Summer June Readings
God, Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of all the earth. from Psalm 104
After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene. Jedediah Purdy.
Archaeology's Footprints in the Modern World: Michael Brian Schiffer.
Audubon, On the Wings of the World. Fabien Grolleau and Jeremie Royer.
Continental Divide: A History of American Mountaineering. Maurice Isserman.
The Crystal Reef: How Climate Change is Affecting Our Oceans (video). Cody Karutz.
Dictionary
of Christianity and Science: The Definitive Reference for the
Intersection of Christian Faith and Contemporary Science. Edited by
Paul Copan, Tremper Longman III, Christopher L. Reese, and Michael G.
Strauss.
Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts that Will Save Us. Sara E. Gorman and Jack M. Gorman.
Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis. Christopher D. Cook.
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Paul Hawken, ed.
Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future. David Grinspoon.
The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age. David S. Abraham.
For the Love of All Creatures: The Story of Grace in Genesis. William Greenway.
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature. David Haskell.
A Gathering of Larks: Letters to Saint Francis from a Modern-day Pilgrim. Abigail Carroll.
George Washington Carver: A Life. Christina Vella.
The Golden Shore: California's Love Affair with the Sea. David Helvarg.
A Good That Transforms: How U.S. Culture Undermines Environmental Reform. Eric T. Freyfogle.
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Amitav Ghosh.
The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World. Paul Gilding.
Green Growth: A U.S. Program for Controlling Climate Change and Expanding Job Opportunities. Robert Pollin.
How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist. Andrew Newberg.
Grizzly West: A Failed Attempt to Reintroduce Grizzly Bers in the Mountain West. Michael J. Dax.
Journey of the Universe. Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker.
Lighting the World: Transforming Our Energy Future by Bringing Electricity to Everyone. Jim Rogers.
Living With Lead: An Environmental History of the Coeur d'Alenes, 1885-2011. Bradley D. Snow.
Making a Good Life: An Ethnography of Nature, Ethics, and Reproduction. Katharine Dow.
My City Highrise Garden. Susan Brownmiller.
The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. Florence Williams.
The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies. Richard Heinberg.
Plentitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. Juliet Schor.
Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets. Jessica Pierce.
Rust: The Longest War. Jonathan Waldman.
Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition. Charles Eisenstein.
A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design. Nancy Jack Todd.
Science For Seminaries Video series (Am. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion).
Seed: The Untold Story (dvd documentary on importance of seed diversity). Vandana Shiva, Jane Goodall.
Solartopia: Our Green-Powered Earth. Harvey Wasserman.
Stewart L. Udall: Steward of the Land. Thomas G. Smith.
Thirst for Power: Energy, Water, and Human Survival. Michael E. Webber.
Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World. Bill Nye.
The Vice of Luxury: Economic Excess in a Consumer Age. David Cloutier.
What Stands in a Storm: Three Days in the Worst Superstorm to Hit the South's Tornado Alley. Kim Cross.
The Winona LaDuke Chronicles: Stories from the Front Lines in the Battle for Environmental Justice. Winona LaDuke.
Two books re: Beauty are
Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved By Beauty---An Intimate Portrait of My Grandmother. Kate Hennessy.
The Fight for Beauty: Our Path to a Better Future. Fiona Reynolds.
Titles by Antonia Juhasz:
Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill
The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry
Titles by George Monbiot:
Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea, and Human Life.
Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning.
How Did We Get into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature.
Titles by Jack Spencer:
This Land: An American Portrait (Photography). .
Native Soil (Photography).
From the archive:
1968 Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
1969 The Chasm Ahead. Aurelio Peccei.
1972 The Limits to Growth. Dennis Meadows et al.
1988 The Collapse of Complex Societies. Joseph Tainter.
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Reflection
for discussion: Some people seek to have "power over" nature
(domination, exploitation), and some others are seen as loving nature
("nature worship", "tree huggers"). May we adapt the following quote
from Martin Luther King, Jr., taken from his work In Search of Integrity, and reprinted in the recent issue of Annals of Earth (a publication of Ocean Arks International, vol. XXXV, number 1, 2017),
to better understand the relationships of power and love as they apply
to nature, the environment, God's creation. Thus the result is an
emphasis on environmental justice. As has been remarked, we will save
what we love, and we will not save what we do not love.
"Power without love
is reckless and abusive,
and love without power
is sentimental and anemic.
Power at its best is love
implementing the demands of justice,
and justice at its best
is power
correcting everything
that stands against love."
This final quotation from The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: "Science is about explanation. Religion is about meaning. Science analyses, religion integrates."
