At the risk of offending the legions of loyal facebookers and hardcore promoters of displaying the festering contents of one’s brain for all the virtual world to see, I must admit that I approach the rather self-indulgent task of blogging with considerable hesitancy. Why should I assume that my rants and passing fancies would be of any interest to the vast hordes of thinking people with seventy simultaneous demands on their attention at any given moment? For the eternal record that is cyberspace: I don’t.
With that said, I set aside my hesitations to add my voice to the new chorus of Terry bloggers. With my Saturday Globe and Mail serving as a coaster for my bowl of popcorn as I submit to the mind-shrinking banter of “She’s all That”, I hereby nobly vow to occasionally consider global issues that matter to me, through the lens of my own personal battle between the more (Kant and Foucault via podcast and a biography of Abraham Lincoln by my bed) and less (weakness for pedicures and “So You Think You Can Dance”) evolved elements of my nature.
So here’s the quickest of bios to precede regular jaunts in the blogosphere. I cried when I saw photos of ducks covered in oil from the Exxon spill and sponsored a manatee in seventh grade, so eventually I ended up taking a BSc in Environmental Science at the University of Calgary. I added an arts degree in International Relations to the mix when I discovered that politics and economics were often considered ‘peripheral’ (at best) by the scientists and the socially-oriented folks were equally disdainful of how the planet actually worked (there is no objective world, and all that nonsense). Nearing the end, I began to see climate change as a fascinating problem that inevitably blends politics, economics, physical sciences, and impending doom. I came to UBC under the tutelage of John Robinson at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (initially in the Master’s program, and then a year later in the PhD program). So there I have remained, while doing a bit of research for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and UBC’s Local Climate Change Visioning Project. My own dissertation consists of municipal case studies into the apparent gap between capacity and action in response to climate change.
With that, I will depart from this, my first official blog entry on the incomparable Terry website. If I hear about fun things to do on campus or off, you’ll be the first to know. If I happen upon a particularly mind-blowing YouTube video, this is where it will be. And if I am unable to resist the urge to vent about an idiot magazine or tasty bit of news, I’ll try to construct full sentences to that end.
A wildly interdisciplinary path has led Sarah to pursue her PhD through UBC's Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. She gets riled about climate change, development, and equity issues, and any reference to P_ris Hi_ton. In her spare time, she cares for her rabbit (Stew) and composes self-congratulatory bios. (Sarah's intro post can be found here)
Entering the blogosphere with trepidation…
By Sarah Burch,
At the risk of offending the legions of loyal facebookers and hardcore promoters of displaying the festering contents of one’s brain for all the virtual world to see, I must admit that I approach the rather self-indulgent task of blogging with considerable hesitancy. Why should I assume that my rants and passing fancies would be of any interest to the vast hordes of thinking people with seventy simultaneous demands on their attention at any given moment? For the eternal record that is cyberspace: I don’t.
With that said, I set aside my hesitations to add my voice to the new chorus of Terry bloggers. With my Saturday Globe and Mail serving as a coaster for my bowl of popcorn as I submit to the mind-shrinking banter of “She’s all That”, I hereby nobly vow to occasionally consider global issues that matter to me, through the lens of my own personal battle between the more (Kant and Foucault via podcast and a biography of Abraham Lincoln by my bed) and less (weakness for pedicures and “So You Think You Can Dance”) evolved elements of my nature.
So here’s the quickest of bios to precede regular jaunts in the blogosphere. I cried when I saw photos of ducks covered in oil from the Exxon spill and sponsored a manatee in seventh grade, so eventually I ended up taking a BSc in Environmental Science at the University of Calgary. I added an arts degree in International Relations to the mix when I discovered that politics and economics were often considered ‘peripheral’ (at best) by the scientists and the socially-oriented folks were equally disdainful of how the planet actually worked (there is no objective world, and all that nonsense). Nearing the end, I began to see climate change as a fascinating problem that inevitably blends politics, economics, physical sciences, and impending doom. I came to UBC under the tutelage of John Robinson at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (initially in the Master’s program, and then a year later in the PhD program). So there I have remained, while doing a bit of research for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and UBC’s Local Climate Change Visioning Project. My own dissertation consists of municipal case studies into the apparent gap between capacity and action in response to climate change.
With that, I will depart from this, my first official blog entry on the incomparable Terry website. If I hear about fun things to do on campus or off, you’ll be the first to know. If I happen upon a particularly mind-blowing YouTube video, this is where it will be. And if I am unable to resist the urge to vent about an idiot magazine or tasty bit of news, I’ll try to construct full sentences to that end.
Related Topics
A wildly interdisciplinary path has led Sarah to pursue her PhD through UBC's Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability. She gets riled about climate change, development, and equity issues, and any reference to P_ris Hi_ton. In her spare time, she cares for her rabbit (Stew) and composes self-congratulatory bios. (Sarah's intro post can be found here)