Good Environmental Ethics Books...

This post is aimed more at my students, but I'm sure book suggestions will be of interest to other readers as well.

Another possiblility for book reports are biographies, memoirs, etc. of people active in the environment. For instance, Unbowed by Wangari Maathai.

Do environmental "stunts" hurt the movement?

Thought-provoking piece from the New Yorker...

Green Like Me

Living without a fridge, and other experiments in environmentalism.

by Elizabeth Kolbert

The latest publishing fad features ecology as an extreme life style; the focus is on wacky misadventure, not global cataclysm.

In 2006, Colin Beavan, the author of two works of popular history, was casting about for a book idea. Beavan was living in lower Manhattan, near N.Y.U., and that winter there was a weird heat wave that sent bevies of coeds out onto the streets in tank tops. He didn’t know much about global warming, but the sight of all those bare-armed girls in January got him thinking. Maybe his next project should be “about what’s important.”

Read the rest...

U.S. Chamber of Commerce seeks trial on global warming

This from the L.A.Times:

The nation's largest business lobby wants to put the science of global warming on trial. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change. Chamber officials say it would be "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" -- complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect. Read the complete story...

Image from _Beat_【ツ】

Words of Wisdom from the 'Stache

Very thoughtful op-ed from Thomas Friedman--especially for us interdisciplinary study types.

Connecting Nature’s Dots

Puberty on the Scale of a Planet

Here's an insightful piece from Andrew Revkin.

But lately I’ve come to see those recent dirty decades less as malfeasance (mind you, there have been plenty of dubious actors) and more as an inevitable phase, a transition as natural — and volatile — as puberty. Read the whole thing at Dot Earth.

Earth Days Movie

I'm always a little wary of "environmental" movies, but this one looks promising from the trailer. MNN has an interview with director Robert Stone. (Update on this one: Earth Day is now available online on the PBS main site and PBS American Experience website as well. It is very well done and gives great insight in to the U.S. environmental movement and is applicable to today as well.)

Seattle's Love/Hate Relationship with Blackberries

I caught a great story on NPR recently about Seattle's dilemma with invasive blackberries. Seems Seattleites (yes, thats what they are called--I looked it up) love to pick the blackberries, but the sprawling, thorny bushes are also big invasive problem that have to be controlled. Here's a good story from the Seattle Times: Black velvet bliss — and major thorn: blackberry a double-edged fruit The NPR story is archived as well. Who knew a class C noxious weed could taste so good?

Future Terminators May Be Vegetarian

Oh, some headlines are so good I wish I could take credit for them. The singularity is closer than we think?

Seems as if a company has received fundiong to do R&D on military robots that will be able to power themselves by eating "biomass." Here's the story on Ecorazzi... Wired covered it as well... Their headline is equally catchy: Company Denies its Robots Feed on the Dead.

As Greenland Thaws, Many See $$$

In the earlier days of the climate change debate, it was sometimes argued that Greenland's glaciers were actually growing. Well, it looks like it's pretty widely accepted now that they are shrinking. As a matter of fact, agricultural and mining interests already have their eyes on some of the new land that is opening up, according to this series from the BBC...

Bill Gates Patents a Device Aimed at Halting Hurricanes

Can someone say "hubris"?

"Five patent applications for technology that aims to control the weather bear the signature of a man who knows how to think big: Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The applications made public by the U.S. Patent Office last week describe floating devices that could reduce the strength of hurricanes by drawing warm water from the ocean’s surface and channeling it down to the depths through a long tube. A second tube would reverse the process and bring deep, cold water up to the surface..."