Migration as adaptation

For all of human history, people have migrated in response to environmental changes. Institutional xenophobia, which may have roots in behaviors that could be useful in prehistoric times, currently obstructs migration. Sadly, in a time when standard travel is cheaper and safer than ever, hundreds of people perish each year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in makeshift boats.

Migration is an obvious response to poverty and climate deterioration. Thus, it is good news to see a commentary published in Nature calling for more open borders to ease adaptation to climate change. And it is not authored but some ideologically-driven liberal zealot - as some would probably label me - but by seriously politically-correct members of the UK government, including John R. Beddington. Perhaps times are changing for the good.

Dear taxpayer...

As the U.S. congress grapples for solutions to the economic crisis, it is critical to recognize that rebuilding and modernizing infrastructure will be a key driver of economic growth. [...] Infrastructure investments provide an opportunity to improve the economy in the short term by creating jobs [MF: and more of them if workers use spoons instead of shovels and excavators], while also driving the long-term growth needed to compete in the global marketplace.

Who wrote this? Kathy Caldwell, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers. It is published in Science, and not in the advertisements section.

Dyslexia, color blindness and the challenge of conceptualizing social-ecological systems

Just as some textual and visual materials are unsuitable for the dyslexic or the color blind, Resilience Science art is unsuitable for those of us suffering from dysconceptualdiagramia and flowchartphobia. Even after wiping the tears from my eyes, calming down my trembling and stopping my room from spinning wildly, I fail to make sense of those charts.