My passion is life, hence why I became an environmental scientist, and why I became a conservationist at age 18, leading the campaign to protect Wollemi National Park in Australia. My sense of wonder towards nature has transformed my life. As Aldo Leopold observed, we ‘live in a world of wounds’ as the ‘more-than-human’ world is rapidly declining. But it doesn’t have to be this way, positive if challenging solutions exist. Hence why I write about environmental science, ecological economics, ecological ethics, denial, human dependence on nature, meaningful sustainability, and what we each can do to give back to Nature.
I wrote...
A Sense of Wonder Towards Nature: Healing the Planet Through Belonging
We will not solve the environmental crisis unless we change our worldview and ethics, and hence rejuvenate our sense of wonder towards Nature. The book focuses on humanity’s relation with Nature, and the sense of wonder and belonging common to Indigenous cultures and children everywhere. What is a sense of wonder, what it has been called in different cultures, and what are our ‘high points’ of wonder? It looks at the ‘Great Divide’ in worldview between anthropocentrism and eco-centrism, arguing the focus should be on harmony with Nature. How has wonder become buried in Western society? It shows how wonder helps humanity to become ‘whole’ and presents the road back to wonder.
Patrick Curry tackles the great hidden issue of ethics – whether we extend moral standing to nonhuman nature. He considers anthropocentrism and instead proposes ecocentrism. This is a big topic but Curry provides an excellent introduction for the general public to think about this essential issue.
In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the highly successful Ecological Ethics, Patrick Curry shows that a new and truly ecological ethic is both possible and urgently needed. With this distinctive proposition in mind, Curry introduces and discusses all the major concepts needed to understand the full range of ecological ethics.
He discusses light green or anthropocentric ethics with the examples of stewardship, lifeboat ethics, and social ecology; the mid-green or intermediate ethics of animal liberation/rights; and dark or deep green ecocentric ethics. Particular attention is given to the Land Ethic, the Gaia Hypothesis and Deep Ecology and…
Rolston discusses the need for new environmental ethics, in effect an ‘Earth Ethics’. Beautifully written, Rolston considers how humanity values nature, and the need to change our path to reach an ecologically sustainable future.
This Second Edition of A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth offers clear, powerful, and often moving thoughts from Holmes Rolston III, one of the first and most respected philosophers to write on the environment and often called the "father of environmental ethics." Rolston surveys the full spectrum of approaches in the field of environmental ethics and offers critical assessments of contemporary academic accounts. He draws on a lifetime of research and experience to suggest an outlook, and even hope, for the future. This forward-looking analysis, focused on the new millennium, will be a necessary complement…
Soskolne edits one of the most important books on sustainability ever written, but written in a way the layperson can understand. It is over 400 pages long, but this is because it covers a multitude of deep topics by experts in the field. It is not waffle, does not indulge in denial, and is one of the most constructive books I have read that seriously addresses meaningful sustainability.
As global warming, famine, and environmental catastrophes have become daily news items, achieving a sustainable environment to maintain the future of life on Earth has become a global concern. Sustaining Life on Earth is an important contribution toward assessing such problems and making the Earth hospitable to life for generations to come. With an interdisciplinary team of international scholars, this masterfully edited collection approaches the problems facing sustainability from a perspective of global governance. To date, powerful economic forces have misguided decision-making processes in favor of short-term gain rather than long-term sustainability. As global awareness has increased and individual citizens…
Thomas Berry has been called a ‘geologian’ and is one of the deepest thinkers on the environmental crisis. He writes with passion and compassion for our world and humanity as part of that world. One quote gives you an idea of his prose: ‘But our supposed progress toward an ever-improving human situation is bringing us to a waste world instead of a wonderworld’.
This landmark work, first published by Sierra Club Books in 1988, has established itself as a foundational volume in the ecological canon. In it, noted cultural historian Thomas Berry provides nothing less than a new intellectual-ethical framework for the human community by positing planetary well-being as the measure of all human activity.
Drawing on the wisdom of Western philosophy, Asian thought, and Native American traditions, as well as contemporary physics and evolutionary biology, Berry offers a new perspective that recasts our understanding of science, technology, politics, religion, ecology, and education. He shows us why it is important for us to…
Society has to face up to the fact that there are far too many people on planet Earth, probably several times more than is ecologically sustainable. It is no use denying it and making it taboo. Sure we need smaller ecological footprints – but we also need fewer feet. Overpopulation means that life on Earth is indeed on the brink of extinction. This is probably the best book I know that tackles the population issue with both science and compassionate ethics for all life.
Life on the Brink aspires to reignite a robust discussion of population issues among environmentalists, environmental studies scholars, policy makers, and the general public. Some of the leading voices in the American environmental movement restate the case that population growth is a major force behind many of our most serious ecological problems, including global climate change, habitat loss and species extinction's, air and water pollution, and food and water scarcity. As we surpass seven billion world inhabitants, contributors argue that ending population growth worldwide and in the United States is a moral imperative that deserves renewed commitment.
Bold, funny, and shockingly honest, Ambidextrous is like no other memoir of 1950s urban childhood.
Picano appears to his parents and siblings to be a happy, cheerful eleven-year-old possessed of the remarkable talent of being able to draw beautifully and write fluently with either hand. But then he runs into the mindless bigotry of a middle school teacher who insists that left-handedness is "wrong," and his idyllic world falls apart.
He uncovers the insatiable appetites of a trio of neighboring sisters, falls for another boy with a glue-sniffing habit, and discovers the hidden world of adult desire and hypocrisy. Picano…
Bold, funny, and shockingly honest, Ambidextrous is like no other memoir of 1950s urban childhood. Picano appears to his parents and siblings to be a happy, cheerful eleven-year-old, possessed of the remarkable talent of being able to draw beautifully and write fluently with either hand. But then he runs into the mindless bigotry of a middle school teacher who insists that left-handedness is "wrong," and his idyllic world falls apart. He uncovers the insatiable appetites of a trio of neighboring sisters, falls for another boy with a glue-sniffing habit, and discovers the hidden world of adult desire and hypocrisy. Picano…
