Christopher Hamlin

David M. Lodge

For many years, ecologists and the environmentalists who looked to ecology for authority depicted a dichotomy between a pristine, stable nature and disruptive human activity. Most contemporary ecologists, however, conceive of nature as undergoing continual change and find that "flux of nature" is a more accurate and fruitful metaphor than "balance of nature." The contributors to this volume address how this new paradigm fits into the broader history of ecological science and the cultural history of the West and, in particular, how environmental ethics and ecotheology should respond to it. Their discussions ask us to reconsider the intellectual foundations on which theories of human responsibility to nature are built. The provisional answer that develops throughout the book is to reintegrate scientific understanding of nature and human values, two realms of thought severed by intellectual and cultural forces during the last two centuries. Religious reflection and practice point the way toward a new humility in making the tough decisions and trade-offs that will always characterize environmental management. "Ecology has experienced a major paradigm shift over the last half of the twentieth century. This shift requires major rethinking of the relation of religion and environmental ethics to ecology because our scientific understanding of the nature side of that relationship has changed. This book is the first, to my knowledge, that is meeting this challenge head on and it is doing so in an exemplary way." --J. Baird Callicott, University of North Texas

Environmental Responsibility in a World in Flux

Religion and the New Ecology

Jason F. Shogren

Reuben P. Keller

Mark A. Lewis

Biological invasions are one of the strongest drivers of global environmental change, and invasive species are now often in the public discourse. At the same time, economists have begun to take a real interest in determining how invasive species interact with economic systems, and how invaders should be controlled to optimize societal wealth. Although the work from ecologists and economists have both greatly expanded our understanding of the drivers and impacts of invasions, little integration between the fields has occurred that would allow managers and policy-makers to identify the optical expenditures on, for example, prevention and control of invasive species. Because the level of effort expended on invasive species management is intricately linked to the costs and projected benefits of that management, there is an urgent need for greater synthesis between ecology and economics. This book brings ecology and economics together in new ways to address how we deal with the dynamics and impacts of invasive species, and is the outcome fo many years of collaborative research between a small group of economists and ecologists. The outcome is clear demonstration of the utility of combining ecological and economic models for addressing critical questions in the management of invasive species.

David M. Lodge

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