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Welcome to My Homepage!

“To dare to be aware of the facts of the universe in which we are existing calls for courage.” -Wilfred Bion

I am a geographer interested in the human dimensions of global environmental change and environmental hazards. The central theme of my work is change – whether it happens in single events or gradually over time: How and why does it happen? What are its effects? How do we deal with it?

I am interested in the process of change in the innermost personal to the outermost global arenas of life: gaining awareness of it, generating motivation to act upon it, enabling and empowering action, and overcoming barriers – perceived or real – in the physical, psychological, social, economic, or institutional environment. What are the forces that lock us into the status quo or into destructive behaviors if change is called for, or if external forces push us to adapt?

My past and current work is about understanding

• Impacts of environmental change: how environmental change impacts people and ecosystems, and how people impact the environment
• Coastal hazards: how, in particular, society deals with the hazardous challenges in one of the most dynamic natural environments on Earth
• Uncertainty: how decision-makers and others deal with the ever-present condition of uncertainty pervading all change
• Science-policy interface: how science can usefully and ethically support policy- and decision-making
• Communication: how difficult-to-perceive environmental changes can best be communicated to various audiences, and
• Social change: how societal change (from the individual to civic society) can be initiated and facilitated in an effective and socially just manner.

As a geographer, I am interested in combining the temporal/historical dimensions of change with the spatial dimension: the differentiation and dynamics of nature-society and social interactions across space. Differences in how we deal with change amount to what I call, a “geography of courage.” Explore more of it on this site. Thank you.