Moral Ground Teaching Guide

MORAL GROUND

ETHICAL ACTION FOR A PLANET IN PERIL K AT H L E E N D E A N M O O R E & M I C H A E L P. N E L S O N, E D I TO R S “Moral Ground will light a righteous fire.” —Utne Reader

Teaching Guide

FOREWORD BY NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER

DESMOND TUTU

A Teaching and Study Guide for Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson

editors of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril

Trinity University Press San Antonio, Texas

Published by Trinity University Press San Antonio, Texas 78212

Copyright Š 2013 by Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Trinity University Press strives to produce its books using methods and materials in an environmentally sensitive manner. We favor working with manufacturers that practice sustainable management of all natural resources, produce paper using recycled stock, and manage forests with the best possible practices for people, biodiversity, and sustainability.

The press is a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit program dedicated to supporting publishers in their efforts to reduce their impacts on endangered forests, climate change, and forest dependent communities.

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ISBN 978-1-59534-081-8 (ebook)

Contents Introduction to the study guide

Chapter-by-chapter study guide Introduction

1. For the survival of humankind 2. For the sake of the children

3. For the sake of the Earth itself

4. For the sake of all forms of life on the planet

5. To honor our duties of gratitude and reciprocity 6. For the full expression of human virtue 7. Because all flourishing is mutual

8. For the stewardship of God’s creation

9. Because compassion requires it 10. Because justice demands it

11. Because the world is beautiful 12. Because we love the world

13. To honor and celebrate the Earth and Earth systems

14. Because moral integrity requires it

Sample syllabus

Sample student essays

Introduction to the study guide For Moral Ground, we asked one hundred of the world’s moral leaders to answer this question: Do we have a moral obligation to the future to leave a world as rich in possibilities as our own? Their answers are collected in the book.

But that is not nearly enough.

Meeting the challenges of climate disruption and environmental degradation is going to take the greatest exercise of the moral imagination this world has ever seen. For that, we need a global conversation—not just a hundred leaders, but thousands of people in all walks of life, putting their heads together in every place that people gather, in church groups and mosques, in universities and schools, in neighborhoods and libraries, in parent groups, in book clubs, in environmental and service organizations, in senior centers, in restaurants and bars, at work, at farmers’ markets and family gatherings. What are our responsibilities to the future? How will we honor them?

Anyone can start a conversation about the ideas in Moral Ground. It can be as simple as a group of friends reading together, or as complex as a university course. In Sitka, Alaska, a group of friends are reading a couple of essays each week and meeting to talk about them.

In Corvallis, Oregon, students in a science class are reading Moral Ground together. In Crystal Lake, Illinois, two emeritus professors are leading a discussion group drawn from various environmental groups in town. In Fort Collins, a husband and wife take turns reading an essay aloud before bed. A church book group in Lake Oswego, Oregon, has chosen Moral Ground as their spring project.

We want to make these conversations easy and useful.

The book itself is organized to create discussion about the central question that climate change presents: Do we have an obligation to take action to protect the future of a planet in peril? We have divided the book into fourteen sections, corresponding to the fourteen reasons the authors cite. Each section includes • • •

Short, inspiring, and often provocative essays by leading thinkers An introductory argument summary, explaining the moral reason A follow-up “action items” essay, with suggestions for what one might do in response to that reason.

In this teaching and study guide, there are materials for each section. They include • • • •

A short summary or headnote for each essay in the section Discussion questions for each essay A case study or application A short explanation of an ethical concept that illuminates the arguments.

For professors, we have included additional materials that, together with the above, comprise all the elements of a course, including

• • • • •

A poster announcing the class A syllabus, reading schedule, and assignment/assessment guide Additional references and class materials, such as videos and articles Sample student essays, with places for others on a moralground.com blog Links to a blog where teachers can share their ideas and experiences.

With this guide, we invite everyone to be part of a national conversation about our obligation to the future. Tell us how it goes.

Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson

Chapter-by-chapter study guide

Introduction Ethics background 1: What is ethics?

Ethics is the study of what is right in our actions, just in our policies, and virtuous in our characters. The subject matter of ethics is thus moral claims—judgments about better and worse. Moral claims are not about what is; they are about what ought to be. This distinguishes them from factual claims of all kinds (including sociological claims about people’s ethics).

Ethics can also be distinguished from the religious, legal, and other normative claims that they sometimes seem to resemble. Religions often embed a set of moral claims based on a religious authority. If one is a follower of Jesus, for example, one will believe it is right to love one’s neighbor. But there are many sources of moral claims in addition to religious authority, including reason and moral sentiments. Likewise, legal codes often embed a set of norms or standards for behavior. These sometimes (but not always) match a citizenry’s moral principles, but they differ from morality in that conformity to the code is enforced by punishment.

Ethics is not concerned primarily with telling other people how to act or compelling others to behave as we might wish. Rather, it is concerned with offering and analyzing good reasons for why one ought to act in a certain way. Moral reasoning is thus the primary tool of ethics, and the moral argument is the form used in moral reasoning.

Ethics background: What is the form used in moral reasoning?

Moral reasoning can often be represented as a practical syllogism. (A syllogism is an argument made up of three statements, one of which, the conclusion, follows from the other two, the premises.) The first premise of the practical syllogism is factual, often based on science. It states the facts that are relevant to the situation. The second premise is normative. It states the moral principle or articulates the moral values that will help shape a decision. The conclusion tells what ought to be done. Here is the form of the practical syllogism:

This is the way the world is.

This is what we value, this is what we believe is right, this is the way the world ought to be. _______________________________________________________________ Conclusion This is what we ought to do.

P1. Descriptive, empirical P2. Normative, ethical

Here is an example from President Barack Obama:

P1. Factual premise: Scientists have evidence that stem cell research can relieve human suffering.

P2. Normative premise: My mother always said that if we can relieve human suffering, we should.

Conclusion: We should relax the prohibitions on stem cell research and bring their benefits to the people.

It is often very clarifying to try to represent your moral reasoning as a practical syllogism.

Doing so requires you to affirm the moral principle that you believe is ruling in that situation. Further, it requires you to be clear about what facts are important.

Activity / Application 1: A starting survey

On a scale from 0 (There is no hope that we can prevent a catastrophic climate change) to 10 (Of course we can prevent a catastrophic climate change), where are you positioned today, at the start of this class? Make a note of the number. We will revisit it several times this term. Go around the class circle, telling your number and the reasons that led you to that position.

Activity / Application 2: A practical dilemma

Read the following poem, “Traveling through the Dark,” by William Stafford * Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; she had stiffened already, almost cold.

I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason— her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting, alive, still, never to be born.

Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

*

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights; under the hood purred the steady engine.

William Stafford, “Traveling through the Dark” from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems. Copyright © 1962, 1998 by The Estate of William Stafford. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.

I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red; around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—, then pushed her over the edge into the river.

What would you have done in the same situation?

What would your reasons have been?

Notice that a conclusion and reasons to support it create an argument. When the conclusion is about what you ought to do, you have created a moral argument. The sort of reasons you cite tells you what kind of moral thinker you are: • • •

Are the reasons about the consequences of the alternative actions (i.e., consequentialist)?

Are the reasons about the nature of the act itself (i.e., deontological)?

Are the reasons about the intentions of the act or the qualities/virtues that give rise to it (i.e., virtue ethics)

1. For the survival of humankind James Gustave Speth, “The Limits of Growth” All we have to do to guarantee that we will leave a ruined world for our children and grandchildren, Gus Speth says, is to keep doing what we are doing. But we are in fact increasing the rate of world-destroying activities. The same consumerism that is destroying the environment at exponential rates is failing to meet our deepest needs as humans. How can we challenge today’s false values and find new sources of happiness?

Reading questions 1. Speth says it’s up to us—“we the people”—to inject values such as sustainability and justice into our nation’s systems, and government is the primary vehicle we have for this task. Why is it turning out to be so hard to get this done?

2. Do you agree that we can’t address climate change in a “corptocracy”? What kind of politics do we need?

3. A powerful progressive force can perhaps be made from the alliance of democracy, environment, and social justice. But not if they have competing goals. Do they?

4. How does one challenge consumerism? What values might replace it? What makes a person truly happy?

5. What does the crisis of inequality have to do with climate change?

Daniel Quinn, “The Danger of Human Exceptionalism” As we rapidly convert the plants and animals of the world into human biomass, we are decimating species, leaving humans hungry, and destroying the complex ecological systems that sustain us. Once those systems collapse, as they eventually will if we allow it, we will join in the fall.

Reading questions 1. List the species you are willing to give up or trade for increased human biomass. If that’s hard, consider: Mosquitoes. Polar bears. Dandelions.

2. Is the analogy between the human condition and the penthouse a strong one? What are the similarities? What are the differences? What are “streams of vacancy”?

3. Is human population growth unstoppable by human measures? Why are discussions of population limits so fraught and difficult?

The Dalai Lama, “A Question of Our Own Survival” Climate change is a crisis of human survival. We humans often fail to see the undeniable connection and mutual dependence of all beings. This shortcoming leads to ignorance, greed, and lack of respect for living things, which all ultimately cause destruction and jeopardize our own survival. We need to come together in deep reverence for nature, help when we can and at least do no harm if we cannot, and use environmental education “to maintain a balanced way of life” (p. 17).

Reading questions 1. A leaked cable reported on WikiLeaks † says that the Dalai Lama asked the United States to shelve political issues about Tibetan independence and focus instead on climate change on the Tibetan Plateau. Independence can wait ten years, he reportedly said, but we have to immediately address melting glaciers, deforestation, and polluted rivers. Your thoughts?

2. Buddhists believe every harm creates the conditions for its own healing. Do you?

3. The Dalai Lama says that environmental degradation is caused by failing to recognize the interconnectedness of all things. Do you agree? What are some examples? Are there other failures, or do they all amount to this same thing?

4. Again, what is the source of human happiness? What does that mean for how we ought to live?

5. The Dalai Lama advocates nonviolence toward nature. That sounds good, but what does it look like?

E. O. Wilson, “The Fate of Creation Is the Fate of Humanity” Civilizations thrive—in the short term—by betraying nature. Because of our “mix of Stone Age emotion, medieval self-image, and godlike technology” (p. 21), we make selfdestructive decisions again and again. To save ourselves, we must acknowledge that the fate of humans is as one with the fate of all creation.

Reading questions 1. Are we indeed a mix of “Stone Age emotion, medieval self-image, and godlike technology”? Give some examples to make this clear.

2. Wilson cites the historical principle that civilizations collapse when their environments are ruined. Other historians say that a common characteristic of civilizations on the verge of collapse is that they have developed into oligarchies— rule of the many poor by the very few rich. The problem then is that the wealth of the rulers shields them from the consequences of their decisions, and they don’t know that disaster is on the horizon until it is too late (although the poor could have warned them and probably did). What do you think?

3. What are the two tenets of an honest history?

4. Wilson seems to think that scientific knowledge leads to full human spiritual thriving. Does it? How might one argue that it does not, or that some other conditions are more important?

5. Wilson picks up a theme that is central to the entire Moral Ground book: We humans are part of natural creation. Does it follow that we will share the fate of our kin, the plants and animals?

†

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/on-our-radar-environment-trumps-politics-dalai-lama-says/

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, “The Inuit Right to Culture Based on Ice and Snow” Climate disruption is already undermining the ecosystems of the polar regions, the ice and snow that northern people depend on for their existence. This is a violation of the people’s right to culture, to traditionally occupied lands, to health, and to means of subsistence.

Reading questions 1. Watt-Cloutier claims that her people have a cultural right to “be cold.” Can you think of similar kinds of rights that other people in the world might claim for themselves should they be allowed to claim these rights? How do these kinds of right compare to the rights of those who profit from harming the Earth?

2. Using the practical syllogism described above in the ethics lesson for the introduction, can you lay out an argument for mitigating the effects of climate change based on the destruction of culture (or even genocide)? Now, how would you write a powerful 300- to 400-word essay making that argument? You do know that newspapers typically accept 300- to 400-word letters to the editor, right?

Barack Obama, “The Future I Want for My Daughters” Because we have borrowed the planet from our children, we have an obligation to return it to them in good condition. This requires some hard choices. But it also offers the opportunity for innovation, job creation, and new business models for the world. “Let’s be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil” (p. 31).

Reading questions 1. President Obama argues that we are borrowing this planet from our children and our grandchildren. Play out that analogy. “Borrowing” in what way? What does that mean for how we should act?

2. Obama says we need to be the generation that frees America from the tyranny of oil.

In what ways is oil a tyranny? How are tyrants usually overthrown? So how should we go about overthrowing the tyranny of oil?

3. Okay, here’s a very common claim: “We can turn this crisis of global warming into a moment of opportunity for innovation, and job creation, and an incentive for businesses that will serve as a model for the world” (p. 31). Leave aside the question of whether this is true. Is this a wise argument, a prudent argument, or might it turn around to bite us? Compare it to the ethics-based arguments in this book.

Alan Weisman, “Obligation to Posterity?”

Appeals to morality are limited in effect. They will not address the pressing issues of climate change quickly or strongly enough. To address those issues, we need to appeal to motivations that prompt action in all humans—greed and selfishness. If anything moves us to effective action, it will be self-interest.

Reading questions 1. Do you agree that selfishness and greed are the most powerful motivators and our only hope? If so, is that going to be good enough? Why haven’t selfishness and greed already motivated the world to action?

2. What is your strongest motivator? Do you think you are different from other people in this regard?

3. Note that recent polls show that there is virtually no significant difference in the carbon footprints of those who are “very concerned” about climate change and those who are not concerned at all. That suggests that something is motivating people to limit their carbon footprints, and it is not concern about climate change. It also suggests that something is blocking concerned people from acting on their concerns. Would this surprise Alan Weisman?

4. On a scale of 10 (strongly agree) to 0 (disagree entirely), where are you in regard to Weisman’s argument? Wherein do you agree and disagree?

Ethics background: What kinds of moral reasons can be given? What is a basic taxonomy of moral theories?

An act is not a single point in time. Any act begins with a set of intentions that grow from a person’s character. Then the act itself unfolds. That act has consequences into the future. So one might think of an act as taking place along a time line, as follows: Intentions, character Virtue ethics

Act Deontological ethics

Consequences Consequentialist ethics

Different moral theories place importance on different parts of the time line. Virtue ethics, for example, focuses on the intentions or character of the actor, rather than on the nature of the act itself: an act is right if it is the sort of act a person of good character or strong virtue would choose to do. Deontological ethics (from the Greek word deon, which means “duty”) focuses on the nature of the act itself. An act is right if it conforms to duty, which can be variously understood as following God’s commands, respecting the rights of others, acting justly, and so forth. Consequentialist ethics focus on the results of the act. An act is right if it results in consequences that are better than any other act possible under the circumstances. The consequences can be those that affect human beings, in which case we speak of anthropocentric consequentialism, or they can be those that affect all of creation, in which case we speak of biocentric consequentialism.

Activity / Application: A case study for anthropocentric and biocentric consequentialism Read the following case:

When Frank and I bought the land that straddles the Marys River, included in the deal was a little dam that blocked the river bank-to-bank. The Marys is a small river that

empties into the Willamette River from the hills west of town. It’s barely a creek by Oregon standards. The dam wasn’t much of a dam either, just a three-foot-high concrete wall built by a farmer to power the paddle wheel for his private electrical plant. By the time we bought the land, the farmer had moved on, and the paddle-wheel blades had rusted off and washed downriver. But the dam remained.

Even though it was insignificant as dams go, our dam made life hard for the Willamette River cutthroat trout. At high water, the cutthroats could migrate over the dam to the feeder streams to spawn. The problem came at low water, just when the river started to warm up and the fish were heading downstream again to cooler, deeper water. Then, our dam blocked the Marys, forcing fish to hang out in warm slack water, waiting for rain. The dam blocked canoeists too, who had to portage through a wicked blackberry bramble or jump out of their boat, haul it across the dam, and climb in again—tricky stuff with a loaded boat. But what bothered me most, I guess, was the whole idea of somebody thinking it was okay to stop a river, to silence it, to make it into something else, something muddy and useful to one person. (Moore, Pine Island Paradox) What should we do?

Make the argument based on utilitarianism reasoning (anthropocentric consequentialism).

Remember your tools: The utilitarian principle: An act is right if, of all the acts possible under the circumstances, it results in a greater balance of human happiness over human suffering (thus, taking into account the interests of all the people affected by the act, and weighing the intensity, duration, propinquity [closeness], and quality of the happiness and suffering).

The practical syllogism 1. The relevant facts about the case (in this case, the hedonistic calculus) 2. The moral principle 3. The conclusion

Now, make the argument again, based on biocentric consequentialism. Do you reach a different conclusion?

2. For the sake of the children Oren Lyons, “Keepers of Life” All of us, human and other-than-human, share a common future in which what happens to one happens to all. For the survival of our Earth and the thriving of the children, we must join hands with all creation, hold the seed as the law of life, and speak from common sense, responsibility, and peace.

Reading questions 1. Oren Lyons says that we are instructed to love our children, indeed to love all children. But does that make sense? How has our love for our children gone wrong?

And anyway, shouldn’t we love our own children more than other people’s?

2. What do you believe is our primary responsibility to others?

Scott Russell Sanders, “We Bear You in Mind” Speaking to an unborn child, Scott Sanders shares his love of the great, good Earth and his hope that the child also will discover a world of wonder and gratitude. The choices he makes today, he understands, will shape that world and determine the future of the child.

“We cared for you,” he tells the child.

Reading questions 1. What role should love have in ethics?

2. What role should sorrow have?

Gary Snyder, “For the Children” As measures of human impact on the Earth rise, and as human thriving and future prospects go down, how shall we live?

Reading questions 1. Snyder wrote this poem in 1974. How is that possible, to be so prescient?

2. What are your three closing lines?

John Paul II and the Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Bartholomew I, “Steering the Earth Toward Our Children’s Future” Humankind has a God-given mandate to serve as stewards of the Earth. In this, we often fail, doing harm to God’s creation. This is a sin. We must restore the original harmony by honoring our responsibilities toward ourselves, others, and creation. The challenge requires not just an economic or technical response, but a moral and spiritual answer to the call.

Reading questions 1. What questions would you like to ask these men of wisdom and experience?

2. What is a steward? Where does that word come from (etymologically)? What is the goal of stewardship?

Hylton Murray-Philipson, “A Letter to My Boys” The economic model with which the world is working is not fit for our purposes in this century. The current financial crisis offers an opportunity to do things differently. We need to fully value the natural services that ecosystems provide. We should also levy taxes to conserve forests and human futures.

Reading questions 1. What is the single most surprising thing this former investment banker says in his essay?

2. Murray-Philipson wrote this as a letter to his children. What would you say in a letter to your children or grandchildren? Perhaps most important, what can you say to them to empower them?

Derrick Jensen, “You Choose” The problems we have created will not be solved by some miraculous transformation of the human spirit and worldview. If they can be solved at all, it will be by dismantling the institutions and practices that created the problems and allow them to persist—the capitalist growth economy, those who lead it, and those who tolerate or ignore its atrocities.

Reading questions 1. What do you think of the analogy between hypothetical aliens destroying the planet and the destruction of the planet that results from the actions of the industrial growth economy? How are they similar? How are they different? What do aliens and corporations have in common?

2. Denying the rich “their ability to steal from the poor, and denying the powerful their ability to destroy the planet” (p. 63): If this were your goal, what would be your first step? Second?

3. Like Nazi doctors, Jensen claims, we do everything but the most important thing— question the existence of this current death culture. What do you think of this analogy? Is our society like a Nazi death camp? If so, are we like the Nazi doctors, doing our best, but supporting a system that is profoundly wrong?

4. Do you believe that this culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living? What are the chances? Ten percent? Twenty?

Remember this number (the question will recur as you come to the end of the book).

5. Read p. 65 (first paragraph) aloud. Now, write your own sentences of the same form (“This is given,” etc.) and read them round-about.

Ethics background: What is utilitarianism?

A particular form of anthropocentric consequentialism is utilitarianism. Like all consequentialism, utilitarian reasoning assumes that an act is right if its results are good.

(Note the vocabulary: we speak of acts as right and states of affairs as good). Utilitarians believe that the highest human good is happiness (or pleasure and the absence of pain).

They further believe that acts should be judged by the degree to which they create that highest human good. Thus, an act is right if it results in greater human happiness than any other act possible under the circumstances: the Greatest Happiness Principle.

This is the moral reasoning that underlies much of environmental policy in the United States today. It is the basis for risk/benefit analysis. “One should act to protect the Earth,” “for the sake of human survival,” and “for the sake of the children” are most likely utilitarian arguments, because they justify an action by the good consequences it will have.

Activity / Application: Complete the following questionnaire Questionnaire ‡

1. How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the free market and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much evil are you willing to do?

Fill in the following blanks with the names of your favorite evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared to make for culture and civilization?

Please list the monuments, shrines, and works of art you would most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate?

List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without.

‡

“Questionnaire” reprinted by permission of the Counterpoint Press.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child.

Name, please, the children whom you would be willing to kill.

—Wendell Berry

Okay, well. Let’s think about this. What makes this such a heart-wrenching poem?

Consider: We do, of course, eat poison, do evil, sacrifice cultures, desecrate lands, and kill children. We don’t, however, often think of what we get in return. To think of these sorts of exchanges as deliberate market transactions or trades is excruciating. So why is it easier to do these things when we don’t think of why?

Consider: We can bear to think of our damage in general terms, perhaps. Why is it so much more terrible when we are forced to name what and whom we destroy?

3. For the sake of the Earth itself Brian Turner, “Sky” So many losses, so many sins. How can the Earth express its grief?

Reading questions 1. What does Turner’s poem presuppose about the nature of the sky?

2. Is there such a thing as merciful ignorance?

3. Try changing “sky” to something else: if the gods knew half . . . or, if the soil knew half . . . or, if the wind knew half. How does that new poem end?

Holmes Rolston III, “A Hinge Point of History” Our dualistic worldview has created an unsustainable world by valuing people above nature and consumption above concern for all life. So great has been the human impact that we have ended the Holocene Era and entered the Anthropocene. What is needed is an environmental ethic that places humans at home in landscapes, in culture, and also within nature.

Reading questions 1. What is maladaptive in human behavior, do you think? What is highly adaptive?

(You might need to consider the question, adaptive for what?)

2. How would you answer the would-be planetary manager’s question about what kind of life we want on what kind of planet?

3. What does it mean to expand the sphere of our moral concern?

F. Stuart Chapin III, “The Planet Is Shouting but Nobody Listens” Alaska is warming more rapidly than almost any other place on Earth. As a result, forest fires are increasing in frequency, permafrost is melting, and aboriginal people are losing their livelihoods. This is an alarm call that the world seems not to hear. We need to draw the connection between planetary changes and the deep human motivations as stewards of the Earth.

Reading questions 1. You all know the argument about climate change as a natural process—which, if you employ the practical syllogism, looks something like this: (1) Climate change is a natural process. [factual premise (Note: That the premise is “factual” doesn’t mean it’s true, just that it’s a purported fact.)]

(2) We should be unconcerned with natural processes. [value premise] (3) Therefore, we should be unconcerned with climate change.

In what way does Chapin challenge the first premise? How might we challenge the second premise? How might the skeptic alter the argument to continue to make this claim?

2. Chapin suggests that the planet is telling us what’s wrong—“whispering,” “shouting,” “calling out”—but we are not listening. Do you think this is true? If you do think it is true, why are we not listening? Once you think you know why we are not listening, what can be done about it? What can make us listen?

Thich Nhat Hanh, “The Bells of Mindfulness” The future of the Earth depends on our actions. Because our own lives are a message we send, we are challenged to live in ways that turn our desires for peace and sustainability into reality.

Reading questions 1. “Our own life has to be our message” (p. 79). Wow. If so, then we had each better ask these questions (write your answers down): What message do I want my life to send? What acts might I do to send that message? What acts do I do that might prompt someone to read a contrary message?

2. Explain the chicken analogy. Are we like chickens? If so, how might we escape our “chickenhood”?

3. “The American dream is no longer possible” (p. 81), Thich Nhat Hanh writes. What is that dream? What is a new dream? Is that new dream possible?

Robin Morris Collin, “Restoration and Redemption” The casualties of our wasteful lives are others—outsiders, poor people, people of color, children. We must make amends for wrongs to the Earth and to the people for wrongs that degrade them and us, even if the one terrible wrong we committed was to enjoy the fruits of wrongdoing.

Reading questions 1. Morris Collin refers to nature as the “one great truth-teller” (p. 82). What does this mean, and what are the truths than nature tell us?

2. Morris Collin tells us that humans have chosen to be “winged like angels and armed like demons,” that “we began organizing our lives around greed” (p. 84). What are the most profound examples of this, past and present?

3. What is the antidote to these ills—from Morris Collin’s essay and from your own life and mind?

Kate Rawles, “A Copernican Revolution in Ethics” The dominant worldview of industrial capitalism, which imagines humans are separate from the rest of the world and gives free rein to narrow self-interests, is the driver of our unsustainable societies. We must create a new Copernican revolution, embracing a holistic worldview that manifests compassion and justice in our relationships with all beings.

Reading questions 1. What was the Copernican revolution? What is an ethical Copernican revolution?

2. Tell a story, as Rawles does, about some time when you have had a meaningful encounter with another life-form.

3. What would you give up to save the basking shark? Write it down. What would you give up to save the life-form in question 2 above? What determines the value of your sacrifice?

4. “I want to live with a lighter footprint and a clearer conscience, and I want more time in my life!” (p. 93). Doesn’t everybody? Don’t you? So let’s think about this.

What is one thing you can do that will advance all these goals at once? Fine. So why don’t you do it?

5. What is success?

Ethics background: What is the difference between instrumental and intrinsic value?

Instrumental value is the value something has as a means to achieving a goal, that is, as an “instrument” to an end. A pair of pliers isn’t of much value in itself, for example: it’s just a few ounces of metal. But the pliers are often of great instrumental value, as a way of tightening the pin that holds the oarlock to the boat and allows you to return to harbor, perhaps, or as a hammer to smack in a rivet that threatens to open a leak in your hull.

Additionally, some things have value in and of themselves—not because they are good for something else (although they may be), but because they are valuable, period. That sort of thing has intrinsic value. A child has intrinsic value. It is good that the child exists, not because the child could be put to work as a beggar (although she could be) or because her kidneys could be sold for a profit (although they could be), but because she is a good thing—valuable for her own sake, independent of her value as a means to other ends. In fact, we would consider a person morally deficient who thought of a child only as a means to other ends and never as an end in herself.

Many moral arguments about how we ought to treat the Earth or living forms center on whether they have intrinsic value or have only instrumental value. A songbird has instrumental value—he cheers us with his song and serves as food for falcons and eats mosquitoes, let us say. Does a songbird also have value in itself? If so, then we have obligations toward it, independent of its usefulness to our ends.

Philosophers offer a thought experiment to reveal whether you believe the Earth’s living creatures have intrinsic value: the Last Person experiment. If you were the last person on Earth, let us say, and you were about to depart for another planet, leaving Earth forever without human presence, would it be wrong to flip the switch that would set off a holocaust that would destroy every living thing on Earth? If you believe that would be wrong, then you ascribe intrinsic value to Earth’s denizens, value beyond their usefulness to human ends (which is, according to the assumptions given, zero).

Activity / Application: The Law of Mother Earth

Bolivia will soon become the first country in the world to pass legislation that grants rights to nature. La ley de derechos de la madre tierra (the Law of Mother Earth) grants nature many rights equal to those held by humans, including the right to life, the right to water and clean air, and the right to be free of pollution. The laws, which will be overseen by a new ministry of mother earth, will require new attitudes toward conservation and a recognition of the interests of the entity that the Bolivian indigenous people call Pachamama. Local communities will have the responsibility and authority to enforce the new laws by regulating industrial pollution. Although Bolivia has been outspoken in the global arena about the need for action on climate change, its challenge will be to balance the rights of nature with the needs of industries, such as mining, that support its economy.

In theory, is this a model that the United States should follow? What would be the implications? In practice, why would such a law be virtually inconceivable in the United States? Or put the question differently: what would have to change in the United States for such a law to be passed?

4. For the sake of all forms of life on the planet Dave Foreman, “Wild Things for Their Own Sakes” At the heart of the problem of our thinking is the false belief that all beings exist for the sake of human thriving. Rather, wild things exist for their own sake. Those who would disregard the intrinsic value of all beings have the burden of proof to show in a strong and mindful way why this careless, carefree, uncaring behavior is good.

Reading questions 1. Foreman wants to shift the burden of proof when it comes to justifying acts that damage wild beings. How so?

2. Once that burden is shifted, we face a new set of questions. It is worth making a serious effort to answer each one of them: a. How is it okay to snuff out life for short-term, selfish ends? b. How, in a deep, wide way, is careless, carefree, uncaring behavior good? c. Do we have a right to bring to naught the wild beings of the Earth?

Carly Lettero, “Spray Glue Goes. Maggots Stay.”

Even at the moment of a loved one’s death, we face choices between actions that are lifeaffirming and actions that are destructive of our values. Every generation needs a revolution, Lettero states, and our generation’s is to answer the obligations arising from our reverence for life by curbing the waste, the trashing, and the destruction of Earth and its inhabitants.

Reading questions 1. As an exercise, design your own funeral in such a way that it embodies your values.

Include details about casket, practices, rituals, participation of others, etc.

2. It is time for moral spring-cleaning, Lettero says. In your life, what stays? What goes?

Shepard Krech III, “Ornithophilia” If only each of us can latch on to something in nature that allows for reflection, brings selfawareness, and enhances well-being, then we will be poised to take the next step and intervene in favor of that thing or the habitats on which it depends.

Reading questions 1. Krech speaks of seeing the flight of the woodcock as his Aldo Leopold moment. What does he mean by this? Why did it result in his refusal to hunt woodcock? Have you ever had such a moment (what Abraham Maslow called a “peak experience”)?

2. According to Krech, what exactly is our problem? And what, according to Krech, is the “solution”? Do you agree or disagree with him, and why?

3. If someone said, “Birds, schmirds, why should we care about birds?,” how could you most forcefully respond, using Krech and your own experience and knowledge about birds?

Gary Paul Nabhan, “Heirloom Chile Peppers and Climate Change” By threatening traditional native plant foods, climate change endangers the relationship between nature, culture, plants, and the stories and songs that celebrate them. We must respond to climate change, he says, by framing the issues in terms of what we know and care about and then advancing what we learn by sharing food, stories, songs, and celebrations.

Reading questions 1. Nabhan suggests that global climate change will “wreak havoc on the place-based cultures of this Earth” (p. 116). How is this so, and should we care, and why or why not?

2. Nabhan suggests that we need to appeal to that which people “care about. They care about sharing food, sharing stories and songs and seasonal celebrations” (p. 118). Is this true? If so, what does this suggest for a strategy to address global climate change?

3. Can you tell a similar story about a food item that you love in the same way that Nabhan loves chile peppers?

David Quammen, “Imagining Darwin’s Ethics” David Quammen uses the insight that ethics evolved naturally out of the need for social utility to put the giant mess we have created for Earth in perspective relative to Darwin’s explanation of evolution. We are, he says, undermining what once was a natural and good process in moderation and inflating it to disastrous proportions, such that it threatens our ability to pass on to the future joy in “the diversity of life, its beauty and wondrousness” (p. 119).

Reading questions 1. Quammen points out that you cannot simply make moral inferences from the descriptive theory of evolution (recall the practical syllogism). So how can or does the theory of evolution inform ethics?

2. Quammen suggests that Darwin’s own example shows that we do not need religion in order to be good. If this is true, then why do we need it at all?

3. What would Darwin say about global climate change and the loss of biodiversity?

How is what is happening now different from extinction as a natural process? (Note: it might serve us well to rehearse a distinction like this.)

Robert Michael Pyle, “Evening Falls on the Maladaptive Ape” Our genetic heritage leads us to deal foolishly with problems like climate change— problems that require moral regard for the future and for those beyond our acquaintance and our species. The consequent cultures and economies of perpetual growth are not compatible with human and planetary thriving. It’s an open question whether we can act

on our latent capacities for honestly, generosity, mercy, and cooperation, rather than our inclinations to seek power, greed, and domination.

Reading questions 1. Unlike some others, Pyle believes we need a new ethic, one based not solely on human well-being but “on the well-being of the supportive fabric” (p. 126) of life.

How does he make his case, and do you agree?

2. “We are the maladaptive ape, at twilight. Evolution will mock our tardy rage” (p.

128). What does Pyle mean when he says this? What is his argument for this claim?

Is he being unfair, or overly fair, to humans? Could we, each of us, become an adaptive ape? What would that look like?

Ethics background: How can we categorize the values of living things?

Many people argue that all forms of life on the planet have value (whether intrinsic or instrumental) and therefore should be protected. In contrast to those who might say that some forms of life are expendable because they have no value at all (maybe the mosquito, for starters, and maybe the desert pupfish or the snail darter), ecologists have recently tried to be very explicit about the many, often unnoticed types of value that the natural world provides. This effort has resulted in several different taxonomies of ecological value.

Here is one that integrates several of the schemes.

Instrumental values:

Direct values. These are goods, things we extract from ecosystems and use: wood products, wild foods, fish, water, pasture, crops, etc.

Indirect values. These are the services that ecosystems and their participating parts provide: filtering and purifying water, watering crops, cycling nutrients, attenuating floods, pollinating crops, fixing nitrogen, etc. The economic value of these services is estimated in the trillions of dollars.

Option values. These are the values in possible future uses. No one now knows what plants might be the next pharmaceuticals or what use dolphins might be in modeling new forms of artificial intelligence, for example. These possibilities have value.

Cultural and spiritual values. These are the values that are often missing from the list of instrumental values but that have real value to us and are means to important human ends. They include aesthetic value, the appreciation of the beauty of the natural world; cultural value, the significance of the natural world for defining and enriching cultures; heritage value, the significance of places as locations of events meaningful to us; and spiritual value, the value we place on some encounter with powers far beyond us and meanings we can’t fathom. And there are those ineffable values: the comfort we take in the return of the seasons, the joy we feel listening to the dawn chorus, the hope we

sense in new growth, the deep understanding that the cycles of living and dying give to us. The list of cultural and spiritual values is rich and long.

Intrinsic values:

The values we find in organisms, processes, places not because they can provide us something else, but because they are worthy in and of themselves.

Activity / Application 1: Adding to the oath

An Oath for the Animals begins on p. 129. What would you add to the list—additional actions or restraints that would express true respect for the well-being of all forms of life on the planet?

Activity / Application 2: A case study about the intrinsic and instrumental value of living beings Assemble a Council of Beings. Someone (or some group) will need to speak for the barred owls. Someone will need to speak for the spotted owls. Someone will need to speak for other forest dwellers. And some will need to be decision makers, reasoning from a variety of moral points of view (including anthropocentric consequentialism, biocentric consequentialism, Albert Schweitzer’s reverence for life, and Alan Taylor’s argument, below). The question: What is to be done?

The spotted owl is an endangered species that lives in old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. Now that logging of the owl’s habitat has been reduced, a new threat to the spotted owl has been identified—the barred owl. The more aggressive barred owls have been steadily moving into spotted owl territory, reducing their nesting sites.

A new feasibility study has been proposed, to learn whether killing the barred owl improves spotted owl numbers. According to the experimental protocol, Fish and Wildlife officials would shoot barred owls in a carefully controlled experiment near Grants Pass, Oregon. Prior to beginning the study, however, officials want to meet with scientists and local interest groups to assess their opinion of the plan. Fish and Wildlife officials place the highest priority on preventing the extinction of the spotted owl, but they understand the importance of considering all the moral implications of the study.

In Civilization and Ethics, Albert Schweitzer writes: “I am life which wills to live, and I exist in the midst of life which wills to live. . . . Just as in my own will-to-live there is a yearning for more life . . . so the same obtains in all the will-to-live around me, equally whether it can express itself to my comprehension or whether it remains unvoiced. Ethics thus consists in this, that I experience the necessity of practicing the same reverence for life toward all willto-live, as toward my own. . . . It is good to maintain and cherish life; it is evil to destroy and check it. The ethic of reverence for life recognizes no such thing as a relative ethic. The

maintenance and enhancement of life are the only things it counts as being good in themselves. . . . The ethics of reverence forces one to decide for themselves in each case how far they can remain ethical and how far they must submit themselves to the necessity of destroying and harming life and thus become guilty. A good conscience is the invention of the devil.”

In the article “Human-centered and Life-centered Systems of Environmental Ethics,” Paul Taylor writes: “I argue that finally it is the good (well-being, welfare) of individual organisms, considered as entities that have intrinsic worth, that determines our moral relations with the Earth’s wild communities of life. . . . We have prima facie obligations that are owed to wild plants and animals themselves as member of the Earth’s biotic community. We are morally bound (other things being equal) to protect or promote their good for their sake.”

5. To honor our duties of gratitude and reciprocity Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, “To Commit a Crime Against the Natural World Is a Sin” Our responsibility toward God’s creation requires voluntary restraint in order to live in harmony with our environment. Failure of restraint means that we become consumed by avarice and greed, and estranged from God. It follows that to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin.

Reading questions 1. How would Christians defend themselves against the Patriarch’s accusation that to harm nature is a sin, or could they defend themselves? If it is a sin, then how should Christians avoid this sin?

2. What is this essay’s most powerful argument for melding environmental concern with Christianity?

3. Do you think the Patriarch’s argument here would be effective against people who defend their lack of environmental concern on the basis of their Christian commitments? Why or why not?

Nirmal Selvamony, “Sacred Ancestors, Sacred Homes” The places of our ancestors are sacred places to which we ourselves belong. The shattering of the connections between people, their places, and their ancestors creates a disharmonious and destructive way of life. Our task is to recover the continuity of places and people through time.

Reading questions 1. In one sentence, how would you summarize the argument that leads Selvamony to conclude that “a social order based on ancestral sacralization is our best option for a viable future”?

2. How does Selvamony connect “ecological imperialism” to our current condition?

Can you think of an example in your own region of ecological imperialism? How has it affected the local human and nonhuman community?

3. How can each of us, in at least some small way, “recover the spiritual basis of the tiNai” (p. 140)?

Robin W. Kimmerer, “The Giveaway” The Potawatomi practice of the “giveaway” illustrates our proper relation of gratitude and thanksgiving toward the Earth, which gives us life and breath and sustenance. For these gifts, we have responsibilities to be grateful, to respect the gift, and to respond with reciprocity. The Earth is a gift, and we must pass it on just as it came to us.

Reading questions

1. Have you ever thought about your actions, your life’s work, as a form of reciprocity for the gifts that you’ve been given?

2. Considering the gifts that have been given us all, what are some examples of an appropriate reciprocity that we might engage in? That is, how might we begin to appropriately respond to the Earth’s gifts?

3. “When I close my eyes . . . I envision people recognizing . . . the dazzling gifts of the world, seeing them with new eyes, just as they teeter on the cusp of undoing,” writes Kimmerer (p. 145). If you close your eyes and think about what this might look like in the world, what do you see?

Courtney S. Campbell, “From the Mountain, a Covenant” A Christian moral ecology calls on us to experience life as a gift, for which we have a covenantal reciprocal responsibility to use the gifts respectfully and gratefully. Our commitment is to act so as not to foreclose or predetermine life options for future generations. The primary religious sentiment is the experience of awe and wonder as we contemplate the Earth.

Reading questions In an unexpected confluence, similar arguments about our obligations of gratitude came from a Mormon elder (Campbell), a Potawatomi botanist (Kimmerer), the leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church (Bartholomew I), and a student of Australian aboriginal thought (Rose). Here are some of the most important claims that Campbell makes. What does each claim mean? What resonance do you find with the words of the others? a. We must “experience life as a gift.” I am a “ ‘beggar before God’ ” (p. 148). b. “Awareness of the biological reality that our very existence is contingent on Earth, soil, water, air, and so on should cultivate moral dispositions of gratitude, humility and solidarity” (p. 148). c. “These dispositions are at the core of an ethic of radical dependency and interdependency that must supplant historical models of anthropocentric authority without accountability” (p. 148). d. “I find myself in a covenantal relation with nature, [which] concerns my respectful and grateful use of the gifts I have received” (p. 148). e. My specific covenantal commitment “is to ensure an open future; I am responsible to act so as not to foreclose or predetermine life options for future generations” (p.

149). f. “Awe and wonder cultivate dispositions of gratitude, humility, and solidarity as the self opens to a realization of dependency on powers beyond our control” (p. 150). g. “As I have been a recipient in my dependency, so I am called to care for the vulnerable and poor, including the vulnerable of a fragile future” (p. 150).

Deborah Bird Rose, “So the Future Can Come Forth from the Ground” Reflecting on her experiences with Aboriginal people in Australia, Deborah Bird Rose describes the understanding that all interdependent life came from the ground and so too will that of the future, for it follows the present. It is therefore our obligation, she says, to

care for the ground so that the future is able “to be born and to live, and then to return into the source” (p. 155).

Reading questions 1. Explain in the simplest terms possible the unique ideas in Rose’s explanation of Aboriginal ideology: “Dreamings,” “behind mob,” “new mob,” “betrayal,” “the future in the ground.”

2. Can you pause for a moment and put your own life in the context explained in this essay? That is, can you think about similar temporal connections in your own life?

Can you embed yourself in “that dizzying sense of time running all over the place” (p. 156)? Can you also include the nonhuman animals, plants, lakes, and rivers, ecosystems that you are and have been a part of? Does this change your sense of obligation in any way?

3. Can you connect Rose’s essay with others that you have read thus far? Which other essays does it resonate with most? Is there something important about this resonance?

Ursula K. Le Guin, “A Conference in Time” All the gods from all the Earth’s times and places are called to gather in Rome to decide the fate of humans. Some gods call for war, others for mercy. In the end, the decision is made by the mortal Earth herself. What does she decide?

Reading questions 1. Okay. What happens in this poem? Just tell the story in simple words. What is “the word that rang out across the inner sky” (p. 158)? How does the story end?

2. Imagine yourself as one who has been called to the Conference in Time. What would your judgment be?

3. What makes this poem so powerful? Is it the story line? Is it the language?

Something else?

Ethics background: What is gratitude, and in what sense is it a duty?

When we question Western philosophers about gratitude, we get a thin, dry answer. There are two kinds of duties, philosophers say: Perfect duties are the duties that are the correlate of someone else’s right, and so impose an obligation. For example, Jack has a right to control access to his private property, so Jill has a duty to refrain from trespassing. It’s not a matter of choice. Supererogatory duties are different. The duty to be grateful, like the duty to be generous or merciful, is not something one can ask of you. No one has a claim against you for gratitude or generous treatment. In fact, gratitude, generosity, and mercy must come freely; if they are compulsory, they lose their worth and character. That’s not to say they aren’t duties, but the origin of the obligation is in the duty one has to oneself to be a good person.

But gratitude is surely more than this, especially when it comes to gratitude for the gifts of the great Earth. Then, gratitude is a kind of seeing, an awareness of the magnitude of the gift of this Earth. To see the world gratefully is to be endlessly surprised by the bare fact of it, its beauty and power and everlastingness. It’s easy to move through life and never notice how the moon moves the tides or the bees drive the evolution of beauty, but that would be a failure to notice, a failure of grateful seeing.

Gratitude is a kind of terror. The gifts of this world come unbidden and undeserved.

Humankind has no claim against the universe for starlight or clams. Rain is not a birthright.

The world is contingent, improbably beyond our control; it could be, or not. If any of its gifts were to be taken away, there is no entitlement we could claim. The gift is a mystery.

Gratitude is a kind of rejoicing. Even though it might not have been and may yet not be, the Earth is. The sudden awareness of the gift can fill us with joy, a sense of well-being that lifts our spirits, expands our senses of possibility.

And is gratitude a moral obligation? With all due respect to Western philosophers, of course it is. The obligation is owed to the Earth itself. To be grateful is to live a life that honors the gift of life: to care for it, keep it safe, protect it from damage; not to discount or ignore it, but to use it respectfully; to celebrate it, to honor the worth of it in a thousand ways, not just in words, but in how we live our lives. To do any less than this dishonors the Earth.

Activity / Application 1: This calls for a potluck

For this class, please bring a dish to share. In addition, bring a gift to give away—a poem you love, a well-worn book from your shelf, a tomato start, something else. Share the food in a great feast. Then give the gift and take one in return.

How does the satisfaction of getting compare to the satisfaction of giving? What terrible price have we paid, individually and collectively, by imagining that our worth is measured by what we keep, rather than by what we give away? In what small ways, in what new or recovered traditions, can we begin to create a culture based on gifts?

Activity / Application 2: Conference in time

This exercise asks discussants to take on the role of a particular deity from Ursula K. Le Guin’s poem “A Conference in Time”: Allah Jehovah Jupiter Zeus Jesus Freya

Athene Aphrodite Lady of the Crossways Pan Venus Plumed Serpent Turquoise One Pachamama Vishnu Coyote Corn Woman White Shell Woman Persephone

Each person choose one. Then pull out iPhones and laptops and quickly get a sense of who that deity is.

Read the poem (Moral Ground, pp. 158–60) aloud through the phrase “ ‘What is to be done?’ he says,” with each of the deities reading that part that refers to him or her.

Then convene the committee, discuss, and reach a decision.

6. For the full expression of human virtue Brian Doyle, “A Newt Note” Brian Doyle describes the wonders and miracles his children encountered in a hike “through the vast wet moist forest” of the Oregon coast. What kind of “greedy criminal thug thieves would we be . . . if we didn’t spend every iota of our cash and creativity to protect and preserve [such] a world” (p. 168)?

Reading questions 1. Doyle suggests that we have a very serious obligation to preserve a world of wonder, that this is a natural outcome of being a virtuous person. What is his argument, and do you agree?

2. Explain how Doyle uses humor to make his point. Why is the use of humor so powerful in this essay? Is there something important about maintaining a sense of humor in the face of an epoch of great environmental harms?

John Perry, “Worship the Earth” Worship is one aspect of religion worth saving. The object of the worship must be both responsible for the existence of the worshippers and affected by the worshipping. The Earth is the best subject of our worship, honored in ritual and song. Like other objects of worship, it must be considered “so out-of-bounds that [it doesn’t] even enter into costbenefit analyses” (p. 172).

Reading questions 1. How does Perry make the case that the Earth is a most “suitable object of worship”?

Do you find his argument compelling?

2. What are Perry’s two conditions that make an object worthy of worship? How does the Earth fulfill these conditions? Can you think of any other conditions that might make the Earth, or any other object, worthy of worship?

3. According to Perry, what role might philosophy play in creating a worshipful attitude toward the Earth?

Bill McKibben, “Something Braver Than Trying to Save the World” Bill McKibben concedes that the planet is changing “in hideous and damaging ways” (p.

175), but he insists that this is no excuse to give up and stop trying to limit the damage. We must act, he says, to save the Earth. In doing so, we will revive our societies because Earthsaving actions and community-creating actions—such as farmers’ markets and smaller, closer homes—are one and the same.

Reading questions 1. Why does McKibben believe we still have a moral obligation to the future even though he argues at the same time that the world we have known will “change in hideous and damaging ways”?

2. What’s the link between farmers’ markets and global climate change?

3. In general, would you describe McKibben’s portrayal of our situation as hopeful or desperate, or both, or neither?

Massoumeh Ebtekar, “Peace and Sustainability Depend on the Spiritual and the Feminine” Today’s problems, Massoumeh Ebtekar claims, are the result of an imbalance and lack of inner peace in our decision-making circle, which stems from the historical suppression of the feminine. To fulfill our obligations to the future, she says, we must revive the feminine—attributes like gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and closeness—and thus restore the balance.

Reading questions 1. According to Ebtekar, how precisely are the spiritual and the feminine linked to our current environmental problems?

2. In Ebtekar’s summary of Mulla Sadra’s text, The Four Journeys, do you see resonance between this Islamic philosophy and philosophies of other religious, or even secular, traditions?

3. Ebtekar presents us with an image of an appropriate leader? What is that image?

How close or far away are we from that image? How might we encourage those with these qualities to seek leadership positions?

Dale Jamieson, “A Life Worth Living” We face a paradox: even as we are told that money equals freedom, the wealthiest people feel trapped by their lifestyles and increasingly dependent on forces outside themselves. So what makes a life worth living? We find meaning in our lives in the context of our relationships to nature. Lives worth living are those built on activities that are in accordance with our values, whatever happens in the world.

Reading questions 1. Jamieson points out that simply understanding the facts of environmental harms and current and future injustices will not, by themselves, move us to act. How does he suggest we will be moved to act? If you consider our responses to environmental harms, where do we exert our energies—on simply understanding the facts, or on something more?

2. Consider what Jamieson says, as well as your own thoughts: what does a meaningful life look like in the current era of climate change and other environmental harms?

Thomas L. Friedman, “Who We Really Are” A twelve-year-old girl, speaking at the 1992 Earth Summit, reminds the world’s leaders that climate change is not just about “the whales,” but about children and the lessons they learn from their parents about living well on Earth. The difficult decisions we make in response to climate destabilization will ultimately reveal what we value and who we are as human beings.

Reading questions 1. What exactly is it about Severn Suzuki’s statement that Friedman finds so “eloquent,” do you think? What do you find powerful about her words?

2. Describe three things (emotions, realizations, ideas, etc.) that pop into your mind when you read Suzuki’s words.

3. What do you think Friedman means when he says that our decisions are about “who we really are” and not a matter of merely “technical decisions”?

7. Because all flourishing is mutual George Tinker, “An American Indian Cultural Universe” An American Indian environmental concern begins with a deeply embedded sensitivity to our relation with all life-forms. It seeks to maintain harmony and balance through responsible, conscious actions and ceremonies of renewal. If we act recklessly and thoughtlessly we could easily put the whole of the world out of balance. In our understanding of a shared Earth, what we take we must give back.

Reading questions 1. Given what Tinker says, what are the main philosophical differences between his particular American Indian beliefs and those of the dominant Western culture?

2. How is it that these philosophical beliefs manifest themselves in actions and policies in the world, according to Tinker?

Fred W. Allendorf, “No Separation Between Present and Future” Ecological science and Buddhist philosophy tell us the same things—nothing is fixed, all is impermanent, all life is interdependent, and no person is independent of the mountains, the air, the rivers. If we succeed in ridding ourselves of the delusion of independence, we will naturally act in ways that will prevent harm in the future.

Reading questions 1. What principles do ecologists and Buddhists hold in common?

2. Why is it important that ecologists and Buddhists agree?

3. When did your life begin, in your view?

4. Examine your breakfast: What world is present there?

Jonathan F. P. Rose, “A Transformational Ecology” The ecological issues we face are ontological issues—mistakes we make about the nature of the world. The perceptual boundary we draw between ourselves and the rest of the world is a mental construct. We will find our way when we transform our view from one of parts to one of the whole. The ethics of many religions are based on the interconnection of all things, which leads us to compassion, restraint, and responsibility.

Reading questions 1. Rose speaks of the world as a fabric, now torn. In what ways does the world resemble a fabric?

2. Rose believes that the root cause of the problems we face is our definition of self.

Who are you? What are you made of?

3. Rose’s last question is important: “If not now, when?” Suppose we do fail to take action in a timely manner (as seems likely). Who, then, will take action? When? Can you tell a story about those people taking those actions?

Mary Catherine Bateson, “Why Should I Inconvenience Myself?”

The idea of an individual, the idea that someone can exist separate from relationships, is simply an error. That error infuses our practices of child-rearing and care of the aging, as it leads us to ignore our responsibilities to the future. The fact is that, despite our differences, we are “always parts nested within larger wholes” for which we have responsibility. Our differences must be seen as sources of mutual benefits and thus justification for action on behalf of the whole.

Reading questions 1. The idea of an individual is simply a mistake, Bateson argues. What is she talking about? What are we, if not individuals?

2. Suppose you are talking with a friend who thinks she has no reason at all to alter her life for the sake of the future. How would you convince her otherwise? Are your arguments the same as Bateson’s, or different?

Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, “Extra! Extra! New Consciousness Needed” Although most people can recognize the connectedness of all life, we often lack direction and guidance for right action. The Yupiaq people believe that God is in Nature. Thus we have a responsibility to give respect, honor, and dignity to all resources of the living Earth.

This understanding is the ultimate gift of the Indigenous people to the global world.

Reading questions 1. If it’s true that we owe utmost respect to everything, how do we show that respect?

Can we respect an apple while we are eating it? Or does our dependence on the Earth require us to be disrespectful?

2. “The consciousness that was used to construct a system cannot be used to make changes to it” (p. 218), Kawagley and Einstein aver. Derrick Jensen, however, argues that it’s futile to expect a change in consciousness that happens quickly enough to save a stable climate (pp. 60–64). So: Are we doomed?

Edwin P. Pister, “Just a Few More Yards” In 1969, scientists saved the endangered Owen’s pupfish from extinction by carrying the world’s entire population to safety in two buckets. Since then, the development of what Aldo Leopold called an “ecological conscience” has been slow and difficult. We are learning the value of all the pieces of the ecological system, understanding that to save an endangered species is to save ourselves.

Reading questions 1. “In a very real sense, we and all our planet’s life-forms are slopping in two buckets while wild and poorly understood forces carry us into the future” (p. 224), Pister says, referring of course to the desert pupfish. Biologists carried the pupfish to safety. Who will carry our buckets? Really—it’s a serious question. Whose job is this?

2. What do you think: Is Pister an ecological hero, or did he unjustifiably intervene in a natural process?

Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni, “Why Sacrifice for Future Generations?”

It is difficult for people in the present generation to sacrifice their own self-interest for the benefit of future others. Yet a number of factors can help promote intergenerational beneficence—affinity or “perceived oneness” with future others, reciprocity, and the urge to leave the symbolic immortality of a legacy. Intergenerational beneficence enables people to make a connection with something that will continue to exist after they are gone.

Reading questions 1. Is it really true that people have a hard time sacrificing for the future? What counterexamples can you offer from your own life, times when you have denied yourself for the sake of others to come?

2. “Acting on behalf of future generations thus paradoxically represents a dramatic form of self-interest” (p. 229), Wade-Benzoni argues. Think of your own efforts to leave a legacy. Are they selfish?

Jesse M. Fink, “Hope and the New Energy Economy” Business-as-usual cannot address the problems of climate change for two reasons: the time frame of business is far shorter than natural cycles, and the fallacy that current business success is inconsistent with long-term sustainability is widespread. A new energy economy could deploy various sorts of capital to invest in solutions. Once the real costs of destructive energy are reflected in prices, the new economy will create new jobs, new consumer choices, and new sustainable practices.

Reading questions 1. Fink departs from many of the other writers in this book in his belief that structural social changes, particularly different business models, can meet the challenges of reducing carbon. Do you agree?

2. Do you think that a change in consciousness creates change in practices, or that change in practices causes change in ways of thinking? Can you offer some examples of each?

Ethics background: What are dualistic and holistic worldviews?

A worldview is a set of beliefs about the fundamental questions of human existence: What is the world? What is the place of humans in the world? How then shall we live? Although

we seldom notice or examine our worldview, it shapes all our ways of seeing and acting in the world.

Dualism—which has roots in Greek atomism, Judeo-Christian creation stories, capitalism, and the European Enlightenment—is the worldview that has predominated in the Western world for hundreds of years; it is the worldview that has allowed industrial growth economies, the worldview that has allowed climate change. Dualism is the view that human beings are separate from the Earth and exceptions to its rules. We alone have spirit; the rest of the Earth is dumb matter. We alone have moral worth; the rest of the Earth derives all of its value from its usefulness to us. We alone were specially created in the image of God; the rest of the world was created for our use. It follows that our role is to learn how the Earth operates, so that we can control it and turn it more effectively to our purposes, or alter it substantially, in effect destroying our habitat without destroying ourselves. The dualistic view might be represented by a Christmas tree: we are the star on the top, the pinnacle of creation. All the rest of the green material is merely support structure, a tree whose very purpose is to hold up a star. Yes, there are beautiful ornaments here and there, but that’s all they are.

But ecological science and almost all of the world’s religions (except some forms of the monotheistic religions) renounce that worldview as simply false and deeply dangerous. We may be on the cusp of a paradigm shift toward a different worldview, called holism.

Holism presupposes that humans are part of a great whole made up of intricate, delicately balanced systems of living and dying that have created a richness of life greater than the world has ever seen. We are kin to all the world, sharing a kinship of common substance, a kinship of common origins, a kinship of interdependence, and, surely, the kinship of a common fate. Because we are part of the Earth’s systems, we are utterly dependent on their thriving. The holistic view can be represented by the ecologists’ diagram § of trophic levels, with its intricate patterns of interdependence. In this diagram, Homo sapiens is the black dot in the middle on the right.

Like dualism, holism has profound moral implications. The web of relationships to which we belong creates and defines us and gives us our worth. As Aldo Leopold wrote in A Sand County Almanac, “The first premise of any ethic is that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.” The challenge we face is to imagine what it is to be a good person and to act rightly as a member of that community.

§ Kathleen Dean Moore and Roly Russell, “Toward a New Ethic for the Oceans,” Ecosystem-Based Management of the Oceans, eds. Karen McLeod and Heather Leslie (Island Press, 2009).

Activity / Application 1: Inupiaq values

Dr. Kawagley carries in his pocket a list of the Inupiaq virtues. The same list hangs on meeting room walls and in homes. In what way does this express the view that all flourishing is mutual? What would an analogous list look like for Euro-American culture?

What worldview does it express?

Avoidance of Conflict: Paaqtaktautainniq. The Inupiaq way is to think positive, act positive, speak positive and live positive.

Humility: Qinuinniq. Our hearts command we act on goodness and expect no reward in return.

Spirituality: Ukpiqqutiqagniq. We know the power of prayer. We are spiritual people.

Cooperation: Paammaagigniq. Together we have an awesome power to accomplish anything.

Compassion: Nagliktuutiqugniq. Though the environment is harsh and cold, our ancestors learned to live with warmth.

Hunting Traditions: Anguniallaniq. Reverence for the land, sea, and animals is the foundation of our hunting traditions.

Knowledge of Language: Inupiuraallaniq. With our language we have an identity. It helps us find out who we are in our minds.

Sharing: Aviktuaqatigiigniq. It is amazing how sharing works. Your acts of giving always come back.

Family and Kinship: Ilagiigniq. As Inupiaq people we believe in knowing who we are and how we are related to one another.

Humor: Quvianguniq. Indeed, laughter is the best medicine.

Respect for Elders and One Another: Piqpakkutiqagniq Suli qiksiksrautiqagniq utuqqpanaanun allann. Our elders model our traditions and ways of being, providing a light of hope to younger people, as elders have taught us.

Respect for Nature: Qiksiksrautiqagniq Inuunigvigmun. Our creator gave us the gift of our surroundings. Those before us placed ultimate importance on this gift for future generations.

Activity / Application 2: Clean water exports could be worth millions

Use the arguments presented by the writers in this section—all the beautiful evocations of the principle that all flourishing is mutual—to argue for or against this sale. Remember that the point is to use the philosophical reasons to think clearly about a real-life decision:

Sitka, Alaska, a small town at the base of glacier-carved mountains, is sitting on a gold mine. But it’s not a mineral that can make it wealthy, but rather fresh water. Blue Lake, adjoining the town, holds trillions of gallons of clear, pure glacier water. The city plans to sell rights to 3 billion gallons of water a year to True Alaska Bottling. The corporation will siphon the water into tankers, ship it to Mumbai, India, for bottling, and sell it to S2C Global, which will then distribute it in cities in the Middle East. The potential for Sitka is a $90 million industry. Critics point out that this plan involves transferring a massive amount of water from public ownership, and they ask if the interests of the ecosystem as well as the interests of the citizens have been fully considered.

8. For the stewardship of God’s creation

Sallie McFague, “A Manifesto to North American Middle-Class Christians” The times call for an Ecological Reformation that renounces the individualistic misconception of being apart from others and replaces it with a functional creation story based on “new house rules.” These rules update our moral frameworks for action based on how reality is understood now: we are integral parts of an interdependent world in which “the glory of God is every creature fully alive” (p. 248).

Reading questions 1. What is a manifesto, and in what way is McFague’s essay a manifesto?

2. Does she believe humans are “participating members of the comprehensive Earth community” (Berry) or simply dependent on nature? What difference does this make?

3. When (if ever) has Christianity “reconstructed its doctrine in light of reality as currently understood”? What reality do we currently understand that might prompt such a reconstruction?

4. What is the likelihood that Christians will redefine “the abundant life”? What do you think the abundant life is?

Marcus J. Borg, “God’s Passion in the Bible: The World” God cares passionately about this world; the biblical evidence of his passion provides all we need for an environmental ethic. The Earth is good; human relate to this world as shepherd to their flocks of sheep. The Earth is the Lord’s. The world is filled with the glory of God. Biblical eschatology is not about the destruction of the world, but about its renewal and restoration. We are called to participate in “God’s dream for the Earth.”

Reading questions 1. “The world is good,” God says, and it follows that we should value it and care for it. Is the world good? Sort of good, sort of bad? Bad? What evidence do you bring? What follows from that evidence?

2. How would we live, what decisions would we make, if we actually participated in God’s dream for the Earth?

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Our Obligation to Tomorrow” The Qur’an makes clear that we are God’s vicegerents on Earth, responsible for the trust He has left in our hands. We are responsible for the survival of human life and for the preservation of the great cultural, intellectual, and spiritual legacy we have inherited from the past. Since our intelligence has the power of anticipation, we can hear “the cry of the future, beckoning us to heed its call and fulfill our responsibilities toward it” (p. 258).

Reading questions 1. This is a stirring passage: “In the eyes of God it is a blessed act to plant a tree, even if it be a day before the end of the world” (p. 257). Let’s take this seriously. Why should we plant a tree under such circumstances? What lesson does this hold for those who have given up hope that we can save the world from calamitous climate change?

2. What is a vicegerent? What are we called to do as vicegerents?

Tri Robinson, “The Biblical Mandate for Creation Care” Evangelical Christians are called to tend God’s garden, “on Earth, as it is in Heaven.” It is impossible to separate passion for the Kingdom of God from commitment to care for God’s creation. Christians have been mandated by God to be leaders in a global environmental movement. One-third of the world’s people profess to be Christian; united in their care for creation, 2.5 billion Christians of the world can make a lasting difference.

Reading questions 1. What exactly does it mean to say we are called to tend God’s garden? What does this tell us about the garden itself? What does it say about our relationship to it?

2. Robinson points out that there are 2.5 billion Christians in the world, easily enough to make a dramatic change, and that Christians believe we have an obligation to care for creation. If so, why do we face the problems we do? How can the power of belief be turned to good action?

Martin S. Kaplan, “Will Religions Guide Us on Our Dangerous Journey?”

How will the religions of the world respond to the challenges of the ultimate catastrophe, climate change? Will they look to the personal salvation of the faithful only? Or will they, as the “ancient formulators of culture and values in the world [and] the primary source of ethics” (p. 266), provide essential moral leadership? As political and economic institutions fail in their responsibilities to respond meaningfully to climate change, can faith communities “provide the value structures to change consciousness and behavior as we face existential threats to the very survival of the biosphere and human life” (p. 266)?

Reading questions Let’s ask Kaplan’s questions. They’re good ones. What do you think? What evidence supports your views?

1. Will any religious traditions find reason to argue against saving human life?

2. Will religious institutions be concerned only when it affects their own faithful?

3. Will people look to religion only for their own salvation?

4. If people flooded out from Bangladesh look to your particular church or faith community, will you welcome them into your lives? Should you?

Activity / Application: “And it was good”

Read the following aloud, with one person reading the parts of God, another reading the boldface text, and another reading the remaining text. Then consider this question: “And it was good� appears again and again; it is the chorus to creation, the repeating refrain.

Clearly it has an overriding significance in the creation story. What is its moral significance?

Can God weep? What would that sound like?

Is there any grief greater than a parent’s grief over the moral ruin of their children?

Genesis 1 (from the King James Version of the Bible, adapted for classroom use)

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. 6 And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7 And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. 9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. 14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth." And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. 20 And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens." 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. 24 And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to

their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds."

And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." 29 And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

9. Because compassion requires it Libby Roderick, “Winter Wheat” When we plant shade trees that we will not sit under, when we sow wheat that other hands will harvest, when we struggle for justice that will not be achieved in our lifetimes, we dream the Earth’s dream for a world in which children can live in peace.

Reading questions 1. What did you believe as a young person that you no longer believe? What beliefs have only grown stronger with time?

2. That beautiful refrain: “We will plant shade trees that we will not sit under . . .” Can you write some more lines for that refrain? What else will we do?

3. Consider the bridge in the song, which begins, “Each generation passes like the leaves . . .” If you have the heart to do it, rewrite those four lines, considering what climate change is likely to do to the oaks. If that’s too sad, tell us instead what makes the oak’s roots strong.

Wangari Maathai, “We Are Called to Help the Earth to Heal” The experiences of women in Africa demonstrate that when the environment is destroyed or degraded, humans suffer, as do their children and grandchildren in a hungrier, less fertile, and less stable world. It is time to rise to a higher moral ground. Our calling is to embrace the role of environmental custodians and “protect the rights of generations, of all species that cannot speak for themselves today” (p. 274).

Reading questions 1. Imagine the conversation that might occur between two beautiful souls: songwriter Libby Roderick, who wrote the line “We will plant shade trees,” and Wangari Maathai, who organized women to plant 30 million trees.

2. Maathai rightly points out that Africa will suffer the life-and-death consequences of climate change largely caused by the developed nations. Do Africans have legitimate claims against the developed world for reparations? What form might they take?

Ming Xu and Xin Wei, “An Invisible Killer” Fulin Wang, a forty-three-year-old farmer in southern China, sits weeping under his dead cherry trees, his successive orchards destroyed by the violence and vagaries of increasingly unstable weather. His story illustrates the immediate need for actions against climate change. To overcome the greed and selfishness of humans, we must “work together across nations, cultures, religions, and socioeconomic status” (p. 277) to solve the problems we have created.

Reading questions 1. Ming Xu, the coauthor of this article, is a prominent scientist in China, specializing in climate change. What questions would you want to ask him if you had the chance?

2. This article illustrates the power of a story of a single person. What makes stories so powerful? Write a story about a person who bears the consequences of climate change, real or imagined, on this continent or any other, on an island, at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, in Mississippi or Ghana.

James Garvey, “Climate Change Is a Moral Problem for You, Right Now” If a strong swimmer hears the cries of a drowning child, that person has the responsibility to save her. Failure to do so is a moral failure. If that swimmer has in fact pushed the child in, the obligation is overwhelming. By analogy, we in the developed world are, through reckless use of fossil fuels, causing untold suffering and death. We have the capacity to prevent and/or mitigate that suffering. Failure to do so is a moral failure. Moreover, the failure is a moral problem for each of us personally, because we are confronted by climate change every day in choices we make. We are called to evaluate our lives, our values, and our decisions. Are we willing to let our lives be a moral outrage?

Reading questions 1. Consider the case of the drowning child. What effect does each of the following (considered separately) have on your personal responsibility? a. You know the child is drowning. b. You cannot swim. c. A thousand people are standing with you, watching the child. d. You didn’t push the child in the water. e. You are busy, on your way to an important meeting. f. Saving the child would require some financial sacrifice, since the expensive clothes and watch you are wearing would be ruined.

2. Now, how is this case similar to and dissimilar from our personal responsibility to take action to counter climate change?

Sulak Sivaraksa, “From Engagement to Emancipation” Socially engaged Buddhists work for social transformations that end suffering and unjust exploitation. The structural violence of climate change must be confronted. “Politics without spirituality or ethics is cold and blind,” but “spirituality without politics is simply inconsequential” (p. 284). Buddhism cannot become a New Age indifference to injustice.

Buddhists must ask the hard questions: What are the meaningful acts that will bring an end to suffering? How can peace-loving and compassionate people confront structural violence?

Reading questions 1. “We must learn to develop ethical responsibility for structural violence” (p. 285), Sivaraksa states. What is structural violence? Give some examples from your own country, then from others.

2. How might one “spiritualize politics”? Or “politicize spirituality”? What are the benefits? The dangers?

Quincy Troupe, “The Architecture of Language, Parts 9 and 10” Hurricane Katrina’s “savage flooding tongue” (p. 287) speaks in the language of fierce winds and scattered coffins. Where is the scaffolding language of music and metaphor, and where can it take us?

Reading questions 1. Consider the recent natural disaster that took place closest to your home. Think about the images you saw on TV and the reports in the papers. Create a list of powerful (concrete, specific, vivid) words to describe the aftermath of the disaster.

Now write a poem.

2. Perhaps part of the reason we are so slow to respond to environmental emergencies is that we can’t picture them, since they often unfold slowly or far away. Or we can’t picture an alternative. What is the role of art in facing these emergencies?

Activity / Application: Taking the pledge for responsible food choices

The farmer in Ming Xu’s essay weeps at the base of his drought-killed trees. His story stands for a thousand other stories of people who will not be able to provide food for their families, as the weather makes abrupt and unpredictable shifts. Hunger calls for the greatest compassion. One response to the expected food crises is to learn now to eat more thoughtfully. One example is to choose foods that are raised close to home (and so do not require the fuel for long-distance shipping). What are other examples of more responsible food choices—ways in which you can reduce your carbon or toxic footprint, just by the food choices you make?

Now, everyone choose one change that you would be able to make. It doesn’t have to be big.

Maybe you’ll give up meat on Fridays. Or something else. Write it on a piece of paper, fold the paper, and put it in the center of the room. When all the participants have added their paper, go back to the center of the room and choose a paper other than your own. That is your assignment.

Go around the room, telling what your new assignment is and indicating whether this is something you can do. Trading is perfectly appropriate at this point.

10. Because justice demands it

Carl Pope, “Ethics as if Tomorrow Mattered” Because global warming is an issue on a global scale, it largely overwhelms the small-scale local context in which our ethics arose and were traditionally applied. The solution is to embrace the traditional values, link them to new scientific knowledge, and apply them in new and much more demanding ways. Those traditional virtues are piety (the contractual relation between past, present, and future), justice (the refusal to harm people in ways they have not consented to), and responsibility (accountability not only for intentions, but for the full consequence of our acts).

Reading questions 1. This is a strongly worded essay from the executive director of the Sierra Club. If you were the director of the Sierra Club, with all its resources, what would you do first to meet the climate emergency? What would you do second?

2. Explain in your own words the point that Pope is making about market capitalism, in the passage on p. 298 that starts “Take what in other contexts . . .” and ends “. . . who will be losers.” Wow. Is he right? If so, then what?

3. Pope’s arguments call us to “moral courage” (p. 299). What is that?

Michael M. Crow, “Sustainability as a Founding Principle of the United States” The U.S. Constitution, while empowering nakedly self-interested behavior, fails to protect the long-term interests of the whole. Consequently, we have come to a time when “the natural rights of man and national laws of economics collide with the natural systems of the Earth, to the ruinous long-term detriment of us all.” Along with liberty, justice, and equality, sustainability must be a core American value.

Reading questions 1. What, according to Crow, is the fundamental failure of the U.S. Constitution?

2. The Constitution, he argues, justifies “selfish, or let us say at least nakedly selfinterested, pursuits.” True? Problematic?

3. Draft an amendment to the Constitution that corrects its omissions.

Steve Vanderheiden, “Climate Change and Intergenerational Responsibility” A basic moral principle is that we are responsible for the bad outcomes that result from our voluntary acts. The voluntary acts of the world’s affluent people and countries are resulting in climate destabilization, with untold suffering and destruction of lives and ways of living.

We thus have two kinds of responsibility. First, to the extent that we can, we must avoid acts that cause climate change. Second, we must remedy that injustice, righting such wrongs. To fail to honor those responsibilities is to forfeit our humanity.

Reading questions 1. What two kinds of responsibility do we as individuals have as a result of our high rate of greenhouse gas emissions? Use your own life and decisions as an example— so, not “We have a responsibility,” but “I have a responsibility.”

2. What are the differences between mitigation, adaptation, and compensation? Which is most important right now?

Lauret Savoy, “Still an American Dilemma” Structural racism and exclusion are embedded in discussions and decisions about climate change, as they are in so many other elements of American life. People of color, the poor, the disadvantaged, and the voiceless are directly and disproportionately “experiencing the impacts of contaminated environments or climate change as loss (of home, of food source, health, or livelihood)” (p. 315). Thus the environmental movement intersects the civil rights movement.

Reading questions 1. Much of the violation of human rights comes “at a comfortable moral distance” (p.

313). What is a comfortable moral distance? Give an example from your life.

2. What is structural racism? Give an example.

3. The fact that the environmental movement intersects the civil rights movement suggests the possibility of a powerful alliance for change. How might that alliance be created? Why hasn’t it already become a powerful force?

Ismail Serageldin, “There Is a Tide” In the past, people have confronted and defeated monstrous and unconscionable injustice, ending slavery, liberating colonies, recognizing universal human rights. Currently, we face equally monstrous injustices as a result of greed, lack of ethics, and destruction of the Earth. We have to become the new abolitionists, demanding of our leaders a more equitable and caring world.

Reading questions 1. Ismail Serageldin is the director of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. What might he know about the tides of civilization that we in a young country overlook? Would he be comforted or discomforted by that knowledge?

2. We must become the new abolitionists, he argues, most likely referring to the antislavery movement in America. What does the analogy suggest for how to go forward?

Peter Singer, “A Fair Deal” There is a fair and practical way to allocate the right to emit greenhouse gases. Take the total capacity of the atmosphere to absorb greenhouse gases without harmful effects, then divide it by the number of people on Earth. That is an individual’s fair share. Allocate to

each country an emissions quota equal to its population’s shares. Then create a market in which countries that want a higher quota can buy shares from countries that emit less.

There is no moral justification for any person or country to take more than a fair share.

Reading questions 1. Are there any good moral reasons to think that an equal allocation of emissions rights would not be fair?

2. The market in emissions rights would very quickly establish an unequal distribution, where the wealthy (again) gain more than their fair share. What could morally justify this?

Carl Safina, “The Moral Climate” Failure to act quickly to prevent the worst effects of climate disruption is a moral failure—a shame, and especially a shame because the consequences will fall on those who did not make this choice. Our failure is based on a refusal to make changes, which we misunderstand as “sacrifice.” In fact, our greatest sacrifice is to continue to allow the greedy few to use us to their selfish benefit. As a result, we are sacrificing what we truly care about—our children, our future, a peaceful world, the richness of life on Earth—to enrich “those who disdain us.”

Reading questions 1. Safina doesn’t pull any punches, does he? “Nearly every just cause is a struggle between the good of the many and the greed of a few” (p. 325). Can you think of an example? Another? How is action to slow climate change a struggle between the good of the many and the greed of a few?

2. If Safina is right about the nature of just causes, what does that suggest about the most effective way to advance the just cause of climate stabilization?

3. Make two lists, one through ten. What are the top ten things you would have to give up if you wanted to slow climate change? What are the top ten things you would have to give up if climate change continues to accelerate?

4. “Dysfunctional values married to catastrophic leadership” (p. 324) has led to our failures to address climate change, Safina claims. Is this an accurate description of the situation? If not, complete the sentence in a way you think is more valid: “____________ values married to _____________ leadership . . .”

5. Despite the anger in Safina’s essay, his conclusion is hopeful: “But since [a] the problems are largely of our making, [b] we have the power to flip them. [c] We just need to create the needed resolve. [d] I know we can, and [e] I think we will” (p.

326). Discuss and assess each of these claims, a–e.

Ethics background: What is justice?

In its origins, the word “justice” is rooted in notions of equality. In fact, it often seems intuitive that equal treatment is the basic requirement of justice; consider children who insist that all the children get exactly the same number of candies. Or consider Peter

Singer’s argument that the just way to allocate shares of the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide without undesirable consequence is to divide it equally among all the Earth’s humans.

But it quickly becomes clear that equal allocations are not always just. Students, for example, recognize that it’s not fair for all students get the same grade if they have not all done equal work and achieved equal accomplishment. We would not want people to be equally paid if they didn’t work equal hours, and so forth.

These complications lead to the more nuanced notion of equity. Equity is proportionate equality—a situation where shares of a good are assigned in relation to some quality. For example, student grades are said to be equitable if the grades are proportionate to the level of accomplishment in the student’s work. Equity can be represented by a proportion: A’s share of a good: B’s share of a good :: A’s share of a quality: B’s share of a quality

The good is something that is being distributed (tax burden, bonus raises, income, incarceration, grades), and the quality is some fact about the person (wealth, exceptional work, doing a job, criminal conduct, test scores). Thus A’s grade is to B’s grade as A’s test scores are to B’s test scores.

John Rawls, a twentieth-century Harvard philosopher, argued that a just situation is one that would be established by a fair policy. A fair policy is one that would be chosen unanimously by rational people who did not know what position they would hold in that society, and so did not know whether they would be advantaged or disadvantaged by the policy. Under those conditions (behind what Rawls called the veil of ignorance), Rawls believed people would choose policies that (1) created an initial base level of equal distribution and, beyond that, (2) allowed for unequal distribution if the inequality benefited all, and if the advantaged positions were open to all.

One might thus carry out Rawls’s thought experiment with the problem of distributing shares in the “carbon sink.” What would rational people do if they didn’t know their future position on Earth? They might be expected to decide that the ideally just system would distribute equal and minimal shares to all, meeting only the most basic needs, and then allocate additional shares to those doing services for all—firefighters, for example, or college professors (joke).

11. Because the world is beautiful

Bernd Heinrich, “Our Edens: Ecological Homes” Our Edens are here on Earth, our homelands—the bird-graced, season-chased lands that resonate with our inner happiness. It is a sin, it is a folly, it is a home-wrecking stupidity to endanger the ecological balance of those homelands. Like all organisms, humans can expand their numbers and effect only to a point. After that, we disrupt the basis of our prospering. That is the terrifying point at which we find ourselves. Whether we react deliberately or wait for catastrophic change is a human choice.

Reading questions 1. Heinrich says, “Our Edens are here on Earth, and only here. To suppose they might be elsewhere is blasphemous” (p. 334). Write a description of your first memory of an Edenic place. Was it a tree in your backyard, a creek? If you went back there now, would you find it intact?

2. Do you agree that spending money to explore other planets, before we have invested fully in living sustainably on this one, is irresponsible?

John A. Vucetich, “Wolves, Ravens, and a New Purpose for Science” Ethics has always told us that we must act with compassion and justice. There’s nothing much more that ethics can do. Can science help? Traditionally, science has been commandeered to help humans understand, and thus control and manage, the world— often to disastrous effect. But a study of wolves and moose on Isle Royale shows that science has a second purpose: to awaken us to the wonder of the world, and thus to awaken our senses of caring and responsibility.

Reading questions 1. According to Vucetich, what are the two different purposes of science? Which one is more important? What argument would support that claim?

2. Vucetich makes reference to a sense of wonder. What is a sense of wonder? Does everyone have one? If not, is it something that can be cultivated?

3. What is the moral significance of wonder?

Hank Lentfer, “Get Dirty, Get Dizzy” Children can teach us what we have forgotten, especially in times that seem hopeless: “We activists need to understand that acts of caring are healing in themselves, and healing acts express the deepest care. Whether or not we can save the planet, we need to conserve its gifts” (p. 345). He concludes, “Impending chaos and need create untold opportunities for grace and service” (p. 345).

Reading questions 1. Do you agree with little Linnea that humans alone are bad? To defend your view, you’ll need to be clear about what it means to be bad.

2. Lentfer is giving pieces of advice that will be of value to disheartened activists. Here are three. Be sure you fully understand each one, by giving examples and thinking about how this might be advice that you could use. a. “Impending chaos and need create untold opportunities for grace and service.” b. “We activists need to understand that acts of caring are healing in themselves.” c. “Healing acts express the deepest care.”

3. If you ask Hank why he works so hard on conservation projects in his beloved Southeast Alaska, he will provide a surprising answer. Not because he can save feeding grounds for sandhill cranes (although he has). Not because he can prevent the extension of suburbs into wilderness (although he has). But because, he says, he finds his greatest joy in being part of a community of caring people, regardless of the results. Does this make sense?

Alison Hawthorne Deming, “The Feasting” In a sparkling dance of living and dying, small mackerel leap onto a Cape Cod beach to avoid the fierce striped bass. It is an “ordinary catastrophe,” one of the intricate systems that power life’s continuing. As all of life faces the extraordinary catastrophe of climate change, let us hold in our minds the struggle of every being against annihilation. Let us live by the “doctrine of grief, to savor sadness as its own dark memo of instruction from the moral imagination” (p. 351).

Reading questions 1. “Grief either swallows you whole or spits you out to feel compassion for the grief of others” (p. 350). What makes the difference? Why are some people destroyed by grief, and others remade? The terrible grief we feel at the loss of species, habitats, the hopes of children—how can we be remade by this sorrow, rather than destroyed?

2. “My intention is to live by the doctrine of grief, to savor sadness as its own dark memo of instruction from the moral imagination.” What does grief say in its lists of instructions? If you can answer this question, you can answer any.

3. The Canadian singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen said, in the Los Angeles Times, “We live with broken hearts in a broken world, but that’s no alibi for anything. We have to sing a broken-hearted halleluiah.” a. Can you think of times when you have used a broken heart as an alibi? b. What does he mean by a broken-hearted halleluiah? c. When our hearts are broken by the loss of Earth’s song-makers—the frogs, the songbirds—how can we learn to sing?

Activity / Application: Take a hike

Get out of the classroom or the church basement. If it’s raining or dark, all the better; share your warm clothes. Walk and notice. Just notice. What do you experience—see, smell, taste—that lifts your spirits? What do you experience (or fail to experience) that dismays you? Now come inside and write the evening’s “memo[randum] of instruction for the moral imagination.” Your memo might start any of these ways: 1.

2.

3.

4.

“I want to remember . . .”

“I am glad for . . .”

“Where are the . . .”

“The greatest gift of this walk was . . .”

12. Because we love the world

J. Baird Callicott, “Changing Ethics for a Changing World” Old ways of thinking about moral responsibility no longer work. They are too individualistic, too simple, for an interconnected, complex world in which causal effects span continents and generations. The times call for a paradigm shift along two fronts: toward an ethics rooted in moral feelings rather than abstract principles, and toward a worldview built of “species, not specimens”—the imbricated ecosystems and civilizations so deeply threatened by climate change.

Reading questions 1. Callicott says, “Ethical individualism and reductionism, Jack-and-Jill ethics, leads . . . to problematic and paradoxical conclusions” (p. 360). a. What are Jack-and-Jill ethics? b. What is ethical individualism? c. What are a couple of those problematic and paradoxical conclusions?

2. Callicott says, “To meet the challenge of global climate change, philosophers need to shift the subjects . . . to species . . . not specimens . . . and to the civilization that is the signal achievement of our own species. And they need to shift the moral sentiments into a more prominent place alongside reason” (p. 362). a. What will it mean to shift the focus of our moral concern from individuals to species and civilizations? b. What are the moral sentiments, and what role should they play in our moral decisions?

bell hooks, “Touching the Earth” bell hooks recalls the historical way in which African American people lived close to nature, working the land and acting as fellow creatures of the Earth. She sees the “great migration” from the agrarian South to the industrialized North as the source of black people’s estrangement from nature and concludes that their healing will come from a restored connection to nature, because “when the Earth is sacred to us, our bodies can also be sacred to us” (p. 368).

Reading questions 1. “When we love the Earth, we are able to love ourselves more fully” (p. 363). Tell a story from your life that shows that this claim is/is not true.

2. Reread the poem on p. 367. What is the significance of the poem for you—what does it teach, or what insights does it bring, or how does it make you feel?

3. This is an important passage: “there is also a tendency to see no correlation between the struggle for collective black self-recovery and ecological movements that seek to restore balance to the planet by changing our relationship to nature and to natural resources. . . . Many contemporary black folks see no value in supporting ecological

movements” (p. 368). What are the correlations? How, then, can ecological movements support black self-recovery and vice versa?

Katie McShane, “Love, Grief, and Climate Change” We cannot consider actions involving climate change as purely economic, for in such a narrow focus we overlook the importance of the natural world to our ability to flourish as human beings. With climate change we risk losing local knowledge about the natural environments we depend on, and we risk serious economic and political consequences, but above all we risk “profound sadness and disarray in human cultures” (p. 371) because our identities are closely linked with and shaped by the natural world around us.

Reading questions 1. So what if species vanish, driven to extinction by human recklessness? Yes, we know there will be ecological consequences. But what are the spiritual consequences, and why does that matter?

2. What kind of future do you want for yourself and your descendants? List the values that would be preserved.

Stephen R. Kellert, “For the Love and Beauty of Nature” “We can only be ethical in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love,” Aldo Leopold famously wrote in A Sand County Almanac. Thus technologies that separate us from the land are doubly dangerous—they undermine the stability of the land, even as they undermine the ethic of appreciation and love for the land that leads us to protect it. For this reason, sustainable design not only must do no harm to the land, but should also actively nurture a sense of connection to place and appreciation of its beauty and value.

Reading questions Kellert writes, “There is, nonetheless, this cant of mind that regards emotional and valuational concerns about the human relationship to nature as impractical and romantic preoccupations lacking the realism of the only real motivators of action” (p.

376).

1. What are the supposedly real motivators of action?

2. What is the moral importance of the emotional response to nature?

Bron Taylor, “Earth Religion and Radical Religious Reformation” In order to continue our co-evolution with this world, we must release our maladaptive, long-standing religions and embrace the emergence of a global, civic Earth religion, a “deep green religion.” The basic moral test of the premises of that religion is whether an idea or practice promotes or erodes Earth’s biodiversity. These premises pass that test: we belong to the Earth; all living things are kin; life exists in complex, interdependent webs. Our greatest hope lies in this unfolding worldview, which invites humility, felt kinship, and caring.

Reading questions 1. “Some things we know with reasonable certainty . . . : We belong to the world. . . .

Living things are kin, related in a familial sense. . . . Life exists in complex, interdependent webs” (p. 381). Are you reasonably certain about these things?

What is the source of your assurance?

2. We must establish “taboo-free zones where every premise is examined with an eye toward whether an idea or practice promotes or erodes Earth’s genetic and species variety” (p. 380). Here are some possible premises. How do they measure up against Taylor’s standard? a. The well-being of a human is more important than the well-being of a fish. b. Those who would destroy a habitat—say, a swamp—should pay to have another swamp built in another place. c. All people have a right to bear children.

Wendell Berry, “A Promise Made in Love, Awe, and Fear” Industrial technology advances and thrives on the denial and destruction of our necessary connection to nature. By contrast, love for particular things, places, creatures, and people will bring us back to “the sphere of human definition, meaning, and responsibility” (p. 388).

Reading questions 1. What are the similarities between industrial technology and war? Are there significant differences?

2. What is the difference between abstract love and the kind of “particular love” that Wendell Berry is talking about? Is there abstract action?

Kathleen Dean Moore, “The Call to Forgiveness at the End of the Day” Imagine the disappearance one by one of what you love most on Earth—the song of frogs, the delight of bat flight, the return of salmon, meadowlarks singing in the morning. Then imagine the children you love the most, who will live in this silent, empty world. Now imagine what you must do.

Reading questions 1. “To love is to affirm the absolute worth of what you love and to pledge your life to its thriving—to protect it fiercely and faithfully, for all time” (p. 392). Or so Moore claims. Do you agree? Can you think of counterexamples?

2. Imagine yourself in 2025, looking back on the time between now and then. Write a story about something that happens during that time.

3. At a recent conference, a listener challenged Moore, saying, “If my daughter has never seen a meadowlark, its disappearance will not harm her.” Moore could only sputter. How would you have responded?

4. Will our children forgive us?

Activity / Application: Incorporating “sentimental” language into policy decisions: Can love conquer all?

This is an exercise ** to determine whether the language of love can be used to make policy decisions, and, if so, how love might influence decisions. You will be assigned one perspective from which to respond to the following policy scenario in a mock city council meeting.

Scenario: an opportunity exists in your community to set aside 1,000 acres of land for conservation purposes. Though some of the land is classified as wetlands, therefore not buildable, the majority of the land is buildable. Though there would not be costs involved in the procurement of the land, the ongoing oversight and, more importantly, revenue forgone from future economic development make this a hotly contested issue.

Groups:

City Councilors 1. A female Democrat with an anti-growth background 2. A male Republican with moderate fiscal and social tendencies 3. A male Republican banker, very aware of the city’s finances, taxes, and revenue streams 4. A male Democrat, seventy-eight years old, steeped in the tradition of the old ways 5. A male Democrat, retired engineer, strong environmental convictions 6. A male Republican, business owner, very conservative, strong emphasis on business 7. A woman Republican, moderate, can be swayed either way by strong arguments For councilors: As you listen to the arguments, can you be swayed? Can you let go of the traditional quantifiable arguments in favor of the sentiment? Be prepared to vote based on your background (as outlined above) and how the arguments hit you.

Naysayers Three or four speak as “naysayers,” working folks who have come to make sure the land stays available for building. Many of you have families and work hard to put food on the table.

Sentimental arguers The rest of the class or club is broken into groups of three or four. You are the sentimental arguers. You must search for language that you can use to make the strongest arguments based on love for the environment. This is an exercise to see how and if we could incorporate “sentimental” language into our policy discussions.

**

All groups: Discuss what points you would make at the podium of this city council meeting. Be prepared to have one person speak for you. Be succinct and use language, rhetoric, or a strategy you think could truly sway the decision makers in this situation.

Activity by Kate Porsche, Oregon State University

13. To honor and celebrate the Earth and Earth’s systems Thomas Berry, “The Great Work” We have created a disruption so great that we have closed down the Cenozoic era, a lyrical period in Earth’s history. To recover from this disruption, we must return to an intimacy with the Earth. This requires a new story of the universe, a science-based story, in which humans are part of the creative flowering of the universe, a means through which the universe celebrates itself. Our Great Work is to transition into the Ecozoic era, when humans are present on the Earth as participating members of a comprehensive Earth community.

Reading questions 1. Why was the Cenozoic the most lyrical period in Earth’s history? Why can no later generation do to the Earth what we have done?

2. What is the universe’s story? What is the story’s moral significance?

3. Berry makes some astounding claims. Do you agree or disagree with the following?

If you agree, tell a story that illustrates the insight. a. “We are most ourselves when we are most intimate with the rivers and mountains and woodlands” (p. 398). b. “However we think of eternity, it can only be an aspect of the present” (p. 398). c. “The universe is fulfilled in us” (p. 398). d. “The human might be described as that being in whom the universe reflects on and celebrates itself” (p. 398).

4. What is our Great Work? Are we equal to it?

N. Scott Momaday, “An Ethic of the Earth” What is the world in relation to our daily lives? Who are we, we humans, in relation to the Earth and the sky? These are the questions we must answer, by concentrating on a particular remembered Earth, a landscape in which we have lived, in which we have felt the wind. This is how we will come to moral terms. There is no alternative.

Reading questions 1. Tell a story about who you are in relation to the Earth and sky.

2. Tell a story about the place where your grandmother was born. What is lost to you if this knowledge is lost?

3. Tell a story about the first time you saw a falling star.

4. How do stories like this help us “come to moral terms”?

Curt Meine, “Spring’s Hopes Eternal” Every year, winter has given way to spring, this season of new starts and wonderfully ungrounded hope. But as our actions have changed the geography of spring, so they have changed the phenology of hope. And as spring becomes increasingly a human artifact, so

too will hope. We will have to make hope. We will have to generate it from the human heart. Heaven help us all.

Reading questions 1. How have we lost the pure innocence of spring and the easiness of hope?

2. In what way is hope now a human artifact?

3. How can we create hope? What are the building blocks? Or, to use a new metaphor, what are the roots from which it grows? This is a serious question if the absence of hope immobilizes us and causes us to abdicate moral responsibility.

Linda Hogan, “Dawn for All Time” As the dance of the deer reminds us, we are participants in the world, in the universe. What we do changes things. And just as our actions have changed things in deeply divisive, hurtful ways, our actions can also reconnect us and renew the world. Somewhere in the past, there is the memory of a healthy future. If we live well, it will welcome us.

Reading questions 1. “Our ancestors survived in order for us to be here, and we have a debt to them” (p.

408), Hogan says. Write a letter to an ancestor, thanking him or her for striving so hard for your sake.

2. Beyond a thank-you note, what are some good ways to acknowledge our debts to our ancestors?

3. If Hogan is right, then somewhere in your past are “the deep channels of memory, the dream water, the tender shoots of green, and the welcome magic of continuing” (p. 409). The welcome magic of continuing! Is that what is at stake? Is that what moves us to act?

Mary Evelyn Tucker and Brian Swimme, “The Universe Story and Planetary Civilization” For the first time, we have a scientific story of the evolution of the universe that shows us our place in its great creative unfolding. This story shifts our worldview. We are not alone and isolated on a half-submerged planet; rather, we are part of the vast scale of interdependence and kinship of the developing universe. The challenge for ethics and religion is to reflect on our own journey of change and reimagine ourselves as members of the Earth community.

Reading questions 1. What is the Great Turning?

2. What is the challenge for religion and ethics?

3. Here is a mind-bender: “The energy released at the very beginning has finally become capable, in the human, of reflecting on and exploring its own journey of change” (p. 416). Using other words, explain this fact to a friend. What is its significance?

Ethics background: What is the is-ought problem?

Can the way the world is tell us how the world ought to be? Can the fact that wolves exist tell us that wolves ought to exist? Can the beauty of the Earth tell us that it ought to be preserved? Philosophers ever since David Hume have said, No, you can’t derive an ought from an is. In other words, you can’t draw a conclusion about what ought to be the case if your only evidence is a set of facts about what is empirically true. If you do so—if you try to argue that certain moral values or moral imperatives follow logically from facts about the world—you are said to have committed the Naturalistic Fallacy. This is the is-ought problem.

So what are we to do if certain facts about the world seem to have moral import? The astonishment of the Earth is one such fact. The uniqueness of life on Earth, the wonder of its unfolding, the sheer improbability of it, its powerful creativity—all these facts seem to call us to a moral response characterized by wonder, respect, and responsible use. Is that fallacious thinking?

No, at all. A moral imperative does indeed follow logically from a set of facts if you also affirm a moral principle that relates them. The creativity of the universe and the astounding fertility of the Earth (the is) do call us to a moral response (the ought) if we also affirm the moral premise that connects the two: In our actions, we ought to honor the creativity and fertility of the Earth.

It seems that often, when we respond morally to a set of facts, we are implicitly affirming a moral principle that makes the connection between the way the world is and the way it ought to be. When the beauty of the Earth calls us to protect it, we affirm the moral principle that it’s wrong to destroy what is beautiful. When the love we feel for a place calls us to defend it against destruction, we affirm the moral principle that we ought to protect the object of our love. When the prospect that climate change will eliminate many species (those that are still left after we get done destroying their habitats) calls us to reduce greenhouse gases, we affirm the moral principles that it’s wrong to wreck the Earth and that taking what we want for our profligate lives and leaving an impoverished and dangerously unstable world for those who will follow is not worthy of us as moral beings.

So if a person tells you that you can’t derive an ought from an is, you can tell them that you can indeed. Of course you can—if you are willing to take a moral stand about what it means to respond decently and responsibly to the facts about this beautiful Earth and its terrible peril.

Activity / Application: The Journey of the Universe

Watch the film The Journey of the Universe by Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker. It is available through many outlets.

Imagine that you are present at the premiere of this film and have been asked to make a few remarks after the film, exploring its significance. What would you say?

Then consider this set of remarks, delivered by Moral Ground coeditor Kathleen Dean Moore: I have heard it said that even the most tragic and dreadful circumstances give rise to the conditions of their own healing. It may be that we are witnessing this tonight. In a time of terrible peril, here is a new story about who we are and what we must do. This is a great gift to us.

There are three great questions of the human condition: What is the world? What is the place of humans in the world? How, then, shall we live? Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker have taken on all of them from the cosmological to the ethical.

Tonight, I want to call attention to the profound moral significance of Journey’s undertaking, to call attention to the fact that this story about the universe is also a story about who we are when we are at our best.

I believe that this is its central argument (if I may try to summarize The Journey of the Universe in one sentence): If this is the way the world is—beautiful, astonishing, mysterious, enfolding and unfolding, grand beyond words, wonderful beyond imagining—then this is the way we ought to live in the world—with awe, with wonder, with gratitude and celebration, with respect, reverence, profound humanity, and caring.

From what is, we can learn what ought to be.

Some people say you can’t deduce an ought from an is, that you can’t reach a conclusion about what you ought to do from factual premises, no matter how complete.

But of course you can. Of course you can, if you are willing to affirm the missing premises, the unspoken moral convictions that link a story of the universe with a moral story. What are those premises?

• The conviction that it is wrong to take what we need for our comfortable, profligate lives, and leave a ransacked and dangerously unstable world behind.

• The conviction that to let it all slip away, through indifference or recklessness or (god forbid) higher priorities, to let it all slip away—the billions of years it takes to grow the song in a frog and the purple stripe in the throat of a lily—that’s an abomination, not worthy of us as moral beings.

• The conviction that we have affirmative moral obligations to leave a world as rich in creative possibilities as our own—obligations based on justice, compassion, personal integrity, and reverence.

• And the conviction that our moral obligations trump every economic argument and every appeal to short-term advantage and corporate rights.

If we affirm these principles, and if we understand what Mary Evelyn and Brian have shown us, then we cannot fail to act to protect this beautiful Earth and still call ourselves moral beings.

Mary Evelyn asked me to speak from the heart, and I will, but it’s a broken heart that’s talking here. But maybe that’s as it should be, because maybe only a heart broken open is big enough to hold the import of the universe story.

Grief is essential, because it is a measure of the worth of what we stand to lose, and shame is a measure of what we have to ask of ourselves.

The Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen said in an interview, “Yes, we live in a broken world, with broken hearts, but that’s no excuse for anything. We have to sing a broken-hearted halleluiah.”

That what this film is—a beautiful, ringing halleluiah chorus for a broken time. It says, “Look! Just look at the astonishing fact of this universe and our participation in its creative unfurling. Hold that in your mind. Imagine! Rejoice.”

The beauty and the healing of this story—the healing of the rifts in our lives and hearts—call us to what is best in ourselves. The film calls us to recover a sense of wonder and joyous astonishment. It calls us to humility. It calls us to a new intimacy, even with a universe on this grand a scale, to know, in this sacred story, that we belong here, part of the world’s unfolding, like the leaves of the corn lily, or the crinkled wings of a dragonfly. It calls us, above all, to gratitude. That we are alive in the midst of all this life. That we are breathing, in the midst of all these breaths, the in and the out.

We didn’t earn these gifts. If they were taken away, there would be nothing we could do to get them back. They are gifts. So we are called to live our lives gladly—in full acknowledgment of the magnificence of the gifts of the universe.

If these aren’t the virtues that will carry us forward, I don’t know what will.

14. Because our moral integrity requires us to do what is right Ernest Partridge, “Moral Responsibility Is the Price of Progress” If you know the harm you are causing, if there are options to do otherwise, if you have the ability to choose those options, and if the stakes are high, then you have the moral responsibility to make different choices. Given this analysis and given the facts of climate disruption, the burden of responsibility on our generation is unprecedented. There are no excuses.

Reading questions 1. What are the elements of responsibility? Illustrate each with an example.

2. List the guidelines for our policies toward future generations. Now choose one and consider: a. Give an example of something we are doing now that violates those guidelines. b. Give an example of one change you would need to make in your life to follow those guidelines. c. Try to make the argument that you shouldn’t have to make that change. Refute yourself.

Terry Tempest Williams, “Climate Change: What Is Required of Us?” The nonviolent, compassion-driven movements of our past establish the need for passionate, direct-action responses to climate change. We must use our heart as the “path to wisdom because it dares to be vulnerable in the presence of power” (p. 431) and evokes change within each of us to stop waiting and act now.

Reading questions 1. One of the most difficult decisions that climate change activists have to make is whether to encourage young people to acts of civil disobedience. What do you think?

2. Think of the collective actions that have actually changed the course of American history. What do they have in common? What does that tell us about how to make effective change?

3. Ask Terry’s question (p. 431): “Do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up—ever?”

David James Duncan, “Being Cool in the Face of Global Warming” To find peace on the planet, maybe we need to find peace within ourselves. To heal the planet, maybe we need to heal ourselves. To cool the planet, maybe we need to bank the fires in our own agitated, news-blasted hearts.

Reading questions 1. Imagine a conversation between David James Duncan and Sulak Sivaraksa, the advocate of socially engaged Buddhism (pp. 283–85). How might Duncan respond to Sivaraksa’s claim (p. 284) that “politics without spirituality is cold and blind” and “spirituality without politics is simply inconsequential”?

2. Will cooling ourselves help cool the planet? Or does the work of cooling the planet require the most fired-up resolve?

Paul B. Thompson, “Everything Must Go” What do you do once you figure out that we’ve made a mess of the planet and that we are, basically, screwed? Is there any comfort in the ongoing cycles of change, the endurance of equilibrium? Is there comfort in the beauty of the day?

Reading questions 1. Paul Thompson presents probably the most pessimistic analysis of our situation.

What are his central reasons for thinking “we’re screwed”?

2. Are we?

3. If so, how should we live now? What should we do?

Joerg Chet Tremmel, “The No-Man’s-Land of Ethics” The “good neighbor” ethic, based on compassion and kinship, is no longer sufficient. The “bad neighbor” ethic, based on reciprocal limits on rights, is no longer sufficient. The enormous scope and power of humankind’s ability to change the Earth forever render compassion and mutual threats impotent. We have entered an ethical no-man’s-land.

Reading questions 1. All empirical (and, Tremmel claims, ethical) knowledge—that is, all knowledge gained from experience—is based on the assumption that the future will resemble the past. So Tremmel raises an interesting point. If we are approaching a tipping point, where everything rapidly changes, how will we know how to act?

2. Can you think of any way that those who live in the next generations can impose sanctions on us for the harm we are doing to them today? Is there such a thing as postmortem shame?

José Galizia Tundisi, “The Advocacy Responsibility of the Scientist” José Galizia Tundisi calls on today’s scientists to take the knowledge they gather about the Earth and actually use it as “a method for social transformation.” We need more than data, he notes; we need scientists to respond to their obligation to act and “be that change they want to see in the world” (p. 451).

Reading questions

1. Scientists have made heroic efforts to inform the public about the predicted consequences of increased levels of greenhouse gases. No one can fault them on that, can they? Should scientists take responsibility for widely distributing their findings?

2. Okay. So, should they go beyond that? Should they advocate for reducing greenhouse gas emissions?

3. Does the practical syllogism in the Introduction to Moral Ground and in the introduction to this guide help explain the role of scientists?

Barbara Kingsolver, “How to Be Hopeful’ Our leaders fear taking action on climate change because it might hurt the economy. The same thing was said about slavery. Then, the people said, “We don’t care. You have to find another way. Enough of this shame” (p. 455). We can find other ways. The hardest part will be to convince ourselves of the possibilities and keep trying. “If you run out of hope at the end of the day, rise in the morning and put it on again with your shoes” (p. 456).

Reading questions 1. Kingsolver has some fascinating things to say about the rules of success. For each of these, give an example from your own life: a. The coefficient of drag b. The Rule of Perfect Efficiency c. The Rule of Escalating Isolation d. The strategy of bait-and-switch e. “Your money or your life” 2. How do you keep yourself going? How do you find hope in the morning?

Michael P. Nelson, “To a Future Without Hope” Contrary to a common refrain when considering our current environmental situation, Michael Nelson urges us to empower and liberate ourselves by abandoning hope. He describes hope as a dangerous excuse for ignoring our resolve to act rightly and argues that we must abandon hope and replace it with integrity of action through living a moral life.

Doing so, he says, will leave us “free to act rightly, because it is the right way to act and not because your action will move you or the world toward some future state” (p. 461).

Reading Questions When students in an Oregon class were asked to vote for the reasons to take action on climate change that spoke most strongly to them, the polling resulted in this order of arguments, from the strongest to the weakest (the number is the chapter number): Because moral integrity requires us to do what is right (14) Because justice demands it (10) For the sake of the Earth itself (3) For the sake of all forms of life on the planet (4) Because the Earth is beautiful (11) To honor and celebrate the Earth and Earth systems (13)

For the sake of the children (2) Because we love the Earth (12) To honor our duties of gratitude and reciprocity (5) Because virtue requires it (6) Because all flourishing is mutual (7) Because compassion requires it (9) For the sake of the survival of humankind [one lousy third-place vote] (1) For the stewardship of God’s creation [no votes at all] (8) 1. What arguments spoke most strongly to you?

2. What would Michael Nelson say about the ranking given above?

Paul Hawken, “The Most Amazing Challenge” “Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done” (p. 464).

Reading question Imagine you were asked to return to your high school or college to give the commencement address: what would you tell the graduating students about the future, about their role in that future, about their obligations as citizens of this world?

Ethics background: What is integrity?

Don’t we all want to think of ourselves as good people? Don’t we all have a drive to be respected by others, but also, most important, to be able to respect ourselves? And could that be why we expend such extraordinary effort and creativity to tell ourselves stories about what we do, so that we can continue to do what we know is wrong, even as we think of ourselves as good people?

“I know I should walk to the grocery store instead of drive, but I have to be back in time to take Skye to her dance lessons, and am I not a good mother who keeps her promises?” “I know I have pledged not to eat beef, not while the beef industry continues to be one of the worst sources of greenhouse gases, but I am eating at a friend’s house, and don’t I owe her at least the courtesy of gratefully receiving this meal, so lovingly charred on her new propane grill?” So we continue to tell stories that justify actions that we know are contributing to the coming calamity. What kind of a mother is that? What kind of friend?

The opposite of moral self-deception, as described above, is moral integrity. Moral integrity is a matching, or wholeness, between what we believe is right and what we do. It is “walking the talk.” It is doing what is right because it is right—no justifications (“I guess what I thought was wrong is right after all”) or excuses (“I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it”). Acting with moral integrity might create a better world (or might not), it might get you into heaven (or might not), it might make you a much happier person (and probably will)—

but that’s not the point. The point is to create, through your actions, a person you respect.

The point is to create, through your actions, a wholeness in a life that is often divided against itself. Integrate: from Latin, integer, “whole.” Integrity: from Latin, integritis, “soundness.” Soundness: from Old English, gesund, “health.”

Activity / Application 1: Tim DeChristopher’s decision

Acting as judge and jury, reach a decision in the sentencing of the following case.

The red-rock canyon country of southern Utah is some of the most beautiful and fragile land in America. It is also some of the most threatened by the oil and gas industries. When the federal government held an auction for leases that would permit oil and gas drilling on 110,000 acres of unspoiled desert, Tim DeChristopher, an economics major in college, was there. Sitting alongside representatives of powerful gas and oil interests, DeChristopher bid for, and won, 14 parcels worth $1.8 million. The trouble was he didn’t have $1.8 million. His goal was to disrupt the auction in order to protest the drilling and perhaps slow down the destruction.

Federal officials were not amused. DeChristopher’s unauthorized bid stopped the auction and created a national debate about oil and gas drilling in the red-rock canyon. The leases were canceled.

DeChristopher was charged with making false statements and interfering with an auction. His lawyers planned a defense based on the “doctrine of necessity,” which argues that an act that would otherwise be criminal conduct is justifiable if it prevents a worse harm. In this case, DeChristopher planned to argue that the dangers of climate disruption are so severe that illegal acts to prevent it are justified. The judge did not allow that defense. Supporters immediately raised the money to pay for the leases DeChristopher won at auction.

Nonetheless, DeChristopher was convicted and sentenced to up to ten years in prison and $750,000 in fines.

Activity / Application 2: Hypocrisy?

A 2008 survey of American adults’ views and actions related to climate change turned up some surprising results. Ed Maibach and his colleagues reported the following: • • • • • •

18 percent of people are alarmed, convinced of the seriousness of global warming and taking steps to alter their behavior 33 percent are concerned but not taking action 19 percent are cautious, meaning they believe climate change is a problem but don’t feel a sense of urgency about it 12 percent are doubtful 11 percent either don’t know much about climate change or don’t think it’s a big problem 7 percent are dismissive, actively campaigning against a national response to climate change

Despite these differences in beliefs, there are no differences in the rate at which the groups conserved energy. Asked to explain the results, Yale University’s Tony Leiserowitz suggested that alarmed people have been slow to take action, while others have found many reasons, apart from climate change, to conserve energy, including saving money.

What does this suggest about the integrity of those concerned about climate change? What does it suggest for strategies to reduce carbon emissions?

Activity / Application 3: Revisiting hope

Now, having studied Moral Ground, we can ask again: On a scale from 0 (There is no hope that we can prevent a catastrophic climate change) to 10 (Of course we can prevent a catastrophic climate change), where are you positioned today, at the end of this class? How does that compare with where you started? Go around the class circle, telling your number and the reasons that led you to that position.

Sample syllabus Ethics and Climate Change PHL 499/599 Spring 2011 Tuesdays, 4–7 Hovland 100 Kathleen Dean Moore, instructor kmoore@oregonstate.edu, 541-737-5652 Office hours Tuesdays 10–12 and by appointment

Text: Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril Reading and Assignment Schedule March 29

Do we have a moral obligation to take action to protect the future of a planet in peril?

April 5

Yes, for the survival of humankind.

Yes, for the sake of the children.

April 12

Read Introduction

Read gray matter for 1 and 2; Gus Speth, Daniel Quinn, the Dalai Lama, E. O. Wilson, Alan Weisman*, Oren Lyons, Scott Russell Sanders, Gary Snyder, John Paul II and Bartholomew I, Derrick Jensen.

Yes, for the sake of the Earth itself.

Yes, for the sake of all forms of life on the planet.

Read gray matter for 3 and 4; Brian Turner, Holmes Rolston, Stuart Chapin, Thich Nhat Hanh, Kate Rawles, Dave Foreman*, Carly Lettero, Shepherd Krech, Gary Nabhan, David Quammen, Robert Pyle.

April 19

Yes, because justice demands it.

April 26

Yes, for the stewardship of God’s creation.

Yes, to honor and celebrate Earth and Earth systems.

Read gray matter for 10; Sheila Watt-Cloutier*, Carl Pope, Michael Crow, Steve Vanderheiden, Lauret Savoy, Ismail Serageldin, Peter Singer, Carl Safina.

May 3

May 10

May 17

Read gray matter for 8 and 13; Sallie McFague*, Marcus Borg, Seyyed Nasr, Tri Robinson, Marty Kaplan, Bron Taylor, Thomas Berry, Linda Hogan, Mary Evelyn Tucker and Brian Swimme.

Yes, because all flourishing is mutual.

Yes, because compassion requires it.

Read gray matter for 7 and 9; George Tinker, Fred Allendorf, Jonathan F. P. Rose, Mary Catherine Bateson, Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley, Edwin Pister, Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, Jesse Fink, Libby Roderick, Wangari Maathai, Ming Xu and Xin Wei*, James Garvey, Sulak Sivaraksa, Quincy Troupe.

Yes, because the world is beautiful.

Yes, because we love the world.

Read gray matter for 11 and 12; Bernd Heinrich, John Vucetich, Hank Lentfer,* Alison Deming, Baird Callicott, bell hooks, Katie McShane, Steve Kellert, Wendell Berry, Kathleen Dean Moore.

Yes, to honor our duties of gratitude and reciprocity.

Yes, for the full expression of human virtue.

Read gray matter for 5 and 6; Robin Morris Collin, Bartholomew I, Robin Kimmerer, Courtney Campbell, Debbie Bird Rose, Ursula Le Guin*, Brian Doyle, John Perry, Bill McKibben, Massoumeh Ebtekar, Dale Jamieson, Tom Friedman.

May 24

Yes, because our moral integrity requires us to do what is right.

May 31

Projects due

Read gray matter for 14; Curt Meine, N. Scott Momaday, Ernest Partridge, Terry Tempest Williams, Paul Thompson, Joerg Tremmel, JosĂŠ Tundisi, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Nelson*, Paul Hawken.

Assignments for three-credit course 1. Faithfully attend class.

2. For each class day, read the assigned material. Read it closely enough that you can answer short written questions about the material and participate usefully in class discussion.

3. For five class days, bring a written response to the reading assigned. Note that late work is not accepted. The written response might be any of the following: a. Addressing one of the reasons that are the focus for that day’s class, write a piece you might contribute to the book. Note that, like the other contributions, this

might be a personal essay, an article, a poem, a letter, a prayer, or a song (unless you can think of another form). Note also that it needs to come in under 2,000 words. b. A new “Ethical Actions” essay for one of the sections assigned for that day, suggesting what a person might do if the reason in that section speaks especially strongly to her or him. Note that these are meant not to tweak our technologies or consumer habits, but to supplant them, making a substantive or spiritual change. c. A case study or example from your area of work or study, in which you describe a morally difficult situation, apply a moral principle from the given section, and draw a conclusion. d. A blog posting for moralground.com, in which you write of your personal response to one of the arguments of the day. Note how carefully blogs are written, to get to the point quickly, make reference to a personal connection, and elicit a meaningful response.

4. For one class day, collaborate with other students to lead a 30-minute “discussion,” understood broadly and creatively, of the essay marked with an asterisk*.

5. For one class day, collaborate with other students to bring a light and healthy snack, such as a bowl of apples.

6. Complete a term project, designed in consultation with the professor.

Grades 1. Class attendance 2. Careful reading 3. Written responses to reading 4. Discussion leadership 5. Project

3 credits 20 % 20 40 5 15

Those taking the course for graduate credit will be expected to do a project that is a proportionately more significant investment of time and expertise than those taking the course as undergraduates.

Sample Course Announcement SPECIAL NEW SPRING TERM COURSE

Ethics and Climate Change PHL 499/599 While climate change and other ecological emergencies present scientific and technological problems, the issues themselves are fundamentally moral problems. They call us to action grounded in reasons of justice and human rights, compassion, personal integrity, and radical self-interest.

This course will offer students the opportunities • to examine the moral issues that we face as the climate changes, • to learn how worldviews and values, together with science, shape moral arguments about what we ought to do, • to read and learn from the world’s moral leaders, • to reason cogently about the difficult decisions we must make to defend intergenerational human rights and the rich abundance of life on Earth, • and to acquire the skills and concepts to navigate in the choppy waters of a global moral discourse of (literally) world-changing importance.

Tuesdays, 3:30–6:30. Spring 2011 2 credits: class meets 3/29 to 5/24 3 credits: class meets 3/29 to 5/31 (incl. final project)

Prerequisites: A working knowledge of the facts of climate change is assumed; students do not need a formal background in philosophy or ethics.

Instructor: Kathleen Dean Moore, Ph.D., is the coeditor of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, and the author of Wild Comfort and many other books. She speaks about climate ethics to national audiences in the scientific, faith, social action, and environmental communities. She is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State.

Sample student essays Gross Interdependence Julia Friton, May 2011

I am: An aunt of Kyaleigh, Kaitlyn, Natalia, Damien, Oliver, and Elliot May these six children lend themselves as a sufficient reason to not have my own; to not contribute to overpopulation, and, alternatively, influence the ones already walking upon Mother Earth so that they may treat her well A lover of a musical Sagittarius May our collective passion always remain inclusive to the swallows that call out to all humanity outside our window and the cherry blossom in which the birds nest A teacher of twenty-some children at Ekone Summer Camp May my lessons consistently inspire the mind and heart alike to grow parallel to Mother Earth’s intrinsic mystery A student at a university, on a sacred land, and in a troubled atmosphere May I inflate the knowledge of the natural world I have accumulated to the size of the community in which I reside A daughter of a puppet artist and house cleaner May I creatively express my sentiments regarding living harmoniously with the earth in an organized, nondestructive fashion An equestrian May the mighty strides of the horse lull me into a trance of deep connection to wild beings who make up Mother Earth A listener to The Tallest Man on Earth May the sanity and rational of humans rest upon the notes of his whimsical lyrics and guitar strums within a chaotic climate A reader of Clan of the Cave Bear May wise words provide for me a worldly perspective without having to travel via car nor airplane A member of Facebook May I simultaneously reach 362 people in the name of reminding each individual to recognize the beauty and perils of the earth A swing, blues, and salsa dancer May the rhythm from song from the frog’s song reverberate across landscapes throughout the entirety of my lifetime A consumer of local apples from the farmer’s market May the fruit nourish the bodies that digest them rather than inflict harm with highfructose corn syrup or GMOs An avid thrift store shopper May the seams of the used dress I purchased hold strong with the moral integrity of the previous owner, which may be reflected in my style, and passed on to the next heir A gardener of cayenne peppers, tomatoes, and peas

May the rich soil with which I saturate my bare hands grow food for myself and neighbors while whispering to me the ways of the cycle of life without being muffled by pesticides A hostess of spontaneous, festive gatherings May the boisterous voices echo harmony with Mother Earth and manifest a sense of family A barefoot runner May I absorb the vitality of the grass and soil upon which I tread without shedding toxic rubber that will one day be ingested by our streams, rivers, and oceans A fixed-gear bike rider May the two wheels serve as a loyal mode of transport for myself and those whom I gather to commute with A cloud admirer by day and star gazer by night May I not succumb to a generation that looks down and encourage others to look up I am the conglomeration of my actions, thoughts, and emotions.

I am all that I share with Mother Earth and her entities.

I am all that Mother Earth and her entities share with me.

I am the conglomeration of your actions, thoughts, and emotions.

May we all live with a creation of purpose.

Ethical Action: How do we find personal integrity?

Brie Lindsey, May 2011

Of all the arguments put forth in this book for why we owe an intact and rich world to future generations, the argument of personal integrity requires the least justification. Of course we are and want to remain good people, of course that was the way we were raised and of course we intend to honor that upbringing. But then, justification happens to be a skill at which many of us are incredibly adept.

Maintaining personal integrity requires you to actually know what your integrity dictates.

It requires not only a thorough search into yourself for the things that are really important and right, but also an accounting for the deeds committed before, a lining up of good and bad past acts in relation to the newly acknowledged value system. And the recognition that, perhaps, you have not been as good a person as you thought you were.

This coming to terms with your own fallibility, your own faults, is probably among the greatest obstacles to living a life of integrity. Clearly, keeping your actions in line with your values is the difficult task in carrying on, but acknowledging your real lacking in the past, acknowledging the fact that you have been ignoring your own good intentions in favor of convenience, or shortening your moral foresight to avoid considering some consequences of your actions, is the difficult requirement for starting anew. Initiation of an authentic life must begin with this ugly step of recognizing when you have failed to be genuine, failed to uphold your own true values, failed to choose what you knew was right over what you wanted right then.

So first, listen to yourself. Listen to the voice deep down, so long muffled by the heavy blanket of desires for material things, for fitting your life into the conventional view of success, for convenience. Pull the blanket away and give the voice air enough to speak louder until you know what you really value. Really evaluate what you care about, which values are most important, and whether any conflict. Imprint these consciously on your mind. Or write them down to keep.

Next, forgive yourself. Take account of the times when you chose against your values— make a ledger that you might begin with. Come to terms with your old self before nudging toward your new one. If you see that you have ignored your true values, you will understand even more acutely your responsibility, be driven harder to account for your past deeds, and be more compassionate when others don’t hear their own deep voices. You will know how to guide them.

Don’t be fooled by the brevity of the message on this page; beginning an authentic life could be a long and uncomfortable process of judgment and eschewing of comfortable ways when deep thought and self-consciousness were left out of your decision-making. But on the other side of the flames you will find real freedom. Everyday choices will be less fraught with indecision, justifications, struggling, agonizing. You will be more able to act with clarity and confidence. And finally, once you have started your authentic life, you can really begin living it.

Gratitude Meditation at the End of a Day Brie Lindsey, May 2011

To the Sacred within and without, I am grateful for the warm egg this morning, given by my neighbor’s chickens living behind my house.

I am thankful they are fully fed and happy and I am able to make good use of just enough of their gift to top my homemade toast.

I am grateful for the birdsong bursting from the trees as I rode my bike beneath them today.

I am grateful for the ability to hear them above and the ability to feel them inside myself, and for the happiness they bring me.

I am grateful for the smell in the forest this evening, the sound of the wind in the leaves overhead, the light filtering through the green shields and downward onto the path.

I am grateful for the air that is warm enough that I take off my shoes to feel the hard, smooth earth under my feet as I run.

I am grateful for the flowers in full bloom on the forest floor, small sparks of white, yellow, pink, and purple moving among the low ferns and mosses and leaves.

I am grateful to have places like the forest to run in.

I am grateful for the means that I have, to live in the incredibly privileged time and place that I do.

I am grateful I can hear the voice inside me reminding me of the many who don’t have the same.

Let that voice get louder and louder every day I do not act with enough compassion, empathy, foresight, or knowledge.

Let me remember and respect those who have come before me and those who will come after I am gone.

To show true thankfulness that I do not spend my days merely surviving, I must value my place in the world and do my best— MY BEST— to help where I can, to learn what is out there, to not hurt when I know, to respect the gifts of the world, to honor the givers of the gifts I receive every single day, to purposefully engage in valuable acts, to make mine a life worth living.

Dear Dr. Moore,

Last week I read your essay “A Call to Forgiveness at the End of the Day.” After reading the essay—and tearing up when I read how you described your (future) reaction upon witnessing the last salmon in the stream dying so unceremoniously—I went to sleep and had a very vivid and violent dream.

I was running through a jungle toward a clearing in a path where, standing still on the dusty dirt road, was a small woman. She was beautiful and brown, with short, wild black hair sneaking out from beneath the stone-colored cloth she had wrapped around her head. She was holding a baby in her arms. The baby wasn’t crying, but the dream-me knew that he was awake. The woman, though small, seemed powerful, with wiry muscles snaking over the bones of her forearm as she clasped the little wrapped bundle. I knew, with the inherited memories of a dreamer, that she was in danger—a large group had been chasing her—and I, with many others, was running to save her.

It was a tribute to her power and courage that she was standing still, serene, waiting to see who would get to her first. I could see that there were men, hundreds of them, coming over

a hill and around the ruined building behind her. The stones in the building were the same gray-white as the cloth around her head. She stood still, and she wasn’t exactly glowing, but she was exuding a force that was beautiful and almost terrible. I didn’t understand it, but it drew me to her, and I don’t think I could have resisted wanting to save her if I had tried. I wanted to get to her as quickly as I could. We all did. And then, suddenly, one of the men from across the road, clad all in black and wearing a black facemask despite the intense heat, shot her in the head. The single report sounded out and my heart thudded to a stop.

The sparkle went from her eyes immediately and her head dropped forward, lolling there at the end of her neck. I couldn’t see her face anymore, nor the shine of her skin or her eyes.

There was no blood, even though her cloth should have been quickly turning red; it remained the dirty gray-white color of someone who had been working in a garden that morning. If I hadn’t heard the gun myself, seen the man shoot her, I would not have known.

We all stopped short, watching to see what would happen. I dropped my face into my hands and began to cry, occasionally looking through my fingers back at the clearing ahead. At the same time, the baby finally started to cry, too. The woman remained standing. Not only that, but she still held the baby to her breast, with a firm grip that seemed impossible for someone who was dead. My breath caught. I thought the breeze would knock her over, and the baby would fall to the hard dirt, unprotected.

We all just watched, wondering when or if she would topple. How was she balanced? How was she still holding so tightly to the baby? Did she have that much residual strength, or was it all a very delicate balance that none of us could understand? Was she perhaps still alive but very hurt? We just stood there and watched this eerily steady woman holding the baby.

Then a woman from far behind me screamed, a terrible, pained scream that made me cold everywhere. From the blurry periphery of my dream vision, I saw a man all in black come running at the mother, so frail now and still upright, as fast as he could. He was running with the butt of his rifle held out in front of him. He was going to knock her down. We all started moving again, yelling and gnashing our teeth at this final intruder, enraged that he would knock the beautiful, small woman over even after they had already killed her.

But he got to her first, and he hit her shoulder with the butt of his rifle and she fell sideways toward the ground. My eyes were fixed on her breast—would she drop the child? Her arms loosened and the small life started to slip out of her grasp, and before she hit the ground, I woke up yelling and crying that we hadn’t done enough to save what was right in front of us. While she was so vulnerable there, we only waited to see what would happen, and when what we knew would come to pass finally did, all we could do was wail.

The significance of the dream was clear to me upon waking; it was born of my ideas about our relationship to the Earth, built upon by the readings for this class.

The woman was my dream’s version of Mother Nature, and the baby she held was some combination of all the innocence and life she fosters and nurtures—that which ought to be allowed to flourish, and will, embraced by the natural world. The baby included us, as well as all the other creatures, plants, waters, and skies of the world. The woman’s continued

grasp on the baby felt to me like the promise that Nature/Earth would keep life safe at her bosom, provided she would also be able to continue in her way, unhindered, uncontrolled, safe. The relationship between the Mother Nature figure and the baby figure is a clear indication of my deep-seated belief that we depend on Nature for everything, just as a baby is wholly dependent on its mother.

Her power in drawing me closer reflects my ever-increasing (especially with this class) desire to do something important, to do something other than idly watch as something wondrous and beautiful is destroyed in front of my very eyes. I believe that Alison Deming is right in her essay, “The Feasting,” that we should feel the losses that we’ve seen and those to come, savoring their sadness, as she put it, so that the quiet and often invisible catastrophe of species loss, habitat loss, air and water quality degradation, ecosystem ravaging, and the changing of the world don’t go unnoticed. But to say that one should feast one’s spirit “on the beauty that remains” seems defeated, too stunned to do anything about it but judge that something wrong has been done. It is the equivalent of my dream group, all of us standing and watching impotently as the mother in the clearing swayed gently in the breezes, her chin dropped on her chest. Nobody tried to save anything, we all just watched. Nobody even tried to check if she was actually gone from us. We just watched, taking note of how strong she must have been to still be supporting the babe in her arms. It is not enough.

But while it is not enough to simply appreciate the beauty around oneself, I agree that it is the first step to caring. And many of the authors we read this week seemed to agree that this caring about the planet and her systems and creatures and life is what will be necessary to bring about the action that I long to be part of. Hank Lentfer put it well when he wrote, “We activists need to understand that acts of caring are healing in themselves. . . .

Whether or not we can save the planet, we need to conserve its gifts.” I can see that appreciation of those gifts is necessary first.

My own feelings of impotence in the face of all this rapid change on our planet and what I fear is yet to come was reflected when I had to watch the woman in the dream have incredible violence done against her, without regard to what she is, or what she supports.

As a scientist, I have been dealing more and more with my own inner struggle between how important I think it is to see and understand some small part of the natural world, versus inciting some action that will make a difference in how people view and treat the larger world, or even just their own bits of it. The way John Vucetich wrote about the purpose of science, therefore, rang something deep inside of me. I love the idea of making my purpose to give people some tidbit of knowledge that makes them say, “Wow.” Or more than a tidbit, if I am lucky. I think he is right to say that a person who is captivated by the wonders of the world will find it difficult to destroy or abuse them.

Perhaps that will be my call to action for the next while: to frame the science I am privileged to do in such a way as to show the astonishing complexity and interconnectedness of our world, from the smallest to the largest scales. Though the funding agencies will still expect some instrumental description of the value of my work, I can write my results in such a way as to convey the wow-factor I’ve witnessed. And if the peer-reviewed journals don’t accept this way of looking at my findings, maybe I should be

publishing elsewhere, working hard to communicate my results to people outside of academia in a way that will make them appreciate, make them care, make them say, “Wow.” I still don’t think that will be enough, though. Not for me, not for Mother Nature. In the end, I know it is up to me to not be left standing, horrified, and knowing I could have acted sooner, done more, saved the beautiful world that I love. I’m just trying to figure out how to best reach her before the bullets do, and steeling myself for the actions to come.

Thank you for your class; it is changing me.

Sincerely,

Brie Lindsey May 2011