The State of Our Co-Evolutionary Kin: The 6th Mass Extinction? Did you know that, according to Cousteau, half of the marine life he filmed in 1956 had disappeared by 1963 (and what is left today)?” (Gorz, 1987, pg. 64) The answer to Gorz’s poignant query, ‘what is left today?’ is a truly terrifying one. Recent … Continue reading 67 Percent

One key aspect of the ecological self and what I maintain to be vital elements of newly harmonious human-nature relations is encapsulated by the transdisciplinary theory of ‘new materialism’ (DeLanda, 1996), which rethinks subjectivity and lends primacy to the role played by matter (atoms, molecules, earth processes, etc.) in the agentic, metamorphosing, and self-organizing natural … Continue reading New Materialism for a Posthumanist Ethic

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a nonprofit direct-action marine conservation organization, was initially conceived as the ‘Earth Force Society’ in 1977 in Vancouver, Canada by Captain Paul Watson, a former Greenpeace member. In 1981 it became officially incorporated in Oregon as a US-based environmental group (SSCS, 2016), and has since become an international phenomenon whose … Continue reading Transgressive Environmentalism: Sea Shepherd and the Indespensible Role of Direct-Action

(A great deal of my research involves uncovering and analyzing the wealth of factors- historical, cultural, psychological, socioeconomic- that influence varying human perceptions of nature and animals, so that we may work towards dismantling that final barrier: the human-animal divide. This piece provides a glimpse into this field and sheds light on some of the … Continue reading Investigating Perceptions of the Animal ‘Other’

This post, which is based on an extensive research project that I worked on under the supervision of Dr. Kanet for my 'Historical Roots of American Imperialism' course as a third-year undergrad at the University of Miami, represents a slight deviation from my usual emphases on animals and socio-ecological interactions towards a more historical-political discussion, … Continue reading Castro’s Cuba: A Resilient and Inspirational Historical Anomaly

"The present system of commerce, based on anarchical competition, will furnish us a fine occasion for censuring science, which has not discovered that in commerce, as in any other branch of relations, simple liberty is a source of discord and disorder; that all liberty should be sustained by guarantees and counterpoises; in fine, that liberty … Continue reading On Freedom and its Necessary Limitations

“So slowly, by human standards, did humanity gather itself together out of the dim intimations of the beast. And that first glimmering of speculation, that first story of achievement, that story-teller bright-eyed and flushed under his matted hair, gesticulating to his gaping, incredulous listener, gripping his wrist to keep him attentive, was the most marvelous … Continue reading The Search for Our Better Selves 

"La molécula de ácido carbónico que se exhala el oprimido pecho de un moribundo tendido sobre su cama de dolor va á incorporarse á la flor del jardín, á la hierba de la pradera, al árbol de la selva...Nada nace, nada muere. Sólo la forma es perecedera; la substancia es inmortal. Nosotros estamos constituídos del … Continue reading The Ubiquitous Argon Atom

“Put your ear to her flank and you will hear the tide of her four stomachs. When she falls sick and lacks the will to chew her four stomachs fall silent as a hive in winter…each year more animals depart; only pets and carcasses remain” (Berger, Why Look at Animals?). I've alluded to the catastrophic … Continue reading Ruminations on Loss, Life, and Abundance

(Depicted above is a sketch of Thomas More's Utopia, Originally Published in 1516) “It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature.  This is perfectly true.  It is unpractical, and it goes against human nature.  This is why it is worth … Continue reading Utopian Visions of a Resilient Tomorrow