Celebrated forest ecologist and UW Professor Emeritus Jerry Franklin once thought he’d been grabbed by Sasquatch while conducting research in Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southwest Washington. It turned out to be a mature Douglas fir shedding 1,000 pounds of its bark. Professor Franklin, a longtime steward of old growth forests and advocate for ecological [...]

Continue Reading →

Those 20-minute showers are lavish, but how much water did it take to make your favorite pair of shoes? How about the beans in your morning coffee? The fuel in your gas tank? Water that goes into producing consumer goods is called virtual water, and it flows through your closet, your kitchen, and your daily commute. Virtual water accounts for over 95% of our water footprint, but we don't talk about it much. Rob Turner wants to change that.

Lauren Hartzell Nichols is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy with appointments in the Program on the Environment and the Program on Values in Society. She teaches about environmental ethics, climate change, and animal welfare. “Students think that I’m going to tell them what the right thing to do is,” Hartzell Nichols said. “Instead, I give them 10 or 12 arguments about what the right thing is, and they all conflict. And I push them to sort through it.”