Hooray! Entirely Virtual APA Central Meeting in February

climate, justice, philosophy, travel, , , ,

As a member of Philosophers for Sustainability, I’m so excited that our APA 2+1 Campaign is bearing fruit! This February 20-22 & February 27 – March 1, the American Philosophical Association’s Central Division Meeting will be held entirely online, via Zoom.

Among other benefits, the fully virtual conference will:

  • Substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions (no flying!),
  • Be much more affordable for participants (no hotels or flights to pay for!),
  • Be more accessible to students, folks with various disabilities, health conditions, caring responsibilities, and others (no uncomfortable ballrooms!)
  • Try out new session formats (read-ahead sessions, fully public sessions, optional watch parties for student groups, and more), and
  • Allow for access to recorded sessions for a whole year (finally – I need not miss out when interesting sessions are scheduled concurrently)!

The program has just been published, and a lot of people have put a lot of work into making this fully virtual conference a reality. I’m very grateful to them all.

Let’s make the experiment a success by registering, showing up, participating, thinking critically, and giving constructive feedback en masse!

We’ll be doing one of three annual APA conferences virtually in 2026 and 2027 as well, so we’ve got opportunities to improve based on what we learn this time around. As a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Virtual Meetings, I know that I’ll be giving a lot of thought to this, so feel free to get in touch with me if you’ve got ideas we should consider trying.

Book Recommendation: Transfarmation

food, justice, , , ,

One of the best, if not the best, book I read in 2024 was Leah Garcés’ Transfarmation: The Movement to Free Us from Factory Farming.

Garcés and her colleagues at Mercy for Animals are doing amazing work bridging the gap between (a) the many, many farmers who are fed up with being deeply in debt, with polluting the lands they love, with being bullied by multi-national food corporations, and with treating animals like mere machines and (b) the members of the vegan, environmental, and culinary communities who seek to abolish factory farms and transform the food system as a whole.

Transfarmation tells compelling, accessible stories about various individual farmers in different contexts, about the big picture of how the American farm system got so broken in the first place, and the positive impacts the partner farmers are bringing about for themselves and their communities by transitioning away from animal agriculture.

This book really hit home for me. My mom grew up on a farm, which my grandparents were still actively farming when I was little. I also lived in a (different) farming community throughout childhood – I had friends, classmates, teachers, and all sorts of other people around me who I loved and who depended on farming for both a livelihood and an identity. Even then, with very limited understanding, I had plenty of qualms about what happened on those farms.

But things have only gotten worse. American farming has changed virtually beyond recognition in living memory. And the existing farm system’s cruelty to farmers, to agricultural workers, to farm animals, and to the people who must eat the food produced on factory farms is beyond measure. It cannot be allowed to continue. The Transfarmation Project is finding real solutions for everyone impacted, one farm at a time. I found this book so energizing – I can’t recommend it highly enough!

a white bowl filled with smooth, orange, carrot soup

Cozy Carrot Soup

food, ,

Simple to make, nutritious, affordable, and satisfying, this soup has a surprisingly complex flavor. Cumin is the spice that makes this (and so many other dishes) nice!

1. Chop a medium onion, mix the bits in a large pot with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and put the pot on the stove at a medium heat setting, then let the onions cook until you see some good brown color. (It might take longer than you think – I recommend not stirring after you’ve spread the oil-coated onions evenly across the bottom of the pot.)

2. While the onions are cooking, peel, rinse, and chop about 7 large carrots, and add them to the onions once the onions are getting brown.

3. Continue cooking the veggies together for 5-10 minutes, and then add 3-4 hefty dashes of turmeric and 1-2 teaspoons of cumin. Mix all that around and cook for a few more minutes.

4. Add 1-2 tablespoons of Better than Bullion No Chicken Base (I love this stuff, but any vegan broth would do) and a few cups of water – at least enough to fully cover the carrots, or more if you like a thinner soup. Pre-warming it in the microwave or an electric kettle can speed the process along.

5. Bring everything to a boil then simmer until the carrots are tender when you stick a fork in (10-20 minutes), then remove from the heat.

6. Optional, recommended: use an immersion blender, if you’ve got one (or a regular blender for that matter), to whiz up the soup. Careful – it’s hot!

7. Optional: season with black pepper and garlic salt to taste.

8. Enjoy on its own or spooned over a scoop of your favorite grain (I like it with millet), topped with a green vegetable (I recommend peas), or supplement it with croutons or chickpeas. Consider adding a tablespoon of nutritional yeast to your bowl for extra protein, umami, and vitamin B12! The sky is the limit for modifying this one.

“Creating Carnists” published

food, justice, philosophy, , ,

My second co-authored paper with Jeremy Fischer, “Creating Carnists,” has finally, officially been published by Philosophers’ Imprint!

We’re so glad to be able to share our work in another open access venue, so that anyone and everyone can read it free of charge.

In the paper, we argue that there are child-centered reasons (relating to kids’ moral development, autonomy development, and physical health) for all caregivers (individual and institutional) to provide kids with maximally plant-based diets and related education – even if there is no general moral duty for adults to be vegan (although we think there is such a duty).

Since it has been two years (!) since the paper was initially accepted, there are a few things in it that we would say/do differently now. But in the intervening time, we’ve continued developing our arguments in various related works, so stay tuned to learn about how our ideas change (and don’t) over time!

10 Haiku for My Portable Induction Burner

climate, food,

You heat stuff so fast
I need not practice patience
Induction burner

Unmatched cooking speed
No hunger emergency
Dinner is ready

When I must clean you
A simple wipe is plenty
Induction burner

Steadfast excellence
Energy efficiency
We venerate you

Magnetic power
Awesome induction burner
A wonder machine

My budget is tight
A hundred dollars well spent
Induction burner

No yucky odors
Nor invisible poisons
You protect our health

Induction burner
You came with us when we moved
Renters’ trusty friend

A dish cloth or hand
Brushes your hot surface but
They do not get burnt

Like something magic
The future is induction
Just imagine it

Video: Reducing Emissions from Buildings in Chicago

Chicago, climate,

Since about 70% of all greenhouse gas emissions in Chicago come from our buildings, I’ve been leading a small team of Climate Reality Project volunteers with the goal of helping bring those building emissions down over time. That will take lots of work, but thankfully, we’ve got many wonderful coalition partners at the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (and the clean buildings working group in particular)!

Last week, my teammates and I gave a presentation to the general membership of Climate Reality’s Chicago Metro Chapter about what building decarbonization is, why it is so important, what our team has accomplished over the last year, and the projects we’ve currently got in the pipeline. Consider taking a look at that presentation, and let me know if you want to get involved or form some sort of partnership with our team!

(The main presentation starts about 10 minutes in – after some intro material from our chapter chair.)

Chicago Higher Education Buildings Need to Decarbonize

Chicago, climate,

Recently, my team over at the Climate Reality Project’s Chicago Metro Chapter released a report that draws connections between existing citywide energy benchmarking policies and climate goals, energy usage and emissions on college and university campuses, and strategies for working toward emission reductions. 

Check out the report “Addressing Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Chicago Campuses” or just get the highlights through the coverage by Illinois PIRG and The Columbia Chronicle.

Addressing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Chicago Campus Buildings: A Report

Chicago, climate, justice, , ,

With about 70% of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gas emissions in Chicago coming from buildings, it is important to know which ones are among the highest emitters, so that we can make the changes necessary to meet the goals in Chicago’s Climate Action Plan. 

As I learned while working with my team at the Climate Reality Project’s Chicago Metro Chapter, university buildings are among Chicago’s top emitters of climate-warming gasses per square foot. Seven university buildings ranked among the top ten most emissions intensive buildings in the city in 2021!

We recently released a report, Addressing Greenhouse Gas Emissions on Chicago Campuses, which relies on data from electrifychicago.net. That website allows users to get specific, publicly available energy usage and emissions information for individual large buildings that owners are required to report to the city under the Chicago Energy Benchmarking Ordinance. The website also helps users rank and group buildings to allow for better understanding of the data.

Using that excellent resource as a starting place, we identified a number of college and university campus buildings that are making outsize contributions to the climate crisis, as well as multiple institutions of higher education that have failed to comply with the benchmarking ordinance in recent years. We also uncovered a systemic failure on the city’s part to enforce the ordinance – foregoing as much as $30 million in potential fines.

We issued the report to spur universities to decarbonize their buildings by improving energy efficiency and by moving away from fossil fuels like methane gas. The report also highlights actions at the state and city level to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provides strategies for students and others concerned about climate change to work toward emission reductions.

The Climate Reality Project’s Chicago Metro Chapter is an all-volunteer group of Chicago area activists working to catalyze local solutions to the climate crisis since 2017.

Moral Courage, Environmental Style

climate, philosophy, , ,

Around the country, professors are hard at work creating and updating syllabi for fall, which can be both exciting and exhausting. Thankfully, Philosophers for Sustainability is here to help!

They’ve just posted a new section on their website, called Teaching Modules, with resources that can easily be slotted into existing courses, used to create new courses, or shared and discussed in philosophy clubs.

The first module is called “Moral Courage, Environmental Style,” and it contains a bunch of materials to accompany an article I published (gulp, 10 years ago) called “Courage as an Environmental Virtue.” We’re talking: a 15-minute summary video made by yours truly, a set of slides, an hour-long video conversation between myself and Dr. Nora Mills Boyd, video transcripts, discussion questions, activity prompts, and a list of related resources.

These free materials may be particularly useful in courses that discuss virtue ethics, activism, sex & gender norms, courage in military contexts, and climate change.

I had a lot of fun working with both Nora and Sadie Warren on this project and I’m hoping that this module will be the first of many shared there, so if you have an idea or a request for other materials of this general sort, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Nora at nboyd@siena.edu.

Book recommendation: When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible, by Lisa Tessman

book recommendations, philosophy

I’ve been meaning to read Lisa Tessman’s When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible for some time – and I’m very glad I finally got around to it!

This book is both accessible for a general audience and dense with food for thought. When we see people around us, in the news, and maybe ourselves in positions where some sort of moral failure seems guaranteed, that can really wear on us. But I think it feels better to openly acknowledge that reality, as Tessman does, than to try to fool ourselves about the possibility of always keeping our hands clean.

I’ll admit that I went into the book already very sympathetic with the conclusion that, indeed, sometimes one is going to violate a moral duty no matter what one choose to do, but I wouldn’t have been able to articulate why nearly as eloquently and thoroughly as Tessman has. I’m less sure where I stand on Tessman’s constructivism, but that is something to continue pondering for the future (for me).

If lots more people would read this book and take some of the central ideas on board, I think that maybe we could be both more forgiving of ourselves and each other, and also more motivated to change social structures for the better – so that the moral dilemmas she discusses wouldn’t arise quite so often in the first place!