[ECOLOG-L] Humans and the Environmental Crisis

2010-11-27 Thread Neil Cummins
This might be of interest:


Is the Human Species Special?:  Why human-induced global warming could be in
the interests of life


By approaching the environmental crisis from the perspective of the issue of
whether the human species is special (if the human species is not special
then it would be just another species of animal) the, perhaps surprising,
conclusion is reached that human-induced global warming could be in the
interests of life.

In the first part of the book I consider the question of why it is that
humans consider themselves to be special. I make a distinction between a
singular cause of this 'sense of specialness' and the plethora of
rationalisations that humans make as to why their species is special. I
propose that all of these rationalisations are erroneous (assuming, for the
moment, that the universe is not purposive). In the second part of the book
I develop an account in which the human species is special because of the
place that it occupies in the evolution of life on Earth, and I locate the
environmental crisis and human-induced global warming within this
evolutionary progression. In the absence of a 'purposive' universe the human
species would not be special.

This unique perspective on the human species and the environmental crisis
has implications for how we should deal with global warming. There are, of
course, many potentially negative effects of global warming, and a proposal
is made as to how these negative effects can be minimised.


More details can be found here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/190796200X/ref=nosim?tag=cranmorpublic-20



http://www.cranmorepublications.co.uk



Best wishes

Neil

University of Reading


[ECOLOG-L] Job Vacancy ESA Education Programs Coordinator

2010-11-27 Thread Teresa Mourad
The Ecological Society of America has a vacancy for an Eduation Programs 
Coordinator.

The Education Programs Coordinator is responsible for coordinating 
education programs to enhance undergraduate teaching and learning in the 
field of ecology with emphasis on digital resources. This position is 
available as grant funds allow and may be adapted as needed. 

The primary duty of the Education  Programs Coordinator will be to 
solicit, manage and/or promote: 
(a) online teaching resources 
(b) use of continental-scale data into undergraduate science and ecology 
courses 
(c) environmental education resources with a technology component 

Please do not contact ESA staff regarding this position. For complete 
details and information on how to apply, please visit: 
http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/av/Job/407841-29/c 


Re: [ECOLOG-L] mac/endnote

2010-11-27 Thread Mark Warner
I recently (less than 1 year) switched from EndNote to Bookends, and I am
very pleased with this program. I got sick of the $99 upgrade that is always
levied with EndNote users with each new iteration of MS Word. For Bookends,
it's ready to go with Word 2011, there is a pretty large support community,
and the developer is really on the ball and responsive to questions and
suggestions. There are some nice features for organizing and maintaining
reference libraries across different Macs as well as a simple webserver
interface if you want to start sharing references. You can download an
evaluation copy and give it a try: http://www.sonnysoftware.com/ 

Best,
Mark Warner