Category Archives: Economics

Green port policies yield big decreases in the ecological footprint of shipping

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Chris Jensen

National Geographic “California Ports Go Green” This is a nice infographic showing that changes in policy can have a big impact on the sustainability of commerce. It is amazing how much efficiency improvements can lower ecological impacts.

Posted in A Minor Post, Articles, Economics, Information Design, Public Policy, Sustainable Transportation | Leave a comment

Freakonomics takes the quantitative knife to how we produce and consume food

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Freakonomics Radio “You Eat What You Are” This piece delivers a much needed kick in the self-righteous pants to the locavore movement. It systematically disassembles the assumptions of the local food movement, ending by discussing the minimal quantitative ecological benefits … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Belief, Carrying Capacity, Climate Change, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Ecological Footprinting, Economics, Ethics, Food, Greenwashing, Hunger, Hypothesis Testing, Life Cycle Analysis, Philosophy, Population Growth, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Radio & Podcasts, Resource Consumption, Subsistence, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Vegetarianism | Leave a comment

Want to know where the Presidential candidates stand on science? There’s a site for that!

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Science Debate dot org “The Top American Science Questions: 2012“

Posted in A Minor Post, Astronomy, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Food, Grants & Funding, Health & Medicine, Marine Ecosystems, Political Science, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Science (General), Space Travel, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Energy, Web | Leave a comment

Rob Nixon on Rachel Carson’s prescience

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Chris Jensen

The Chronicle of Higher Education “Rachel Carson’s Prescience“

Posted in A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Articles, Biodiversity Loss, Biography, Climate Change, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Economics, Environmental Justice, Habitat Destruction, Marine Ecosystems, Political Science, Pollution, Public Policy | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

David Sloan Wilson on Ayn Rand and the delusion of a world without tradeoffs

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Chris Jensen

The Huffington Post “Ayn Rand and Modern Politics” What I really appreciate about this post is its very simple brand of analysis. It asks a simple question and employs a clear methodology to objectively understand a phenomenon (in this case, … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Behavior, Belief, Carrying Capacity, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Ethics, Game Theory, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Social Norms, System Stability, Web | Leave a comment

Can neuroeconomics help economics become a real science?

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Chris Jensen

The Chronicle of Higher Education “The Marketplace in Your Brain” I think that this article suggests that much of economics is not much of a science. Faced with new information, mainstream economics has failed to update its models of how … Continue reading →

Posted in A Minor Post, Belief, Economics, Emotion, Evolutionary Psychology, Game Theory, Neuroscience, Psychological Adaptation, Psychology, Religion, Social Networks, Social Norms | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Some conservatives actually see the public health and economic dilemmas posed by greenhouse gas emissions

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Chris Jensen

All Things Considered “New Groups Make A Conservative Argument On Climate Change“

Posted in A Minor Post, Climate Change, Economics, Political Science, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts | Leave a comment

Preview of my ESA 2012 poster promoting the Evolution of Sustainable Use activity

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Chris Jensen

This year I am proud to be returning to the Ecological Society of America annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. I missed last year’s meeting and I am excited to be overwhelmed by all the amazing scholarship that is on display at … Continue reading →

Posted in A Major Post, Biodiversity Loss, Carrying Capacity, Conferences, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ecological Modeling, Ecological Society of America, Ecology, Ecology Education, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Food, Group Selection, Marine Ecosystems, Population Growth, Population Pressure, Predation, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, System Stability, Teaching Tools, The Evolution of Sustainable Use | Leave a comment

Understanding the role of the Templeton Foundation in funding evolutionary biology research

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Back in March, David Barash used his regular column in the Chronicle of Higher Education to unveil “The Truth about the Temple of Templeton“. Reacting to an increasingly-large funding stream coming out of the Templeton Foundation, Barash questions whether receiving money … Continue reading →

Posted in A Major Post, Articles, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Evolution, Grants & Funding, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Religion | Leave a comment

Economic Whales and their Parasites

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Today’s New York Times Business section features an interesting article on the recent JPMorgan multi-billion loss. Entitled “The Hunch, the Pounce and the Kill: How Boaz Weinstein and Hedge Funds Outsmarted JPMorgan“, the article explains how a risk-prone hedge fund … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Economic sustainability, Economics, Ethics, Parasitism, Public Policy, Social Capital, System Stability | Leave a comment

Is the European Union going rogue or playing altruist on airline emissions?

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Chris Jensen

Contrails captured by NASA scientist Louis Ngyyen Global carbon emissions continue to increase, threatening future generations with catastrophic climate change. And while most of the world agrees that something needs to be done to curb our carbon emissions, several decades … Continue reading →

Posted in Altruism, Articles, Climate Change, Cooperation, Economics, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Pollution, Public Policy, Punishment, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainability, Web | Leave a comment

HOME, a documentary about the impacted Biosphere

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Chris Jensen

I just watched the video Home, a production of Yann Arthus-Bertrand and his Good Planet Foundation. Composed solely of high-quality panoramic images intensified by a soaring new-age soundtrack, the film provides viewers with a fairly comprehensive overview of the earth’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Carrying Capacity, Climate Change, Ecology, Ecology Education, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Extinction, Film & Television, Food, Freshwater Ecosystems, Hunger, Mangrove Forests, Marine Ecosystems, MSCI-270, Ecology, Pollution, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, System Stability, Taiga (Boreal Forest), Temperate Forest, Terrestrial, Tropical Forest, Tundra, Vegetarianism, Water Supply | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Is humanity’s most dangerous technology debt?

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Chris Jensen

If there is a theme running through my diverse interests, it is stability. For those who understand how ecological systems and evolutionary processes work, this should be entirely unsurprising: the living systems that persist today are those that are stable … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Economics, Ethics, Human Evolution, Memetic Fitness, Reciprocity | Leave a comment

National Geographic “Can China go green?”

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Chris Jensen

Bill McKibben has a feature article in this month’s National Geographic entitled “Can China go green?“.The article discusses how the rapid growth of the Chinese economy presents both great environmental risks and great environmental opportunities. Although McKibben is a well-known … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Economics, Environmental Justice, Political Science, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Easy-IPD version 1.0 released!

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Chris Jensen

After a full semester of development, including a round of in-classroom testing with real live Pratt undergraduates, I am proud to announce the release of the Easy Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (Easy-IPD) interface, a free web-based teaching tool that allows students … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperation, Easy Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, Economics, Evolution Education, Game Theory, Political Science, Reciprocity, Sociology, Teaching Tools | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments