Blog posts by Bill Nuttle
Could the author of Silent Spring have taken on the zombie horde? Credit: Wikimedia Commons and cdc.gov

Rachel Carson versus the Zombie Horde

Bill Nuttle ·
11 August 2016
Science Communication | 

Does Rachel Carson still have something to teach us about communicating science to the public? Silent Spring , Carson’s 1962 best-seller on the environmental perils of herbicides and pesticides, launched the movement that created the Environmental Protection Agency. But, the communications field has changed a lot in the last 50 years. The era of television came and went, and television’s replacement, the internet, is revolutionizing the industries of music, film, and journalism.

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The present-day coastline of South Florida (USA) has changed little since 1859, but a 5-foot rise in sea level, which is expected around the beginning of the next century, will result in dramatic changes. Credit: Top: US Coast Survey and Bottom: National Geographic

4 ways sea level rise and climate change are reshaping the coast

Bill Nuttle ·
22 February 2016
Science Communication | Applying Science | 

The experience of the last several generations has been that, while we cannot master the processes that shape the coast, we have been able to anticipate and mitigate their impact. The position of the coastline reflects the interplay of dynamic processes. Until recently, these processes have maintained a rough equilibrium. Most places in the US, the coastline has changed little in the 150 years since it was first mapped by the Coast Survey.

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The Indian River Lagoon Map. Credit: Jane Thomas

Indian River Lagoon: Environmental Literacy

Bill Nuttle ·
12 February 2016
Environmental Literacy | Learning Science |     1 comments

The concept of environmental literacy derives from a series of programs that have established various literacy principles, for example, Ocean Literacy and Chesapeake Bay literacy. Literacy principles form the framework, but it is the richness of examples, stories and visual supporting materials that enliven the understanding of our environment. The seven principles that an informed person needs to know about the Indian River Lagoon are:

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Miami is one of the cities most at risk from rising sea level. (photo credit: ”Venetian Causeway South Beach” by Marc Averette Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons)

Building coastal resilience through stories

Bill Nuttle ·
18 September 2015
Science Communication | Applying Science | 

Coastal scientists have an important role helping communities become more resilient by telling people what changes can be expected from climate change and sea level rise. But, how can you tell people about change that is coming, in a way that makes it tangible for people and motivates them to act, when the extent of that change goes beyond what many can even imagine.

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The pilot's job was as glamorous as it was essential. Image from Life on the Mississippi

Learning to operate the Mississippi River

Bill Nuttle ·
9 July 2015
Applying Science | Learning Science | 

Re-engineering the Mississippi River presents political as well as technical challenges. Advances in technology since the beginning of the industrial revolution have transformed both transportation along the Mississippi River and the river itself. The invention of the paddlewheel steamboat in the early 1800s offered a radical advance over previous, more primitive modes of river transportation. By the 1830s, steamboats regularly moved people and goods along the Mississippi and its tributaries.

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The W. J. DeFelice Marine Center makes a striking appearance on the horizon, seen from Little Caillou road.

Does rising sea level signal the end for LUMCON, or a beginning?

Bill Nuttle ·
4 February 2015
Environmental Report Cards |     1 comments

On December 10, I traveled to Cocodrie, Louisiana, to visit Dr. Nancy Rabalais. Nancy is the Director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON), and she has done more than anyone else to draw attention to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Nutrients in runoff from the Mississippi watershed trigger low-oxygen conditions in the shallow coastal waters of the Gulf, just as they do in many estuaries around the world including the Chesapeake Bay.

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Alexander Dallas Bache, Superintendent of the US Coast Survey 1843 – 1867; photo credit: Wikipedia

Following Alexander Bache’s Dream and His Example

Bill Nuttle ·
27 January 2015
Learning Science | 

"Scientists who made a difference" series … Earlier this month, Bill Dennison, Heath Kelsey and I attended a meeting at the headquarters of The Nature Conservancy in Arlington, Virginia, which is located just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. We were there to discuss what will happen next after the Mississippi watershed report card is launched this spring. This project has challenged us to expand the report card format in two ways.

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Master plan to protect and restore Louisiana's coast. Credit: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority

Teams compete to design a sustainable Louisiana Coast

Bill Nuttle ·
13 November 2014
Applying Science | 

Three teams of coastal scientists, engineers, and planners are going head-to-head to see who can come up with the best ideas for creating a self-sustaining coast for Louisiana. That's the challenge posed by the Changing Course competition. Selection of these teams this summer completed a year-long process [pdf] that started with screening applications from over 21 groups. The eight strongest applicants were asked to prepare detailed proposals, which were reviewed last spring.

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Three ecologists contemplate something fishy about a 900-year-old cedar tree on Haida Gwaii.

Insights on story-telling from the salmon in the tree

Bill Nuttle ·
9 September 2014
Learning Science |     1 comments

I first heard the story of the salmon in the tree while visiting in Haida Gwaii this summer. Haida Gwaii is a set of islands along the northwest coast of North America that is home to the Haida people, one of several nations of the aboriginal people that have existed here for about 10,000 years. I am an engineer by training, and my traveling companions, my wife Lenore and friends Tom and Nancy, are scientists.

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Map of Long Island Sound with Hempstead Harbor and Norwalk Harbor and River areas.

Building Report Cards to Support Community-based Monitoring

Bill Nuttle ·
17 July 2014
Science Communication | 

An interest to support community-based monitoring efforts around Long Island Sound motivates IAN’s work to develop a set of ecosystem report cards for that region. Long Island Sound is an estuarine embayment on the northeast coast of the United States, located directly east of New York City. The western portion of the Sound connects with the East River and New York harbor.

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