Aerosol: Suspended solids or liquids in air, naturally occurring as clouds, fog, dust, or steam; or anthropogenically created, as haze or smog. Scientists study aerosols because of the impact of cloud formation on global climate (see Moore and Sobecka, both in SDUK02). Atmospheric research identifies how aerosols contribute to warming or cooling (by reflecting or absorbing sunlight), and to the “greenhouse effect,” particularly in relation to ozone-layer depletion through pollution (see Weaver).
Attention denotes thoughtfulness and care to places and beings, both human or non-human. Attention can be thought, felt, or sensed (see Beer; Synthetic Collective’s interdisciplinary methodology). Amid increasing concern over the commodification of attention through media, contributors to these SDUK broadsheets reclaim attention as a way of knowing environments to promote multi-species flourishing.
Capitalism is an economic system where a limited number of people control the resources and property required to participate in society, either as producers or consumers. Capitalism divides spheres of production and consumption, within a logic of production that emphasizes novel, often superficial innovation (see D.T. Cochrane) and conspicuous consumption, often obscuring the ecological destruction, social stratification, and colonial violence upon which it relies (see Beer).
Charismatic megafauna are large animals often used to represent environmental distress (including elephants, polar bears, and giant pandas), also known as flagship species. Some have criticized the reliance on charismatic megafauna in environmental discourse for oversimplifying complex inter-species relationships, and undervaluing less-popular victims of climate breakdown (see Synthetic Collective; Xiang, SDUK03).
Citizen science is research, sampling, monitoring, or analysis conducted by non-professional scientists. Citizen scientists work in diverse ways—including air or water quality sampling, species counts, or shoreline clean-ups (see a profile of ACER, SDUK01). Professional scientists often work collaboratively with citizen scientists, since the latter can monitor local environments in ways inaccessible to scientist teams (see Synthetic Collective).
Collaboration involves working together toward a common goal, with the origin of the word being co-labour. Collaborative practices often involve different levels of engagement, including retaining the individuality of each contributor, or acting under a collective name. Collaborative practices can share knowledge from different fields, with examples of interdisciplinary collaboration in this issue including Genevieve Robertson’s work in River Relations: A Beholder's Share of the Columbia River, Ruth Beer's Trading Routes, Grease Trails, Oil Pipelines, and Synthetic Collective, all of which include contributors from the humanities and sciences for a broader consideration of the impacts of climate change.
Creativity describes the imaginative capacity of generating new concepts, relationships, and ways of doing. In contrast with innovation (where new ideas are mobilized in the service of measurable returns), creativity’s outputs are not always easily consumable. This makes creative research an effective tool for understanding complex problems (see Beer; Robertson; Synthetic Collective). However, as Cochrane notes, neither creativity nor innovation are virtuous by definition—they are equally capable of harm.
Debris: Waste, remains, or scattered pieces of something larger which has been broken. Consider the residual debris of mining and resource extraction (see Robertson), agricultural waste (Caporusso; Canada’s Waste Flow, SDUK02), or the archaeological debris of settlement (Weinberger). Consider also the relationship between debris and disaster: What remains after a crisis?
Entanglement: The interwoven relations between social, political, economic, and ecological issues, which may appear to be isolated concerns, yet are irrevocably linked (see Beer). Complex relationships between and among species can be characterized as entanglements (see Cooley). This term can also refer to animals literally entangled in debris and plastics pollution, as discussed by the Synthetic Collective.
Glacier: A mass of dense ice, formed gradually when snowfall and ice build-up exceed melt in seasonal thaws. Glaciers form on land—but while glacial pace may indicate the slow passage of time, they are in constant movement. Sediment deposited in glaciers archives deep environmental histories (see Robertson; Morét).
Grease trails are trading routes used by Indigenous nations of the Pacific coast and Pacific Northwest interior. Traders carried the processed oil of oolichan (a small, abundant ocean fish) overland to exchange for goods. Whereas grease trails derive their name from the fish oil trade, petrochemical oils threaten the ecologies of the region due to increased freight shipping and pipeline development (see Beer).
A hold is an embrace, often expressing care and affection, but also suggestive of ambivalence, necessity, or non-reciprocated support (see Weinberger). Christina Sharpe (referenced in Caporusso; and Shotwell, SDUK03) deploys “hold” as a noun, as the hold of a trans-Atlantic slave ship. For Sharpe, the shackling of enslaved Africans in the ship’s hold marks an irreversible trauma for Black people living in the wake of slavery, and the hold emblematizes European slave traders’ dehumanization of Black people as insurable property.
Insecurity may refer to a sense of unease, discomfort, or anxiety (as in the face of climate collapse). Structurally, insecurity denotes vulnerability to a threat, be it social, political, military, of political. Consider food in/security (McCallum), energy security (Caporusso), access to housing and transit (Cooley), or job security (LEAP, SDUK01).
Measurement: the act or method of quantifying something, often done by comparing one set of data to another (Weaver; Synthetic Collective; Morét; Cochrane, SDUK02). How might we apply measurement to artistic research, to acts of witnessing, to knowledge systems more anchored in subjectivity? (Beer; Robertson; Albina) How can we see the immeasurable?
Overburden is a mining term referring to plant life, soil, sand, and rock that separates valued minerals from the Earth’s surface (see Albina). In surface mining processes, it is excavated as waste. Conversely, when sand, gravel, or rock is used as construction fill or foundation, it is referred to as aggregate (see Synthetic Collective).
Production: The creation of material objects, as well as systems that facilitate this creation (e.g. manufacturing). Production has increasingly been framed within the logics of capitalism, and often involves a focus not on invention for the betterment of society, but on modes of production that increase profitability for investors (see Cochrane). New ideas of productivity should not be seen in isolation, as they often continue past colonial enterprises within extractive economies (see Caporusso).
Spectroscopy originated as the use of the visible light spectrum to measure the chemical composition of materials based on their light absorption, but now includes the use of other radiative energies (based on wavelengths and frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, acoustic waves, and even gravitational waves). The PEARL Lab (see Weaver) uses spectroscopy to study the chemical composition of the atmosphere, while the RSSEM Lab analyzes spectral data to understand the role of plants and forests in altered climate conditions.
Terraforming: a term originating in 1940s science fiction referring to the transformation of the planet by humans. Despite its fictional origins, extractive industries have long reshaped the environment, for instance building land where there was once water or flooding large areas in the construction of major dams (see Cooley; Robertson; Caporusso). In SDUK01, Heather Davis and Zoe Todd considered this mass alteration of ecosystems in the context of settler colonialism, while Shannon Mattern described cities as grafted terrains.