I use this blog to showcase my writing. One of my most satisfying outlets is the writing I do for Chris Morgan's podcast The Wild. Chris is a wildlife biologist who left England for the Pacific Northwest around the same time I left for Colorado. We are the same age and, though we did not …
An Ethicist on Both Sides of AI
It doesn’t feel like something I’d embrace. I’ve spent my working life becoming an expert on the ethics of emerging technologies. I’m not exactly a luddite, but I’m cautious. I wrote a book for MIT Press, The Synthetic Age, that sounded a warning about trying to ‘outdesign evolution,’ ‘resurrect species’ and ‘reengineer our world.’ The …
Can Climate Manipulation Save Nature?
The planet looks like it has been badly handled by a fiddling giant. Our sticky fingerprints are all over it. Chemicals, dams, and rats imported in the hulls of ships have reshaped everything under the sun. The recent photos from Artemis II might have shown a familiar blue planet, but zoom in a little closer, …
Our Place Among the Deer
Sarah Aronson is the talented host of Grounding, a podcast on climate change and mental health. I met Sarah eight years ago when she was the anchor of The Write Question, a Montana Public Radio show on books. We had a wonderful conversation about a work on nature and technology I had just published, The …
Holmes Rolston, III (1932-2025): A Giant in Environmental Ethics
Holmes Rolston, III, was my mentor for over thirty years. I met him when I moved from England to Colorado for a master’s degree in 1990. A renowned environmental philosopher, Rolston died in early 2025. I made the four-thousand-mile journey for two reasons. First, there was Rolston, the so-called “father of environmental ethics.” He put …
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Ethics and Wildlife
Five years ago, I did a podcast with the Prindle Institute about a world taken over by technology. It was thrilling to do another recently on a world fizzing with recovering wildlife. Christian Wisehart asked the right questions about genetic purity, killing one species to save another, and improving one's relationship with wild animals. Enjoy …
