A Thinking Reed

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

Environment

  • Debating conscientious carnivorism

    Mother Jones has a roundtable on whether vegetarianism is always better for the environment than omnivorous diets, featuring Jonathan Safran Foer, Joel Salatin, and Anna Lappé, among others. It seems possible that at least some meat-containing diets can be on an environmental par with, or even superior to, some vegetarian diets (particularly those containing lots Read more

  • Mid-week links

    – 2010’s was the hottest June on record in Washington, D.C. (I believe it!) – Glenn Beck pulicizes liberation theology. – On the authority of the Bible. (And more.) – Is Amazon killing the publishing business? – Keith Ward argues that there are things science can’t explain. – The ideology of marriage. – I heartily Read more

  • “The Age of Tough Oil”

    Elizabeth Kolbert on the disaster in the Gulf. Read more

  • Musings on a social- and ecological-market economics

    My two recent posts on property rights and libertarianism don’t really adequately represent the way I think about economics these days. For the sake of argument, I accepted certain principles held by libertarians, but I don’t think those principles are sufficient. Libertarian principles have a simplifying austerity that can be appealing–I found them appealing for Read more

  • Creation Sunday

    The ELCA and other churches have adopted the tradition of observing the Sunday closest to Earth Day as “Creation Sunday” (or Care of Creation Sunday). To some this no doubt seems like another in a long line of mainline capitulations to political correctness. The reality, though, is that care for God’s creation should be a Read more

  • Friday Metal: Day after Earth Day edition

    Gojira, “Embrace the World” I sit on a rock Cannot be touched by struggle & confusion I reclaim my space inside my structure Look at this point All is about nothing, everything comes near The remotest parts of the world By silence We can dissolve disruptive vibrations I have to try Gaia’s alive for good Read more

  • Stewart Udall, R.I.P.

    Stewart Udall, who was Secretary of the Interior during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, died this weekend. I didn’t really know anything about him before reading this obituary in today’s WaPo, but his accomplishments as head of Interior were impressive. I was more struck, though, by some of the language he used. It’s hard to Read more

  • Tilting at locavorist windmills

    This NYT article scores some easy points against a rigorous or simplistic locavorism (e.g., there are areas of the country where pickings are pretty slim this time of year), but skims along at what turns out to be a pretty superficial level. “Food miles” is just one consideration when it comes to eating sustainably, and Read more

  • Factory Planet

    I’m both sympathetic to and skeptical of the ethos on display at Front Porch Republic. On the one hand, an ethics of limits is precisely one of the things we desperately need. On the other, FPRers evince a sometimes-disturbing nostalgia for an agrarian arcadia that never was and to which we wouldn’t want to return Read more

  • Sustainable food and the importance of class

    Interesting article from Tom Philpott at Grist on the connections between cheap food and cheap labor, and the need for the sustainable food movement to address issues of class. Key paragraph: In short, an economy hinged on cheap labor needs cheap food. And that’s the structural problem faced by Slow Food and other would-be reformers Read more