A chapter I wrote has just been published in Nature Remade: Engineering Life, Envisioning Worlds from University of Chicago Press. The volume’s tireless editors Luis A. Campos, Michael R. Dietrich, Tiago Saraiva, and Christian C. Young put together a thoughtful book about the intersections between engineering and biology. My chapter, the seventh in the volume,…
Category: Environmental History
A Review of “Form and Landscape”
I recently wrote a review of Form and Landscape, which is an amazing collection of photographs and essays curated by William Deverell and Greg Hise. The photos come from the Southern California Edison Photographs and Negatives Collection at the Huntington Library. You can view Form and Landscape here. Here is a link to the collection…
Aftermath of the Aliso Canyon Gas Leak
It’s been some time since the crisis, but Aliso Canyon has been back in the news. Here is a project I worked on while the gas leak was active. https://alisogasleak.wordpress.com/
How Hanford’s Scientists Recreated Nature
On October 7, I read this paper “How Hanford’s Environmental Scientists Recreated Nature in the most Polluted Place in the US.” This was my final project for the Resident Scholar Program at OSU Library Special Collections and Archives Research Center. Many thanks to the folks at SCARC for this great opportunity. Also thanks to Robert Peckyno…
History of the Environment on the Rails
With summer drawing to a close, I took the opportunity to ride the Amtrak Coast Starlight from Albany, Oregon to Union Station in Los Angeles. I’d never taken the train for such a long trip, 28 hours each way. On such a long trip landscapes pass by, fixed in their space but transient in the…
An Uncertain Future
From the LA Times: the Department of Energy officially ends the surcharge that would pay for a high-level waste depository. The storage of High-level Waste (HLW) continues to present both a technological and social problem in the United States. HLW exists in a flurry of questions: What geological locale will provide the best long-term storage…
Wilderness Act Turns 50
Wilderness Act Turns 50 A post I wrote on the Wilderness Act for the OSU School of History, Science, and Religion’s blog. It can also be seen at OSU’s Spring Creek Project.
Joshua McGuffie's History of Science Site 