By Chaitanya Motupalli
from Currents Fall 2014
Even before I came to the GTU to begin my doctoral studies in environmental ethics, two facts were glaringly evident to me. The first is that the earth and its communities—both human and nonhuman—are at a historic moment, sandwiched between the blunders of the past and the possibilities of the future. The second truth is that we humans, being the “touchstone species,” as Charles Mann puts it in his book 1491, have a unique role to play in the context of the ecological crisis, and particularly the challenges presented by climate change. As such...