Guest author Albert Borgmann is back by popular demand. Borgmann is a world renowned philosopher of technology and culture. He previously wrote on this blog about how Facebook and Apple bring undisclosed costs to society. Here he talks about a possible way of healing the growing political rifts of our tribal time. He puts his …
Some Excellent Non-Scientific Reasons to Reject Climate Change Denial
Everybody wants a white Christmas. In Erie, Pennsylvania they certainly got it. On Christmas Day they received 34 inches of snow and by midweek they had received over 65 inches of the white stuff. In the central and northeastern parts of the U.S., bitter air from Canada reduced temperatures to record lows in the period …
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Camera Traps and Lynx in the Age of Humans
The attractant made me gag. We had just finished setting up the motion-activated camera in the snowy Montana woods. We were putting the finishing touches to a site that we hoped might lure in an elusive lynx or fisher. The final task was to suspend from nearby trees a couple of small sponges soaked in …
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Gene Drives and the Hijacking of Origins
Over the last thirty years, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have struggled to gain the confidence of consumers. In the European Union, many member states have maintained virtual moratoria on their use in agriculture. Even in the less precautionary U.S., where only the weakest of labeling laws have ever made it through Congress, surveys show that …
Wind Turbines and Aesthetic Beauty
Dramatic visual changes are afoot off the Sussex coast. In a stretch of coastline that sits more or less directly offshore from Brighton, work is underway raising more than one hundred metal towers above waves that until now have seen only passing fishing boats, freighters, and the occasional whale. When completed in 2018, the Rampion …
Champagne, Truffles, and Climate Change
For a few scant years, the challenges of climate change lay only in the future. The prospect of transformed landscapes and disrupted ecologies was a threat that could be – and was – easily ignored. Although atmospheric scientists assured anyone who would listen that real problems lay ahead, interest in doing anything serious about it …
Christopher J. Preston 