Headline of the Day
Goes to this sci-fi sounding post. You just gotta read about how the baby cane toads are no match for the meat ants.
Posts Tagged ‘ecology’
The Age of Breathing Underwater
That’s the title of a fantastic piece by Chris Turner in the October issue of The Walrus, a Canadian magazine. He turns the typical environmental tale of crisis on its head, suggesting that, We need a new kind of story, a new template for our ecological philosophy “” one that acknowledges what we have lost…Continue Reading…
The Ecology of National Security
That’s the title of today’s column by John Fleck over at the Albuquerque Journal. What I really like about this piece is that the focus is on ecosystem services, which to me, seems firmer ground to build this concept on, rather than the climate security link. Via Fleck, we learn that a federal laboratory is…Continue Reading…
Of Nature & Society
Jackson Lears has a must-read essay in the current issue of TNR that leads off: In contemporary public discourse, concern for “the environment” is a mile wide and an inch deep. Even free-market fundamentalists strain to display their ecological credentials, while corporations that sell fossil fuels genuflect at the altar of sustainability. Everyone has discovered…Continue Reading…
Have You Hugged an Ecologist Today?
Ecology was once considered the “subversive science.” To a large degree, environmentalism’s legitimacy derives from its long-time alliance with ecology. If environmentalists were going to a big dance, they always chose ecology as their hot date. That was before climate change became the new girl on the block. Before climate change won an Oscar, became…Continue Reading…
Saving Species
While mulling the 6-year disappearance of the possibly extinct Chinese paddlefish, Andy Revkin reminds us of the enduring problem with our own approach to species protection: we have an Endangered Species Act intended to save species on the brink, but not a Thriving Ecosystems Act that tries to monitor and sustain diverse communities of species…Continue Reading…
The Tipping Point Dilemma
If you read this article by Carl Zimmer in Yale 360, you might notice that there’s a few looming battles over ecological thresholds. Climate scientists and climate advocates will be wrangling over acceptable planetary carbon dioxide limits, and conservation biologists and ecosystem ecologists will be arguing over acceptable species extinction levels. That’s the problem when…Continue Reading…
Towards a Global Environmental Body
Can anyone dispute that climate change trumps all other ecological concerns in the public discourse? In so far as any environmental issue commands the world’s sustained attention, many would argue that this is a good thing. Climate scientists and climate advocates obviously take this view. But that does not seem to be the position of…Continue Reading…
Start Spreading the News
Humans have taken over the earth. Evidently there’s a new concept that confirms this, called anthropogenic biomes. Then there’s the recent push by scientists to declare a new era, called the anthropocene. I jest, only because this is not new territory. Environmental historians have built a whole discipline from this fertile ground. And geographers dug…Continue Reading…
Tiptoing around Tipping Points
About that paper in Nature that I had wished made a bigger media splash: well, it did, in fact, receive some prominent coverage, such as here, here, and here. ( I still maintain it should have received more play.) The Time Magazine story carries this great quote from Steve Carpenter: Managing the environment is like…Continue Reading…