A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Environment

  • Blogs of Christmas past

    Since content will likely be light this coming week, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to offer up some representative posts from the previous four Decembers since I started blogging, as a kind of retrospective. (Note: some of these originally appeared on my first blog, “Verbum Ipsum,” but have been imported to WP; Read more

  • The greening of religion

    At “The Immanent Frame,” Roger Gottlieb gives an overview of “religious environmentalism.” Not religious in the sense that conservatives sometimes say that environmentalism is a religion, but environmental concerns and movements emanating from traditional religions. One provocative claim Gottlieb makes is that, as religions “green,” they move to the left more generally: There is also Read more

  • The oil crash: a very inconvenient truth

    I just finished watching this extremely well-done documentary (if you subscribe to Netflix you can stream it from their site as I did). If anything, it was more terrifying than An Inconvenient Truth. I think that’s because the consequences–drastic economic dislocation, a series of resource wars, etc.–are more immediate and viscerally disturbing. (Obviously the two Read more

  • Assorted links with no particular unifying theme

    –Lynn on why some people are pro-choice on abortion but anti-gay marriage and the various meanings of “sodomy” –Matt Yglesias on DC Statehood (bonus: a couple of nifty images of US flags with 51 stars from Yglesias commenters) –Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle recently appeared on the Kojo Nnamdi show, an excellent program on DC’s Read more

  • Mill, animals, and liberalism

    Gaius asks whether a liberal who traces her intellectual lineage to J.S. Mill–i.e. who sees the purpose of politics as permitting the widest possible scope for human liberty consistent with the liberty of others–can consistently be in favor of laws for preventing cruelty to animals or protecting the environment: how [did] liberals, historically, either politically Read more

  • Moyers on “Changing the way we eat”

    Bill Moyers interviews Michael Pollan about food policy, public health, climate change, and what, if anything, Barack Obama can, should, or might do to reform our food system. Read more

  • Ethical challenges for the president-elect

    Obama’s global ethical challenges, according to Peter Singer: -close Gitmo and end the practice of detaining people whithout charges -withdraw from Iraq -increase and better target foreign aid -take serious action on global warming Sounds about right. (Incidentally, it’s looking like Obama is going to make climate change a priority.) Read more

  • Ecopsychology?

    I don’t know that I’d buy all the theoretical trappings, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there’s something to this. As a kid growing up in a small, largely rural town, I spent a lot of time riding my bike, wandering around in the woods, and spending a lot of more-or-less unsupervised time Read more

  • The virtues as a response to climate change

    Thanks to Derek for passing along this terrific piece on “Changing the Climate: Spiritual steps for Sustainable Living” by a Benedictine monk, Abbot Christopher Jamison. Abbot Jamison thinks that the classical virtues provide an important part of the response to global warming and other aspects of our changing environmental situation. This reminds me of a Read more

  • Less Friedman, more Schumacher

    Patrick Deneen calls for an economic re-thinking on the Right. It remains to be seen, I think, whether the Right or the Left will be the first to seriously re-examine the assumptions underlying an unlimited growth/unlimited consumption economy. The Left has a long history of attending to social justice issues and questions of equality, but, Read more