Archive for 2008

CHN Colleagues Contribute to New Book on Ignorance

December 10th, 2008

Ignorance_Book_CoverThe University of Kentucky Press has published a new volume entitled The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge, edited by Bill Vitek and Wes Jackson. The book includes essays by CHN Founding President Strachan Donnelley (”The Path of Enlightened Ignorance: Alfred North Whitehead and Ernst Mayr”), former CHN colleague Paul Heltne (”Imposed Ignorance and Humble Ignorance – Two Worldviews”) as well as CHN Senior Fellow, Peter Brown (”Choosing Ignorance within a Learning Universe”). Bill Vitek was a CHN Senior Fellow during part of the editing of the book and Wes Jackson is an Advisor to the Center. The book offers insight on the advantages of an ignorance-based worldview. According to the Press, the essays “explore the entire realm of this philosophy, from its origins and its essence to how its implementation can preserve vital natural resources for future generations” and the book as a whole “argues that knowledge-based worldviews are more dangerous than useful and looks ahead to determine how humans can live sustainably on Earth.” (http://www.kentuckypress.com/viewbook.cfm?Category_ ID=1&Group=54&ID=1458.) In a review of the book, author Bill McKibben writes, “this is a bid to make ignorance an explicit and powerful underpinning of a new epistemology. It will attract widespread attention and potentially be one of those books that show up in citations for decades to come.”

More posts about Bill McKibben, Peter Brown, Press, ecology, ethics, ignorance, philosophy, publication, strachan donnelley

CHN Board Member to Receive 2008 NCSE Lifetime Achievement Award

December 8th, 2008

George Rabb, a member of the CHN Board of Directors will be honored for his work in conservation with Lifetime Achievement Award of the National Center for Science and the Environment (NSCE). The award will be given at the 9th National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment of NSCE to be held at the Ronald Reagan Building and the International Trade Center in Washington, DC on December 8-10, 2008. Also being honored are Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and Edward O. Wilson, noted entomologist and conservationist and professor emeritus at Harvard University.

George Rabb, Ph.D., is the President Emeritus of the Chicago Zoological Society. He began his conservation career at the College of Charleston where he majored in Biology, and then earned his doctorate in zoology from the University of Michigan. In 1956 he joined Brookfield Zoo as a research zoologist. Dr. Rabb became the Director of Brookfield Zoo and President of the Chicago Zoological Society in 1976. He has been a leader in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, chairing its Species Survival Commission for nearly two decades. Most recently Dr. Rabb has been very active in organizing a response to the decrease in amphibian populations worldwide. Among many other awards, Dr. Rabb has received the Marlin Perkins Award from the America Zoos and Aquariums Association and the Society for Conservation Biology Service Award. (http://ncseonline.org/Conference/Biodiversity/cms.cfm?id=2277)

More posts about Board of Directors, George Rabb, Press, awards

CHN Board Member Gus Speth Discusses His New Book

December 1st, 2008

The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability is the most recent book by Gus Speth, Dean of Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Humans and Nature. He is an accomplished environmental leader, lawyer, author and the founder of many organizations.

Read a review of Speth’s book in our journal Minding Nature, Vol 1 No 1. Read more about the author, his work and the book at http://www.thebridgeattheedgeoftheworld.com/.

More posts about Board of Directors, Gus Speth, Press, carbon emissions, ecology, economics, ethics, publication, sustainability, video

Welcome to Minding Nature

December 1st, 2008

The Center for Humans and Nature operates under the premise that humans can achieve a sustainable relationship with nature only by aligning their values and consciousness with earthly realities. It sounds simple, even logical, but then again, what are those earthly realities? Th is fundamental question was what sparked our Founding President, Strachan Donnelley, to embark on a journey to explore “the many values and moral obligations pertaining to humans and nature, and to take nature seriously as a moral and civic …concern.”

“Moreover, we are convinced that ideas crucially matter in regional, civic, everyday life – that how we think and feel about ourselves and nature importantly determines human action and what [a] region will become, for better or for worse.”
—Strachan Donnelley, Ph.D.

The Center brings a multidisciplinary perspective to this work. Our board, staff, and collaborators include evolutionary biologists, ecologists, lawyers, economists, historians, philosophers, and theologians. Minding Nature is the Center’s latest reflection of our commitment to bring an “all-things considered” approach to one of the most pressing questions of our time: How do we live responsibly and sustainability with the Earth? The title of our new journal is intended to convey some of the complexity of this task. One can “mind” nature in the sense of using our minds to think creatively about nature and our place within it. We can also “mind” nature in the sense of looking after it and taking responsibility for our actions within nature. Finally, one can “mind” nature in the sense that we mind; we object when we observe harm to human and natural communities.

One of our central goals is to share the best thinking that the Center has generated and encountered in our work. It is these ideas—and their relevance to public policy, economic reform, cultural innovation, and ultimately the well-being of our human and natural communities—that we hope to convey in the pages of Minding Nature. We are exploring these ideas in the “marginalist,” non-dogmatic, free spirit of our founder, by which we hope to honor him and carry on his legacy. Please join us.

—Brooke Hecht, Ph.D.

The Center for Humans and Nature operates under the premise that humans can achieve
a sustainable relationship with nature only by aligning their values and consciousness
with earthly realities. It sounds simple, even logical, but then again, what are those
earthly realities? Th is fundamental question was what sparked our Founding President, Strachan
Donnelley, to embark on a journey to explore “the many values and moral obligations pertaining
to humans and nature, and to take nature seriously as a moral and civic … concern.”1
Th e Center brings a multidisciplinary perspective to this work. Our board, staff , and collaborators
include evolutionary biologists, ecologists, lawyers, economists, historians, philosophers,
and theologians. Minding Nature is the Center’s latest refl ection of our commitment to bring
an “all-things considered” approach to one of the most pressing questions of our time: How do
we live responsibly and sustainability with the Earth? Th e title of our new journal is intended
to convey some of the complexity of this task.
One can “mind” nature in the sense of using our
minds to think creatively about nature and our
place within it. We can also “mind” nature in the
sense of looking after it and taking responsibility
for our actions within nature. Finally, one can
“mind” nature in the sense that we mind; we object
when we observe harm to human and natural
communities.
One of our central goals is to share the best
thinking that the Center has generated and encountered
in our work. It is these ideas—and their
relevance to public policy, economic reform, cultural
innovation, and ultimately the well-being of
our human and natural communities—that we
hope to convey in the pages of Minding Nature.
We are exploring these ideas in the “marginalist,”
non-dogmatic, free spirit of our founder,
by which we hope to honor him and carry on his legacy. Please join us.

More posts about Message from the President, publication, strachan donnelley

CHN Participates in Nature Conservancy’s Rising Waters Project

November 25th, 2008

On September 24 and November 25, 2008 CHN colleague Bruce Jennings took part in workshops of a project on climate change in the Hudson Valley and New York metropolitan region called “Rising Waters” that is being sponsored by the New York chapter of the Nature Conservancy. He has been an active participant in the project which is developing climate change adaptation and mitigation scenarios for use in public education activities through out the region.

More posts about climate change, public policy, rivers, water

CHN Staff Invited to the University of Auckland School of Law for Course and Conference

November 20th, 2008

CHN Senior Fellow Ron Engel has been invited to be a Visiting Professor at the University of Auckland School of Law for the April 2009 intensive course, “Law, Ethics and Governance for Sustainability.” He will lead the course with School of Law Professor and New Zealand Center for Environmental Law (NZCEL) Director, Klaus Bosselmann. Dr. Engel will also be a Keynote Speaker at the NZCEL conference, Property Rights and Sustainability: the evolution of property rights to meet the challenges of sustainability. Other keynote speakers include Judge Christopher Weeramantry (Sri Lanka) and Professor Eric Freyfogle (USA). CHN colleague Kathryn Kintzele has been offered a Visiting Fellowship and will assist in the course, as well as participate in the conference.
(http://www.nzcel.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/law/about/assns/nzcel/nzcel.cfm)

More posts about J. Ron Engel, New Zealand, ethics, governance, law, property rights, sustainability

CHN represented at 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association

October 29th, 2008

An invited paper on public heath emergency planning and civic participation was presented by CHN Director of Bioethics Bruce Jennings at the APHA meeting in San Diego, CA on October 27-29, 2008. The paper argued for the importance of grass roots involvement and bottom up planning in preparation for public health and environmental emergencies.

More posts about environmental ethics, public health

Climate Change and the Oceans: Regulating the Seas to Protect the Atmosphere & Vice Versa

October 2nd, 2008

Hosted by the University of South Carolina School of Law, a Distinguished Panel presented on the topic of Climate Change and the Oceans: Regulating the Seas to Protect the Atmosphere & Vice Versa at 2:30 p.m. on October 2, 2008 at the USC School of Law in room 135.

Professor William Rodgers, holder of the Stimson Bullitt chair at the University of Washington School of Law, presented on “Ground Zero on Climate Change: Multiple Stressors, Alaska Natives, and the End of Oil”. Professor Rodgers’ talk linked legal events related to climate change ranging from the spill of the Exxon Valdez to the flooding of the Village of Kivalina. Dr. Felicia Coleman, a biology professor at Florida State University, presented on the physiological and behavioral trade-offs organisms make in changing environments to ensure their reproductive success, as well as on the management trade-offs we humans must make to ensure the sustainability of fisheries and the ecosystems that support them. Dr. William C.G. Burns, a faculty member at Santa Clara University Law School, presented an assessment of the potential impacts of ocean acidification on ocean species and ecosystems, and discussed one potential approach seeking to induce major greenhouse gas emitting nations to address the issue: initiating actions under the dispute resolution mechanisms provided for under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement. The panel was moderated by Cinnamon Carlarne, who recently joined the University of South Carolina School of Law from the University of Oxford, where she was the Harold Woods Research Fellow in Environmental Law at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and the Faculty of Law and a Junior Research Fellow at Wadham College.

A reception co-hosted by the University of South Carolina School of the Environment and the Center for Humans and Nature followed. Proceedings will be published in the spring 2009 issue of the Southeastern Environmental Law Journal.

(from: http://www.law.sc.edu/elj/2008symposium/)

More posts about South Carolina, atmosphere, oceans, public policy, water

Curt Meine’s Essay in New Book on Ecological Change

September 30th, 2008

The University of Chicago Press has published a new volume entitled The Vanishing Present: Wisconsin’s Changing Lands, Waters, and Wildlife, edited by Donald M. Waller and Thomas P. Rooney. With its rich legacy of research in the environmental sciences, Wisconsin provides a unique laboratory for understanding in detail the phenomena of historical ecological change. The volume brings together experts from a wide range of disciplines to examine changes in the state’s flora, fauna, waters, and landscapes. Meine’s essay, “The View from Man Mound,” places the theme of ecological change in the broad context of post-glacial history, with special emphasis on the role on Native Americans over ten millennia and the revolutionary changes that came with the imposition of the public land survey in the mid-1800s.

More posts about Wisconsin, conservation biology, ecological change, ecology, water, wildlife

« Older Entries