Posted on August 9th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
This chapter begins with a discussion of the reciprocal relationships between rights and duties, arguing that the latter are necessary for the right ordering of the former, and indeed that the recognition of reciprocal duties provides “a more powerful incentive to action than the mere assertion of rights”. This is surely correct, and it seems [...]
Filed under: Caritas in Veritate, environment, morality, reading groups, religion
Posted on July 25th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
Jody Bottum thinks environmentalism is a Christianity without Christ:
An original innocence in a Garden of Eden? Check. The ruination of that paradise by human action? Check. A sinful human nature? A demand to change your life? A looming apocalypse? Check. Check. Check. A redemption?
Well, no, not that: There is no Christ in environmentalism. The heavenly [...]
Filed under: environment, religion
Posted on July 16th, 2009 by JL Wall
by JL Wall
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would [...]
Filed under: environment, government/law
Posted on June 29th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
Claire McCaskill, for instance, twittered, "I hope we can fix cap and trade so it doesn’t unfairly punish businesses and families in coal dependent states like Missouri." The point of cap-and-trade, as I understand it, is that it fairly disadvantages people and businesses who are dependent on cheap coal and are harming the atmosphere. ~ [...]
Filed under: energy, environment, taxation
Posted on June 25th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
At dotCommonweal, I empty a clip on a baffling piece of anti-global warming propaganda from the First Things blog. I was quite proud of my concluding sentence:
If the First Things crowd ever decides to do one of those fundraising cruises that have become so popular of late, I know of a river in Egypt that [...]
Filed under: environment, science/tech
Posted on June 20th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
Ryan Avent’s take is similar to Kevin Drum’s, and Tyler Cowen’s is similar to mine. Unsurprisingly I agree with Cowen, though there’s one principle that he cites quite often that seems a bit unrealistic to me:
2. If a policy idea cannot survive the opposition being partisan and also lying about it, I submit the policy [...]
Filed under: environment, politics
Posted on June 19th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
Via Jim Manzi, I see that Kevin Drum is blaming the Republicans for the deeply cynical legislative sham that is the Waxman-Markey climate bill:
Why is there no line in the sand that the bill’s sponsors won’t cross to get support from midwestern Dems? Why are they so eagerly giving away the farm?
And the answer is [...]
Filed under: environment, politics
Posted on June 12th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
Both of them elsewhere, though.
First of all, I’m honored to have been invited to contribute to the Commonweal blog, and my first post over there takes on Joe Carter’s recent criticisms of “theistic evolution”:
If God is omniscient, then his knowledge of the course of evolution is eternally perfect - and whether the evolutionary process was [...]
Filed under: environment, personal, religion, science/tech
Posted on June 5th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
In which I respond to Conor’s post on a terrific – and terrifying – essay by Johann Hari, by reposting a now-vaporized column I wrote on fishery depletion for Culture11, over at The American Scene. Here’s the nub:
According to the conditions that prevail at the overwhelming majority of the world’s fisheries, many different fishermen compete [...]
Filed under: environment, food, government/law, personal
Posted on May 7th, 2009 by John Schwenkler
Berkeley’s undergraduate library currently has up a blackboard-sized piece of white paper and a bucket of markers, with a request for students to write down their suggestions on how to make the library more “green”. Among the multicolored contributions: F*CK FINALS, and Get reusable condoms for [NAME REDACTED]. (And yes, the redactions are mine.) How [...]
Filed under: education, environment, miscellany
