Category Archives: climatechange

Thinking through smoke

Vast firestorms across a series of Canadian provinces sent huge plumes of smoke aloft, as I noted on Sunday. Those clouds have since drifted south, across the international boundary, and down across several American states, including the one where my … Continue reading

Posted in climatechange, personal | 19 Comments

Climate change: another week of a ratcheting up crisis

I’m writing this post in between a series of projects in various stages of deadlines.  Publishing the June FTTE report, getting ready to head out to the Reclaim conference, organizing a stack of in-person and virtual speaking engagements into next … Continue reading

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Two stories of campuses doing something about climate change

Just a short post today, sharing two positive stories about academic institutions taking concrete action about climate change. ITEM: in Illinois, Loyola University Chicago is re-sourcing its electrical power to a renewable provider.  Loyala will purchase power from a nascent … Continue reading

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New York announces a climate change campus

How might higher education respond to the climate crisis? One answer to this very large question is for a given campus to expand its academic teaching on the topic, across the curriculum.  A second answer involves expanding a college or … Continue reading

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Extrapolations: notes on Apple’s climate fiction series, episodes 4-8

How can we imagine the future under the impact of climate change? I’ve been watching the Apple TV+ series Extrapolations, which offers an interesting example of climate fiction.  It’s a kind of anthology show, with each episode depicting one story … Continue reading

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Thoughts on Earth Day 2023

On this Earth Day 2023 I’m thinking of many things.  My ongoing research into higher education and the climate crisis fills my mind with the sprawling dimensions of the problem: rising sea levels versus campuses, academic research and activist students, … Continue reading

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One small glimpse of upcoming campus climate change politics

I started writing this from the Denver airport, on the way to Colorado College, where I presented on colleges in the climate crisis.  I noodled further at different points on the next trip, to the University of Wisconsin-Stout, where I … Continue reading

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My new book, Universities on Fire, is now in the world

Today is a good day for me.  My new book, Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis, is now published.  It’s my Johns Hopkins University monograph on how colleges and universities might be impacted by climate change for … Continue reading

Posted in bookstore, climatechange, personal, writing | 2 Comments

Imagining the climate crisis: notes on Extrapolations

How can we imagine the climate crisis in its full complexity, menace, and possibility? Answering this question is what climate fiction (never call it “cli-fi”) attempts to do. I’ve been exploring the field (some examples here), and wanted today to … Continue reading

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Redesigning higher education in the spirit of donut economics

How can higher education reimagine itself in response to the climate crisis? I’ve been exploring this question for years, and was very happy to encounter a new paper offering an intriguing call for academic design.  It’s about donut economics. To … Continue reading

Posted in climatechange, future of education | 5 Comments