A biosphere for Brisbane 26 Aug 200818 Sep 2017 A few doors down from my office there’s a guy with a ready laugh and a shared love of Macintoshes named Dom Hyde, a philosopher who works on the logic of vagueness among other things. He’s also very active in environmental matters, particularly those associated with the D’Aguilar Range, which is a beautiful tall timber forested region just to the northeast of Brisbane, where I live. It also includes the water catchment for Brisbane. So you might think that when Dom and his friends proposed that this range should be a UNESCO Biosphere, government would fall over itself in protecting this crucial area. Well, you would if you didn’t know Queensland politics and the influence of developers here. However, agreement from the councils and State government has been reached, and the proposal is now underway. Congrats to Dom. He’s a powerhouse in the face of apathy. Ecology and Biodiversity Politics
Administrative Off to the wilds of Oxfordshire 14 May 2010 So, tomorrow I fly to Oxford (well, to Heathrow, and bus to Oxford) to this conference on religion and toleration. It looks to be an interesting conference, and I am commenting on a paper by one of my favourite anthropologist/psychologists, Ara Norenzayan from UBC. It includes such luminaries as Amartya… Read More
Censorship Internet filtering opposition gathering speed 12 Nov 2008 The Greens have sought explanations from Minister Against Broadband Stephen Conroy in the Senate. In particular Green senator Scott Ludlam asked Conroy to take back his claim that what the ALP wants is like what is done in Britain, Sweden, Canada and New Zealand; in these cases the filtering is… Read More
Australian stuff NSW removes protection for marine parks 11 Nov 201311 Nov 2013 I received this from NYU CUNY philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith: The NSW government recently decided to temporarily lift the ban on line fishing in NSW marine sanctuaries. They may well decide to make the new regime permanent, effectively abolishing all real marine sanctuaries in the state. This is such a bad… Read More
Three cheers for Dom! We were undergrads together, and even then he was building his couches from leftover beer crates and spare bicycle parts. Sort of took the “well, one thing can just become another thing easy enough” to heart, and in retrospect it all led to activism and vagueness.
Three cheers for Dom! We were undergrads together, and even then he was building his couches from leftover beer crates and spare bicycle parts. Sort of took the “well, one thing can just become another thing easy enough” to heart, and in retrospect it all led to activism and vagueness.