Jonathon - Thanks for this post, I really appreciate it. I have been a consulting "water resources engineer" for more than 25 years now. I have developed a passion for plants and how they change the world. I have tried several times to get published in refereed journals about the connections between ecology and hydrology, but the reviewers clearly brought a set of biases that made it virtually impossible for them to even accept the underlying concepts I was describing. I just quit that. It seemed ridiculous. 95% of the time that path seems like incremenal progress of the slowest kind. This is one of the reasons I started my own newsletter here on Substack (It's called: Roots of the Sky). I did not fully realize just how constrained I was in my professoinal writing, till I started writing here. I could use the active voice! I could say "I" and I could free up my creative self. This is a place where one can straddle many worlds and try to develop bigger-picture, riskier, inter-disciplinary ideas and stories. It has been something. Here's to more of it!
Thanks for the message, Scott! Absolutely! It certainly gives the freedom to explore diverse ideas. As I pivot some of my research to more inter- and transdisciplinary research, I am cognisant that the academic publishing game can get tricker than staying in your lane. It can be hard to find a home for transdisciplinary work and to find reviewers who can adequately review it. Nice to be able to throw ideas out there on this platform w/o that pressure of peer review, while being aware that we need to maintain scientific credibility. Also, much of my research is about the connection between river flow regimes and biodiversity, with some work on riparian plant communities in the US southwest, so we have a bit of a connection there. Cheers!
I've worked with ecologists and wildlife biologists for decades and have been dismayed at how many of them remain determinedly rooted in old ways thinking, like fixed park boundaries and zero human intervention, even in the face of existential threat to whole ecosystems (ie multiple 1 in 1000 year floods within a three year span, or wildlife so large and ferocious they eclipse nature's natural regrowth).
Just like the climate deniers, many ecologists and wildlife biologists are failing to see that climate chaos is already destroying the biodiversity they love and serve regardless of the park's declaration of protection.
Fire, water, and heat don't care about our arbitrary human boundaries, and climate breakdown is supercharging thier devestation, already. We need new thinking and fast.
Thanks Margi! Glad you liked the post. It sure is daunting when you think about it. Seeing return intervals of floods change from 1 in 100 years to 1 in 10 years or less means we're all going to be directly affected by things sooner rather than later. Just need to keep pushing for change!
Love these articles, keep it up!
Thanks so much Soemano!
Jonathon - Thanks for this post, I really appreciate it. I have been a consulting "water resources engineer" for more than 25 years now. I have developed a passion for plants and how they change the world. I have tried several times to get published in refereed journals about the connections between ecology and hydrology, but the reviewers clearly brought a set of biases that made it virtually impossible for them to even accept the underlying concepts I was describing. I just quit that. It seemed ridiculous. 95% of the time that path seems like incremenal progress of the slowest kind. This is one of the reasons I started my own newsletter here on Substack (It's called: Roots of the Sky). I did not fully realize just how constrained I was in my professoinal writing, till I started writing here. I could use the active voice! I could say "I" and I could free up my creative self. This is a place where one can straddle many worlds and try to develop bigger-picture, riskier, inter-disciplinary ideas and stories. It has been something. Here's to more of it!
Thanks for the message, Scott! Absolutely! It certainly gives the freedom to explore diverse ideas. As I pivot some of my research to more inter- and transdisciplinary research, I am cognisant that the academic publishing game can get tricker than staying in your lane. It can be hard to find a home for transdisciplinary work and to find reviewers who can adequately review it. Nice to be able to throw ideas out there on this platform w/o that pressure of peer review, while being aware that we need to maintain scientific credibility. Also, much of my research is about the connection between river flow regimes and biodiversity, with some work on riparian plant communities in the US southwest, so we have a bit of a connection there. Cheers!
"Only by thinking creatively, leveraging our unique human skills, will we solve many of our grand challenges."
Indeed. Thank you.
Pleasure! Thanks for reading.
I love your open thinking
I've worked with ecologists and wildlife biologists for decades and have been dismayed at how many of them remain determinedly rooted in old ways thinking, like fixed park boundaries and zero human intervention, even in the face of existential threat to whole ecosystems (ie multiple 1 in 1000 year floods within a three year span, or wildlife so large and ferocious they eclipse nature's natural regrowth).
Just like the climate deniers, many ecologists and wildlife biologists are failing to see that climate chaos is already destroying the biodiversity they love and serve regardless of the park's declaration of protection.
Fire, water, and heat don't care about our arbitrary human boundaries, and climate breakdown is supercharging thier devestation, already. We need new thinking and fast.
Thanks Margi! Glad you liked the post. It sure is daunting when you think about it. Seeing return intervals of floods change from 1 in 100 years to 1 in 10 years or less means we're all going to be directly affected by things sooner rather than later. Just need to keep pushing for change!