"Farming is hard work, so why do more of it?” That is what many early farmers were probably thinking when deciding between fuller bellies or keeping their long off-seasons of leisure time-- at least from the perspective of Ester Boserup. Since its 1965 release, Ester Boserup's seminal study ... [More]

"So how did the biosphere become anthropogenic anyway?” asked an astute audience member at my 2007 AGU presentation (powerpoint).  I had just given a presentation on my work with Navin Ramankutty demonstrating that human populations and their use of land have reshaped most of the terrest... [More]

When did rice change the planet?  Rice is the most important food crop on earth, feeding more than half of all humans.  Most is produced in Asia in the flooded paddy systems that form the core of the most intensively-managed of all ancient agricultural anthromes, the rice villages, where i... [More]

What happens when humans finally win the war with nature and end up in charge of ecology?  A question for the future?  Think again.  In “Peak Wood: Nature Does Impose Limits”, John Perlin describes what happens when human societies, starting in prehistory, have completel... [More]

People are everywhere these days, but if you really want to “get away from it all” , the remotest place on Earth, aside from Antarctica, turns out to be Tibet.  This from a New Scientist article (and related blog post) that explores travel times in the global accessibility map we... [More]

If you still think of rural China as remote, traditional, and unchanged for millennia, think again.  China’s ancient village landscapes are among the most dynamic and densely populated on Earth, with a global extent more than twice that all of Earth’s cities combined (2.5 million ... [More]

With carbon, climate and COP 15 in the news, Google and Microsoft are now battling over carbon mindshare, introducing the latest web-based “Carbonware” designed to help combat carbon emissions and global warming.  These add to a growing list that includes the many “carbon fo... [More]

"How do we feed a growing world without destroying the planet?" asks Jon Foley’s new 3 minute video (see below).   It’s a great question.  To get enough food for our existing billions, we already use about 40% of Earth’s ice-free land to produce crops and livestock.&nb... [More]