(Not) Counting Trees

In case you are curious what catches my eye on the Internet, please check out my tumblr page. I post natural resource, social science, political analyses, and university-related stuff there that are interesting, but not deserving a separate post. In our drupal upgrade coming later this month (I hope), these posts will show up as a sidebar on this page.

Just back from a family vacation visiting family and friends back east. Hope to have something new soon.

This week I am attending the Teaching Academy's Summer Institute. This weeklong program is part of a UW-Madison initiative to help faculty develop and maintain their teaching skills.

I am here redesigning my course on communicating science to policymakers. I am also learning a lot about technology that I hoep to incorporate into my extension work.

The New York Times had an interesting article this morning on efforts in Chicago to prepare and adapt to a changing climate. The article largely focuses on urban design and storm water, but also includes a bit on street tree species selection.

ALBANY, NY (WAMC) - In today's Academic Minute, Dr. Steven Cohen of Columbia University's Earth Institute explores the necessity of incorporating an environmental sustainability component into all business and public-policy degrees.

Richard Wedepohl (WWOA member very knowledgeable about property taxes) found an error in the Forestry Fact 107 on the proposed changes to the MFL. He noted that I had a spurious list of the Council on Forestry's concerns related to the MFL that I failed to check with the original. I corrected that and added two citations. I also added a correction section and an update section.

I very much appreciate Richard catching this and bringing to my attention.

The new version is posted in place of the old one (here).

Recent UWEX press release describes proposed changes to MFL; Thank you Meg!

While I am not a huge fan of NPR's Terry Gross and Fresh Air, I've always appreciated Jeff Nunberg, a linguist with a frequent column. This evening, he shares his insights on bad apples and their implications for lot--it might not be what you think.

In recent years, we have become obsessed with counting things, that somehow numbers will provide documentation of effort and impact, and ultimately improve what we do. Michael Power, a professor of accounting at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has something to say about this faith in numbers.

Yesterday morning, the Legislative Council met regarding the proposed changes to the MFL. The Council voted to allow full consideration by the Assembly and Senate as a single bill. That is, instead of seven different changes moving through the legislative process, the changes will be combined into one.

When I know more about committee assignments and a bill number, I will post.