thought exercise on Environment

No one likes to talk about human population. Christians in particular are rightly wary of the ways in which population discussions have sometimes served to denigrate the value of human life and the bl...

Jan Boersema has argued that even one of the icons of environmental catastrophe, the “collapse” of civilization on Easter Island, was probably not nearly so abrupt or catastrophic as many assume. It i...

I am convinced that the scourge of our scientific and technological age is depersonalization. There is a heartbeat pulsating at the center of the universe, giving life and meaning to everything, but o...

But could you imagine how valuable it would be to be able to change people’s thoughts, actions, behaviors across a whole host of areas from one to another? This is precisely the question Dan and Chip...

Ironically, the best way to develop an attitude of responsibility toward the future is to cultivate a sense of responsibility toward the past. … We are born into a world that we didn’t make, and it is...

In a famous Earth Day 1971 Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly, the titular Pogo and his companion Porkypine are enjoying nature when they come upon a clearing filled with trash. Pogo says the iconic line,...

What we call “nature” isn’t the same nature our great-grandparents knew. Even if they lived as far south as Baltimore, they could cut eighteen-inch blocks of ice off ponds in the winter to cool their ...

Water is an essential requirement for any form of life. The earth is blessed with huge volumes of water at the surface, which is one of the main reasons why it is habitable. Seventy percent of the ear...

I once heard a description of what meals are like in heaven. The saints are seated on either side of a four-foot-wide banquet table. The table is set with delicious foods on every plate. The only thin...

The loss of furry mammals captures the public eye. The extinction of another few dozen beetle species—quite possibly not yet even known or cataloged—may not. Yet such losses may be equally troubling f...

Increasing urbanization also means that the capacity for a single disaster such as an earthquake or flood to affect a huge and growing number of people is now vastly increased, even compared to a cent...

In 1995, the gray wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a seventy-year hiatus. Scientists expected an ecological ripple effect, but the size and scope of the trophic cascade took th...

Does it ever seem like the world around us is changing at breakneck speed? Well, it turns out, you’re right. A team of researchers have concluded that the Western world’s “environment and social order...

In the desert outside of Tucson, scientists dreamed up an experiment to re-create the conditions of earth for space, when and if the earth could not be made great again. The biosphere was a little wor...

In 1879, the preservationist and explorer John Muir took his first trip to Alaska. As he explored the fjords and rocky landscapes of Alaska’s now famous Glacier Bay, a powerful feeling struck him all ...

The world, though, is protean: each generation has the world to deal with in a new form. World is an atmosphere, a mood. It is nearly as hard for a sinner to recognize the world’s temptations as it is...

The great danger is to always single out some aspect of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain. Such an error conceives of the good-evil dichotomy ...

The current understanding of the physical sciences, which contrasts sharply with the strictly mechanical perspectives prevalent in earlier centuries, aligns closely with the New Testament’s portrayal ...

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming sp...

Salt and light are both effective commodities. They change the environment into which they are introduced. … It may be argued that salt and light have complementary effects. The influence of salt is n...

Fifty years ago French sociologist/theologian Jacques Ellul warned that technology, in spite of its many lauded gifts, also presented great dangers. Its most important threat was its development into ...

We become who we are in the environment of home. We are shaped by our families. Home is formative. Sociologist Cody C. Delistraty explored the most recent scientific literature for Atlantic Monthly an...

Becoming a teachable person has two prerequisites: There must be a teacher and a person willing to be taught. Increasingly, Western culture has become an environment that celebrates and platforms the ...

Learned Helplessness can be easily seen in a research study when participants are given a math test. In this study, some participants are told, “men don’t tend to do well on this test,” or “Millennia...

According to Bill Tripp, a member of the Karuk tribe in Northern California and a forest manager, Fire is that which renews life. A lot of people have been conditioned to look at it as a threat and...

My wife is a big fan of an advice column called “Ask a Manager.” The articles offer a variety of subjects, many of which are serious, but some are downright hilarious. They often capture the absurditi...

In this short (and humorous) excerpt, author David Zahl shares a definition of the secular: Perhaps secular warrants its own explanation, though. My most immediate association comes from the belov...

I have been moved to a different course of action, however, inspired largely by my daily exposure to college students in a great university during the course of a preaching and teaching ministry that ...

As popularized in Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s fascinating book by the same name, nudges are small changes in the environment around us that make it easier for us to make the choices we want to ...

As popularized in Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s fascinating book by the same name, nudges are small changes in the environment around us that make it easier for us to make the choices we want to ...