In Kenya, a Maasai community burned by ecotourism gives it another shot
Mongabay
“We were very naïve when we first created a project without understanding the concept of ecotourism,” says Kishanto. “That is very different from now. The community is now very smart; the wildlife is still here; the elephants have increased. We are going to bring Shompole back to its glory.”
From plague to promise: How insects can revolutionize our food systems
Grist.org
The burgeoning insect industry offers good news at the intersection of several gloomy conversations.
East Africa wants to be the continent’s maggot protein hub
Quartz Africa
As the sale of AgriProtein’s Cape Town factory appears to mark the firm’s departure from the continent, it could be the smaller, nimbler enterprises in East Africa that are the ones worth watching.
Yes, there’s still bitter division over climate policy. That’s progress, folks.
Grist.org
Syndicated: News Break, Eco Topical, Voices for Mother Earth, Knowledia News, Paradise City, Voxique, Radio Free, EHSQ Blog, Blog Ambiental (Brazil), Lokal Bude (Japan), Basta Magazine (France)
Unlike in climate science, there is no process of peer review that can tell us which policy or Cabinet pick will be most effective.
As Wildfires Burn, Assigning Blame is Complicated
Undark Magazine
Syndicated: Flipboard, The Wire Science, 3 Quarks Daily, Government Executive, Real Clear Science, Route Fifty, Knowledia News
As environmental disasters arise, we must continue to highlight climate change’s role in making them more frequent and severe, but not at the expense of crucial conversations about the messy politics of adapting to them.
Starlink
Harvard Magazine
Ah, yes: space politics. This, and the aftermath of global shutdown, would be the eerie subject matter of the Gen Z dinner parties we were fated to attend in our impending adulthoods. We would know more by then, maybe, and we’d spar and eat and speculate, but still we’d take those little sips of wine that fill the pauses when the rooms get too heavy: the same sips being taken 10 floors above and 10 floors below and in all the stacked apartments in all the healing cities, where the questions were too big for dinner parties, and the answers were still out of reach.
9 Candid Insights on the Future of Technology from Palantir CEO Alex Karp
Better Magazine
On a recent March afternoon, in front of a snowy Zoom backdrop, Palantir CEO Alex Karp treated the Executive’s Club of Chicago to a whistle-stop briefing on the geopolitics of software.
“Since you’re stuck with me for the complete hour, I’ll just give you the full exegesis,” he told the audience, and at a breathtaking pace went on to offer as many thoughts on technology and national security as time and the moderator would allow.
Image credit: Marie Konopacki.
Coastal Cambridge
Harvard Political Review
(Featured on syllabus for Boston College course “Environmental Crisis: How Past Disasters Shape the Present.”
It will not knock the wind out of us all at once — it will surge, subside, return, and then return again, until we learn that we must learn to live with it. In between a roar and a trickle, littered with the bits and pieces of city life that it so inadvertently disrupts, the ocean will rise. Salty, murky, and unforgiving, it will lap at the base of the Ivory Tower. And it will stay.
Harvard’s Investment in Land and Natural Resources
The Harvard Crimson
Syndicated: Chief Investment Officer, FarmlandGrab.org, Water Education, Justicia, Paz, Integridad de la Creación, Condor’s Hope
For rural communities in the central coast region of California, the name “Harvard” does not connote excellence. For these communities, where water is scarce and becoming scarcer, it evokes greed and exploitation.
Inside the Minds of MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant Winners Monika Schleier-Smith and Forrest Stuart
Better Magazine
There are many ways to define “genius,” but each October, Chicago’s MacArthur Foundation chooses around two dozen to honor. Among the diverse array of this year’s fellows are a quantum physicist demystifying the habits of subatomic particles and a sociologist illuminating the way certain kinds of policing turn out to undermine public safety.
From Coffee to Alcohol, Adderall to Ambien: Disrupting Our Reliance on Stimulants and Sedatives—Naturally
Better Magazine
Syndicated: Marin Magazine (print and digital)
When it comes to meeting and recovering from a day’s whiplash-inducing demands on our energy, few of us do it without the help of some sort of substance.
Schedule I Sacrament
Harvard Political Review
Medicinal, religious, spiritual, and recreational use of psychedelics are often indistinguishable — and not reliably aligned with the contours of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe.’ An understanding of the collateral damage of the current legal framework bolsters the case for Oregon’s reevaluation.
Age-Friendly Cities are Eco-Friendly, Too
Age Friendly Advisor
Whether or not older Americans are the most concerned about climate change, their needs often coincide with those of the planet, presenting cities with a unique opportunity to better serve them both.
“Ok Boomer” in the Age of Covid
Age Friendly Advisor
As the novel coronavirus began to spread through the United States, a backdrop of intergenerational conflict would inform the way the pandemic was understood.
Rainbow Fish Reminders
The Harvard Crimson
The fact that children reread, and love to reread, suggests that they are after something quite different from what adults are after when they read fiction. As we get older we want to be entertained with novelty. We want fiction to reveal. Children are content for it to merely—but crucially—remind.
Image credit: Spencer Hanson, San Anselmo, California
Blue Eyes
Stone Soup — 100% written and illustrated by kids ages 8-13
As I pedaled through the downpour, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, all alone in the violent storm. His mop of curls would be matted against his head, and he’d be shivering. I clenched my jaw and it was as if my body was not a part of me.