Category Archives: Science!

Activism Through Collaboration: New Belgium, Ben & Jerry’s, Protect Our Winters

I love following @ClimateOfGavin on Twitter. He’s a climatologist, and I learn a lot. I’ll be honest, even with my background in science, sometimes it’s a bit tough to follow (I have no climate training), but overall it’s well worth it. Gavin is interesting and very clear.

Unfortunately, what he’s clear about is that anthropogenic climate change is happening. Like it or not, here we go.

The bad news is the phrase “locked in,” meaning we’re already guaranteed some amount of massive negative impact from climate change. But maybe there’s hope yet that we can prevent further lock-in. And that will take advocacy.

Enter Protect Our Winters to this post. An advocacy organization rooted in the snow sports (skiing, snowboarding, etc), Protect Our Winters is about raising awareness and education around climate change, as well as encouraging advocacy within and beyond its members.… Continue reading →

Five Links to Start Your Week Off Thoughtfully

“Most farm technologies increase yields by a few percentage points. When you start talking about tripling yields over large expanses of land, then you are talking about a major improvement…” Triple. For small farms in Kenya. Triple the yields. All by planting a few plants to deal with some of your pests. Plants which, serendipitously, fix nitrogen as well.

Clean up your act, Chicago! This is actually a pretty upsetting reality in an industry a lot of us participate in, but is also a bit hidden from us. There’s a stark racial divide in who makes money in restaurants. There’s also a pretty impressive gender divide, though the racial divide is more dramatic. It definitely indicates white men make, by far, the bulk of the money in working in restaurants.… Continue reading →

MARS DAY!!!!

Guys, I am not even going to pretend here. I cannot focus on anything today except the fact that I should probably consume food at some point and THERE IS EVIDENCE OF LIQUID WATER ON MARS.

I know! I’m supposed to be studying like my life depends on it. And probably by the time Amanda gets here to study, I’ll have calmed the fuck down a bit. Probably.

But it’s really, really hard, honestly.

I’m, oddly enough, not much of a space nerd. I think space is neat and all, but it’s not usually something that captivates me the way it does so many others. However, the real and possible connections between space and Earth? Always fascinating to me. Extremophiles? YES.

Something very few people know about me (even Bill had forgotten until this morning) is that I was deeply interested in astrobiology1 in my undergraduate studies.… Continue reading →

Readings You Might Have Missed

Food

To Cut Food Waste, Spain’s Solidarity Fridge Supplies Endless Leftovers.
I need this to be a thing I can contribute to, pronto. I always cook far, far too much. And I really hate food waste.

Beer

Waste Not, Want Not: 5 Ways Breweries Recycle Their Waste
I am endlessly fascinated by learning about what different breweries do in dealing with their waste streams. I think because it’s all such simple waste (water, grain, etc), and thus something I can see potential in and have some clue about how to reuse it. And probably because I know there’s some amazing potential for goodies in there.

Science

Building standards aren’t to blame for chilly offices
So what is? Because, at this point, we’ve all ready about how it’s sexism in building standards.… Continue reading →

Two Weeks of Links

I didn’t do links last Monday because something more important came up. So this week, instead of one link per section, you can have several! Except in the beer section, because the beer stuff I got these last couple of weeks somehow wasn’t my jam.

Food

Beyond Brothels: Farms And Fisheries Are Frontier Of Human Trafficking When Americans think about modern-day slavery, we typically tend to think of sexual slavery and movies like “Taken”. The reality is that trafficking is as much, if not more, about forced work of a non-sexual nature. Food is often produced under such conditions.

Europe’s Taste For Caviar Is Putting Pressure On A Great Lakes Fish. Lake Superior apparently has really adorable tiny fish that, in turn, have really delicious roe.… Continue reading →