Kim Hong Khiu’s Post

Following up on "Introduction to religion and ecology(https://lnkd.in/gA9xfWGU)", I completed "Journey of the Universe: The Unfolding of Life" from Yale University University through Coursera! Based it's namesake book, the course coalesces humanities 📖 and science 🔬 . This coalescence frames evolution of life as a narrative 🎞 , instead of facts of disparate disciplines . Hence showing the audience how they are an integral part of said narrative. Thus allowing them to appreciate life's beauty through an interdisciplinary lens. 🌱 By harmonizing knowledge of diverse disciplines, we contribute to the wisdom of humanity. Thus paving the way for informed and inspired action. Let carry the torch of knowledge and empathy, as we journey towards a more harmonious world. 🗺 #humanity #philosophy #science #physics #astronomy #astrophysics #History #theology #religion #ecology #environment #environmentalscience #Education #learning #lifelonglearning #yale #yaleuniversity #Coursera

I am very glad to say that our paper on "Economic geography and planetary boundaries: Embracing the planet’s uncompromising call to action" in the Progress in Economic Geography is now available open access for 6 months. Emil Evenhuis, Diana Morales and myself argue that Economic Geography must engage more with planetary boundaries to be prepared for the challenges ahead. We offer a brief introduction to the concept of planetary boundaries and their relevance to economic activities and argue why Economic Geography is already well-placed as a field to engage with the ensuing issues. We then argue for three likely priorities for the field: 1. Extending political economy with political ecology, to address the manifold relations between the economy and the environment, their evolution and how they can be shifted. 2. Transitioning to (more) sustainable provisioning systems, and the new economic geographies implied by such wide-reaching changes. 3. Exploring alternative modes of development and the socio-spatial implications of an economic geography of sufficiency. It has been a great pleasure working on this, and we are hoping it can be a small stepping stone for further research!

Economic geography and regional studies need to engage more with questions of more normative nature such as those regarding planetary boundaries and our need to engage more deeply with sustainability transformation. Thanks Camilla Chlebna, Emil Evenhuis and Diana Morales for this important paper that was published in Progress in Economic Geography.

Abstract submission deadline: 3 May 2024❗️ The 𝟭𝟴𝘁𝗵 𝗣𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘂𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗥𝗶𝘀𝗸𝘀 will take place from 30 September to 3 October 2024 at Chania, Greece, at the Old Port of Chania – Chania Culture Centre. The objective of this edition is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for discussions on the current state of knowledge of Mediterranean risks in a climate change context. Different aspects related to monitoring, assessment, diagnosis, prediction, and definition of weather extremes, wildfires, hydro-geological effects, impacts on natural resources, agriculture, health and society, as well as adaptation capacity and preservation strategies for natural and cultural heritage at risk, will be addressed with a multi-sectorial approach. This will be achieved by bringing together scientific experts in the fields of meteorology, hydrology, wildfires, geomorphology, sociology, engineering, cultural heritage conservation, and governmental or private risk management actors. Researchers from CNR-ISAC are Conveners of the following Sessions: -Diagnosis, trends, causalities, and predictions of extreme weather events in a climate change environment -Earth Observation data and techniques for the definition, characterization, and monitoring of natural hazards -Safeguarding and management of cultural and natural heritage at risk from climate extreme events -Air quality, Heat and Health in the Mediterranean More info 👉🏻 https://lnkd.in/d338uh_c European Geosciences Union (EGU)

🌍 Geographer, Meteorologist, Sustainability Advocate | MSc in Global Change & Sustainability 🎓 Greetings, LinkedIn community! 👋 I'm Ezemuoka Ekene, a dynamic professional with a solid academic foundation and diverse experience. I embarked on my journey at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka earning a Bachelor's degree in Geography and Meteorology, where I delved into the intricacies of Earth's systems.   📚 Master's Pursuit: Building on my passion for understanding the planet's dynamics, I continued my education with a Master's degree in Global Change & Sustainability from the prestigious University of Vienna. This program provided a comprehensive view of the challenges and opportunities presented by our rapidly changing world. 🍎 Educational Trail: Beyond academia, my journey includes impactful experiences in education. I've had the privilege of shaping young minds as a high school teacher, imparting knowledge in English language, mathematics and geography. Additionally, I've served as a university assistant, contributing to the academic development of students and fostering a collaborative learning environment.   💼 Professional Focus: My expertise spans in research and teaching (Impacting knowledge) allowing me to bridge the gap between theory and real-world applications. I am particularly passionate about leveraging my skills to contribute to sustainable practices and positive change. Let's connect to explore opportunities for collaboration, share insights, or discuss the intersection of geography, meteorology, education, and sustainability. I'm eager to engage with like-minded professionals and contribute to meaningful initiatives. #Geography #Meteorology #Sustainability #Education #UniversityOfViennaAlumni #EnvironmentalScience #ConnectWithPurpose  

https://lnkd.in/eEsjwjUf 🚫 SAD EXCERPT OF BASIC SCIENCE SURVEY RESULTS: "We also discovered that, underneath all these inconsistent and perplexing belief patterns, Americans’ knowledge of basic scientific and evolutionary facts looks rather poorly grounded." 🚫 "Less than half (43%) knew (or guessed in a multiple choice format) that the earth is billions of years old and only 30% knew that the universe was also billions of years old. 🚫 Barely more than four out of ten Americans (42%) was aware that the last dinosaur existed on earth millions of years ago; roughly a fourth (26%) thought it was a hundred thousand years ago or less. 🚫 Just a fifth or so (22%) could correctly answer that modern humans emerged hundreds of thousands of years ago, and not unexpectedly, less than one third (28%) could accurately identify when human beings began to migrate across the world from the continent where they originally emerged: 10,000–100,000 years ago (see "Atlas of the Human Journey" at ). In fact, 39% believed it was actually less than 10 000 years ago . Furthermore, Americans’ self-reported acquaintance or familiarity with key evolutionary concepts looks equally abysmal"

📢 Elevate your research journey with our STARS PhD positions in Geography! 🎓 Are you a driven and passionate researcher eager to embark on an extraordinary academic adventure? Look no further than our esteemed STARS Programmes! 📆 Applications are due by 13 March 2024! 💡 The list of 11 STARS PhD positions in Geography can be found here: https://lnkd.in/ecPtD_UG Find more information about our STARS program: https://stars-natur.cz Our STARS PhD Program positions in Geography: 👉 Beyond Stationarity: Compound Impacts of Climate Change and Forest Disturbance on Hydrologic Extremes in Mountain Catchments 👉 Bridging urban morphology and community ecology to study structure, organisation and evolution of cities 👉 Detection and change detection of vegetation at the species/individual level using UAV/aerial imagery and machine learning/deep learning methods 👉 Disentangling environmental drivers of boreal forest growth 👉 Hazard evaluation from glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) 👉 Inequality of neighbourhood choice in regions of Central Europe 👉 Predicting tree growth into the future – a space for time substitution approach 👉 Quantifying the importance of phenology, growth rate, and growth occurrence for annual wood production 👉 Snowmelt water distribution in the critical zone under climate variability: a large-sample approach 👉 The glaciation of North America through the Quaternary 👉 Using a process-based model of wood formation to unravel regional gradients and temporal changes in growth kinetics and phenology of forest tree species

In a conviviality of disciplines, @Daniel Richter has been a pioneer in CRITICAL ZONE SCIENCE (or SCHOLARSHIP, as he prefers). Thus it was a pleasure to have him literally walk us, the MANGROVES PILOT FELLOWSHIP, through some basics of that intersectional study at the soil pit of the Duke Campus Farm last May. Marrying earth sciences around the earth's crust with social and even human sciences, this mode of research seeks to understand the plethora of interactions between soil, water, climate, organic life and anthropogenic effects over time. In other words, it's an inquiry that gives the lie to the dichotomy between "nature" and "culture." Geological and climatic events merge and clash with human doings, mis- and undoings. In this sense, CZ scholarship is the science par excellence for the "Anthropocene." After briefing us on what this blended science does, Dan then took us over to the soil pit and showed us, through the various telluric horizons, strata and the secrets they held (1.5 meters ranging over 150,000 years), how a multidimensional story could be told by peeling the profile layers and their sequencing - dissimilar mineral and clay particles and compositions, biota, artifacts, and their evolutions and convections up and down. As Dan reminded us, soil history is a matter of time. As such, it is also the furnace of "place-ness," how the mess of happenings all around collude to make a live PLACE. This has been demonstrated in Dan's work at a Critical Zone Observatory in the South Carolina Piedmont forests, a degraded landscape in Union County disturbed by a century of cotton production, still recovering from that physical and social abuse. It is a metabolic tale from "treetop to bedrock," or "between the rocks and the sky." The story of pedogenesis is, then, a substrate - even metonymy - of history and its untamed turns of palimpsestic GROWTH. We'd do well to know this story.   #CRITICAL ZONE #ANTHROPOCENE #PEDOLOGY #PLACE #GROWTH

"Cybernetics for the 21st Century Vol.1 is dedicated to the epistemological reconstruction of cybernetics, consisting of a series of historical and critical reflections on the subject – which according to Martin Heidegger marked the completion of Western metaphysics. In this anthology, historians, philosophers, sociologists and media studies scholars explore the history of cybernetics from Leibniz to artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as the development of twentieth-century cybernetics in various geographical regions in the world, from the USA to the Soviet Union, Latin America, France, Poland, China and Japan. The reconstruction shows the various paths of cybernetics and their socio-political implications, which remain unfamiliar to us today. It reveals more than what we thought we knew – and yet we hardly know – and allows us to understand where we are and to reflect on the future of technology, ecology and planetary politics." #cybernetics #books #ai #ecology #systems

Yay! The #Ecological #Society of #America (#ESA) conference is here in Long Beach, California! I kicked off the event by co-facilitating the short course “#Introduction to #Sparse #Modelling” with @Amy Patterson. It was my first time leading a short course at #ESA, and the experience was incredible. I loved the course's interactive format and the thoughtful discussions participants contributed during the activities. #Key #Takeaways: 📌Sparse modeling is good for large datasets. 📌It is effective when the number of observations is much lower than the number of predictors. 📌It helps identify the most important variables related to the response variable. 📌It enables the creation of a simple and interpretable model. I can't wait to do this again next year! But before that, our colleagues at the #Modelscapes #Consprtium plan to hold the workshop at the #Association for the #Sciences of #Limnology and #Oceanography (#ALSO) conference in Charlotte, North Carolina next year. Later this evening, I attended the opening plenary session, ‘An Unexpected Part: How Partnering Outside Academia Changed My Teaching and Career,’ presented by #Jackie #Grant. Jackie's story was inspiring, highlighting how she persevered through five rejections before landing a modestly paid faculty position and then transitioning from academia to industry. At the Welcome Networking Reception, I connected with several researchers, including fellow Nigerians. I'm excited about this year's #ESA – #Supporting #Ecologists #Throughout #Their #Careers! #ESA #Ecology #Evolution #Ecosystems #Environement #Research #Communication