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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Impact Of ‘‘No Impact Man’’: Alternative Hedonism As Environmental Appeal, Jen Schneider, Glen Miller
The Impact Of ‘‘No Impact Man’’: Alternative Hedonism As Environmental Appeal, Jen Schneider, Glen Miller
Jen Schneider
As ‘‘No Impact Man,’’ writer Colin Beavan conducted a one-year experiment to determine whether he and his family could reduce their environmental impact to zero while living and working in Manhattan. This article examines the No Impact Man (NIM) experiment both as ‘‘alternative hedonism,’’ a reconceptualization of the ‘‘good life’’ that avoids unduly damaging the natural world, and also as a kind of ‘‘eco-stunt,’’ an attempt to garner significant media coverage about positive environmental behaviors. We use DeLuca’s theorization of the ‘‘image event’’ to analyze the No Impact Man franchise—blog, book, and documentary film—though we modify that theory in order …
Making The Human Dimensions Of Sustainable Community Development Visible To Engineers, Juan Lucena, Jen Schneider, Jon A. Leydens
Making The Human Dimensions Of Sustainable Community Development Visible To Engineers, Juan Lucena, Jen Schneider, Jon A. Leydens
Jen Schneider
Recently, engineers – particularly those working on sustainability-related initiatives – have increasingly turned their efforts towards under-served communities. This paper summarises the findings in Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (Juan Lucena et al., 2010) aimed at a diversity of these efforts which are grouped here under the term ‘engineering to help’. These initiatives often exist under names such as community service, humanitarian engineering, and engineers without borders or activities such as the Institution of Civil Engineers' co-sponsored workshop ‘Helping local communities to help themselves’. Although there has been a blossoming of engineering-to-help-related programmes around the world, there is a …
A Meta-Analysis Of Global Urban Land Expansion, Karen C. Seto, Michail Fragkias, Burak Güneralp, Michael K. Reilly
A Meta-Analysis Of Global Urban Land Expansion, Karen C. Seto, Michail Fragkias, Burak Güneralp, Michael K. Reilly
Michail Fragkias
The conversion of Earth's land surface to urban uses is one of the most irreversible human impacts on the global biosphere. It drives the loss of farmland, affects local climate, fragments habitats, and threatens biodiversity. Here we present a meta-analysis of 326 studies that have used remotely sensed images to map urban land conversion. We report a worldwide observed increase in urban land area of 58,000 km2 from 1970 to 2000. India, China, and Africa have experienced the highest rates of urban land expansion, and the largest change in total urban extent has occurred in North America. Across all regions …
Putting Partnership First: A Dialogue Model For Science And Risk Communication, Jen Schneider, Roel Snieder
Putting Partnership First: A Dialogue Model For Science And Risk Communication, Jen Schneider, Roel Snieder
Jen Schneider
In April 2010, the New York Times reported that Vattenfall AB, an energy company owned by the Swedish government, had built one of the first coal-fired power plants designed to capture ~90% of the CO2 it produced, with plans to sequester that CO2 underground in geologic repositories near its plant in Brandenburg, Germany (Voosen, 2010). By most measures, if the plant's operations were proven to be successful, it could have served as a model for other carbon capture and sequestration plants worldwide.
Making Space For The “Nuances Of Truth”: Communication And Uncertainty At An Environmental Journalists’ Workshop, Jen Schneider
Making Space For The “Nuances Of Truth”: Communication And Uncertainty At An Environmental Journalists’ Workshop, Jen Schneider
Jen Schneider
In 2008, the Society of Environmental Journalists listed nearly 50 science or science immersion workshops for environmental journalists. Yet relatively little is known about the content of these workshops and their impact on participants. This ethnographic study, conducted at a science immersion workshop for environmental journalists, aims to fill this void in our knowledge. Relying on participant observation and depth interviews, the study suggests that such workshops are useful for participating journalists: Reporters feel they leave the workshop better understanding the scientific method and scientific uncertainty. But the findings also reveal that “metacommunication”—communication about communication—is equally as important as science …
Idaho Bird Observatory: Research, Education, Conservation - 24/7, Elise Faike
Idaho Bird Observatory: Research, Education, Conservation - 24/7, Elise Faike
Jay D. Carlisle
The Idaho Bird Observatory’s Lucky Peak bird monitoring station atop the foothills overlooking Boise is unique. During fall migration, it’s the only place in western North America that hosts some form of songbird or raptor research all day and all night—for downright fun 24/7!
Environmental Crisis And Religious Rhetoric In Is God Green?, Jen Schneider
Environmental Crisis And Religious Rhetoric In Is God Green?, Jen Schneider
Jen Schneider
In the 2006 PBS documentary Is God Green?, Bill Moyers presents the emergence of two key contemporary trends in American political and religious life. The first is the growing popularity of an environmental movement within Christian evangelicalism called 'Creation Care'. Motivated by biblical passages that suggest humans have been 'commissioned' as stewards to care for the earth, or 'God's Body', Creation Care emerged in the late 1970s, gained momentum in the 1990s, and now 'constitutes the "fastest-growing form of Christian ministry"', according to the evangelical publication Christianity Today (Frame 1996:84, see also Psaros 2006:20-32). Is God Green? highlights what …
Engineers, Development, And Engineering Education: From National To Sustainable Community Development, J. Lucena, J. Schneider
Engineers, Development, And Engineering Education: From National To Sustainable Community Development, J. Lucena, J. Schneider
Jen Schneider
In October 2007, Norman Borlaug wrote in Science magazine that ‘more than 200 science journals throughout the world will simultaneously publish papers on global poverty and human development – a collaborative effort to increase awareness, interest, and research about these important issues of our time’. Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and father of the green revolution, was demonstrating that the scientific community is at last taking questions seriously of sustainability and development. Borlaug's own contentious role in the history of ‘development,’ however, points to the complexity of the term and the contested role scientists and engineers have played in that …