Saturday, April 25, 2026




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Uncertainty by James K. Zimmerman - Book Review

Climate and Society in 2026 - A Spoken-Word Essay

Living Matter by Alex Levine - Book Review

Plant Fever - Book Review

The Arrogant Ape

Speaking for Trees: Science, Morality, and Well-Being

Climate Stability is a Matter of Forests

In Memoriam - Robert Redfern-West, Publisher and Scholar

Forest Sovereignty: Wildlife Sustainability and Ethics

Darwin, Botany, and the Curious World of Plants

Poet Anne Whitehouse on Adrienne Fidelin

Out of the Cage - Book by Gary L. Shapiro

Review of South Brooklyn Exterminating, a novel by Ian Maloney

The Wildlife State of Gaia. Ethical Dilemmas in Public Philosophy.

Animal Dignity, a book edited by Melanie Challenger, reviewed by Gregory F. Tague

Poetry by Vaneshran Arumugam

Letters to My Sheep by Teya Brooks Pribac - Reviewed by Andrew Taylor-Troutman

New Book by Jan Deckers - Health Care Ethics and Law

Defending Animals by Kendra Coulter - Reviewed by Gregory F. Tague

Garrett Mostowski, Lunations: Poems - Reviewed by Andrew Taylor Troutman

Ross Gay, The Book of (More) Delights - Reviewed by Andrew Taylor-Troutman

Anne Whitehouse poetry book Steady - Reviewed by Andrew Taylor-Troutman

Oppressive Liberation: Sexism in Animal Activism - book review by Gregory F. Tague

"Zelensky's Passion" - Poem by Nina Tassi (video)

Lichens by Vincent Zonca - book review by Gregory F. Tague

Justice for Animals by Martha C. Nussbaum - book review by Gregory F. Tague

Space Races by Anne Whitehouse

A Better Ape by Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell - book review by Gregory F. Tague

Tribute to Dr. Kathryn Coe

An Evolutionary Case for Veganism

Is there moral justification to eat meat? Read Gregory F. Tague's answer to that question in the Ecological Citizen

Animal Crisis: A New Critical Theory by Alice Crary and Lori Gruen

Carlo Alvaro, a Philosopher of Virtue Ethics, Comments on Cultured Meat

The Creative Lives of Animals by Carol Gigliotti - book review by Gregory F. Tague

Metamorphoses by Emanuele Coccia - book review by Gregory F. Tague

Growing Up In The Ice Age by April Nowell - book review by Gregory F. Tague

A paper, by Gregory F. Tague and Sintia Molina, on the cultural ecology of food in the journal Environmental Sciences Proceedings

Charles Darwin - a biography by J. David Archibald - Reviewed by Gregory F. Tague

Art and Adaptability: Consciousness and Cognitive Culture by Gregory F. Tague

On the Animal Trail - Review by Gregory F. Tague

Arrest Fauci? - Opinion Essay by Ryan Ritchie

Ghosts of America - Novel by Caroline Hagood - Reviewed by Mitch Levenberg

Wattana: An Orangutan in Paris by Chris Herzfeld - Review by Gregory F. Tague

An Ape Ethic - Extended Abstract Essay - in The Montreal Review

Bird Cottage by Eva Meijer - Review by Gregory F. Tague

Speak the Word - Music and Lyrics by Vaneshran Arumugam

Patience is a Virtue - Waiting Poems by Isabel Rimanoczy

Skaidrite Stelzer, Digging a Moose from the Snow – Book Review

Story of Jimmy (video)





Uncertainty by James K. Zimmerman - Book Review


James K. Zimmerman. Uncertainty. Bottlecap Press. 2026. 40 pgs. $10.00

How do humans confront the global mess they’ve created? Why do people claim priority over plants, animals, and earthly matter? Are we part of some universal recurrence, or is our place here and now our only hope? Zimmerman’s work poses the really big questions in accessible verse that is timely, playful, and philosophic. His poetic voice is quizzical, concerned, and yet thankful for life given. He ponders the creatures who came before us, evolved, survived, and then drifted into extinction. He questions our abuse of earthly paradise as we mass produce, overconsume, and discard the detritus of our lives into the natural world inhabited by other living organisms.

This poet challenges us to examine our false beliefs and shortcomings of supposed superiority. We are weak, having exposed our vulnerability to industry and technology. We’ve victimized ourselves through explosive modernization. In one poem AI struggles with its own knowledge, doubts, and feelings, wondering what humanity desires and if humans even know how to control their impulses. In another poem, the narrator predicts apocalypse. Is he correct? The voice in another poem comes from one who voyages far away from earth to meet others and tell the good tales of “urgent love” but not of our avarice or warfare. But the poet knows. The reader knows.

Deep in the short collection comes the title poem, “Uncertainty.” Can we be aware of our position or momentum if we battle between faith and science? Are we part of some god’s design or merely an afterthought, playthings? Without a god the responsibility of all life, the welfare of this green-blue planet, falls into the hands of humans. How’s our record so far? The poem suggests that in our lack of accountability we’re a failed experiment having fouled the paradise gratuitously handed to us.

What has our uncertainty wrought? The poet imagines the results, and they are not pretty. Earth in a million years as barren except for bacterial slime in an atmosphere of greenhouse gases, a renewal of the Darwinian existence of selection, struggle, and a lottery of genetic inheritance. Still, amid despair, one detects hope and aspiration in this poet as he asks us, whether through the Sage Kashyapa or La Carrera de Santo Santiago, to start anew by seeding our brains with the knowledge of our limitations so as to curb the damages of human pride and egoism.

Whether earthbound or cosmic, the poetic insights of Zimmerman in Uncertainty are energetic and compelling verses worth reading. This is a recommended chapbook for all earthlings.

-Reviewed by Gregory F. Tague

Copyright©2026 by Gregory F. Tague. All Rights Reserved.