This summer, I did a 9-week long internship with Behno, a sustainable fashion company based in New York. Behno is a sustainable handbag company that uses ethical practices, sustainable materials, and sleek designs to create their handbags. They have two to three factories in which they produce their handbags and have paired with a non-profit…
Category: Climate and Environment
Policy Pub: Generosity in Hurricane Michael’s Wake
Hurricane Michael hit Florida’s Gulf Coast in October of 2018 as a category five hurricane. The storm leveled communities to the West of Tallahassee, damaging homes, displacing residents, crippling some industries, and leaving piles of debris behind. In its wake, I set off to study how civil society – nonprofits, religious organizations, and less organized…
Hurricane Michael recovery efforts point to the power of local generosity after overlooked disasters
Throughout my research in a string of beach towns and rural inland communities along a stretch west and south of Tallahassee known as the Forgotten Coast, I directly observed nonprofits relying upon donated funds, supplies and labor to meet housing and other needs not being met by flood insurance or government funding.
Policy Pub: Get Ready for more Sweaty!
Dr. James Elsner participated in the Policy Pub in September 2019. To listen to his pub navigate here. Summer is here and it’s hot. I love it. I loved summer in Milwaukee as a kid but it was always way too short. Not here. Summer starts in May and runs through most of September. Perfect….
Unexpected Impacts and Data Collection after Hurricane Michael
As much as we push to maintain objectivity and distance, we study what we do because it matters and we hope to have an impact through our research.
Hurricanes: A Growing Threat to an Endangered System
As part of my Ph.D. research, I surveyed longleaf pine habitats before and after Hurricane Michael. My goals were to assess baseline conditions in habitats that were considered to be in exemplary condition and the subsequent damage caused by the storm. This information should help land managers and policy-makers be better informed while making decisions about recovery plans. In total, 0.3-0.4 million acres of longleaf pine habitat within the Florida panhandle were impacted by hurricane force winds, while up to 2.6 million acres experienced tropical storm force winds. My detailed surveys at four sites showed that the site nearest to the storm center experienced catastrophic losses with an estimated tree mortality of 88.7%. At the other sites further away, mortality ranged from 1.3 – 8.4%.
Green New Deal’s Plan For Planes, Trains, And Automobiles Won’t Work
Economic forces are working against the Green New Deal’s infrastructure plan and its supporters don’t seem to understand this. Smaller local initiatives, such as reforming land-use regulations to encourage more density, the elimination of parking requirements and free parking, and congestion taxes, would reduce driving and carbon emissions and can be tailored to individual communities in a way that grandiose national plans can’t.
Faculty Book: Challenges Towards Ecological Sustainability in China
Our book is one of few English books focusing on the issue of ecological sustainability in China. It includes a selection of the best papers presented at the Jinan Forum on Geography and Ecological Sustainability held in Guangzhou, China, from 17 to 19 February 2017, as well as several invited papers.
A New Era in Collaborative Forest Restoration: Working Towards Long-Term, Large-Scale, and High-Capacity Collaboration
There are many lessons derived from this body of work, a few of which I’ve shared here. However, there is much more to be learned from research on large scale, long term, collaborative efforts. In a time when uncertainties are growing, divisiveness is the order of the day, and climate change is impacting ecological integrity throughout the world, the need for adaptive visions for resilience, collectively determined trajectories, and effective ways of working together over the long term could not be more important. Through the study of these long term landscape scale collaborative groups participating in CFLRP, we offer applicable lessons that can help shape a future in collaborative environmental management that is based on adaptive management, resilience, ecological integrity, learning, and collective action.
Remote Sensing of Sustainable Ecosystems
Remote sensing is the science of capturing images of the Earth from drones, airplanes, and satellites. It allows us to monitor changes in the Earth’s climate, seas, cities, and mountains. It also allows us to measure changes in the Earth’s ecosystems. A special issue of the Journal of Sensors out now. The issue is a collection of…
