Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

“Earth Hour” seeks to re-focus our attention on all the earth provides

Posted 11 Feb 2013 / 0

World Wildlife Fund Earth Hour Will an hour of darkness give us the time to contemplate both the importance of ecosystem services and how our voracious energy consumption threatens those services? It is certainly worth a try.

A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Climate Change, Cooperation, Environmental Justice, Public Policy, Sustainable Energy

Seth Horowitz on our perception of sound

Posted 10 Feb 2013 / 0

WNYC The Leonard Lopate Show “ Please Explain: Hearing and Sound” Interesting that Horowitz discusses the same rationale for why the cell phone conversations of others are so much more annoying than other conversations, a topic I have discussed here.

A Minor Post, Music, Radio & Podcasts, Sound Perception

Forward on Climate Rally seeks to shift the national dialogue on anthropogenic climate change

Posted 10 Feb 2013 / 0

The Sierra Club / 350.org / Hip Hop Caucus — Forward on Climate Rally

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Climate Change, Cooperation, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Political Science

Quantifying the climate value of that 40-acre woodlot

Posted 07 Feb 2013 / 0

The New York Times “Tree Power“

A Minor Post, Articles, Climate Change, Closed Loop Systems, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Sustainability, Temperate Rainforest

Green port policies yield big decreases in the ecological footprint of shipping

Posted 26 Jan 2013 / 0

National Geographic “California Ports Go Green” This is a nice infographic showing that changes in policy can have a big impact on the sustainability of commerce. It is amazing how much efficiency improvements can lower ecological impacts.

A Minor Post, Articles, Economics, Information Design, Public Policy, Sustainable Transportation

Dog license dataset opens up huge potential for understanding the dog-human mutualism

Posted 26 Jan 2013 / 0

WNYC “NYC’s Top Dogs: Mapping Names & Breeds in the City” WNYC “Dogs of NYC” Data sets like these, even flawed by their incompleteness (only 20% of dogs in New York City are registered) are fascinating. The human relationship with dogs has changed radically as we have urbanized as a species: I would suggest that the dominance Read More

A Minor Post, Canids, Coevolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Geography, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Mutualism, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Web

Is selective rejection of science really a problem?

Posted 18 Jan 2013 / 1

In a recent short opinion piece (Scientific American “Creation, Evolution and Indisputable Facts“), Jacob Tanenbaum argues that selectively rejecting evolutionary biology is dangerous to the scientific culture of America. He rightly points out that our populace does not reject science as a whole, but instead picks and chooses what science to doubt and what science Read More

A Major Post, Adaptation, Altruism, Articles, Belief, Cooperation, Evolution, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Religion, System Stability

Production on marginal lands can meet only 25% of our biofuel mandates

Posted 17 Jan 2013 / 0

Nature “Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins” & “Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest” This is fascinating, and provides further evidence that even the smartest biofuel production methods are not going to be enough to mitigate our energy demands. In order to really get off of fossil fuels, we need to find Read More

A Minor Post, Articles, Climate Change, Grasslands, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy

Fracking study retracted after the discovery of a massive conflict of interest

Posted 07 Dec 2012 / 0

All Things Considered “Positive Fracking Study Was Funded By Gas Company” 1.5 million dollars is a lot to receive from a corporation with interest in your research! Scientists can be bought, and transparency is the only thing that prevents profit-driven scientific fraud.

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Ethics, Pollution, Radio & Podcasts, Resource Consumption, Scientific Fraud, Sustainable Energy, Water Supply

NPR provides a quick overview of the human drive to reciprocate

Posted 26 Nov 2012 / 0

National Public Radio Shots “Give And Take: How The Rule Of Reciprocation Binds Us” I appreciate the far-ranging nature of this piece, and how it applies a basic understanding of reciprocity to larger social phenomena. There is not much here about how genetic and environmental factors modify how reciprocal people choose to behave; while there Read More

A Minor Post, Behavior, Cooperation, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Emotion, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution, Political Science, Psychology, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Reciprocity, Reputation, Social Norms, Sociology