jjacquet

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Jennifer Jacquet

I am an American post-doc based at the University of British Columbia, where I also completed my Ph.D.

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September 1, 2010
History repeats itself. Boy does it. This was never more evident than after I finished reading Charles Wohlforth's The Fate of Nature (2010), which has a few ominous chapters dedicated to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Wohlforth was a journalist who covered the spill in the field and after reading…
August 11, 2010
Let's briefly compare the Exxon and BP spills. Exxon oil estimated to have spilled into Prince William Sound: 11 million gallons BP oil estimated to have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico: 172 million gallons So when we talk about how BP's Oil Spill Bill Could Dwarf Exxon's Valdez Tab we should…
August 9, 2010
Read an interview I did with Mongabay about the Gulf Oil spill more than a week ago (apologies for the lag time). Also watch for a comparison of the Exxon Valdez and Gulf oil spills coming soon...
July 28, 2010
In a humble effort at citizen journalism, we went around New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf asking people what they thought of the BP oil spill. Most of victims don't have voices, but here is what a few of the humans thought (they wrote down their opinions or, on occasion, dictated it to us…
July 20, 2010
BP says oil flow has stopped as cap is tested, although we're not sure when there will be a permanent solution. But even if they manage to stop the oil, can BP stop the hate? Many people are certainly angry at BP. The Facebook Boycott BP page had 350,000 followers in early June and is now up…
July 15, 2010
In the French Quarter of NOLA, shirts about the spill are a hot item. Here are a few favorites around town. For more, check out our Flickr set devoted to oil spill t-shirts.
July 13, 2010
"The bucketheads are here," Jeff Holmes radioed back to his camp in Grand Bayou Village, a totally bizarre and charming outcropping of homes built on salt marshes that Holmes is worried will disintegrate under a thin but suffocating blanket of oil that is creeping up the bayou. That is, in part,…
July 12, 2010
Even before I knew what it was, I never wanted a blog, because I didn't like how the word sounds. Similarly, the term scibling (which refers to bloggers on scienceblogs.com) always creeped me out. And yet, here I find myself, a scibling and a blogger for more than three years in SEED's network…
July 10, 2010
Tonight we made our way to Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter to witness the New Orleans gathering of Worldwide Protest BP Day. The drizzling weather probably served to separate the men from the boys, as they say, and so good intentions and half-baked messages ran high (see photos from the…
July 9, 2010
Here is the dead wildlife tally as of yesterday: As you can see, birds are hit hardest (or most often discovered). So we headed to the International Bird Rescue's Buras, LA operation, where they take many of the oiled pelicans, gulls, and terns. Most of the birds spend 2-3 weeks in recovery and…
July 8, 2010
Who: BP, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (owned by Transocean but leased to BP), and Haliburton (responsible for plugging holes in the pipeline). What: The largest offshore spill in U.S. history. The numbers are fuzzy but estimates are somewhere between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day.…
July 7, 2010
Jessie and I made a beeline for New Orleans. We stopped only for gas and a night's rest. In Pachuta, Mississippi, we couldn't resist photographing this sign at a gas station (not BP -- we won't be stopping at BP):
July 7, 2010
President Obama called it "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced." So I thought I should face it and head to the Gulf. With me is Jessie Lozier, who I have known all of her 18 years (here we are in 1998 and today at our hotel in the French Quarter). As a future biologist and…
June 27, 2010
Almost every hour I receive some new piece of information that I want to write about on this blog. And yet, as you'll notice, the posts are spotty. The truth is, there is simply too much to criticize. Just consider the oceans this week. The IWC met to discuss whether to reopen commercial whaling…
June 23, 2010
This month, the U.S. Justice Department opened criminal and civil investigations into the BP oil spill. Will BP executives go to jail? The Times has a nice piece on the potential 3-15 years BP executives could serve, suggesting that mid to senior-level managers at BP are most at risk of criminal…
May 25, 2010
It is nice to see science and art getting along. The World Science Festival's event Eye Candy demonstrates how science can help us understand some of our notions of beauty. Art is equally useful to science, especially to scientists who envy the artist's ability to parlay an idea into something…
May 25, 2010
Jennifer Jacquet joins us from Guilty Planet. Jennifer is a postdoctoral research fellow working with the Sea Around Us Project at the UBC Fisheries Centre. It is nice to see science and art getting along. The World Science Festival's event Eye Candy demonstrates how science can help us understand…
May 23, 2010
Since it's Sunday and a week since I last blogged (forgive me Father, for I have sinned...), I thought I would keep on the church theme. No nunchuks this week (not even this kind), but I did want to share a study on how money is collected in churches can affect giving. Economist Adriaan Soetevent…
May 16, 2010
I photographed this sign recently at a church in Cincinnati, Ohio:
May 15, 2010
The people my mom works with wanted to know what I thought of the oil spill. Are there alternatives to: it's a catastrophe? In America, land of nutbags, there are always alternatives. Texas Governor Rick Perry called it an 'act of God' (BP has amassed almost as much power). But really, there…
May 2, 2010
It takes only one rogue in a million to wipe out a geoduck population, which becomes obvious in Craig Welch's newest book Shell Games. The illegal geoduck trade in the Puget Sound and the wildlife officers who track them make for an action packed story that brings the otherwise humble shellfish…
April 21, 2010
Here at Guilty Planet, every day is Earth Day. So on Earth Day, I thought it might be fun to check out a few self-proclaimed eco-friendly products (the Rainforest Action Network also has a take on corporate Earth Day sponsorship). How about HINT water. I think I've seen it sold in Starbucks.…
April 18, 2010
Sometimes, something makes you stop and give pause to modernity. Or humanity. Or both. I have had a few such moments lately, like when I saw one of these Mobile Gyms in Vancouver for the first time the other day. Talk about a band-aid on a bullet wound: And then I came across a book to read so…
April 8, 2010
You know it's been a while when you've forgotten your log in information for your blog. My habitual apologies for the long silence. A lot has happened lately so let's get to it: --CITES a Bust for Marine Life (Mar. 25): At the CITES meetings held in late March in Doha, there were winners and…
March 18, 2010
The UN has rejected the proposal that Atlantic bluefin tuna be listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, which is currently in session. CITES regulates the international trade of threatened species. All imports, exports and re-exports of species included in…
March 15, 2010
Bluewashing, a phenomenon I first described in this article about Al Gore getting hammered for eating sea bass, has made it in Schott's Vocab at the New York Times. The confusion involved in seafood consumer campaigns was also recently highlighted by Marc -- Mental Masala at The Ethicurean and…
March 5, 2010
In addition to their notorious beauty, there could be another reason to mail-order a Russian bride. In a study that compared donations to a public goods game by Russian and Italian men and women, Russian females were constantly and, more interesting, increasingly cooperative. The experiment…
February 27, 2010
So much of what the scientists do is less relevant than it could be. This was the motivation behind the theme at the 2010 AAAS annual meeting, Bridging Science and Society. Our panel discussed non-regulatory means of enhancing cooperation - namely through reputation and shame. Ralf Sommerfeld, a…
February 19, 2010
The jellyfish burger digital artist Dave Beck and I created has won an honorable mention award in the illustration section the National Science Foundation Visualization Challenge and was also featured in the New York Times. Watch for the rubbery future of seafood coming to this week's issue of…
February 15, 2010
Vertical agitation meets shame in Fish2Fork, a new seafood conservation effort led by Charles Clover (author of End of the Line), which seeks to highlight which restaurants are best and worst when it comes to the seafood they sell. The focus on restaurants is a great move and I particularly like…