In the November of 1859, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published, thus changing the way natural scientists viewed the world forever. In this text, Darwin describes the idea of descent with modification and brilliantly illustrates the concept of natural selection: The gradual process by which heritable traits express themselves, if at all,…

The future of energy in the United States is a testy topic these days. Politicians, industry officials and special interests are fighting over partisan policy proposals. All actors are fully engaged in the art of hyperbolic mouth breathing — depraved political theater at its finest. The Obama administration wants to build a legacy of environmental stewardship and energy…

On Saturday, January 17, the Yellow Stone River, perhaps the most celebrated aquatic system in North America, was heavily contaminated by nearly 1200 barrels of oil. Al Jazeera America reports the leak’s environmental damage stretches from the river to surrounding farmland in Glendive, Montana. Particularly, the report tells the story of Dena Hoff, now experiencing…

The Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) has named Grant A. Mincy its first Elinor Ostrom Chair in Environmental Studies and Commons Governance. Mincy holds a chair on the Energy & Environment Advisory Council for the Our America Initiative and an Associate editor of the Molinari Review. He earned his Masters degree in Earth and…

Economist, political scientist, game theorist, professor, co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, detailed researcher, scholar of polycentric institutional systems, and Nobel Prize winner: Elinor Ostrom. The Elinor Ostrom Chair in Environmental Studies and Commons Governance is the fourth academic position created by the Trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society. Each…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Grant A. Mincy‘s “Climate Action: Stand on the Ashes of Power” read by Erick Vasconcelos and edited by Nick Ford. The US Department of Defense is the nation’s single largest consumer of fossil fuels. From arms production to the grand machines of war, the military emits more greenhouse gas than any other state institution….

C4SS Feed 44 presents Grant Mincy‘s “Political Governance and Natural Boundaries” read by Christopher King and edited by Nick Ford. What is imperiling the desert is human domination of the landscape. Planning, zoning and development ultimately seek economic growth. There are of course guidelines and restrictions, town hall meetings and financial statements, but at the end of…

In un suo recente intervento al vertice sul clima delle Nazioni Unite, Barack Obama ha spronato le nazioni della terra a collaborare per affrontare il problema dei cambiamenti climatici antropogenici. Obama ha rassicurato i politici presenti che gli “Stati Uniti d’America si stanno dando una mossa” e che noi (collettivamente) “ci assumiamo la responsabilità” di…

C4SS Feed 44 presents Grant Mincy‘s “Another Top-Down Disaster” read and edited by Nick Ford. In the short term, our current institutions will work with residents to try to ameliorate the crisis, but what about the long term? How can we work to ensure these 400,000 are not left without potable water again? There will be a…

In recent comments at the United Nations Climate Summit, US president Barack Obama espoused an urgent need for all the nations of Earth to work together and engage anthropogenic climate change. Obama ensured his peers in attendance that the “United States of America is stepping up to the plate” and that (the collective) we “embrace our responsibility” to…

The vast Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest lies in the political territories of California and Arizona and reaches south into Mexico. Its arid landscape is home to human industry and a complex ecosystem full of unique flora and fauna, mesas, canyons, arched rocks and other processes of deep time. It is thus governed by two competing forces: Political…

Another water crisis is making national headlines. This time ground zero is in the mid-west. More than 400,000 people in and around Toledo, Ohio cannot drink water from their taps due to high levels of the dangerous toxin microcystin in the public drinking supply. The cause of this disaster is particularly concerning, however, as it is not the…

We live in a time of precipitous biodiversity loss, on course to yield the sixth great extinction. In such a time there should be high priority placed on protecting biodiversity. Instead of curbing habitat loss, the leading cause of extinction, however, the Chinese government actively pursues it. In the rich bioregion of central China, home to numerous species of endemic…

As a boy in the southeast African nation of Malawi, William Kamkwamba harnessed the wind.  In 2002, drought and famine — common problems in one of the world’s least-developed countries — forced the boy and his family to forage for food and water as thousands starved. Kamkwamba, however, knew if he could build a windmill…

The environment, specifically climate change, is recieving some much deserved attention as of late. Discussion of climate change is healthy and necessary, but it seems the politico-media complex exclusively discusses climate, leaving other urgent crises to fall under the radar. One such crisis is Earth’s impending sixth mass extinction. We live in a time of precipitous biodiversity loss — on…

Of all the complex wicked problems facing the biosphere today perhaps the most contentious, and ultimately the most important, is climate change. A new paper in Geophysical Research Letters  from lead author Eric Rignot at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory adds to the already substantial body of evidence that climate change poses an immediate threat to human civilization. The study notes that due…

Gli Stati Uniti hanno una storia variegata con l’ambientalismo. Gli americani sono sempre stati orgogliosi del loro retaggio ambientale. Il conservazionismo di fine ottocento, promosso da persone come John Muir, diede origine ad istituzioni civiche, pubbliche e private dedicate alla conservazione dell’ambiente. La rivoluzione industriale, però, accoppiata all’ascesa del capitalismo moderno, il New Deal e…

Os Estados Unidos têm uma história inconsistente com o ambientalismo. Os americanos sempre tiveram orgulho de sua herança natural. O movimento de conservação dos anos 1890, liderado por John Muir e outros, deu origem a instituições cívicas, públicas e privadas dedicadas à proteção da natureza. A revolução industrial, porém, em conjunto com o advento do…

The United States has a varied history with environmentalism. Americans have always taken pride in their natural heritage. The conservation movement of the 1890s, championed by the likes of John Muir, gave rise to civic, public and private sector institutions dedicated to conservation. The industrial revolution, however, coupled with the rise of modern capitalism, the…

In this age of the Anthropocene natural resource management is incredibly important. There currently exists a true human dominance over the biosphere. This dominance effects a range of topics from human health to the politics we address. Our dominance raises an important question: How, and perhaps more importantly, by whom, did this dominance arise and how,…