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"Sequestration"

I recently blogged about the confusion spawned by the term "negative feedback loop," which has a meaning in popular culture that in some cases can mean exactly the opposite of its meaning in Earth Systems. Continuing to notice how language influences thought, I now offer in awestruck admiration a counterexample of a technical term where the popular meaning and the scientific meaning pull together in glorious harmony.

That term would be "carbon sequestration," defined as the processes by which carbon dioxide is either removed from the atmosphere or diverted from emission sources and stored in the ocean, vegetation, soils, or geological formations. More

Haiti as a Metaphor

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I used the Haiti earthquake as the opening day topic in a seminar I teach for students who wish to be science or environmental journalists. In preparation, I read widely in the media coverage of the earthquake, dipped into the geoscience literature about the region, and attended the "record reading" held by the seismologists at my lab. My feeling coming out of all of this was that the Haiti earthquake can be read as a metaphor for the rest of humanity and its relationship with the Earth. More

My Catastrophe is Bigger than Your Catastrophe

A week ago, in my journalism seminar we did a student-produced case study on loss of biodiversity: "The Sixth Extinction." Last week, the lunchtime seminar in my research division at Lamont was a report from the annual conference from the [link Association for the Study of Peak Oil.] The newspaper this week is full of the United National Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

I feel as though the scientific community is pulling itself apart, with biologists drawn to to biodiversity loss, geologists drawn to peak oil, chemists and physicists drawn to climate change. Each faction is trying to draw attention of politicians, the public, and media to their favorite impending disaster. More

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Through a Lens Darkly and Then Face to Face*

I've been hiking every Sunday this past fall with a group of geology majors--the Sunday Hiking Club. We are doing a service-learning project to create trailside posters and websites that explain the natural history of popular trails in the mountains surrounding our town. While on our hikes, all of the students are taking digital photographs of their experiences on the trail, and the archives of these images will serve as the raw materials for the story lines we'll present to the public. At the simplest level, our trailside posters will help direct the attention of interested hikers to the wonders they'll encounter along the trail. The premise is that the hike may be a bit more enjoyable and meaningful for recreational hikers if they know what special features to look for along the way. For the hiking public, their original motivation for going on the hike may range from exercise to aesthetics, but we think we can slip in a little science education along the way. The accompanying websites will be a bit more detailed, with in-depth information for further personal investigation with resources such as geologic maps, articles that are accessible for reading by the public, archives of annotated images, and links to related instructional sites. In observing Nature through my own lens, and also observing my students as they themselves look at the world with focused attention through their cameras, I came to realize vaguely at first, and then with increased clarity, the transformative power of photography as an instructional activity. More

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Science Education Should Not be Viewed as the Public Relations Arm of the Research Establishment

The National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education (AC-ERE) has released new report called "Transitions and Tipping Points in Complex Environmental Systems." Although I found much to agree with in the report, a phrase from the press release rubbed me the wrong way:

Note that last line: "..... for the benefit of environmental science." More

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