Dreams of Awen: Tales of a sailboat, a cabin in the woods, and a quest for sustainability
We’re off-the-grid – or living in the bush – or off our rockers. There are lots of descriptors that can be used to describe people like us. The trendy term for it is being OTG, and nuts like us are referred to as OTGers. Compared to most OTGers, we are way out there – not only off-the-grid, but with a 15 mile boat ride to get to the nearest paved road that goes to anything that could be called civilization. The nearest grocery store is another hour’s drive along that paved road to Campbell River …
So I’m Writing - I haven’t posted much on my blog recently, and there’s a reason for this … I’ve been writing.Read some chapters from the book here.
Tales from the Oceanographer and the Captain
In “Tales from the Oceanographer and the Captain “, we will take you to some strange, beautiful, and wild places, show you why we love the ocean and have fun doing oceanography, share music and tales about the great sea around us, and make you curious about the wonderful things scientists have learned, both in the past and present.
The chapters of Tales from the Oceanographer and the Captain are available in an html5 viewer for pdf documents below:
Introduction – Welcome to Our Story
Chapter 1 – What…Me, an Oceanographer?
Chapter 2 – Bringing the Awen Home
Science Advocacy
Scientists have been concerned about their roles as researcher, citizen, and advocate for as long as scientists have been seen as “wise advisors”. This is a heavy burden – how to speak the truth and provide wisdom on the application of the truth to different scenarios, while remaining objective and not being seen as taking political sides. This is further complicated by the many agencies which see the truth as counter to their purposes, and thus attempt to muzzle the scientists who speak the truth, or distort the truth to meet their own objectives.
Science Advocacy - Scientists and Advocacy Like many scientists today, I often feel the need to speak out when I see decisions being made which are based on little or no science, have no rationale besides simply the generation of dollars, and which are likely to have deleterious impacts on the environment. Furthermore, I am also deeply distressed … Continue reading "Science Advocacy"Scientific Publications
What we have observed, what we have learned must be shared so that others can analyze, correct, modify, and build upon it. Science is constantly in flux, a process of evolution. Sharing our knowledge and telling our stories is essential to this process and helps create the structure that makes a strong foundation.
Scientific Publications - Image: Tigriopus californicus and Phaeodactylum tricornutum in a tidepool. “There are good things to see in tidepools and there are exciting and interesting thoughts to be generated from the seeing. Every new eye applied to the peep hole which looks out at the world may fish in some new beauty and some new pattern, and … Continue reading "Scientific Publications"