*This is part of a series called ‘Thinking About Cities’ which are parts of a book I am working on about urban green space that I’ve decided to cut out of the book manuscript.   Picture a large modern city. Undoubtedly, your mental image includes a lot of grey. Grey buildings. Grey roads. Maybe grey skies saturated with ozone and particulate matter. Yet we don’t see green as a dominant feature of a city despite the undeniable importance of vegetation and green space to the well-being of a city.    Now picture an ancient city. This image probably has a lot less grey ..read more

  A recent call for punishing individual Russian scientists, instead of institutions and political power holders, is a wrong-headed and mean-spirited response to the atrocities of the Russian war on Ukraine.     ..read more

 Guest post by recent UTSC MEnvSc graduate, Samantha Lalonde How do some people seem to know which career they are going to pursue seemingly before they can even walk? Do they just wake up one morning and decide that they want to be a dentist? In my case, I had no idea what I wanted to do all throughout primary school and most of high school. Then, I was presented with a life-changing opportunity.  In high school, I was offered the chance to volunteer in the Amazon rainforest in Peru with Operation Wallacea3, a conservation research organization. I lived on a riverboat in the Pacaya ..read more

 To be clear, I am not a virologist, nor am I a public health expert. But I do know how to analyze patterns of evolutionary diversity. Research into the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has given rise to the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly enhanced our understanding of global disease dynamics, mRNA vaccines and public health responses to a global crisis. But the COVID-19 pandemic also has the potential to provide fundamental insights into basic ecological and evolutionary processes.  While a lot has been written about how COVID-19 lock-downs have had noticeable repercussions on air quality and wi ..read more

    Guest podcast by UTSC Biology students: Gillian Sauder and Nyx Radu Burrow-dwelling solitary bees determine their entry into winter diapause based solely based on temperature, this raises the question; are rising global temperatures delaying diapause in these bees? And how will these diapause delays impact their limited energy reserves and survival rates? Find out on the first and only episode of the hit podcast that one person described as "as educational and depressing as a real conservation biology degree" and which alien archaeologists will describe as "an exemplary demon ..read more

Guest post by Nina Adamo, Masters of Environmental Science Candidate at the University of Toronto-Scarborough Within the surge of news coverage for the COVID-19 pandemic, you may have heard about the increase in the reporting of wildlife sightings in some urban areas across the globe, such as in this CBC article. With less people venturing outside of their homes in efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the media in multiple countries around the globe have been reporting more sightings of wildlife that are usually rarely or uncommonly seen in suburban and urban areas.6,7 This was ..read more

The world is awash in information. Never before have people had as much access to humanity’s collective knowledge as we do today. You want to know when the Normans conquered England? How many people use Weibo? Or what Machu Picchu would have looked like in its glory days? Simply pull out your phone and ask Siri.    This cornucopia of knowledge should mean that people are in the position to make the best decisions possible. From the insurance plans that best fit their needs to voting for candidates or political parties that support policies that return optimal outcomes for individual ..read more

Guest post by Marylouisse Feliciano, recent MEnvSc Graduate from the University of Toronto-Scarborough Can health-related ecosystem services actually increase health inequality? What does the uneven distribution and varying quality of urban green spaces say about social justice in urban environments? Not all park spaces and green spaces are created equal. As urbanization marches forward, steps have to be taken to address inequalities and prevent this pattern from continuing.  Health, urbanization, and parks: what we know           &n ..read more

Guest post by Kate Davies, a recent MEnvSc Graduate from the University of Toronto-Scarborough She could feel the pull in her body. It was time. She had done this journey before, but even the first time it felt familiar. Like a memory that she was born with. She was called Bright because she was known by the others for her deeply golden tail feathers and her clear eyes. Bright was late leaving her winter home this year, and many of the others had left already, departing at the first signs of change. The air had started to feel heavy signaling that the rains would come soon. She had to start n ..read more

Guest post by Connor Kendall, recent MEnvSc graduate from the University of Toronto-Scarborough The world is currently in the midst of the sixth mass extinction where global vertebrate populations have declined by 60% over the past 40 years and human pressures are impacting a vast 75% of the Earth’s surface1. If we continue along the path of business-as-usual, we will have a lot more to be concerned about than just living underwater in the next 30 years. If we lose most of the world’s pollinators, 40% of which are facing extinction1, you can say goodbye to your avocado toast and pumpkin spice ..read more