Having done a deep dive on scholarly books about ecology, I was intrigued by Ashley Dawson’s argument in Extreme Cities: cities are a major epicenter of ecological and natural disasters. I had not thought about cityscapes as being susceptible to natural disaster, but Dawes unpacks several interesting instances of disaster to show how cities highlight deep stratifications in our society. Dawes defines extreme cities as those that reveal the greatest disparity in economics and stability, and act as a site of ecological and economic disaster. […]
30: An investigative glimpse at a beloved and endangered natural resource
I’m doing research on dystopian literature right now, and I’ve been trying to collect academic work that deals with climate change and natural disaster. I’m also from the Midwest, so I am familiar with the Great Lakes and the problems that have plagued them in recent years. Dan Egan’s The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is a highly engaging examination of these issues, written in a clear, journalistic style. I knew vaguely of the arrival of the zebra mussels to the Great Lakes, […]
Holy Science
For the record, I am not Catholic, although I did go to a Catholic (Jesuit) university. When this text was first published it was all over the news about how the Pope was trying to influence the politics of environmentalism and how a religious leader should not talk politics or science. Naturally this was quickly countered by people pointing out that the Pope is technically a head of state (the Vatican being a sovereign nation) and also a scientist (an MA in chemistry). I saw […]