Climate change messes with Texas
Our understanding of climate change and the polar vortex must be refined, but the relationships are clear. Continue reading Climate change messes with Texas
Author: Stephen Mulkey
Stephen Mulkey is an environmental scientist dedicated to developing undergraduate and graduate programming to build society's capacity for environmental mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. Mulkey was the president of Unity College in Unity, Maine from 2011 through 2015. His leadership and forward-looking vision resulted in Unity College being the first college in the U.S. to divest its endowment from the top 200 fossil fuel companies, and the first college in the U.S. to adopt sustainability science as the framework for all academic programming. Mulkey believes that higher education has an ethical duty to prepare generations of graduates for the extreme sustainability and climate change challenges of this century. After taking his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, he spent over twenty years as a forest ecologist affiliated with the Smithsonian. Mulkey has served as tenured faculty at three doctoral granting universities.
The false summit of climate change progress
There are several reasons why the changes underway represent a false summit leaving an extremely steep climate landscape yet to be scaled. It is important to realize that most of these changes are promises, rather than anything close to becoming reality. In the US, we can count on GOP elected officials at the state and federal level to oppose most of the proposed changes to energy policy and climate change mitigation. The GOP will protect the fossil fuel industry in myriad ways that will leave the average voter at a loss to say exactly what is happening.
Continue reading The false summit of climate change progress
Rules of engagement for the era of planetary transformation
This is the final lecture of fall semester 2021 at the University of Florida in my courses on climate change and global change ecology Continue reading Rules of engagement for the era of planetary transformation
Hacking the planet so a few rich people can get richer
Published on Medium “Geo-engineering holds forth the promise of addressing global warming concerns for just a few billion dollars a year,” Newt Gingrich 2008 “Solar geoengineering solves everything! It’s great! We don’t need to bother to cut emissions.” President Trump 2017 “The main findings are that any implementation of stratospheric geoengineering could end catastrophically for many species. Although if geoengineering were ever done, it would … Continue reading Hacking the planet so a few rich people can get richer
Courses by Stephen Mulkey on Climate Change at the University of Florida – spring 2021
All of these courses are are online and all have synchronous live components. Until classes begin on 11 January I am willing to make room for UF registered undergraduate students. BSC3307C Climate Change Biology can be taken as a graduate course with the permission of your graduate advisor and is mostly asynchronous. Contact me by email (smulkey [at] ufl.edu) if you want to enroll and … Continue reading Courses by Stephen Mulkey on Climate Change at the University of Florida – spring 2021
White guys and aliens
Published on Medium “An invasive species is defined as a species that is: 1) non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration and, 2) whose introduction causes or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” – USDA legal definition “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is … Continue reading White guys and aliens
Burning down the house – global environmental consequences of tyranny in the United States
Published in Medium As a nation we have passed a political tipping point. The effects of decades of divisive rhetoric from right wing media and craven zero-sum political manipulation of race and economics by the GOP will be with us for decades to come. With the election of Trump our nation has been consumed by the negativity of his corruption, denial of science, overt racism, … Continue reading Burning down the house – global environmental consequences of tyranny in the United States
Death taxes and science denial
This is a more recent version of a post that I made in 2017. It seems clear that attacking science never goes out of style (ask Galileo and James Hansen), so I guess it is time to revisit this issue. Indelible in my memory is that day that I lost my political virginity. In March 2007 I was just beginning to deliver an invited talk … Continue reading Death taxes and science denial
The economy of nature and the case for big government
I am an economist. As a professional ecologist I have been trained in the economy of nature. It is only those economists that service the financial industry who treat the human economy as if it is separate from the economy of nature. Since the time of Adam Smith the evidence has been overwhelming that they are tragically wrong. I continue to be impressed by the … Continue reading The economy of nature and the case for big government
Their money and your life - the clarity of climate change and COVID-19
There are several parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, but perhaps the most disturbing is the intentional disregard of the value of human life in favor of money. This is hardly the first time since the end of WWII that money vs. lives has defined our daily lives. From the institutionalized denial of the damage from smoking tobacco, to the utter failure of … Continue reading Their money and your life - the clarity of climate change and COVID-19
The Environmental Century 
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