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.

Posts by this author

May 1, 2009
I cannot embed the official video but here's another version: Here are Beck's lyrics: I feel uptight when I walk in the city I feel so cold when I'm at home Feels like everything's starting to hit me I lost bed ten minutes ago Modern guilt I'm staring at nothing Modern guilt I'm under lock and…
April 29, 2009
As Mark Powell (of the Ocean Conservancy) pointed out in the comments of the last post, Roger Rufe of the Ocean Conservancy said that we need to "use ocean wilderness to lead a new way of thinking about and seeing our oceans through a positive conservation lens, rather than an extractive one." And…
April 27, 2009
In an extension of first shifting baselines post where Randy Olson and I argued over whether to continue eating seafood, I wrote a guest post last week for The Reef Tank titled What happened to your clients? Um. We ate them. It begins: "So. What happened to our fish?" asks The Future. "Um. Well…
April 27, 2009
I know that the year is far from over, but Loren McClenachan, who works with Jeremy Jackson at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has what I believe is the shifting baselines story of 2009. Just to review from the old shifting baselines days, the shifting baselines syndrome implies that…
April 26, 2009
...it was the one trick my mother always had up her sleeve, that way she had of making me feel guilty. She made no bones about it, either. "You can't help it," she told me once. "Slipped it into your baby food. Don't worry, though," she added, smiling like a Cheshire cat. "A healthy dose of…
April 24, 2009
Jared Flesher discussed this week A Decline in 'Green Guilt' at the NYTimes Green Inc. Blog. Some groups attribute the decline to the fact that Americans are doing more for the environment (more people are carpooling and planting gardens, especially with the economy in its present state) but…
April 24, 2009
Call it religious, call it effective (or ineffective), call it trite. The fact is, there is a lot of guilt-laden language in the conservation movement. Because this will help lay the foundation for future discussions, I wanted to present some examples here. Guilt-free flying and guilt-free…
April 23, 2009
Back in 2005, I interviewed fisheries biologist Daniel Pauly for a small article on seafood consumer campaigns. This would evolve into the work we do today. I was not able to publish large chunks of the transcripts then, but I am now. I think what Daniel said about average vs. extreme consumers…
April 23, 2009
I mentioned in my last post that humans love rare things, but not necessarily albinos. As Justin pointed out in the comments, that is not exactly true. White-skinned albinos are hunted by other humans throughout eastern and central Africa because they believe their body parts will add potency to…
April 22, 2009
Two new experiments from French scientists show that humans love rare things. Not rarities, as in oddities, as in albinos. But rare things as in: not many of them left. That is bad news for many animals and conservation efforts. Hypothesis: Humans love rare things. Even if they are not really…
April 21, 2009
"We are all parasites," a friend recently remarked as our train moved past the graffiti covered walls of Berlin. "Anyone who does not understand this--or thinks that somehow the good that they do in this world outweighs the bad--is delusional." She is a scientist working for the UK Energy Saving…
March 9, 2009
Hopefully you are wondering what the heck is going on. As I mentioned in my last post (days turned to weeks and it is just moments before a whole month has gone by), I am currently a visiting researcher in the Conservation Science Unit at Cambridge University's Department of Zoology. Here, I am…
February 12, 2009
For the last month, I have been a visiting researcher in the conservation science unit at Cambridge University, which turns 800 (!) this year. Another impressive birthday is today: Charles Darwin's bicentennial--a grand event here in England, although they do admire Darwin daily (note the 10 pound…
January 31, 2009
It is already February! And I cannot believe I let so many January stories get away from me. So I would like a recap a few of shifting baselines repute now: 1) This article, Deep Sea-crets, ran in the San Diego Union Tribune about a recent expedition to explore deep undersea mounts in the Gulf…
January 24, 2009
I believe in Obama. So I wanted to be part of his story. Our story. So last Saturday, I flew from London to Washington, D.C. to spend four days celebrating and witnessing the inauguration of our 44th President. I made my way down to the Sunday concert featuring actors and musicians. The…
January 15, 2009
A Guilt Trip for Obama I sent a million emails Cheering you on in every line. I watched Will.I.Am's video About a thousand times. I stood strong against my parents (Both McCain supporters). I recruited my brother: A first time and Obama voter. I made inspirational cds, Sending them to friends in…
January 15, 2009
January 15, 2009
My friend sent me a link to this t-shirt for sale at Forever 21 (the Wal-Mart of high fashion) and her email read simply: "uh oh". Yes, this is what PETA's Save the Sea Kitten campaign is up against...
January 15, 2009
Hm. I have mixed feelings about this ultimate example of renaming fish. PETA has a new campaign out to get people to relate to fish as animals rather than as commodities, which is a noble goal and one I very much support. There are a few snags with their Save the Sea Kittens campaign, though…
January 15, 2009
The New York Times blogpost The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating was one of the most-viewed stories for 2008 and guess what? One of those 11 foods were sardines*! One more reason to Eat Like A Pig! *Note: I wanted to post a scrummy looking sardine in this post but check out what you get when you…
January 13, 2009
We need to pay closer attention to how hunting and fishing regulations are set or we may end up with unintended negative consequences for the species we are trying to protect. This according to new research reported in The New York Times. We know that target species can react to increased…
January 13, 2009
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a profile of Sylvia Earle and the marine environment, which included some wonderful photographs and a nice introductory anecdote about how, in 1953, when Earle began studying algae, the marine plants and related microbes were often considered weeds or worse. Today…
January 5, 2009
Check out this video shot in the Sea of Cortez a friend from the Surfrider Foundation sent along. It is a great reminder of the magnificent life that still exists in the ocean. But can you imagine what it was like 200 years ago?
January 5, 2009
Check out this magnificent and convincing collection panoramic photographs of receding glaciers over the decades...
December 17, 2008
I am the lead author of a new study In Hot Soup: Sharks Captured in Ecuador's Waters out in the journal Environmental Sciences. We reconstructed the shark landings for Ecuador from 1976 to 2004 and demonstrated that Ecuador captures more than 3.5 times the number of sharks they officially report…
December 9, 2008
Everywhere I turn it seems to be bad news for poster fish species. Bluefin tuna are in a bad way. And let's not forget pollock, the world's largest food fishery. This year, conservation groups and scientists feel the catch limits are being set anywhere from two to three times too high.…
December 6, 2008
In my Topics in Marine Science class that I teach at Western Washington University, we spend a week on marine mammals and a portion of that time talking about whaling. We discuss the use of whale oil for illuminants, the 1930s as the Whaling Olympic era, the devastation of certain whale…
November 30, 2008
Andrew Revkin has the disheartening news from the ICCAT meetings this week with insights from Carl Safina. Surprise, surprise. Tuna are still in trouble as ICCAT continues to set a quota much higher than what scientists recommend. Here is Safina's take on it all: What's really needed is a…
November 28, 2008
Food is the name of the game this week (well, food, and trampling store employees on Black Friday). And friend and fellow Ph.D. student here at UBC, Jeremy Goldbogen (photographed with a minke whale jaw bone), has some new research out this week on the feeding habits of humpback whales and it dons…
November 25, 2008
Randy Olson travels a lot these days, and frequently calls me from airports to whine about how much he hates to travel. Randy, this clip of stand up comedian Louis CK talking about how times have changed is for you (with thanks to Dale of Faith in Honest Doubt for titling this piece with the…