-
- Up one level
- Climate change
- Ecosystem services, habitat, species preservation
- Population (over)growth
- Waste disposal, composting, recycling
- Water
- *Edward O. Wilson - Integrated science and the coming century of the environment
Integrated science and the coming century of the environment Edward O. Wilson Science 27 Mar 1998;279: Consience - the interlocking of causal explanations across disciplines
- Beyond the roots of human inaction: Fostering collective effort toward ecosystem conservation
Elise Amel, Christie Manning, Britain Scott, Susan Koger. Science 21 Apr 2017;356(6335):275-279 Abstract The term “environmental problem” exposes a fundamental misconception: Disruptions of Earth’s ecosystems are at their root a human behavior problem. Psychology is a potent tool for understanding the external and internal drivers of human behavior that lead to unsustainable living. Psychologists already contribute to individual-level behavior-change campaigns in the service of sustainability, but attention is turning toward understanding and facilitating the role of individuals in collective and collaborative actions that will modify the environmentally damaging systems in which humans are embedded. Especially crucial in moving toward long-term human and environmental well-being are transformational individuals who step outside of the norm, embrace ecological principles, and inspire collective action. Particularly in developed countries, fostering legions of sustainability leaders rests upon a fundamental renewal of humans’ connection to the natural world.
- George Silver - Editorial: Beyond Population Statistics
American Journal of Public Health 1995 (Oct);85(10):1345-1346
"The article presents the author's reflection on population statistics and offers an overview of a modified triage approach toward a social strategy for health and population policy suggested by Morrow and Bryant. The approach comes as another attempt to analyze the impact of the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus' population control doctrine. Morrow and Bryant contribute to this issue by assigning a standard for judgment in the rationing of health resources".
- Global Supply Chain (Science magazine)
- Gulf eats away at coast outside levee-protected New Orleans
Gulf eats away at coast outside levee-protected New Orleans By Cain Burdeau, Associated Press Posted: 08/14/2015 12:18:20 AM
- Humans Are Speeding Extinction and Altering the Natural World at an ‘Unprecedented’ Pace
Brad Plumer, New York Times, May 6, 2019
Humans are transforming Earth’s natural landscapes so dramatically that as many as one million plant and animal species are now at risk of extinction, posing a dire threat to ecosystems that people all over the world depend on for their survival, a sweeping new United Nations assessment has concluded. (report summary is in this folder)
- NPR - Low Oil Prices Interfere With What Recyclers Are Paid For Plastic
Low Oil Prices Interfere With What Recyclers Are Paid For Plastic Stacey Vanek Smith, NPR Planet Money, January 14, 2016 Lower global economic indicators, Saudi oil policy, U.S. fracking --> lower oil prices --> recycled plastic costs more than new plastic
- Profile of Anthony J. McMichael
McMichael, elected in 2011 to the National Academy of Sciences, is a strong proponent of expanding epidemiology research from individual- to population-level studies. To this day, researchers focus more on the environmental and economic repercussions of a warming world than on how such changes might affect human health—a potentially dangerous distraction, he says. To remedy that oversight, McMichael’s Inaugural Article explores how major climatic events over the past 12,000 years have influenced human health and survival, and how even mild to moderate climate change can lead to the disruption and collapse of societies (1). With the global temperature likely to increase by 3 °C to 4 °C over the next 100 years—considerably more than the fraction-of-a-degree fluctuations that influenced the outbreak and spread of the bubonic plague in mid-14th century Europe—the risk to human health is graver than we realized, he says. “Climate change is not just about disruptions to the local economy or loss of jobs or loss of iconic species. It’s actually about weakening the foundations the life support systems that we depend on as a human species.”
- Science, Special Section: The gas surge
Fracking has ignited an energy revolution, with still uncertain consequences for climate and the environment.
David Malakoff
Science, 27 June 2014;344:1464-
- State of Things - After Nature: A Politics For The Anthropocene
After Nature: A Politics For The Anthropocene By Laura Lee & Frank Stasio, NPR The State of Things, 10/5/2015 "Duke Law professor Jedediah Purdy tackles the complexities of life in the anthropocene period and the possibilities for the future in his latest book, "After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene" (Harvard University Press/2015)."
- Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services – unedited advance version
From The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the intergovernmental body which assesses the state of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services it provides to society, in response to requests from decision makers.May 2019
- The Ground Beneath Our Feet
WAMU 1A, with host Joshua Johnson, December 4, 2017 Without healthy soil, food becomes less nutritious and crops become harder to grow. If the crops aren’t healthy, then the 70 percent of the world’s fresh water that’s used for agriculture will be wasted. A 2012 study found that about a third of the planet’s topsoil is degraded and that without action, the world will be out of soil suitable for farming within 60 years. Guests Rattan Lal Distinguished Professor of Soil Science and Director, Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, Ohio State University; President, International Union of Soil Sciences; @lal_rattan Bianca Moebius-Clune Director, USDA-NRCS Soil Health Division David Montgomery Professor of geomorphology, University of Washington in Seattle; author of "Growing a Revolution — Bringing Our Soil Back to Life" and "Dirt;" @Dig2Grow Jimmy Emmons Farmer in Leedey County, Oklahoma