Welcome...

The beauty and life of the desert - under siege Fellow great ape - threatened with extinction Mountain wilderness - suffering from the spread of human-produced toxins

I'm an independent researcher and writer, with a conservation focus, exploring the roots of our ecological crisis and the impacts of human lifeways.

[Link to info on latest article.]

Headlines distract us with other concerns, but there seems little question our destructive impact on the web of life, more than any other event or issue, will be civilization's legacy. Confronting this reality is arguably our most important challenge.

It's not just climate change (though major environmental problems increasingly overlap). Our global biodiversity crisis is equally serious. We must confront this extinction event and drivers such as the extreme overshoot of the human population.

Looking more deeply, it's time we grapple with evidence that destruction of life is inherent in the working of today's global civilization. Whether we consider civilization's foundation in subsistence strategies linked to the growth of the human enterprise, or interacting ecological issues as immediate as global warming and habitat destruction, it's clear we're progressively damaging Earth's life support systems. We must, then, explore deeply the question, "What is ecologically benign?"

Though my formal training was in psychology, ecological interests have led to an interdisciplinary approach. Exploring the origins of our ecological crisis and the nature of ecological sustainability, I am currently researching aspects of contrasting hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies. In that undertaking, ecology, anthropology, and other disciplines provide essential insights, and conservation efforts are a natural interest. Though my prior published environmental writing appeared in the popular media, I have recently returned to scholarly writing.

My environmental and conservation writing goes back to 2005. See the articles list, or the blog for a range of materials. For some of the earlier writing see my old blog, Growth is Madness.

Feel free to contact me with questions or comments.

-- John Feeney 

It is essential to see the profound peril in continued flagrant misperception of the very nature of the human situation. -- William R. Catton, Jr.

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Image sources: Darren Shaw, Puddlepuff, and David Craig, on flickr.com, creative commons license