Savanna Blog
Vegetarianism and Veganism (Part 1 I’m sure)
10Facebook InstagramTwitterYouTubeI would never tell someone what they should eat. I consider propaganda of that nature to be intrusive, condescending, and dangerous. Trying to modify someone’s diet is a pernicious form of colonialism, or an abrogation of ones liberty as a free individual. That being said I am merely going to talk about it for a […]
The Ecology of Suffering (and joy, I guess)
10Facebook InstagramTwitterYouTubeBuddhist teaching says that life is suffering. That overstates the point a little bit (for a good reason) but it is true. Buddhist teaching goes on to say that we suffer because we ‘desire.’ There I disagree. I think there is a much more fundamental reason for our suffering, one that is much easier to […]
Paleoecology and Agronomy Part II
10Facebook InstagramTwitterYouTubeIn our interactions with the ecosystem we need a healthy dose of humility. Paleoecology can provide that humility. There are many organisms that have this survival thing down much better than we do. Let’s figure out how they do that. I was surprised by how controversial this was last time, so I am going to […]
Paleoecology is More Important than Agronomy. And Everything Else.
The other day I heard Darren Naish and John conway, of the excellent Tetrapod Zoology Podcast, stumble over the question of why Paleontology is important. This was apparently a spill over from a whole panel of experts stumbling over this question at the Pop Paleo conference. I want to talk to the guys about this, […]
Wolves
An understanding of the paleoecology can shed new light on our current political debate and open up new options for win/win solutions. In other words, my opinions about wolves will make everyone on all sides of the political spectrum angry. Before I do that, I will make everyone angry by talking about what I did […]
Disturbing. Or is it?
Words are so useful because they point to Truth. But if they don’t point to Truth, they point away from Truth. As such I think it is time that we ecologists have a sit down with the word “disturbance” and ask, ‘what have you done for us lately?’ While we’re at it, we can have […]