Food for Thought
“Some may wonder why I chose wildflowers when there are hunger and unemployment and the big bomb in the world. Well, I, for one, think we will survive, and I hope that along the way we can keep alive our experience with the flowering earth. For the bounty of nature is also one of the deep needs of man.”
Lady Bird Johnson
Monthly Archives: May 2007
Ocean biodiversity and the future of seafood: Take 2
In November 2006, fourteen marine scientists and resource economists (including yours truly) led by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University published a paper in Science documenting the functional importance of marine biological diversity and linking it in particular to sustainability of … Continue reading
Rachel Carson: Natural Patriot
[Part 1 in an occasional series on heroes of Natural Patriotism] Rachel Carson was born a century ago on this day, 27 May 1907. With her book, Silent Spring, and her courageous fight against indiscriminate broadcast of toxins into the … Continue reading
Posted in Books and media, Natural Patriots, Politics, Sustainability
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Economic Inequality Predicts Biodiversity Loss
[cross-posted at the Earth Forum] Global threats to biodiversity are well documented and widely appreciated, yet the socioeconomic factors driving losses of biodiversity are still poorly understood. A potentially central factor in this equation is economic inequality, which has been … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Politics
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Hot enough for ya?
Summertime and the livin’ is easy. Not any more. A NASA study published last month suggests that summers in my neck o’ the woods here in the eastern USA are going to be pretty brutal in the coming century. The maps … Continue reading
Posted in et cetera
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The real economy
Remember Enron? Of course — who could forget? The company that looked like it was on top of the world, growing and profiting like gangbusters – until the bottom fell out and thousands of employees and stockholders lost their shirts, not … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Sustainability
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Natural Patriotism gathers steam
Environmental Defense is drafting a Declaration of New Patriotism in anticipation of the 4th of July, 2007. And you can contribute. This is something that the Natural Patriot can get fully behind. It’s inspiring to see the idea of natural patriotism … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Sustainability
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I’m pro-life and I vote! (but maybe not the way you think)
Jerry Falwell is gone, leaving a troubled legacy, and with him goes an era of monolithic fundamentalist influence on American politics. The Reverend was a reliable foe of protecting the Creation. Just recently, he famously railed against the growing concern … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Sustainability
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The real roots of terror?
Fundamentalist Christians appear to have a new ally in their crusade against the evil of evolution-based biological science: Fundamentalist Islam. It’s an interesting, albeit frustrating, exercise to read through this nonsense and attempt to decipher the convoluted logic behind the … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Politics
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Add one to the Endangered Species list: ecologists
It’s widely appreciated that the world’s biodiversity is in crisis — that many species are in danger of extinction. How do we know this? Because ecologists and other environmental field scientists have studied their abundance and sometimes obscure habits, tracked … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Biophilia, Education, Politics
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Creation research: pushing back(ward) the frontiers
You’ve got to give creationists some credit for pure mulish stubborn determination. Their strategies to remove evolution from classrooms are themselves a classic example of evolution in response to a changing environment, developing from the initially amateurish claims of “creation science” to the … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Politics
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