It’s not about the Animals

by | Jan 9, 2023 | animals

(This is a contribution to the Great Transitions Initiative’s discussion – this month, on Eileen Crist’s essay on animals.) What we have done to animals is a crime with a motive that has nothing to do with animals. It has to do with what we have done...

Hypocrisy at the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology

by | Aug 26, 2019 | agroecology, animals, Bad Advertising, beyond idealism, beyond liberalism, Biomimicry, Biophilia, Bureaucratic quixotic, Climate Change, Communication, Conferences, conservation, Decolonization, Discursive Gap, duh, eating animals, Energy, Environmental Justice, exploitation, Extended Producer Responsibility, folly, Greenwashing, Harm Reduction, Industrial Epidemics, meat, Normal is Over, Perverse Incentives, pollution, Syndemics, Systems thinking, Unpleasant Design

The ISEE, or the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, is an organization that one would expect to walk its talk. After all, it has been around for 31 years with its annual conferences, and is one of the most sophisticated and cutting edge of the...

Owning Life versus Thwarting the Hygiene Hypothesis

by | Sep 10, 2017 | agroecology, animals, Biophilia, Biosemiotics, Bureaucratic quixotic, Communication, conservation, deep ecology, Interspecies Communication, permaculture, Perverse Incentives, Plants, Priorities, Side-effects, Systems thinking

  With such a provocative title as “Pet Ownership Protects Us Against Allergies,” UCSF’s Dr. Homer Boushey makes the claim that children brought up with pets inherit some of their protective microbes that mitigate against developing allergies....