Designing cities for silence

by | Jan 7, 2020 | beyond idealism, beyond liberalism, Biophilia, Communication, conservation, Decolonization, Environmental Political Theory, Fake Freedoms, Harm Reduction, Naturverlassenheit, Normal is Over, permaculture, silence, Systems thinking

As an academic, I crave silence. In fact, without silence, I can’t think. And since thinking is my job, in our current media blitz steal-your-attention economy, I’m often miserable. When I don’t wish to work from home or my office, or am on the road,...

The Failure of COP25

by | Dec 15, 2019 | beyond idealism, beyond liberalism, Biophilia, Climate Change, Communication, Dante Alighieri — 'The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.', death, Decolonization, deep ecology, Discursive Gap, duh, Energy, Environmental Justice, Environmental Political Theory, Fake Freedoms, folly, Greenwashing, Industrial Epidemics, Normal is Over, Oil Barons, parasitism, Perverse Incentives, pollution, Priorities, Syndemics, Systems thinking

I recently read – from afar – the sorry state of the UNFCCC #COP25 in Madrid. According to 350.org, instead of barring fossil fuel companies from engineering the COP, the security guards at the UNFCCC forcibly removed hundred of activists and scientists...

Hypocrisy at the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology

by | Aug 26, 2019 | agroecology, animals, Bad Advertising, beyond idealism, beyond liberalism, Biomimicry, Biophilia, Bureaucratic quixotic, Climate Change, Communication, Conferences, conservation, Decolonization, Discursive Gap, duh, eating animals, Energy, Environmental Justice, exploitation, Extended Producer Responsibility, folly, Greenwashing, Harm Reduction, Industrial Epidemics, meat, Normal is Over, Perverse Incentives, pollution, Syndemics, Systems thinking, Unpleasant Design

The ISEE, or the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, is an organization that one would expect to walk its talk. After all, it has been around for 31 years with its annual conferences, and is one of the most sophisticated and cutting edge of the...

Owning Life versus Thwarting the Hygiene Hypothesis

by | Sep 10, 2017 | agroecology, animals, Biophilia, Biosemiotics, Bureaucratic quixotic, Communication, conservation, deep ecology, Interspecies Communication, permaculture, Perverse Incentives, Plants, Priorities, Side-effects, Systems thinking

  With such a provocative title as “Pet Ownership Protects Us Against Allergies,” UCSF’s Dr. Homer Boushey makes the claim that children brought up with pets inherit some of their protective microbes that mitigate against developing allergies....