Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

I am honored to be visiting the Green Meadow Waldorf School as part of their week-long Sustainability workshop

Posted 04 Mar 2016 / 0

On Monday, March 21st I am scheduled to appear as the keynote speaker for the Green Meadow Waldorf School’s week-long sustainability workshop. Throughout the week high school students will be taking part in a variety of activities that they envisioned themselves, many of which explore the cultural and creative aspects of sustainability. My job will be to Read More

A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Green Design, Public Outreach, Quantitative Analysis, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Harvesting, Sustainable Transportation

“This is the Nature of Cities” podcast on urban bees and civic ecology

Posted 25 Feb 2016 / 0

As you may have noticed, I have been using a tedious task that I have to complete this month in order to broaden my podcast experience, particularly in the area of urban ecology. Today I found an interesting site that includes a podcast, The Nature of Cities (TNOC). Predominantly the work of ecologist David Maddox and Read More

A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Pollination, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainable Urban Design

“In Defense of Plants” podcast on Urban Ecology

Posted 18 Feb 2016 / 0

Today I listened for the first time to the In Defense of Plants podcast. I have been looking for good podcasts on urban ecology, so I checked out Episode #14 (Urban Ecology!). In this episode, host Matt interviews Dave Spiering of the Tifft Nature Center in the City of Buffalo. Spiering discusses about how urban brownfield recovery Read More

A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Community Ecology, Ecological Restoration, Habitat Destruction, Habitat Fragmentation, Invasive Species, Pollution, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainable Urban Design, Urban Ecology

Urban Wildlife Podcast on the return of five-lined skinks

Posted 15 Feb 2016 / 0

Urban Wildlife Podcast “Bonus Episode: Pier 53 Skinks” Perpetually behind, I finally checked out the final Urban Wildlife Podcast “Bonus Episode“, posted last October as the final episode of Season 1. This is a great finale to the first season of this offbeat, fun podcast that looks at urban wildlife through the lens of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Solely focused Read More

A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Commensalism, Conservation Biology, Ecological Restoration, Habitat Destruction, Habitat Fragmentation, Invasive Species, Mutualism, Predation, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Urban Ecology

Why are architects required to take a course focused on ecology and environmental science?

Posted 01 Feb 2016 / 1

Image of what happens to architecture when civilization disappears courtesy of Michael Zawadski via Wikimedia Commons I always end up hearing the question at some point in the semester: why do architects have to take a course that provides in-depth understanding of ecology and environmental science? Implied undercurrents to this basic question include a slew of other Read More

A Minor Post, Architecture, Department of Mathematics & Science, Ecology, Ecology Education, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Pratt Institute, Sustainability, Teaching

Food is personal, sometimes ethical, but rarely political

Posted 15 Jan 2016 / 0

Image courtesy of Nick Gray via Wikimedia Commons The Chronicle of Higher Education “The Vegetarian Lesson” This article by Chad Lavin neatly distills ideas and issues that I have been grappling with for more than half my life. As a current-day ecologist who was a vegetarian more than a decade before I took my first ecology course, Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Behavior, Belief, Cooperation, Food, Parasitism, Political Science, Predation, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Uncategorized

Is New York City a “sustainable” metropolis?

Posted 14 Jan 2016 / 0

Brooklyn garbage bag photo courtesy of Tom W. Sulcer via Wikimedia Commons New York City has endured a pretty bad environmental reputation for decades. If you find yourself on a Manhattan street on the right warm summer night, it is hard not to feel that the place is an environmental nightmare. Those piles of garbage Read More

A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Climate Change, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Pollution, Quantitative Analysis, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Transportation, Sustainable Urban Design, Web

Understanding [culture + multilevel selection] = potential for Sustainability

Posted 13 Jan 2016 / 0

People’s Climate Change March photo courtesy of South Bend Voice via Wikimedia Commons There’s a really important new paper out entitled “A multilevel evolutionary framework for sustainability analysis“, due to be published in the journal Ecology and Society. Although it is not yet published, you can check out a pre-print via Michelle Kline’s site. (UPDATE: Read More

A Minor Post, Articles, Cultural Evolution, Multilevel Selection, Social Norms, Sustainability

Would a “labor economy” lead to different outcomes than the “capital economy”?

Posted 11 Jan 2016 / 0

Evonomics “A Simple Way to Decrease Income Inequality” I am intrigued by the idea that measurements of economic success impact our economic decisions and therefore our economic outcomes. A persistent obsession with capital has created an economic system that responds to capital. But what if employment condition — “labor” — was the fundamental unit of Read More

A Minor Post, Belief, Cultural Evolution, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ethics, Political Science, Public Policy, Social Norms, Web

How the built environment influences our ability to sustain personal and environmental commitments

Posted 07 Jan 2016 / 0

“exercise is good in principle, but it’s almost never the case that it’s the best thing you could do right now.” -Dan Ariely There’s a really interesting experiment being conducted by behavioral economist Dan Ariely and the new WNYC program Only Human. Called “Stick to It!“, the experiment allows listeners to the show to volunteer to download Read More

A Minor Post, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Nature, Mismatch theory, Psychology, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainable Transportation, Sustainable Urban Design