Archives – December, 2008
Aldo Leopold laid the foundation of the modern concept of the land ethic. His instrumental book ‘A Sand County Almanac’ sought to construct an ethical standard for man’s interaction with nature; a realm which Leopold believed was philosophically undefined. ”There is yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land… is still property. The land relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not (more…)
December 15, 2008
Ansonia, Seymour, and Derby are three small towns located adjacent to one another in Southwestern New Haven County. The populations of the three municipalities are approximately 19,000, 13,000, and 16,000, respectively. Each town belongs to the Bridgeport Labor Market Area and lies within the Valley Economic Development Region and the Valley Planning Area. (more…)
December 14, 2008
In an article appearing in the Southern Economic Journal in 2002, Ted Gayer, James Hamilton, and Kip Viscusi used the hedonic price model to examine housing price fluxuations that resulted from environmental information and associated perceived cancer risk. Specifically, the authors used housing price changes which occurred “after the release of a regulatory agency’s environmental risk information to estimate the value people place on cancer risk reduction” (Gayer, Hamilton, & Viscusi, 2002, p. 1). (more…)
December 14, 2008
Environmental ethics, like most branches of ethics, is often deeply influenced by our faith tradition. Our role on earth and our responsibility to protect the planet is closely tied to our sense of fundamental connectedness and the spiritual teachings that have forged our perspective. Whether we practice one of the Abrahamic religions that have emerged in the past three millennia, any one of the Native American traditions that were dominant in North America for much of recorded history, or the Buddhist way of life which emerged from Asia, most of humanity looks to its faith to guide their interaction with the environment. In turn, our ethics determine the course of history and dictate our collective effect upon our environment. (more…)
December 8, 2008
Modern western society is largely consumed by a static human cycle of life and death but gives little recognition to the cycle of rebirth inherent in nature. Charlene Spetnak attributes this oversight to the rise of patriarchal religions and the subsequent downfall of traditional Earth Goddess worship which had prevailed in pre-Abrahamic traditions. Spetnak argues that “The Goddess, as a metaphor for divine immanence and the transcendent sacred whole, expresses ongoing regenerations with the cycles of her Earthbody” (442). Just as the womb is the sacred vessel that allows the continuance of humanity, the earth is the sacred vessel that facilitates all life. (more…)
December 5, 2008
Julia “Butterfly” Hill had a profound experience during the two years she spent saving a portion of Redwood forest in Stafford, California. The deep connection she developed with the environment around her was perhaps best personified by the “power of the trees” ethos that she embraced. As she was battered close to death by a fierce storm in the forest, Hill realized that her survival was dependent on flowing with the movement of the space she occupied, rather than fighting its stirring. This actualization not only spared her life, but opened her eyes to the profound connectedness that defines human existence. (more…)
December 4, 2008