Category: Science

Geography of Fishes

Posted on By Bluegrass Blue Crab
Science

The discipline of geography is one that most people likely dismiss as mapmaking.  Gone is the stodgy cartographer and here is the GIS tech wizard. But outside of very particular applications, do most people really give geography a second thought?  I hope to show through a famous fishery example that the world should give geography more attention – the Peruvian anchovy fishery.

First a bit of context.  Geography is a diverse discipline, spanning applications from environment to physics to cultural anthropology.  At the core of the discipline is the importance of place – something very simple yet very often forgotten.

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Epistemological Idioms

Posted on By Bluegrass Blue Crab
Science

My research is embedded in political ecology. Though no one can agree on an exact definition, suffice it to say that it’s an outgrowth of geography that focuses on human-environment interactions with specific emphasis on the role of power. It’s a field that is deeply academic and there’s nothing like a week of political ecology discussions to send your head spinning. Also, as the field is new, we like to create terms to help define a disciplinary jargon. In addition, the field’s methodology relies on discourse analysis and units of analysis defined by epistemic communities. Therefore at the recent annual meeting of the Annual Association of Geographers, I spent more time than I was willing thinking about word usage and incorporating some new ones into my syntax.

My favorite quote:

“given it’s mainly men climbing, I’d be interested in starting a rumor that it decreases virility but I thought it would be unethical to start a rumor” on feeling the need to help the Australian aboriginal group, the Anangu people, in keeping climbers off their sacred rock formation (Uluru/Ayer’s Rock)

But read on for my collection of a few gems from my colleagues…

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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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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 Bluegrass Blue Crab 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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Save the Planet, it’s the only one we’ve got… or is it?

Posted on By David Shiffman 8 Comments on Save the Planet, it’s the only one we’ve got… or is it?
Science

In honor of President Obama’s newly announced space exploration plan, I am reposting one of my favorites from the old site. Original comments can be found at the old site.

On this blog, we’ve discussed how many current fisheries practices are completely unsustainable, because we are simply taking too many fish from the oceans. We’ve also discussed how we can’t just stop fishing because too many humans need the food.

We’ve  discussed the energy crisis, and how some the present methods our civilization uses to power our lives are destroying the planet through pollution, environmental destruction, and emissions that cause global warming. We’ve also discussed the fact that people need energy.

We’ve discussed how some current mining practices, such as top-mining, are an environmental catastrophe. However, it is undeniable that we need the minerals that come from mining.

Many more problems are facing the world today. There simply isn’t enough room for all the people we have, and there are more people every day (and less room for them because of sea level rise). Many people today simply don’t have enough fresh water to drink, and thousands die each day from this– a problem that is only getting worse as population increases. The present economic crisis, one of the worst of all time, means that in addition to millions being out of work, governments don’t have money for solutions to these problems.

Things look pretty grim…. but is there any kind of solution that can solve all of these problems at once? A universal solution, as it were (pardon the pun)?

To find it, we need to think well outside of the box. In fact, we need to look in a whole new direction.

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