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Global Change: Intersection of Nature and Culture

The purpose of this forum is to explore big questions about society and environmental change, such as

  • What does the good life mean in the 21st Century?
  • How do personal choices and values play a role in this conversation?
  • What do the natural sciences have to say about the way our world is changing?
  • What do the social sciences and humanities have to say about the ways that the social and the cultural intersect with questions surrounding environment?
  • How can we address environmental and social challenges at the same time?
  • How is environmentalism changing in response to these pressures?
  • What’s the role of higher education in facilitating sustainability and environmental literacy?

There are a lot of environment blogs that assess daily political battles on energy and climate. Others take a “100 things you can do to save the environment” approach. And many others provide a laundry list of daily news, from solar panels to tree frogs to Copenhagen to sea ice, and so on. Those approaches are useful and helpful, especially for fast-moving matters like policy. But they sometimes lose sight of the big questions we need to be asking in our quest to develop a more ecologically sustainable and socially just world. The blogosphere delivers a great deal, but it also fails in making important interdisciplinary connections that foster a more-sophisticated, substantive analysis.

globalchangeblog.com forges a new path (to visit the blog, click here). I want to analyze environmental change by focusing on the interaction between nature and culture, showcasing big ideas from all disciplines —sociology/anthropology, ethics, ecology and other natural sciences, psychology, history, political science, ethnic studies, religion, literature, visual and performing arts, and so on.

I hope this forum will provide the creative space to attract the best and most-interesting ideas for how we might get to a more ecologically sustainable and socially just world. I hope that the constellation of posts can lead to a more useful integration of ideas around these big questions.

Join this group to read posts and participate in the discussion.

Signs of Change National e-Conference

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Our experiences and expectations define our reality. We have heard so much about what is wrong, and what is unsustainable.

The Signs of Change National e-Conference is a national conversation showcasing the signs of change, no matter how small. The conference is not an academic talk fest. Businesses from all fields, Transition Town groups, Farmers, Faith Organisations and Experts are giving evidence of a path other than business as usual.

Food and consumption solutions required for tropical forest preservation

A new paper in PNAS describes the extent of tropical forest loss for the production of new agricultural lands. Visit the blog for more.

Gulf spill a catalyst for change?

Check out the interesting letter featured in Tom Friedman's latest column. Values changes like this by individuals will be an important part of the global change solutions story. It will be interesting to see how many other people develop/share these views in light of the Gulf oil spill.

More on the Gulf oil spill

The thought of mixing the largest oil spill in US history with a hurricane season projected to be worse than usual is not good news.

Read more at the blog...

Another plug for organic fruits and vegetables

You might have caught the story in today's news today suggesting that pesticide exposure might double the risk of ADHD in kids.

Read more at the blog...

Are we seeing the seasons change?

An interesting question featured in an article by John Parker on the blog.

City life may get a lot warmer by 2050

A forthcoming article in Geophysical Research Letters suggests that urban heat island effects may be as large as the effect of doubled CO2 in our atmosphere. Read more at the blog.

Krugman discusses building a green economy in Sunday's NY Times Magazine

For a good (but fairly basic) overview of economic issues involving emissions reductions, check out the latest post.

Global soil carbon release increases

Is this the beginning of a positive feedback on climate?

Individuals or Institutions as Solutions to Climate Change?

Robert Stavins explores this question in the context of whether sustainability measures at Harvard are more effective than education, research, and outreach.

Can tracking consumer carbon emissions be a solution for bringing developing nations into international greenhouse gas agreements?

In the latest post, The hidden global CO2 emissions of consumerism, new research suggests that CO2 emissions associated with consumption in wealthy, developed countries accounts for a significant fraction of emissions in developing nations. As the authors conclude, acknowledging this might be a first step to developing better relations with China and India about greenhouse gas reductions:

Land use solutions: Conservation funding slows land consumption

Robert McDonald and colleagues have an interesting paper in this week's PLoS ONE describing land use consumption patterns in 274 U.S. cities over the last decade. Turns out (not surprisingly) that conservation funding slows per-capita land use.

"Bloom Box" fuel cells: A viable electricity solution?

As I post about on the blog, 60 Minutes created a stir with a new feature on a new kind of fuel cell that is apparently on the verge of mass production. If you are not familiar with fuel cells, they are devices that extract electrons from a fuel (usually hydrogen or natural gas) to generate electricity without the need for a large power plant.

Marine protected areas continue to look like good solutions to some challenges facing oceans

There's a new article in PLoS that I write about on the blog today.

The good news: It looks like marine protected areas might be able to slow the decline of corals in addition to their better-known effects of increasing fish populations.

Is reducing meat consumption a solution to rising world population?

That's one of the questions posed in several articles in the latest special issue of Science magazine. Check out the following blog post for more.

The humanities are key to environmental messaging

Check out the latest blog post for one solution to climate warming messaging.

Does your personality hold clues about your environmental consciousness?

A new study suggests that's the case: If you are agreeable or open to new experiences, you are more likely to show concern for environmental issues.

Capitalism with a Human Face: A Proposal for the Establishment of a Sustainable Capitalism.

Capitalism with a Human Face:
A Proposal for the Establishment of a Sustainable Capitalism.
online: http://www.modelearth.org/modest.html

Preventing a Ton of Cure: Disaster Preparedness.

Preventing a Ton of Cure:
Disaster Preparedness.
online: http://www.modelearth.org/art01.html

Disasters, be they natural or human made, do occur--they have been occurring all throughout human history, they occur even nowadays; they are nothing new to us. They do not surprise us.

Global Change: Intersection of Nature and Culture