We are living in the sixth great age of extinctions. As species disappear from their former habitats around the world, a legion of mostly independent people–of all ages and backgrounds–are engaged in a quixotic battle. Inspired by the natural curiosity we all feel about the world around us, or compelled by the sense that there is so much wonderful and varied life around us but so little time to notice it, these grandmothers, kindergarten children, computer scientists, and others are paying attention.
When they record their observations or collect other data about the natural world, they become citizen scientists (anthropologists, ethnologists and linguists, who might also be professionals or amateurs, are paying attention to the cultural side of the equation).
I am a Toronto-based writer–I have written for over a decade about human rights and social movements globally and in Canada. I also write about science and nature, and about the intersection between these and the (only-superficially tamer) fields of society and culture. I hold an Hon. BSc. in biology and political science from the University of Toronto. I am enchanted by the phenomenon of citizen science, which returns science to its primeval roots (sometimes using cutting edge technology, sometimes not) while tilting bravely at the windmills of climate change and other forces endangering life on earth.
I am working on various writing projects and a book (no publisher yet) about citizen science across North America and around the globe. In this blog, I will cast my roving eye about, looking at everything from innovative technologies to enable citizen science to the amazing, passionate, Darwinian (in the best sense!) citizen scientists working away like worker bees in Mexico, South Africa, France, Nicaragua, Canada, Pakistan and elsewhere. Some of this may make its way into the eventual book, some of it may make it into articles and other writing projects, and some of it may just glimmer and glisten here for your enjoyment and illumination.
I invite your contributions, suggestions of projects and initiatives to investigate or profile, and connections to the brilliant, self-propelled people who are perhaps the greatest hope in this age of extinction.
Pay attention!
