This Almanac of Environmental Trends is an example of the creative destruction of the marketplace, or, in the language of popular culture, a “reboot” of a stale franchise—the annual Index of Leading Environmental Indicators. Since 1994, the Index has reported highlights of environmental trends in the United States, most—though not all—of which have been steadily improving. The 2011 Almanac of Environmental Trends brings tracking environmental progress fully into the 21^st century of real-time analysis and commentary. The Almanac explores the nature and sources of environmental progress, affirming the central role of markets, technology, and human creativity in solving the environmental challenges of our time.

Steven F. Hayward is Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute and the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and an M.A. in Government from Claremont Graduate School, and has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University and Ashland University. He writes frequently on a wide range of current topics, including environmentalism, law, economics, and public policy for publications including National Review, Reason, The Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, The Public Interest, the Claremont Review of Books, and Policy Review. In addition to being the principal author of the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators for 15 years, his most recent book is Mere Environmentalism.

This second edition has been completely revised and updated to reflect recent developments in magisterial teaching and scientific research. More than thirty authors, who are experts in their fields, examine moral action theory, key ethical principles, ethics committees, the embryo and fetus, contraception, reproductive technologies, difficult pregnancies, rape protocols, the determination of death, palliative care, nutrition and hydration, the persistent vegetative state, do-not-resuscitate orders, health care proxies, organ donation, vaccination refusals, genetic medicine, human experimentation, religious freedom, triage, cooperation with evil, state mandates, organizational ethics, and other topics.

The work of Benedictine priest, theologian, and world-renowned physicist Stanley Jaki is given its first systematic study here in Creation and Scientific Creativity. Haffner also provides a full bibliography of over three decades of Jaki’s scholarship, along with a comprehensive overview of Jaki’s life and career.

While conservatives are presumed to be critical of Darwin’s theory, many on the right, such as George Will, James Q. Wilson, and Larry Arnhart, have mounted a vigorous defense of Darwinism. As Discovery Institute’s John West explains in his book, Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest, their attempts to reconcile conservatism and Darwinian biology misunderstand both.

In this small but incisive book, Dr. West addresses how Darwin’s theory, contrary to its conservative champions, manifestly does not reinforce the teachings of conservatism. According to West, Darwinism promotes moral relativism rather than traditional morality. It fosters utopianism rather than limited government. It is corrosive, rather than supportive, of both free will and religious belief. Finally, and most importantly, Darwinian evolution is in tension with the scientific evidence, and conservatism cannot hope to strengthen itself by relying on Darwinism’s increasingly shaky empirical foundations.  This book issues a challenge to conservatives they cannot afford to ignore. According to According to,  Prof. J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas, Austin, hails the book for “showing clearly that Darwinism is not a source of conservative insight into human nature, but only a source of confusion.”

Dr. John West is a Senior Fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, where he is Associate Director of Discovery’s Center for Science & Culture and Vice President for Public Policy and Legal Affairs. Dr. West holds a Ph.D in Government from Claremont Graduate University and a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington.

What They Are Saying:

“Darwin’s Conservatives is concise, precise and convincing. …” — Phillip E. Johnson author of Darwin on Trial

“John West rolls through the arguments for a pro-Darwin conservatism like an Abrams tank leveling a street barricade: methodically and irresistibly. If there are any conservative Darwinists left after this rout, it’s only because they won’t stand and fight.” — George Gilder, author of Wealth & Poverty and Telecosm.

A fair and honest debate about religious responses to environmental issues should always distinguish theological principles from prudential judgments.  The Cornwall Declaraion and the accompanying essays in this volume were written to do just that.  They were not written to provide theological rationale for current environmental fashion. Rather, they seek to articulate the broad Judeo-Christian theological principles concerning the environment, and to distinguish those principles from contrary ideas popular to the environmental movement.

The Acton Institute is a non-profit, ecumenical think tank working internationally to “promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.”  With offices in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Rome, Italy, as well as affiliates in four othr nations around the world, the Acton Institute is uniquely positioned to comment on e sound economic and moral foundations necessary to sustain humane environmental and societal policies.

What does it mean to say that God “used evolution” to create the world? Is Darwin’s theory of evolution compatible with belief in God? And even if Darwin’s theory could be reconciled with religious belief, do we need to do so? Is the theory well established scientifically? Is it true?

In the century and a half since Charles Darwin first proposed his theory of evolution, Christians, Jews, and other religious believers have grappled with how to make sense of it. Most have understood that Darwin’s theory has profound theological implications, but their responses have varied dramatically.

Some religious believers have rejected it outright; others, often called “theistic evolutionists,” have sought to reconcile Darwin’s theory with their religious beliefs, but often at the cost of clarity, orthodoxy, or both. Too few have carefully teased out the various scientific, philosophical, and theological claims at stake, and separated the chaff from the wheat. As a result, the whole subject of God and evolution has been an enigma wrapped in a shroud of fuzz and surrounded by blanket of fog.

The purpose of this anthology of essays is to clear away the fog, the fuzz, and the enigma. Contributing authors to the volume include Jay Richards, co-author of The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery; Stephen Meyer, author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design; William Dembski, author of The Design Revolution; Jonathan Witt, co-author of A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature; Denyse O’Leary, author of By Design, or by Chance?; and David Klinghoffer , author of Shattered Tablets.

Dr. Jay Richards is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and Director of Research for the Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. His previous books include The Privileged Planet; Money, Greed, and God; The Untamed God; and Are We Spiritual Machines? Dr. Richards holds a Ph.D. (with honors) in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. His work has been covered in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal; and he has appeared on many national radio and TV programs.

This popular classroom text appears in a revised third edition with updates on nutrition and hydration, the persistent vegetative state, stem cell research, euthanasia, important court rulings, and many other topics critical to today’s health care profession.

The work is divided into three main sections: “Personhood,” which considers the use of faith and reason in the analysis of moral questions in medical decision-making and bioethics; “The Beginning of Human Life,” which examines the origin of the person, abortion, various reproductive technologies, and stem cell research; and “The End of Human Life,” which considers organ transplantation, suicide, decisions about prolonging life, and the determination of death. The appendices include a new chapter on eugenics, discussions of difficult end-of-life cases, the Declaration on Euthanasia, and the two Vatican instructions Donum vitae (1987) and Dignitas personae (2008). Each chapter has newly revised review questions that reiterate key points from the text and a set of discussion questions for generating student participation in classroom settings.

The text is written in an authoritative manner that is geared for the average student. Father Leies includes many interesting stories and analogies. This is a great textbook for the classroom setting. Each chapter includes review questions and discussion questions

Rev. John A. Leies is professor of theology and former President Emeritus of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, where he has been named as an Outstanding Faculty Member of the School of Arts and Social Sciences and the Graduate School.

What They Are Saying:

“Rarely has the need for formation in moral conscience been more urgent. The revised third edition of John Leies’s Handbook of Critical Life Issues provides students with an easy to understand guide to questions of conscience that bear directly on the practice and delivery of health care. If we are to arrest the growing epidemic of moral relativism in our culture, we must focus, as Leies does, on the dignity of the human person.  While retaining its previous emphasis on topics in beginning- and end-of-life issues, this general revision provides new information on eugenics and stem cell research, Catholic teaching on nutrition and hydration, revised discussion questions, expanded appendices, and updated references. The Handbook should be a required text in the moral formation of all students in the health care professions.” — Bro. Ignatius Perkins, OP, PhD, RN, Dean and Professor of Nursing, Aquinas College, Nashville

What should we do with the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos held in fertility clinics around the world today? One solution would be adoption. Would such a course of action be moral? That is the question faced in this volume. The leading thinkers in Catholic bioethics divide into two opposing camps in a great debate over biotechnology, sexuality, marriage, and the right to life. The question is visceral for many. The idea of a woman taking the embryo of another into her womb provokes disdain among those who find this an infringement on the sanctity of marriage, while the proponents of embryo adoption argue that the sanctity of human life, and the innocence of the victim of this cruel fate, obliges us to take heroic action. The debate naturally touches on many other related topics, such as the widespread use of IVF, the willingness of some to see human embryos as tools for research, and the odd status of embryos preserved indefinitely in frozen storage. Embryos are indeed being adopted today, and successfully to term, but is it right to do so? With a foreword by Robert George, and some practical advice from the editors offered in an afterword by Rev. Thomas Berg, L.C. and Edward Furton, the core of the volume is a who’s who of Catholic scholars. The book originated from a forum assembled and sponsored by The Westchester Institute for Ethics & the Human Person.

Rev. Thomas Berg, L.C., Ph.D. is Adjunct Professor of Moral Philosophy at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome and founder and Executive Director of The Westchester Institute for Ethics & the Human Person in Thornwood, New York

Edward J. Furton, Ph.D., is an ethicist and Director of Publications at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.