Why did behaviorally modern humans and no other multicellular species in the history of the Earth gain the capacity to transform an entire planet? Biology alone cannot explain this – Homo sapiens is just another …
Read the full story »How best to chill a hot planet?
Even if we manage to slash our carbon emissions, planet earth is going to get a whole lot warmer this century. But maybe we can just chill the planet! For more than a decade, Ken …
The Biosphere- love it or change it for the better!
The Biosphere is home to all life on Earth. Now that we humans are living in and/or using almost all of it, the future of the biosphere is in our hands.
Keeping human influence out of …
The costs of carbon
What is the best way to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere?
We all know that reducing global warming will require reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. But there are so many …
Remember the matrix! (no habitat is an island)
Conservation of biodiversity requires the conservation of habitat, and for a long time, this has meant preserving the largest possible “pristine” habitats and excluding humans. Now that humans have fragmented most of earth’s landscapes …
Campfires degrade local ecosystems
Humans have been using fire since prehistory- indeed, it is one of our defining characteristics -distinguishing us from all other species.
There is little doubt that burning of forests to attract game and later, to clear …
Forest change in China
An interesting new historical study of forest cover change in China from 1700 to present reveals that up to the 1960s, deforestation prevailed, while since the 1960s, forests have been recovering.
Read the paper by Fanneng …
China’s rural revolution
China’s explosive economic growth has awed the world, and is now felt in every corner of the Earth. As a result, earth systems are being changed at unprecedented rates, while bringing more people into a …
Dynamics of village change in China’s Yangtze Delta (new publication)
China’s Yangtze Delta (also known as the Tai Lake Region) is home to some of the world’s most ancient anthropogenic landscapes. Rice was likely domesticated here 8,500 years ago, and the region’s nickname “land of …
Beyond good intentions: let’s think globally!
A couple weeks ago, I was invited by UMBC to provide a new year’s message to the world, in 100 words, prefaced with “In 2009, the world should resolve to…”
Here is the video version of …
Biofuels and other grand failures of thinking locally
Biofuels started off with such good intentions - energy self-sufficiency, reversing global warming and being green. Yet biofuels are now being blamed for creating much bigger problems than they ever would have solved. How did …
Late Anthropocene by @brianeno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsXRSQEP29s
Help us create a music playlist for #AGU22! Share a song with us that reminds you of Earth and space sciences, Chicago or the AGU22 theme: Science Leads the Future. Submit your song here: https://forms.office.com/r/1GwaxSZu3W
RIP Bruno Latour.
Gone but not forgotten.
Love Your Monsters:
Why We Must Care for Our Technologies As We Do Our Children
https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/issue-2/love-your-monsters
#Anthropocene #PoliticalEcology @sciencespo
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