Ben Collison

🤦‍♂️

me, sorting a kick sample of riverine benthic invertebrates

Dear Dal, I don’t want this Dear Dalhousie University, not cool. Accepting $30 million from the provincial government to research onshore natural gas may have been your worst idea of the school year — and that’s saying something...

Dear Dalhousie University,

Not cool.

Accepting $30 million from the provincial government to research onshore natural gas may have been your worst idea of the school year — and that’s saying something.
dalgazette.com/opinions/dea...

my goodness that’s bad… the science community is not THAT big, so i suppose this person doesn’t care how an outburst like this could come back to bite them later in their career (depending on how the maturing process goes for them…)?

for you: bullet = dodged
for them: bridge = burned

Graphic highlighting the most read article in 2025 with a colorful FACETS journal cover celebrating 10 years.

Our most read article of 2025 examines trends in environmental impact assessments for Canadian mines and quarries. Read it now ▶️ https://ow.ly/L1Us50XWnza

👥 Alexandre Legault, Ben Collison, et al.

#BestofCSP Dalhousie University

If you can't be bothered to actually write the peer review yourself why should the reviewee have to listen to it? Why write anything at all, ever? If you don't have enough time, fight for better working conditions instead of faking your work

Researchers find gaps in environmental impact assessments of Canadian mining projects | CBC News The lack of data means it can be difficult to assess how a mine is impacting the surrounding community, researchers say.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Canada mining oversight weakened by missing assessment data A new study finds Canada’s mining impact assessments plagued by missing data, weak coordination, and threats to transparency.

Policy Options commentary to go along with our study: policyoptions.irpp.org/2025/11/mini...

We use our database to summarize patterns in IA timelines, minerals being mined, access to information, and so much more...

Unearthing trends in environmental impact assessments for mines and quarries across Canada In Canada, at least 200 active mines and 6500 quarries produce 60 commodities. Many proposed mines and quarries undergo impact assessment (IA) to predict potential impacts and inform final decision-ma...

NEW STUDY: What 50 years of buried data tell us about Canada’s mining oversight ⛏️

Nearly three years of work from a very determined tem has culminated in the first ever database of mines and quarries that have undergone environmental impact assessment (IA) throughout Canada's history. Learn more:

students in solidarity with the DFA! #keepdalstrong @dalfaculty.bsky.social @dalhousie.bsky.social

got it! i will keep an eye out for it

this looks awesome!! is there a repository where the datasets can be downloaded from? I’m specifically wondering about my study area in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada.

Fieldwork season = postponed!

Side-by-side comparison of the same stretch of river one year apart (Aug 2025 vs Aug 2024) to further highlight how extreme this current drought is across Nova Scotia.

Watch as Green Party Leader Elizabeth May calls out serious concerns about bill C-5 and points out that Minister Tim Hodgson seemingly doesn't know, or is contradicting its contents. When the Liberals can’t explain their own legislation, it’s Canadians who pay the price.

Hard to think of a clear depiction of climate politics in Canada than provincial premiers calling for more pipelines and deregulation of oil and gas development as climate-amplified wildfires rage in their own provinces. #cdnpoli

Nova Scotia committed to reform its outdated environmental assessment (EA) process before the end of 2024. It did not happen.

but yeah, let’s promote knowingly destructive industries without any solid mechanism to assess the impacts of new projects - sounds like we thought this one through 🙃

How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see Several groups are working to preserve webpages, tools and data – some of which have already gone missing from government webpages since the start of the Trump administration.

Public Environmental Data Partners archives climate datasets, uploading copies to public repositories and cataloging where and how to find them if they go missing from government websites. Scholars explain: https://buff.ly/3EELhYh

Gotta break up the dystopian timeline with some herpetofauna! this was quite the colourful friend i stumbled upon doing fieldwork this summer. anybody got other nature pics to share?

If you are scientists, researcher, or scholar of any kind, it's time to invest HEAVILY in science communication. If the government won't let the people know the facts, we must.

And I already got you covered. #academicsky #science #phd #research
medium.com/educreation/...

bsky.app/profile/roxa...

Between 2019 and 2023, researchers paid $8.968 billion to make papers open access. Imagine what else could be done with this money if it wasnt paid to for profit publishing companies...
👉 arxiv.org/abs/2407.16551

Alberta rescinds coal development ban for foothills of the Rocky Mountains Energy Minister Brian Jean said in a letter to the Alberta Energy Regulator that he was rescinding ministerial orders which directed the agency to suspend approvals and refuse new applications for coa...

When everyone was looking at the USA, Alberta quietly scrapped a series of ministerial orders that banned coal development in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains: www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art... #cndpoli #abpoli

Has nobody mentioned the music?
(random short list, no order, trying to cover different genres):

Rush
The Guess Who
Bryan Adams
Celine Dion
Arcade Fire
Drake
K'Naan (we can claim him)
K-OS
Leonard Cohen
Michael Bublé
The Weeknd
Metric
Cowboys Fringants
Shania Twain
....
1/2

When you visit a new forest, go up to the biggest mushroom you can find and eat the log he’s growing on to establish dominance

Extinction of experience among ecologists Fieldwork-based research and education in ecology are under multiple threats and are progressively declining. We call for greater attention to this ongoing loss of direct field experience within the ecology community, as it could have widespread consequences for science and education, ultimately hindering efforts to address the ongoing biodiversity crisis.

Where are all the field studies?

This ⬇️ important but rather depressing paper describes how conducting, & crucially initiating, field studies is becoming harder & rarer.

A short 🧵 (and a call for more fieldwork)
www.cell.com/trends/ecolo...

Funding & awards A list of conservation-related scholarships, fellowships, funding, and awards.

Happy New Year!

I updated my webpage of envirionment-related scholarships, grants, & awards: www.aerinjacob.ca/funding--awa...

It includes:
* science
* action & policy
* communication
* travel awards
* international tho' emphasis on N Am, Africa, & women

Please share.

#ConservationFunding

my #1 duty to students is to teach them how to think. AI makes this job harder not easier. A closely related duty I owe is to not let students become accomplices in their own future irrelevance just because it’s easier short term to cheat thinking w AI

A few of the many sources of evidence that could be used to build the same argument: new coal mines on the eastern slopes of the Rockies is a bad idea.

Legacy coal mining impacts downstream ecosystems for decades in the Canadian Rockies Mountaintop removal coal mining leaves a legacy of disturbed landscapes and abandoned infrastructure with clear impacts on water resources; however, t…

Coal mining during the 1800’s in this region continues to pollute downstream freshwater supplies www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Years late and millions short: A predictive audit of economic impacts for coal mines in British Columbia, Canada Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) include economic benefit predictions that influence whether project proposals proceed to the construction and …

Collard et al. 2023 also clearly make the case that environmental impact assessments for coal mines consistently fail to accurately predict trade-offs for job/tax revenue vs. environmental damage. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...