Category Archives: Anthropocene

Cheers – Let’s Drink to the Future of Wine!

I am finally getting around to writing the blog I promised about wine. Reuters recently summarized the current state of the wine industry: Wine production totaled 250 million hectoliters last year, down 8.6 percent from 2016, data from the Paris-based … Continue reading

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Feedback

I wrote my last blog in the middle of a heat wave that covered the city where I live along with great swaths of the East Coast and other parts of the world. The heat wave lasted almost a week; … Continue reading

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Heat Wave

My school’s academic year is over and the summer break has started in full swing. Usually I take this time for a vacation and some new research initiatives. It is not surprising that I have far more flexibility now than … Continue reading

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Vulnerabilities: Coral Reefs

In one of my earliest blogs (July 31, 2012), I talked a little bit about the start of my interest in man-made contributions to global climate change. Up until that time my main academic interest was focused on energy use. … Continue reading

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Uncertainties Can Bring The Best Possible Outcomes, The Worst Possible Outcomes, and Everything In Between: Ocean Currents

I have addressed uncertainty on a number of previous occasions (December 10, 2012; May 16, 2017; January 9, 2018; and other blogs) but some important work came to light recently that put this idea to a test. Most of the … Continue reading

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The Economic Impacts of Ocean Decline

Last week’s blog about the Ocean Health Index stressed the importance of including the sustainability of human impacts in any discussions about ocean health (this accounted for about 50% of the indexing). This blog will focus on the economic impacts … Continue reading

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Ocean Health Issues – How Do We Measure Health?

Last week’s blog was an introduction to the vulnerabilities that we face with the deterioration of our oceans. It paid particular attention to the recently published study of evidence associating the 4th mass extinction with ocean deoxygenation – which effectively … Continue reading

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Vulnerabilities: Oceans

Let’s get back to vulnerabilities, focusing specifically on the oceans this time. Since they cover 70% of the planet, the health of our oceans is paramount. The connections between anthropogenic climate change and said health are complex and multifaceted, so … Continue reading

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Vulnerabilities: Desertification

The ecological counterpart to water stress (May 1, 2018) is desertification. The table summarizing the IPCC’s assessments of five categories directly or indirectly connected to water use (April 24, 2018) refers to: “Decreasing water availability and increasing drought in mid-latitudes … Continue reading

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Laboratory Observations of Collective Suicide

Rafik, a young, dear, French relative of mine, was born in Algeria. He still has family there that he visits often, occasionally going with some of them to tour the Sahara desert. We discussed his trips and the history of … Continue reading

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