UnDisciplined

In his new book, Combing Through the White House, Theodore Pappas suggests that the hair of American leaders has long conveyed important political and symbolic messages, and has affected the way in which the public perceives them.

It is sometimes assumed that women, as a group, tend to feel differently about climate and climate change than men. and that’s true — but as it turns out, context matters.

It was not so long ago that there seemed to be no end in sight for the continual rise of greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. But now it seems possible, even likely, that we may have reached the point in which the emissions responsible for climate change are actually starting to fall.

The western United States is getting hotter, windier, and drier. And that means more fire risk. It also means that when a fire does occur, it is likely to be much more dangerous and destructive.

Wolves were once naturally abundant in Yellowstone national park, but starting in the 1870s they fell prey to humans who hunted them until their numbers were non-existent. And this was all to protect the “big game species,” like bison and elk. But the perceived “threat” that wolves were to these species wasn’t really correct, due to their very physiology. And Dan Macnulty suggests that we need to reconsider how we handle wolves in and around the park.

One of the things that is often missed when we talk about climate change and agriculture is that climate shifts have always impacted where we can plant and what we can grow. And one of the best ways to really see this is to track how corn production has moved across North America for thousands of years.Andrew Gillreath-Brown’s work was funded by https://app.openskope.org/, a project which aims to provide paleoclimate data in an easy format for the public.

For decades the basic principles of climate science were not at all controversial. To understand what changed we have to go back into the past. That’s what David Lipsky does in his latest book, The Parrot and the Igloo. (Part 2 of 2)

For decades and decades the basic principles of climate science were not at all controversial. And then, something happened. But to understand why, we have to go back into the past. (Part 1 of 2)

Archeological anthropologist Todd Braje points out that humans have been impacting global climates and ecologies for millennia. And he says that if we really want to understand our future, we need to understand that part of our past.

Since 2011, the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund has supported hundreds of researchers who have been attacked, sued, defamed, and threatened — and this year the organization has been busier than ever. The group’s director, Lauren Kurtz, says she’s happy that her organization is being sought out by scientists in need—and really sad that there is a need.