Imaginings
stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, and other imaginative accounts of the natural world
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Book Review: Quest for the Unity of Knowledge, by David Lowenthal
by Eugenio Luciano “Two modes of understanding dominate the history of ideas. One posits the overarching unity of knowledge, the other cherishes its multifarious diversity. Unity is the goal of those who seek a single all-encompassing explanation of everything. Diversity is lauded by those who commend difference and variety as life-enhancing€ (p. 1). This is…
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Environmental Histories of the Brazilian Cerrado
By Claiton Marcio da Silva *All images courtesy of the author, taken 2013 (unless otherwise specified). Featured image: Road to the EspÃrito Santo belvedere, Jalapão State Park, Tocantins The Brazilian Cerrado made me an environmental historian. My interest in the agricultural transformations in Brazilian savannas—a biome located in the central part of Brazil that extends…
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Making Tracks: Environmental Histories of the Brazilian Cerrado
By Claiton Marcio da Silva The Brazilian Cerrado made me an environmental historian. My interest in the agricultural transformations in Brazilian savannas—a biome located in the central part of Brazil that extends over an area of approximately 2.000.000 km²—started when I left the southern and subtropical regions of the country to seek employment in the…
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Make Meadows, Not Lawns
By Rosamund Portus When we think of extinction, we tend to think of a few iconic species, such as the woolly mammoth or the dodo. Although none of us today has ever laid eyes on one—at least not a living specimen— we still mourn their loss.
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A Fluid History of Wisconsin Breweries
By Doug Hoverson During my research for Land of Amber Waters: The History of Brewing in Minnesota, a retired employee of the Theo. Hamm Brewing Co. in St. Paul told me: “Beer is 97 percent water, and the other three percent is none of your damn business.€
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Plastic Passport
Hazardous Hope Part 4 By Simone Müller (*Featured image: Photo by Gerry & Bonni [CC BY 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons) On our way out of office? In leadership counseling, they tell you about three key considerations for deciding if you should fire someone: 1) Did the person receive adequate feedback? 2) Did the person…
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Popularizing Climate Change and the Challenge of Multiple Narratives
By Roberta Biasillo This blog piece is inspired by Harald Lesch’s talk “Science, Society, Signs€ at the RCC Lunchtime Colloquium. It focuses on the potential and limits of graphic representations of climate change-related phenomena, interpretations, and understandings. (*Featured image: Peel, M. C., Finlayson, B. L., and McMahon, T. A. (University of Melbourne). Enhanced, modified, and…
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New Hope for Plastic Waste Pollution?
Hazardous Hope Part 3 By Jonas Stuck In 2016, a new actor entered the main stage and brought new optimism into the fight against plastic waste pollution. Let me introduce Ideonella sakaiensis. A group of researchers from the Kyoto Institute of Technology and Keio University discovered this bacterium outside a plastic bottle recycling factory in…
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The Bellflower Specialists
By Eunice Blavascunas and Alie J. Zagata I grew up in Switzerland, in a family of natural historians. I often say that I grew up in a sleeping bag because my family went camping in the wilderness most weekends and throughout the summers.