Jennifer Jacquet
I am an American post-doc based at the University of British Columbia, where I also completed my Ph.D.
jjacquet
Posts by this author
I have decided to add a new category on greenwashing. It's so prolific, we simply must have some displayed here on Guilty Planet. I am in favor of companies doing the right thing and I imagine that Nature's Path is up there as earth-friendly business models go. But I am worried about the…
This is a new trash can in the Environmental Sciences building at Western Washington University. I like the "landfill" label.
Myopic spot-prawn lovers might not like the idea of closing some of the oceans to fishing, but California is creating a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) along its coast for one simple reason -- MPAs work. Research by Callum Roberts et al. (2001) published in Science found:
a network of five…
In North America, we have thick plastic yogurt containers (come to think of it, we have thick yogurt, too) that one could use over and over and over again (except almost no one does). I don't understand why we don't do it like they do in the UK, where they have these really thin plastic containers…
A classically held anthropological view is that "shame results from a public exposure of some impropriety or shortcoming whereas guilt results from more private events."
I concur with the anthropological notion that shame is the more public emotion (and also, that shame is likely a more primitive…
My former supervisor/now boss (and OG of overfishing) has a piece out in The New Republic with the wonderfully garish title of Aquacalypse Now. He explains how the fishing industry can contribute a minuscule amount to the GDP of advanced economies -- less than hair salons -- and yet manage to…
Greenpeace International is creating a series of animated films to generate interest in their global marine reserves campaign. I like the commentary on technological efficiency, especially the bit about the "ice and dice aerial trawler", in their first piece. See what you think:
There is a reason people are pushing for increased marine protected areas (which currently protect less than 0.1% -- yes, that decimal place is supposed to be there -- of our ocean from fishing). MPAs work. That's why in California they passed legislation ten years ago to create an underwater…
In NewScientist today, there is a little article that describes the different types of carbon offsets you can purchase. It's not too informative and I much prefer articles with a little more of a critical eye, such as this 2007 piece in BusinessWeek or this piece from the NYTimes blog on confusing…
I am traveling in Panama (have been for the last couple weeks, hence the sparse blogposts) as a post-dissertation vacation. I started at Bocas del Toro, which several friends of mine recommended. Despite being somewhat hard to get to, Bocas is overrun with tourism and is thus overrun with…
A lot of people who don't want to feel guilty about eating seafood will look for the MSC logo. The MSC (or Marine Stewardship Council) supposedly certifies sustainable fisheries. They aim to reward good fisheries management by providing access to niche markets (the same markets concerned with…
Style and substance. When it comes to communicating, that's what matters. This is the central premise of Randy Olson's new book Don't Be Such a Scientist. It might be the central premise of existence.
To understand this book, you have to understand Randy Olson, so the book is part advice, part…
Check out this BBC article on the new jellies discovered from a scientific expedition to the Arctic. This new jelly looks like some sort of catering device for bacon strips or mango slices -- depending on your appetite:
Meat production is hard on the environment and slaughterhouses are hard on our sensibilities. Imagine if we could grow meat in a laboratory, outside an animal, and fashion it into a nicely shaped cow ready for carving -- all with less energy and no suffering. We're almost there. Lee Billings…
The test is simple: read this sign (recently photographed at my local Vancouver market, which is owned by Whole Foods) then gauge your response...
"Shrinking fish size at Tsukiji sign of trouble; Japan rethinking need for fish management at home" -- this is the headline of a recent article at seafood.com. Tsukiji is the world's largest fish market. Located in Tokyo, Japan, it spans 43 football fields and feeds the nation's seafood demand (…
I know it sounds a bit like the Onion headline "New Starbucks Opens In Rest Room Of Existing Starbucks" but it's true: after more than a century of absence, scientists recently discovered wild young Atlantic salmon in New York's Salmon River. The Salmon River, as its name implies, once hosted an…
It seems people prefer flaunting their greenness to hiding it. If that's true, then companies should make their eco-friendly products distinguishable from their conventional (earth destroying) ones.
In their book Nudge, authors Thaler and Sunstein point out that part of the reason for the Toyota…
A friend wanted me to see this public service announcement, which is an excellent visual display of quantitative information and a good way to provoke guilt:
When he sent me the link, he routed me through this awesome blog called Information Aesthetics that has been around since 2004 (where have…
I don't know if there is actually a new focus on ocean conservation, as is declared by the New York Times Green Inc. blog title (but not really the post), or if we just want there to be (I know I do). And while it might be true that "the most growth in protected areas has occurred in the ocean" --…
It's an New York Times oldie but goodie and I think one of the best graphics I've seen: savings versus debt of the average American household through the decades. I'd love to see one of these for fish catches in comparison to marine protected area (MPA) delegation.
Check out this fun and impromptu little Guilty Planet spot made by a friend of mine and founder of Avukado film and photography.
Many thanks to Mike HIrshfield at Oceana for sending along this little piece of good news: Atlantic salmon have returned to the Seine River. After having disappeared for nearly a century due to dams, overfishing, and pollution, hundreds of Atlantic salmon are swimming past the Eiffel Tower this…
Last month, Wal-Mart announced its plan to role out a sustainability index: a measure of how green its products are using a 15-question questionnaire (see the questions after the jump). You know that if the same store where a shrieking mob of holiday shoppers trampled an employee to death is…
Cash for clunkers isn't leading to fewer carbon emissions--at least not in Germany.The New York Times reports today on the 50,000 cars (at least) in Germany that have been traded in for cash rebates to put toward new vehicles with lower emissions. The only problem is that those cars are making…
We like tension. It makes for good stories. But it has been recognized that the fair and balanced approach to science news (and otherwise) can be detrimental. As Al Gore pointed out in An Inconvenient Truth, climate scientists, as represented by their peer-reviewed literature, hold a consensus…
The good news: I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation last Thursday. The bad news: I have not blogged for over a week now. My apologies for the long hiatus but please watch for new material very soon...
When Daniel Pauly first began talking about jellyfish burgers, he did so as an absurd metaphor. I blogged about it and, with the help of Sherman Lai, made this rudimentary burger:
Then, we upped the jellyfish burger ante when digital artist Dave Beck and I made this fancier version:
Meanwhile,…
The American press is on suicide watch as Frank Rich declared earlier this year. With the fold of major print media outlets, like Rocky Mountain News, and the Seattle P-I and the bankruptcy of the chain that owns the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, it seems that the predictions of the…
In yet another case of jellyfish bloom and gloom, the gigantic Nomura jellyfish are back in the Sea of Japan for the third year since 2005. Check out the full story at CNN.