The Adirondack Almanack has recently been enlivened by a series substantive of conversations around land use in the Adirondacks.  I invite anyone interested in continuing those conversations to participate in the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Interdisciplinary Scholarship in Land Use and Ethics 2^nd Annual Symposium May 17–19, 2013 at the Newcomb campus.  On its best day, philosophy succeeds in sending “the conversation off in new directions.”

With a free exchange of ideas and a commitment to inquiry, philosophy as both catalyst and conveyor ought to “engender new normal discourses, new sciences, new philosophical research and thus new objective truths.” This project provides us with an opportunity to do all of these things in an open dialog around issues of land use on local, national and global scales.
This Symposium is a place for ideas in-process, unfinished research and to introduce work in its various stages of development. We’re welcoming research from across professions and disciplines on topics related to balancing individual and community priorities with respect to land use and the associated expectations for human and ecosystem stewardship and social and environmental ethics.

I expect, as we did in 2012, to see independent scholars alongside industry and agency professionals along with faculty and students from across the humanities and the sciences. Presentations are meant to generate conversation around a variety of approaches to land use, the moral implications of these approaches, as well as the ways that they influence the ongoing debate over how to achieve social and environmental justice.

Philosopher John Dewey referred to active discourse as “breaking the crust of convention” and I’d like us to use this Symposium to get together and get on with it.

Please contact me, Marianne Patinelli-Dubay, at mpatinellidubay@esf.edu for additional information.