Launching Carolina Ecology

I’m excited to launch Carolina Ecology this week. This is a project I’ve been working on in my head for a while, and I’m excited to see it come to fruition. 

The idea is to provide a place to bridge the worlds that make up our region’s ecologies: to draw on spiritual traditions, ecological science, and grassroots activism so that each informs and deepens the other. There will be regular essays (already a couple there written by me) as well as a weekly podcast that will hopefully include voices from around North and South Carolina exploring these ideas, possibilities, thoughts, or events.

From the about page:

What You’ll Find Here

Essays & Reflections: Essays highlighting the vastness of ecologies in the Carolinas as well as explorations of theological frameworks and their relevance to Carolina landscapes, from the Coastal Plain’s salt marshes to the Piedmont’s waterways (from myself and others).

Local Conservation News: Updates on land-preservation efforts, watershed restoration projects, and progress (or setbacks) in state and municipal environmental policy.

Indigenous Perspectives: Profiles of initiatives, interviews with tribal leaders, and deep dives into traditional ecological knowledge, especially fire and water stewardship practices in our region.

Faith & Ecology Resources: Sermons, liturgy ideas, and study guides for congregations seeking to integrate environmental ethics into worship, outreach, and education.

Events & Calls to Action: Listings of Carolina-centered conferences, citizen science opportunities (like stream monitoring or butterfly counts), and gatherings where activists, faith communities, and scientists come together.

Here’s the essay I just published there regarding World Oceans Day and Pentecost as well…

Sustaining What Sustains Us – by Sam Harrelson:

It’s World Oceans Day across our planet today. There won’t be many sermons about that here in the Carolinas, I fear. However, I am hopeful that a young person somewhere in our two states will be inspired today to think about our oceans from its amazing creatures to the quizzical nature of the ever present tidal cycles to the circulation that helps regulate our climate despite our worst intentions at control or extraction (whether with intent or not). Folly Beach is hosting a gathering if you’re in the Charleston area or the Lowcountry of SC.

I hope you’ll subscribe if you’re interested in such topics and tell a friend or two!

Estonia’s AI Leap in Schools

I tended towards doing more oral responses and having students complete assignments in class on paper in the classroom the last few years (and have always fought against giving homework although some admins were not big fans of that…), but I think this approach also has serious merits if you have qualified and well-intentioned teachers (and parents) on board (big if)…

Estonia eschews phone bans in schools and takes leap into AI | Schools | The Guardian:

In the most recent Pisa round, held in 2022 with results published a year later, Estonia came top in Europe for maths, science and creative thinking, and second to Ireland in reading. Formerly part of the Soviet Union, it now outperforms countries with far larger populations and bigger budgets.

There are multiple reasons for Estonia’s success but its embrace of all things digital sets it apart. While England and other nations curtail phone use in school amid concerns that it undermines concentration and mental health, teachers in Estonia actively encourage pupils to use theirs as a learning tool.

Now Estonia is launching a national initiative called AI Leap, which it says will equip students and teachers with “world-class artificial intelligence tools and skills”. Licences are being negotiated with OpenAI, which will make Estonia a testbed for AI in schools. The aim is to provide free access to top-tier AI learning tools for 58,000 students and 5,000 teachers by 2027, starting with 16- and 17-year-olds this September.

Relational Roots and Ecological Futures: Bridging Whitehead, Cobb, and Gullah Wisdom Toward a Decolonized Ecological Civilization

I spoke today at the Center for Process Studies’ conference, Is It Too Late?: Toward an Ecological Civilization on the topic of Gullah Geechee insights and practices that would urge the process philosophy of Whitehead or Cobb towards active participation and engagement in local communities. Here’s my paper and the presentation below…

Presentation on Gullah and Ecological CivilizationDownload

R.I.P. Holmes Rolston III

Holmes Rolston III, Pioneer of Environmental Ethics, Dies at 92 – The New York Times:

But the dismissal propelled him on to a restless intellectual and spiritual journey, with stops as a trained theologian and a natural historian, until, as a newly minted philosophy professor, he posed a question that had been unasked or routinely dismissed since before Plato: Does nature have value?

His answer — that nature has intrinsic value apart from that derived from human perspectives — appeared in a groundbreaking essay in 1975 that launched his career as the globally recognized “father” of environmental ethics. Moreover, in tune with rising public concern about land, air, water and wildlife, his thesis heralded what the philosopher Allen Carlson called the “environmental turn” in philosophy after millenniums of neglect…

Professor Rolston’s essay “Is There an Ecological Ethic?” was published in the prestigious journal Ethics. It was the first major article in a philosophical journal to accord value to nature.

Dead Sea Scrolls and AI

Fascinating (and much needed) work here on texts that still have much to teach us…

Many of Dead Sea scrolls may be older than thought, experts say | Archaeology | The Guardian:

“Overall, this is an important and welcome study, and one which may provide us with a significant new tool in our armoury for dating these texts,” he said. “Nevertheless, it’s one that we should adopt with caution, and in careful conjunction with other evidence.”

Center for Process Studies Presentation June 2025

I’m excited to present a paper this weekend at the Center for Process Studies’ conference (Pomona College, CA), “Is It Too Late?: Toward an Ecological Civilization.”

My paper is titled Relational Roots and Ecological Futures: Bridging Whitehead, Cobb, and Gullah Wisdom Toward a Decolonized Ecological Civilization and I’ll be posting that up after the conference this weekend!

Origins of Human Use of Fire? 🔥

Lately, I’ve been thinking and writing about human uses and conceptions of fire in relation to liturgy, language, and ecologies. Research such as this about early uses of fire as technology (and I would include language, spirituality, and mythologies in there) has fascinated me recently as a result…

Stone age BBQ: How early humans may have preserved meat with fire:

Prof. Barkai explains, “The origins of fire use is a ‘burning’ topic among prehistory researchers around the world. It is generally agreed that by 400,000 years ago, fire use was common in domestic contexts—most likely for roasting meat, and perhaps also for lighting and heating.

“However, there is controversy regarding the preceding million years, and various hypotheses have been put forward to explain why early humans began using fire. In this study, we sought to explore a new perspective on the issue.”

“Not a forest, but a museum.”

You may want to sit down to read this… 

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects | Insects | The Guardian:

Today, as well as being an ecologist Wagner feels he has taken on a second role – as an elegist for disappearing forms of life.

“I’m an optimist, in the sense that I think we will build a sustainable future,” Wagner says. “But it’s going to take 30 or 40 years, and by then, it’s going to be too late for a lot of the creatures that I love. I want to do what I can with my last decade to chronicle the last days for many of these creatures.”