EcocentricEndangered Species
In the days before Amazon Prime, your Christmas gift-giving options were somewhat more limited. So it that the three wise men in the Biblical account brought local gifts to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem: gold, frankincense and …
EcocentricWildlife
No one knows what will follow the apparent death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. The Hermit Kingdom remains a black box to experts—especially Americans—and while early reports suggest that Kim’s third son Kim Jong-un …
EcocentricOceans
Earth history is different from ordinary history: it’s much harder to nail down specific dates when everything happened millions of years ago and over huge, slow timescales. But it can be done, as shown by paleontologists who …
EcocentricEcocentric
The people of Soay Island, off the west coast of Scotland, have notice something strange. Over the years, their sheep have begun to shrink, as I wrote in 2009:
Why? In short, because of climate change. Generally, the sheep’s life cycle goes like this: they fatten up on grass during the fertile, sunny summer; then the harsh winter
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EcocentricOceans
Jellyfish: they’re the worst. From the dollar bill-sized jellies that wash up along the New Jersey shore to the deadly box jelly—the most toxic creature on the planet—no one likes jellyfish. And the bad news is that they may be taking over: as we pull fish from the sea, the jellyfish are left to flourish. Overfishing, climate …
EcocentricEndangered Species
Regardless of what Rick Perry and the rest of Republican presidential candidate field believe (except for you, Jon Huntsman), climate change is real and it’s happening. The questions for the 98% of climate researchers who accept the consensus on man-made global warming is how fast the climate is changing, and what impact it will have …
EcocentricWildlife
The new film The Rise of the Planet of the Apes—a title with way too many prepositions—asks us to accept an absurd premise: James Franco as a genius neuroscientist. Oh, and it also expects us to accept the possibility that apes could become super-smart, enabling them to overthrow humanity as the dominant species on the planet, …
EcocentricWildlife
Sometimes I wonder how the polar bear became the poster animal for climate change. These are ferocious beasts—they’ve even be known to engage in a little cannibalism when food gets tight. They’re far from the only animals that may be suffering because of climate change—just ask the Panamanian golden frog—and few of us will ever …
EcocentricWildlife
We live in the Anthropocene, as some scientists have come to call our new geologic era. The term acknowledges the fact that human beings—nearly 7 billion strong and growing—have so much influence over the life, geography and even chemistry of planet Earth that we’re now essentially responsible for the whole show. For good and for …
EcocentricWildlife
It can be hard to feel much sympathy for bats. Like snakes or spiders or sharks or bunnies (OK, maybe the last one is just me), there’s something primordially alarming about bats, something that activates the lizard part of the brain and shutters empathy. Bats aren’t actually “flying rodents,” but you likely won’t see them on the …
