| Here in the School of the Environment we always encourage people to undertake more in-depth and advanced studies whenever time and personal interest allows.
We bring the following items to your attention as being highly worthy as deeper and thoughtful introductions to more advanced environmental and ecological studies. These works are longer and will not be adequately covered or digested in just a few seconds of scanning and a quick read. They take time, patience, and focused concentration to complete and more fully appreciate. However, the science writers highlighted here bring a depth and level of analysis, broad perspectives, and |
understanding that helps put critical issues of climate change, extinction and loss of biodiversity, and human impacts on the environment in greater perspective.
As such they provide a foundation for entering more advanced technical studies. Note: Some of the following stories may require registration with an email depending on your reading history and how many free articles they allow readers. Disclaimer: Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not reflect policy or positions of Washington State University or the School of the Environment. |
 Living With Leopards in IndiaHumans have long had a difficult relationship with carnivores and the large predators of the world, which we often view as competitors when there are conflicts with agriculture or human safety. Negative views of large predators have long been common in European countries, the U.K., and especially here in the United States and North America. In the not too distant future, India is expected to have the largest human population in the world. One would not expect large carnivores to be able to coexist with people under such circumstances. And yet, the examples and the ecology and the social science behind populations of leopards in India is revealing new perspectives in conservation science. See: from Scientific American – Leopards Are Living among People. And That Could Save the Species – by Vidya Athreya |
 Caterpillar CatastropheElizabeth Kolbert, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for “The Sixth Extinction” is one of our most favorite science writers. Her works are absolutely sure to provide accurate and thoughtful insight into many ecological and environmental issues and are always a pleasure to read. In keeping with our focus on Bug Splat Ecology and the “Insect Apocalypse” in our Winter 2022 issue of SoE Science News, we were delighted to see Elizabeth Kolbert’s recent piece on entomological investigations into the relatively unknown world of caterpillars and the scientists exploring that largely hidden realm. It is always fascinating and humbling to see the dedication and effort of scientists who devote their lives to the study of some of the lesser known, but critically important aspects of the natural world. Kolbert’s article and many others (e.g., see National Geographic – Moth-Eating Grizzly Bears) highlight the relationships of insects and other invertebrates to the life-supporting ecological food webs necessary for mammals, birds, amphibians, etc. Are We Witnessing a Real-Time Ecological Collapse?The evidence for declining insect populations in at least parts of the world is accumulating rapidly. It is sobering to think that we are witnessing a rather rapid degradation of food webs and a necessary and companion decline in plant and animal populations and species. You may not have thought much about caterpillars, but if you are interested in how the natural world works, and the lives of dedicated biologists and ecologists, then we can highly recommend this recent work. See: from The New Yorker – The Little-Known World of Caterpillars – by Elizabeth Kolbert |
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The Stochastic Parrot See: from New York Magazine – Elizabeth Weil – You Are Not a Parrot  See: from The New Yorker – Bill McKibben – Dimming the Sun to Cool the Planet Is a Desperate Idea, Yet We’re Inching Toward It The scientists who study solar geoengineering don’t want anyone to try it. But climate inaction is making it more likely. See more @ SoE Science News |
Collapse of Alaskan Fisheries See: from Politico – by Adam Federman – Alaska’s Fisheries Are Collapsing. This Congresswoman Is Taking on the Industry She Says Is to Blame See: from The New Yorker – Elizabeth Kolbert – Climate Change From A To Z The stories we tell ourselves about the future. Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT “The human mind is not, like ChatGPT and its ilk, a lumbering statistical engine for pattern matching, gorging on hundreds of terabytes of data and extrapolating the most likely conversational response or most probable answer to a scientific question.” – by Noam Chomsky, New York Times See: from the New York Times: Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT by Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull
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