Volume 5, No. 1, Spring 1994

General Announcements

In the recent mail ballot, Mark Sagoff has been elected president of the International Society of Environmental Ethics, to serve a three year term. No candidate received a majority of the votes cast in the vice-presidential election, and there is a runoff ballot included with this newsletter between J. Baird Callicott and Karen Warren. Please return your ballot ASAP; the deadline is June 1. Sagoff, Director of the Institute for Policy and Public Policy, located at the University of Maryland, takes office June 1. In the election 116 ballots were received from about 500 members, with ballots being returned from a dozen counties.

The officers, as of this election, are:

President: Mark Sagoff
term to expire end of academic year, 1997
Vice-President: runoff election
Secretary: Laura Westra, 1995
Treasurer: Ned Hettinger, 1996


In general the annual deadlines for paper submissions for the three ISEE sessions regularly held at the three divisional American Philosophical Association meetings are:
Eastern Division, March 1
Central Division, January 1, proposals by October 15
Pacific Division, January 1, proposals by October 15

Submit Eastern Division proposals to Professor Eric Katz, Department of Humanities, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102. Submit Central Division proposals to Professor Laura Westra, Department of Philosophy, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario N9B 3P4. Submit Pacific Division proposals to Professor James Heffernan, Department of Philosophy, University of the Pacific, 3601 Pacific Avenue, Stockton, CA 95211.



Financial Statement - 1993. U.S. dollars account.

INCOME
Membership Fees $ 4,085.00


EXPENSES

Deficit, entering January 1, 1993 323.00
(see Newsletter, 4, 1, Spring 1993)
Newsletter, four issues
Printing $ 1,194.00
Postage 1,400.00
Student wages 396.00
Newsletter subtotal 2,990.00
Other
Bank changes 68.00
AAAS Fees 256.00
Other fees 27.00
Telephone 100.00
Other subtotal 351.00
Total expenses 3,341.00

Balance, January 1, 1994 $
421.00

DUES FOR 1994 ARE NOW PAYABLE. The Newsletter goes out to about 600 persons, or, in some cases, institutions. The current balance, with income received since January, is marginal for sending out the present newsletter. Those with dues in arrears will have to be dropped from the mailing list. There is a slip accompanying this issue of the newsletter if your dues are in arrears.

There are small amounts of monies, from local dues, also held by the representatives in the Netherlands, in Australia, in Poland, and in South Africa. These are used for mailing out the newsletter in those areas, and inquiries may be addressed to these representatives, addresses below.

The Canadian Society for the Study of Practical Ethics and the International Society for Environmental Ethics will sponsor a symposium on Sustainability and Distributive Justice, as part of the Canadian Learned Societies meetings at the University of Calgary, Alberta, June 12, 1994. One panel is "Ethical Dimensions of Pollution and Resource Development: Three Case Studies," with Leo Groarke (Philosophy, Wilfrid Laurier), "Sustainability, Distributive Justice and the Greenhouse Effect"; Mary Richardson (Philosophy, Athabasca), "Public Participation in Development Decisions: A Case Study of Public Hearings on a Pulp Mill in Athabasca, Alberta"; Wes Cragg, David Pearson and Mark Swartz (York University), "Sustainability and Historical Injustice: Lessons from the Moose River Basin."

A second panel, sponsored jointly with the Canadian Political Science Association, is "Thinking Globally, Struggling Locally: Case studies in Sustainability and Distributive Politics," with Donald Abelson (Political Science, UWO), "Political Agendas in Policy Communities: Environmental Groups, the Ontario Government, and the Debate over NAFTA"; Kathryn Kopinak (Sociology, King's College, UWO), "Technology and the Organization of Work in Mexican Transport Equipment Maquilas"; a representative of West Coast Environmental Law Association, Vancouver, title TBA, on the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, by forest products firms against citizen activists.

A third panel is "Biological Potential and Population Limits," with Kent Peacock (Philosophy, UWO), "Symbiosis, Sustainability and Distributive Justice"; Carolyn Garlich (Winnipeg, Manitoba), "Ethics and the Necessity for Population Reduction."

A fourth panel is "Economic and Political Theory in Sustainable Development," with Elizabeth Boetzkes and Jo Murray (Philosophy, McMaster),"Equity in Sustainability: A Methodological and Ideological Critique"; Eric Hershberg (Social Science Research Council, New York), "Globalization, Society and Development."
(Thanks to Peter Miller for helping in these arrangements.) Contact: Peter Miller, Philosophy, University of Winnipeg, 515 Portage Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E9, Canada. Phone: 204/786-9832. E-mail: MILLER@UWPG02.UWinnipeg.CA

Central Division, American Philosophical Association, meets May 4- 7, 1994 in Kansas City, Hyatt Center. Session I (May 5, 5.15-7.15 p.m.) will be on "Ethics and Radioactive Waste," with participants, Patricia Flemming (Philosophy, Creighton University, Omaha), "Circularity and Regulatory Policy: The Case of Yucca Mountain"; Kristin Shrader-Frechette (Philosophy, University of South Florida), "Nuclear Waste and Free Informed Consent: The Case of Yucca Mountain," with commentator, Craig Walton (Philosophy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas).

Session II (May 6, 7-10 p.m.) at Central APA will be Ernest Partridge (Northland College, Wisconsin), "On the Possibility of a Global Environmental Ethic"; Sandra Rosenthal and Rogene Bucholz (Loyola University of New Orleans), "Philosophical Foundations for an Environmental Ethics: A Pragmatic Perspective"; William Aiken (Chatham College, Pittsburgh), "Is Deep Ecology Too Radical?"; William McKinney (Southeast Missouri State University), "The Value of Thought Experiments in Environmental Ethics." Chaired by Greg Cooper (Duke University). Organized by Laura Westra.

Society for Conservation Biology, ISEE Session, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. An ISEE sessions will be held at the Society for Conservation Biology, Guadalajara, Mexico, June 7-11, 1994. Contact Jack Weir, Morehead State University, UPO 662, Morehead, KY 40351. Phone 606/784-0046. Or Phil Pister, Desert Fishes Council, P. O. Box 337, Bishop, CA 93514. Phone: 619/872-8751. INDUSTRIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS QUARTERLY announces a special issue: "Philosophical Issues in Environmental Crises," Volume 9, No. 1 in 1995. The goal is to address important philosophical issues related to understanding, preventing, managing, and mitigating the social and environmental implications of environmental crises. Sample issues: An environmentally sensitive philosophy for business management; business ethics and the nature of the environment; environmental paradigms and divergent understandings of environmental crises; the meaning of wilderness in postmodern society; technology choices and environmental values; sustainable development; environmental values and critical theories of society; ecofeminism; religion and the environment. Contact :Professor Robert P. Gephart, Jr., Editor, IECQ Special Issue, Faculty of Business, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, CANADA T6G 2R6 Phone: 403-492-5715, Fax: 403-492-3325. E-mail: Robert_Gephart@mts.ucs.ualberta.ca

Contrary to an announcement in the previous issue of this Newsletter (No. 4, Winter, 1993), David Rothenberg will not immediately become editor of THE TRUMPETER, but will instead become Associate Editor, with Alan Drengson continuing as Editor. Future directions for the journal continue to be under consideration. Correspondence should be sent to Alan Drengson, THE TRUMPETER, Box 5853, Stn. B, Victoria, B.C., Canada V8R 6S8.
THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ECOFORESTRY: THE PRACTICES, SCIENCE, AND PHILOSOPHIES OF ECOLOGICALLY RESPONSIBLE FOREST USE is a new journal, announced by Alan Drengson. The first issue is expected April 1994. For details of subscription and manuscript submission, contact Drengson at Box 5885, Stn. B., Victoria, B.C., Canada V8R 6S8.

NIE NEWSLETTER. The Committee for the National Institute for the Environment puts out a newsletter on its activities and progress toward establishing a National Institute for the Environment, somewhat analogously to the National Institutes for Health. Address: 730 11th St., N. W., Washington, DC 20001-4521. Phone 202/628-4303. Fax: 202/628-4311. Congress is currently considering their proposal for establishing a National Institute for the Environment to guide and fund long-term scientific research on the environment. Story NEW YORK TIMES, March 8, 1994, Science Section.

CHEC (COMMONWEALTH HUMAN ECOLOGY COUNCIL) JOURNAL is published in the UK, with various articles, news, book reviews. Sample articles from a current issue: Ben Boer (University of Sydney, Australia), "Social Ecology and Environmental Law"; John Maskell (University of Waterloo, Ontario), "The CHORe of Sustainable Development: A Charter of Obligations and Responsibilities"; Jerzy Wojciechowski (Philosophy, University of Ottowa), "Knowledge as a Source of Problems: Can Man Survive the Development of Knowledge?"
Contact Robert Waller, Willow Cottage, Clarendon Road, Widcome, Bath BA2 4NJ, UK.

THE ECOFEMINIST NEWSLETTER. A network newsletter for ecofeminists. Contact: Women Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4032. 509/335-1794. Fax 335-4171.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROFESSIONAL will publish an issue devoted to "The Global Environment," critical analysis of international environmental problems. There is a call for papers by September 1. Contact: John Lemons, Editor, THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROFESSIONAL, Department of Life Sciences, University of New England, Biddeford, ME 04005. 207/283-0171, ext. 222 or 204. Fax 207/282-6379.

INQUIRY, special issue, on the philosophical influence of Arne Naess. Articles should be professional analyses of the philosophy of deep ecology, nonviolence, Spinoza, philosophy of science, or other ideas treated by Naess. Contact the guest editor, David Rothenberg, Department of Humanities, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, Newark, NJ 07102. Phone 201/596- 3289, work. 718/802-0435, home. Fax 201/565-0586.

RISK, HEALTH, SAFETY, AND ENVIRONMENT. A new journal published at the Franklin Pierce Law Center, a center for environmental law. Essays dealing with environmental ethics that deal with environmental risks are invited. Contact: Carol Ruh, Managing Editor, Franklin Pierce Law Center, 2 White Street, Concord, NH 03301. Phone 603/228-1541. Fax 603/228-0388.

Fourth International Conference on Ethics in the Public Service meets June 15-18 at Stockholm, Sweden. ISEE sponsors a session, "Environmental Ethics and Priorities in the Public Trust," including the following presenters: Stig Wanden; Bengt-Owe Jansson, University of Stockholm; Gettachew Woldemeski, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences; Klaus Meyer-Abich, Kulturwissenschaftzentrum Nordhein-Westfalen, Germany; Don A. Brown, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, with Laura Westra as organizer, address below. A featured speaker at the general session is Sissela Bok, Harvard University; another is Peter Kemp, Director of the Centre for Ethics and Law, University of Copenhagen.

The American Institute for Biological Sciences (AIBS) meets August 7-11 in Knoxville, Tennessee, meeting simultaneously with the Ecological Society of America, and others. ISEE is sponsoring a session, "Ecology and Environmental Ethics," with the following: Holmes Rolston (Philosophy, Colorado State University), "Environmental Science and Advocacy"; Reed Noss (The Wetlands Project, Corvalis, Oregon), "Making Decisions in Conservation Biology"; Bryan Norton (Public Policy and Philosophy, Georgia Institute of Technology)," Environmental Values: A Scalar Approach"; and Kristin Shrader-Frechette (Philosophy, University of South Florida), "Method in Ecology and the Future of Hypothesis Deduction: A Response to Peters"; Laura Westra, "The Wild and Ecosystem Integrity." For conference details contact: AIBS, 730 11th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20001-4521.

SOCIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE plans a special issue, THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE TO SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY and calls for papers on the challenge of environmental issues to the mainstream traditions within social and political philosophy. Roger S. Gottlieb (Humanities, Worcester Polytechnic Institute) will be the guest editor. Send papers to Peter Dalton, editor, SOCIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE, Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1054, by September 1.

Jessica Pierce gives a paper, "Ecological Ethics as Theocentric Ethics," at the American Academy of Religion, Rocky Mountain - Great Plains Regional Meeting, Boulder, Colorado, April 22-23. Pierce is at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

The Society for Conservation Biology has begun a SOCIETY FOR CONSERVATION BIOLOGY NEWSLETTER, the first issue released in February 1994. It contains a number of resolutions that the Society approved at its June 1993 meeting in Tempe, Arizona, on grazing on public lands, on the endangered Grenada dove, on science-based decision-making for northwest forests of the U.S.A., on endangered species, on the 1872 mining law, and so forth. The Society has for a number of years published the journal CONSERVATION BIOLOGY. The editor is Erica Fleishman, Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology Program, Biodiversity Research Center, Department of Biology - 314, University of Nevada-Reno, Reno, Nevada 89557-0015.

BEARNET is edited by Margaret Pettis, issued periodically as an update on bear welfare throughout the United States and Canada, sometimes elsewhere, with particular attention to bear hunting, to Animal Damage Control measures, and on bear recovery plans. The current issue contains news from Washington, Oregon, Alaska, B.C., California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Ontario. Send $ 5.00 for a subscription to Bearnet, Box 72, Hyrum, UT 84319.

The Working Group on Community Right-To-Know issues a newsletter, WORKING NOTES ON COMMUNITY RIGHT-TO-KNOW, with particular interest in following information about toxic pollution, what environmental damages result, and where and from whom this information is available, and in keeping open and expanding the right to know. Some twenty environmentalist organizations co-operate. Contact: The United States Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, 215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Washington, DC 2003-1155.

Ann Causey, Auburn University, presented a paper, "Who Is the Ethical Sportsperson of Today and Tomorrow?" at the 1994 North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in March in Anchorage, Alaska.

Judith Little will begin a position teaching philosophy at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Potsdam, with areas of specialty in environmental ethics and philosophy of science. She is this spring finishing a Ph.D. in ethics at the University of Oklahoma.

Environmental studies at Harvard University. Harvard has recently initiated an environmental studies program, under a University Committee on Environment. A principal driving force has been students, organized as the Harvard Environmental Network, encouraging a faculty that has often been highly specialized and disinclined to feature cross-disciplinary work. A sample concentration chosen is the development of China as an environmental issue. One alumni urging the program has been Al Gore. The program involves numerous departments in the sciences, social sciences, business, government, and humanities. The divinity school is present, especially through Timothy C. Weiskel, and the popular Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values, but there is no mention of philosophy. Michael B. McElroy, chair of the committee and an atmospheric scientist, says, "I'd love to see a thoughtful ethics course that attempts to provide a sense of how different cultures think differently about the environment." For example, Buddhist views to the contrary, Chinese environmental policy addresses only the needs of human beings, at the expense of the rest of nature. "I'd like to understand how that happened."
Story in HARVARD MAGAZINE, March-April 1994.

Mistaken advertising? Donald VanDeVeer writes, "I note that Oxford University press, no doubt unaware of the appearance of THE ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND POLICY BOOK (Wadsworth) in the fall of 1993, mistakenly advertises its new volume, REFLECTING ON NATURE, as being `the first anthology' with material on environmental justice and sustainable development. These ARE important topics. THE ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND POLICY BOOK has at least four essays relevant to matters of environmental justice/racism and also contains a section entitled Ecological Sustainability, with four to fourteen or so essays on the topic, spread throughout the volume, depending on how one counts. One of the editors of REFLECTING ON NATURE, Dale Jamieson, has on occasion graciously offered to my co-editor, Christine Pierce, and to me, advice regarding desirable editorial choices here."

Leeann Foster has completed a M.A. thesis, THE SELF IN ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY: IDENTIFICATION, INTRINSIC VALUE AND AN ECOLOGY OF SELF AND NATURE, at Colorado State University, spring 1994. Foster examines the deep ecological concept of self in comparison and contrast with the environmental ethical concept of self. Deep ecologists, such as Warwick Fox and Freya Mathews, expand the self into an identification with the whole, while environmental ethicists, such as Holmes Rolston, maintain a sense of others, centers of intrinsic value in the nonhuman natural world, who are morally considerable as others, differentiated from one's own self, and to whom one has duties of respect. Nevertheless the deep ecologists can find a place for pluralism and Rolston's ethic is based as much on love as it is on duty. Both ways of thinking are contrasted with the traditional concept of the autonomous self, represented by Kant.

William Grassie has completed a Ph.D. thesis, REINVENTING NATURE: SCIENCE NARRATIVES AS MYTHS FOR AN ENDANGERED PLANET, spring 1994, in the Department of Religion, Temple University, Philadelphia. The dissertation is a hermeneutical inquiry into the possibilities of a mythological treatment of the modern scientific cosmology in the light of global environmental and economic crises. Paul Ricoeur is used to develop a hermeneutical approach to science. This is used to reconstruct science as MYTHOS, illustrated in Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme's THE UNIVERSE STORY, where scientific cosmology is read as value-laden natural history. In turn this is reassessed using Donna Haraway, and a radical postmodern hermeneutics that is suspicious of one-true stories. The conclusion is a hermeneutical conversation between human and nonhuman nature as a model for environmental ethics. The dissertation advisor was John Raines. William Grassie, P. O. Box 586, 650 Brandywine Creek Road, Unionville, PA 19375.

Glenn Gregory Garrison is completing a Ph.D. thesis, MORAL OBLIGATIONS TO NON-HUMAN CREATION: A THEOCENTRIC ETHIC at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, May 1994. Garrison finds that the theocentric ethics of James Gustafson can be combined with the nonanthropocentric environmental ethics of Holmes Rolston to produce a more adequate environmental ethics from a religious perspective than others have so far been able to do. Among others he considers are James Nash, Arthur Peacocke, Albert Schweitzer, Paul Taylor, and Aldo Leopold. The theocentric valuation offsets an anthropocentric bias in historical and contemporary theology and makes for a more adequate appraisal of common planetary heritage and interdependence on Earth. Paul D. Simmons is the chair of the dissertation committee.

Roberta M. Richards has completed a Ph.D. thesis, HOW SHOULD WE THINK ABOUT LOGGERS AND OWLS? PRINCIPLES FOR AN APPLIED ENVIRONMENTAL ETHIC at the University of Southern California, School of Religion, May 1994. Our dominant moral traditions, rooted in anthropocentrism, offer little guidance about how to resolve public policy conflicts when these involve the balancing of human and extra-human goods. Richards develops a theory grounded in process theologian John Cobb's "rich experience" conception of value; one ought to maximize rich experience. She develops nine moral principles for achieving this goal. These can be used generally in environmental conflicts, but are here specifically applied to the conservation of endangered species, and, more specifically still, to the loggers versus owls crisis that has paralyzed the Pacific Northwest. William W. May is the dissertation advisor. Copies from Micrographics Department, Doheny Library, USC, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0912. Roberta M. Richards, 238 S. Berendo St., # 302, Los Angeles, CA 90004-5721.

R. John Reiman, completed a Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University, TOWARD AN ECOLOGICAL ETHIC, December 1991, in the Graduate Department of Religion. Reiman attempts a systematic introduction to a comprehensive environmental ethic. Chapter titles: Chapter 1: Nature and Humanity (Cartesianism, is/ought, facts/values; evolution and ecology). Chapter 2. Value Theory and the Use and Protection of the Natural World (value theory, the degradation of the natural world, conservation and preservation). Chapter 3: Approaches to Environmental Ethics (deontological and utilitarian approaches; cost/benefit analysis, holism). Chapter IV: The Boundaries of An Ecological Ethic (responsibilities to future generations, the extension of moral community, the question of human capacity seriously to consider the natural environment as a realm of duty). The thesis builds principally from the work of Holmes Rolston and of H. Richard Niebuhr. Thesis advisors were Howard Harrod and Peter Paris.

Jessica Pierce completed a Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, THEOLOGIES FOR OUR TIME: OUR MORAL RELATIONSHIP TO THE EARTH, in the Department of Religious Studies, May 1993. Theological ethics is moving away from anthropocentrism and toward theocentrism. While the value of nonhuman life is necessarily understood from the human perspective, it does not follow that humans beings are the center or measure of all value. Ethics should be conceived primarily in the language of response and responsibility, correcting a traditional formulation in terms of principles and rules in terms of justice. This highlights community and the common good, relates parts to whole, individuals to communities, and redescribes the community and common good to include the nonhuman world. The work builds on James Gustafson's theocentric ethics, and John B. Cobb's and Jay McDaniel's process theology. James F. Childress was the principal advisor. Pierce is now Assistant Professor, Department of Preventive and Societal Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Box 984350, Omaha, NE 68196-4350.

Earth unbalances Gore's budget. Al Gore has had to pay an unanticipated $ 157,000 in federal income taxes, resulting in large part from the sales of his book, EARTH IN THE BALANCE.

The session on Global Population, Food and Environment, at the AAAS, San Francisco, co-sponsored by ISEE, made national news, in USA TODAY, February 24, 1994, p. 3A. David Pimentel, Cornell University, claimed that the projected 12-15 billion population was too many for food and water supplies, and would result in starvation, and that to main a middle-class U.S. standard of living for all there ought to be a reduction even from the present 5.5 billion. But University of Pennsylvania demographer Samuel Preston says, "Ridiculous!" Within fifty years, 15 billion people can be fed.

Robert Elliot is the contact person for Australia and New Zealand. Send membership forms and dues in amount $ 15.00 Australian ($ 7.50 for students) to him. Address: Department of Philosophy, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351, Australia. Telephone (087) 7333. Fax (067) 73 3122. E-mail: relliot@metz.une.oz.au

Wouter Achterberg is the contact person for the United Kingdom and Europe (For Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, see below.) Those in Western Europe and the Mediterranean should send their dues to him (the equivalent of $ 10 US) at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 15, 1012 CP Amsterdam, Netherlands. He reports that it is difficult to cash checks in this amount without losing a substantial part of the value of the check and encourages sending bank notes and cash directly to him, as it is reasonably safe. Contact him if in doubt what currencies he can accept. Fax: 31 (country code) 20 (city code) 5254503. Phone: 31-20-5254530.

Jan Wawrzyniak is the contact person for Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He is on the faculty in the Department of Philosophy at Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan, Poland. Because of the fluid economic situation in Eastern Europe, members and others should contact him regarding the amount of dues and the method of payment. He also requests that persons in Eastern Europe send him information relevant to a regional newsletter attachment to this newsletter. Business address: Institut Filozofii, Adam Mickiewicz University, 60-569 Poznan, Szamarzewskiego 91c, Poland. Phone: 48 (country code) 61 (city code) 46461, ext. 288, 280. Fax: 48 (country code) 61 (city code) 535535. Home address: 60-592 Poznan, Szafirowa 7, Poland. Phone 48/61/417275. Checks can be sent to his home with more security.

Azizan Baharuddin, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, is the contact person for ISEE for South-East Asia (Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, and the Philippines). Dr. Azizan teaches history and philosophy in the Science Faculty. Contact her with regard to membership and dues payable (the approximate equivalent of $US 10, but with appropriate adjustment for currency differentials and purchasing power). Her address is The Dean's Office, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 59100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Fax 60 (Country code) 3 (City code) 756-6343.

Professor Johan P. Hattingh, Department of Philosophy, University of Stellenbosch, 7600 Stellenbosch, South Africa, is the Africa contact for the ISEE. Contact him with regard to membership and dues payable, again the approximate equivalent of $US 10, but with appropriate adjustment for currency differentials and purchasing power. Hattingh heads the Unit for Environmental Ethics at Stellenbosch. Phone: 27 (country code) 21 (city code) 808-2058 (office), 808-2418 (secretary); 887-9025 (home); Fax: 886-4343. E-mail jph2@maties.sun.ac.za.

Items for the NEWSLETTER are invited and encouraged. This can be a network of information and exchange only if you participate. Items should be sent to Holmes Rolston, III, Editor, Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523. Fax: 303/491-4900. E-mail: rolston@lamar.colostate.edu. If you send it e-mail, the editor does not have to keyboard it again. Items may also be sent to the various regional contacts, listed above, and to Laura Westra, secretary, address below. The NEWSLETTER goes out within the month after April 1, July 1, October 1, and January 1. Starting with the October issue, Jack Weir will also become an editor. Address: Department of Philosophy, Morehead State University
Morehead, KY 40351. Phone: 606/783-2785, office; 606/783-2185,
philosophy office; Fax: 606/783-2678. E-mail:
j.weir@msuacad.morehead-st.edu.



Positions Available

Cornell University. Assistant Professor, tenure-track, in the Department of Science and Technology Studies. The person selected will play an active role in developing the ethics and values component of the Department's undergraduate major in Biology and Society, and teach related courses in such areas as biomedical ethics, environmental ethics, ethics and health care, and research ethics. Contact: Professor Peter Dear, Chair, Search Committee, Department of Science and Technology Studies, 726 University Avenue, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850. Phone: 607/255-6234; Fax: 607/255-0616; E-mail: li10@cornell.edu.

University of Southern Maine, Portland. Assistant Professor. One year replacement position with area of specialty open, area of competence environmental ethics and philosophy of religion. Contact: William J. Gavin, Department of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine, 96 Falmouth Street, Portland, ME 04103.


Videotapes and media


REFLECTIONS ON ELEPHANTS, a recent National Geographic release, is notable, has been aired this spring, and will soon be available for purchase. Filmed in Botswana, the action follows one of possibly the last free ranging herds of elephants. Scenes show competition at waterholes, the rescue of a once abandoned and later adopted calf that becomes stuck in a mud waterhole, threatened by buffalo; other scenes show lions killing isolated calves, the death of an aging male, and much behavior not well understood, such as elephants fondling the remnant tusks and skulls of recently dead elephants. A herd crosses a larger river, to find that one young male is too timid to swim, and then recrosses the river to rejoin rather than abandon the male. Excellent photography and narration by Dereck and Beverly Joubert, who produced ETERNAL ENEMIES, released about two years ago, depicting the lions and hyenas. "We could do worse than mold our own lives on those of elephants, lives filed with dignity and gentle beauty and time. Perhaps we need more time to understand their gentle celebrations of life and death, ... more time for reflections on elephants."


CROSSING THE STONES: A PORTRAIT OF ARNE NAESS. 47 minutes. Produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Naess is now in his 80's; the story recalls his long career, his childhood in the First World War, his study of psychoanalysis in Freud's Vienna, the midcentury hardening of ideologies and the emergence of ecology as a political force. Deeply touched by the thought of Spinoza and Gandhi, Naess coined the term "deep ecology" to express a vision of the world in which we protect the environment as part of ourselves, never in opposition to humanity. Unfortunately the tape is not cheap, $ 250 purchase, $ 75 rental, from Bullfrog Films, P. O. Box 149, Oley, PA. Bullfrog Films remains the best single source of environmental media.

The Video Project is another good source for environmental videos. 5332 College Avenue, Suite 101, Oakland, CA 94618. 510/655-9050. Fax 510/655-9115. 800/475-2638.


Environmental Ethics in Israel

Israel is long and narrow (290 miles by 85 miles), with a varied topography, from forested highlands and fertile green valleys to mountainous deserts and from the coastal plain to the semitropical Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth. Rainfall ranges from 20-50 inches in the north to less than an inch in the far south. Climatic conditions vary greatly within a short distance. Approximately half of the country's land area is semiarid.

Israel has faced modernization and development with a mushrooming population, often given higher priorities than nature conservation. Building, reclaiming, planting, and "making the desert bloom" have been national necessities, and most Israelis took for granted that the mountains of the Galilee, Judea, and the Negev, the Mediterranean sand dune coast, the River Jordan, and the coral reefs of Eilat, the sunbirds, gazelles, and the ibex, the myriad wild-flowers would all be there forever. Yet the growth of Israel has a modern state has threatened to destroy the landscape. Israel's most effective organization here is the Society for the Protection of Israel, which operates 26 Field Study Centers, and annually involves nearly twenty percent of Israel's population in outdoor recreational, conservation, and learning activities.

The SPNI is the only mass participation environmental movement in the Middle East. It sponsors ERETZ MAGAZINE (THE LAND), a quarterly in English, featuring both nature conservation and the conservation of antiquities. It also organizes an extensive series of nature tours for both Israelis and tourists from abroad. The Society celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, with a major international conference (March 20-24 in Eilat) on the role of NGO's in protecting nature, and reappraising successes and failures in Israel and many other developing nations. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel has 45,000 members. Yossi Leshem is executive director; Yoav Sagi is chair of the official board. Contact SPNI, 4 Hashfela Street, Tel Aviv 66183 Israel. Phone 972 (country code) 3 (city code) 375063. A U.S. address is 25 West 45th Street, Suite 1409, New York, NY 10036. Phone 212/398-6750.

Israel has set aside some 120 nature reserves, encompassing nearly 400 square miles. Israel's fauna and flora includes over 380 bird species, 150 mammal and reptile species, and near 3,000 plants. The population is 90% urban.

Projects and issues. A major campaign against wildflower picking has been remarkably successful. A Voice of America transmitter installation once planned for the Negev that threatened 2,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land has been relocated. There is an effort to reintroduce to the landscape all the fauna and flora mentioned in the Bible that have since become extinct in Palestine (for example ostriches and wild asses). The environmental impact of the National Water Carrier, taking water from the north through a network of pipes to the more arid south, has been monitored. A current project includes assessment of Highway 6, a four-lane, limited access highway that (paralleling exiting Highways 2 and 4) could be environmentally disruptive.

Israel is a major flyway for migrating birds from Africa to Asia and Europe. The birds prefer not to fly over water and get funneled through Palestine. Over a million birds of prey pass through the Eilat and Sinai desert region each spring and fall, about twenty species are observed. As many as 220,000 honey buzzards (a buteo hawk) have been seen in a single day. Radar images have depicted lines of storks virtually as long as the nation itself. The effect of development, as well as of air traffic, commercial and military, on this migration is under study.

There are five universities in Israel. The two largest and best known are the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and Tel-Aviv University. Haifa University and Ben-Gurion University, in Be'er- Sheva, are younger and smaller institutions. Bar-Ilan University in Tel-Aviv is a Jewish religious university. There is also a polytechnic school in Haifa, and, in addition the Weizman Institute of Science, in Rehovot, a research institute.

At Hebrew University Avner de-Shalit has been teaching year-long seminars, "The Environment as a Philosophical and Political Issue," for four years, with about 25 students, selected from an applicant pool of some 50-60 students. This is in the department of political science. Students write seminar papers, mostly in environmental ethics, and come from primarily from politics, philosophy, sociology, geography. This is on the Mount Scopus campus. Hebrew University has two campuses, an original Mount Scopus campus, dating from the 1920's, which became unavailable due to political boundaries from 1948-1965, when a second campus, the Givat Ram campus was built. The Mount Scopus campus was regained in 1965, and became the humanities and social science campus, with the Givat Ram campus devoted to the natural sciences. A graduate course, "Environmental Ethics," has also been offered by de-Shalit more recently on the natural science campus, with about 50 students. Their papers combine evolution, ecology, and other sciences with ethics. There are also tutorials, about four times a year, for M.A. and Ph.D. graduate students in environmental ethics. One of de-Shalit's graduate students, Ophir Bnaya'hu, is writing an M.A. thesis in which he compares contempo- rary environmental ethics with ancient Jewish philosophy about the environment. Another student, Gayil Talshir, formerly at Hebrew University, is now completing her doctorate at Oxford University in environmental ethics, under the supervision of Michael Freeden. Address: St. Anthony's College, Oxford OX2 6JF, UK.

The Betzal'el School of Arts, a unit of Hebrew University, has an architecture section, in which several students each year do a final project with some relation to environmental ethics. The Department of Geography has an M.A. in environmental management, part of an interdisciplinary environmental studies program, enrolling about 25 students each year. Eran Feitelson is in charge of this program, which includes a seminar on "Economics and the Environment."

At Ben-Gurion University, Eilon Schwartz, taught a course in environmental ethics in cultural perspective, part of an environmental studies program housed in the Department of Mineralogy. Schwartz is now joining the faculty of education at Hebrew University and will teach a class in "Environmental Ethics and Judaism." Tel-Aviv University has a new M. A. degree in environmental management, and the Polytechnic of Haifa has had various seminars and courses in environmental politics and ethics.

Some publications:

--Solomon, Rabbi David, et al., EICHUT HASVIVA BA YAHADUT (ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY IN JUDAISM). Tel-Aviv: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1990. In Hebrew. Perhaps the best of many academic publications in Hebrew about the environment in the Bible and in Talmudic literature. With many quotations.

--Bar-Ilan University Library maintains, on computer disk, a list of all the publications, with abstracts, known in Hebrew and English, on environmental ethics in Judaism, and this can be made available either on disk or in printout (about 80-100 pages when printed).

--de-Shalit, Avner, WHY POSTERITY MATTERS. London: Routledge, forthcoming, 1994.

--de-Shalit, Avner, "Urban Preservation and the Judgement of King Solomon," JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY (the journal of the Society for Applied Philosophy, U.K.) vol. 11, no. 1, 1994.

--de-Shalit, Avner, "Liberalism, Europe and the Environment," in Bob Brecher, ed., LIBERALISM AND THE NEW EUROPE. Aldershot, Hampshire, UK: Avebury, 1993.

--de-Shalit, Avner, "Community and the Rights of Future Generations," JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 105-115.

--de-Shalit, Avner and Moti Talias, "Green or Blue and White? Environmental Controversies in Israel," in ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS, forthcoming. Blue and white are the colors of Israel, here contrasted with green.

--de-Shalit, Avner, "The Dialectics of Zionism and the Environment," paper given at International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) Conference, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, 1993.

--de-Shalit, Avner, "Hachevra Ha'ezrachit ber'ei Hasviva" (Civil Society in the Mirror of the Environment), in Yoav Peled and Ophir Adi, eds., HACHEVRA HA'EZRACHIT (CIVIL SOCIETY), forthcoming.

On December 12-14, 1994 in Jerusalem there will be a conference: Our Shared Environment: An International Conference to Raise Public Awareness of the Environmental Challenges Facing Israelis and Palestinians. See events below.

Recent Books, Articles, and Other Materials


ISEE has compiled on disk all the bibliographic entries of volumes 1-4 of this Newsletter (1990-1993) and is making this available at cost to those who wish it. The text is currently in WordPerfect format, alphabetized by names at the head of paragraphs. It is easily convertible to ASCII, DOS and MacIntosh. It prints out at about 125 single spaced pages. Inquiries about obtaining the database, to the extent now available, should be directed to Dr. Douglas J. Buege, 2902 S. 101st St., West Allis, WI 53227. The bibliographic entries alphabetized, as well as volumes 1-4 the complete newsletter, four annual issues, total sixteen issues, are available, at cost, in a price range of $ 10 or so, depending on what you need. The database, either the alphabetized version or the newsletter single issues, can be word-searched for author or title, and, to some extent for keywords, although keywords have not been systematically designated. Thanks to Doug Buege, a recent Ph.D. in environmental ethics from the University of Minnesota, for helping compile the first four years of newsletter bibliographies.


ISEE hopes soon to combine this database with all the articles from ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS volumes 1-15, with abstracts, and ENVIRONMENTAL VALUES volumes 1-2, with abstracts. This will be further combined with Eric Katz's two annotated bibliographies on environmental ethics, 1983-1987 and 1987-1990. The total will be a considerable data set and we are still researching the most effective way to make this available, perhaps using some shareware software program. More on this in the summer (July) newsletter. Meanwhile suggestions and volunteers for help from computer literate environmentalists are welcome. Contact: Holmes Rolston, Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, Phone: 303/491-6315 philosophy office, leave word with secretary, answering machine 24 hours. Fax: 303/491-4900. E-mail: rolston@lamar.colostate.edu.

--Sagoff, Mark, "Biodiversity and the Culture of Ecology," BULLETIN OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 74 (no. 4, December, 1993:374-381). "What may worry us most in the disappearance of species is the prospect, then, of becoming ourselves strangers to the earth, of never quite settling into it, of losing touch with the places that help constitute the identity of our communities, of therefore being at home nowhere. For the sake of our own identities we must maintain the identities of the places where we live--and this entails maintaining its flora and fauna as well as larger landscapes. The motive for saving ecosystems may most fundamentally lie in our need to feel at home where we live--to attach ourselves to what becomes safe and secure because it retains its aesthetic and cultural characteristics in the midst of change." Sagoff is Director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland, and the newly elected president of ISEE.

--Sylvan, Richard, and David Bennett, THE GREENING OF ETHICS. Cambridge, UK: Whitehorse Press, 1994. 300 pages. 11.95. Chapter titles: Ethics and its Reluctant Greening, Set Against Escalating Environmental Problems. Shallow Environmental Ethics. Intermediate Environmental Ethics. A Prominent Deep Environmental Movement: Deep Ecology. An Outline of Deep-Green Theory, by Way of Contrast with Deep Ecology. On the Development of Environmental Ethics. On Ways and Means of Marketing, Propagating, Inculcating and Implementing Environmental Ethics. Suggestions on a Range of Initiatives and for Action. The authors claim "that Australia has become a bellwether territory," and hold that "if conservation fails in Australia then all hope of convincing the rest of the world of its importance is dead." The work grows out of a UNESCO study on environmental ethics in Australia; it has an Australian flavor and cast. There is, throughout, a subversive tone, in the best philosophical sense, in that it casts a steady critical eye over the traditional, that is, modernist assumption of the European West, its domination over nature, its worship of entrepreneurial, capitalist economics, its arrogant colonialism, the British sense of empire of which Australia is a result. One gets the sense that one is reading a book by disaffected renegades who know the tradition they are rebelling against inside out, products of it themselves, and making criticisms too forceful and well put for one to dismiss them as those of idiosyncratic disaffection. There is insight here that cannot or ought not be ignored. Chapters 1-4 are deconstructionist, but the authors construct their own deep green theory in Chapter 5 in a highly original way. Chapters 6, 7, 8 are on "applying" ethics, a term the authors rightfully find problematic, with persistent criticism of the idea of development, asking what it is that one wants to develop. Ideas like "marketing, propagating, inculcating, packaging, and implementing" environmental ethics are real teasers because every word is loaded; the authors are taking the terms of the standard worldview and using them subversively to show the limitations of the marketing mentality. The authors are in philosophy at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra; see below. An American co- publisher is anticipated.

--Sylvan, Richard, "Paradigmatic Roots of Environmental Problems."
Virtually all diagnoses of the roots and sources of environmental problems are defective, and hence the problems will not be adequately addressed. The roots of the problem are typically found in answers that do not question entrenched paradigms but seek to explain problems through defective practice, or in those that do look to entrenched paradigms, but are flawed by a monist concentration on a single paradigm, or a single narrow band of paradigms. Sylvan seeks a wider, more satisfactory answer. He disentangles in detail proposed and alleged sources of the problems; none of these answers is satisfactory. A different, more complex answer through broader classes of paradigms is investigated. One result is that philosophy portrayed through its standard history is dismal environmental news. Sylvan is professor of philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601. Fax 61 (country code) 6 (city code) 257 1893. Phone 249 2341. Contact him for this and the next two papers.

--Sylvan, Richard, "Problems and Solutions in Radical Deeper Green Political Theory: An Australian Perspective." There is a growing dissatisfaction with Australia's political institutions, and increasing demand to change them. This demand has been initiated top-down; there is so far little surge from grass-roots levels. Nonetheless, along with apathy, there is widespread popular disenchantment. There is now an opportunity, if a rather small window of opportunity, to get green and radical themes on the agenda for real political change in Australia. That opportunity should not be missed.

--Sylvan, Richard, "What IS Wrong with Applied Ethics?" One problem is the delivery of the commodity, but deeper problems lie in the applied idea and in what the application is presumed to be made to. There is something odd about the very idea of applied ethics, rather like applied nursing. All ethics is applied; there is no pure ethics. But further, environmental ethics challenges the whole body of ethical theory, not just application. The label "applied" is substantially a misnomer. A main matter with the body of ethics is its anthropic bias. Three options that emerge are inappropriate application, or extension or adjustment, and fashioning of something new, and these correspond more or less to the threefold division of environmental positions: shallow, intermediate, and deep. A provocative and insightful paper. This paper was given at a conference, "Philosophy and Applied Ethics Re-examined," at the University of Newcastle in August 1993.

--William P. Cunningham, Terence Ball, Terence H. Cooper, Eville Gorham, Malcolm T. Hepworth, and Alfred A. Marcus, eds. ENVIRONMENTAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1994. 981 pages. About $ 175.00. Alphabetical entries, cross- references, appendices, general index. The entry on "Environmental Ethics" is by Christine B. Jeryan, Gale Research Staff, Project Coordinator. Bibliographic articles on Edward Abbey, Aldo Leopold, Theodore Roszak, Kirkpatrick Sale, E. O. Wilson, Peter Singer, Tom Regan, Holmes Rolston, and J. Baird Callicott (the latter two by Ann Causey), and others. Should be in every library.

--Thomas, Jack Ward, "Restoring the Agency's Environmental Ethic," INNER VOICE (Association of Forest Service Employee's for Environmental Ethics), vol. 6, no. 1 (January-February 1994). Jack Ward Thomas has recently been named chief of the U.S. Forest Service, replacing Dale Robertson, a highly symbolic replacement, since Thomas was a key figure in the spotted owl report, and Robertson, though in many ways a moderate, was too much associated with the timber cutting past. "In brief, a land ethic is nothing more than the acceptance of constraints on human treatment of land in the short term to ensure long-term preservation of the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community." "Such interest in a land ethic on the part of land management professionals has, for whatever reason, trailed behind the demands of a highly vocal segment of the public around the world." "Without skilled and ethical practitioners of biopolitics in natural resource management, natural resources cannot be managed. Biological information is not derived through immaculate conception, and politics can as readily be ennobling as corrupting." "We live in an age of euphemisms, half truths, obfuscation, double-talk, and double think. ... Tell the truth, all the truth, all the time. It is the right thing, the healthy thing, the professional thing to do." "Questions about ethical behavior do not ordinarily come in the form of a clear-cut challenge to honor and courage." A longer article is in Joyce K. Berry and John C. Gordon, eds., ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERSHIP (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993).

--Callicott, J. Baird, "A Brief History of the American Land Ethic Since 1492," INNER VOICE (Association of Forest Service Employee's for Environmental Ethics), vol. 6, no. 1 (January- February 1994). A summary of such figures as George Perkins Marsh, Emerson, Thoreau, Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Leopold's legacy. Callicott teaches philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.

--Bullard, Robert D., DUMPING IN DIXIE: RACE, CLASS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994, 2nd edition. 192 pages. $ 19.95 paper. To be poor, working class, or a member of a minority group in the U.S. often means being subjected to a disproportionate share of the country's environmental problems. How five African-American communities, empowered by the civil rights movement, link environmentalism with social justice. The second edition updates this struggle. Bullard is a sociologist at the University of California, Riverside.

--THE GEORGE WRIGHT FORUM, vol. 10, no. 4, 1993, is a special issue on "Sustainability, Respect, and Responsibility," with thirteen articles. Examples: Edwin P. Pister, "Some Thoughts on Sustainability"; J. Baird Callicott, "Sustainability in a Historical-Philosophical Perspective"; Gary K. Meffe, "Sustainability, Natural Law, and the `Real World'"; John J. Reynolds, "Sustainable Design and the U.S. National Park Service. Joseph C. Dunstan, Katherine L. Jope and Geoffrey M. Swan are guest editors. The George Wright Society is a nonprofit society for protected area professionals. The George Wright Society, P. O. Box 65, Hancock, MI 49930.

--Donnelley, Strachan, Charles R. McCarthy, and Rivers Singleton, Jr., THE BRAVE NEW WORLD OF ANIMAL BIOTECHNOLOGY. HASTINGS CENTER REPORT 24, no. 1, 1994, Special supplement. "From a strictly scientific perspective, there seems to be nothing RADICALLY novel about transgenic organisms." "From procaryotes to humans, we are all only somebody's next meal." "The tools of modern biotechnology allow us to intervene in nature in ways that are at least quantitatively, if not qualitatively different from our previous capabilities." "Technology's power also creates profound possibilities for moral abuse and environmental chaos." "There is a common conviction that both natural and economic systems run to their own, amoral rhythms, which for pragmatic reasons should not be significantly checked or undermined." "How important is it for us to protect, within the overall mandates of plural moral obligations, `original nature' and its still originating or creative dynamisms?" "Nature is no realm of essentialist perfection." "Effective policies and regulations must be designed to respect competing systems of ethics and competing interpretations of the facts."

--Adams, Carol J., ed., ECOFEMINISM AND THE SACRED. New York: Continuum, 1993. 352 pages. $ 18.95. In patriarchal religions, the earthly female body has been profaned, while the transcendent male spirit has been sacralized. Women, animals, and nature in general have suffered systematic degradation and oppression. Twenty essayists wonder what might happen if the physical, sensuous world were seen as sacred. Feminist and womanist analyses of traditional religions; emergent ecofeminist spiritualities, and the way they might work in practice. This book was previously announced as an Orbis book (see Newsletter 3, 3, and more detail there), but, in last minute developments, Orbis refused to publish the book unless a pro-choice article was removed, which Adams refused to do, thereafter seeking another publisher. Orbis is under the jurisdiction of the Maryknoll Order, over which Cardinal O'Connor has canonical authority. See book review by Carol S. Robb in CTNS (CENTER FOR THEOLOGY AND THE NATURAL SCIENCES) BULLETIN, Spring 1993.

--Engelbrecht, W. G., and P. T. van der Walt, "Notes on the Economic Use of the Kruger National Park," KOEDOE: RESEARCH JOURNAL FOR NATIONAL PARKS IN THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA 36, no. 2, 1993: 113-120. In an economic analysis, the present use of Kruger National Park creates substantially more net social benefits than would its conversion to agricultural use, but the question remains whether these benefits are equitably distributed at various levels of the South African society. Engelbrecht is with the Development Bank of Southern Africa; van der Welt is with the National Parks Board, Republic of South Africa.

--Freyfogle, Eric T., "Ownership and Ecology," CASE WESTERN RESERVE (UNIVERSITY) LAW REVIEW 43(1993):1269-1297. Private land ownership, the laws and institutions, and what this tells us about the relationship between people and the Earth. How much ecological wisdom and how much foolishness lies embedded within these basic ownership ideas. The law's basic messages about ownership and the human-land tie are misguided. The flaws emerge more plainly as we learn more about ecology and gain greater ability to sense how we are damaging the Earth. A major cause of the environmental crisis and a major impediment to change lies in our legal culture, our inherited sense of owning the land. The Supreme Court said, a century ago, "All property in this country is held under the implied obligation that the owner's use of it shall not be injurious to the community." "By now," adds Freyfogle, "We should know that the community of which we are a part includes the soils, the waters, plants, and animals that live with us on Earth" (p. 1296-7). Freyfogle teaches in the University of Illinois College of Law.

--Budiansky, Stephen, "The Doomsday Myths," U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, December 13, 1993. By exaggerating environmental dangers, activists have undermined their credibility, and triggered an anti-environmental backlash. None of the global environmental issues now under attack is a hoax. But by overstating evidence, by presenting hypotheses as certainties, and predictions as facts to create a sense of urgency, scientist-activists have overplayed their hand. Myth One: Fifty thousand species a year are being lost to extinction. Myth Two: Forth million acres of tropic rain forest are destroyed each year. Myth Three: The ozone hole is spreading. Myth Four: No serious scientist doubt predictions of global warming. Budiansky is a senior writer at U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT.

--Budiansky, Stephen, "A Special Relationship: The Coevolution of Human Beings and Domesticated Animals," JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 204 (no. 3, February 1994):365-368. Domestication represents a coevolved relationship, analogous with many other mutualistic partnerships in nature, in which loss of defensive and self-sufficient behaviors in a species is more than compensated for by the gain of food, protection, or shelter afforded by close association with another species. This is supported by recent scientific studies, and this undermines the idea that domestication of animals is tantamount to their subjugation or exploitation. Some species--dogs, cats, cattle, house mice, Norway rats, even gourds--have survived by their association with humans. The fittest strategy of the future may be a system of more cooperative, interdependent relationships between such somewhat tamed animals and humans, not an emphasis on those wild and free, untainted by human touch. Lions have been outcompeted by house cats.

--Westra, Laura, "Corporate Responsibility and Hazardous Products," critical review of Elaine Draper, RISKY BUSINESS (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY, vol. 4 (no. 1, January 1994):97-110. With an extended analysis of problems and issues in genetic testing.

--ENDANGERED PEOPLES: INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND THE ENVIRONMENT, from the editors of the COLORADO JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1994. 225 pages. $ 17.50 paper. Nine authors provide an overview of the issues and proposals for the protection of indigenous peoples and their environment.

--Pickering, Kevin T., and Lewis A. Owen, AN INTRODUCTION TO GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES. New York: Routledge, 1994. 336 pages. Paper, 14.99. Chapters: Introducing Earth; Climate Change and Past Climates; Greenhouse Effect; Acid Rain; Water Resources and Pollution; Nuclear Issues; Energy; Natural Hazards; Human Impact on the Earth's Surface; Managing Our Earth. Pickering is at the University of Leicester and Owen at the University of London.

--Smil, Vaclav, GLOBAL ECOLOGY: ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL FLEXIBILITY. New York: Routledge, 1993. 256 pages. Paper, 13.99. The magnitude and rapidity of global environmental change threatens the perpetuation of life on Earth, yet we avoid the underlying challenge of a rapidly deteriorating ecological system. The breadth and complexity of responses demanded require a flexible social response. Smil is at the University of Manitoba.

--Engel, J. Ronald, and Julie Denny-Hughes, eds., ADVANCING ETHICS FOR LIVING SUSTAINABLY. Report of the IUCN Ethics Workshop, April 1993, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, USA. Published for the IUCN Ethics Working Group by the International Center for the Environment and Public Policy, P. O. Box 189040, Sacramento, CA 95818. $ 15.00. 56 pages. Sections include: Martin Holdgate, "The Moral Challenge to Care for the Earth"; Steven Rockefeller, "A World Ethic for Living Sustainably: Sources and Principles"; M. A. Partha Sarathy, "The Contribution of Yesterday to the Ethics of Tomorrow."

--HÓsle, Vittorio, PHILOSOPHIE DER ÙKOLOGISCHEN KRISE (PHILOSOPHY OF THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS). M¸nchen: Moskauer Vortrge. Beck'sche Reihe. 1991. 151 pages. DM 16,80. ISBN 3 406 34024 5. Five lectures, introductory in character: I. Ecology as a New Paradigm for Politics. II. The Historical Roots of the Ecological Crisis. III. Ethical Consequences of the Ecological Crisis. IV. Economics and Ecology. V. Political Consequences of the Ecological Crisis. Like Hans Jonas, to whom HÓsle dedicates his book, HÓsle believes that a fundamental shift in values is called for, a shift toward the recognizing the absolute, non-relational value of nature. This consists in nature's teleology. At the same time, human teleology is, on account of its subjectivity, morally superior to the more simple forms of teleology found in the rest of nature, and humanity has an absolute duty to ensure its own further existence. These lectures were first presented at the Institute for Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Science in Moscow in 1990. Born in Milan in 1960, HÓsle holds a full professorship in Essen, and is one of the youngest such philosophers in Germany. (Thanks to Angelika Krebs, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitt, Frankfurt/Main.)

--Meffee, Gary K., and C. Ronald Carroll, PRINCIPLES OF CONSERVATION BIOLOGY. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 1994. 575 pages. $ 46.95. With chapter contributions by various authors. The chapter on "Conservation Values and Ethics" is by J. Baird Callicott, with box essays by Holmes Rolston on "Duties to Endangered Species" by Susan P. Bratton on "Monks, Temples, and Trees: The Spirit of Diversity," and by Roderick Frazier Nash, "An American Perspective: Discovering Radical Environmentalism in our Own Cultural Backyard--From Natural Rights to the Rights of Nature." By a team of authors. Other sample chapters: James A. MacMahon and William R. Jordan, III, "Ecological Restoration"; Gordan H. Orians, "Global Biodiversity: Patterns and Processes"; Norman Myers, "Global Biodiversity: Losses"; Gary S. Hartshorn, "Sustainable Development Case Studies." Eighteen chapters in all. Meffee is at the University of Georgia Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and Carroll is at the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia.

--Primack, Richard, ESSENTIALS OF CONSERVATION BIOLOGY. Sunderland, Ma: Sinauer Associates, 1993. In six months time, this work has been adopted for use in conservation biology classes in over ninety colleges and universities. See Newsletter, 4, 2.

--Edwards, P. J., R. M. May, and N. R. Webb, eds., LARGE SCALE ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION BIOLOGY. Cambridge: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1994. 416 pages. Paper, $ 29.95. Claims to be the first book ever published that examines the feasibility of using a large scale ecological approach to solve some of the world's most pressing environmental problems. Some topics: the effects of spatial scale on ecological questions and answers; animal distributions; metapopulations and conservation; definitions and categories for describing the conservation status of species; turning conservation goals into tangible results, the ecological component of economic policy; translating ecological science into practical policy. Edwards is in biology at the University of Southampton, UK; May is in zoology at Oxford, Webb is a researcher in Dorset, England.

--Solow, Andrew, Stephen Polasky, and James Broadus, "On the Measurement of Biological Diversity," JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS AND MANAGEMENT 14(1993):60-68. To ensure an efficient allocation of conservation resources, we need to define fairly precisely what biological diversity we hope to conserve, but that requires better measures of biological diversity. The authors present a general, and rather mathematical, approach to optimizing the conservation of qualities that, like species, change only with extinction. We have no good models for large scale problems, but this one may be useful for small scale problems, like the selection of conservation sites. The model measures diversity but does not indicate how to value it. Their model is applied to crane species. Solow and Broadus are at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Polasky is in economics at Boston College.

--Yaffee, Steven Lewis, THE WISDOM OF THE SPOTTED OWL: POLICY LESSONS FOR A NEW CENTURY. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994. 450 pages. $ 26.95 paper. The spotted owl case offers a striking illustration of the failure of our society to cope with long-term, science intensive issues requiring collective choices. Yaffee looks at that issue and proposes reforms to re-create natural resource agencies and public policy processes for the challenges of the next century. Yaffee is professor in the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.

--Alverson, William S., Donald M. Waller, and Walter Kuhlmann, WILD FORESTS. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994. 320 pages. $29.95. A review of the scientific and policy issues surrounding biological diversity in contemporary forest management, evaluating specific approaches proposed to ameliorate diversity losses. One such model is the Dominant Use Zoning Model with an integrated network of Diversity Maintenance Areas, which the authors have urged on the U.S. Forest Service in Wisconsin. The authors argue that wild or unengineered conditions are those that are most likely to foster a return to the species richness that we once enjoyed. Alverson and Waller are at the University of Wisconsin- Madison; Kuhlmann is an environmental lawyer in Wisconsin.

--Zaslowsky, Dyan and T. H. Watkins, eds., THESE AMERICAN LANDS: PARKS, WILDERNESS, AND THE PUBLIC LANDS. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994. 420 pages. Paper, $ 22.00. Revised and enlarged from the 1986 edition. Zaslowsky is a correspondent for the NEW YORK TIMES; Watkins is editor of WILDERNESS magazine.

--Noss, Reed F. and Allen Y. Cooperrider, SAVING NATURE'S LEGACY: PROTECTING AND RESTORING BIODIVERSITY. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994. 448 pages. Paper, $ 27.50. Land management as this conserves biological diversity. A framework for inventorying biodiversity, selecting areas for protection, designing regional and continental reserve networks, establishing a monitoring program, and setting priorities for getting the job done. Noss is the editor of CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Cooperrider was long with the Bureau of Land Management.

--Raphael, Ray, MORE TREE TALK: THE PEOPLE, POLITICS, AND ECONOMICS OF TIMBER. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994. 352 pages. Paper, $ 17.00. A sequel to TREE TALK in 1981. A running narrative that focuses on people's lives and livelihood in the midst of a declining resource base and increasing regulatory policies. Without an understanding of the economic and political factors that interfere with good forest management, all the scientific knowledge and the best intentions of on-site workers will come to no avail. Raphel is a writer in northern California, who grows timber and teaches school.

--Singer, Peter, ed., ETHICS. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. 415 pages. An anthology in the Oxford Readers series. This one, advertised as "not a conventional reader in moral philosophy," has a novel section, "Common Themes in Primate Ethics," with subsections on kinship, reciprocity, and sex, including such readings as Frans de Waal, "Chimpanzee Justice" and "The Social Rules of Chimpanzee Sex"; Jane Goodall, "Helping Kin in Chimpanzees"; Lorna Marshall, "Adultery among the !Kung"; Jesus on turning the other cheek, and Hillel on the whole Torah standing on one foot. Singer says, "In bringing together, as forms of `primate ethics', observations of the social behaviour of human beings and nonhuman animals, I am suggesting that we abandon the assumption that ethics is uniquely human" (p. 6). Ninety readings, with Mary Midgley's, "Duties Concerning Islands," in conclusion, although environmental ethics is otherwise missing. Nothing seems morally considerable except us moral primates. Singer teaches philosophy at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

--Garrett, Jan, "Aristotle, Ecology and Politics: Theoria and Praxis for the Twenty-First Century." In Creighton Peden and Yeager Hudson, eds., COMMUNITARIANISM, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1991). Studies in social and political theory, v. 14. Social philosophy today; no. 6 (Papers from the International Social Philosophy Conference in Vermont in 1990). Environmental philosophers frequently differ over whether the proper motivation for environmental concern is love of nature or concern for human good. Aristotelian conceptions of knowing, education, action, and community can be used to construct an attractive middle road. Although a certain kind of ecological knowledge disposes us to wish well toward the ecosystems with which our lives are entwined, this falls short of an adequate politics, which must make human beings the primary focus and appeal to the human good. Though ecosystems are communities that warrant appropriate respect, they cannot inspire as intense a commitment as can social communities. Anthropocentric arguments for preserving such ecosystems will have greater ethical force, because our duties to other humans are stronger and the sense of solidarity within human communities is greater. Garrett is in philosophy at Western Kentucky University.

--McLaughlin, Andrew, "Marxism and the Mastery of Nature: An Ecological Critique," in Roger S. Gottlieb, ed., RADICAL PHILOSOPHY: TRADITION, COUNTER-TRADITION, POLITICS (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993) Within the Marxist tradition, industrialism and the domination of nature have largely been endorsed as a potentially progressive expansion of human power and the avenue toward the historical realization of human freedom. But any dialectical project that acknowledges the embeddedness of humanity within nature should be skeptical of the project of the domination of nature. The Marxist project of domination is incompatible with a dialectical understanding of society and nature. McLaughlin is a philosopher at Lehman college in the Bronx, New York.

--Singh, Rana P. B., ed., ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS: DISCOURSES, AND CULTURAL TRADITIONS: A FESTSCHRIFT TO ARNE NAESS. Varanasi, India: The National Geographic Society of India, Banaras Hindu University, 1993. 256 pages, cloth. Rs. 500/-; US $ 70.00. This volume is now published and available. All articles are in English. Also published as THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC JOURNAL OF INDIA, vol. 39, parts 1-4. Twenty articles by international authors and fourteen book reviews. Singh is Reader in Geography, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, UP 221005, India. See more details in Newsletter, vol. 4, no. 3.

--Bongaarts, John, "Population Policy Options in the Developing World," SCIENCE 263 (February 11, 1994):771-776. The population of the developing world is currently expanding at the unprecedented rate of more than 800 million per decade, and despite anticipated reductions in growth during the 21st century, its size is expected to increase from 4.3 billion today to 10.2 billion in 2100. Past efforts to curb this growth have almost exclusively focused on the implementation of family planning programs to provide contraceptive information, services, and supplies. These programs have been partially successful in reducing birth rates. Reproduction rates have declined, often impressively, and the use of contraception has risen, statistically, from 10% to 50%. Further investments in these programs will have an additional but limited impact on population growth; therefore, other policy options, in particular measures to reduce high demand for births and limit population momentum are needed. The problem is increasingly not the unwanted but the wanted child. A serious problem is "population momentum," the tendency of a population to increase dramatically even after birth rates are reduced to a replacement level (2 children per couple). Good summary reading anticipating the U. N. International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in September 1994. Bongaarts is director of the Research Division, The Population Council, located at the UN Plaza, New York, New York.

--"Wild vs. Tame," the pros and cons of game ranching, BUGLE: JOURNAL OF ELK AND THE HUNT, vol. 10, no. 3 (Summer 1993):35-43. Jim Posewitz, "The Risks Are Too Great," says no, game ranching commercializes and trivializes hunting, and compromises the integrity both of the wild animal and of the human hunter. Robert D. Brown, "Perception vs. Reality," defends game ranching, selling hunts, as well as game farming, raising game to be slaughtered for the commercial market. Game ranching in many situations preserves the only kind of hunting possible in contemporary, overcrowded America. Posewitz, formerly with the Montana Division of Wildlife, now heads the Cinnabar Foundation, a conservation group. Brown is head of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries at Texas A & M University.

--Mealey, Stephen P., "Ethical Hunting: Updating an Old Heritage for America's Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Future." Keynote address at the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep Conference, San Antonio, Texas, February 18, 1994. "I believe killing wildlife, as part of hunting, is acceptable only when it is the true and artful climax of the hunting ritual, practiced as the timeless art of self-sustenance, with reconnection to, and participation in, the natural process of `life unto life only through death.' Full appreciation of this most fundamental and bittersweet process comes with full participation, and full participation through the hunt cannot occur without experiencing, first-hand, the kill." Mealy is Forest Supervisor of Boise National Forest. Copies on request Stephen P. Mealey, Boise National Forest, 1750 Front Street, Boise, ID 83702.

--Rydell, Robert W., Review of Matt Cartmill, A VIEW TO A DEATH IN THE MORNING: HUNTING AND NATURE THROUGH HISTORY (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), SCIENCE 261 (September 17, 1993): 1609-1610. The idea that human beings are natural-born hunters is rooted less in science and nature than in culture and politics-- another myth about human origins that cannot be privileged over other myths. Cartmill concludes that since boundaries between humans and animals are cultural, not natural, constructs, they must be redefined when they lose intellectual credibility. Hierarchical distinctions between masters and slaves and men and women have collapsed. If the cognitive boundary between man and beast is equally indefensible, we cannot defend human dignity without extending some sort of citizenship to the rest of nature-- which means ceasing to treat the nonhuman world as a series of means to human ends (see p. 223). Rydell adds that Cartmill ought to have addressed conservation-based arguments that regard hunting as an ethical and environmentally sound means for controlling population imbalances among some species. But the book is "a razor-sharp analysis that succeeds in raising doubts about deeply rooted and widely shared assumptions concerning the position of human beings in nature." Rydell is in the Department of History, Montana State University. (Thanks to Ned Hettinger.)

--Harrison, Frank R., III, "The Judeo-Christian Tradition and Crises in Contemporary Technology" in Frederick Ferr, ed., TECHNOLOGY AND RELIGION, vol. 10 of RESEARCH IN PHILOSOPHY AND TECHNOLOGY (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1990). Harrison gives yet another reply to Lynn White's claim that biblical religion disenchants nature and is largely responsible for the ecological crisis. Most environmental abuse has occurred in the post- Enlightenment era and against the background of many different readings of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Harrison is professor of philosophy at the University of Georgia.

--Linden, Eugene, "Burned by Warming," TIME, March 14, 1994. Big losses from violent storms make insurers take global change seriously. The insurance business is first in line to be affected by climate change; it could bankrupt the $ 1.41 trillion industry. Europe's insurance giants have already begun to lobby governments to take action. One big concern is the loss of the sand barriers that protect insured property along the coasts. With 50% of the U.S. population living within 50 miles of a coastline, sea level is now at the highest mark in the past 5,000 years and is rising as much as ten times as fast as before.

--Denis Edwards, "An Ecological Theology of the Trinity," CTNS (CENTER FOR THEOLOGY AND THE NATURAL SCIENCES, BERKELEY) BULLETIN 13, no 3. Summer 1993. Ultimate reality is understood as persons in dynamic communion. This means that all of creation, the whole universe, the biosphere on Earth, individual ecosystems, a living tree, a cell, or a proton can be understood as fundamentally relational and part of a network of interrelationships. Edwards is a Roman Catholic priest and theologian from Australia, the author of JESUS THE WISDOM OF GOD: AN ECOLOGICAL THEOLOGY, Orbis Press, forthcoming.

--Gelderloos, Orin, G., ECO-THEOLOGY. Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 1992. (Wild Goose Publications, Pearce Institute, 840 Govan Road, Glasgow G51 3UU, U.K.) 75 pages. Paper. ISBN 0 947988 55 6. Gelderloos examines post-Enlightenment translations of the Bible to find them biased by a cultural negation of nature. Bringing out fresh interpretations of language and context, he finds that the Hebrew and early Christian cultures were more congenial to modern ecological knowledge. This bridges the divine between scientific and theological perspectives, and uncovers much that is of ecological value in the biblical teachings. He hopes to reconcile the false humans/nature dichotomies of the Judeo- Christian tradition in the West and to rediscover an ecological harmony within the roots of that tradition. Wild Goose Publications is the publishing division of the Iona Community in Scotland. Gelderloos is professor of biology and environmental studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and has recently been visiting professor at the Centre for Human Ecology, University of Edinburgh.

--Oelschlaeger, Max, CARING FOR CREATION: AN ECUMENICAL APPROACH TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. 296 pages. $ 30.00. Argues that only the churches, as the repository of moral values that lie outside the economic paradigm, can provide the social and political leadership and power to move our society to ecological sustainability. All faiths have an emphasis on caring for creation on which we can draw, and religion is necessary if we are to solve the environmental crisis politically. Oelschlaeger is professor of philosophy and religious studies at the University of North Texas.

--Krebs, Angelika, "Haben wir moralische Pflichten gegen¸ber Tieren?" (Do We Have Moral Duties to Animals?), DEUTSCHE ZEITSCHRIFT FR PHILOSOPHIE (Berlin) 41:(1993)6, 995-1008. Subsections: The nature-ethics debate in general; The pathocentric argument in nature-ethics; four objections to the pathocentric argument: (1) The rationalist argument, (2) The formal ethical argument, (3) The "First comes eating, then animals" argument, (4) The "policing nature" argument. Krebs is in philosophy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitt, Frankfurt/Main.

--Crabb, Charlene, "Rio, the Logical Sea Lion," DISCOVER 14 (February 1993). A sea lion that understands deductive reasoning. The researchers claim that Rio could identify the third connection in a hypothetical syllogism 28 out of 30 times on her first try.

--Hess, Karl, ROCKY TIMES IN ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1993. 167 pages. $ 22.50 cloth. The park is moving toward an ecological Armageddon after "three-quarters of a century of mismanagement." The biggest problem is too many elk, of which park visitors are fond, that eat willows and aspen and depress beaver populations, which disrupts the whole riparian system. Also fire suppression is a problem. There are too many elk and too few fires. Park ecologist know this, but park administrators fail to listen. Hess wants to take the park out of politics and all the political and career moves that go with it. He wants to put it in the hands of a conservation trust, whose board of directors would include faculty at the state's universities and park employees elected by their peers. Provocative, sometimes reminiscent of Alston Chase, although Hess is amply critical of Chase, and not mean-spirited. Hess is a writer with a Ph.D. in range ecology.

--Rogerson, Christian and Jeffrey McCarthy, eds., GEOGRAPHY IN A CHANGING SOUTH AFRICA: PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1992. 306 pages. South African rand 51.75. With a section on environment, education and health. Rogerson is a geographer at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. McCarthy is a geographer at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg.

--Land, Richard and Louis Moore, eds., THE EARTH IS THE LORD'S: CHRISTIANS AND THE ENVIRONMENT. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992.

--Beisner, E. Calvin, PROSPECTS FOR GROWTH: A BIBLICAL VIEW OF POPULATION, RESOURCES, AND THE FUTURE. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1990. "Certainly the environment should be protected, but it must be protected for the sake of man, not for its own sake. Anything else is idolatry of nature" (p. 165). "It is man, not the earth or anything else in it, that was created in the image of God. To make man subservient to the earth is to turn the purpose of God in creation on its head" (p. 24).

--Diamond, Jared, THE THIRD CHIMPANZEE: THE EVOLUTION AND FUTURE OF THE HUMAN ANIMAL. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. 407 pages. Diamond claims that the golden age of indigenous peoples of the past never was. Preindustrial societies exterminated species, destroyed habitats, exploited their resources, and undermined their own existence for thousands of years, and archaeological finds at Polynesian, American Indian, Madagascar, Easter Island, Maya, Aztec, and other sites demonstrate this. The native peoples were not particularly either gentle or nature-loving. But they were more ignorant than we. "Tragic failures become moral sins only if one should have known better from the outset." Our scientific knowledge enables us to know that we are engaging in "self-inflicted ecological disasters." It is "beyond understanding to see modern societies repeating the past's suicidal ecological mismanagement." Diamond is a UCLA physiologist, cultural ecologist, and anthropologist, who spends half the year in New Guinea among tribes that were still living in the Stone Age until fifty years ago.

--Oreskes, Naomi, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, and Kenneth Belitz, "Verification, Validation, and Confirmation of Numerical Models in the Earth Sciences," SCIENCE 263(February 4, 1994):641-646. Verification and validation of numerical models of natural systems is impossible. This is because natural systems are never closed and because model results are always nonunique. Models can be confirmed by the demonstration of agreement between observation and prediction, but confirmation is inherently partial. Complete confirmation is logically precluded by the fallacy of affirming the consequent and by incomplete access to natural phenomena. Models can only be evaluated in relative terms, and their predictive value is always open to question. The primary value of models is heuristic. Oreskes and Belitz are in earth science at Dartmouth College, Shrader-Frechette is in philosophy at the University of South Florida.

--Gilkey, Langdon, NATURE, REALITY, AND THE SACRED. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993. 266 pages. Paper. Two partial apprehensions of nature have been vying for dominance in this century: religious, void of much influence from science, and scientific, unable to admit any reality beyond the empirical. Both views have led to the exploitation of nature, and the scientific may prove even more devastating from here onward. The fault lies not in the scientific knowledge of nature but in the assumed philosophy of science that accompanies most scientific and technological practice. Scientific knowing needs to be brought into relationship with other complementary ways of knowing, before there can be any adequate understanding of, relationship to, or conservation of the natural world. Gilkey is visiting professor at the University of Virginia, emeritus at the University of Chicago.

--Fawcett, Eric., "Working Group on Ethical Considerations in Science and Scholarship," ACCOUNTABILITY IN RESEARCH (Gordon and Breach Science Publishers) 3(1993):69-72. A Toronto group analyze and propose particular ethical codes by professional societies to suggest that they all address common elements, with the result that scientists and scholars agree to a common moral framework in the conduct of their investigations. "Living in a world in which all forms of life are interdependent, we recognize that human activity since the scientific revolution now threatens the future of life on the planet. This threat stems in part from reckless exploitation of the earth's resources and massive pollution of the biosphere by humankind, exacerbated by rampant militarism. To help solve these problems, scientists and scholars, and all those concerned with the welfare of life on earth, need to unite in a world-wide moral community." Fawcett is in physics at the University of Toronto.

--O'Neill, John, ECOLOGY, POLICY AND POLITICS: HUMAN WELL-BEING AND THE NATURAL WORLD. London: Routledge, 1993. 227 pages. paper. A broadly Aristotelian account of welfare that reveals the relation between the good of non-humans and future generations and our own well-being. Welfare and liberal justifications of market- based approaches to environmental policy fail, and this has implications for debates about market, civil society, and politics. Chapter titles: Nature, Intrinsic Value and Human Well- Being; Future Generations and the Harms We Do Ourselves; Justifying Cost-Benefit Analysis: Arguments from Welfare; Pluralism, Liberalism, and the Good life; Pluralism, Incommensurability, Judgement; Authority, Democracy and the Environment; Science, Policy and Environmental Value; Market, Household and Politics. This book is in the series, Environmental Philosophies, edited by Andrew Brennan. O'Neill is lecturer in philosophy at Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.

--Gibbons, J. Whitfield, KEEPING ALL THE PIECES: PERSPECTIVES ON NATURAL HISTORY AND THE ENVIRONMENT. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. Gibbons is University of Georgia professor of ecology at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

--Linden, Eugene, "Tigers on the Brink," TIME, March 28, 1994.
The cover story. Once considered a success story, tigers are again sliding toward extinction. This time the world's nations may not be able to save the great cats. Populations have declined 95% in this century; the two main factors are loss of habitat and a ferocious black market in body parts, especially bones and other parts used in traditional medicine and folklore in China, Taiwan, and Korea. A tragic story of human stupidity driving these majestic animals to extinction.
--Goodrum, John. "Situation Ethics," BUGLE: JOURNAL OF ELK AND THE HUNT, vol. 10, no. 3 (Summer 1993):79-81. Goodrum, while hunting, discovered coyotes taking turns chasing a fawn, progressively tiring it until they were able to kill it, while the doe and mother watched helplessly. Torn between the deer and the coyotes, and reflecting on his own role as a hunter-predator, he let the coyotes kill the fawn, later to regret it, and subsequently concludes that out of respect for his own humanity he ought to have had compassion on the suffering deer, although he also admires the coyotes. Goodrum was once an intense hunter, then gave up hunting for nearly a decade to think through his relationship with animals, then resumed bowhunting last year. BUGLE is the journal of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

--ReVelle, Penelope, and Charles ReVelle, THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT: SECURING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE. Boston: Jones and Bartlett, 1992. Cloth. 480 pages. Designed as a text. Part I. Ecology: The Background. Part II. Human Population Issues. Part III. Land and Wildlife. Part IV. Energy Resources and Recycling. Part V. Air and Water Resources. Part VI. Sustainable Global Societies. With two dozen box essays by guest authorities. A sample: Paul D. Raskin, "Sustainability and Equity." The authors are at Johns Hopkins University.

--Kidd, Charles V., "The Evolution of Sustainability," JOURNAL OF
AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS 5(no. 1, 1992):1-26.
--Norgaard, Richard, "Sustainable Development: A Co-evolutionary View," FUTURES, December 1988. 606-619.
--Sachs, Wolfgang, ed., GLOBAL ECOLOGY: A NEW ARENA OF POLITICAL CONFLICT. London: Zed Books, 1993.

--Slocombe, D. Scott, Julia K. Roelof, Lirondel C. Cheyne, Susan Noalani Terry, and Suzanne den Ouden, eds., WHAT WORKS: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF CASE STUDIES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Sacramento: International Center for the Environmental and Public Policy, 1993.

--Mayo, Deborah G., and Rachelle Hollander, eds., ACCEPTABLE EVIDENCE: SCIENCE AND VALUES IN RISK MANAGEMENT. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, paper edition, 1994. 304 pages. $ 19.95. "This volume shows that rational, critical approaches to value- laden risk judgments can be fruitful, making possible more sophisticated risk assessments and risk management that better comprehends the values at stake." - ETHICS. Now in paper and complimentary examination copies are available. Mayo teaches philosophy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Hollander is coordinator for Ethics and Values Studies at the National Science Foundation.

--Plumwood, Val, FEMINISM AND THE MASTERY OF NATURE. New York: Routledge, 1994. 248 pages. Paper. $ 17.95. The master form of rationality in Western culture has been systematically unable to acknowledge dependency on nature. Feminist thought can contribute to radical green thought and to the development of a better environmental philosophy. Some chapter titles: Feminism and Ecofeminism; Dualism: the Logic of Colonisation; Mechanism and Mind/Nature Dualism; Ethics and the Instrumentalising Self; Deep Ecology and the Denial of Difference, Changing the Master Story. Says Nancy Fraser (Northwestern University), "Puncturing the myth of `the angel in the ecosystem,' Plumwood aims to develop a genuinely critical ecological feminism." Plumwood teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania, Australia.

--Gorz, Andr, CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM, ECOLOGY. New York: Routledge, 1994. 240 pages. Paper, $ 19.95. Translated by Chris Turner. Technological developments have transformed the nature of work and the structure of the workforce, and we face grave risks posed by a dual society with a hyperactive minority of full-time workers confronting a majority who are, at best, precariously employed. There is a key social conflict in Western societies in terms of the distribution of work and the form and content of nonworking time, all affecting the relationship of humans to the natural world.

--Benton, Ted, NATURAL RELATIONS? ECOLOGY, ANIMAL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE. New York: Routledge, 1993. 250 pages. $ 17.95 paper. Debates about the moral status of animals are used to critique human rights discourse. Both humans and other species of animals are vulnerable to harm and require the same conditions for their well being, and the author develops a naturalistic, but anti-reductionist view of human nature. In a post-capitalist society, we need an ecological and socialist view of human rights. Benton is Reader in sociology at the University of Essex.

--Prades, Jos, Robert Tessier, and Jean-Guy Vaillancourt, eds., GESTION DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT ÍTHIQUE ET SOCIÍTÍ (MANAGING THE ENVIRONMENT, ETHICS, AND SOCIETY). Montreal: Íditions Fides, 1991. 376 pages. Canadian $ 27.95. Fourteen chapters, including J. Prades on environmental ethics, J. P. Waaub on growth versus sustainable development, R. Tessier on the foundations of environmental ethics, L. Gagnon on international dimensions of ecologism, U. Thomas on UNEP, J. Hofbeck on deep ecology, G. Baum on Polanyi and the ecological crisis, G. Lane on environmental and social ethics, M. Boutin on religion and ecology, E. Gaboury on women and environmental ethics. With a closing essay by Pierre Dansereau, Canada's leading ecologist. Prades and Tessier are at the University of Quebec in Montreal and Villancourt is at the University of Montreal.

--Prades, Jos, Robert Tessier, and Jean-Guy Vaillancourt, eds., ENVIRONNEMENT ET DÍVELOPPEMENT: QUESTIONS ÍTHIQUES ET PROBLúMS SOCIO-POLITIQUES. Montreal: Íditions Fides, 1992. 376 pages. Canadian $ 27.95. Fifteen chapters on sustainable development, acid rain, environmental ethics, religion and ecology, economy and ecology.

--Prades, Jos, Robert Tessier, and Jean-Guy Vaillancourt, eds., INSTITUER LE DÍVELOPPEMENT DURABLE: ÍTHIQUE DE L'ÍCODÍCISION ET SOCIOLOGIE DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT (INSTITUTING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: ETHICS OF ECODECISION AND ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY). Montreal: Íditions Fides, 1994. 306 pages. Canadian $ 29.95. Thirteen chapters: G. Baum on the social basis of environmental ethics, M-C. Gervais and B. Dumas on environmental knowledge, R. Tessier on ethics and acid rain, J. Hofbeck and E. Hofbeck on the Great Whale hydroelectric project, R. Babin on sustainable development in New Brunswick, O. Boiral on Quebec's sustainable development strategy, and others.

--Beauchamp, Andr, POUR UNE SAGESSE D'ENVIRONNEMENT (Ottowa: Novalis, 1991). Beauchamp is president of Enviro-Sage, Inc., Montreal.

--Beaud, Michel, Calliope Beaud, and Mohamed Larbi Bouguerra, eds., L'ÍTAT DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT DANS LE MONDE. Paris: La Librairie La Decouverte, 1993.

--Hricko, Andrea, "Environmental Problems behind the Great Wall," ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES 102 (no. 2, February, 1994):154- 159. China's two most serious problems are air pollution and water pollution; it is difficult for most Chinese to escape the adverse effects of pollution, judged for better or worse to be an acceptable cost of progress. An official report says, "As a developing country, China must unswervingly give first priority to her national economic development. ... Environmental protection ... must serve the purpose of promoting economic progress and improving the quality of life."

--Kaplan, Robert D., "The Coming Anarchy," THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, vol. 273, no. 2, February 1994. Nations break up under the tidal flow of refugees from environmental and social disaster. As borders crumble, another type of boundary is erected--a wall of disease. Wars are fought over scarce resources, especially water, and war itself becomes continuous with crime, as armed bands of stateless marauders clash with the private security forces of the elites. The world faces a period of unprecedented upheaval, brought on by scarce resources, worsening overpopulation, uncontrollable disease, brutal warfare, and the widespread collapse of nation-states, and, indeed, of any semblance of government. A preview, the author claims, of the first decades of the twenty-first century.

--ENVIRONMENT VIEWS is published quarterly by Alberta Environmental Protection, and is available free on request. A sample issue, Winter 1993, was on the theme, "Sacred Ground."
Articles include: J. Stan Rowe, "In Search of the Holy Grass: How to Bond with the Wilderness in Nature and Ourselves"; John Marsh, "Back to the Garden: Can Christianity Take Root in the Earth?"; Connie Bryson, "Earth Mothers: Do Women Have a Special Connection to the Earth?" Clayton Blood, "Blood Ties: On the Blood Reserve, an Irrigation Project Puts People Back in Touch with the Spirit of the Land" (Blackfoot Indians), and others. Contact: ENVIRONMENT VIEWS, Alberta Environmental Protection, 9915 - 108 Street, Edmonton, Alberta T5K 2C9, CANADA. (Thanks to Phil Pister, Desert Fishes Council.)

--SIERRA, March/April 1994 features an ecosystem approach to biological conservation, outlining twenty-one eco-regions in North America: Alaska Rainforest, American Southwest, Arctic, Atlantic Coast, Boreal Forest, Central Appalachia, Colorado Plateau, Great Basin/High Desert, Great Lakes, Great North American Prairie, Great Northern Forest, Hawaii, Hudson Bay/James Bay Watershed, Interior Highlands, Mississippi Basin, Pacific Coast, Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada, Southern Appalachian Highlands, and Southwest Deserts. Introductory articles by notable authors on some, but not all of these. With a pull-out map that can be made into an overhead (at Kinko's), this can be useful for an introductory discussion of an ecosystem approach to living on the North American continent.

--FREE INQUIRY, Spring 1993, is a special issue, "Does Humanism Encourage Human Chauvinism?" with fourteen short articles, for example, Eugenie C. Scott, "Us and Them, Nature and Humanism"; James Lawler, "Ecocentric Ethics"; Frank Cullen and Ingrid Newkirk, "Humanism in a Biocentric Universe" Bernard Rollin, "Intrinsic Value for Nature--An Incoherent Basis for Environmental Concern." An example of anthropocentrism at its best, or worse, depending on your point of view, is Jan Narveson, "Humanism Is for Humans." "What the current ecological movement is about is the capacity to enjoy a North American/European lifestyle, and to do so into the indefinite future. What is unique about it is its claim that we can't do this for TECHNOLOGICAL reasons. It isn't so." "There is, to repeat, NO resource problem, NO resource problem of consequence for the globe." "What's WRONG with things being in pretty good shape for our fellow humans, with every prospect of their getting better still if we can keep our wits about us?" Narveson teaches philosophy at the University of Waterloo. The whole issue makes good short pieces for classroom discussion.

--INNER VOICE, newsletter of the Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, continues alive and well, now in volume 6. The March/April issue features biodiversity and the role of forests in its conservation. For a sample issue, write AFSEEE, P. O. Box 11615, Eugene, OR 97440. Phone 503/484-2692.

--HUMAN DIMENSIONS IN WILDLIFE NEWSLETTER is a brief (6-page) newsletter, now in its thirteenth year, compiled by the Human Dimensions in Wildlife Study Group. $ 10.00 per year. Subscriptions to: Dr. David H. Thorne, Missouri Department of Conservation, P. O. Box 180, 2901 W. Truman Blvd., Jefferson City, MO 65109. Submissions to: Dr. James B. Armstrong, Editor, 331 Funchess Hall, Department of Zoology and Wildlife Science, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849. Phone 205/844-9233.

--Gray, Gary C., ed., WILDLIFE AND PEOPLE: THE HUMAN DIMENSION OF WILDLIFE ECOLOGY. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

--Rolston, Holmes, III, Longer Book Review of Rosemary Radford Reuther, GAIA AND GOD: AN ECOFEMINIST THEOLOGY OF EARTH HEALING, INTERPRETATION 48 (April, # 2):188-190. Quite appreciative of Reuther's extended critique of exploitation, but doubtful if Gaia is relevant. "Meanwhile, no one bothers to notice that there is nothing in the scientific Gaia hypothesis that is feminine, as opposed to masculine. The earth superorganism, if there is one, is completely unsexed, and the equilibrating earth ecosystem is not even an organism, much less a female one. The religious discussion simply takes off on its own, puzzled about the male and female elements in the divine, echoed in an ancient mythology, and thought to shape a male domination of women, about which the science, seemingly claimed to back the feminist claim, really says nothing at all. Rolston is professor of philosophy at Colorado State University.

--ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOETHICS, Second Edition, MacMillan, will be out later this year. This edition, in five volumes, will contain substantial entries on environmental ethics, animal welfare issues, and development ethics, largely neglected in edition one published in 1978, which was almost exclusively medical ethics. Warren T. Reich is the general editor, and Holmes Rolston is the area editor for environmental ethics and animal welfare. This edition has been five years in preparation. The first edition has received wide attention as a landmark reference work. More detail on the article entries on release.

--Noel J. Brown and Pierre Quibler, eds., ETHICS AND AGENDA 21: MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF A GLOBAL CONSENSUS. New York: United Nations Publications, United Nations Environment Programme, 1994. Paper. 187 pages. ISBN 92-1-100526-4. Available from United Nations Publications, Sales Section, Room DC2-853, Dept. 041D, New York, NY 10017. Phone 800/253-9646. Fax 212/963-3489. Ethical evaluation of the UN strategy document from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Earth Summit). Short, invited commentaries by J. Baird Callicott, Ross McCluney, Hazel Henderson, Holmes Rolston, III, David Rothenberg, Dieter T. Hessel, Jose Dualok Rojas, Larry L. Rasmussen, John Lemons and Eleanor Saboski, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Eric Katz, Peter Adriance, Samdhong Rinpoche, Sallie McFague, Mohammed T. Medhi, Bradley Shavit Artson.

--Howard, Walter E., "Animal Research is Defensible," JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 74(no.1, 1993):234-35. Howard argues that using animals for research, teaching, as food, and so forth is morally permissible since we treat animals less badly than does nature. Animal rights positions, he claims, are based on ignorance concerning nature's brutality.

--Bekoff, Marc, and Ned Hettinger, "Animals, Nature, and Ethics," JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 75(no. 1, 1994):219-223. Responds to Walter E. Howard (see above) by arguing that we do not want an ethic that sanctions human treatment of animals as long as it is better than what nature typically has in store for similar animals.

--Britten, Hugh B., Peter F. Brussard, and Dennis D. Murphy, "The Pending Extinction of the Uncompahgre Fritillary Butterfly," CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 8(1994):86-94. Found only on two Colorado alpine peaks, the species has low genetic variability, and persistent drought conditions in the 1980's have brought further decline. Human disturbance has been a factor, but probably not the critical factor. See comment in issues section below. Britten is in biology at Montana State University, Brussard is in biology at the University of Nevada-Reno, and Murphy is at the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University.

--Baskin, Yvonne, "Ecologists Dare to Ask: How Much Does Diversity Matter?" SCIENCE 264(April 8, 1994):202-203. Report from a workshop, sponsored by SCOPE/Global Biodiversity Assessment Synthesis Conference, in California earlier this year, on whether or how much diversity contributes to healthy ecosystem functioning. Mixed opinions, but it seems clear that some species are "rivets" (in Ehrlich's metaphor) in the Earth spaceship system, while others are only "passengers." Biodiversity is valuable up to a certain point (which may differ with different systems), but most ecosystems contain more diversity than is needed to reach peak productivity. See related item in issues section, below.

--May, Robert M., "Taxonomy as Destiny," NATURE 347 (September 13, 1990):129-130 and C. H. Daugherty, A. Cree, J. M. Hay, and M. B. Thompson, "Neglected Taxonomy and Continuing Extinctions of Tuatara (SPHENODON), NATURE 347 (September 13, 1990):177-179. The tuatara is a large, iguana-like reptile, the sole survivor of a group that flourished in the Triassic Period, now confined to a few islets off the coast of New Zealand. It has a well-developed third eye in the center of its head, a variation on an organ that has been reduced to the pineal gland in most vertebrates. The authors argue that there are three species, not one, and that the established view that there is one species has resulted in inadequate conservation, with one species now extinct and the others imperiled. Further, they wonder whether these two remaining species, quite disparate from superficially similar lizards, do not by some measures represent as much diversity as in all 6,000 species of more common snakes, lizards, and amphibians. Phylogenetic distance needs to be figured into estimates of diversity and into priorities in conservation. They suggest some ways to calculate this. May is a zoologist at Oxford; Daugherty, Cree, and May are biologists at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand; Thompson is a zoologist at the University of Sydney in Australia.



Issues


The first lichen has been listed as an endangered species. CLADONIA PERFORATA, Florida perforate cladonia, is distantly related to the common reindeer "moss," a conspicuous fruitose lichen that everyone sees regularly in the woods. It occurs in dry upland vegetation (scrub, high pine, and turkey oak barrens) of central peninsular Florida. Lost of habitat, primarily to citrus groves and residential development is the primary threat to the species. There are an estimated 26,000 "individuals" (if this is the right term for a lichen) at 12 sites. Thirteen other plants, two lizards, and the Florida scrub jay are also threatened from the loss of this type of habitat, seven are listed species. Of interest is the listing of an unglamorous, noncharismatic, nonvascular plant, on the strength of good data, and some persistence by interested individuals who turned around U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service claims that listing was "warranted but precluded by working on other species having higher priority." Listing data in FEDERAL REGISTER 25746, 27 April 1993.

Last huskies in the Antarctic. The last fourteen huskies left the Antarctic at the end of February. Dogs have been on the continent since 1898, but environmental groups, worried that canine viruses might be passed on the seals, causing fatal diseases for which they have no defenses, successfully banned dogs from the continent in the 1991 Antarctic Treaty, with the provisions taking complete effect in April 1. Australians and Argentines removed their dogs some while back, but the British Antarctic Survey kept theirs until the deadline. Scientists retired most of the dogs for snowmobiles in the 1970's. Brief story in SCIENCE, February 4, 1994.

William K. Reilly, former EPA Administrator, is now a visiting professor at Stanford University. In an address there on January 12, he claimed that EPA, following Congressional legislation, has been overconcerned with very small risks affecting a few persons, which leaves unattended other environmental problems affecting millions of people. Although some risks do need to be addressed with high priority, others will cost billions of dollars to eliminate, where the hazard of early death is less than one in a million. Chances of death by lightning are 35 times as great, chances of death in a motor vehicle 16,000 times as great. Removing this risk takes budget outlays that prevent other activities "like improving air quality and protecting coastal waters, the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and other highly productive but imperiled natural systems on which we depend. Federal budget outlays for a clean-up of contaminated federal facilities are out of control, ill-considered, and in need of a thorough review to base clean-up priorities on actual threats to people's health and the environment." Synopsis in SCIENCE, February 4, 1994.

Scientists don't want to save endangered butterfly. The Uncompahgre fritillary butterfly is going extinct naturally. Only 492 exist on two 14,000 foot peaks in Colorado, Uncompahgre Peak and Redcloud Peak, a species presumably in decline over the last 10,000 years, as climate has warmed in the Rocky Mountain West, and populations have declined precipitously since first discovered and monitored from 1978 onward. BOLORIA ACROCNEMA was listed as a federally endangered species in 1991. Peter Brussard, president-elect of the Society for Conservation Biology, says, "I like to think we are watching a natural extinction. Natural extinctions are part of nature, and I would like to intervene in natural processes as little as possible." But Michael Bean, at the Environmental Defense Fund, objects that we ought to save all the biodiversity we can. "If it really is the case that this is a natural extinction ... then my view is that it's unwise simply to stand back and say we shouldn't do anything to preserve the greater biological diversity it represents." Story in DENVER POST, April 22, 1994. See Britten, Brussard, and Murphy, "The Pending Extinction of the Uncompahgre Fritillary Butterfly," CONSERVATION BIOLOGY 8(1994):86-94 in recent literature, above.

Does diversity contribute to stability in ecosystems? This thesis, which is widely used to support biological conservation, has been under sustained attack by both philosophers and ecologists. Philosophers like Mark Sagoff and Kristin Shrader- Frechette have pointed out that some of the most stable ecosystems were the least diverse (e.g., salt marshes). Ecologists have argued that as long as there were one or two species representing each important ecosystem function, diversity was not important to stability. New studies presents empirical evidence that diversity does contribute to ecosystem stability and ability to withstand stress. More diverse prairie grassland plots were far superior at retaining their vegetative cover after an extreme drought than were less species rich plots. They also recovered their former biomass productivity more quickly. The more species an ecosystem has, the more likely it is to have some species resistance to drought, disease, or other stresses. Biological diversity, according to the authors of this study, is "nature's insurance policy against catastrophes." Even an ecologist who had objected to the diversity-stability hypothesis because it was "without any evidence at all" is now inclined to accept it. An unanswered question is whether there is a threshold beyond which more species no longer increase stability. Story in NEW YORK TIMES, February 1, 1994, p. B7. Another story in SCIENCE NEWS, February 5, 1994. A principal piece of basic research is reported in David Tilman and John A. Downing, "Biodiversity and Stability in Grasslands," NATURE 367 (January 27, 1994):363-365. See also the Baksin SCIENCE story in recent literature, above. (Thanks to Ned Hettinger for this and other NEW YORK TIMES stories, below.)

Instability fosters diversity? Some natural systems may be inherently unstable and such instability may actually contribute to diversity. A new study, based on a computer model of the behavior of the Dungeness crab, suggests that many animals undergo wildly unpredictable changes in their numbers even when they are unperturbed by disturbances. Total population numbers can remain steady for thousands of generations and then, without warning, boom or crash due solely to internal dynamics. Such chaotic behavior will be exacerbated by environmental perturbations making it highly implausible to think of these populations as tending toward an equilibrium state. This creates problems not only for managing and predicting the behavior of insect pests or fish populations, but also for ecocentric ethics that are based on the supposed equilibrium tendencies of natural systems and the belief in the destabilizing affects of human alterations of those systems. This environmentalist picture of nature is further undermined by the suggestion that such natural instability contributes to species diversity by preventing species that might dominate in stable environments from doing so and by continually creating new opportunities. Story in NEW YORK TIMES, March 15, 1994, p. B7.

Grazing on public lands. The Clinton Administration's Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt issued a new, compromise proposal for grazing policy on public lands. It doubles the grazing fee and increases the environmental standards that must be met on grazed public lands, while allowing local flexibility in implementation of these principles. Neither environmentalists nor ranchers were happy with the proposal. Story in NEW YORK TIMES, March 18, 1994, A1. Earlier this year, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, Jim Baca, was forced to resign because his strong stand for reforming public land use policies was too uncompromising for ranchers and miners, groups with whom Babbitt is trying to work. Story NEW YORK TIMES, February 4, 1994, Section A.

A proposal to measure the ocean temperatures by broadcasting sounds from underwater loudspeakers has pitted environmental scientists concerned with documenting and interpreting long-term climate change against those concerned that the sharp underwater sounds could harm endangered marine mammals. Story in NEW YORK TIMES, April 5, 1994, A12.

Feminism versus population control? In discussions over the wording of a document to be adopted at the UN Conference on Population and Development in Cairo this fall, advocates of traditional population control methods (e.g., sterilization, implanting IUD's, handing out contraceptives, and imposing quotas on family size) clashed with those advocating an alternative approach to population control that emphasizes the improved treatment of women (including expanding prenatal care, educating girls, and promoting women's equality). The traditionalists argue that their methods are working and worry that the new suggestions, while desirable in themselves, will supplant the old methods, given scarce resources. Women's groups are arguing that the traditional methods are demeaning and coercive and that birth rates go down when the educational, economic, and social status of women rises. Story in NEW YORK TIMES, April 13, 1994, A1.

Three Gorges Dam in China. Probe International, a Canadian environmentalist group, has released a second edition, 1993, of DAMMING THE THREE GORGES: WHAT THE DAM BUILDERS DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW (the first edition was in 1990, from a 1988 study), edited by Margaret Barber and Gr>inne Ryder. Canadian $ 15.95; U.S. $ 13.95. This is the principal document studying the dam project in detail and opposing it. The dam will form a lake 600 kilometers long and displace 1.2 million people. Probe International has also translated and published YANGTZE! YANGTZE!, authored and edited by Dai Qing, a Chinese woman journalist, and a book that has been banned in China. The English editors are Patricia Adams and John Thibodeau. Canadian $ 19.95 . Contact Probe International, 225 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2M6. Also see entry above under Andrea Hricko.

Rare species and ecosystems abundant in Great Lakes region. A new report finds that the Great Lakes region is a refuge for far more rare species and ecosystems than was previously known. In a region with some of the world's most intense concentrations of heavy industry and agriculture, there are 100 species and 31 ecosystems, like freshwater marshes or dune systems, with groupings of plants and animals that are either imperiled or rare on a global basis. Fully half of these exist in the Great Lakes basin exclusively or predominantly. The Great Lakes hold about 20 percent of all the freshwater on Earth and are the only set of lakes anywhere near their size in a temperate climate, acting as a giant heat sink. This makes for a unique climatic feature, providing unique habitats. There is one rare mammal, the Indiana bat. Story in NEW YORK TIMES, February 22, 1994.


Recent and Upcoming Events


--April 7-10. "Rebuilding Security: The Bomb, the Debt, and the Rainforest," the Peace Studies 6th Annual Meeting, at the University of San Francisco, CA. Deadline for papers extended to March 1. Contact: Professor Joseph Fahey, Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY 10471. Fax: 718/543-2132. Phone: 718/920-0305. Selected papers will be published in the PEACE REVIEW.

--April 9-10. "Religion, Politics, and Cultural Dynamics," conference at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, April 9-10. With ISEE session, see above.

--April 21-24. Society for Human Ecology, Seventh Conference, Michigan State University, East Lansing. There is a call for papers. Contact: Robert J. Griffore, Dept. of Family and Child Ecology, 107 Human Ecology Bldg., Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1030.
Phone: 571/336-3818. Fax 336-3845.

--May 4-7. Central Division, American Philosophical Association, Hyatt Regency Crown Center, Kansas City, MO, with ISEE session. Details earlier.

--May 22-24. Towards a Jewish Philosophy of the Natural World, Holiday Hills Conference Center, Pawling, New York. Conference by invitation. Includes participants from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (Conservative), Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform), Yeshiva University and other Orthodox participants, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. Invited presenters include David Ehrenfeld, David Abram, Eric Katz, Bill McKibben, David Orr, Joel Primack, Holmes Rolston, Mark Sagoff, Eilon Schwartz, Lawrence Slobodkin, Timothy Weiskel, and others, including Jewish scholars who will give special attention to the contribution of Jewish mysticism. Organized by Rabbi Steven Shaw, Director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10025. Phone 212/316-7441. Fax: 212/316-7404.

--May 24-27. Political Boundaries and Coexistence, conference of the International Geographical Union (IGU), Basel, Switzerland. Contact: Werner Galusser, Department of Geography, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 16, 4053 Basel, Switzerland. Phone 41/61/267 36 45. Fax: 41/61/267 36 51.

--May 22-27. Toward Earth Community: Ecology, Native Wisdom and Spirituality. Killarney, Ireland. The Thirteenth International Transpersonal Conference. Contact: ITA, 20 Sunnyside, Suite A257, Mill Valley, CA 94941. Phone 800/533-3641.

--June 1-3. Women, Politics, Environmental Action, in Moscow, Russia. Sponsored by Russian Association of University Women, University of Wisconsin Women's Studies Consortium, and others. Contact: Natalia Mirovitskaya, Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Profsouznaya St., 23, 117859 Moscow, Russia. Phone: 095-128-4694. Fax: 095-310-7027. Or: Sara Harder, Women's Studies Administrator, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, WI 54701. Phone 715/836-5717. Fax: 715/836-2380.

--June 1-9 (approximate dates). Conference on Sustainable Development in Central Asia. Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia. Sponsored by the Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental and International Studies, Mongolia; Central Asia Research Forum, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and United Nations Development Program, Mongolia Mission. Contact S. G. Tideman, The Organising Committee, 3306 Jing Guang Centre, Beijing, P.R. China. Fax 86-1-5015110. Phone 86-1-5012055.

--June 3-12. "Ecology of Russia," Moscow. Sponsored by Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Preservation of Russia, Scientific and Technical Development Fund of Moscow, Government of Moscow, and others. One emphasis is to reorient the developing Russian economy to use market methods to care for environmental health. The conference will publish a "Green Book of Russia" resulting from conference papers and projects. Papers are invited. Contact: Serge Y. Shomin, Manager, 103012, Moscow, Centre, Bolshoj Cherkassky Pereulok, 8/6, Russia Phone: (7-095) 220-5046, (7-095) 220-5069; Fax: (7-095) 928-5318. E-mail: serge@ecoros.msk.su (Thanks to Bob Sandmeyer.)

--June 6-8. Suffering as Human and Nonhuman Experience, International Symposium, Jagellonian University, Poland. Contact: Dr. Marek M. Bonenberg, Zaklad Etyki UJ, Grodzka 52, 31- 044 Cracow, Poland.

--June 7-10. Fifth International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Contact Michael J. Manfredo, Department of Recreation Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523. 303/491-6591.

--June 7-8, "Representations of Nature: Tolerant-Emancipatory vs. Oppressive-Exploitative," Calgary, Alberta. In conjunction with the Learned Societies Conference. A session sponsored by the Canadian Society for the Study of European Ideas and co-sponsored by the Canadian Society for Aesthetics and the New Gallery of Calgary, Alberta. Papers by Allen Carlson, Eric Katz, and Ari Santas, and others, and an art exhibition at the New Gallery investigating the representation of nature in the visual arts. Hiking trips to the nearby Rockies are also planned. Contact: Thomas Heyd, Session Coordinator, Department of Philosophy, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., V8W 3P4, Canada. Phone: 604/721 7516 or 381 2239.

--June 12, "Sustainability and Distributive Justice," Calgary, Alberta. In conjunction with the Learned Societies Conference. A session sponsored by the Westminster Institute for Ethics and Human Values, the Canadian Society for Practical Ethics, and ISEE. Papers are to become a special issue of ALTERNATIVES, a refereed journal published at the University of Waterloo. Contact Ted Schrecker, Associate Director, Environmental Ethics, Westminster Institute for Ethics and Human Values, 361 Windermere Road, London, Ontario N6G 2K3. Phone 519/673-0046. Fax: 519/673-5016.

--June 7-11. 8th Annual Meeting, Society for Conservation Biology. Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Meeting with the Association for Tropical Biology. ISEE plans a session, see earlier. For registration: SCB/ATB Joint Meeting Committee, Department of Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706.

--June 12-15. Global Strategies for Environmental Issues. National Association of Environmental Professionals, 19th annual conference. New Orleans, LA. Included a main track on "International Ethics Concerning Environmental Issues." Contact: National Association for Environmental Professionals, 5165 MacArthur Blvd., N. W., Washington, DC 20016-3315.

--June 15-18. The Fourth International Conference on Ethics in the Public Service, Stockholm. See earlier.

--June 19-23. lst International Symposium on Ecosystem Health and Medicine: New Goals for Environmental Management," Ottawa, Ontario. Organized by the International Society of Ecosystem Health and Medicine and the University of Guelph, with many other sponsors. Speakers: Henry Kendall, Thomas Lovejoy, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Tim Allen, Bryan Norton, Eugene P. Odum, J. Baird Callicott, James Kay, Laura Westra, Herbert Bormann, and many others. Contact: Office of Continuing Education, University of Guelph, Guelph, N1G 2W1. Fax: 519/767-0758.

--July 30-August 12. Applied Deep Ecology. Two week residential summer school, Shenoa Retreat Center, Philo, CA. With seventeen leaders in the field. Contact: The Institute for Deep Ecology Education, The Tides Foundation, Box 2290, Boulder, CO 80306.

--July 29-31. Voices of the Earth, Boulder, Colorado. Presented by the Colorado Sacred Earth Institute, sponsored by the Naropa Institute. An interactive conference that examines spiritual awareness and social responsibility from an ecological perspective. 1120 Pine Street, Boulder, CO 80302.

--August 4-7. Eleventh International Social Philosophy Conference, University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Plenary lectures include Bernard Rollin (Colorado State University), Margaret Battin (University of Utah), Peter Wenz (Sangamon State University, and Karen Warren (Macalaster College). This conference is co-sponsored by ISEE. Paper proposals to Peter Wenz, Department of Philosophy, Sangamon State University, Springfield, IL 62794.

--August 7-11. American Institute of Biological Sciences and Ecological Society of America. Knoxville, TN. With ISEE Session, see above.

--August 14-21. Turtle Island Bioregional Gathering VI, Camp Piomingo, Otter Creek Park, Louisville, Kentucky (by the Ohio River). Contact Shepard and Tracy Hendrickson, 341 N. Hamilton, Indianapolis, IN 46201. Phone 317/636-3977.

--August 21-25, with on August 24 (date pending final program scheduling) a symposium: Perceptions in Environmental Risk Decisions, at the American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, Convention Center. An all day symposium with over a dozen speakers and panelists from interdisciplinary fields, academic and industry. Philosophers include Bryan Norton and Douglas Maclean, Don Brown, also James Nash, an environmental theologian. Quite a mix of theory and in-industry and on-the-ground practice. For details contact C. Richard Cothern, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Statistics and Information Division, 401 M Street, S. W., Washington, DC 20460. Phone 202/260-2734. Fax 202/260-4968.

--August 21-26. Sixth International Congress of Ecology (INTECOL VI), Manchester, England. There are several symposia on ethics and ecology. Speakers include Andrew Brennan (Western Australia), "The Development of Interest in Ethics"; Robin Grove-White (University of Lancaster), "Who Shapes the Ethical Framework"; Calvin DeWitt (Au Sable Institute), "Religion: Help or Hindrance?" Darrell Posey (Oxford), "Ethnobiology and Commercial Ethics"; Susan Bratton (University of North Texas), "Human Demography and Christian Ethics"; D. Given, "Forging a Biodiversity Ethic in a Multicultural Context"; L. Laux and D. Erickson, "An Environmental Ethic: Does the Bible Tell Me So?"; G. L. Comstock, "An Extentionist Environmental Ethic"; A. Holland (University of Lancaster), "Structures in Nature and the Grounds of Ethical Significance"; Keekok Lee (Philosophy, Manchester), "Beauty for Ever?"; N. Siva Kumar, "Learning from the Past: Environmental Ethics from the Two Epics of India" and others. A contact is: Rev. Nigel S. Cooper, The Rectory, 40 Church Road, Rivenhall, Witham, Essex CM8 3PQ, U.K. To register: J. Lee, Chair, VI International Congress of Ecology; The Manchester Conference Centre, U.M.I.S.T., P. O. Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK.

--September 6-9. Ecology and Democracy: The Challenge of the 21st Century. Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic. In English. Contact: Organizing Committee, Institute of Landscape Eco