Packaging - ecoRI News The increasing public alarm over the scourge of single-use plastics has likely contributed to the proliferation of compostable foodware.

Those virtuous-looking brown to-go containers look compostable, but they aren't necessarily. Nor are they recyclable. Like most everything these days, it's complicated, so I set out to make sense of it. ecori.org/a-complete-a...

‘Only a matter of time’: Warming ocean water will make flesh-eating bacteria that infected Cape Cod swimmer more common - The Boston Globe A bacteria that can cause flesh-eating infections is attracted to warmer ocean temperatures. A Cape swimmer was recently infected, and more cases are expected in the future.

Not great!

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/15/s...

Device Allows Beavers, Humans to Co-Exist - ecoRI News When beavers hear water, their natural inclination is to start damming it.

Such a quintessential ecoRI News quote:

🗨️ “Your beavers are going to be pissed when they come out tonight."

ecori.org/device-allow...

What actually happens to recycled plastics in Rhode Island? - TPR: The Public's Radio In order to help reduce plastic waste and help the environment, Rhode Islanders are encouraged to reduce, reuse, and recycle plastics.  But what actually happens to the plastic the state collects for ...

Listen to ecoRI News reporter @robesmith.bsky.social on @ripbs-tpr.bsky.social as he discusses our reporting tracking plastic bottles on their journey from your recycling bin. He details our methods and our discoveries with host @radiostoryteller.bsky.social. thepublicsradio.org/environment/...

Behind the Story 7/30/25: Colleen Cronin talks recycling violations in Providence Colleen Cronin of ecoRI News joins Eli Sherman and Kim Kalunian to discuss her reporting on recycling violations in Providence.

Behind the Story:

@colleen-cronin.bsky.social‬ joins @kimkalunian.bsky.social‬ + me to discuss recycling violations in Providence.

Shoutouts to other great reporting this week 👇https://www.wpri.com/behindthestory/behind-the-story-7-30-25-colleen-cronin-talks-recycling-violations-in-providence/ 

This piece on plastics recycling in Rhode Island is quite illuminating. It’s hard to get real information, and the way this information was gathered was costly and also (thus) not broad, but it’s still good to see that it’s not just “sort it and then let it go to the landfill and be buried anyway”

So far only person has spoken against the project, the rest have been members of the public and environmental groups supporting the project

SouthCoast Wind representatives present their plan for export cables in Portsmouth

Climate Action Rhode Island holding signs advocating for offshore wind

In Portsmouth tonight: the state EFSB is hosting a public comment at the middle school over the export cables that are planned to go through town

All first-time donations to ecoRI News are tripled thanks to a generous South County couple. ecori.kindful.com?campaign=137...

Read this note from our publisher @jodetz.bsky.social about why attracting new donors is so important to our newsroom.

The seal population is growing in RI. Does that mean fewer fish and more sharks? Narraganset Bay's seal population has been steady over the past several years, while the Block Island population has increased.

New seal census just dropped. 🦭

It’s time for R.I. to reduce litter and reform the way the Ocean State recycles - The Boston Globe A bottle bill is not only good for the environment, it’s good for business, proponents of House bill 6207 write.

Commentary from Steve Alexander, Scott Breen, Scott DeFife, Emily Howe and @jedthorp.bsky.social: A bottle bill is not only good for the environment, it’s good for business, proponents of House bill 6207 write.

Sometimes at my job they let me design stickers.

Century-Old Massacre Illuminates Current Dangers - ecoRI News The media establishment covers politics like it’s the Super Bowl or Golden Globes. Democracy, and the natural world, dies in darkness.

"History shows that the corrupt system we live under considers the vast majority of us nothing more than a commodity or a consumer. It was built to lift the few at the expense of the many." @frankcarini.bsky.social writes in his latest Frank Take. ecori.org/century-old-...

Finding serenity at the Monastery Trails in Cumberland, R.I. - The Boston Globe What was once a swath of rocky land owned by Trappist monks is now a haven for wildlife as well as nature lovers

Here’s a look at my story (featured in today’s paper) about Cumberland, Rhode Island’s monastery trail, which is located about 2 miles from me. Me and Duke spend countless weekends walking here.

This. This is what overthrew the elite enslavers in the 1859s and the robber barons in the 1890s. We need these new papers everywhere.

More Speech and Fewer Mistakes | Meta We're ending our third party fact checking program and moving to a Community Notes model.

"We will allow more speech ..." This is rich coming from a company that de-platformed all Canadian news publishers in 2023. about.fb.com/news/2025/01...

R.I. to conserve more than 900 acres of forest through purchase of Boy Scout property - The Boston Globe The acquisition is the largest for the state’s Department of Environmental Management in a decade, and the property is one of the last large undeveloped parcels in Rhode Island.

Rhode Island DEM will conserve and make publicly available more than 900 acres of forest land in Burrillville following its $1.6 million purchase of the former Boy Scouts property – the agency’s largest single acquisition in a decade.

www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/02/m...

Upcoming rail connection to New Bedford to happen as the city sees a significant economic shift - The Boston Globe By next spring, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority expects a rail connection between New Bedford and Boston to open, for the first time in more than half a century.

NEW: I reported on the new South Coast Rail, expected to finally come online next spring after years of delay. What could it mean for the coastal city of New Bedford, Massachusetts?

“Once opened, it will [be] one more reason to live here,” the Mayor told me.

www.bostonglobe.com/2024/11/30/m...

Regift Sale This holiday season, avoid the mall, clear closet clutter, and find the perfect thrift gift.

The @ecorinews.bsky.social Regift Sale is by far my favorite event because it checks all the boxes.

✅ Eat pizza 🍕 while shopping
✅ Find the perfect thrift 🎁 gift
✅ #BuyNothing ♻️ new
✅ Support local 📰 news

RSVP to join me!

‘What many of us feel’: why ‘enshittification’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year The committee’s honourable mentions went to ‘right to disconnect’ and ‘rawdogging’ * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast “We’re all living through the enshittocene, a…

‘What many of us feel’: why ‘enshittification’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year

Environmental journalism as the link between local and global (commentary) December 2009, Copenhagen, three in the morning. Tired of waiting for any official announcement from the COP15 presidency, a journalist friend and I decided to sleep right there in the convention…

"What we saw in 2024, with events such as the mega drought in the Amazon, was proof that, like never before, an entire generation of journalists is now talking about climate change and its unprecedented impacts.”

The United States’s political tumult has not changed the physics of climate change.

The climate story is only going to get bigger, and it’s journalism's job to help audiences understand why that is happening and, crucially, that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Black and white photograph of a snowy landscape snow falling down and cruise flying everywhere modeled black and white over a scene with building and cars but the crows and the snow dominate

Crows, Hokkaido — Hu Guoqing, c. 2020

R.I. Food Policy Council Outlines Legislative Priorities During Visit to Barrington Farm - ecoRI News The event showed lawmakers what urban farms like the Barrington Farm School can do for Rhode Island.

Former ecoRI News reporter Tim Faulkner helped save Barrington's last farm, which, last week, formed a backdrop against which the RI Food Policy Council discussed its 2025 legislative priorities centered around bolstering local farming. ecori.org/r-i-food-pol...

Commercial Fishing Industrialized Oceans Long Before Offshore Wind - ecoRI News The continued burning of fossil fuels is a far greater threat to the commercial fishing industry than wind turbines.

Great perspective here by @frankcarini.bsky.social on how #NewEngland's rapidly warming coastal waters are a vastly bigger concern than any impacts from #offshorewind.

Glad to see someone write about acidification and what that will mean for shellfish.

#energytransition

ecori.org/commercial-f...