ourtragicflaw

Having recently come out as a neo-Luddite , readers may be forgiven for thinking that my chief critique of nuclear power concerns the brazen use of dangerous materials without any real assurances of safety, including everything from the evident failure of "redundancies" in the face of a natural disaster to the prickly difficulties of radioactive waste disposal. As the Onion aptly put it, nuclear power is "completely safe unless something bad happens." While I wholeheartedly agree with this... Read Full Story

I coined the word technotalitarianism and gave a little introduction to it in an earlier post . A good definition of the term might be: a way of structuring a society such that the total experience of its members is increasingly mediated by technology. This introduces at least two corollary effects: as technological mediation of experience increases, 1) direct social contact diminishes, and 2) direct contact with the nonhuman natural world diminishes. A key feature of technotalitarianism... Read Full Story

Filmmakers Barbara Ettinger and Sven Huseby will present their award-winning film "A Sea Change" about one man's journey into the emerging science of ocean acidification, and its implications for his 5 year-old grandson. The film will be followed by a conversation about living in a time of ecological peril and how we communicate about that within our communities. In addition to the filmmakers, the conversation will be guided by a panel that includes Lisa Lynch, Ph.D. (Antioch faculty), Rick... Read Full Story

The airwaves are atwitter (literally, I guess) with argument about whether the present climate of heated political rhetoric was in some way the cause of Saturday's attack on Congresswoman Giffords. Here's a fact: as an empirical matter, it will never be known with anything approaching certainty ( small c ) whether or not the gunman would have done what he did had the general tone of public discourse been less violent. (Even if he were to come out and say, "I was listening to so-and-so... Read Full Story

The Meyer-Burgess Climate Questionnaire has been improved based on the wonderful feedback we got from those intrepid souls who took the first round of this survey. To those folks: Thank you! Please take the new round and tell us how much it has improved (or not)! You should find it more clear and considerably shorter. To everyone else: please give this new version a try. Thanks. Our purpose is to advance the conversation about climate change among regular folks--that is, the people who... Read Full Story

I would like to introduce a new term: technotalitarianism . (A Google search finds only two earlier ad hoc usages of the word.) It refers to the the total take-over of human experience by technology which, it appears, is the implicit goal of the commercial economy. It represents the total commodification of our experience. But the term has broader significance than politics or economy. Actually, it came to me in the context of Zen. Reading the words of the ancient masters it struck me how... Read Full Story

I am happy to announce that a new survey on how climate change is affecting people, developed by my associate Rick Meyer and I, has been posted . Please take it and let us know what you think. This is an early draft that we intend to revise considerably over the coming months. Your constructive feedback will help us develop a better instrument. The purpose of the questionnaire is (1) to stimulate new thinking and reflection on how we are affected by climate change; (2) to encourage all of... Read Full Story

I have now posted the entire book, in an unformatted version, on this website ! (Find the "Free Copy" link on the top navigation bar; there is a drop-down menu with all the content, chapter by chapter.) Of course I am biased, but I truly think that anyone concerned about the future of humankind and the natural world as we know it will get a great deal out of this book. I am far more concerned that the ideas here get wide circulation than that I sell lots of copies of the book. This is the... Read Full Story

This post represents the final installment in a series. See parts one , two , and three . I closed the previous post in this series with the following words: The deeper question suggested by determinism remains to be answered. Even as we accept the need to address the client "within the bubble" of conscious experience, does a deterministic worldview in any way change the therapist's work? How does it inform him? Does it somehow enrich the therapeutic encounter? As I attempt to address... Read Full Story

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