The Ecological Society of America chose the worst time of the year to visit Austin. It’s been over 100 degrees for the past 30? 50? days. And we’re in the midst of a major drought. Basically, Austin is everything that’s wrong with the Earth. So maybe it was actually good timing for 3,500 ecologists to gather downtown and talk about the world’s problems.
I visited the conference yesterday, and this story aired on KUT this morning. I was excited to speak with Camille Parmesan, the UT ecologist in the story. We spoke together for EarthSky a few years ago, and it was honestly one of my favorite interviews I’ve ever done. Back then, she talked about how to deal with climate-related depression. This time, she gave a happier message about how ecologists are working together and reaching out to other disciplines, but the meeting was still chock full of depressing ecological news. More on the conference later.
