A Thinking Reed

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

Environment

  • Toward a non-anthropocentric theology

    Jeremy asked if I’d recommend any books on moving away from an anthropocentric theology. This is a question at the intersection of some perennial ATR themes, so I thought I’d post the answer here. The following list makes no pretense to be either authoritative or exhaustive, but these are some books (in no particular order) Read more

  • Creaturely theology

    Following on the heels of his Why Animal Suffering Matters, Andrew Linzey’s Creatures of the Same God addresses many of the same issues, but from a more explicitly theological point of view. In fact, Creatures is a collection of mostly previously published essays, expanding on and refining ideas first developed in Linzey’s other books, especially Read more

  • Farmers vs. “agri-intellectuals”

    A while back, the American–the magazine of the American Enterprise Institute–published an article by farmer Blake Hurst called “The Omnivore’s Delusion,” taking to task “agri-intellectuals” like Michael Pollan who have criticized industrial farming. Here Tom Philpott points out some of the holes and omissions in Hurst’s argument. Philpott acknowledges that the sustainable food movement hasn’t Read more

  • The missing element in the US climate change debate

    Ethics, says Donald Brown, a professor of environmental ethics at Penn State, guest posting at Climate Progress. He offers the recent debate in Scotland as an instructive contrast. Good introductions to the ethics of climate change are James Garvey’s (aptly titled) The Ethics of Climate Change, Michael Northcott’s A Moral Climate (written from a theological Read more

  • Against threat inflation

    Stephen Walt and Matthew Yglesias both have smart posts on looking at climate change through a national security lens. Possibly one of the worst outcomes of our failure to address climate change (and other attendant issues like peak oil) would be to lock ourselves into a zero-sum, conflict-based position with the rest of the world. Read more

  • Green beer – and it’s not even St. Paddy’s day

    Top 8 Green U.S. Breweries I haven’t even tried most of these, though I am a fan of Brooklyn Brewery. (link via my buddy Chris) Read more

  • Boldly not going

    At the risk of sounding crassly utilitarian, I think it’s frankly a dumb idea to send manned space missions to Mars (or even back to the Moon) when there are plenty of problems here on planet Earth whose amelioration could benefit from that sort of concerted national effort and cash (take your pick: extreme poverty, Read more

  • Book recommendation: James Garvey’s Ethics of Climate Change

    During my mini-vacation I read philosopher James Garvey’s book, The Ethics of Climate Change, which I highly recommend. It very lucidly lays out the moral issues and the kinds of responses they call for. I thought his discussion of what we know about the impact of climate change and how we should act in the Read more

  • Kinship and cultivation, Francis and Benedict

    Catholic theologian Denis Edwards’ Ecology at the Heart of Faith provides a good model of engaging environmental issues using the classic Christian theological tradition. In chapter 2 he discusses the controverted issue of the image of God and dominion over nature. He argues that the imago is best understood as the human capacity for interpersonal Read more

  • Climate action and public corruption

    A pork-ridden Waxman-Markey passed the House yesterday, and heaven only knows what version of the bill will come out of the Senate and the subsequent process of reconciling the two. George Monbiot calls the U.S. a “failed state” when it comes to climate action and says that addressing political corruption (“corporate money and an unregulated Read more