the late environmentalist, author, & philosopher
Modern moral philosophers have tended to study ethics in a void, ignoring the insights of the natural and human sciences. Although several of our most noted and thoughtful biologists and sociologists have sought to correct this, they have based their ethical principles on a grossly distorted view of nature and human society. The result has [...]
This is an extended version of Edward Goldsmith’s talk presented at the “Policing the Global Economy – why, how and for whom?” international conference, held in Geneva, 23-25 March 1998, and presented again as the keynote address at the International Forum on Globalization in April 1998. This extended version was published in Caduceus magazine issues [...]
Published as Chapter 34 of The Way: An Ecological Worldview, originally published in 1992. This text is taken from the revised and enlarged edition, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1998. « previous chapter · contents · next chapter » “Land that is left wholly to nature . . . is called, as indeed it is, waste.” [...]
Published as Chapter 58 of The Way: An Ecological Worldview, originally published in 1992. This text is taken from the revised and enlarged edition, University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, 1998. « previous chapter · contents · next chapter » ” [General purpose] money is one of the shatteringly simplifying ideas of all time, and like any [...]
Preface for Gaia and Evolution: Proceedings of the Second Annual Camelford Conference on the Implications of the Gaia Thesis If we accept the Gaia Thesis, in which the Earth is seen to be a planetary system with certain self-regulating features that are controlled by the combined activities of the biota, such as surface temperature, climate, [...]
From Rivista Di Biologia Vol 83, 2-3, 1990. This paper is an abridged version of the introductory paper presented by the author at the second annual Camelford Symposia on the implications of the Gaia thesis. The full text is published in the proceedings of the Conference: Gaia and Evolution, ed. P. Bunyard and E. Goldsmith. [...]
The ‘survival of the fittest’ maxim of Darwinism is widely used to justify the disastrous process of unrestrained technological progress and economic development. However, if the world is seen as a single self-regulating system, then progress through competition becomes fundamentally anti-evolutionary. Co-operation is the true evolutionary strategy. This paper was presented at the Wadebridge Ecological [...]
If we accept the Gaia Hypothesis, then modern reductionist and mechanistic ecology, as taught in our universities, can no longer be defended. However, rather than simply returning to the ‘holistic’ ecology of Clements and Shelford, a more sophisticated ecology must be developed to take account of the work of such holistic thinkers as C. H. [...]
