Stephen Porder

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Articles

What can we learn from France about food waste?

1 month ago | thepublicsradio.org | Megan Hall |Stephen Porder

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall. Here’s an interesting approach to food waste- a supermarket chain in France sells products that other stores would have thrown away. Our founder and the provost of sustainability at Brown University Stephen Porder visited one of those markets during a recent trip to Paris. He’s here to tell us more about it.
What can organisms that changed the world teach us about climate change?

Jul 23, 2024 | thepublicsradio.org | Megan Hall |Stephen Porder |Janek Schaller

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall. Earlier this year, Possibly’s founder and Brown University’s Provost for Sustainability Stephen Porder published Elemental: How Five Elements Changed Earth’s Past and Will Shape Our Future. His book explores the rare times in Earth’s past when organisms have changed the world.
Why did I see a bunch of dead fish in the Providence River?

May 28, 2024 | thepublicsradio.org | Will Malloy |Stephen Porder |Megan Hall

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall. Today we’re answering a question from listener Alexandra Hahn, who saw something a bit unusual: Alexandra Hahn: I wrote to you guys, because last spring, I saw a bunch of dead fish in a river downtown. And I was wondering what they were doing there, what kind of fish they were? How did they die?
Opinion | Relax, Electric Vehicles Really Are the Best Choice for the Climate

Nov 24, 2023 | nyti.ms | Stephen Porder

Opinion|Relax, Electric Vehicles Really Are the Best Choice for the Climatehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/opinion/electric-vehicle-tesla-hybrid.htmlGuest EssayNov. 24, 2023, 11:00 a.m. ETDr. Porder is a professor and the associate provost for sustainability at Brown University. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning.
Opinion | Relax, Electric Vehicles Really Are the Best Choice for the Climate

Nov 24, 2023 | nyti.ms | Stephen Porder

Opinion|Relax, Electric Vehicles Really Are the Best Choice for the Climatehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/opinion/electric-vehicle-tesla-hybrid.htmlGuest EssayDr. Porder is a professor and the associate provost for sustainability at Brown University. Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning.
The Air Was Hot This Year, But It's Nothing Compared to the Ocean

Sep 14, 2023 | news.yahoo.com | Stephen Porder |Baylor Fox-Kemper

The news is full of record high temperatures. Phoenix broke 110 degrees for . July 3 was the since record keeping began, until July 4, then July 6, and then July as a whole. It is anomalously hot—at least if you look at air temperatures 2 meters (about 6 and 1/2 feet) above the surface, which is how it's usually reported by government agencies. But if you look a little more broadly, the heat is not an anomaly—and that's an even bigger problem.
The Air Was Hot This Year. It's Nothing Compared to the Ocean

Sep 14, 2023 | time.com | Stephen Porder |Baylor Fox-Kemper

The news is full of record high temperatures. Phoenix broke 110 degrees for . July 3 was the since record keeping began, until July 4, then July 6, and then July as a whole. It is anomalously hot—at least if you look at air temperatures 2 meters (about 6 and 1/2 feet) above the surface, which is how it's usually reported by government agencies. But if you look a little more broadly, the heat is not an anomaly—and that's an even bigger problem.
Environmental curricula should focus on solutions (opinion)

Sep 13, 2023 | insidehighered.com | Stephen Porder

You have /5 articles left. Sign up for a free account or log in. The first year I taught Introduction to Environmental Science was 2007, the year after the release of An Inconvenient Truth. The class was full of eager students, most of whom would have described themselves as environmentalists. They were worried—about climate change, industrial agriculture, deforestation and a long list of other environmental ills.
'Once again, innovation and proliferation ended with catastrophe': The environmental disaster of plants taking over the world

Sep 12, 2023 | livescience.com | Stephen Porder

The excerpt below is taken from "Elemental: How Five Elements Changed Earth’s Past and Will Shape Our Future" (Princeton University Press, 2023) by Stephen Porder. It looks at how one of the biggest events in Earth's history came to be: plants colonizing the continents. Plants are so ubiquitous on land that it's hard to imagine their absence, but for almost 90% of Earth's history, there was no life on land, or at the very least no plants.
Free Agents

Sep 8, 2023 | audible.com | Kevin Mitchell |Nicholas Humphrey |Stephen Porder |Daniel C. Dennett

This audiobook narrated by neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell presents an evolutionary case for the existence of free will. Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency—or free will—is an illusion.