How climate change is affecting trees

 How climate change is affecting trees, by exacerbating beetle infestations:

Please read (or listen to the audio) at https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2017/12/climate-change-makes-trees-vulnerable-to-pests/

plastics in the ocean: what and how

LCDR Eric Johnson, NOAA Corps. (Wikimedia Commons)

To try to understand all of the information about harmful amounts of plastics in the global water system, it's helpful to have some basic facts.

 Plastic and how it affects our oceans (ABC News)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-02-27/plastic-and-plastic-waste-explained/8301316
  




OCEAN PLASTICS POLLUTION - A Global Tragedy for Our Oceans and Sea Life - 

Center for Biological Diversity

 http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/

Microplastic in the Ocean
Scitable - A Collaborative Space for Education

https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/saltwater-science/microplastic_in_the_ocean

 https://www.omicsonline.org/articles-images/pollution-and-effects-Schematic-drawing-showing-4-161-g004.png

gratitude (more than we thought)

David Steindl-Rast,at age 91, teaches us that gratitude is something more than appreciation: it is profoundly more.

"The one thing all humans have in common is that each of us wants to be happy, says David Steindl-Rast, a monk and interfaith scholar. And happiness, he suggests, is born from gratitude. An inspiring lesson in slowing down, looking where you’re going, and above all, being grateful."

 https://www.ted.com/talks/david_steindl_rast_want_to_be_happy_be_grateful

more evidence of the link between climate change and dangerous weather events

It has long since become an urgent matter for us to respond to climate change. Here is even more evidence of the link between climate change and dangerous weather events.

"The 'extreme magnitude' of three 2016 weather events 'would not have been possible without human-caused climate change,' an American Meteorological Society report says, for the first time finding a causal relationship."

https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2017/12/three-extremes-in-2016-not-possible-without-human-warming/

EarthEd (State of the World) - Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet

News from The Earthwatch Institute -

Watch the video linked below, for presentation from the EarthEd Symposium:

"Earth education is traditionally confined to specific topics: ecoliteracy, outdoor education, environmental science. But in the coming century, on track to be the warmest in human history, every aspect of human life will be affected by our changing planet. Emerging diseases, food shortages, drought, and waterlogged cities are just some of the unprecedented challenges that today’s students will face. How do we prepare 9.5 billion people for life in the Anthropocene, to thrive in this uncharted and more chaotic future?"

https://youtu.be/groCCUazrWI?list=PL5StzlvJpXWbECWyvKU4nu8Rpv8rUVwPz

what does it take to understand others?

See Charles Eisenstein's great video: "What is it like to be you?"
https://youtu.be/uStmnodUpOo

Pope addresses “Religions for Peace”‎ delegation

 Pope Francis ‎told a delegation of 80 members of “Religions for Peace”, who met him in the Vatican, that "religions have a unique to play in building peace".

Religions for Peace is the world’s largest and most representative multi-religious coalition that advances common action among the world’s religious communities to transform violent conflict, advance human development, promote just and harmonious societies, and protect the earth.

Lear more at
 http://fore.yale.edu/news/item/pope-addresses-religions-for-peace-delegation/

Some important books about ethics and the environment

Go to this link at the University of North Texas's Center for Environmental Philosophy, to see a list of foundational books on ethics and the environment:

http://www.cep.unt.edu/eebooks.html

interested in "greening" your tavel?

Although a lot of factors were debated a few years ago regarding carbon offsets and other green travel initiatives, some of the forward movement on these topics has stalled or slowed. Some entities are still at work on it, however:

https://climatecare.org/category/news/

http://www.responsibletravel.org/index.php

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/company/globalcitizenship/environment/carbon-offset-program.aspx

Carbon offsets may still be useful - look into this option, especially if - like me - you are concerned about the effect of emissions from  commercial aircraft.

new paper on conservation and social science

A valuable recent paper in the journal Environmental Conservation:

Conservation social science: Understanding and integrating human dimensions to improve conservation

 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320716305328

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• Robin Roth^d, ,
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new book: Ethics for a Full World

This new text by Tormod Burkey addresses many of the environmental ethics challenges of this current period, and asks the grand-scale, looming question: how long can we avoid facing some of the most pressing issues without permanent damage to the earth's living systems and species, as well as the earth's human population?

‘A cure for narrow-mindedness, this provocative book should be required reading for politicians – and those who vote for them.’ – Brian Czech, President, Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, author of Supply Shock: Economic Growth at the Crossroads

‘A fine, concise book which should enlarge the discussion on what in my view is the most important need of humanity, an “Ethics for a Full World”.’ – Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies Emeritus and President of the Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University.

From the publisher:   http://www.clairviewbooks.com/pages/viewbook.php?isbn_in=9781905570850

Full review:  https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34456010-ethics-for-a-full-world

Virtue ethics: does this line of reasoning appeal to you?

Read about "virtue ethics" and see if you find threads of reasoning that appeal to you:

Virtue Ethics at PhilosophyBasics:  http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_virtue_ethics.html

The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/ethics-and-virtue/

A fine Powerpoint from Kitty Uys and Michal Harty at the University of Praetoria: http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/Legacy/sitefiles/file/46/9742/aacconference2ndregional/yellowwoodvenue/ethicaldecisionmakingaacconf.pdf

Thoreau revisited - and why I turn toward him still

Henry David Thoreau was a visionary, a seer, an oracle. Not merely one of our most accomplished writers and naturalists, I believe he foresaw some dimensions of the looming conflicts about the land and the way human beings use it - and how we might live together on it.

It became popular in the early 2000's to revisit Thoreau and find the man and his work incomplete, flawed after all. Despite our having been inoculated with Thoreau in literature courses during our secondary and post-secondary educations, the early years of this century seemed to give permission to various writers to criticize Thoreau in new ways. (Since he had been dead so long, and maybe in some cases because even their literature professors were also now dead...perhaps they felt somehow emboldened?)

Yet other scholars have unearthed facts that these critics had overlooked.

Donovan Hohn writes in the New Republic: (https://newrepublic.com/article/123162/everybody-hates-henry-david-thoreau)

“'One misperception that has persisted is that he was a hermit who cared little for others', says Elizabeth Witherell, who has spent a few decades editing a critical edition of Thoreau’s collected works. “He was active in circulating petitions for neighbors in need. He was attentive to what was going on in the community. He was involved in the Underground Railroad.” He quit his first teaching job, in protest, because he was expected to administer corporal punishment, and struggled to find a new one. He loved watermelons, and threw an annual watermelon party for his friends, of whom he had plenty. Children were especially fond of him. Sophia and Thoreau’s mother were founding members of the Concord Women’s Anti-Slavery Society, and Thoreau invited them to convene at least one meeting that we know of at his cabin in the woods, to celebrate the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the Indies. As for family, he lived most of his life in his parents’ boarding house, paying rent and helping out as a handyman. He was very handy. He could dance, and play music. He wrote lovingly about his father, mother, and siblings in his journals, and they wrote lovingly about him, and he was so devastated by his brother’s death that he developed symptoms of tetanus in sympathy."

Rebecca Solnit  writes in Orion magazine: ( https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-thoreau-problem/)

"This compartmentalizing of Thoreau is a microcosm of a larger partition in American thought, a fence built in the belief that places in the imagination can be contained. Those who deny that nature and culture, landscape and politics, the city and the country are inextricably interfused have undermined the connections for all of us (so few have been able to find Thoreau’s short, direct route between them since). This makes politics dreary and landscape trivial, a vacation site. It banishes certain thoughts, including the thought that much of what the environmental movement dubbed wilderness was or is indigenous homeland — a very social and political space indeed, then and now — and especially the thought that Thoreau in jail must have contemplated the following day’s huckleberry party, and Thoreau among the huckleberries must have ruminated on his stay in jail."

Travel is another topic with references from Thoreau, and his words when much abbreviated over the past 170 years can be misleading. A famous line of Thoreau's  is often quoted as: “I have traveled a good deal in Concord", but this leaves out the remainder of his thought. The full sentence indeed reads: “I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.” Thoreau took care to head in the other direction - and most of the time, on foot. 

He had his detractors then, as now - and I'm betting that didn't bother him very much. So I return to him and his writings, over and over - a singular character on the American scene, when it was full of ferment and change - maybe not all that different from right now?



Other Resources:
https://matadornetwork.com/bnt/what-henry-david-thoreau-taught-me-about-travel/

The Land Stewardship Project

"The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1982 to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop healthy communities. LSP is dedicated to creating transformational change in our food and farming system. LSP's work has a broad and deep impact, from new farmer training and local organizing, to federal policy and community based food systems development. At the core of all our work are the values of stewardship, justice and democracy."

learn more at: http://landstewardshipproject.org/

one of the great thinkers

Meister Eckhart, a 13th-century German monk, is recognized by an increasing, but still too-small number of spiritual seekers in the modern world. Learn about his spectacular work and thought and action in a recent book: Meister Eckhardt - A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, by Matthew Fox.

A quote from a brief review: "Though he lived in the thirteenth century, Meister Eckhart’s deeply ecumenical teachings were in many ways modern. He taught about what we call ecology, championed artistic creativity, and advocated for social, economic, and gender justice." (Amazon.com review )

A new conference

The 2017 Building a Land Ethic Conference

 https://www.aldoleopold.org/news-events/land-ethic-conference/