From 2007 to 2010, I wrote or edited “Bytes of Note,” a column in Environment magazine. The column reviewed an important environment or sustainability topic each issue, pointing out key websites along the way. I wrote most of them, but I also had the pleasure of welcoming a guest columnist every so often. I took over the column in May, 2007 from its creator Tom Parris.
- The Changing News Environment. March/April 2010. “People who care about the environment should care about the news. The quality, quantity, and topics of information, analysis, and opinion from news providers influence what people do to the environment, who gets elected, and what laws get passed. Whether by choice or circumstance, people get their news from different media and on different platforms: print, TV, radio, the Web, mobile devices, and mixtures of all of these, each source having its own strengths and weaknesses. Who profits then determines in part how the market….”
- Design for the Global Household. January/February 2010. “Design for sustainability is a confounding concept. On the one hand, there is much good information about how to make the products that we buy and use more environmentally friendly to produce, use, disassemble, and recycle. On the other hand, popular design, even of products specifically marketed to simplify our lives, is, in the end, about comfortable households consuming more—not exactly the embodiment of sustainability. Fortunately, there is an area of design practice that has a loftier goal: to meet the needs of the global poor….”
- Environmental Twitter. September/October 2009. “Twitter, the microblogging Web site that enables users to post unlimited messages of 140 characters or less, became the fastest-growing Internet communication tool earlier this year, according to Nielsen Online. It reached 1.2 million unique visitors in May 2008 and 18.2 million this May, a more than fourteenfold increase. As with any general broadcast communication tool, Twitter can provide a helpful service to those with….”
- Academic Geography for Sustainability. May/June 2009. “The beginning of a new presidential administration is a good time to explore the tremendous amount of environmental information to be had from the U.S. government, both new and old. At this time, many in the environmental field may be considering ways to become a part of the new administration. Every four years, the U.S. Congress….”
- US Government Information. January/February 2009. “The beginning of a new presidential administration is a good time to explore the tremendous amount of environmental information to be had from the U.S. government, both new and old. At this time, many in the environmental field may be considering ways to become a part of the new administration. Every four years, the U.S. Congress….”
- Groundwater: A Tale of Two Settings. November/December 2008. “As with most natural resources, the use of groundwater carries with it very different sets of anxieties and outcomes from one part of the world—or, indeed, locality—to the next. In the United States, private household wells typically provide reliable, healthy drinking water with….” (on groundwater in the U.S. and Bangladesh)
- Sustainability Theater. September/October 2008. “Theater reaches audiences in a very personal and compelling way, touching both the heart and the mind. Because theater can also impart technical information and encourage action, it addresses one of the most notorious challenges of the sustainability project: moving….”
- Climate Policy’s Quiet Giants. July/August 2008. (on reinsurance) “Coastal areas may flood, tropical cyclones may grow in strength and frequency, permafrost may melt, disease may come to new areas, crops may fail—and a multibillion-dollar industry has taken notice of these risks: ‘Today, global warming is a fact. Since the beginning of industrialisation and the rapid growth of world population, man’s activities—along with natural variability—have contributed to a change of….’”
