Posted in Arts and Aesthetics, Asia, Environment, Philosophy on February 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
We’re not supposed to compare apples and oranges – or so the saying goes. But as H.P. Glenn, erudite author of Legal Traditions of the World points out, we can compare apples and oranges: “[t]here are obvious criteria of roundness, acidity, colour, sweetness, price and so on. “ As Glenn goes on to ask, “Why [...]
Posted in Environment, Philosophy, tagged Jesus, recycling on January 23, 2008 | No Comments »
Marc Chagall’s Ruth Gleaning.
Jesus thought a great deal about garbage. He had been raised in a tradition that made a fundamental distinction between purity and impurity, kosher and treif, the sacred and the profane. These seem like very strict and absolute binary divisions but Hebrew scripture also contained an ambiguity. The sacred texts abound in [...]
Posted in Environment, Philosophy on December 12, 2007 | 3 Comments »
In late November my post on climate change and human inertia met with 16 responses. I’m happy that what I wrote generated so much discussion, including from some esteemed visitors to Sans Everything who have a lot to say on this issue (Ray Ladbury, Eric Steig, John McCormick). But I’m also concerned that some of [...]
Posted in Environment, Philosophy, U.S. Politics, tagged climate change, Peter Singer on December 4, 2007 | No Comments »
A few posts down I mention Peter Singer on egalitarianism. It must be Peter Singer week in the blogosphere, because over at his blog Philosophy Sucks!, Richard Brown also has a post quoting Singer, this time on the subject of climate change:
Yesterday LaGuardia College hosted Peter Singer who gave a short talk entitled “Climate Change [...]
Posted in Environment on November 18, 2007 | 17 Comments »
With the release of the IPCC’s fourth report on climate change, and in anticipation of the meeting of the world’s energy ministers in Bali in two weeks, I’d like to offer some posts centered around a simple question: why is it so difficult for the world to mobilize towards collective action? This post will focus [...]
Posted in Environment on November 15, 2007 | 1 Comment »
In an earlier post, I argued that the ‘eat local’ movement risks giving people the false sense that they are making meaningful carbon reductions while also harming developing countries that are singularly dependent on agricultural exports. Today I ran across a news story on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development website that shared some [...]
Posted in Canadian politics, Environment, tagged Environment, Green party, Ontario election on November 5, 2007 | No Comments »
“Polar meltdown” (Photo: Arne Naevra)
Okay, so I fibbed. Two posts ago I told you that I’d explain in my very next post why I voted Green in the recent Ontario election. And then, without even signaling, I left the road in a shower of gravel and ended up talking about Stephen Fry’s new blog. But let’s [...]
Posted in Environment, Philosophy, Popular culture on November 1, 2007 | 3 Comments »
The universe is much emptier than we once thought it was. Not too long ago, in the era of Einstein and Picasso, it was possible for reputable astronomer to speculate about the canals of Mars (could they possibly be remnants of an ancient civilization?). The science fiction of the mid-twentieth century often postulated a very [...]
Posted in Environment on October 17, 2007 | 2 Comments »
I have a number of reservations with the ‘eat local’ movement - and I don’t mean in restaurants:
1) De gustibus non disputandum est. Local food does not necessarily mean lower carbon emissions. If we are after lower carbon (and we should be), let’s pursue this goal directly. Let’s be transparent in tracking and pricing carbon [...]
