Tag Archives: Climate Change

Winter Sports — At What Cost?

By Hannah Quinque

Not exact­ly an idyl­lic view: The future of win­ter sports lies in pro­duc­ing arti­fi­cial snow.
Pho­to cred­it: “Ski jump­ing in Ober­st­dorf, Ger­many” by Arne Müse­le

“Hav­ing the World Cup back on U.S. soil is very impor­tant in devel­op­ing the sport of Ski Jump­ing in this coun­try and across the world,” enthus­es one ski jump­ing train­er about the return of the Men’s Ski Jump­ing World Cup to his­tor­i­cal site Lake Placid, NY, after over three decades. As heart-warm­ing as this news may be for North Amer­i­can win­ter sports afi­ciona­dos, it’s hard to feel as opti­mistic about ‘devel­op­ing’ the future of snow sports when cli­mate change is already heav­i­ly impact­ing events even today.

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Native American History Month and Hostile Climates

By Hannah Quinque

The peak of progress and democ­ra­cy? Dził Nchaa Si An or Mount Gra­ham (AZ) is an unmov­able reminder that some are more equal than oth­ers. Pic­ture by Jbpar­rish at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_graham_in_2020.jpg under CC-BY-SA‑4.0.

This arti­cle has been start­ed and scrapped time and time again. An Amer­i­can stud­ies blog should run Native Amer­i­can sto­ries reg­u­lar­ly and most def­i­nite­ly for Native Amer­i­can Her­itage Month this Novem­ber. But then I, the author, am just anoth­er white Euro­pean try­ing to share some­body else’s sto­ries. So here’s what I decid­ed to do: I’ll use this plat­form as a reminder to lis­ten else­where, all year around.

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Nuclear Power and the Road to Ecomodernism

By Levin Schüren

Pho­to Cred­it: “Nuclear Envi­ron­men­tal­ist” by jurvet­son is licensed under

What if a belief you deeply held and one that’s rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed by your entire social cir­cle is actu­al­ly wrong and harm­ful? In the spir­it of my last blog, I want to tell the sto­ry of how I changed my mind on a major issue. The posi­tion I want to chal­lenge is deeply engrained in the DNA of the main­stream envi­ron­men­tal move­ment, espe­cial­ly here in Ger­many: the oppo­si­tion to nuclear power.

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A World Where Science and Indigenous Wisdom Collide: Some Food for Thought on Earth Day

By Savita Joshi

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s pres­ence is mag­net­ic. Step­ping out to the podi­um at the 2014 Bioneers Con­fer­ence – an annu­al forum for top­ics like cli­mate change and human rights – her sil­ver hair hangs loose­ly, fram­ing a pair of leather ear­rings dec­o­rat­ed with small pink flow­ers. She greets the crowd with a large smile, and when she speaks, the room falls silent and the audi­ence lis­tens closely:

“Let us begin today with grat­i­tude … of food to eat, of sweet air to breathe this morn­ing, the pre­cious­ness of water, the com­pan­ion­ship of clouds, and geese, and sug­ar maples. Grat­i­tude for each oth­er, for the priv­i­lege of our work togeth­er, and for the orig­i­nal peo­ples in whose home­land we meet, and for the more-than-human beings with whom we share the earth.”

Please acti­vate javascript to watch the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cumEQcRMY3c

Such poet­ic and ten­der, prayer-like words come as a sur­prise for some when they real­ize that these are the words of a sci­en­tist and professor.

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Divided Country, Divided Family

By Levin Schüren

“Divi­sion” by Nick Youngson

Let’s just stop for a minute and reflect on a polit­i­cal, philo­soph­i­cal, or moral issue you’re wrong about. It ain’t that easy, right? But why not? The chance that you’re right on every top­ic you think and argue about is basi­cal­ly zero. Of course, if you knew you were wrong about some­thing you wouldn’t hold that belief or even preach it. When­ev­er some­body utters an opin­ion we don’t agree with, our minds go: How dare you believe that? Of course, you can shield your­self from such thoughts by avoid­ing opin­ions that dif­fer from yours. How­ev­er, that’s a bad idea. It’s impor­tant to talk to peo­ple, so let me give you some prac­ti­cal advice on how to do it. Espe­cial­ly since the hol­i­days are upon us, you’ll like­ly meet fam­i­ly mem­bers you haven’t seen in a while. So here comes an instruc­tion man­u­al on how to deal with that crazy aunt of yours who wor­ships con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries.  

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Clicks for the Future: Alternative Search Engines Help Students Surf the Web Sustainably

By Janne Wilsdorf and Milica Stanojic

Cred­it: Mable Amber

Look­ing out for fea­si­ble, effec­tive, and easy ways to stop cli­mate change has become an impor­tant goal in our dai­ly lives. As one of the least con­tem­plat­ed mea­sures – believe it or not – surf­ing on the inter­net could con­tribute great­ly to a more sus­tain­able environment.

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