Friday, December 4, 2009

For Next Semester, Spring '10.

For those of you who want a head start on buying your texts for either or both of the classes for next semester, here's the book information:

For the Philosophy of Religion class, PHIL 3323:

Peterson, Hasker, Reichenbach and Bassinger, editors, Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, 2007, Fourth Edition, Oxford University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0195393590. Please note: this is a new edition. For the coming semester, if you are buying someone's used Third edition, that will also be adequate. If you order online, however, get the new one.

For the Moral Issues class, PHIL 3301:

DiLeo, Jeffrey R., Morality Matters: Race, Class and Gender in Applied Ethics, McGraw-Hill, 2002, ISBN: 978-0-7674-1236-0.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

India won't sign...

We've discussed this issue more than once during the semester--people do want their fair opportunity at what the West has.

India will not sign binding emission cuts-minister.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Climate change data scandal.

The scandal over the hacked climate-change e-mails is now in active ferment. Here's some reading material. Make up your own minds. The President will hear about this as he prepares for a visit to the Copenhagen summit.

This story has a brief rundown of what happened--

Climate change data dumped - Times Online

Some analysis and follow-up from Dr. Masters at Weather Underground--

--here, first--see the ending comment;

--then, here, a more extensive analysis.

A reflection on the larger implications for the work of science, from the Financial Times.

And a defense from the chair of IPCC.

And, lastly for now, the contrarian point of view from the Telegraph.

Friday, October 23, 2009

A statement on rivers and on nature.

The italics are mine. It's interesting that we've read about and discussed some of these same points.

From the Zenit news service:

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 22, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is the letter, dated Oct. 12, that Benedict XVI sent to Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, on the occasion of the Eighth International Symposium on Religion, Science and the Environment titled "Restoring Balance: The Great Mississippi River. "The symposium, organized under the patronage of Bartholomew I, is under way through Sunday in Memphis, Tennessee.

* * *To His Holiness Bartholomew I, Archbishop of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch, On the occasion of the Eight International Symposium on the theme Religion, Science and the Environment, devoted this year to the Mississippi River, I have asked the Most Reverend Gregory M. Aymond, Archbishop of New Orleans, to offer Your Holiness my cordial greetings and my prayerful good wishes for the occasion. I likewise renew my appreciation for your continued efforts to promote respect for God’s gift of creation and a sense of global solidarity for its wise and responsible stewardship.

From earliest times, water has always been acknowledged as a primary human good and an indispensable natural resource. Around the great rivers of the world, like the Mississippi, great cultures have developed, while over the course of the centuries the prosperity of countless societies has been linked to these waterways. Today, however, the great fluvial systems of every continent are exposed to serious threats, often as a result of man’s activity and decisions.

Concern for the fate of the great rivers of the earth must lead us to reflect soberly on the model of development which our society is pursuing. A purely economic and technological understanding of progress, to the extent that it fails to acknowledge its intrinsic limitations and to take into consideration the integral good of humanity, will inevitably provoke negative consequences for individuals, peoples and creation itself (cf. Common Declaration, 30 November, 2006). Authentic human development likewise calls for intergenerational justice and practical solidarity with the men and women of the future, who are also entitled to enjoy the goods which creation, as willed by God, is meant to bestow in abundance upon all.

I fully agree with Your Holiness that the urgent issues surrounding the care and protection of the environment, while touching important political, economic, technical and scientific questions, nonetheless are essentially of an ethical nature, and the solution to the ecological crisis of our time necessarily calls for a change of heart on the part of our contemporaries. Nature, in fact, is prior to us, and, as the setting of our life, it must be used responsibly, with respect for its inbuilt equilibrium. As the expression of the Creator’s plan of love and truth, nature must be acknowledged as containing “a ‘grammar’ which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation” (Caritas in Veritate, 48).

Precisely for this reason, by virtue of their faith, Christians are called to join in offering the world a credible witness of responsibility for the safeguarding of creation, and to cooperate in every way possible to ensure that our earth can preserve intact its God-given grandeur, beauty and bounty.

The present Symposium, which calls attention to the majestic Mississippi River, also reminds us of the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding which caused such great devastation to New Orleans and surrounding areas on 29 August 2005. My thoughts and prayers are with all those, especially the poor, who experienced suffering, loss and displacement, and all those engaged in the patient work of rebuilding and renewal.

With these sentiments, Your Holiness, I embrace you with fraternal affection in the Lord. At the same time I ask you kindly to convey my greetings and heartfelt good wishes to all those taking part in the Symposium, together with the assurance of my prayers that this important gathering will lead to the renewed awareness of our responsibility for the gift of creation, which God has entrusted to us “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15) as common inheritance and home.

From the Vatican, 12 October 2009

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Class #8, 10/22/09

**Rosters, etc.

**Last minute issues--paper due next week (10/29) on Kohak's "Agathocentric Ecology."

**Working in groups: Here are a group of lifestyle questions to consider. On the first time through them, answer each question about how you and your family have dealt with these issues in the past few years or months.

1--What wakes you up in the morning?

2--How do you find out what the weather will be today?

3--Who fixed breakfast; what did you eat?

4--What type of work do you do?

5--How do you get to work?

6--What do you bring for lunch? (--or do you bring a lunch?)

7--What time did you leave work to get home?

8--Who fixed dinner? How long did it take?

9--How did you obtain the meat items you had for dinner?

10--What about vegetables, and fruit?

11--Where do you keep your milk and butter?

12--When's the last time you ate something that had been frozen?

13--What did you do with the dinner waste and leftovers?

14--What do you do with your household trash?

15--I know this is nosy, but what happens to the human waste from your household?

16--What happened the last time someone got sick from the flu? What did happen (or would have happened) when someone broke a bone or had another serious injury?

17--When is the last time you heard from your family in Massachusetts? Assuming you needed to get a message to them, how long would it take to reach someone? What if it were urgent?

18--What is the anticipated level of education of the majority of your family (of your generation or younger)?

19--What do you do for entertainment? What pastimes does your family enjoy together?

Now your instructor will give you another processing assignment to go over, using the same questions. You'll need to use your imagination.... General discussion will follow, and you'll be asked to make a decision.

**Discussion of Hardin, Kasun and (maybe) Gardner, the readings due today.

**For next week, 10/29: Chapter 8, Food Ethics. Read--
----->Garrett Hardin, "Lifeboat Ethics," pp 443ff.
----->Murdoch/Oaten, "Population and Food," pp 452ff.
----->Rauch, "Can Frankenfood save the Planet," pp 476ff.
----->And...remember that your paper is due.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Water scarcity is another thing...

...to face India, along with the increasing pressure toward modernization and capitalization of industry. People do want a "standard of living" that is above subsistence, and for the first time this may be available--at a cost.

Read the story.

See the slide show.

A world without pandas...

... if this fellow would have his way. Read the article. What are your feelings?

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The most important person of the 20th century...

... according to many, was Norman Borlaug.

Who? TAMU professor and Nobel prize winner Norman Borlaug pioneered the strains of staple crops that now feed literally billions of persons in the poorest regions of the world. He may have saved more lives than were lost in the world wars.

Here is Eric Berger's tribute. He includes some additional links.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Biocentrism

Mr. Berger had this past week an interesting wrap up and interview about the concept of "biocentrism," a theory about the unified perception of reality put forward by physicist Dr. Robert Lanza. The theory, in an oversimplified nutshell,
"is an out-and-out challenge to modern physics, and its inability to reconcile the fundamental forces of nature and make sense of our universe. Lanza believes that is because physicists fail to take consciousness into account as part of their theories. As a result he proposes a new theory, biocentrism, that says the universe cannot exist without life and consciousness."

I posted the following comment to the blog:
Interesting.... Of course, all "explanations" are indeed rational. The possibilities are that there is an objectively real rational structure "out there," that there isn't such a thing and that what science observes is purely the observer's composition, or that there is a single field that includes the observer as well as what is observed. Now this doesn't have to be purely subjective--consciousness itself may well have that necessary and universal "structure" that ties it to the "structure" of what we experience as observed reality. There is a metaphysical question about "the mind of God," or something like that, lurking behind all of this. Science, at its limits, often seems to point in this direction.

An longer abridgment of Dr. Lanza's book is also found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31393080/.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Syllabus and Course Calendar, Fall 2009

Here's the Syllabus/Course Description:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=df8n9qbt_507f48p7hch

Here's the Assignment Calendar:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=df8n9qbt_245dr8dtmgs

Textbook.

The text for this class is an anthology. Here are the specs:

Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application
Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman
Wadsworth Publishing, 5th Edition, 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0495095033

Gotta start somewhere

(Reposted from a year ago.)

This blog is mainly for getting information to students in the Environmental Ethics class. On occasion I'll post something I think is interesting or seek feedback about some topic.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Power Plant Accident in Russia

Now viewing the headline of this story on Bloomberg today, "Russian Power Plant Accident Kills 8; 54 Missing," what was your first thought (after, of course, sorrow over the casualties)? That it was another nuclear generation plant that had gone bad? Nope. It was HYDRO. Just thought I'd point that out.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Current Events

I've been meaning to post this sooner, but Dr. Masters had a nice summary and commentary about the current state of the climate change/anthropogenic global warming debate, here: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1187. The answer is that the numbers, cumulatively, do appear to show the medium-term trend of global warming. In the absence of good stats to the contrary, it's hard to say otherwise. At least the question is raised, although many more questions need to be asked.

Are you following Mount Redoubt? You can do it here: http://www.avo.alaska.edu/.