An Ethics of Biodiversity

A welcome addition to ecological ethics! This lucid and compelling book integrates scientific understanding of biodiversity with concern for conservation, cultural diversity, and social justice to develop a valuable Christian ecological ethic for moral formation, discernment, and action. It is especially useful for thinking about the multiple scale-local, regional, global-of ecological ethical issues. -- Pamela Brubaker, professor of religion and ethics, California Lutheran University An Ethics of Biodiversity not only lays out the arguments and criticisms around the ecological values in biodiversity, but also lays out theological arguments for biodiversity as having sacramental value. The concept of biodiversity as revealing God to us is powerful, even as O'Brien validates the many questions about the goodness of biodiversity, given its dependence upon conflict and suffering. The book is accessible to undergraduates, compelling in its arguments, and recommends itself as carefully balanced in a field replete with opposing claims. -- Christine Gudorf, professor and chair, Department of Religious Studies, Florida International University An excellent book that makes a distinctive contribution to a critically important and timely issue, and advances the task and agenda of Christian environmental ethics in several important ways. O'Brien explains clearly the central concepts and debates in ecology and conservation biology around conservation of biodiversity, and shows how and why they are central to a Christian ethics of biodiversity. The scientific scholarship and ethical analysis are both first-rate. This is a terrific book! -- Dan Spencer, associate professor of environmental studies, University of Montana

Bringing scientific data into conversation with theological tradition, this book shows that biodiversity is a point of intersection between faith and ethics, social justice and environmentalism, science and politics, global problems and local solutions.Life on earth is wildly diverse, but the future of that diversity is now in question. Through environmentally destructive farming practices, ever-expanding energy use, and the development and homogenization of land, human beings are responsible for unprecedented reductions in the variety of life forms around us. Estimates suggest that species extinctions caused by humans occur at up to 1,000 times the natural rate, and that one of every twenty species on the planet could be eradicated by 2060. "An Ethics of Biodiversity" argues that these facts should inspire careful reflection and action in Christian churches, which must learn from earth's vast diversity in order to help conserve the natural and social diversity of our planet. Bringing scientific data into conversation with theological tradition, the book shows that biodiversity is a point of intersection between faith and ethics, social justice and environmentalism, science and politics, global problems and local solutions. "An Ethics of Biodiversity" offers a set of tools for students, environmentalists, and people of faith to think critically about how human beings can live with and as part of the variety of life in God's creation.