This is my first year at UNC Chapel Hill and all around basketball is in the air. I guess that is what happens when you go to an ACC school that the has a history of being one of the best college basketball teams in the country. I’ve never seen so much excitement around a sport. … Continue reading
Warren County, North Carolina, doesn’t seem the most likely place for the environmental justice movement to have started. It’s a small, rural county northeast of Raleigh, and might have stayed just that if not for a decision to dump a toxic landfill in its midst in 1978. The response of Warren County’s primarily black residents … Continue reading
A positive outlook (and willingness to get dirty) is exactly the attitude you need to be a marine scientist! Larisa Bennett talks about research being conducted at UNC Institute of Marine Sciences this semester by UNC undergraduate students in her latest guest post. From freezing cold water to covered in mud, this field is not … Continue reading
Sometimes, science doesn’t always go as planned. Larisa Bennett explains how to make the best of a not-so-great situation in her latest guest post. If you haven’t visited us in a while, Larisa is a UNC undergraduate student spending a semester at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences. See her first three posts, here, here, … Continue reading
In the Southern Outer Banks, taking walks on the beach is a routine activity rather than an aspirational line for one’s OK Cupid profile. I don’t know how an affinity for beach walking became the clincher for personal ads rather than, say, “likes cooking gourmet meals and then doing all the dishes,” but it’s true … Continue reading
It seemed the South remained the last holdout, but with the news that its first industrial scale wind project* will also be producing electricity by 2016 in North Carolina, America’s embrace of the industry seems to be growing. Continue reading
This past week, I attended the State Energy Conference in Raleigh, NC. Not your typical scientific conference, but I would suggest looking for more of these types of events to all graduate students. Look for something that’s related to your field but is not catered solely to the academic community. It will really broaden your … Continue reading
Even if you are interested in wind energy in North Carolina (this blogger), and even if you attempt to feign interest in local policy matters (again, this blogger), the news last week that our governor’s office has requested an extended buffer against offshore wind farms may have flown under your radar. The NC Department of … Continue reading
For a marine scientist, one of the best parts of North Carolina’s Outer Banks is access to some incredible habitats. I have been able to experience this first-hand as I’ve started my MS research here at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) this summer. About half of the students in our Marine Sciences department have … Continue reading
One of the most effective arguments against offshore energy developments (of many types – not just offshore wind) is the negative impact to the local viewshed. In North Carolina in particular, the Outer Banks are dominated by land designated as ‘National Seashore,’ and therefore under much greater effective protection from any sort of development than … Continue reading
UNder the C 