Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

Eco-Performance Lab during Pratt’s 2019 Green Week the first step of “To the Core of Me”

Posted 17 Mar 2019 / 0

As I have posted before, I am lucky to be involved in a new STEAMplant project entitled “To the Core of Me: A Hike-Play“. I have begun my collaboration with Sirovich Family Resident Jeremy Pickard (@jeremy_pickard) and my Pratt colleague, anthropologist Jennifer Telesca, and we are excited to announce the first outward-facing step of the Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Climate Change, Ecology, Pratt Institute, STEAMplant, Sustainable Pratt

Alan Rabinowitz, 1953-2018

Posted 07 Aug 2018 / 0

Photo of Alan Rabinowitz speaking in 2010 courtesy of Kris Krüg via Wikimedia Commons It was with great sadness that I learned that Alan Rabinowitz died of cancer on August 5th. There’s a great tribute to him on the National Geographic site: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/alan-rabinowitz-big-cat-champion-news/ A Brooklyn-born kid who used frequent Bronx Zoo visits to overcome a severe stuttering Read More

A Minor Post, Activism, Conservation Biology, Felids, Obituary, Population Genetics, Web

Interdisciplinary artist Ellie Irons to speak at Pratt Institute on November 9th

Posted 20 Oct 2017 / 0

I am very excited to announce that artist Ellie Irons will speak at Pratt Institute on November 9th, 2017 at 6 pm in ARC Building Room E-02. Her talk is entitled Public Fieldwork & Weedy Resistance: Practicing Social-Ecological Art in the (so-called) Anthropocene and will provide a tour of her diverse individual and collaborative works of Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Adaptation, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Commensalism, Community Ecology, Competition, Department of Mathematics & Science, Ecological Restoration, Ecology, Ecosystem Services, Grasslands, Habitat Destruction, Habitat Fragmentation, Invasive Species, Mutualism, Pollination, Pollution, Pratt Academic Senate, Public Art, Public Outreach, Resilience, Science in Art & Design, Sustainability, Sustainable Urban Design, Temperate Forest, Urban Ecology, Urban Planning

Green Week 2017 opens at Pratt Institute

Posted 24 Mar 2017 / 0

Pratt Institute’s Green Week, a celebration of sustainability, starts tomorrow! I am excited to be working with my colleague Andy Todd to bring Dr. Roland Kays, a wildlife biologist who specializes in the use of camera traps, to Pratt’s campus for Green Week. You can read more about Dr. Kays’ visit here. To learn more Read More

A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Art & Design, Center for Sustainable Design Studies, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Ecology Education, Envirolutions, Environmental Justice, Pratt Institute, Public Policy, Sustainability, Sustainable Pratt

What “rolling coal” has to say about the cultural state of sustainability efforts

Posted 05 Dec 2016 / 0

Image of a Ford F-150 “rolling coal” courtesy of Salvatore Arnone via Wikimedia Commons. In a recent meeting of my Ecology course dedicated to sustainable policies, we were discussing why people don’t choose to adopt sustainable technologies. I think that the question was asked under the assumption that people want to be more sustainable, but face financial Read More

A Minor Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Behavior, Belief, Climate Change, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economic sustainability, Economics, Environmental Justice, Memetic Fitness, Pollution, Public Policy, Punishment, Social Dilemmas, Social Diversity, Social Norms, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Transportation, System Stability

Wars on climate change versus revolutions to address climate change

Posted 31 Oct 2016 / 0

The New York Times “We Don’t Need a ‘War’ on Climate Change, We Need a Revolution” I am excited about this opinion piece by my friend and colleague Eric S. Godoy. He and his co-author Aaron Jaffe are absolutely right: as much as we might “fight” to “capture” the right metaphor for the “battle” against climate Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Climate Change, Cooperation, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution, Mismatch theory, Philosophy, Public Outreach, Public Policy, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Social Dilemmas

An inspiring summit, but big challenges at home and afar…

Posted 22 Oct 2016 / 0

A still of Josh Fox in Beijing from his newest documentary, How to Let Go of the World. All in all it was an ambitious evening. I am not sure of how it came that Pratt was able to host a visit from Josh Fox, documentary filmmaker, after a screening of his newest movie How to Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Cultural Evolution, Envirolutions, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Film & Video, Film, Television, & Video, Population Pressure, Pratt Institute, Public Outreach, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy, Talks & Seminars

Sustainability Summit at Pratt Institute featuring Josh Fox

Posted 18 Oct 2016 / 0

I am excited to be one of the Pratt faculty members who will be on hand at the first annual Sustainability Summit sponsored by the Student Government Association and Envirolutions club. The Summit takes place this Thursday (October 20th, 2016) from 5:30-10 pm in Higgins Hall Auditorium. There will be a screening of the Josh Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Anthropogenic Change, Envirolutions, Pratt Institute, Public Outreach, Sustainability

America Society of Primatologists condemns H. A. and Margret Rey, calls for Curious George boycott

Posted 01 Apr 2016 / 2

Curious George and his cooperative partner The Man in the Yellow Hat are widely loved by naive children In a scathing press release disseminated today, the American Society of Primatologists (ASP) condemned the work of the children’s author/artist duo Margret and H.A. Rey on their famous Curious George series. At issue are the frequent allusions to George Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Behavior, Cooperation, Empathy, Evolution, Fluidity of Knowledge, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Human Evolution, Phylogenetics, Primates, Primatology, Professional Societies, Reciprocity

Alternative music legend Morrissey agrees to adopt 2 million feral cats in win-win for felines, Australian native fauna

Posted 01 Apr 2016 / 1

After criticizing the Australian government’s plan to cull feral felines last September, legendary vocalist Morrissey has agreed save the cats by adopting all two million of them. Australia’s plan to get rid of the invasive felines was motivated by studies showing that feral cats have already caused “the extinction of some ground-dwelling birds and small to medium-sized Read More

A Major Post, Activism, Belief, Biodiversity Loss, Conservation Biology, Ethics, Felids, Invasive Species, Predation, Sustainability, Urban Ecology