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A local example of arguments for and against a GDP-centered approach

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A local example of arguments for and against a GDP-centered approach

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A little dated (2013) but still representative of the core ecological debate

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A $1.4 billion construction project would be a big deal anywhere in the world, but for struggling Hilo and Hawaii Island's moribund construction industry, it's a gift from above - figuratively and literally.

"It's a huge project for us," says Dean Au, field representative of the carpenters union, referring to the planned Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea. "Hilo is the poorest town in Hawaii. Our economy is in dire need of an uplift."

TMT business manager David Goodman says 20 percent to 30 percent of the $1.4 billion will be spent in Hawaii, with most of that on Hawaii Island. In round numbers, that means about $300 million to $400 million spent in the state from groundbreaking in April 2014 to completion in 2022. That includes an estimated 300 temporary construction jobs on Hawaii Island, which has yet to fully recover from the financial crash of 2008.

Many of those jobs will go to carpenters and drywallers belonging to Au's union, the Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters. The carpenters were the lead union negotiators in July 2009 when a memorandum of understanding was signed with the nonprofit TMT's board of directors. Subsequently, 15 other unions signed on to the agreement that guarantees "area-standard wages," which means prevailing union wages for construction crews.

After it is completed, TMT will provide an estimated 120 to 140 permanent jobs in Hilo and on Mauna Kea, according to organizers. Additional work, such as computer and network support and machine shop projects, will be contracted locally. For instance, in August, a Hawaii firm was hired to conduct geotechnical tests at the site at a cost of $600,000.

The Thirty Meter Telescope will be the largest and most powerful telescope in the world when it comes online on Mauna Kea in 2022. Planned, designed and financed by an international consortium led by the nonprofit TMT Observatory Corp. of Pasadena, Calif., its partners are the California Institute of Technology, University of California, Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Chinese Academy of Sciences and India's Department of Science and Technology. The University of Hawaii is not a TMT partner, but it traditionally receives observing time at observatories on Mauna Kea, which sublease land from UH.

Local Impact

During construction, materials, labor, administrative and support activities will ramp up in Hilo and elsewhere on the Island. A shipping and storage facility must be established to stage materials and equipment brought from the U.S. mainland and overseas. Much of the pre-assembly will be done at sea level to avoid the constraints of working at the 13,000-foot altitude of the final telescope. The consortium says a resident team of managers and technicians, including local hires, will conduct ongoing assembly, integration, and verification and testing at this sea-level site.

"This is a tremendous opportunity, not only for the Big Island, but the rest of the state as well," says Dwight Takamine, director of the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. "Our department is committed to maximizing the opportunities this project represents, economic and otherwise. We want to make sure that local workers, their families and the business community all benefit from it."

The cutting-edge observatory will be located atop the dormant volcano, above 13,000 feet and above 40 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. It will join a cluster of 11 existing observatories built there since 1966. Back in 1967, the Mauna Kea Conservation District was established, delineating an 11,288-acre domain for scientific uses, essentially the entire summit from the 11,000-foot level on up. It is now called the Mauna Kea Science Reserve. The University of Hawaii leased the land from the Hawaiian Board of Land and Natural Resources at a price of $1 per year. Five of those acres have been sub-leased from UH by TMT. The annual rent is yet to be negotiated but must be "substantial," according to Act 132, passed by the state Legislature in 2009. The state will no longer authorize dollar-a-year deals.

Astronomer Gordon Squires, TMT communications and outreach lead, says TMT will be three times larger than the most powerful optical telescopes on Earth today. Its segmented, 492-mirror lens will reveal the universe with up to 80 times more image sharpness of the largest existing ground-based telescopes. Utilizing advanced infrared and optical technology, it will allow astronomers to explore the origins of galaxies, study the birth and death of stars, and probe the cosmic mysteries of super-massive black holes.

Opposition

Historically, the summits of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea have held a significant place in Hawaiian culture. According to ancient custom, only chiefs and priests were allowed to climb above the tree line. Archaeologists have identified 93 culturally significant sites on Mauna Kea's cold, desolate summit: shrines, adze workshops and graves.

Local objections to the TMT were presented and considered at some 20 public hearings and meetings during the nearly five-year application process. Consequently, a 126-page conservation district use permit was issued in 2012, followed by approval of that permit by the state Board of Land and Natural Resources in April 2013.

Though groundbreaking is scheduled for April 2014, organized opposition continues. In May, an appeal to the land use permit was filed in Hawaii's Sixth Circuit Court by a coalition of private citizens and cultural groups. The nine-point appeal is based on cultural, environmental and administrative issues the petitioners claim have not yet been satisfactorily addressed.

"If we say 'Yes' to more development, we are saying yes to the desecration of our temple and our ancestors, yes to the destruction of our waters and yes to the possible extinction of life itself," opposition leader Kealoha Pisciotta told the Big Island Weekly in June 2013.

The author of that cover story, Jamie Winpenny, continued, "Despite its severe, arid environment, Mauna Kea's summit is a rich ecological system. It is home to numerous, uniquely adapted native plants and creatures that include moths, caterpillars, spiders, and the tiny, predatory wekiu insect, which can survive temperatures far below freezing. The habitats in which these species thrive are fragile and delicate in the extreme. A single human footfall can cause irreparable harm. The construction of the TMT will irrefutably accelerate the loss of species and habitats that are even now on the brink of extinction."

Community Outreach

On his first visit to Hawaii Island in 2005, as plans for the new observatory took shape, Henry Yang, chancellor of the University of California at Santa Barbara and board chairman of TMT Observatory Corp., was told that many Islanders resented the 11 observatories already perched atop Mauna Kea. Opponents of the telescopes atop Mauna Kea said that, though the observatories participate in education and outreach, they are not fully engaged with or supportive of the local community, rarely hire local staff for high-tech jobs and do not share funding or their stellar discoveries.

The TMT response was to create a better "good-neighbor" policy and become a more active member of the community. One avenue it chose was education, specifically in the fields of science, math, engineering and astronomy.

That was five years ago. Today, thanks to the efforts of its community affairs manager, Sandra Dawson, TMT's presence is strongly felt throughout the Island's elementary, middle and high schools. She and TMT have helped start or support 13 school programs and pulled in participation from TMT's partners on the mainland and from around the world.

Robotics

One teacher who welcomes TMT's support is Dale Olive, a science teacher at Waiakea High School in Hilo. Olive and many other science educators have discovered that designing, building and programming robots can inspire students, even those who previously had zero interest in science. A few years ago, Olive had discovered some small, programmable robots that were perfect for classroom use, but he needed funding to introduce them to his curriculum. Dawson agreed to provide the money. In fact, TMT has sponsored 28 classroom robotics programs around Hawaii Island and helped many more local kids compete in the state tournaments on Oahu, as well as mainland and foreign tournaments.

Olive's student robotics teams excel in local, statewide, national and international tournaments, and he has taken his techniques to other islands, holding classes for science teachers and parents to spread the word about robotics and how it helps learning in the classroom. "I have to give credit to Sandra," he says. "Without her financial assistance this program may never have gotten off the ground."

TMT's support for science and robotics education has come in many forms, Dawson says. "We funded a two-week class for high school students in conjunction with Hawaii Community College, where new curricula was developed and used. We also contributed funds for teachers to do additional oversight of a high-school mentoring program, along with funding and participation in the Akamai Workforce Initiative, where students spend a week in classes with new science curricula. Both programs include career guidance. We also sponsored three workshops for teachers where new curricula was provided, but do not know yet if this curricula has been implemented."

In July, TMT sponsored and hosted the inaugural Pacific Astronomy and Engineering Summit in Hilo with students from high schools in Canada, China, India, Japan and on Hawaii Island. "It was a huge success," Dawson says, "and initiated TMT's international education/workforce pipeline program. The students learned about each other's culture, joined in engineering and science workshops, and began what we hope are lifelong friendships and networks."

The education funding will be formalized in 2014 when observatory construction begins. The TMT board has committed $1 million per year to a new fund called THINK for The Hawaii Island New Knowledge. The grant will be split between the Hawaii Community Foundationand the Ke Alii Pauahi Foundation. A local committee, now being selected, will determine distribution of the money through scholarships and educational grants. "Our THINK fund will not only provide scholarships, but will work to keep students in college," Dawson says. "We are very optimistic that we can make a difference."

Takamine, the state labor director, says the THINK fund "will provide some real focus on math and science education for those kids who dream about becoming scientists and astronomers."

Inspired by robotics and sometimes by TMT itself, many young people on Hawaii Island are planning on careers in science. In fact, Dean Au of the carpenters union points to his son Jacob, an eighth grader at St. Joseph's School in Hilo. After learning how to program robots and competing in a VEX robotics tournament sponsored by TMT, Jacob has decided to become an engineer.

Will the enthusiasm of Jacob and other students for science last? Dawson points to a study of the Akamai Workforce Initiative: "Here is the best data we have: Five years after completing the program, over 80 percent of the participants are still in STEM college education or career tracks. The national average after five years is less than 30 percent. TMT is only one supporter of this program, but we are excited about its success and will continue to support it."

Mauna Kea: What's It Worth to Local economy

There are 12 telescope facilities in full operation on Mauna Kea, including the two Keck facilities. The University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy provided this look at their economic impact.
* Original cost, not adjusted for inflation and not including subsequent capital improvements.
Want an Observatory Job?

Jim Kennedy, the former head of the Frederick C. Gillett Gemini Telescope on Mauna Kea and a member of the Hawaii County Workforce Investment Board, collected these facts for a report on the Mauna Kea observatories. Though the report was prepared in 2010, Kennedy assured Hawaii Business that the projections are still accurate. Here are some of his findings:

More than 80% of the jobs in a typical observatory are not in research fields

Most jobs only require two or four years of college education.

"Observatories prefer local hires whenever possible, but there aren't enough qualified local applicants."

- Jim Kennedy, former head of the Gemini Telescope

2007 survey of Hawaii Island observatories' technical and administrative staff

Technology education offers the most employment opportunities

Mechanical & Electronics Jobs
About evenly split between two-year community college and four-year university training programs.

Software Jobs
Usually require four-year university degree

about 20 jobs each
2010-2014

about 57 jobs each
2015-2023

about 16 jobs each
2010-2014

about 47 jobs each
2015-2023

Correction Sept. 16, 2013: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed a story to the Big Island Chronicle. The story appeared in the Big Island Weekly.

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Thirty Meter Telescope could boost Hawaii Island's economy

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A $1.4 billion construction project would be a big deal anywhere in the world, but for struggling Hilo and Hawaii Island's moribund construction industry, it's a gift from above - figuratively and literally. "It's a huge project for us," says Dean Au, field representative of the carpenters union, referring to the planned Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea.

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Is giving natural things personhood rights the right response to anthropocentrism?

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Is giving natural things personhood rights the right response to anthropocentrism?

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IT SOUNDS, admits Chris Finlayson, like a "pretty nutty" idea. Yet the new law that declares the Whanganui river, New Zealand's third-longest, a legal person, in the sense that it can own property, incur debts and petition the courts, is not unprecedented. Te Urewera, an area of forested hills in the north-east that used to be a national park, became a person for legal purposes in 2014. And around the world companies, foundations and assorted units of government have legal rights and responsibilities independent of the people who staff them. All the same, New Zealanders have been joking about whether the Whanganui might now vote, buy a few beers (how old is it?) or be charged with murder if a swimmer drowns.

The law, which was approved on March 15th, stems from disputes over the Treaty of Waitangi, by which New Zealand's indigenous Maori ceded sovereignty to British colonialists in 1840. The treaty was supposed to have protected Maori rights and property; it was observed mainly in the breach. In recent years the government has tried to negotiate settlements for breaches of the treaty with different Maori iwi, or tribes. For the Whanganui iwi, the idea of the river as a person is nothing new. The iwi professes a deep spiritual connection to the Whanganui: as a local proverb has it, "I am the river and the river is me." The law acknowledges the river as a "living whole", rather than trying to carve it up, putting to rest an ownership dispute that has dragged on for 140 years. When it was passed, members of the iwi in the gallery of parliament broke into a ten-minute song of celebration.
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In practice, two guardians will act for the river, one appointed by the government and one by the iwi. Mr Finlayson, the minister in charge of negotiations tied to the Treaty of Waitangi, hopes the change will help bring those who do environmental damage to the river to book. Under the settlement the government will also pay the iwi NZ$80m ($56m) as compensation for past abuses and set up a fund of NZ$30m to enhance the "health and well-being" of the river. It is one of 82 deals that aim to remedy breaches of the treaty, including one with the Tuhoe iwi that made Te Urewera into a person.

Days after the law passed, an Indian court declared two of the biggest and most sacred rivers in India, the Ganges and Yamuna, to be people too. Making explicit reference to the Whanganui settlement, the court assigned legal "parents" to protect and conserve their waters. Local lawyers think the ruling might help fight severe pollution: the rivers' defenders will no longer have to prove that discharges into them harm anyone, since any sullying of the waters will now be a crime against the river itself. There is no doubt that of the 1.3bn-odd people in India, the Ganges and the Yamuna are among the most downtrodden.

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IT SOUNDS, admits Chris Finlayson, like a "pretty nutty" idea. Yet the new law that declares the Whanganui river, New Zealand's third-longest, a legal person, in the sense that it can own property, incur debts and petition the courts, is not unprecedented.

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Many of you mentioned recycling in your reflections this week. What do you think will change now that we must change the way we recycle?

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For years, China has been the world's plastic waste dump. Single use water bottles, yogurt cups, hummus containers, and countless other sundries we take for granted were shipped from developed countries to China for recycling.

But a 2017 ban on the import of non-industrial waste is changing all that. Now, plastic once bound for Chinese recycling plants is being sent to landfills as the country cracks down on plastic waste streaming into its borders. This is becoming ahuge issue.

A new paper quantifies just how much plastic waste China has taken in over the past 28 years and how much excess plastic the rest of the world will be left to deal with if the ban stays in place. The answer isn't pretty: 14.1 million metric tons of plastic were exported for recycling globally in 2016, according to the findings published on Wednesday in Science Advances.

That represents an 817 percent increase in the amount of plastic exported in 1988, the first year of data. Nearly three-quarters of that plastic ended up being sent directly to China or through Hong Kong.

The vast majority of that plastic comes from developed countries, and the study expects plastic exports will continue to rise into the future. Without China to recycle it, 111 million cumulative metric tons of plastic waste-the equivalent of about 20.4 million African elephants-will be "displaced" by 2030. Displaced is a nice way of say we have no idea where it's going to go.

Other eastern Asian countries handle most of the plastic recycling that China doesn't, but they're nowhere near equipped to handle an influx of that size. And while some cities and states in developed countries are moving to curb the use of plastic bags and straws, those moves are a drop in the plastic supply bucket.

Right now, more and more of that plastic is being diverted to landfills. And let's not forget the plastic streaming into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or even the hinterlands of the high Arctic. It's even in our beer.

All this illustrates the peril of relying on one market to handle recycling, as well as the hubris that the convenience of single-use items outweighs the consequences. The research suggests that countries could take more responsibility for recycling their own plastic or that countries doing the importing levy a tax to help improve their own waste management and infrastructure.

The growing problem has been on others' minds as well. Last year, researchers called for a global agreement governing how we deal with plastic, which they dubbed a "global threat." The new findings show that threat is only likely to become more dire.

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China's Plastic Waste Ban Will Create a Huge Issue For the World

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For years, China has been the world's plastic waste dump. Single use water bottles, yogurt cups, hummus containers, and countless other sundries we take for granted were shipped from developed countries to China for recycling. But a 2017 ban on the import of non-industrial waste is changing all that.

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Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press)

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Environmental Economics: A Very Short Introduction

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What do you think?

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How Free Markets Will Beat Climate Change: Q&A with UCLA's Matthew Kahn

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Typing your answers into a word processing document and then copy and pasting your answers into the google form might be a more friendly format than composing your answers directly on the form. Good luck! :)

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If you use any sources besides the textbook, please list them as the last sentence of your answer to the essay question you used it for. If you quote from the textbook, use quotation marks.

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Be sure to cite your sources! :)

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This article includes plot details about Mad Max: Fury Road. To read a spoiler-free review, click right here.

I went into Mad Max: Fury Road expecting to see a lot of explosions. The film's trailer made the movie look like one long bloodbath, with bizarre baddies on souped-up vehicles racing through the desert while our stoney-faced hero defended himself with a stockpile of guns, bombs, and whatever stabby thing was within reach. I was surprised to find, then, that the film is actually not about the glory of blowing shit up. Instead, Fury Road says violence is not the answer-the strongest humans in the film are those who are empathetic, tender, and devoted to fostering the growth of both plants and people.

Mad Max opens on a clear villain: A patriarch with a scary facemask who has built a small society on the foundations of gas, war, and fear. Immortan Joe's desert Citadel literally farms women, using their bodies to produce and sustain an army of War Boys. In a brief scene that's now forever seared into my memory, we see a room full of women hooked up to machines that extract their breastmilk, like they're cows. In addition to using women as heifers, Immortan Joe hoards the natural resources of the earth. His powerful savior-image comes from his control of water that he dishes out to the less fortunate in lavish waterfalls meant to display both his control of the land and its desperate people. Meanwhile, the young men in the Citadel know only violence-there is no space for kindness or compassion when the greatest honor in their lives is to die young in battle.
What a waste!
The link between the exploitation of women and the exploitation of Earth is a connection many people have made-but it's typically not the driving force behind a blockbuster action film. Instead, this connection is the center of ecofeminist philosophy. As writer and organic farmer Alison Parker articulately summed up for Bitch in 2012, ecofeminist thought sees environmental destruction as a form of violent oppression. "Ecofeminism focuses mainly on likening the oppression of nature to the oppression of women," writes Parker. "Both environmentalism and feminism are essential building blocks of the fine architecture of a just and healthy society."

I think Fury Road 's writers got this. Significantly, it's clear that Immortan Joe's exploitative framework for society isn't just bad for women and nature-it's bad for everyone. Only a handful of people ever get access to a standard of living that's higher than eating sand for dinner. Those who do, the War Boys, are racked by disease and battle wounds and have no life beyond battle and chrome. In a culture built on violence, patriarchy, and fear, even the men lose in the end. The best they can hope for is the ability to scrape out a little more time, a little more water, and a little more gas.
Read this next: From left: Escaping wives Capable (Riley Keough), Cheedo the Fragile (Courtney Eaton) and The Splendid Agharad (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). Complicates Action Hero Masculinity-And That's Great
Read this next: You Can Now Search for 2,000 Films Where Women Get the Most Lines
In a typical action film, the protagonists would meet Immortan Joe's violence with more violence. They'd win by shooting him and every War Boy to death. Or they'd blow up the Citadel like the Death Star. Instead, the first clear sign that Fury Road has a different ethos in mind is when Immortan Joe discovers five of his prize "breeders" have fled, with the help of war rig driver Imperator Furiosa, who hopes they can reach the "Green Place" of her youth. When the women flee the Citadel, they leave a message painted on the walls and floors of their room, "Our sons will not be warlords." There is another way to live, this message says, a way that doesn't have violence at its core. The reason humans are in this dystopian mess, the women in the film agree, is because generations of people have hacked out life in selfish ways that may have been good for them as individuals in the short term but have ruined the earth in the long run.
The Vuvalini defend themselves with guns. But they'd rather heal the world with seeds.
This anti-violence thinking guides the women's decisions in the film. Along their escape route, they make crucial choices rooted in peace that help them in the end. When the red-headed Capable discovers War Boy Nux stowed away on the wives' escape vehicle, in any other movie she would have killed him-or he would have killed one of the women. But instead, she greets him with tenderness, expressing care and concern over his wounded and upset state. Even as the women flee three warlords' armies at once, they stick to a compassionate rule: No unnecessary kills. Nux, one of the most rabid recruits to Immortan Joe's cult of personality, goes on to recognize the power of helping people and plays a key role in aiding the women's escape from Joe's clutches.

One of the best and cruelest moments in the film comes when the women, Nux, and Max finally find the long-lost family Furiosa is seeking: the tribe of women called the Vuvalini. Instead of living in the lush Green Place, though, the group of half a dozen mothers and grandmothers ride motorcycles across the dunes and are crack shots with sniper rifles. They reveal that the fabled Green Place has turned into a ghostly bog, its life-sustaining water turned toxic many years before. When the earth sickened, so did their society. Instead of being able to live as egalitarian farmers as they'd like, the women of the Green Place are forced to eke out a meager life in the desert, shooting all people who threaten them. When one of the Vuvalini tells escaped wife The Dag (Abbey Lee) that she has shot every single person she has met out there in the desert-perfect headshots, all of them-The Dag is upset. "I thought you were above that," she says. The older woman replies by pulling out her bag and showing her a treasure: a collection of seeds she saved from the Green Place. Every chance she gets, the Vuvalini try planting them, but they have yet to grow anything in the water-parched sands. Greeting every visitor with a headshot isn't their way of life, it's just a temporary and unfortunate means of survival that they know won't sustain them for the long haul. Even as they try to get by in the desert, the Vuvalini are still trying to grow their seeds. After she shows her collection of seeds, the older woman pulls out a skull that she's turned into a makeshift planting pot, a small green plant poking its leaves up through the animal's bleached white cranium. It's a beautiful scene, one that speaks to the feeling of hope that Max, particularly, has forced himself to abandon.
Read this next: Complicates Action Hero Masculinity-And That's Great
Read this next: You Can Now Search for 2,000 Films Where Women Get the Most Lines
After all the hype over its graphics and battle sequences, the twist in Mad Max is that the most badass people in the film are not any of the war-mongering guys with names like The People Eater and The Bullet Farmer. Instead, the toughest people you'll meet in this dystopia are a collective of old women who are diligent heirloom seed savers. In the midst of the desert's chaos and murder, they see a clear path forward: Find a way to heal the earth. The secret weapon of Fury Road is not a bigger gun, a faster car, an improbable spaceship, or a boy genius. It's a pile of heirloom seeds. In the end, nothing is more powerful in the desert than the simple forces of soil, seeds, water, and tender care.

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This article includes plot details about Mad Max: Fury Road. To read a spoiler-free review, click right here. I went into Mad Max: Fury Road expecting to see a lot of explosions.

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On the topic of ethical egoism: Does selfishness make the brain lazy? Can egoists come to terms with the vast impact of climate change?

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On the topic of ethical egoism: Does selfishness make the brain lazy? Can egoists come to terms with the vast impact of climate change?

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I'd like to hear your thoughts! Feel free to post comments below.

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from research organizations

Some people are worried about the future consequences of climate change, while others consider them too remote to have an impact on their well-being. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, examined how these differences are reflected in our brains. With the help of neuro-imaging, the scientists found that people deemed "egotistical" do not use the area of the brain that enables us to look into and imagine the distant future. In "altruistic" individuals, on the other hand, the same area is alive with activity. The research results, published in the journal Cognitive, Affective & Behavioural Neuroscience, may help psychologists devise exercises that put this specific area of the brain to work. These could be used to improve people's ability to project themselves into the future and raise their awareness of, for example, the effects of climate change.

The concerns experienced by human beings are built on their values, which determine whether individuals prioritize their personal well-being or put themselves on an equal footing with their peers. In order to encourage as many people as possible to adopt "sustainable" behaviour, it is thus necessary that they feel the consequences of climate change are relevant to them. Some individuals -- who are more self-centred -- do not worry about the consequences, believing that these potential disasters are too far off.

"We wondered what magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could teach us about how the brain processes information about the future impact of climate change, and how this mechanism differs depending on the self-centeredness of the individual," says Tobias Brosch, professor in the Psychology Section at UNIGE's Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPSE).
Are egoists only afraid of what directly concerns them?
The UNIGE psychologists turned to the report drawn up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, where they identified predictions about the outcomes of climate change, such as a reduction in drinking water supplies, an increase in border conflicts and a spike in natural disasters. They then assigned a year in the future to each of these effects, stating when it would come to pass.

Brosch's team invited a panel of participants to complete a standardized questionnaire to measure the value hierarchies, marking the selfish or altruistic tendencies of each individual. One by one, the participants underwent an MRI before being shown the dated consequences of the events; they then had to answer two questions on a scale of 1 to 8: Is it serious? Are you afraid?

"The first result we obtained was that for people with egotistical tendencies, the near future is much more worrying than the distant future, which will only come about after they are dead. In altruistic people, this difference disappears, since they see the seriousness as being the same," explains Brosch.
Selfishness makes the brain lazy
The psychologists then focused on the activity in the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vmPFC), an area of the brain above the eyes that is used when thinking about the future and trying to visualize it. "We found that with altruistic people, this cerebral zone is activated more forcefully when the subject is confronted with the consequences of a distant future as compared to the near future. By contrast, in an egotistical person, there is no increase in activity between a consequence in the near future and one in the distant future," says Brosch.

This particular region of the brain is mainly used for projecting oneself into the distant future. The absence of heightened activity in a self-centred person indicates the absence of projection and the fact that the individual does not feel concerned by what will happen after his or her death. Why, then, should such people adopt sustainable forms of behaviour?
Set your projection capabilities to work
These outcomes, which can be applied to areas other than climate change, demonstrate the importance of being able to think about the distant future in order to adapt one's behaviour to the future constraints of the world. "We could imagine a psychological training that would work on this brain area using projection exercises," suggests Brosch. "In particular, we could use virtual reality, which would make the tomorrow's world visible to everyone, bringing human beings closer to the consequences of their actions."
Story Source:
Materials provided by Université de Genève. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

Tobias Brosch, Yoann Stussi, Olivier Desrichard, David Sander. Not my future? Core values and the neural representation of future events. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 2018; DOI: 10.3758/s13415-018-0581-9

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No future for egoists -- that's what their brain says! Researchers analysed the cerebral activity of egotistical people, discovering that they do not think about the future if it seems too far off to concern them

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Some people are worried about the consequences of climate change, while others consider them too remote to have an impact on their well-being. Researchers examined how these differences are reflected in our brains. With the help of neuro-imaging, the scientists found that people deemed 'egotistical' do not use the area of the brain that enables us to look into and imagine the distant future.

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Awesome infographic about plastics from NatGeo

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Awesome infographic about plastics from NatGeo

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What Happens to the Plastic We Throw Out

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How a piece of trash can travel from land to Henderson Island, an uninhabited, remote island in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean.

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UH Systemwide Policies and Procedures Information System (PPIS) - Executive Policies

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A. Introduction 1. The purposes of the University of Hawaii are to give thorough instruction, conduct research and disseminate knowledge in and of branches of advanced learning as prescribed by its Board of Regents. The University is committed to ensuring a safe, civil, learning and working environment in which the dignity of every individual is respected.

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You must watch Thule Tuvalu, Paul Watson: The Journey of the Sea Shepherd, and Mad Max: Fury Road for this course. The first two are available on the Kanopy streaming website, through the University of Hawai'i Library System. (Log in with your UHID below.) Mad Max is not available through the library. You can buy or rent it on iTunes, Amazon, Vimeo, etc.

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discount code broadview20% for
20% off the print edition

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This book explains the basic concepts of environmental ethics and applies them to global environmental problems. The author concisely introduces basic moral theories, discusses how these theories can be extended to consider the non-human world, and examines how environmental ethics interacts with modern society's economic approach to the environment. Online multiple-choice questions encourage the reader's active learning.

Comments

"Andrew Kernohan's Environmental Ethics: An Interactive Introduction is a fantastic text. Among its many strengths is the fact that it goes deeper into the intersection of environmental ethics, public policy, and economics than any other introductory text I have seen, and makes the important but often difficult ideas that lie in that intersection clear and accessible to complete newcomers. Additionally, its online component is ample and well-constructed, and a terrific resource for instructors and students alike." - Craig Duncan, Ithaca College

"It is high time that philosophers do more than speculate amongst themselves about issues of environmental ethics. Andrew Kernohan not only provides an interactive teaching tool, but equally importantly, he invites the reader to do environmental ethics. This engaging volume shows how philosophy can be vital to matters of environmental decision making and public policy." - Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, University of Toronto

PART I: ETHICAL THEORY

Chapter 1: Introduction to Environmental Ethics
Chapter 2: Metaethics
Chapter 3: Ethical Analysis
Chapter 4: Ethical Egoism
Chapter 5: Utilitarianism
Chapter 6: Virtue Ethics
Chapter 7: Rights
Chapter 8: Justice

PART II: ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

Chapter 9: Obligations to Distant People
Chapter 10: Future Generations
Chapter 11: Animal Welfare
Chapter 12: Animal Rights
Chapter 13: Biocentric Ethics
Chapter 14: Ecocentric Ethics
Chapter 15: Ecofeminism
Chapter 16: Deep Ecology

PART III: ETHICS, ECONOMICS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Chapter 17: Ethics and Economics
Chapter 18: Free-Market Environmentalism
Chapter 19: External Costs and Public Goods
Chapter 20: Cost-Benefit Analysis
Chapter 21: Precautionary Principles
Chapter 22: Pollution Control
Chapter 23: Sustainable Development
Chapter 24: The Market Worldview

Andrew Kernohan is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University.

The companion sites include content for both instructors and students.

The instructor site has supplemental PowerPoint slides and test questions. An access code to the website is included with all examination copies.

The student companion site features interactive self-test questions for each of the book's chapters, as well as flashcards for use in reviewing key concepts. An access code to the website is included with all new copies. If you purchased a used copy or are missing your passcode for this site, please click here to purchase a code online.

For a sample chapter of Environmental Ethics: An Interactive Introduction, click here (opens as a PDF).

For a sample of the book's interactive review materials, click here.

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This book explains the basic concepts of environmental ethics and applies them to global environmental problems. The author concisely introduces basic moral theories, discusses how these theories can be extended to consider the non-human world, and examines how environmental ethics interacts with modern society's economic approach to the environment.

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Assignments, Due Dates