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Animal welfare and speciesism, from Descartes to Singer

Early philosophy of animal consciousness Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was a French mathematician and scientist widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy, and perhaps best known for his observation, “cogito ergo sum,” or, “I think, therefore I am.” What may have seemed like an obvious statement actually had a major effect on the way we view subject/object relationships, including our own relationship to wild and domestic animals. When Descartes confidently asserted that all animals besides humans were void of the capacity to feel pain or emotion, we were still a ways off from formal behavioral studies of animals or humans. Yet many still wondered about the mental capacities of animals, and whether or not they truly lacked “thinking souls,” as he had suggested.   In trying to determine whether or not animals had souls, or capacity to reason, Descartes settled on a term for wildlife and domestic creatures, calling them “animalia automata,” which basically means mindless robot. Thr
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Right-leaning sportsmen and liberal environmentalists are coming together over climate change issues

Camo Revolution: how climate change is revealing common ground between  sportsmen  and environmentalists I remember when the first George Bush was in the White House. There was talk about a hole in the ozone layer, and the findings of a scientific study left the term global warming stamped into our lexicon. Never had buzzwords been so ominous. The solution was to be positive and proactive; working together we could reverse the trend. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle was the mantra. We could carpool. We could pee ten times before we flushed. There was a warm feeling stewardship for the earth when you separated your glass, metal, and paper. A hopefulness came over you as you snipped the plastic six-pack rings, knowing you may be saving some bottle-nosed porpoise from endless ridicule and jokes from his buddies, not to mention possible drowning.  I did my part by co-founding an environmental awareness club at school. It looked great on my resume for getting into college, but within a cou
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Hunter Thompson loved guns, hated the National Rifle Association

Woody Creek gun freak Hunter Thompson saved me from the Religious Right When I was in high school, my Dad encouraged me to read Hunter S. Thompson, which, at first glance, might seem like a highly irresponsible action of any parent. If you consider the direction I was heading though, it was a brilliant move, on his part. As a child, my Mom had started taking me and my sister to an American Baptist church, which is evangelical, but without the dancing and snake-handling. By the time I was in high school, I was shouting the Good News of Jesus to anyone who would listen, including my Dad. The introduction to Hunter Thompson was my Dad's way of counter-balancing my hyper-religious mindset. And hey, I think it worked. Although I wrote this piece years ago, the nonstop rash of mass shootings in the United States led me to revisit Hunter's ideas about gun control and the NRA. It's unfortunate his work on this topic never came to light in a single article, at least not what he orig
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Visiting Utah's 87 foot tall Tree of Life sculpture

When you live in Salt Lake City and you want to drink on Sunday, or gamble anytime, your best option is to board one of several party busses that take you across a hundred miles of wind-swept, sage-covered desert, to the town of Wendover, Nevada. Or you can do like the students in one of my southwest literature classes did, and make the trip in a biodiesel-powered school bus with flowers painted all over it. Our mission however, was that of education, not libation. As I wrote about in a previous post , the destination was the  decommissioned Air Force base now known as Wendover Airfield. Driving across the barren west desert  As you head west along the southern shores of the Great Salt Lake, the lake gradually disappears and becomes nothing but a flat expanse of salt stretching as far as the eye can see. You still think you’re next to the lake, but the water you’re seeing is nothing more than a mirage hovering over the hot, white surface. It’s even hard to believe that all that white
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As Lake Powell vanishes before our eyes, I recall my awesome houseboat fishing trip

History and purpose of Lake Powell As a person who cares deeply about the preservation of natural spaces and ecosystems, I have mixed feelings about the very existence of Lake Powell, America’s second-largest man-made lake. Electricity is the main purpose of creating dams, and the huge lakes behind them. While dams often created ecological  "situations," downstream, they have become essential for powering basically every large city in the West. The lake gets its name from Major John Wesley Powell, a Civil War veteran who, in 1869 explored the Green and Colorado rivers along with eight other people. Almost a century later, the Glen Canyon dam was completed, and the Lake Powell  began filling up in 1963. It took seventeen years to fill the giant bathtub of bright red rock, and today it’s over 500 feet deep in some spots. The water levels fluctuate pretty  dramatically depending on spring snowmelt, and the water/electricity requirements that determine how much water must be let
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Utah’s Timpanogos Cave: A Natural Gallery of Geological Art

Even if you’re a geologist you might not recognize some of the names of the rock and mineral formations found in Utah’s Timpanogos cave. That’s because the greenish-yellow helictites that cover the cave’s interior surfaces are not found anywhere else in the world. If it weren’t for the limestone ceilings and  walls, you might think you had stepped into a modern art gallery full of kaleidoscopic, handblown glass pieces. But this natural wonder shines with more beauty than anything forged by human hands. The 6-10  inch helictites are wormlike structures formed by hydrostatic pressure that pushes and pulls water through small capillaries in the rock, defying gravity while incorporating calcite, aragonite, nickel, and other minerals. There are even 340 million year-old fossils that tell the story of ancient marine life forms such as Horn Corals, Crinoids, and Brachiopods. Not like my caves back home Prior to visiting Timpanogos, my only cave experience occurred near the northern shore of
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My author interview for EatSleepWrite.net

A little about myself I’ve spent almost a third of my life in the West, but I’ve always returned to Michigan. I lived in Durango, Colorado, for five years, and Salt Lake City, for seven. My interests are wide-ranging. I work in the hunting and outdoor industry, surrounded by hardcore gun guys and right wingers, some of whom I’ve befriended while maintaining political, social and world views that are basically on the opposite end of the spectrum. As a writer and a pretty opinionated person who’s always ready for a good debate, I’ve found myself in interesting conversations. My education as a businessmen coincided with a crash course in diplomacy, but I guess I’ve always been able to get along with most people I meet. In the grand scheme of things we have to live as people before we act as pundits.   I started writing poems when I was about six. I started using an electric typewriter within a couple years, mostly just copying pages from books, not really writing much. I did continue to
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