Social Sciences Newsblog

Category: News

SS Talk: Erin Pischke on “Forms and Justifications of Fracking-Related Collective Action in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Play”

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Erin Pischke-112:00 noon on Friday, April 10th in AOB 201.

Erin Pischke, Environmental and Energy Policy PhD student,  will present on “Forms and Justifications of Fracking-Related Collective Action in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Play“. This work considers the complex relationships between formal and informal advocacy organizations with hydraulic fracturing by examining two different, but related, forms of organizing:  participation in established non-governmental organizations and involvement in nascent anti-fracking organizations.

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Tapping into Mine Water Geothermal

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image120830-horiz
Old mine tunnels, like ones under this hoist, are filled with water, which may be a valuable geothermal resource. Credit: Edward Louie

From Tech Today:

by Allison Mills, science and technology writer

The water filling abandoned mine tunnels could be a major geothermal resource, both on the Keweenaw Peninsula and across the United States.

Student researchers at Michigan Tech have put together the first comprehensive guidebook communities can use to explore the feasibility of using mine water for geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings. While there is great potential for this resource, there are less than 30 active mine water geothermal systems in the world. One is at Michigan Tech’s Keweenaw Research Center just north of Houghton.

The research team will present their work to the public in Calumet on April 6 in the atrium of the CLK School from 7 to 9 p.m. Community members can interact with a tabletop model showing how mine water geothermal works, calculate the distance from their own home to the nearest mine shaft and make approximate cost calculations for installation and pay-back using a calculator tool. People of all ages are welcome.

Next week they travel to Washington D.C. to present their work at the Sustainable Design Expo, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Learn more about how mine water geothermal works in the full article here.

See additional articles published on Mining-Technology.com and Hydrogen Fuel News.

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Winkler Published in Policy Journal

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GrowthandChange

Professor Richelle Winkler co-authored the article Recreational Housing and Community Development:  A Triple Bottom Line Approach published in the journal Growth and Change: A Journal of Urban and Regional Policy.

ABSTRACT:

In this study, we explore the impact of recreational housing on community development within a triple bottom line (economic, social, environmental) framework. We empirically assess the relationships between recreational housing and social, environmental, and economic conditions in nonmetropolitan counties and explicitly model spatial relationships, considering the potential for indirect spillover effects of recreational housing presence in one county to be associated with social, environmental, and economic conditions in neighboring counties. We employ a spatial Bayesian model averaging method to determine the set of control variables and find that higher concentrations of recreational homes are associated with lower levels of economic well-being, but somewhat higher levels of environmental quality.

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Solomon: In Print

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image65900-pers

From Tech Today:

Professor Barry Solomon (SS) published a paper, “Socioeconomic Analysis Options for Pesticides Management in Developing Countries: A Review,” in Environmental Practice, Vol. 17, No. 1 (March 2015), pp. 57-68.

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Professor Barry Solomon (Social Sciences) published a review of Nadesan, M., et l., eds. Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization? (The Dispossession Publishing Group, 2014). In Energy Research and Social Science, Vol. 6 (April 2015), pp. 161-162. To read the review, visit the ScienceDirect site.

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Three Present at Graduate Research Colloquium

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Three graduate students from the Department of Social Sciences presented at the 2015 Graduate Research Colloquium Poster & Presentation Competition.  The Colloquium is an opportunity for graduate students at Michigan Tech to share their research with the university community and to gain experience in presenting research to colleagues.

Gohman
Sean Gohman

Sean Gohman, PhD student in the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program, gave a presentation titled “The Residues of Industry:  Identifying and Evaluating Mine Waste in Michigan’s Copper Country”.

 

 

 

Louie
Edward Louie and Abhilash Kantamneni

Edward Louie, MS student in the Environmental and Energy Policy program and Abhilash Kantamneni, graduate student from the Department of Computer Science presented about the impact of potential solar net metering policy changes and how it will impact people unequally in different states.

 

Strozier
Ronesha Strozier

Ronesha Strozier, MS student in the Environmental and Energy Policy program gave her presentation titled “Making Connections: Mobility, Accessibility, and Policy Failure”.

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Schelly to Present on American Rainbow Gatherings

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9781612057453_p0_v1_s260x420Dr. Chelsea Schelly, Assistant Professor of Sociology will present on “The Rainbow Way: Participation and Experience in Rainbow Gathering Culture” on Wednesday, March 25, in the Van Pelt and Opie Library East Reading Room at 4:15 pm with refreshments at 4 pm.

Her talk is based on her recently published book, Crafting Collectivity: American Rainbow Gatherings and Alternative Forms of Community (Paradigm Publishers).

This event is part of the Library’s Nexus: The Scholar and the Library series.

 

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Visiting Lecturer Dr. Kristin Floress to Present on Community and Watershed Management

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Photo by USDA Forest Service.
Photo by USDA Forest Service.

Dr. Kristin Floress, a social scientist with the USDA Forest Service in Evanston, IL is giving a talk in 201 AOB from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Monday, March 16 titled “Community Capacity for Watershed Management.”

Her visit co-sponsored by the Visiting Women & Minority Lecturer/Scholar Series (VWMLS) which is funded by a grant to the Office of Institutional Equity from the State of Michigan’s King-Chavez-Parks Initiative, the Center for Water and Society, and the Social Sciences Department.

Abstract: An individual’s ability to engage in actions that are protective of water resources is driven by a variety of factors at the individual and community scale.   This presentation explores several cases of watershed and lake management in Wisconsin using the community capacity for watershed management framework (Davenport and Seekamp, 2013).  Individual indicators and governance principles are assessed and used to provide direction for designing effective water programs.

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