Below is the announcement for the new issue:

The new issue of our electronic journal, Minding Nature, is now available online.

In this issue you will find thought-provoking discussions featuring our Senior Scholars’ responses to our Questions. Their articles offer in-depth reflections on building ecologically sound economies and acknowledging the true dimensions of our humanity and human responsibility. Open this new issue, and rediscover where we are and where we can be, ethically, naturally, and practically.

The Center’s Upcoming Events
New York
You are invited to see our Senior Scholars respond to our Questions. Join us on October 9, 2012 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Visit our events page to register.
Chicago
You are also invited to this year’s Regional Forum on Ethics and Sustainability: Healing Nature. Join us on October 16, 2012 at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois. Visit our events page to register.

From the contents of Minding Nature 5.2

Mary Midgley
On Being an Anthrozoon
This article explores the links among defining humanness, separating human beings from other species, and giving humans greater ontological value or ethical superiority. As an antidote to this, we must “get ourselves in proportion—to see through our current absurd over-estimate of human separateness and superiority.”

David Sloan Wilson
What Does It Mean To Be Human: An Evolutionist’s View
This article offers an evolutionary perspective on how species develop through various mechanisms of inheritance. Especially for human beings, evolutionary development is not found in genetic inheritance alone, but requires consideration of social learning and symbolic thought.

Peter Victor
Living Well: Explorations into the End of Growth
This article discusses a macroeconomic model of the Canadian economy, LowGrow, that indicates how ecologically beneficial growth is possible without unduly affecting employment or other essential aspects of human economic well-being.

Richard B. Howarth
Sustainability, Well-Being, and Economic Growth
This article argues that as far as climate change is concerned, it is possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially without having much of an impact on overall economic growth in the developed nations or worldwide. However, it may not be the natural limits of growth that ought to concern us most, but rather economic growth’s social limits.

Download the new Minding Nature issue and think here.