An increase in news stories on the environment

It started a couple months ago, this recent, but welcomed, avalanche of news and commentary on the environment and national parks. First there were the much praised documentaries Earth Days and Earth which were released earlier this year. Next came word of Ken Burn’s “labor of love”, a six part documentary called National Parks: America’s Best Idea which debuts on PBS this evening (see local listings). Also Time and Newsweek were in on the action with a list of the "Environmental Heroes of 2009", rankings of the greenest companies operating in the US, and a lengthy commentary by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. As if that weren’t enough, news broke at the UN 2009 Climate Change Summit that China had taken a lead role in promising to expand energy efficiency initiatives and curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

However, keeping issues of climate change and environmental protection at the forefront of public discussion is only the first step. More important is what all of us, as responsible citizens as well as leaders at all levels of government and in the businesss community, are willing to do to make the goal of environmental sustainability a reality.

There were a number of other news stories and issues that caught my attention, which I plan to check out as soon as I have time. On the most recent episode of Bill Moyers Journal, which is available for viewing online, I plan to check out commentaries by Rory Stewart on the situation in Afghanistan and Kavita Ramdas on the issue of women’s rights. Also I am looking forward to reading Jeremy Waldron’s review of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s book called Experiments in Ethics in the current issue of The New York Review of Books, which I purchased yesterday. Based on my impression of points that are raised in the review, I may offer my thoughts in a blog entry at a later day.

Stevie Wonder - Love's In Need Of Love Today

ripple effect: a shift in focus of blog

I have shifted the focus of this blog from one of random commentary on events and interests as I see them to one of commentary on random events and interests through the lens of compassion (or associated terms such as kindness, altruism, generosity, mercy, empathy, benevolence, charity). This does not mean everything I write will be concerned with the idea of compassion; rather I will continue to post comments on, for example, music and tennis and movies. But most of the commentary will be about issues I feel has a direct positive impact as well as has the potential to have a significant positive influence. A few random sites I visited and a journal I have purchased that are related to the idea of compassion include Dayton Literary Peace Prize (be sure to check out the recent winners); the MacArthur Foundation, whose mission "supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world" (recent winners include Esther Duflo, Professor of poverty alleviation and Developmental Economics at MIT, and acclaimed writer Edwidge Danticat); and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. I have a few other updates and changes planned for the blog in the near future.

Update: I feel I should refine slightly what I mean by the term "compassion." By compassion I mean an "empathetic desire," borne out of "impersonal love," to alleviate the suffering of those who are "less fortunate." So, for example, if one is to show compassion or mercy to someone who has caused untold suffering to others, one would also have to take into account the suffering of the latter (who are, after all, the ones who are truly "less fortunate"). There are many instances, however, where being compassionate to those who have caused untold suffering, such as the case of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (which Desmond Tutu supported as recounted in his book No Future Without Forgiveness), would be the moral course of action. It depends on the situation. Also, I will be amending the focus of the blog further in the future to incorporate a few other "primary" topics, such as "hope." But that would be later on.

Time Annual list of Most Influential People

Here is the 2009 list of 100 most influential people from Time magazine, which includes the subcategories Leaders and Revolutionaries, Builders and Titans, Artists and Entertainers, Heroes and Icons, and Scientists and Thinkers. Although I am not completely cognizant of the selection criteria, I believe someone from this group of influential people will ultimately be chosen for the honor of "Time Person of the Year", which obviously could include positive role models as well as those less deserving of that appellation. Also, one of the more interesting Time magazine issues to come out in recent weeks was, in my opinion, last week's. In that issue, journalist Richard Stengel, in an article titled For Consumers, a Responsibility Revolution, wrote about the emerging phenomena of "ethical consumerism," which I thought was intriguing and would like to read this week. I use to read Time magazine quite a bit when I was younger but I have stopped doing so because I felt hard news stories about topics that really matter was taking a backseat. However I do check out the occasional compelling Time magazine issue or article whenever possible.

Brief musings on the idea of love and ethics

A year ago I randomly came across a document on the net called "A Christian Response" to "A Common Word Between Us and You." The idea behind the document is that we - Christian and non-Christian alike - are called to "love our neighbors as ourselves." As I read this document, I could not help but think how far we often stray from the spirit of this noble ideal. It is because "perfect love" is so elusive that ethics is needed. While we may be unable to love everyone equally in every instance, ethics allows us to treat others justly or with compassion, as if we loved them. Hatred, selfishness, fear are the ultimate foils to ethical behavior, however. In a book I read several years ago, called Humanity, Jonathan Glover argued that cruelty toward others is borne out of objectifying them, regarding them from a "distance," seeing them as some ignominious "other." We can fall into this trap even if we do not intend to, or consider ourselves to be good people, by merely being complacent about or momentarily indifferent to the suffering of those who are not part of our immediate circle of close friends and loved ones, choosing only to care about others in the most disastrous of situations, as Rebecca Solnit points out in her interestingly titled new book, A Paradise Built in Hell. This is why empathy, being able to put one’s self in another person’s shoes, is so important. In the future I will try to provide my thoughts on books and, to a lesser extent, current event stories dealing with questions about ethics.