Tag Archives: climate change
Sonia Nagorski Reads Earth’s Past To Help Predict And Improve Its Future
As a very amateur geologist, I’ve been looking forward to catching up with Sonia Nagorski ever since my podcast project started. That’s because she’s a geologist whose work focuses on understanding Earth’s history and what it can tell us about the world we humans are shaping today. Perhaps not surprisingly, she and I share a sense of wonder about the mind-bending qualities of Earth time and the pleasures of connecting to the geology right under our feet.
We talk about her two decades living and teaching in Alaska, the sense of community that comes from life at the edge of wilderness, and her recent move to the University of Colorado Boulder. Along the way, Sonia explains how geology provides essential context for understanding topics that go beyond geology, and why learning to notice and name the landscape around us can deepen both curiosity and responsibility.
Highlights:
Why geology is best understood as history told on Earth’s timescale
What living in Alaska taught her about community, resilience, and connection to place
Simple ways to build curiosity about the geology all around us
The three Amherst classmates she wants me to interview next
You can email her at sonianagorski@gmail.com.
Also, check out the Rockd app to learn about the geology in your neck of the woods.
Big thanks to Deb Thalheimer Long for nominating Sonia.
Allen Hurlbert Wants You To Contribute To Citizen Science
In this episode, I catch up with one of the smartest guys I knew at Amherst College, Professor Allen Hurlbert.
Many of Allen’s college classmates will remember him for his fondness for birds. While that interest has flowered into a successful and prolific teaching career, birds provide just one input into the focal point of his research today: building an understanding of the processes that shape global patterns of biodiversity and how those patterns are being impacted by global change.
For the last several years, he also has spearheaded a citizen science project that invites all of us to track, record, and share information on the insects we find in our own backyards. It works a lot like birdwatching and can be just as fun and important for the advancement of our understanding of biodiversity.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
All about Allen’s citizen science project, Caterpillars Count, and just how easy and fun it can be to participate
The ways in which climate change may produce winners, losers, and species that are likely to adapt
Why overall bird populations have declined over the last several decades
What attracted him to the study of biodiversity in the first place
The Amherst College classmates he’d like me to interview next
To contact Allen, email him at ahhurlbert@gmail.com. You also can learn about Caterpillars Count at https://caterpillarscount.unc.edu/.
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