The PBD, the Lorax, Mars, ...

 As mentioned in class Tuesday...

 

Old Sagan posts... Sagan's (& Tyson's)  cosmic calendar... Lorax... FAM alternate timeline... Elon on Mars...

 

People also ask

Has Elon Musk been to Mars?

Who is going to Mars in 2024 NASA?

What did NASA and Elon Musk find on Mars?

Some people are dumb, aren't they?

==

Ozone basics (EPA)... Air Quality index, including Code Orange:

Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected.

But look out for purple and maroon!

==

I also mentioned the concept of Meliorism:

 

"...there are unhappy men who think the salvation of the world impossible. Theirs is the doctrine known as pessimism.

Optimism in turn would be the doctrine that thinks the world's salvation inevitable.

Midway between the two there stands what may be called the doctrine of meliorism, tho it has hitherto figured less as a doctrine than as an attitude in human affairs. Optimism has always been the regnant DOCTRINE in european philosophy. Pessimism was only recently introduced by Schopenhauer and counts few systematic defenders as yet. Meliorism treats salvation as neither inevitable nor impossible. It treats it as a possibility, which becomes more and more of a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become.

It is clear that pragmatism must incline towards meliorism..." Pragmatism by William James

 

I was wondering about the campus organization MTSU-SEA (Students for Environmental Action). Looks like there's activity on their recently-dormant IG account:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MTSU SEA (@mtsu.sea)

Questions Aug 29

AUG 29 EE preface, 1-2 (Origins, Earth System). GT 1.1--1.4 (thru Civilization and Extinction). WW I (Cascades)

Give yourself a base on the scorecard for every question you posted a response to before class. (You can also respond to your own questions(s) or your classmates' posted comments. Respond not merely with the author's textual statements but also with your own thoughts & reflections.) Exams are drawn from the texts mentioned in our daily questions.

My other Opening Day questions, if you'd care to comment further:

• What do you consider to be YOUR environment? 
• How does that relate to nature, the climate, and society? 
• Do you think most college-age students are concerned about the present and future condition of the environment? Are you optimistic /pessimistic/melioristic about the future?...

EE

1. (preface) What's the author's goal?
2. When did the term "anthropocene" first appear in print? 2
3. What is "the basis for marking new intervals of geologic time" (and thus the rationale for dubbing our time the anthropocene, the "age of humans")? 3
4. What was Archbishop Ussher's errant calculation? 5
5. How did Darwin birth a new origin story, and what did it imply about life? 
6. When did homo sapiens appear, on the cosmic calendar? 11
7. What's the IPCC? 13
8. Who wrote The End of Nature? 14
9. Who was the first scientist to propose that the Earth's functioning as a system was transformed by the emergence of the biosphere? 18
10. What is the Gaia Hypothesis? 18
11. What changed everything? 21
12. What did Charles Keeling publish in 1960? 25
13. Who was Rachel Carson, and what did she document? 29

• Do you adhere to biospherical egalitarianism and Deep Ecology (see p.7)? Why or why not?
• Does your "true self" extend to the whole of nature (8)? In practical terms, what does that mean?
• What's wrong with anthropocentrism, ethically, ecologically, pragmatically, or otherwise?
• In what senses are we apart from and a part of nature? Do any of those exempt us from ethical responsibility to future generations of humans and non-humans?
• Is Stoicism the wrong philosophy for this moment, if indeed it counsels that we should "follow nature" and comply with the status quo? (17) [What about Stoic Pragmatism?]
• If you don't feel "at home" anywhere, do you lack an environment? (18) [But shouldn't we feel at home everywhere, given our cosmic identity as creatures of the stars? -as Neil Tyson said.]
• Are you an anthropocentrist, biocentrist, ecocentrist, or something else?
• What do you think about "needlessly cutting down a healthy tree"? (26)

GT

1. Greta says you cannot be a little bit ___. 2
2. What is the evolutionary force that will decide the fate of every species? 10
3. What is the present cumulative total of global CO2 emissions? What was it in 1900? In 2000? 14
4. What percentage of human-caused CO2 emissions have occurred since the founding of the IPCC and the Rio Earth Summit of 1992? 20

WW

1. Warming of 4 degrees Celsius in this century could entail what outcomes? 6  What was considered a catastrophic threshold less than three decades ago? 9
2. What is a "hyperobject" and why is climate change one? 15
3. Why is Wallace-Wells optimistic? 34
4. What have we already left behind? 38

Sustainable Campus applications due Sep 27

From Danny R. Kelley, Ph.D., Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs:

In the fall of 2006, students voted to put in place a Clean Energy Fee to support campus sustainability projects. A university committee administers the funds generated by this fee. Applications are now being accepted for project proposals for 2024-2025.  Below is a set of guidelines used to determine a project’s funding eligibility:

 

Projects and proposals should focus primarily on:

 

• Renewable Energy
• Energy Conservation/Efficiency
• Alternative Fuels
• Sustainable Design

 

Eligible spending may include:

 

• On-site generation projects that utilize and publicize renewable energy technologies; such as solar array displays on campus;
• Opportunities that may arise to gain additional funding or offset costs through rebate programs, such as the Generation Partners Program provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Murfreesboro Electric.
• Up to 10% of the total annual appropriations may be used for research grants, as well as academic programs for educational, training, and research purposes, to help develop awareness of energy use, consumption, and conservation to be awarded within the MTSU community.

 

To submit a Clean Energy Fee funding proposal, go to www.mtsu.edu/sga/cleanenergy.php then click on “Click Here to Submit a Clean Energy Funding Proposal (toward bottom of page) then under the header “Clean Energy Initiative Project Funding Request” click on the application version of your choice. Email your completed proposal as an attachment to cee@mtsu.edu or send to Box # 57 or fax to 615-904-8093. The deadline to submit your completed application is FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

Danny R. Kelley, Ph.D.

Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs

P.O. Box 1

Student Union 330

Middle Tennessee State University

1301 East Main Street

Murfreesboro, TN 37132

 

615-898-5812 (office)

615-898-5001 (fax)

Introductions: who are you, why're you here"

My longer intro is in the sidebar here. 

My short answer to those two questions:

• I'm the teacher, and have been doing this at MTSU for about a quarter century. 
• I'm here because, like my favorite philosopher William James (1842-1910), I believe in philosophy devoutly and because I agree with him that "the really vital question for us all is, what is this world going to be? What is life going to make of itself?" We don't know the answer, but we do know that any answer we'd ever want to hear will depend on our successfully sustaining a habitable world on this planet

Tell us who you are, and why you're here, in the comments space below. (Try to say something more interesting and original than that you're here because you need the credit.)

See you on the 27th.

Dr. Oliver

Walden Pond: An endangered treasure

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/walden-pond-an-endangered-treasure/

Electric planes: The future of aviation?

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/electric-planes-the-future-of-aviation/

Is A.I. Making Mothers Obsolete?

…The novel [Hum] takes place in a dystopian world that is at once recognizable and subtly different from our own. Climate change has devastated the environment. ("If only the forests hadn't burned," May thinks. "If only it wasn't so hard, so expensive, getting out of the city, getting beyond the many rings of industry and blight.") Cameras and screens are as omnipresent as the pollution in the air; privacy, access to nature, and freedom from advertising have become luxury goods. Many jobs have been automated, including May's. Previously employed by a company that developed "the communicative abilities of artificial intelligence," May was laid off after unwittingly training an A.I. network that made her obsolete. Her husband, Jem, a former photographer, is keeping them afloat as a gig worker, emptying mousetraps and cleaning out closets. The couple's anxiety about the future has filtered down to their children, the eight-year-old Lu and six-year-old Sy, who are shown doting on a cockroach, obsessing over disaster-preparedness manuals, and rejoicing at flavorless strawberries. The kids fill their insomniac parents with love and fear. "What will this planet hold for them by the time they're our age?" May and Jem ask, clutching each other in bed...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/26/hum-helen-phillips-book-review

How to Be Truly Free: Lessons From a Philosopher President

Pepe Mujica, Uruguay's spartan former president and plain-spoken philosopher, offers wisdom from a rich life as he battles cancer.
...
(Unprompted.)

I think that humanity, as it's going, is doomed.

Why do you say that?

We waste a lot of time uselessly. We can live more peacefully. Take Uruguay. Uruguay has 3.5 million people. It imports 27 million pairs of shoes. We make garbage and work in pain. For what?

You're free when you escape the law of necessity — when you spend the time of your life on what you desire. If your needs multiply, you spend your life covering those needs.

Humans can create infinite needs. The market dominates us, and it robs us of our lives.

Humanity needs to work less, have more free time and be more grounded. Why so much garbage? Why do you have to change your car? Change the refrigerator?

There is only one life and it ends. You have to give meaning to it. Fight for happiness, not just for wealth.

Do you believe that humanity can change?

It could change. But the market is very strong. It has generated a subliminal culture that dominates our instinct. It's subjective. It's unconscious. It has made us voracious buyers. We live to buy. We work to buy. And we live to pay. Credit is a religion. So we're kind of screwed up...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/world/americas/pepe-mujica-uruguay-president.html?smid=em-share

How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points?

Earth's warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse.

Right now, every moment of every day, we humans are reconfiguring Earth's climate bit by bit. Hotter summers and wetter storms. Higher seas and fiercer wildfires. The steady, upward turn of the dial on a host of threats to our homes, our societies and the environment around us.

We might also be changing the climate in an even bigger way.

For the past two decades, scientists have been raising alarms about great systems in the natural world that warming, caused by carbon emissions, might be pushing toward collapse. These systems are so vast that they can stay somewhat in balance even as temperatures rise. But only to a point.

Once we warm the planet beyond certain levels, this balance might be lost, scientists say. The effects would be sweeping and hard to reverse. Not like the turning of a dial, but the flipping of a switch. One that wouldn't be easily flipped back...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/08/11/climate/earth-warming-climate-tipping-points.html?smid=em-share

Readers respond...

Peter Dykstra, Pioneering CNN Climate Journalist, Dies at 67

A former Greenpeace official, he drew on his command of environmental subjects to persuade his bosses at the cable channel to cover climate issues.

...A baseball fanatic with a deep store of statistics, he had an equally encyclopedic command of environmental topics. He drew on that knowledge, along with his mischievous wit, to sell his bosses at CNN on environmental stories, which they did not always see as fitting into the 24-hour news cycle...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/22/climate/peter-dysktra-dead.html?smid=em-share

Can words help us out of climate despair and toward repair?

…The Symbiocene. Inspired by the Greek symbiosis, or "living with," the Symbiocene was also dreamed up by Albrecht. 

"The idea of the Symbiocene stimulates all humans to create a future where positive Earth emotions will prevail over the negative," Albrecht wrote.

Albrecht believes that "positive Earth emotions" ought to define the next era of human and Earth history, making it a time of mutual benefit between humans and planetary systems. As an imagined epoch, the Symbiocene doesn't blame all humans for climate change, nor does it indulge our sense of fatalism and helplessness. The Symbiocene hints at an imagined future. But it also captures something that has always existed: Humanity, not at the center of existence, but as part of a system that's interconnected, dependent, responsible — to other species, to ecosystems, to life.

https://www.hcn.org/issues/can-words-help-us-out-of-climate-despair-and-toward-repair/

Old news

https://www.threads.net/@conservation_mag/post/C-wJOIwPohX/?xmt=AQGz5dSlk9SNhVFPnkEA5TDKQeVQI8k99jQ-2C5pnzdhcA

Climate anxiety

Are We Thinking About the Youth Mental Health Crisis All Wrong?

Global trends in economics, climate and technology are weighing on young adults, a report finds. It recommends overhauling how we approach mental health care.

...Climate worry is also becoming a more common complaint. Online searches for subjects related to climate anxiety have surged. Professionals have created peer support groups, an online directory of climate-aware therapists, and certification programs in climate psychology.

Michael, 38, who is using his middle name to protect his privacy, said that his anxiety over the state of the environment began when he was in his early 30s and he has since sought therapy to treat it.

"It seems like there's no care whatsoever for the world around us," said Michael, who lives in Baltimore. Small things, like seeing fleets of trucks delivering items to people's homes or trash in the waterways, make him feel angry or fearful about the future. The "reckless abandon" is "very hard to deal with," he added...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/well/mind/mental-health-young-adults-trends.html?smid=em-share

Tipping points

We're nearly halfway through the 2020s, dubbed the most decisive decade for action on climate change. Where exactly do things stand? Climate impact scholar Johan Rockström offers the most up-to-date scientific assessment of the state of the planet and explains what must be done to preserve Earth's resilience to human pressure. https://www.ted.com/topics/environment

Prichard collection

Hundreds of books, papers and postcards from the estate of legendary Tennessee ecologist Mack Prichard will now be housed in Special Collections in the James E. Walker Library at Middle Tennessee State University.

https://murfreesboro.com/mtsu-walker-library-receives-donations-from-personal-archives-of-legendary-state-conservationist/

Nature’s infinitely healing refrains

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter."

— Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)

https://www.threads.net/@philosophybreak/post/C-kj9wdMkeP/?xmt=AQGzEyHoqIQiqU4MmAD546MsaztNWFXcZImLRBeUJwqoCg

Welcome, Environmental Ethics class of Fall '24!

The syllabus is under construction and coming soon. Meanwhile, I can tell you that our texts are 

• Erle C. Ellis, Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction
• Paul Hawken, Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation
• William MacAskill, What We Owe the Future
• Bill McKibben, ed., American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau
• Greta Thunberg, The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions
• David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

I'm happy for you to access these texts on any and every platform (book, ebook, audiobook) you find congenial.

For more information contact Dr. Oliver – phil.oliver@mtsu.edu

(Posted on D2L)

How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points?

Earth's warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse.

Right now, every moment of every day, we humans are reconfiguring Earth's climate bit by bit. Hotter summers and wetter storms. Higher seas and fiercer wildfires. The steady, upward turn of the dial on a host of threats to our homes, our societies and the environment around us.

We might also be changing the climate in an even bigger way.

For the past two decades, scientists have been raising alarms about great systems in the natural world that warming, caused by carbon emissions, might be pushing toward collapse. These systems are so vast that they can stay somewhat in balance even as temperatures rise. But only to a point.

Once we warm the planet beyond certain levels, this balance might be lost, scientists say. The effects would be sweeping and hard to reverse. Not like the turning of a dial, but the flipping of a switch. One that wouldn't be easily flipped back...

nyt

We’re Applying Lessons From Covid to Bird Flu. That’s Not Good.

…Undeniably, the country is in a different place regarding the risks from Covid than it was two or three or four years ago, and it is perfectly justifiable that many Americans are less interested in hearing about Covid than they were then. Perhaps it is also natural to not want to hear about public health matters at all — the previous years were difficult and painful, after all. But to believe that means we should pass laws discouraging individuals from taking precautions, or to choose not to pursue surveillance measures to actually track the progress of a new disease threat, is a deeply pathological response to an experience of pandemic trauma, and one that implies it is more problematic to remind those around us of ongoing health risks than to take action to limit them. We seem to have memory-holed not just the suffering of Covid-19 but also the initial burst of inspiring if imperfect solidarity it produced, preferring instead to embrace the "bipartisan" indifference our pandemic tribalism ultimately yielded to. Thankfully, bird flu isn't making us pay for it — yet.

David Wallace-Wells

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/opinion/bird-flu-covid.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

“Your Friend, Wendell”: A 90th Birthday Tribute to Wendell Berry - Library of America

https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/your-friend-wendell-a-90th-birthday-tribute-to-wendell-berry/

Cherish the Earth

"To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival."
Wendell Berry

NYTimes: This Scientist Wants to Block the Sun to Cool the Earth

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/climate/david-keith-solar-geoengineering.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare