In the not so distant past, before there was a “collective fixation on global warming as the mother of all environmental problems,” as Jon Foley lamented in 2009, biodiversity was the poster child for environmental crises. It was an issue that captivated journalists, scientists and greens alike–much as climate change does today. Indeed, concern over the loss…Continue Reading…
For decades, environmentalists and many earth scientists have been warning that humans are exceeding the earth’s carrying capacity, that our numbers (7 billion and counting) and the way we farm, fish, and live is overwhelming the ecosystems we depend on. In 2009, Johan Rockström and two dozen colleagues proposed a new approach to global sustainability in…Continue Reading…
Last week, we received this scary bulletin out of Berkley, California: A prestigious group of scientists from around the world is warning that population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation…Continue Reading…
There is a battle underway for the soul of environmentalism. It is a battle between traditionalists and modernists. Who prevails is likely to be determined by whose vision for the future is chosen by a new generation of environmentalists. The green traditionalist has never had a sunny outlook. Forty years ago, he warned about a…Continue Reading…
There’s been numerous waves of apostasy breaking over environmentalism in the last decade or so. Stewart Brand, a countercultural icon, is perhaps the most famous example. Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus crashed down on the green movement in the mid-2000s, forcing it to swallow a hard, introspective reckoning (which, unsurprisingly, it didn’t appreciate). More recently, George…Continue Reading…
Here is one view of the path humanity is on, which is implied by a recent conference. Another view is markedly sunnier. Is there room for another perspective, one that does not downplay ecological concerns or put them in irreconcilable conflict with humanity? If so, this would be it.
On Friday, when most environmentally-inclined people were despairing about the the torturous climate talks in South Africa (since ended, good roundup and assessment here), a short op-ed appeared in the NYT, arguing that despair over the fate of the planet was getting a bit stale. The three authors of the piece–a journalist and two scientists–don’t…Continue Reading…
Roger Cohn, the editor of Yale Environment 360, conducted an interesting interview with Mary Evelyn Tucker, a scholar who studies the intersection of ecology and religion. This is a perennial interest of mine, even though I’m a life-long atheist. Most people in the world (including many scientists) possess a religious faith or seek out some kind…Continue Reading…
We have an annual event in the U.S. that I think is kind of hokey but also well-meaning. After reading this dispatch from the recent Ecological Society of America conference, I thought maybe the idea could be broadened a bit, into something that allowed a local pastor to tag along with an ecologist or climate scientist…Continue Reading…
Henry David Thoreau famously wrote: In wildness is the preservation of the world. Since the late 1800s, the notion of wilderness as nature incarnate has been an animating force in American culture. A host of seminal, hugely influential environmental writers and activists, from John Muir and Aldo Leopold to David Brower and Edward Abbey, have…Continue Reading…