12/14 Creation Corner Column: Intro. to Christian Environmentalism book: A needed perspective

 An Intro. to Christian Environmentalism: A Needed perspective

An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism by K. Blanchard and K. O'Brien may be just the book you have been waiting for, especially if you have been hesitant to speak out about controversial topics such as hydraulic fracturing, fossil fuels divestment, and the the like.  The perspective offered here is to go to your Christian values (the moral and theological virtues), speak from your heart while being well-informed on your subject.  

While many denominations have produced environmental stewardship guidebooks for their parishioners, and some commercial and university publishers have issued books of readings on the subject of religion and the environment, as well as titles on Christian ecology topics, this may be the first text relating Christian virtues to environmental problems.

At this date, the book is recently published and thus there are no customer reviews on-line.  But the table of contents invites prospective readers to examine their moral virtues (prudence, courage, temperance, justice) and their theological virtues (faith, hope, love) and asks how they might apply to pressing eco-threats, by seeking a "golden mean" between contemporary extreme arguments in the general discourse of how to address enviro-concerns.  Thus, to apply seven virtues to seven problems in one world, they propose: 

Prudence guides our approach to species survival, between selfless conservation and self-interested stewardship.

Courage (fortitude) is needed to develop energy sources, between fossil fuels, alternative energies, and Sabbath Living.

Temperance (restraint) is applied in how our food is produced and how we personally consume it.

Justice ought to be the goal sought in any approach to environmental injustice (such as toxic pollution), not revolution or reform.

Faith is to be our companion as we encounter climate change, responding in personal and political and technological ways.

Hope is an obligation, and needs to hold our aspirations about our human future, not despair or presumption.

Love (charity) motivates us inasmuch as our earth-keeping advocacy and action is not limited to public protest or personal transformation.

Sub-titled "Ecology, Virtue, and Ethics", and published in paperback (230 pages) by Baylor University Press (www.baylorpress.com 1-800-537-5487), An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism is co-authored by Kathryn Blanchard (Assoc. Prof. of Religious Studies at Alma College) and Kevin O'Brien (Assoc. Prof. of Religion at Pacific Lutheran University).  They conclude their effort with a closing chapter entitled "Practicing Virtue in a 'World of Wounds'."

For earlier examples of books on this subject see this Creation Corner Column of July 2014 and December 2013.

Creation Corner Col., 11/14: Caring for Creation Web Sites

Creation Corner Column for November 2014

 Caring for Creation: A Sampler of Web Sites

"Just 'googling' around" for examples of ministries that take a caring approach to God's creation results in many sites.  Of especial value are these:

 

BioLogos---Science and Faith in dialogue and harmony

BlessedEarth---Serving God, Saving the Planet.  Energy Audits (church, home, business), good steward worksheets, Starting an Ecology Ministry, etc.

Covenant(s) for Care of Creation---google that site for examples

CreationCare---includes the Evangelical Environmental Network Adult Study Guide: Why Christians Should Care about God's Creation, and other resources for laity and preachers

Creation Care: An Introduction for busy pastors (for evangelicals and scientists united to protect creation), from the Harvard School of Public Health, Center for Health and the Global Environment; the pdf can be downloaded at http://www.chgeharvard.org/resource/creation-care-introduction-busy-pastors

CreationJustice---An “umbrella” effort, Ministries for Stewardship of God’s earth and people for and by 37 major U.S. Christian denominations, with an emphasis on justice

EarthCareOnLine---Caring for God’s Creation, Creation Care web sites and statements, Bible verses, church facility management, etc.

EcoPreacher---Ecotheological sermons, essays, reflections, etc. by central PA Lutheran Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade

GreenFaith---Interfaith partners educate, inspire and mobilize people of diverse backgrounds for environmental leadership.  A “must see” site with varied emphases

WebOfCreation is an “all purpose” site that includes Care of the Earth: An environmental resource manual for church leaders; Green Congregation Program, denominational statements, biblio. etc.

Worship resources and suggestions (with or behalf of creation), creation-celebrating hymns, books on ecology and worship, green congregation training, themes for Sundays of the Season of Creation (land, mountains, animals, river, forest, ocean, storm, universe, humanity, wilderness, outdoor worship, Earth Day, Harvest, Rogation), weekly care for creation commentary on the lectionary, etc. are at LetAllCreationPraise

Other examples of searches you could do are those for Interfaith Power and Light, Green Seminaries, Bible and Ecology, Blessed Tomorrow, Care of/for Creation, etc.

------------------------------------------------

Three secular sites of value:

EnergyJustice is a network of advocates for grassroots environmental justice causes, providing platforms for action on various fuels and technologies, fact sheets and publications

Religion OnLine provides nearly 50 articles; see ecology/environment under Social Issues

Arguments from global warming skeptics and what the science really says can be found at Skeptical Science  

 

                                                                -30-

 

 

MOOCs, TED Talks, and "The Great Courses": Creation Corner Column for October 2014

 

Here are various examples that help us, from secular sources, as we advocate and take action on behalf of the environment.

 

MOOCs.  "The New York Times" declared 2012 to be "the year of the MOOC" (massive open online courses).  See MOOCs: The Essential Guide by Jonathan Haber (MIT Press Essential Knowledge series).  Using "google search", enter your topic (e.g., Christianity and Ecology mooc, or creation care mooc).

 

MOOCs can be university-based online courses or personal online learning; free or not; some have starting dates, others are self-paced; some you can audit, others provide certificates of achievement; some may have pre-requisites and a time commitment, others not; some are videos, others live lectures; some have "classroom" discussions, others may use online forums (peer-to-peer social learning).

 

Coursera.org is a MOOC source.  Courses include those on sustainability; greening the economy; our energy future; climate literacy; navigating climate change conversations; climate change in four dimensions; etc.

 

edX.org , another MOOC example, offers courses such as global warming science; Blue is the new Green (global water crisis); human health and environmental change; making sense of climate science denial; solar energy; energy 101; intro. to environmental science; etc.

 

TED Talks "1800 talks to stir your curiosity" says the TED.com site.  Of interest to us are Nicholas Stern's "The state of the climate and what we might do about it"; "How not to be ignorant about the world" by Hans and Ola Rosling; and others on the disappearance of bees, the danger of science denial, plastic recycling, a critical look at geoengineering against climate change, etc.

 

The Great Courses are widely advertised (www.salegreatcourses).  These DVD lecture series include ones on Francis of Assisi; Science and Religion; Earth's Changing Climate; Earth at the Crossroads: Understanding the Ecology of a Changing Planet, etc.

 

Note: Mike Ochs began this series entitled "Creation Corner Column" in October 1997 (see newsletter at http://www.uclc.org/ ) and it was adopted as a blog in March 2011 by the web site at LutheransRestoringCreation.

Creation Corner Column: Climate Talks and Wilderness Acts, September 2014

CLIMATE MATTERS

 As international climate talks resume this month (see http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit and http://peoplesclimate.org/march), and as readers of this column acknowledge many concerns they have for the integrity of creation, may we consider the following interpretations of our current situation.

“All creation is groaning” says Katharine M. Preston in the Sept.-Oct. issue of Sojourners (http://sojo.net/magazine) .Creation is “yearning to be free” writes Rose Marie Berger in the same issue.She, however, adds that “Christians don’t just look for hope in desperate times; we are the hope in desperate times.” Both writers are probably inspired by Romans 8:22-23.

Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor, argues that fossil fuels can’t solve the problems created by fossil fuels (see http://greenlinemag.com/wishful-thinking-about-natural-gas ).

Environmental activists raise up the need for sustainable alternative renewables and cry out “Keep the coal in the hole, the oil beneath the soil, and the gas beneath the grass.”

In the book Spiritual Ecology (Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, editor), Franciscan Richard Rohr’s article (pgs. 235-241), “Creation as the Body of God”, posits that “our modern world has distorted or lost the original understanding of the divinity of the world, resulting in our present ecological crisis”.

From the same book come two further quotes.One, from an alchemical text (p.183): “There are fiery sparks of the world soul, of the light of nature, dispersed or sprinkled in and throughout the structure of the great world into all the fruits of the elements everywhere.”

The other quote is from Stephan Hoeller (p. 203): “God redeems humanity, but nature needs to be redeemed by human alchemists, who are able to induce the process of transformation, which alone is capable of liberating the light imprisoned in physical creation.”

Lastly, consider these abridged remarks on “The Divine Spark” by Rudolf Bahro:

“The proposed solutions to our environmental problems are no longer a matter of saving a few watts, using less plastic or stopping an oil pipeline; they are tantamount to a call for freezing the infrastructure. It is our entire industrialized lifestyle that is obsolete, and without a cultural revolution that shatters the logic of the industrial system, we are lost.

The alternative is theology, not ecology---the birth of a new Golden Age which cultivates what Russian novelist Chyngyz Aitmatov calls the ‘divine spark’.

The issue is not man’s tools, but man’s spirit.”

Source: Adbusters magazine Sept/Oct 2014 #115, vol. 22 no. 5.

WILDERNESS ACTS
 

The 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act of 1964 is celebrated this month. It is a landmark accomplishment of the American environmental movement.
 

Subsequent "Acts" have by now resulted in conservation/preservation legislation protecting 758 wilderness areas, many adjacent or within national parks and forests, in nearly 110 million acres of biological diversity.
 

To learn more, go to
 

1. Advocacy by The Wilderness Society http://wilderness.org/
 

2. For "The Wildest Idea on Earth" by E.O. Wilson, to set aside half of the land for wildlife to prevent a coming "biological holocaust" see http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world-really-set-aside-half-planet-wildlife-180952379/
 

3. "The Call of the Wild" special theme issue of the Earth Island Journal (Autumn 2014) includes many reflections on "The Wilderness Act Turns 50" at http://earthisland.org/journal/index.php/issues/current/
 

4. "The Future of Wilderness" is a special section of Orion Magazine of Sept.-Oct. 2014. Go to http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/mag/issue/8267/
 

"The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders. Edward Abbey

Creation Corner Column, August 2014: Summer Reading Part II

For your consideration, here are several categories of books relating to the environment that may interest you.

The books are listed by title, alphabetically, under these topics:

Animals
Art
Cosmology
Disasters
Endangered Species
Extinctions
Fiction
Food
Gardening, Plants, Botany
Insects
Nature Photography
Nature Writing
Ourselves
Places
Travel

ANIMALS

365 Fish, by Antal Vida.
The American Bird Conservancy Guide to the 500 Most Important Bird Areas in the United States: Key Sites for Birds and Birding in All 50 States, by Robert M. Chipley, George H. Fenwick, Michael J. Parr & David N. Pashley.
America's Other Audubon, by Joy M. Kiser (focus on nests and eggs)

The Animal Connection: A New Perspective on What Makes Us Human, by Pat Shipman.
Audubon: Early Drawings, by John James Audubon; commentary by Scott V. Edwards.
Backyard Chickens and Other Poultry: Including Ducks, Turkeys, Geese and Quail, by John & Cara Harrison.
In Bear Country: Adventures Among North America's Largest Predators, by Jake MacDonald.
Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird, by Tim Birkhead.

Birding for Beginners, 2nd edition: A Comprehensive Introduction to the Art of Birdwatching, by Sheila Buff, photography  by Richard Day.
Birds and People, by Mark Cocker, photographs by David Tipling.
The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds, by Julie Zickefoose.
The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary, by Casper Henderson.
The Book of Eggs: A Life-Size Guide to the Eggs of Six Hundred of the World's Bird Species, by Mark E. Hauber, edited by John Bates and Barbara Becker.

Calls Beyond Our Hearing: Unlocking the Secrets of Animal Voices, by Holly Menino.
Chickens: Their Natural and Unnatural Histories, by Janet Lembke.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, by Mark Kurlansky.
Cold Blood: Adventures with Reptiles and Amphibians, by Richard Kerridge.
Collins Bird Guide: The Most Complete Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, second edition.
Cow: A Bovine Biography, by Florian Werner, foreword by Temple Grandin, translated by Doris Ecker.
Deadly Kingdom: The Book of Dangerous Animals, by Gordon Grice.

Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks, by Juliet Eilperin.
Designer Animals: Mapping the Issues in Animal Biotechnology, edited by Conrad G. Brunk and Sarah Hartley.
The Dog by the Cradle, The Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships, by Erika Ritter.
Dogs: History, Myth, Art, by Catherine Johns.
The Feathery Tribe: Robert Ridgeway and the Modern Study of Birds, by Daniel Lewis.
Field Guide to Backyard Birds of the West, by Cool Springs Press.
Frogs: The Animal Answer Guide, by Mike Dorcas & Whit Gibbons.

The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter, by Holly Robinson.
The Goshawk, by T. H. White.
Grasshoppers and Crickets, by Ted Benton.

The Horse in Art, by John Baskett.
How Animals Grieve, by Barbara J. King.
How to Charm a Bird: Create a Backyard Haven with Birdhouses, Baths and Feeders, by editors of Popular Mechanics.

Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, by Alexandra Horowitz.

Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants, by John Frederick Walker.
John James Audubon's Journal of 1826: The Voyage to The Birds of America, edited by Daniel Patterson.

Kingdom Under Glass: A Tale of Obsession, Adventure, and One Man's Quest to Preserve the World's Great Animals, by Jay Kirk (re: explorer and taxidermist Carl Akeley).
The Last Walk: Reflections on Our Pets at the End of Their Lives, by Jessica Pierce.
Leopard, by Desmond Morris.
Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, by Deanne Stillman.
Narwhals: Arctic Whales in a Melting World, by Todd McLeish.

Outwitting Squirrels: 101 Cunning Stratagems to Reduce the Egregious Misappropriation of Seed from Your Birdfeeder by Squirrels, 3rd edition, by Bill Adler, Jr.Owls, by Marianne Taylor.
Of Parrots and People: The Sometimes Funny, Always Fascinating and Often Catastrophic Collision of Two Intelligent Species, by Mira Tweti.
Peregrine Falcon, by Patrick Stirling-Aird.

The Private Lives of Birds: A Scientist Reveals the Intricacies of Avian Life, by Bridget Stutchbury.
Rabbits: The Animal Answer Guide, by Susan Lumpkin & John Seidensticker.
Reader's Digest Book of North American Birds, by Reader's Digest.
The Running Sky: A Birdwatching Life, by Tim Lee.To Sea and Back: The Heroic Life of the Atlantic Salmon, by Richard Shelton.
The Secret Language of Animals: A Guide to Remarkable Behavior, by Janine M. Benyus, illustrations by Juan Carlos Barberis.
The Secret Life of Birds: Who they are and what they do, by Colin Tudge.
The Secret World of Red Wolves: The Fight to Save North America's Other Wolf, by T. Delene Beeland.

The Sibley Guide to Birds: Second Edition, by David Allen Sibley.

The Sounding of the Whale: Science and Cetaceans in the Twentieth Century, by D. Graham Burnett.
Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology Since Darwin, by Tim Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny, and Bob Montgomerie.
Terns, by David Cabot and Ian Nisbet.
Tweet of the Day: A Year of Britain's Birds, from the acclaimed Radio 4 series, by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss.
Walking Sideways: The Remarkable World of Crabs, by Judith S. Weis.

Wildlife of the Mid-Atlantic: A Complete Reference Guide, by John H. Rappole.


ART

Curious Beasts: Animal Prints from the British Museum, by Alison E. Wright.
Of Green Leaf, Bird, and Flower: Artists' Books and the Natural World, by Elisabeth Fairman.

COSMOLOGY

Alien Universe: Extraterrestrial Life in Our Minds and in the Cosmos, by Don Lincoln.
A Brief History of the Universe: From Ancient Babylon to the Big Bang, by J.P. McEvoy.
Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein---Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe, by Mario Livio.

Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe, by Roger Penrose.

The Georgian Star: How William and Caroline Herschel Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Cosmos, by Michael D. Lemonick.
Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet, by Tim Flannery.
How Did the first Stars and Galaxies Form?, by Abraham Loeb.

Once Before Time: A Whole Story of the Universe, by Martin Bojowald.
Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality, by Max Tegmark.
The Systems View of Life, by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi.

DISASTERS

Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edward P. Kohn.

Oil and Ice: A Story of Arctic Disaster and the Rise and Fall of America's Last Whaling Dynasty, by Peter Nichols.

Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World, by Michael Baigent.

The Viking in the Wheat Field: A Scientist's Struggle to Preserve the World's Harvest, by Susan Dworking (re: Danish scientist Bent Skovmand).

Wrath of God: The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, by Edward Paice.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Hope For Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued From the Brink, by Jane Goodall, Thane Maynard and Gail Hudson.
The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession, by Susan Orlean.
On Rare Birds, by Anita Albus.

Winged Obsession: The Pursuit of the World's Most Notorious Butterfly Smuggler, by Jessica Speart.

EXTINCTIONS

The Curse of the Labrador Duck: My Obsessive Quest to the Edge of Extinction, by Clen Chilton.
On Extinction: How We Became Estranged From Nature, by Melanie Challenger.
A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction, by Joel Greenberg.
Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record, by Errol Fuller.
The Race to Save the World's Rarest Bird: The Discovery and Death of the Po'ouli, by Alvin Powell.


FICTION

Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds, edited by Billy Collins, paintings by David Allen Sibley.
The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment, by Timothy Clark.
Drilling on Troubled Land, by Nick Munzer.
Fire on the Mountain, by Edward Abbey (50th anniversary edition; introduction by Douglas Brinkley).
Greening the Maple: Canadian Ecocriticism in Context, edited by Ella Soper and Nicholas Bradley.
Mother Earth's Revenge, by Joseph Frail.
Ox-Tales: Air and Ox-Tales: Water, both edited by Mark Ellingham and Peter Florence for Oxfam International.
Plants and Literature: Essays in Critical Plant Studies, edited by Randy Laist.
Positive Pollutions and Cultural Toxins: Waste and Contamination in Contemporary U.S. Ethnic Literatures, by John Blair Gamber.The Spring Rain: A Seasonal Collection of Poems, by Quinn Graw.


FOOD

As American as Shoofly Pie: The Foodlore and Fakelore of Pennsylvania Dutch Cuisine, by William Woys Weaver.
Consumed: Food for a Finite Planet, by Sarah Elton.
Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, by Michael Pollan.
Hoosh: Roast Penguin, Scurvy Day and Other Stories of Antarctic Cuisine, by Jason C. Anthony.
The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America, by Langdon Cook.
Savor the South Cookbooks (many subjects: Buttermilk, Pecans, Peaches, Tomatoes, Biscuits, Bourbon, Pickles and Preserves, Okra, etc., from The University of North Carolina Press).
Planet Carnivore, by Alex Renton.
Scheherazade's Feasts: Foods of the Medieval Arab World, by Habeeb Salloum, Muna Salloum, and Leila Salloum Elias.
Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, by Adrian Miller.
Unami: Unlocking the Secrets of the Fifth Taste, by Ole G. Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbaek.
The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921, by Adam D. Shprintzen

GARDENING, PLANTS, BOTANY

Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America, by Nancy J. Turner, two volumes.
Bizarre Botanicals: How to Grow String-of-Hearts, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Panda Ginger, and Other Weird and Wonderful Plants, by Larry Mellicamp and Paula Gross.
Companion Planting, by Bob Flowerdew.
Crops in Pots: How to Plan, and Grow Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs in Easy-Care Containers, by Bob Purnell.
Culinary Herbs and Spices of the World, by Ben-Erik Van Wyk.
Earthly Paradises: Ancient Gardens in History and Archaeology, by Maureen Carroll.
The Essentials of Garden Design, by John Brookes.
A Field Guide To Your Own Backyard: A Seasonal Guide to Flora and Fauna of the Eastern U.S. by John Hanson Mitchell, illustrations by Laura Molk
Garden Butterflies of North America: A Gallery of Garden Butterflies and How to Attract Them, by Rick Mikula, Claudia Mikula, editors.
The Golden Age of Botanical Art, by Martyn Rix.
The Green Gardener's Guide : Simple, Significant Actions to Protect and Preserve Our Planet, by Joe Lamp'l (aka Joe Gardener).
The Life of a Leaf, by Steven Vogel.
The Mythology of Plants: Botanical Lore from Ancient Greece and Rome, by Annette Giesecke.
Natural Garden Style: Gardening Inspired by Nature, by Noel Kingsbury, photography by Nicola Browne.
The Plant Hunters: The Adventures of the World's Greatest Botanical Explorers, by Carolyn Fry.
Pleasures of the Garden: A Literary Anthology, edited by Christina Hardyment.
Practical Botany of Gardeners: Over 3,000 Botanical Terms Explained and Explored, by Geoff Hodge.
What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses, by Daniel Chamovitz.

INSECTS

The Insect Cookbook: Food for a Sustainable Planet, by Arnold Van Huis, Henk Van Gurp, and Marcel Dicke.

Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon's Army and Other Diabolical Insects, by Amy Stewart, illustrations by Briony Morrow-Cribbs.

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY

Africa: A Photographic Safari, by Carlyle Thompson.
Bear Portraits, by Jill Greenberg.
The BetterPhoto Guide to Digital Nature Photography, by Jim Miotke.
Costa Rica: A Journey through Nature, second edition, by Adrian Hepworth.

The Complete Book of North American Butterflies, by Paul A. Opler, editor.
Desert Light: A Photographer's Journey Through America's Desert Southwest, by John Annerino.

The Earth Cube Book, by Alberto Bertolazzi.

Earth on Fire: How Volcanoes Shape Our Planet, by Angelika Jung-Huttl.  Bernhard Edmaier, photography.

Egypt: Civilization in the Sands, by Pauline and Philippe de Flers.
Facing East---Photos from the Heart, by Roger Morgan.
Flowers and Herbs of Early America, by Lawrence D. Griffith, photography by Barbara Temple Lombardi.

In Arab Lands: The Bonfils Collection, by P. Felix Bonfils, intro. by Douglas M. Haller.
Indian Country: Sacred Ground, Native Peoples, by John Annerino.
The Jungle at the Door: A Glimpse of Wild India, photos by Joan Myers; essays by William deBuys.
Las Vegas Periphery: Views from the Edge, photos by Laurie Brown, essay by Sally Denton.
Last Places on Earth, by Eric Meola

Lost Photographs of Captain Scott: Unseen Images from the Legendary Antarctic Expedition, by David M. Wilson.
The Natural World Close-Up, by Giles Sparrow.A Photographic Guide to Mammals of North Africa and the Middle East, by Mathilde Stuart and Chris Stuart.
Planet Earth: An Illustrated History, edited by Kelly Knauer (Time Life).

Rivers of America, by Tim Palmer, photographer.
The Sea, photography by Philip Plisson, preface by Yann Quefelec.

Trees: An Illustrated Identifier and Encyclopedia, by Tony Russell & Catherine Cutler.
Vanishing Borderlands: The Fragile Landscape of the U.S.-Mexico Border, by John Annerino.

Wildflowers of Cape Cod and the Islands: Over 200 Wildflowers that Grow on Cape Cod's Sand Dunes, Heathlands, Pond Shores, Woodlands, Bogs, and Meadows, by Kate Carter.

Why Are Orangutans Orange: Science Questions in Pictures---With Fascinating Answers, by Mick O'Hare, ed.


NATURE WRITING

Four Fields, by Tim Dee.
The Mirror of the Sea, by Joseph Conrad.
The Pattern Under the Plough, by George Ewart Evans.
Things That Are, by Amy Leach.A Time from the World, by Rowena Farre.
Winter: Five Windows on the Season, by Adam Gopnik.
Also see nature writing column in The Guardian Weekly (UK).

OURSELVES

The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution, by Henry Gee.
Aging Bones: A History of Osteoporosis, by Gerald N. Grob.
Aging Together: Dementia, Friendship, and Flourishing Communities, by Susan H. McFadden and John T. McFadden.
Almost Chimpanzee: Searching For  What Makes Us Human, in Rainforests, Labs, Sanctuaries, and Zoos, by Jon Cohen.

American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville, by Bernard-Henri Levy.
Atlas of Anatomy: Organs, Systems, Structures, edited by Sue Peter (of Sobotta Atlas).
Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language  Learners, by Michael Erard.
Banking on the Body: The Market in Blood, Milk and Sperm in Modern America, by Kara W. Swanson.
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker.
Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World, by Diane MacEachern.
Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, by Daniel J. Siegel.
A Brief History of Mankind: 150,000 Years of Human History, by Cyril Aydon.
Chronic Disease in the Twentieth Century: A History, by George Weisz.
The Compatibility Gene, by Daniel M. Davis.

Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are, by Sebastian Seung.

Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore.
The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone, by Scott Samuelson.
Don't Look, Don't Touch, Don't Eat: The Science Behind Revulsion, by Valerie Curtis.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Decisions in a Confusing World, by Noreena Hertz.
The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals, by Thomas Suddendorg.
Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise, by Nicolas Rasmussen.
Genes, Cells and Brains: The Promethean Promises of the New Biology, by Hilary Rose and Steven Rose.
How Much Is Enough: The Love of Money and the Case for the Good Life, by Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky.

The Human Genome: The Book of Essential Knowledge, by John Quackenbush, foreword by John Sulston.
The Inner Journey: Views from the Christian Tradition, edited by Lorraine Kisly.

Live Better, Live Longer: The New Studies that Reveal What's Really Good---and Bad---for Your Health, by Sanjiv Chopra and Alan Lotvin, with David Fisher.
The Long And The Short Of It: The Science of Life Span and Aging, by Jonathan Silvertown.
Madness and Memory: The Discovery of Prions---A New Biological Principle of Disease, by Stanley B. Prusiner, M.D.
Mind: The Big Questions, by Richard R. Restak.
Mindless: Why Smarter Machines are Making Dumber Humans, by Simon Head.
Morality for Humans: Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science, by Mark Johnson.The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive, by Brian Christian.
A Natural History of Ourselves, by Hannah Holmes.
The Nostalgia Factory: Memory, Time and Ageing, by Douwe Draaisma, translated by Liz Waters.
Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell, by Jonathan Reinarz.

The Power of Forgetting: Six Essential Skills to Clear Out Brain Clutter and Become the Sharpest, Smartest You, by Mike Byster (from Brainetics).Quirk: Brain Science Makes Sense Of Your Peculiar Chemistry, by Hannah Holmes.
The Rainbow Bridge: Bridge to Inner Peace and to World Peace, by Brent N. Hunter.
In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, by Eric R. Kandel.
See What I'm Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses, by Lawrence D. Rosenblum.
The Self Beyond Itself: An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences, and the Myth of Free Will, by Heidi M. Ravven.
The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, by John Gray.
Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare: How Evolution Shapes Our Loves and Fears, by Gordon H. Orians.
The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease, by Daniel E. Lieberman.
The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers, by Joanna Bourke.
Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose, by Deirdre Barrett.

Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One's Land, by Sven Lindqvist, translated by Sarah Death.

Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe, by Benjamin Lieberman.

Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together, by the Dalai Lama.
The Triumph of Human Empire: Verne, Morris, Stevenson at the End of the World, by Rosalind Williams.
The Universe Within: The Deep History of the Human Body, by Neil Shubin.
The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself, by Hannah Holmes.
What to Expect When No One's Expecting: America's Coming Demographic Disaster, by Jonathan V. Last.

Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, by James Le Fanu.
Why We Like Music: Ear, Emotion, Evolution, by Silvia Bencivelli, translated by Stephen Thomson Moore.

You Feel So Mortal: Essays on the Body, by Peggy Shinner.

PLACES

Across the Tibetan Plateau: Ecosystems, Wildlife, and Conservation, by Robert L. Fleming, Jr., Dorje Tsering and Liu Wulin and a foreword by Jimmy Carter.
Antarctica: A Call to Action, by photographer Sebastian Copeland, foreword by Orlando Bloom.

Arctic Circle: Birth and Rebirth in the Land of the Caribou, by Robert Leonard Reid.

The Backyard Homestead, edited by Carleen Madi.
The Book of Exploration, by Ray Howgego.

Between Wind and Water, by Gerald Warner Brace (re: living and sailing along the Maine coast).

Beyond Walden: The Hidden History of America's Kettle Lakes and Ponds, by Robert M. Thorson.

The Book of the Moon, by Rick Stroud.

Building Country Comforts: Wisdom on Living a Sustainable, Back-to-Basics Life, by Robert Inwood and Christian Bruyere, foreword by Ashley English.
Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life, by Richard Cohen.
Conserving Oregon's Environment: Breakthroughs That Made History, by Michale McCloskey.
In Darkest Alaska: Travel and Empire Along the Inside Passage, by Robert Campbell.

Elixir: A History of Water and Humankind, by Brian Fagan.

The English Village: History and Traditions, by Martin Wainwright.
The Extreme Life of the Sea, by Stephen R. Palumbi and Anthony R. Palumbi.

A Faithful Sea: The Religious Cultures of the Mediterranean, 1200-1700, by Adnan A. Husain and K.E. Fleming, editors.
Farm Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Country Life, by Julia Rothman.
The Fast-Changing Arctic: Rethinking Arctic Security for a Warmer World, edited by Barry Scott Zellen.

The Field Guide to Fields: Hidden Treasures of Meadows, Prairies, and Pastures, by Bill Laws.

Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World, by Joel Salatin.
The Galapagos: A Natural History, by Henry Nicholls.
The Glen Canyon Country: A Personal Memoir, by Don D. Fowler.
The Great Divide: Nature and Human Nature in the Old World and the New, by Peter Watson.
Heartbeats in the Muck: The History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor, Revised Edition, by John Waldman.
Here and There: Reading Pennsylvania's Working Landscapes, by Bill Conlogue.
The Illustrated History of Selborne, by Gilbert White.The Land Was Ours: African American Beaches from Jim Crow to the Sunbelt South, by Andrew W. Kahrl.
Hyperboreal, poetry by Joan Naviyuk Kane.
The Living Shore: Rediscovering a Lost World, by Rowan Jacobsen (re: Puget Sound).Maps of Paradise: Alessandro Scafi.
The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail, by W. Jeffrey Bolster.
My First Summer in the Sierra: The 100th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic, by John Muir, photography by Scot Miller; foreword by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns.
National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States, sixth edition, edited by Caroline Hickey.The New Ecological Home: A Complete Guide to Green Building Options, by Daniel D. Chiras.
The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City, by William B. Helmreich.
Nine Mile Canyon: The Archaeological History of an American Treasure, by Jerry Spangler.
The Ocean of Life: The Fate of and the Sea, by Callum Roberts.
Off the Map, by Alastair Bonnett.The Sacred Sites Bible: The Definitive Guide to Spiritual Places, by Anthony J. Taylor.
The Secret World of Oil, by Ken Silverstein.
Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-Three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People, by Mark and Delia Owens.
Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor, by Hali Felt (re: Marie Tharp, 1920-2006).
Still the Same Hawk: Reflections on Nature and New York, edited by John Waldman.Stonehenge: Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery, by Mark Parker Pearson.
The Story of Astronomy: From Babylonian Stargazers to the Search for the Big Bang, by Peter Aughton.Stung! On Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean, by Lisa-Ann Gershwin; foreword by Sylvia Earle.
The Summits of Modern Man: Mountaineering after the Enlightenment, by Peter H. Hansen.The Sun's Heartbeat: And Other Stories From the Star That Powers Our Planet, by Bob Berman.

Time and Tide in Acadia: Seasons on Mount Desert Island, by Christopher Camuto.
Traveling the Power Line: From the Mohave Desert to the Bay of Fundy, by Julianne Couch.
Trees and Forests: Wild Wonders of Europe, by Florian Mollers, Annick Schnitzler, Steffan Widstrand and Bridge Wijnberg.Visions of Arcadia: Gauguin, Cezanne, Matisse, by Joseph J. Rishel (Philadelphia Museum of Art).
The Very Hungry City: Urban Energy Efficiency and the Economic Fate of Cities, by Austin Troy.
War on Sacred Grounds, by Ron E. Hassner.
West Coast: Bering to Baja, photos by David Freese and essays by Simon Winchester and Naomi Rosenblum.
Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands, by Christina Hardyment.You are Here: From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves, by Hiawatha Bray.

TRAVEL

Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World by Storm, by Monte Reel.
The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos, by Patrick Leigh Fermor, edited by Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper.  Other travel titles by Leigh Fermor: A Time of Gifts; Between the Woods and the Water, etc.).
The Cambridge Introduction to Travel Writing, by Tim Youngs.
The Enchanted Wanderer: And Other Stories, fiction by Nikolai Leskov.

Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations, by Chris Santella.
Hunger Mountain, by David Hinton.
Insider's Guides (various destinations, such as the Maine coast, Gettysburg, etc.).
Nomads of the Wind: The Migration of the Monarch Butterfly and Other Wonders of the Butterfly World, by Ingo Arndt, Claus-Peter Lieckfeld and Peter Huemer.
The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, by Robert Macfarlane.
A Philosophy of Walking, by Frederic Gros.
Photographing Travel, by Alex Milovsky.
The Rambler's Countryside Companion: A Collection of Unusual and Interesting Facts from Relics of the Past to Countryside Oddments, Curios, Customs, and Wisdom, by E. Mansell.
Under Another Sky, by Charlotte Higgins.
A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson.
Walking Home: A Poet's Journey, by Simon Armitage.
Where God Was Born: A Journey by Land to the Roots of Religion, by Bruce Feiler.


The above supplements the booklist from the July column/blog, of topics dealing with

Beginner's Guides
Biographies
Climate Change
Ecology
Environmental Policy
History
Miscellaneous
Religion and the Environment
Resolution of June 2014 on Fracking from the northcentral PA Lutheran  Synod (Upper Susquehanna Synod of The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, based in Lewisburg, PA.

Earlier editions of this Creation Corner Column can be found at
 www.lutheransrestoringcreationblog.blogspot.com