Posted 21 Mar 2016 / 1
Historical photo of the Pratt Steam Power Plant courtesy of Wikimedia Commons This morning the Pratt community received a heartening message from our Board of Trustees: Dear Members of the Pratt Community, At its meeting on March 9, Pratt’s Board of Trustees took another major step in the Institute’s overall commitment to environmental sustainability by Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Climate Change, Economics, Envirolutions, Higher Education, Pratt Institute, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy
Posted 03 Dec 2015 / 0
National Public Radio “In Worst Attacks, Terrorists Often Have Fraternal Bonds” This is an interesting — albeit brief — piece on a recent “pattern” that has emerged in terror attacks: teams of attackers are often composed of blood relatives. As a good scientist I have to point out that there’s a danger here of over-generalizing Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Data Limitation, Gene by Environment Interactions, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Genetics, Host-Pathogen Evolution, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Mismatch theory, Phenotypic Plasticity, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Resistance Evolution in Parasites, Social Diversity
Posted 30 Nov 2015 / 0
At Paris, two equally-nihilistic cultures clash, but where do the people get a seat at the table? Today crucial climate talks are under way in Paris, France amid massive police presence and an atmosphere of social repression. The message is to “stay off the streets” as the leaders of world (and a few monarchs and businesspeople) meet Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Belief, Climate Change, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Environmental Justice, History, Memetic Fitness, Political Science, Psychology, Public Policy, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy
Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
The Chronicle of Higher Education “Why Two Kids Are Too Many” This article has a provocative title that makes you believe that it is going to make a persuasive argument for public policy that encourages smaller families, but it is more like a meandering survey of the very confused landscape of the “baby culture wars”. Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Population Pressure, Public Policy
Posted 23 Nov 2015 / 0
Image courtesy of Pacific Southwest Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via Wikimedia Commons The Chronicle of Higher Education “Ecomodernists Spark Rhetorical Heat” In my Ecology for Architects course I have students work on an activity that asks them to advocate one of four “extreme” environmental positions: Population bombers; Neo-luddites; Deep ecologists; or Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Environmental Justice, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Risk & Uncertainty, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Transportation, Sustainable Urban Design
Posted 05 Nov 2015 / 0
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons The Los Angeles Times “China drops its ‘one-child’ policy, now let’s ban the ‘population bomb’” Great op-ed that makes it really clear that impact is a function of not just the number of people on the earth but also the resources those people consume (affluence) and technologies used to produce Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Belief, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Carrying Capacity, Cultural Evolution, Memetic Fitness, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Population Growth, Population Pressure, Prediction, Public Policy, Web
Posted 06 Oct 2015 / 0
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution “A deal with Japan on whaling?” Having been a fan of Whale Wars for awhile, and being predisposed to thinking that we ought to protect large, social, cooperative, cognitively-advanced animals, it is a bit hard for me to accept legal whaling of any kind. But as this article points out Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Articles, Belief, Biodiversity Loss, Conservation Biology, Cooperation, Economics, Ethics, Public Policy, Social Norms, Sustainable Harvesting
Posted 29 Sep 2015 / 0
The Guardian “Activists occupy British Museum over BP sponsorship” I really like that idea expressed by these activists that BP’s sponsorship of big art exhibits is not philanthropy. They are basically paying to mainstream their own presence, to obscure their true identity as a corporation that profits from threatening the future of our species. A Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Art & Design, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Greenwashing, Habitat Destruction, Pollution, Sustainability, Web
Posted 24 Jun 2015 / 0
BBC News “Climate change: Is the Dutch court ruling ‘a game changer’?” Nature Breaking News “Landmark court ruling tells Dutch government to do more on climate change” The New York Times “Landmark Dutch Ruling: Cut Emissions to Protect Citizens” The Guardian “Dutch government ordered to cut carbon emissions in landmark ruling” There is so much Read More
A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Law, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainability
Posted 13 Aug 2014 / 0
I study cooperation. I can say this honestly only with some caveats. I am very interested in what allows cooperation to evolve in biological systems, as cooperation seems to defy the Darwinian imperative to serve the needs of self-replication and yet is unexpectedly prevalent in nature. In particular I am interested in human cooperation, which Read More
A Major Post, Activism, Art & Design, Books, Collaborative Art, Communication, Cooperation, Emotion, Empathy, Environmental Justice, Play, Public Art, Social Diversity, Social Networks
