Blog
Interspecies Vision Design Lab at the California Academy of Sciences’ NightLife series
This Thursday, November 2, 2017, from 6-10pm, I'm very pleased to be presenting my work on interspecies seeing at the California Academy of Sciences. Their NightLife series, where the CAS becomes a 21+ venue for cocktail-fueled science, exhibits cutting-edge hands-on...
A Systems Approach to Dysfunction
One of the things that resonates the most about systems theory, is that it focuses on how different pieces of large puzzles interrelate and interlock. For, it is the inter aspect that gives phenomena movement, gusto, dynamism, spark. Speaking of things, essences,...
A new review for our edited volume, The Greening of Everyday Life
The 2016 Oxford University Press book The Greening of Everyday Life: Challenging Practices, Imagining Possibilities I contributed a chapter to on "Bicycling and the Politics of Recognition," has received a kind review from environmental philosopher Robert Paehlke....
Database of Industry Documents Databases
In an ongoing effort to compile the corruption of science and politics by short-sighted, manipulative industries, I am beginning to list the sites that document industrial epidemics. Enjoy! CLIMATE http://climateinvestigations.org http://www.climatefiles.com MONSANTO...
Irma
A good friend of mine, from Austria of all places, found herself in Miami amongst the evacuations. She posted to Facebook: Thank you everyone for your sweet messages! Yes - I am still in Miami and not sure if I have a chance to leave before the hurricane hits...
Upcoming UCSF Cancer Center talk
CANCER CENTER TOBACCO CONTROL PROGRAM SEMINAR Does the Tobacco Industry have its own Endgame? The pharmaceuticalization of the tobacco industry and implications for public health Yogi Hale Hendlin, PhD Tuesday, September 26, 2017, 3:00 – 4:30 pm CTCRE, Kalmanovitz...
Owning Life versus Thwarting the Hygiene Hypothesis
With such a provocative title as "Pet Ownership Protects Us Against Allergies," UCSF's Dr. Homer Boushey makes the claim that children brought up with pets inherit some of their protective microbes that mitigate against developing allergies. ...
Zero-Waste
Because we currently live in a throw-away economy, with devastating impacts on our psychology, social relationships, health, and environment, evolving away from this paradigm is paramount for our survival. The invention of cheap plastics in the 1950s seemed like a...
ExxonMobile Responds to Hurricane Harvey
Cognitive dissonance is a phenomena common amongst human beings who want to have their cake and eat it too. It comes from a willing ignorance to repress and suppress the world's inconvenient truths and hold onto the frame (or fairytale) one inhabits (or chooses) with...
Everybody loves postdocs
Although many young academics rightfully complain of being used for their expertise while failing to receive either the remuneration or job security fitting to their contribution, it is always humorous to hear statements that openly admit this unspoken condition. Upon...
Charlottesville is just around the corner
In wake of the recent racially-motivated and anti-woman murder and maimings in Charlottesville, I've written a Medium article "Charlottesville is just around the corner" about the projected invasion of San Francisco and Berkeley this weekend by neo-Nazis and their...
US Misinformation Translation Guide
To cut through the very successful and rhetorically effective branding by fascists, I've developed a handy guide (to be expanded): (Alt-Fact) vs. (Brutal Reality) "Alt-Right" = NeoNazi "Snowflake" = Not interested in dehumanizing people; not completely numbed yet...
New paper published in Annals of Internal Medicine picked up by Reuters
Today, with co-authors Pamela M. Ling and Jesse Elias, our paper "The Pharmaceuticalization of the Tobacco Industry" appears in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Our interview with Reuters is available here. This work contributes to the study of industrial epidemics,...
The Philosophical Salon
A recent article I wrote for The Philosophical Salon can be found here. Titled "Not an Era for Apologetics," it looks at the systematic bullying of university students by alt-right pseudo-intellectuals, and the reinforcement of hegemonic discourse in the university...
97% of Mammalian biomass is human controlled
Monopolizing outdoor air
Dear Europe, It's been a lovely trip. We hiked in the Austrian Alps, swam in the Baltic sea, and enjoyed the joyful chaos of Fête de la Musique in Berlin. Despite these beguiling adventures, I remain puzzled. You seem to have given a full monopoly of clear outdoor air...
Chapter in Michael Marder’s Grafts
In case you missed it, a chapter in Michael Marder's Minnesota Press book Grafts on plant philosophy contains a short piece we wrote together.
Biosemiotic Ethics special issue of ZfS
I'm happy to announce that the Biosemiotic Ethics special issue in the Zeitschrift für Semiotik I co-edited with Morten Tønnessen and Jonathan Beever has come out. It's got the great semiotician John Deeley's last article in it he wrote before passing, and we...
Speaking at the Creative Edge Conference
I'm honored to be presenting on "The Ecological Self: Harnessing the Power of Our Interspecies Nature for Good" alongside Flow author and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi this Saturday, May 13th 2017 at the Creative Edge Conference organized by West LA College....
Taste of Science tonight
Tonight at the San Francisco Taste of Science Festival, I'll be giving a talk on "The effects of pollution on organism signaling and human health" at the San Francisco: Climate Change evening. Thursday, April 27, 2017 7:30pm 9:30pm TechShop Gallery910 Howard...
Bernie Sanders is bandwagoning on Ann Coulter Berkeley Debacle
Vermont US Senator Bernie Sanders' remarks calling for UC Berkeley to go ahead and permit the alt-right darling Ann Coulter speak despite the recent violence of neonazis descending on Berkeley and harming local citizens have been spread across the internet by...
For an Earth Free of Tobacco Waste
Here's a guest blog post I did on the US Action on Smoking and Health website for Earth Day, titled "For an Earth Free of Tobacco Waste." This work came out of the World Health Organization (WHO) chapter I wrote in the forthcoming The Environmental Impacts of Tobacco...
The Irony of UC Priorities
Irony: UCSF sends employees an email warning of the thousands of people descending on Golden Gate Park to celebrate the annual 4/20 Cheech and Chong-inspired marijuana fest, but UC Berkeley sends out no notice to its employees and students that hundreds of violent...
The Limits to Magical Thinking
Philip K. Dick once wrote: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" ("How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later", 1978). It is so tempting, as academics, activists, or advertisers, to want to believe in a purely...
Taste of Science SF
For those in the San Francisco bay area, I will be giving a 15-minute presentation Thursday April 27th 7:30-9:30pm at the TechShop on “The effects of pollution on organism signaling and human health.” TechShop 926 Howard Street San Francisco California 94103 Taste of...
Music and Preventative Medicine
In UCSF's local online news source Synapse, I have an article about why its a good idea for preventative medicine not to axe the Chancellor's Concert Series here.
Learning from Science in an Age of Marketing
"It was widely believed thalidomide would be useful to control morning sickness. It did – but it did other things, too. We need evidence, but unregulated marketing does not help us get needed data." --A colleague at UCSF The epidemic of reductionism that has swept...
Truth and Facts in an Extramoral Sense
Today at UCSF, I had the chance to hear Michael Specter deliver the 2017 Chauncey D. Leake Lecture: "Do Facts Still Matter? And What Does It Mean If They Don't?" It brought out all of San Francisco's good liberals, concerned about Trump's anti-science anti-fact...
Not My Problem
I've been seeing on social media a new meme, which I had already been thinking about for sometime. I found it compelling, because it is true: the virtue of solidarity is lost on Americans. Unlike a more communal society that is of the belief that we cannot truly...
Upcoming Talk in Berkeley at Terra’s Temple
I'm excited to share my research interests with a more diverse audience February 19th at Terra's Temple, an earth-based spirituality center and place of dedicated practice in Berkeley. This translation process of academic research into practical knowledge is precisely...
Presentation at COLEF
Last Tuesday evening, November 29, 2016, I had the honor to present at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF), in Tijuana, Mexico. Through UCSD's Interdisciplinary Forum on Environmental Research supported by the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at...
Standing Rock
Well, I'm heading off to Standing Rock to spend Thanksgiving with the Native Americans of North America. The indigenous Water Protectors of Standing Rock have taken an unprecedented stand against the corporate interests of fossil fuel industries and their financiers....
Philosophy of the City Conference
This week in San Francisco, I'll be presenting at the Philosophy of the City Conference November 17-19 on November 17th at 4pm on "The Limits of the Automobile City." My talk, alongside the "Extending the Land Ethic" National Endowment of the Humanities Summer...
An Obituary for Douglas Tompkins
Douglas Tompkins (1943-2015) was a mountaineer, Deep Ecologist, conservation activist, lover of nature, and textile entrepreneur, founder of Esprit and North Face. A footloose entrepreneur turned activist, after starting two global clothing brands, Tompkins renounced...
Bioneers 2016
This is the first time since I moved back to California last November that I've been able to engage a world-class group of scholars and change-makers gathered together with the sole purpose of harmonizing human systems with natural ones. Last weekend at the...
Ensemblist Identities and the Ecological Self
I'll be presenting October 5, 2016, 6:30-8:30pm at the California Institute of Integral Studies on the book I'm working on, Interspecies Politics. The presentation, "Ensemblist Identities and the Ecological Self" is part of my larger project of decentering...