The hottest Environmental Ethics Substack posts right now

Geoengineering is a real science aimed at fighting climate change. It includes methods like cloud seeding and solar reflection, but it needs full public transparency since it could affect everyone.
There’s a long history of weather manipulation efforts, like Project Cirrus and Project Stormfury. Many of these projects had mixed results, leading to both discoveries and unexpected consequences.
Public engagement is key for geoengineering to be used responsibly. People need to stay informed and participate in discussions about these technologies to ensure decisions are made ethically and transparently.

Sleeping outdoors can turn a vague idea of "nature" into a million small details — learning to ID trees and routines makes the world feel more familiar and alive.
Modern wild camping is often practical and gear-driven: people use tarps, ridgelines, cars or vans, gyms and laundrettes to make living outside feasible while trying to follow Leave No Trace.
It comes with real trade-offs — legal and safety risks, a risk of feeling privileged or exploitative, and the danger of treating nature as a quick health cure — so be cautious, respectful and realistic.

Ocean iron fertilization could rapidly pull CO2 out of the air by seeding parts of the ocean and boosting phytoplankton, and proponents say it might restore safer CO2 levels within a few decades.
The science and ecology are uncertain — experiments and studies show mixed results and risks like harmful algal blooms, damage to fisheries, and unintended climate effects could occur.
Even if it works, it poses a political and ethical problem because it could let powerful actors avoid cutting emissions and keep exploiting the planet instead of making systemic change.

Rapid technological progress, especially AI, risks eroding human cognitive sovereignty and treating people as resources for building a superintelligence.
A better path is to embrace our natural, biological existence and reintegrate with Earth's ecosystems as central to what it means to be human; protecting biodiversity and life's continuity should be our main goal.
We should use technology to protect and reconnect with nature rather than to segregate from it, aiming to secure the planet's ability to sustain diverse life in perpetuity.

Weltschmerz means feeling tired or sad about how the world is. It's a deep emotional exhaustion about life's challenges and problems.
People today face many big issues like climate change and wealth inequality, which can make this feeling even stronger. It's easy to feel overwhelmed by these problems.
This sense of world-weariness has worsened over time as we see societal promises break down. It's a struggle that many people can relate to.

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Insects might feel pain, and if they do, there's a lot of suffering happening because so many insects exist. This makes their welfare a big ethical concern.
Understanding how we impact insect populations is crucial. Even small actions can lead to the suffering or death of a huge number of insects, which is often overlooked.
Many people don't empathize with insects, but if we consider their potential suffering, it challenges us to rethink topics like factory farming and how we value animal lives.

We never really mastered nature — we learned ways to survive within its limits and rhythms.
For tens of thousands of years people lived in tight dependence on seasonal ecosystems, using coordinated hunts, portable tools, and cultural skills to stay alive.
Sudden environmental change can erase whole ecosystems and human ways of life, as melting ice and rising seas ended the mammoth tundra and the societies that relied on it.

There is no separate "nature" — humans and the rest of life share one interconnected planet.
Treating nature as an optional accessory makes it seem nonessential, but we depend on planetary ecosystems for our survival.
Nature isn’t just a walk in the forest or a scenic backdrop; it’s the whole complex system that supports life everywhere.

We are facing many crises all at once, called a polycrisis. This means it's affecting us in many parts of our lives and makes us feel overwhelmed.
Horror can be seen as the fear of losing control or understanding in uncertain situations. To get through it, we need to confront what scares us, rather than avoiding it.
To change and grow, we need to rethink our beliefs and frameworks that have been shaped by capitalism. Embracing change is key to moving past the horrors we face.