Award-Winning Editor and Author Dominique Browning Launches New Column

(Washington, DC – October 5, 2009) In an effort to highlight the human impacts of environmental threats like climate change and ocean pollution, renowned editor and author Dominique Browning is partnering with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in launching a new column called Personal Nature, featured online at http://edf.org/personalnature. Her first column, Understand Science, Believe in Change, explores the language we use in talking about climate change and the need for individual and social action.

Browning, the author of three books, has written for O magazine, Food & Wine, The New York Times Book Review, and Departures. She has also been an editor at Esquire, Texas Monthly and Newsweek. Her columns for EDF will highlight the experts she meets and aims to explain urgent environmental issues in an engaging, informal style.

“It is only a small leap from caring about what’s going on in a garden to caring about what’s going on in the larger environment,” said Ms. Browning. “When I wondered why my southern camellias were thriving up north, I read everything I could about climate change. When I talk with my friends and children about how fragile things seem to be, I can see that the thought of an overwhelming breakdown is intolerable—I feel it, too. I see how we disconnect, want to change the subject, turn back to tending our small patches of earth. We want to be able to take the health of our planet for granted.

“But environmental issues are hitting the very place we want to feel safest: home. Home ought to be a sacred place of retreat, rest and peace. It won’t be if we turn our backs on the world. This new column was born in the spirit of paying attention, becoming educated and aware and talking about what we can do now. I’m hoping to give matters of global urgency a human touch.”

Mrs. Browning’s column will appear on the first Monday of every month at http://edf.org/personalnature; readers can also sign up on the site to receive the column by email.