1)Kricher tells us the ghost of Scrooge’s dead partner, Jacob Marley, who wears chains he forged himself ‘of
his own free will’ stares us in the face. Kricher notes that as “… human activities reduce predators that exert top
down influences, then [prey species] will increase … [and this] soon releases the pathogen [endemic to prey
species] from a sort of top down control by the predators…” ultimately unleashing an epidemic upon the human
population (pages 168-169). Kricher adds that food webs too are suseptible to similar forms of vulnerabilities,
concluding that “… humans must learn to manage food webs to maintain whatever characteristics of them are
deemed to be desirable” (169). But food webs and threats of pandemics aside, this level of management
requires an environmental ethics with both “an emotional and a pragmatic side” (200). What are examples of
these two aspects of the environmental ethics he calls for? In short, how might we unforge the chains that
prevent us from changing our values?
2)Why do you think Scranton titled the Introduction to his book Learning to Die in the Anthropocene “Coming
Home”?