A Thinking Reed

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

Environment

  • Economics as if people (and other living things) mattered

    I’m in Indianapolis visiting family, and one of the things I like to do whenever I’m here is make a trip to Half Price Books. Yesterday I picked up a copy of For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future by World Bank economist Herman Daly and process Read more

  • Notes on a theocentric ethic of creation, 3

    Heavenly Father, your Holy Spirit gives breath to all living things; renew us by this same Spirit, that we may learn to respect what you have given and care for what you have made, through Jesus Christ our Lord. – Andrew Linzey This prayer from Andrew Linzey nicely encapsulates the themes of a genuine Christian Read more

  • Notes on a theocentric ethic of creation, 2

    In addition to theocentricity and what I’ve called a “qualified” anthropocentrism, any Christian ethic of creation needs to address the issue of the “fallenness” of creation. This is a controversial topic since, while most theologians have no problem with the idea of human fallenness (in some sense), the idea that the non-human creation is somehow Read more

  • Notes on a theocentric ethic of creation, 1

    As a kind of follow up to yesterday’s post, I’ve been thinking a bit more about what a Christian environmental (or better “creation”) ethic might look like that steers between anthropomorphism and misanthropy. I think a key concept here is theocentricity. A theocentric ethic would recognize that human beings, while perhaps the most valuable creature Read more

  • Beyond antrhopocentrism and misanthropy

    I’ve been reading a short collection of essays by Wendell Berry called Another Turn of the Crank. I’m not ready to sign on to Berry’s agrarian vision, but I do think he makes some important observations. In an essay called “The Conservation of Nature and the Preservation of Humanity,” he points out that much of Read more

  • Bread for the world

    Interesting primer on feeding everybody, and sustainably to boot. Read more

  • Our farm policy: bad for animals, bad for the environment, bad for the poor, bad for our waistlines…

    Michael Pollan writes about how US farm policy keeps the prices of fattening and unhealthy foods artificially low, while allowing prices on things like fruits and vegetables to rise. Why, he asks, would we want to encourage such a situation, especially if we face an “epidemic” of obesity? He also points out how this connects Read more

  • The least of these

    From Stephen Cottrell’s ‘I Thirst’: A further interpretation of this story [Jesus’ parable of the final judgment in Matthew 25] touches powerfully upon the way we treat the whole created order, particularly our fellow-creatures. ‘The least of these’ can refer to animals abused and exploited in so many atrocious ways. The food scares that have Read more

  • More from McKibbon

    A while back I blogged a couple of items on the argument Bill McKibbon makes in his new book Deep Economy for rethinking our commitment to growth uber alles. Interested readers may want to check out this article at Mother Jones where McKibbon develops his argument at greater length. In short, the argument is that Read more

  • Look for the label

    The last couple of posts got a bit bogged down in philosophical abstraction (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), so I thought I’d offer an example of what I see as a good concrete proposal for changing our treatment of animals. The “Certified Humane” label is a program of Humane Farm Animal Care, a Read more