46 posts tagged with "nature"

Go read Jared Diamond's (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel) report in Harper's Magazine, The last Americans: environmental collapse and the end of civilization. Then donate a few dollars to the Red Cross or other aid agencies working in South Asia (tangentially connected, but it must be said). From the report:

One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse. Few people, however, least of all our politicians, realize that a primary cause of the collapse of those societies has been the destruction of the environmental resources on which they depended. Fewer still appreciate that many of those civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth, and power.

Updated 12/19._ This Friday (12/17/2004) will be the last broadcast of Now with Bill Moyers on PBS, a fantastic show that takes journalism seriously and brings insightful — and sometimes harrowing — news to its viewers. I have often found myself unable to watch Now, knowing that what Moyers uncovers would only ruin my weekend (by usually confirming already held fears or introducing new ones). But like Moyers himself, I am an optimist in the end — I refuse to give in to despair at the condition of the world. Do you remember those "I want to be like Mike" Gatorade commercials with Michael Jordan? Well, I don't want to be like Mike. I want to be like Bill.

Home-brew letter to Senators Dayton and Coleman and Representative McCollum bemoaning the executive branch's handling of science-related policy and suggesting greater Congressional oversight for protection of consumer and environmental rights. If you too are concerned with federal scientific policy making, then please feel free to copy the letter below (and modify as desired) and send to your senators and representative.

At WorldChanging, Alex Steffen offers up excellent suggestions on reforming the environmental movement in his article Reframing the Planet (dead link removed; SF 2025), asking, "Environmentalism has been getting sand kicked in its face on the political beach for too long now. How do we beef it up?". Answering his own question, Steffen offers the beginnings of concrete ways that the greens can appeal to the American public.

Before my iBook was stolen, I had an essay in the works about the relationship of the environmental and interfaith/religious movements. Sadly that piece is gone and I've not had time to reformulate it. Below are two of the central points I was working towards.

The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by Russia (dead link removed; SF 2025). What happens now? What changes will we see, what effects will it have on the United States, and what comes next?

I've been reading a great deal about ecology and conservation biology lately, and thus found the article Ecolonomics: Valuing Forests (dead link removed; SF 2025) quite timely. Of course it is an intriguing article whether or not one has been reading up on the subject, and I recommend it even more to those who haven't been doing so.