Writing on wildlife, technology, and nature
I swear, it is almost impossible to stop yourself. I promised I would be more disciplined, but I’m not. When someone who cares about climate change gets solar panels on their roof, the temptation to keep looking at how much energy you are generating is virtually irresistible. After a long and dark “La Nina” winter …
Continue reading "Solar Power Nerdiness and the Terrifying Problem of Albedo"
A recent BBC news story documented one man’s efforts to clean up plastic waste in the Arctic. It is the sadness and resignation in this man’s eyes that sticks out. The presence of plastic everywhere you look in the Arctic is leading Norwegian fisherman to fear that their catch will lose its reputation some of …
Continue reading "Worse than Drowning in a Sea of Plastic….."
In a recent essay published in Aeon, Henry Mance asks “can technology mend our broken relationship with the natural world?” At first, it seems, apparently not. Making points that echo those formulated by philosopher of technology Albert Borgmann in an earlier post on this blog, Mance show how technology tends to undercut any native closeness …
Continue reading "Could Technology Make America Wild Again?"
In a recent article for Grist, meteorologist Eric Holthaus claims that we are already locked into a devil’s bargain on climate change. The bargain asks us to weigh a trade-off between two things that pollution in the atmosphere does for us. On the one hand, it causes serious health and respiratory problems that kill over …
Continue reading "Philosopher Meets Meteorologist to Talk About Climate Engineering"
When the Milltown Dam upstream of Missoula, Montana came down in 2008 and the impoundment behind it was drained, a hidden treasure trove of century-old lumber was revealed. Hundreds of logs, buried in sediments, had been accumulating behind the dam throughout its life. The lumber had been cut from the surrounding forests during the early …
On January 25th 2018, CNN.com announced a striking scientific breakthrough in biotechnology with the painful headline “Monkey See, Monkey 2.” A technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) had been used successfully by Chinese researchers to create two genetically identical long-tailed macaque monkeys. This was the first time that SCNT, a technique that arrived …
Continue reading "The Part that’s Not Funny about Cloning Macaques"
Christopher J. Preston 