Category Archives: Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security

Brace for impacts : Nature News & Comment

When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its previous report in 2007, some scientists and many environmentalists were still loath to talk about adapting to climate change. The policy focus was squarely on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, and even … Continue reading

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Micro-turbines could revolutionize small-scale energy production

A chief complaint about wind energy is that nobody wants to look at the turbines. A lab out of University of Texas – Arlington is revolutionizing the concept by creating windmills so tiny, ten can fit on a single grain … Continue reading

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What Happened On Easter Island — A New (Even Scarier) Scenario : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR

What we have here are two scenarios ostensibly about Easter Island’s past, but really about what might be our planet’s future. The first scenario — an ecological collapse — nobody wants that. But let’s think about this new alternative — … Continue reading

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Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt

In December 2012, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco. This year’s conference … Continue reading

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Nietzsche’s ‘active forgetfulness’ in the face of the avalanche of digital data | This Is Not a Sociology Blog

When there were limits to storage we had to think carefully about what was really worth keeping. Today we store first and think whether it is useful later. Companies store vast quantities of data on us as customers and we … Continue reading

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Hirschman on creativity

Nice Albert O. Hirschman quote brought to us by Malcolm Gladwell at the New Yorker: …The only way in which we can bring our creative resources fully into play is by misjudging the nature of the task, by presenting it … Continue reading

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Developing nations should avoid ‘slow science’ – SciDev.Net

Developing nations should avoid ‘slow science’ – SciDev.Net. Worth reading, even if you disagree.

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The ‘Broader Impacts’ of Sequestration on Science

CSID Director Bob Frodeman has some suggestions about the interconnection of research & society in post-austerity world. Now that we’ve been driven off the “fiscal cliff,” perhaps we should look around and assess the results. It turns out that sequestration … Continue reading

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The University Is in Real Trouble, Folks

This is news to no one who’s been paying attention, of course. But this morning I read two articles that highlight some of the difficulties universities are facing today. The first was from Al Jazeera, which seems to be on … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Basic News, Future of the University, Graduate Studies, Metrics, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Who Killed the PrePrint, and Could It Make a Return? | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network

A very interesting piece written on preprints here: Who Killed the PrePrint, and Could It Make a Return? | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network. Preprints are essentially working papers that are ‘published’ in order to solicit feedback prior to … Continue reading

Posted in Future of the University, Libraries, Metrics, Open Access, Peer Review, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Physicist tipped for US energy post : Nature News & Comment

As the administration of US President Barack Obama prepares for a renewed push towards cleaner energy and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions, the White House appears to have chosen another physicist to head the effort. The leading candidate to replace departing energy … Continue reading

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Times Higher Education – Slow ethics will tackle moral winter

Slow ethics provides for a more sustainable and tempered approach to professional ethics. It would go beyond simple monomaniacal explanations, quick fixes and single values and algorithms. It would involve learning from the past, appreciating complexity and taking time to … Continue reading

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Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? | Joanna Blythman | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Now, this is something for us really to think about. Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? | Joanna Blythman | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk. It’s silly to suggest that vegans are to blame, of course. It’s all … Continue reading

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Denton Drilling: The End of Closed-Door Paternalism

“Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.” -Martin Luther … Continue reading

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The End of the University as We Know It – Nathan Harden – The American Interest Magazine

In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. The technology driving this change is already at work, and nothing can stop it. … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Future of the University, institutionalizing interdisciplinarity, Metrics, Open Access, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | Leave a comment

Interdisciplines : CASE STUDY: INCREMENTAL UPGRADING OF ENKANINI – THE ISHACK INITIATIVE

If you click on one link today, I recommend this one: Interdisciplines : CASE STUDY: INCREMENTAL UPGRADING OF ENKANINI – THE ISHACK INITIATIVE.   Dear Colleagues: INIT, the International Network of Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity, is continuing to host a virtual … Continue reading

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After Kyoto: Special Issue of NATURE

On 1 January 2013, the world can go back to emitting greenhouse gases with abandon. The pollution-reduction commitments that nations made as part of the Kyoto Protocol will expire, leaving the planet without any international climate regulation and uncertain prospects … Continue reading

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Fracking Secrets by Thousands Keep U.S. Clueless on Wells – Bloomberg

“Texas state government has been a wholly owned subsidiary of national oil and gas interests for a century,” he says. “Do not look at it for guidance on anything related to protecting public health and safety.” Strong words — and … Continue reading

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America’s secret fracking war – Salon.com

There’s a war going on that you know nothing about between a coalition of great powers and a small insurgent movement.  It’s a secret war being waged in the shadows while you go about your everyday life. In the end, … Continue reading

Posted in Broader Impacts, Climate Change, Economics & STEM Research, Environmental policy, Gas Fracking, Globalization, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The politics of prudence; or, how I learned to stop worrying about climate change and love therapeutic nihilism

Frankenstorm Sandy, currently ravaging the northeastern US, is testament enough to the predictable unpredictability inherent in global warming. What I mean by “predictable unpredictability” is something like the following: though we cannot know exactly how individual weather systems in particular … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Environmental policy, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | 3 Comments

The Religiosity of the Fracking Debate

CSID Faculty Fellow Adam Briggle publishes at Science Progress: The debate over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the shale gas revolution it has spawned has a religious aura to it. Both sides have an unshakeable conviction that fracking is either … Continue reading

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Struggle for Water in Colorado With Rise in Fracking – NYTimes.com

Struggle for Water in Colorado With Rise in Fracking – NYTimes.com. An indication of our thirst for fossil fuels ….

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The Veil of Ignorance: How Americans view wealth & inequality – BBC News

When you taste wine and you know the label and you know the price, you are going to be influenced by that. And when you are tasting wine in a blind way, now you don’t have anything to base it … Continue reading

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Bernanke to Economists: More Philosophy, Please – Businessweek

Less economics and more philosophy… On Monday, Ben Bernanke wasn’t talking like a scientist. He was talking like a philosopher. “The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being,” he said. To a … Continue reading

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“Fracked Ideologies” published at Science Progress

The use of high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas drilling has ignited a fiery political debate. Advocates tout natural gas as a clean-burning, cheap, and abundant fuel that can boost economic growth and energy security. Detractors question these benefits and … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Basic News, Broader Impacts, Degrowth Economics, Economics & STEM Research, Environmental policy, Gas Fracking, Philosophy & Politics, Public Philosophizing, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment