Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus 

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts … The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

-Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Environmental ethics:

• Aldo Leopold: A land ethic
• Andrew Reding: “Let each jewel reflect all the others, each according to its own faculty”—a Buddhist environmental ethic
• Andrew Reding: The parable of the good cetacean: Whales, dolphins, and international law

Towards a set of international principles:

• United Nations: Draft Declaration of Principles on Human Rights and the Environment
• American Convention on Human Rights: Article 11 of the Additional Protocol on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

How nations stand on the environment:

• 2010 Environmental Performance Index

Global warming:

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992 | beginner’s guide
• Kyoto Protocol to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1997: who has ratified: (table | maps)

Pollution control is good for the economy:

• Michael Porter: Green Competitiveness

Sustainable development:

• Herman Daly: A catechism of growth fallacies
• Herman Daly: Sustainable growth as an oxymoron

Land as property vs. land as trust:

• Placing property rights in perspective: Carl Pope, Sierra Club
• Dan Diamant, Christian Science Monitor: Government Takings? What About Givings?

Model community: Sanibel Island, Florida

• "The City of Sanibel affirms a land ethic that recognizes landholding—both public and private—as a form of stewardship, involving responsibilities to the human and natural communities of the island and its surroundings, and to future generations.”
• Sanibel Vision Statement (1997)
• land use based on ecological zones:
  The Sanibel Report (1976)

Links:

Organizations:

• Center for International Environmental Law
• Greenpeace International
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Nature Conservancy
• Sierra Club

To find out how members of the U.S. House and Senate are voting on environmental isues:

• League of Conservation Voters

Think globally, act locally—model local initiatives:

• Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation (Florida)
• Group for the South Fork (Long Island, NY)

Directories and search engines:

• Political Information: Environment
• Environmental Organization WebDirectory
• EnviroLink Network
• Renewable Energy Policy Project

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