This figure presents twitter traffic for #COP21 (the hashtag for the climate talks that officially began on 30 November 2015) and any tweets with the terms "terrorism" or "climate" from 31 October to 30 November 2015.    Conversations about terrorism peaked around the attacks in Paris and have since gone down, but not to pre-attack levels.  Climate change has gained substantial attention leading up to the negotiations. So far, however, coverage does not come close to the terrorism peak after the attacks. Twitter traffic is likely to continue to focus on climate as heads of state address the Parties in Paris.  
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--Dana R. Fisher, drfisher@umd.edu

Recent research on climate politics and echo chambers by Dana R. Fisher, Joseph Waggle, and Lorien Jasny was featured in Contexts Magazine (and its accompanying blog at Contexts.org). Read it here. 

I am currently a PhD Candidate in Geographical Sciences and PSE Seed grant recipient. The Workshop for Society and the Environment of October 14th featured a presentation on my ongoing research on contemporary tree cover change in Haiti. As an introduction, I talked about the complexity of tree cover change in general as a phenomenon involving a multitude of inter-related agents, factors, impacts, feedbacks, and temporal and spatial interactions and about the use of Geographical Sciences, remote sensing and geographic information systems to help connect disciplines and study such problems in a more holistic way. The presentation then explored my research topic within its particular context, as well as the research questions and methodology.
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Deforestation in particular is recognized as a critical impediment for Haiti’s development. It degrades the environment on which its population depends, the subsistence of its farmers, increases their vulnerability to the weather, and may contribute to climate change. Tree cover is widely assumed to represent between 1 and 4% of Haiti’s total land area. Remarkably however, no empirical data on tree cover actually exists for the whole country. Also, quantitative studies on factors of tree cover change in Haiti are scarce and have focused primarily on afforestation in specific areas and on a limited number of drivers. To fill these gaps my research includes an unprecedented estimation of tree cover change at the national scale between 2002 and 2010, and seeks to identify both geographic and socio-economic drivers of tree cover change. It takes advantage of a unique, exhaustive collection of aerial photography to estimate tree cover change and to visually collect data on area-specific factors of deforestation. It will also rely on a large survey to be conducted among households in selected municipalities to collect information on plot and household-level factors of tree cover change.