Introduction Climate change is the biggest problem that humans have ever faced. No other issue throughout human history has affected so many organisms that it warrants immediate and deliberate action. The fight to stem the repercussions of a changing climate has many complex entanglements that must be addressed in any practical solution. Nations can deal…
Shark Finning Ethics
Shark Finning: Culture vs. Nature Lurking below the surface, beneath the glassy anterior of the world’s oceans, a dangerous and deadly predator waits for the unsuspecting. Under the deep blue of the water a cold calculating killer looms over the unknowing. Sharks, one of the oceans top predators, are often portrayed in this way. The…
Hidden Hands
Hidden Hands of the Institution Our society is broken and there’s no quick fix available. Since the beginning, the United States’ people have had a healthy distrust for the government. Perhaps this dates back to the oppressive colonial government or further still the religious oppression faced by settlers in Europe. Regardless, skepticism runs deep in…
Aldo Leopold
Preservation or Conservation Aldo Leopold was neither a -preservationist nor a conservationist, and at the same time he was both. He was likely more of a conservationist but idealized as a preservationist. Leopold had a vast understanding of the effects of his actions on the land itself and on his own conscience. There is often…
From Wilderness to Wildness
From Wilderness to Wildness Nature is often viewed as a respite from society, an oasis in the urban wasteland. Wilderness, wildness, nature, the outdoors – all of these share similar meanings but are subtlety different. The idea of wilderness is a pervasive one and one that will likely never truly be erased from our heritage….
The Next Frontier?
Space Solar Power: The Next Frontier? Search for Solutions: Why Space? Outer space captures the imagination of all human beings. Outer space’s sheer immensity and vastness, fraught with many dangers, has the potential to resolve most terrestrial energy constraints that limit enterprise and slow the advance of human progress. At every impasse, human beings have…
Keep Your Friends Close, and Your Citizens Closer
Keep your Friends Close, and your Citizens Closer What is more precious than life? The foremost of Jefferson’s unalienable rights, life is cherished by all, to be protected, defended, and preserved no matter the cost. Life was the only collateral I had to offer in exchange for the means to rise above the quagmire of…
My Pale Horse
“and behold, a pale horse, his rider’s name was death, and hell followed with him” From the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains to the depths of the Grand Canyon certain truths can be ascertained. From the rolling plains of the mid-west to the beautiful fiords of Alaska a connection between man and wild is…
Unending Independence
Unending Independence Every American knows the “Declaration of Independence”, and its author Thomas Jefferson; its words are taught in every school in America, and its message is deeply embedded into the basis for our republic (Jefferson, 492-494). Throughout the text Jefferson details the causes of the colonies schism from Great Britain and proclaims their intent…
Spiritual Crucible
A Spiritual Crucible in the High Sierra Nevada John Muir’s journey through life was marked by events which shaped the history of America and in My First Summer in the Sierra Muir forms the ideological basis of his life’s achievements. It was the Yosemite Valley about which Muir wrote so fondly, stating: “This June seems…
Protect the Arctic
An Academic Essay
Benjamin Boon 