Archive for December, 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.”

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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)

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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/.

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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.

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