environmental determinism

Bob Jensen has written a book with Wes Jackson titled An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity. With a title like that, Jason and Bob have lots of heavy ground to cover, including overshoot, the limits to growth, and the cascading environmental and social crises of our times. They conclude that there are no easy answers or silver-bullet solutions, but by focusing on sustainable size of the human population, appropriate scale of social organization, optimal scope of human competence for managing high-energy modernity, and required speed of taking action to avoid catastrophe, they home in on some strategic responses to the crises. 

In this episode of Positively Pedestrian, we discuss the macro and micro implications of the classic philosophical debate of Free Will vs. Determinism. We look at how one's overall social, cognitive, and physical environment plays a crucial role in shaping one's beliefs and behaviors. Furthermore, we look at Free Will and Determinism from a management perspective, even going into personal responsibility and moral duty toward shaping our environments. Lastly, we have a look at so-called Stand-Your-Ground laws and brazen/brutal attitudes toward personal accountability applied to the poor or those otherwise environmentally disadvantaged.