I show photos of nature’s beauty with Thoreau quotes. The forces of spiritual values coupled with knowledge of the earth sciences can hopefully lead to a new global ethic to conserve nature’s beauty for future generations.

1. CAN NEW TECHNOLOGY
SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT?
5 Talks
by
Paul H. Carr, Ph. D
www.MirrorOfNature.org.
Sunset over Portsmouth, NH
from Star Island Conference Center

2. 1. The Beauty of Nature
versus Its Utility:
The Environmental
Challenge
Paul H. Carr, Ph. D.
AF Research Laboratory Emeritus
IEEE Fellow in 1979

3. CAN NEW TECHNOLOGY SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT?
1. Nature’s beauty versus its utility.
I will show photos of nature’s beauty with Thoreau quotes. The
forces of spiritual values coupled with knowledge of the earth
sciences can hopefully lead to a new global ethic to conserve
nature’s beauty for future generations.
2.Can new technology save us in time? The MIT-authored book,
Limits to Growth, projects an economic and food-per-capita
collapse. Written in 1972, predictions for the population explosion,
water shortages, non-renewable resource depletion, and climate
change have been accurate to date.
3. Why be concerned about Global Warming?
4. Data supporting anthropogenic global warming.
5. Technology and policies are available to save us.

4. The Beauty of Nature versus its Utility
•What is Beauty?
•Landscape Photos
•Environmental Ethics: From Thoreau to
Rachel Carlson & Al Gore
•Re-Envisioniong Nature to Save our
Planet

5. Swallowtail Butterfly
with Divine Proportion 1.618
BEAUTY in
SCIENCE &
SPIRIT
.
“The Beauty of Nature vs
Its Utility: The
Environmental Challenge
Chapter 9

6. Jay Peak, Northern, VT

7. •Beautiful flowers have vibrant colors and harmonious
symmetries.
•This subjective aesthetic beautiful form contrasts with the
objective, functional beauty that attracts insects to pollinate
• Similarly, beauty itself is a delicate dance between:
-mystical subjective forms and
-the mathematical, objective functions that maintain life.

8. BEAUTY'S BALANCE
Form & Function
Heaven & Human
Myth & Math
Quality & Quantity
Spirit & Science

9. This is salvation
When we marvel
At the beauty
Of created things
And praise
The beautiful providence
Of their Creator
- Meister Eckart

10. •“ If everyone were cast in the same mold, there would be
no such thing as beauty.” Charles Darwin, 1881
• “Beauty is the harmony of contrasts” A. N. Whitehead 1933
• “Scientific beauty is more than a personal experience of
aesthetic beauty.” Physicist Steven Weinberg
• Objective beauty is much closer to a horse trainer’s
enthusiasm for a beautiful race horse. This sort of beauty can
be measured.
• Can the horse win a race?
• Beauty resides in the interplay between the structure of its
body (form ) and its capability to run (function):
• Beauty is the interplay of FORM & FUNCTION

11. From theologian Philip Hefner’S FOREWORD to
BEAUTY IN SCIENCE & SPIRIT
“Whether there is universal consensus on the
criteria of beauty may well be argued,
without reaching resolution, but the fact that
every individual and every culture hold to
that which they consider beautiful--is not
contested."
“Beauty’s self and beauty’s giver”
by Gerald Manley Hopkins, S. J.

12. "The Adventure of the Universe starts with a dream and reaps
Tragic Beauty” (A. N. Whitehead )
Carr Family in 1985,
the year before Karin died of leukemia.
Paul’s late wife, Karin
(1940 - 1986)

13. TRAGIC
BEAUTY:
PIETA
by
Michelangelo

14. THE SCIENCE OF BEAUTY
• Nancy Etcoff is a
faculty member at
Harvard Medical School
& a psychologist at
Mass. General Hospital.
• Nancy Etcoff skewers
one of our cultures most
enduring myths that the
pursuit of beauty is a
learned behavior.

15. Windmills in the Netherlands
Balancing Ecology with Economics
“Valuing beauty is an essential and ineradicable part of human
nature that is revered and ferociously pursued at enormous cost.”
Survival of The Prettiest: The Science of Beauty

17. Modern Windmills in the Netherlands

18. 1935 Auburn Sports Roadster at the Boston
Museum of Fine Art’s Exhibit “Art Deco.”

19. Tesla
Model S
All Electric
260 mile
range.

20. 2012 Chevy Volt:
90 miles/gal running quietly on 40 mile battery

21. TRADEGY OF THE
COMMONS
Individual
desire to go
everywhere
gets you
nowhere,
while
polluting.
SOLUTIONs
1.Ethics
2. Economic
Regulation,
Laws

22. BEAUTY as an
ETERNAL OBJECT*
The Auburn was as beautiful
to our ancestors as the Volt
is to us today.
* Sherburne, Donald. 1961. A Whiteheadean Aesthetic,
Yale University Press, New Haven.

23. Our beautiful earth from space.
The electricity that illuminates our developed countries comes mainly from coal burning.

24. The use of coal to generate electricity has raised our standard of living.
Coal burning is a major source of the C02 that is warming our planet.

25. Chap 9, “The Beauty of Nature versus Its Utility, The Environmental Challenge”
HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-
1862)
Journal Account of a Summer Evening
in Concord, July 21, 1851 at 8:30 P.M:
“The streets of the village are much more interesting to me at
this hour of a summer evening than by day. Neighbors, and
also farmers, come a-shopping after their day’s haying, are
chatting in the streets, and I hear the sounds of many musical
instruments, and the singing from various houses. For a short
hour or two, the inhabitants are sensibly employed. The
evening is devoted to poetry, such as the villagers can
appreciate.”

26. Ice Melting on Walden Pond near the site of Thoreau’s Cabin
“Water Indeed Reflects Heaven” Thoreau

27. Geese Flying Over Melting Ice, 29 January 2002
"I look into the placid reflecting water for the signs and promise of the morrow.”

28. "Color stands for all ripeness and success."
Thoreau

29. "Water indeed reflects heaven because my mind does - such is its serenity- its transparency-stillness...
Standing on distant hills you see the heavens reflected, the evening sky in some low lake or river in the
valley-as
perfectly as in any mirror they could be- Does it not prove how intimate heaven is with earth?"
Thoreau, 31 August 1851, Journal
Walden Pond, January 29, 2002

30. "Water, by reason of its transparency and limpidness, is the mirror of bodies -
of physical etres, so also is truth equally the mirror of ideas." (Thoreau)
Upper Baker Pond, NH

31. IN WILDNESS IS THE PRESERVATION OF THE WORLD (THOREAU)
"The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild, and what I have been
preparing to say is, that in wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its
fibers forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it.
From the forest and the wilderness comes the tonics and barks which brace mankind."
(Thoreau's "Walking.")
Audubon Sanctuary, South Natick, MA

32. "A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth's eye, looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."
(Thoreau) Fawn Lake,
Bedford, MA

33. "A man's life should be as fresh as a river.
It should be the same channel, but new water every instant." (Thoreau)
Connecticut River, Orford, NH

34. Geese Flying Over Melting Ice, 29 January 2002
"I look into the placid reflecting water for the signs and promise of the morrow.”

35. SPONTANEOUS GENERATION?
"I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed
there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.“ Scientist Thoreau

36. CONSECRATION & CONSERVATION: WALDEN POND AS A SACRED SITE
Article by Torvis Page, Harvard Univ., Journal of the Faith & Science Exchange, Vol V 2001
• Thoreau’s WALDEN: imbues natural features such as the pond & trees with symbolic
meaning and sacred power & renders natural life-processes & mundane practices
religiously significant by ritualizing them.
THOREAU DEMARCATED WALDEN AS A SACRED PLACE:
SCIENTIFICALLY: surveying, sounding & charting, recording natural features.
NARRATIVELY: trees that stand “like temples” and serve as “shrines.”
PHYSICALLY: marking the site through construction of his hut & his bean field.
RITUALLY: commemorating physical features &
consecrating mundane objects through mythic and ritual performances.
•THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT, Don Henley Founder
- Emphasized the ecological CONSERVATION and STEWARDSHIP of Walden Pond
rather than its PERSERVATION.
- 600,000 visitors to Walden Pond each year
AN EVIRONMENTAL SUCCESS STORY

37. “When we contemplate the whole
globe as one great dewdrop, striped
and dotted with continents and
islands, flying through space with all
other stars all singing and shining
together as one, the whole universe
appears as an infinite storm of
beauty.”
Naturalist John Muir (1838 – 1914)

38. AMERICAN SCIENTIST, July-August 2011
ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE
Despite the growing catalog of extrasolar planets, data so far do
not alter estimates that we are effectively on our own
Howard A. Smith
This artist’s impression shows
the planet HD 189733b, about
63 light-years from Earth,
which is known to have water
and methane in its atmosphere,
although at temperatures over
1,000 degrees Celsius.
However, data from extrasolar
planets so far do not alter
estimates that we are probably
alone in the universe, for all
practical purposes.

39. “…Life on earth is precious and
deserves supreme respect. Even if we are
not unique in the universe-though we
may not know one way of another for
eons-we are fortunate. We have a
responsibility to act with compassion
toward people and our fragile
environment.” Howard Smith

40. CLIMATE SHOCK
from “Environment: An Interdisciplinary Anthology” by G.
Adelson, J, Engell et al. 2008. Yale U Press.Pg 17
• “If an asteroid hurling toward Earth with
strong probability strike within 40 years, rise
sea levels 3 feet, render coasts uninhabitable,
intensify hurricanes and tornadoes, cause
frequent floods and landslides…every
government would work furiously to discover
how that asteroid could be diverted and
destroyed.”

42. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962).
The book is widely credited with helping
launch the contemporary American
environmental movement.
The book was widely read—especially after its
selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club and
the New York Times best-seller list—and
inspired widespread public concerns with
pesticides and pollution of the environment.
Silent Spring facilitated the ban of the pesticide
DDT for agricultural use in 1972 in the United
States.
The book documented detrimental effects of
pesticides on the environment, particularly on
birds. Carson accused the chemical industry of
spreading disinformation, and public officials of
accepting industry claims uncritically.

43. Ursula Goodenough ,
Prof of Biology at
Washington U & former
President of the Institute
on Religion in an Age of
Science, in her best selling
The Sacred Depths of
Nature (1998) states:
If religious emotions can be elicited by natural reality…
then the story of Nature has the potential to serve as the cosmos
for the global ethos that we need to articulate….
Its must be a global project. I am convinced that the
project can be undertaken only if we all experience a solemn
gratitude that (1) we exist at all, (2) share a reverence for how
life works, and (3) acknowledge a deep and complex imperative
that life continue. A global ethic must be anchored both in an
understanding of human nature and in an understanding of the
rest of Nature.

44. Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965)
Nobel Peace Prize 1952
Reverence for Life
•Theologian, “Quest of the
Historical Jesus”
•Organist,
Bach Interpreter
•Medical missionary to Africa

45. REVERENCE FOR LIFE
Having experienced two World Wars, Albert Schweitzer developed his ethic
of "the reverence for life,” which shows to all with the will-to-live the same
reverence as he did to his own." His hope was that this "reverence for life"
would prevent further world wars and bloodshed.
I am life which wills to live, in the midst of life which wills to live. If I am a
thinking being, I must regard life other than my own with equal reverence.
Therefore, I see evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. Goodness, by
the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of life so it can to
attain its highest development.
Once man begins to think about the mystery of his life and the links
connecting him with the life that fills the world, he cannot but accept, for his
own life and all other life that surrounds him, the principle of Reverence for Life.
He will act according to this principle of the ethical affirmation of life in
everything he does.

46. Gore—who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his environmental activism and
penned the bestselling book “An Inconvenient Truth”—said the tools needed to deal with
global warming are already available. He noted that technological advancements in solar,
wind and geothermal energy provide alternatives to a fossil fuel-based economy.
But ultimately, what is needed to correct climate change is the political will to make
harmful environmental practices—like carbon-dioxide emissions—economically
unattractive in the marketplace, Gore said. He emphasized that reversing the effects of
climate change is a moral imperative and that ignoring the problem will only imperil
future generations.
“Make no mistake, this is not just a political issue, not just a market issue, not just a
national security issue, not just a jobs issue,” Gore said. “It is a moral issue.”
April 9, 2010
Al Gore:
Climate change a
‘moral issue’

47. Holmes Roltson III , the father of environmental ethics and winner of the 2003
Templeton Prize for Progress toward Spiritual Realities, rejects anthropocentrism
in the ethical and philosophical analysis of natural history.
Rolston’s article “Is There an Ecological Ethic?” was rejected by several journals
before it was finally published in Ethics in 1975. It was the first article in a major
philosophical journal to challenge the idea that nature is value-free and that all
values stem from human perspectives; it also helped to launch environmental
ethics as a branch of philosophical inquiry. Four years later Rolston cofounded the
journal Environmental Ethics.

48. • In his book Science and Religion (1987), he wrote that
“science is here to stay, and the religion that is divorced from
science today will leave no offspring tomorrow.”
• His Genes, Genesis and God (1999); was based on his Gifford
Lectures on natural theology, which he delivered at the
University of Edinburgh during the 1997–98 academic year.
• He believes that respect for nature's intrinsic value should
lead to reverence . Life is generated and regenerated in the
birth of the new from the death of the old. Life is also a gift,
which suggests a giver. The origin of life is also a mystery
and a source of scientific discovery. Rolston believes that
nature is the vast miracle that moves us from respect to
reverence.

49. “We have to figure out how to live without fossil
fuels someday. Why not now, before we have
destroyed the creation?”
Dr. Jim Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Space Science Institute and
Professor at Columbia University, speaking at the NH State House, 2 Apr 2009.
By eliminating coal burning, the largest source of CO2 emissions, in the next 20 years, CO2
concentrations will decrease.

50. In May 2013, Ken Ward and Jay O’Hara used a little white lobster boat, the Henry
David T, to block a shipment of 40,000 tons of coal to the Brayton Point Power Station
in Somerset, MA, the largest coal plant in New England.
They did this because climate change is a threat to their making a living.
They were charged with conspiracy, disturbing the peace, and motor vessel
violations and faced up to several years in jail.

51. The Bristol County District Attorney, Sam Sutter, dropped the
conspiracy charges and reduced the other charges to civil
infractions, civil disobedience, this morning, saying that he saw the
need to take leadership on climate change. He called climate change
“one of the gravest crises our planet has ever faced” and told a
cheering crowd that he would join them at the
People’s Climate March in New York City in two weeks.
In exchange for having
the state drop their
charges, Ken Ward &
Jay O’Hara agreed to
pay a fine of $2000
each in restitution to
the Town of Somerset
and the State Police.

52. Outside the Fall River Courthouse, Sept 8, 2014

53. 9/8/2015. District Attorney Sam Sutter holding up Bill McKibben’s, www.350.org , article in
Rolling Stone two years ago.

54. STORMS OF MY GRANDCHILDREN:
The Truth About the Coming Climate
Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity (2010)
By James Hansen

55. BALANCING ECONOMICS & ECOLOGY
ECONOMICS
- “The way we use energy strengthens our adversaries & threatens our planet.”
President Barak Obama's Inauguration Speech, Jan 2009
- The burning of fossil fuels gives developed countries a higher standard of living.
ECOLOGY:
- The increasing threat of global climate change is driven largely by
the combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation.
BALANCED by
- The rapid deployment of FREE ENERGY FOREVER
- Wind and solar are FREE after the up-front cost has been paid off.
- Will last until the sun burns out. (Forever = 5 billion years)
- Electric cars charged with energy from wind, solar, & nuclear.
- Stewardship, conservation, & efficiency.
SOLUTIONS to ENERGY INDEPENDENCE & CLIMATE CHANGE ARE THE
SAME. THEY CREATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW TECHNOLOGY

56. Conservation, efficiency, & a more
vegetarian diet can reduce our use
of fossil fuels. Nature is the capital
on which capitalism is based.
In the long-term, our world’s
economy will be constrained by
ecology.
There are indeed Limits to Growth.

57. RE-ENVISIONING BEAUTY
Is beauty “in the eye of the beholder”
and a Spiritual experience?
Without divinely created beauty,
nature becomes an object that may
be ravaged.
For example, the Canadian tar sands
can be beautiful in the eyes of its
owners because it is a source of black
gold.

58. Canadian Tar Sands: “Scraping Bottom”
National Geographic, 3/2009

59. RE-ENVISIONING BEAUTY
Let us re-envision beauty to transform our relationship
with life on earth.
Science is based on respect for nature’s laws.
Spirituality engenders reverence for and the
consecration of nature, created, sustained, and
redeemed by a Divine power.

60. Conservation, efficiency, & a more
vegetarian diet can reduce our use of
fossil fuels. Nature is the capital on
which capitalism is based.
In the long-term, our world’s
economy will be constrained by ecology.
There are indeed Limits to Growth.
What are you doing to conserve?
What car would Jesus Drive?

61. The Beauty of Nature versus its Utility:
The Environmental Challenge.
Chapter 9
•Nature’s beauty.
•The challenge of global warming caused
by the burning of fossil fuels.
•What we still can do before it’s too late.

62. CAN NEW TECHNOLOGY SAVE OUR ENVIRONMENT?
1. Nature’s beauty versus its utility.
I will show photos of nature’s beauty with Thoreau quotes. The
forces of spiritual values coupled with knowledge of the earth
sciences can hopefully lead to a new global ethic to conserve
nature’s beauty for future generations.
2.Can new technology save us in time? The MIT-authored book,
Limits to Growth, projects an economic and food-per-capita
collapse. Written in 1972, predictions for the population explosion,
water shortages, non-renewable resource depletion, and climate
change have been accurate to date.
3. Why be concerned about Global Warming?
4. Data supporting anthropogenic global warming.
5. Technology and policies are available to save us.

63. "And then the sun goes down, and long the afterglow gives light.
And then the damask curtains glow along the western window,
And now the first star is lit, and I go home." (Thoreau, Jan 7, 1852)
Walden Pond, January 29, 2002

64. To see this PowerPoint
Visit my web page www.MirrorOfNature.org and click on
My PowerPoint Talks & then
Can New Technology Save Our Environment?
Or
http://mirrorofnature.org/RISE_TechnologyEnvoronment.htm