What the hell happened to the environmental movement?

Posted on By Andrew Thaler
Conservation, Popular Culture, Science

This post was originally published on Earth Day, 2009. The responses I received from it were tremendous, both positive and negative. Were I to write it again today, I would include a discussion of Carbon Offsets and Eco-Guilt.

There is a real challenge in the environmental movement. On one hand, the science is on our side, but on the other hand, there is a growing group within the movement committed to dogma and willing to sacrifice facts for pseudoscience. So, this Earth day, we once again bring you “What the hell happened to the environmental movement?”

473px-rachel-carsonForty-seven years ago, a brilliant, passionate scientist who understood the power of public outreach, noticed a decline in songbird populations, discovered a trend of decreasing egg shell thickness, and correlated this effect with the increase in the use of DDT as a pesticide. After thoroughly and rigorously verifying her results and conclusions, she did something revolutionary; she wrote a book. The publication of Silent Spring in 1962 marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement in America. Its simple, elegant prose made the complex interaction between humankind and the environment accessible to a public that had limited exposure to scientific writing. Like other works of literary science, Silent Spring, wove the scientific method into a narrative; observations, questions, conflicts, discoveries, joy and sorrow. To struggle and to understand, never the last without the first. The beauty of her words still echo with that same power today.

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Seeing Green

Posted on By Amy Freitag
Conservation

Is eco-chic all is cut out to be?

Did you ever meet that gear-head who had a shelf full of Nalgenes or a trunk full of those reusable shopping bags?  At the time, did you stop and think about the environmental impact of these eco-friendly products? In honor of Earth Day, I’d like to take a moment to step back and evaluate the state of our environmental movement.

Yes, at some level these things reduce your personal environmental impact.  They save millions of plastic bags and cups from entering the waste stream and therefore our biosphere.  At the same time, they promote the consumer culture that created many of our environmental issues in the first place.

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Crowdsourcing ConGen – Effective size of a population in flux

Posted on By Andrew Thaler 2 Comments on Crowdsourcing ConGen – Effective size of a population in flux
Conservation, Science

ResearchBlogging.org

When presented with a threatened population in need of conservation, the simplest and most basic question a manager can ask is “how big is it?” Unfortunately, this is one of the most challenging questions to answer. Determining the number of individuals in a population is fundamental to effective management. Small, concentrated populations can be destroyed in a single sweep, while large, broadly distributed populations require more resources and complex management involving many stakeholders.

A population that is easy to sample is rare. Animals move – sometimes over enormous distances. Habitats are difficult or impossible to access. Entire popualtions may be adept at avoiding capture. For most populations, it is impossible to count every individual. In marine ecosystems populations can span the entire globe, and the cost of mounting an expedition to systematically sample all members is huge. In order to get accurate estimates of the number of individuals, ecologists have had to devise statistical techniques to estimate the size of a population.

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local coastal dinner

Posted on By Amy Freitag 2 Comments on local coastal dinner
Science

When I first moved to coastal North Carolina, my garden yielded miniature sweet potatoes, a handful of blueberries, and an abundance of mustard greens.  That’s it.  After trying pretty much every vegetable under the sun.  Turns out, not many plants like to grow in our soil… wait, I mean sand.

Coastal gardening and farming presents some unique challenges that I thought would mean the end of my quest to become a locavore.  But after a year of learning and connecting with our local farms, which aren’t necessarily the type to market to the local buyer, I have resumed my quest.  And I think I’ve succeeded, at least for today.

My dinner included only a few things not from the coast: champagne vinegar, olive oil, gin, and avocado.

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