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New Featured Article!: “Origins, Uses, and Transformation of Extinction Rhetoric” Available as Free PDF

The latest Environment and Society featured article is now available! This month’s article, “Origins, Uses, and Transformation of Extinction Rhetoric,” comes from Volume 1 (2010). Richard Ladle and Paul Jepson trace the historical origins of the extinction concept and discuss its power to influence policies, agendas, and behaviors.

Visit the featured article page to download your copy of the article today before it’s gone! A new article is featured every month.

RICHARD LADLE is Titular Professor of Conservation Biogeography and Director the 21st Century Conservation Lab at the Federal University of Alagoas. He is  a Senior Research Associate at the School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University, where he was formerly the Course Director of the MSc degree program in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Management (2003–2009). He has diverse and interdisciplinary research interests that span all aspects of the theory and practice of conservation.

PAUL JEPSON directs the MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management at the University of Oxford. He transferred to academia from a career in conservation policy, working in the UK, Indonesia, and Indochina, and he now leads an interdisciplinary conservation governance laboratory working to generate novel and creative insight to help ensure the relevance and impact of conservation in the twenty-first century.

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Public Statement on Zika Virus in Puerto Rico

This essay was originally published on Savage Minds on 15 March 2016.

This call to action was written by Adriana Garriga-López, Ph.D. (Kalamazoo College), and Shir Lerman, M.A., M.P.H., PhD Candidate (University of Connecticut), with Jessica Mulligan, Ph.D. (Providence College), Alexa Dietrich, Ph.D., M.P.H. (Wagner College), Carlos E. Rodríguez-Díaz, PhD, MPHE, MCHES (University of Puerto Rico), and Ricardo Vargas-Molina, M.A. (University of Puerto Rico), through the auspices of the American Anthropological Association’s Zika Interest Group, as part of the rapid response mechanism of the Society for Medical Anthropology. The authors are members of the Society for Medical Anthropology’s Zika Interest Group.

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“Something Wicked This Way Comes”: Energy, Modernities, and the AnthropoScene

The verdict of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is clear: we are the dominant species on this planet, and our documented role in the global system gives many (but not all) confidence that the Anthropocene is well named. We need to understand the interactions, impacts, and development of systems to attempt either adaptation or mitigation with respect to our changing climate, recalling that unintended consequences must always be counted. As they say, there is no planet B, no other place where externalities can be stored for later disposal. Of course, wicked problems like climate change are nothing new. They resist resolution because they are difficult to define/multicausal (unlike the ozone hole); have incomplete or changing parameters, such that “solving” one part of problem generates new ones; and have no clear solution, just better or worse options (Rittel and Webber 1973). Wicked problems are socially complex and generally require behavioral or cultural changes of significant proportions. Examples of these, such as climate change, energy transitions, water management, and biodiversity loss, are also the hallmark of the Anthropocene: they are “socionatural” transformations that we have set in motion ourselves, and the ones I have mentioned all have strong connections with each other. Here, I focus on energy.