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Steve Chapple (2006)

In the October, 2009 edition of Reader's Digest, Steve published an article called "New West." (pdf) American Serengeti: On thousands of acres in eastern Montana, the great American prairie is coming back - nurtured by a determined group of citizens.

In the July, 2009 edition of Reader's Digest, Steve published an article called "Reefs at Risk." (pdf)

Steve met with Nancy Knowlton and her husband, Jeremy Jackson, two scientists on a shared mission to save the world's oceans. Nicknamed Drs. Doom and Gloom, they don't hesitate to make dire predictions about coral.

"As long as we continue to dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, overfish, and contaminate our water supplies, we are heading for an environmental train wreck as far as corals are concerned," Knowlton tells me in her office at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. One of the world's leading coral experts, she also holds an endowed chair in marine science at the Smithsonian, in Washington, D.C.

"Coral, worldwide, is like a blighted city," Jackson says. "Some buildings are going up, but more are being taken down by the wrecking ball. So while the city persists, it's still dying." (Article also mentions Scripps assistant professor Jennifer Smith and Scripps PhD candidate Ayana Johnson.)

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Steve is a journalist who writes on the environment, politics, and culture. He is the author of eight books and two screenplays. Until recently, he was the on-camera producer of the outdoor sports and environmental show Under A Big Sky. He has spoken before audiences at the Smithsonian Institution and the California Academy of Sciences about his travels, and has appeared on Larry King Live, The Charlie Rose Show, and Donahue. He has lectured on mass communications at Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California, and has taught creative nonfiction at Montana State University, Bozeman. He is a contributing writer for National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Men's Journal, Scuba Diving, Sports Afield, Audubon, The Journal of Popular Culture, and The Los Angeles Times. He was raised in La Jolla, California, and in Hawaii and Montana, and was educated at Yale University. He lives near Wind and Sea Beach in La Jolla, with his wife, Ines Pentagna Salgado, and their three children. Some of his journalistic pieces include Laws of the Jungle, a cover story for Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine (the market campaign of the Rainforest Action Network vis-a-vis Citibank) and Farewell, My Lovely Landmark, (the historical preservation of Raymond Chandler's coastal home in La Jolla,) as well as a series of dispatches from Palau, Truk, La Jolla, and the Florida Keys, concerning underwater wonders and ocean issues, published in Scuba Diving magazine.

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