Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself. Edward Abbey
Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Wilderness
Posted in Environment, Nature on January 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
“Back to the Shire”
Posted in Agriculture, Beauty, Culture, Environment on December 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I am not so naive as to suggest that we can recapture an idyllic agrarian past. For one thing, I am not sure an idyllic agrarian past ever existed, even in Bag End. Pre-industrial villages were not misery-free. Back-breaking toil, early death, and the plague could be found in Old World communities. What agrarians and [...]
American Food Industry: A Shortage of Long-Term Perspective
Posted in Agriculture, Environment, Food on July 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Cheap food is going to be popular as long as the social and environmental costs of that food are charged to the future. There’s lots of money to be made selling fast food and then treating the diseases that fast food causes. One of the leading products of the American food industry has become patients [...]
The Dirt on Filth
Posted in Environment, Life on January 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Economist covers germs and the cleanliness fashion.
A New Political Consensus – The Consistent Life Ethic
Posted in Environment, Life on November 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Perhaps it is adherence to the consistent life ethic that could unify all peoples Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and concerned non-Christians in a new political consensus. If we could grasp together the true value of all human life and how it should be protected, then all of the major world issues of abject poverty in the [...]
On the Cap-and-Trade System
Posted in Environment, tagged Environment on October 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The idea is to foster gradual reductions with minimal strain on the economy. Companies able to reduce their carbon footprint can profit by selling off credits to those that cannot. Trouble is, it doesn’t work. Throughout Europe, the cap-and-trade system has raised energy costs, stunted economic growth, and promoted outsourcing of emissions and jobs to [...]
