Papers by alexander waller
Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, 2019
This article explores the viability of living after ‘the end of nature’ – as Žižek reports – in... more This article explores the viability of living after ‘the end of nature’ – as Žižek reports – in the Anthropocene. Humans can no longer consistently rely on their persistent interventions to nature as its source. The end of nature, however, does not only mean that the problem is solely ecological. Instead, it points to the original chaos of catastrophes that disturb the link of man’s relationship to nature. In short, the current predicament of the times does not only expose problems of ecology per se but also of economy, biology, and society. So what comes next? Taking off from Heidegger and Leibniz, ethical prospects after this four-fold end should reopen once again the task of thinking the Anthropocene in various independent but coalescing fronts.
This paper reports on the compared views of and some attitudes towards the use of renewable energ... more This paper reports on the compared views of and some attitudes towards the use of renewable energy technologies and some feedstocks for biofuels in a sample of the general public in the North Eastern region of Thailand with a similar number of local secondary school students .The data collected provides a small snapshot into public opinion of socioeconomic, scientific and political factors that are relevant to the transition towards more renewable energy provision within Thailand. In addition to this, participants indicated which subjects they considered would be of value for school students to study in more detail to equip them with knowledge to make informed choices of their own .The results reveal some holes in the general public knowledge of government policy, as well as a few issues in their thoughts, which demonstrated that generally people are aware of the complexity of energy transition. Environmental ethical issues also ranked high in peoples' opinions of topics for secondary school educational improvement. An adjunct to the results of the survey was carried out in 2013, with a partial analysis of a small repeat survey completed in July 2017. This gives a small insight into opinion trends over a four year period. The findings of the pilot study provide some useful baseline data for a refined and larger survey of a wider section of the general public to help inform educational curriculum planners and RE community education programmes of some attitudinal barriers to learning.
The Convention on Biological Diversity emerged out of a universal consensus that biodiversity is ... more The Convention on Biological Diversity emerged out of a universal consensus that biodiversity is of immense value to humankind. Although the report adopted the definition of the Convention on Biological Diversity, it reviews the concept of biodiversity as applied to genes, microbes, ecosystems and the planet as a whole. There are a number of accepted scientific measurements to allow recording of biodiversity, although all show that it is being reduced at rates that are unprecedented, due to anthropogenic activity. A variety of ethical approaches to human relationships to biodiversity are described in the report, but despite the range of ideas that they include, most would argue that human beings should modify their behaviour to slow the rate of biodiversity loss. Even an anthropocentric argument would also show the high value of biodiversity for current and future human generations, as exceeding the short-term gains that are the cause of most biodiversity loss. There is an extensive...
Uploads
Papers by alexander waller