Written in collaboration with Tomoko Yoshida.
Our previous post provides an institutional view of our world’s current plastic waste problem. We showed how institutions in various sectors of society Continue reading
Author Archives: Stephen P. Weldon
Plastic Waste (Part 1)
Written in collaboration with Tomoko Yoshida.
Plastic has become an integral part of our lives…. But with that has emerged the enormous—and growing—problem of plastic waste. Continue reading
“Svalbard Global Seed Vault: A ‘Noah’s Ark’ for the World’s Seeds”
CITATION:
Marte Qvenild. 2008. Development in Practice Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 110–16.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
News about Norway’s plans to establish a ‘doomsday vault’ for seeds in the permafrost of the Artic archipelago of Svalbard as a back-up for conventional gene banks reached the world press in 2006. The idea of a Global Seed Vault, which today is considered Continue reading
“Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home”
CITATION:
Pope Francis. 2015. Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home [Encyclical].
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
Vatican website: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
ABSTRACT:
The Encyclical takes its name from the invocation of Saint Francis, “Praise be to you, my Lord”, in his Canticle of the Creatures. It reminds us that Continue reading
“The Story of Big History”
CITATION:
Ian Hesketh. 2014. History of the Present, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 171-202.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/historypresent.4.2.0171
ABSTRACT:
Currently, a group of historians is claiming that it might be history that provides the framework for a scientific and evolutionary account of everything. Big History, so named by its foremost practitioner, David Christian, seeks to Continue reading
Big History, Deep History, and the Problem of Scale
What does it mean to talk about the anthropocene historically? Thinking about this has forced me to take a closer look at a couple areas of scholarship that I’ve watched grow over the past few years: big history and deep history. These two interdisciplinary projects have recently gained Continue reading
“The Collapse of Western Civilization”
CITATION:
Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway. 2014. The Collapse of Western Civilization (New York: Columbia University Press).
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
Columbia University Press URL: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-16954-7/the-collapse-of-western-civilization
WorldCat Permalink: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/863195588
ABSTRACT:
In this work of science-based fiction, the authors imagine a future world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts Continue reading
Christianity and Stewardship, North and South
The popularity of Lynn White’s argument shows that it is too easy to think that Christianity is inevitably opposed to an environmental perspective or that evangelicals will reject mainstream climate science. In a previous post, I looked at Continue reading
“From Biophilia to Cosmophilia: The Role of Biological and Physical Sciences in Promoting Sustainability”
CITATION:
Lucas F. Johnston. 2010. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 7-23.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
DOI: 10.1558/jsrnc.v4il.7
ABSTRACT:
Ideas from the life sciences and the physical sciences, particularly the ideas that Continue reading
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”
CITATION:
Lynn White, Jr. 1967. Science, Vol. 155, No. 3767, pp. 1203-7.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/stable/1720120
ABSTRACT:
This article claims that the modern ecological crisis arose out of an ethic derived from Continue reading
Inhabiting the Anthropocene 