Tag Archives: World View

A brief history of Earth – part 3

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Rick Altman

Brought forward 24 hours in order to mark Earth Day, this is the third (and possibly the last) part of my mini-series of posts looking at what we can and should learn about the fragility and contingency of our existence … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Mass Extinctions, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

A brief history of Earth – part 2

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Rick Altman

Yesterday, I began a review of the recently-broadcast Australia: The Time Traveller’s Guide. However, this is such an information-rich programme, I went well over my 1000-word limit without even getting to the end of Episode 1. Also, it was clearly … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Mass Extinctions, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

A brief history of Earth – part 1

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Rick Altman

A couple of weeks ago, I got into a spot of bother for suggesting that only geologists have the required sense of perspective to appreciate how contingent Life on Earth actually is (i.e. that things could quite easily have not … Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, Mass Extinctions, Philosophy | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Have you a distorted world view?

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Rick Altman

WordPress started recently supplying statistical data on the geographic origin of viewers of my blog. In so doing, they provide the data in list and map format. The map bothers me greatly because it uses the Mercator projection map (circa … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate Science, Environment, Intergenerational Injustice, Optimum Population | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments