The Duck of Minerva

Josh Busby

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

Website

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

Recent Posts

Legalizing the Rhino Horn Trade: A Terrible Idea? Pt. 1

Legalizing the Rhino Horn Trade: A Terrible Idea? Pt. 1

by | 7 June, 2015 |

Two weeks ago, I came cross a provocative piece  (paywall, free version here) Foreign Affairs published earlier this year by Alexander Kasterine from the UN/WTO International Trade Center on legalizing the trade in wildlife, namely for rhino horn, but conceivably for other species that are currently illegal to trade under the Convention on the International Trades in Endangered Species (CITES). Indeed, South Africa, host to the 2016 CITES meeting and home of the majority of the world's remaining rhinos, is angling to legalize the trade in rhino horn in the face of an unprecedented onslaught...

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After Tenure

After Tenure

by | 22 May, 2015 | ,

While the lead up to tenure is often terrifyingly stressful, even attaining that goal is a bit daunting as it raises the question, "Now what?" I suppose on some level one can then set one's sights on the next thing, Full Professor, but that obviously doesn't have the same significance in terms of career and life trajectory that tenure does. Getting tenure raises all sorts of questions about what you want to be when you grow up, if a life in the academy makes you happy, or if the kind of life you are leading in the academy is what you want to be doing. When I first started graduate school, I...

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Iconic Wildlife Species Threatened With Extinction

Iconic Wildlife Species Threatened With Extinction

by | 8 May, 2015 |

I've been MIA of late on the blog, mostly a function of end-of-term obligations. I've led a year-long graduate course on global wildlife conservation (course blog here). If you haven't followed the news of late, iconic wildlife species like rhinos and elephants are threatened with extinction, mostly because rising incomes in China and Vietnam in particular are allowing more people to satisfy their desires for wildlife products. Since the late 2000s, there has been a surge in demand for wildlife products. For example, poaching of rhinos, most of which survive in South Africa, have increased...

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New directions in academic publishing

New directions in academic publishing

by | 8 April, 2015 |

I've wrote a post today with Bethany Albertson for The Monkey Cage. The post reports the findings from a recent article we wrote for the relatively new academic journal Research and Politics. The article includes a survey experiment we conducted to assess what messages, if any, the American public finds persuasive on climate change. Both represent interesting departures in the academic blogosphere and publishing. The Monkey Cage The Monkey Cage was independent up until September 2013 when it came under the aegis of the Washington Post. Since then, it has become the central hub for academics...

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Open Thread on Surveillance, Snowden, and John Oliver

Open Thread on Surveillance, Snowden, and John Oliver

by | 6 April, 2015 | ,

Last night, John Oliver (the comedian no less!) had a terrific interview with Edward Snowden, which was much more introspective and challenging than the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour. Oliver sought to grapple with the necessity for secrecy in intelligence and  the moral responsibility Snowden faces for trusting journalists to properly vet what materials to release and subsequent errant release of sensitive material (like anti-ISIS operations in Iraq): He continued, “So The New York Timestook a slide, didn’t redact it properly, and in the end it was possible for people to see that...

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Open Thread – Iran Deal – Pros and cons

Open Thread – Iran Deal – Pros and cons

by | 3 April, 2015 |

I've been reading some interesting exchanges on Facebook about the pros and cons of the Iran deal, and though I've been snowed under by grading to have much bandwidth for blogging of late, I thought I would start an open thread here. Fareed Zakaria laid out the case for a deal before it happened in this post, seeing a deal (but presumably not just any deal) as better than the alternatives, continued sanctions and airstrikes, which to him had too many disadvantages and could lead to catastrophic outcomes in the region. David Ignatius had a quick take that suggested the deal was better than...

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Comments Restored

Comments Restored

by | 17 March, 2015 |

Loyal, even devout, readers of the Duck may have noted somewhere along the way that comment streams of yore seemingly disappeared. That could be frustrating if you wanted to go back to an exchange you had with Duck contributors and enthusiasts. I'm happy to report that with the help of our web designer support extraordinaire Lori Lacy of mod.girl.designs that our comments history is restored. For example, here is a post that had lost comments that are now back. Let us know if you see any missing ones on other posts. We hope you are enjoying the functionality of the new and improved Duck, and...

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A Hip-Hop Artist in Burkina Faso Fights Female Genital Mutilation

A Hip-Hop Artist in Burkina Faso Fights Female Genital Mutilation

by | 14 March, 2015 | ,

Each time her sex is butchered with the pretext of purity...three million of our sisters face this violence each year... In his new song "Tomber la Lame" or "Drop the Blade," Burkina Faso hip-hop artist Smockey has an amazing call to end the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), a procedure that remains widespread in parts of Africa and the Middle East that removes a piece of a girl's genitals with a knife so that she won't experience sexual pleasure as an adult and, so the logic goes, be less likely to stray from her husband. It's a horrifying practice, but one that foreign groups...

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World Wildlife Day is Today: A Poaching Crisis Threatens Iconic Wildlife with Extinction

World Wildlife Day is Today: A Poaching Crisis Threatens Iconic Wildlife with Extinction

by | 3 March, 2015 |

Today is World Wildlife Day, and species we think of as part of the fundamental awesome creatures of the natural world - elephants, rhinos, and sharks - face unprecedented risks of extinction, particularly as a result of rising demand from Asia and China in particular.  I'm currently teaching a year-long class on Global Wildlife Conservation for which my students have been writing some excellent posts on the poaching crisis and what can be done. If you are not familiar with this problem, this brief post provides a bit of background. Over the past couple of years, news of the global poaching...

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Tiny Ecuador – Two Videos to Make You Laugh And Cry

by | 26 February, 2015 | ,

From 1997 to 1999, I served in the Peace Corps in the Andean country of Ecuador. Ecuador is rich with contrasts. With the Galapagos, the Andes, and parts of the Amazon, the country possesses stunning natural beauty. The people have an incredible generosity of spirit, yet the country is riven by racial and regional differences. Until recently, high oil prices papered over some of these differences, but the president, Rafael Correa, is a left wing populist in the tradition of Hugo Chavez. He has taken to castigating his domestic on-line critics through television naming and shaming efforts...

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