In the introduction to Mary C. Wood’s, “Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age,” the author tries to pinpoint the missteps that lead to lackadaisical governmental statutes and a economical system who’s fundamental focus is set forth by a short-term-minded elite. Even with the growing awareness of the public in the 1970’s and the dynamism […]
In Eric T. Freyfogle’s “Notes on Environmental Justice”, Eric concludes the piece by talking about how environmental justice movements may make our environmental issues worse by misinterpreting natural systems as being contained and controlled by humans. This is to say that the human perspective of nature as being in some ways transcendental is problematic for […]
In Ha-Joon Chang’s book, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism, the author explores the misleading nature of the free market and its underlying regulatory boundaries. Ha-Joon talks about how we miss these restrictions because of the moral values behind them that we support. He also discusses the inherent political motivations that primarily influence the […]
With Aldo Leopold’s, A Sand County Almanac in mind, what moral significance should we assign animals if any and how could this assigning of significance lead to a more permanent existence for humanity within ecosystems as a whole? In Aldo Leopold’s, A Sand County Almanac, we find an intimate series of stories relating the exploits of […]
Lynn White, Jr.’s deconstruction of our ecological predicament and Donald Worster’s response both strive to establish a reason for our current preference as a society (at least in the systemic sense) to commodify nature as a tool of instrumental value. With these readings in mind, what motivators allowed for the commodification of nature by humans and […]
Michael Pollan begins his article, “An Animal’s Place”, with an analysis of the meat eating tendencies of America and its meat processing industries through the lens of species equality. The author goes on to argue the relevance of not placing nonhuman animals on the same moral plane as humans but to regard animals and animal […]
William E. Odum and Eric T. Freyfogle are both exploring a similar idea in their respective articles within the Session 3 reading. Odum is talking about a push for holistic understandings of our relationship to the earth and how an ignorance of the interconnectivity of every individual’s choices can lead to widespread negative change. The […]
In the reading, “Science and Morals,” in which it is understood that the value of a decision to effect change can only be effectively assigned via a moral understanding brought on by collective reasoning and social discussion, the question arises, how does society merge together these two seemingly apposing realms of science and morality in […]
Question: From the reading entitled: “Conservation is Good Work”, what are the most appropriate and effective ways in which consumers can prevent the ongoing degradation of natural resources by the human economic system? While reading this segment, I was struck by the clarity employed in the presentation of the many negative effects of human intervention […]
When I think of what it means to be sustainable, I think about how we use and create energy. It’s a fairly broad issue to confront when we’re talking about maintaining our survival and our ability to thrive and grow as a society but I believe that technology provides a great opportunity to sustain humanity. […]