Forging new paths in science engagement

The Pacific Crest Trail over the McCloud River. Photo by me.

I so appreciate this beautiful piece on "climate grief" and what it means for climate scientists. It was written by scientist Sarah Myhre and in a couple of my favorite passages, she says:

"We are hamstrung by our need for job security, funding, advancement, and promotion – because we, too, are juggling the demands of child rearing, aging parents, urban gentrification, and the winnowing of the middle-class.

Regardless, this is the time for a gut-check. Our job is not to objectively document the decline of Earth’s biodiversity and humanity, so what does scientific leadership look like in this hot, dangerous world?"

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"I believe most scientists are also, quietly and professionally, mourning the loss of the balance of Earth’s life. The pain doesn’t stop. It’s carried upon every wildfire, coral bleaching, or marine die-off. But, we can use these waves of pain to inform our moral commitment to the present and future. It requires the brave integration of science and self, the acceptance of loss."

Longing for a revolution

I had to go really far away to a watery, watery land to find a really helpful book. Photo by me.

Some days, I feel certain that we are on the verge of some major cultural shifts. Other days...not so much. During the latter, I am grateful for anything the reawakens a deep sense of possibility. Recently, that thing was a serendipitous encounter with Land and Environmental Art, a book that contains some unexpected parallels for where I feel we are in the sciences right now and provides a really interesting look at working from the margins.

The problem with consensus

The issue of scientific consensus on climate change is back in the news again. For a good primer, see Chris Mooney's latest piece in the Washington Post: "Researchers think they’ve found a “gateway belief” that leads to greater science acceptance." I just want to jump quickly to what I find so challenging with focusing on consensus (and there are many) as a means to sway public opinion: if you view the climate change issue through a conflict lens, consensus is not the answer. Research actually shows the opposite -- that in intractable conflicts, which I believe climate change has become, introducing nuance, shades of gray, and multiple perspectives is what leads to change.

From water to agriculture, more evidence that human relationships matter

The interest in and recognition of the value of relational work when it comes to science and conservation, and really across all sectors, seems to be reaching a critical point. Just this week, several pieces on everything from farming to water scarcity to forest management directly addressed the generative power of relationships between people in environmental work. I am thrilled, to say the least.

Boundary spanning

I am in the middle of preparing a talk for next week's 99th annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), which will be in Sacramento, CA this year, an easy train ride for me. This is my first slide for my talk, which is (sadly but predictably) still taking shape.

Almost 20 years ago, I spent a couple of years working for ESA, first as a public affairs intern and then as staff with a program within the Society that was called the Sustainable Biosphere Initiative, launched after a paper from Jane Lubchenco and others proposed the concept in what was at the time a controversial paper published in Ecology. While in graduate school at Berkeley, I continued to be involved with ESA, starting the student section in 2000 - it is really exciting to see how that section has truly taken off. I am now ending my final year of service on the ESA Public Affairs Committee and will be going out on a good note with a short talk on California's drought that I will be giving to introduce rancher Dan Macon at a lunch for ESA's Rapid Response Teams. I am particularly honored to open for Dan, whose blog post on the emotional toll of drought inspired my own on live-tweeting the drought.

Beyond the buzz: change-making with science

I recently wrote a post about how to "generate buzz" about research where I mentioned that, in my mind anyway, attention-getting should not be conflated with actual change-making. There are lots of ways of looking at change-making, and here I am mostly talking about broad-scale, societal, and, most likely, policy change. What this kind of change-making really comes down to for me is working with other people. That is why I started to blog to begin with, and why I focus so much on the concept of relatedness - here focused on deepening capacity as a scientist or practitioner to participate in change-making efforts.