Dave Foreman spills his guts on the difference between real conservationists and the rest of us, who are interested in saving the environment for utilitarian reasons here, urging a return to conservation's roots in the preservation of wildness for its own sake, and slamming utilitarian environmental approaches to conservation. I actually thought the movement had gotten past this debate; apparently I was wrong.
Key phrase:
... [N]ature conservationists who work to protect wilderness areas and wild species should be called conservationists, and ... resource conservationists, who wish to domesticate and manage lands and species for the benefit and use of humans, should be called resourcists.
When environmentalists turn their attention from the so-called "built environment" to nature, they can take either a conservationist or a resourcist pathway. I've named environmentalists who have a utilitarian resourcist view "enviro-resourcists."
And I've ruffled some feathers with this view.
I've ruffled even more feathers lately by warning that enviro-resourcists have been slowing gaining control of conservation groups, thereby undercutting and weakening our effectiveness, and that nature lovers need to take back the conservation family.
Now, I attend a graduate school founded by Gifford Pinchot, utilitarian extraordinaire, and about 70 percent of the students at my school are studying to become environmental managers -- exactly the type of resourcist Foreman rails against, and the type of utilitarian manager who he claims is slowly taking over the major environmental organizations. (And he's right about that.)
While parts of Foreman's argument appeal to me, because flower-filled alpine meadows inspire my soul, I nonetheless think that his argument about the intrinsic value of nature can be a dangerous one, particularly when exported to the developing world, which is where a lot of conservation is taking place.
Yet Foreman persists, stating that the "resourcist" turn in conservation is a major problem:
[A] growing number of conservation group leaders do not themselves believe in nature for its own sake. David Johns writes in an email message that "some conservationists seem to be not just using anthropocentric arguments to advance rewilding goals, but are, in fact, backing off of rewilding goals in favor of sustainable development nonsense."
Now, I thought the resourcist turn was actually a positive move on environmentalism's part, one urged by conservation workers such as Mac Chapin and well-covered by Grist and others.
One could argue that the reason we have this "sustainable development nonsense" is that when Westerners impose their "intrinsic" values on impoverished indigenous communities, we often end up impoverishing them more, and ignoring the factors that led to deforestation and resource overuse in the first place. Resource extraction is going to go on because humans need resources. There are better and worse ways to extract these resources, and at least resourcists are trying to find the better way.
Yet at the same time, Foreman's argument appeals, because so many American enviros came to the movement from a love of the wild, and do believe that there is an intrinsic value in, say, a field of glacier lilies. But is anyone other than Foreman arguing that conservationists/environmentalists return to the intrinsic love of the wild when making policy? Are his rants just a shard of remaining Thoreauvian romanticism/Western colonialism, or do a lot of people still think this way? Thoughts?
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Comments
View as Flat
josullivan58 Posted 10:26 am
26 Mar 2007
It sounds like the often heard enviro's as extremist shtick. The right is very good at setting up the discussion in a way that benefits their side.
Are enviro's falling into a trap when we ourselves make a big issue out of this?
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fallinggoat Posted 12:27 pm
26 Mar 2007
I am in complete favor of restricting development on federal lands and in areas where eco-systems are compromised. The hands-off approach works in a lot places. But most places where humans reside there needs to be a "managed" approach. Seems pretty clear to me.
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Shambu Posted 4:26 pm
26 Mar 2007
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Robert Delfs Posted 6:45 pm
26 Mar 2007
Foreman maintains only he and his comrades have a genuine "love and respect for wild nature," that efforts to restore and manage damaged and degraded environments and avert ecological collapse are so intrinsically flawed that their proponents and practitioners are precluded from claiming to care about wilderness "for its own sake" and should not be allowed to call themselves conservationists, merely crass "resourcists".
This is indeed an old debate, and one should carefully note the many instances of self-romanticizing and self-congratulation, e.g., "I've ruffled a few feathers with these views" and "Many of us need to get out and dirty in Nature." Foreman's claim that only deep ecologists can claim the mantle of conservationists must be resisted, just as more recent efforts to redefine environmentalism as part of the movement to protect animal rights and welfare.
In his 1992 critique of radical ecology, Green Delusions (Duke University Press (1992)) wrote:
"Eco-radicalism tells us that we must dismantle our technological and economic system, and ultimately our entire civilization. Once we do so, the rifts between humanity and nature will purportedly heal automatically."
That vision is, of course, a millenarian fantasy, deep ecology's equivalent to the coming of the Kingdom of Christ on Earth, or the many messianic Pure Land revolts in medieval China predicated on mass fantasies of the imminent arrival of the Maitreya Bodhisattva, or indeed the 20th Century Marxian fantasy of a communist utopia that following the collapse of capitalism and its appurtenances. (Anyone seen the state withering away around here?)
The task for a reality-based conservation and environmentalist movement is not to mount vainglorious campaigns to dismantle civilization,
much less to sit on a mountaintop in Bozeman waiting for the second coming of Arne Naess (nice work it you can get it, though), but rather (as Lewis puts it) "to devise realistic plans for avoiding ecological collapse and reconstructing an ecologically sustainable economic order. To do so will entail working with, not against, society at large."
Weirder yet is Foreman's apparent belief that reintroducing large carnivores to parts of North America - a measure that I happen to personally support, though I believe this must be approached with caution - would simply be "rewilding" rather than itself an example of exactly the kind of management and human interference in nature that Foreman has so frequently condemned.
But Foreman is an interesting character. And his more recet work with the Wildlands Project and the ReWilding Institute share far more common ground with critics of deep ecology and eco-radicalism than he probably realizes.
Robert Delfs
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caniscandida Posted 7:09 pm
26 Mar 2007
I hope they are both wrong, that the resourcists are taking over. But if that is the case, then Foreman has done well to warn us.
And we can do without the barely hidden subtext, "Gosh, we all love human beings, don't we, so of course what else could we be but resourcists!"
The message of FallingGoat (cute name; a "Jurassic Park" reference?) is hopeful, but requires some analysis.
The message of Shambu is excellent. "Sustainable development" is a very complex subject, about which I have reservations but no firm opinion; I am glad to know that there are some who are prepared to question the thinking behind it.
Alaska is an excellent example in this context, and I love Shambu's stated resolution to protect Alaskan wilderness, "even if i never step foot in that state."
(That would be a brilliant social movement, by the way, if writers writing in English refused to capitalize the personal pronoun "I.")
Probably most of us will never visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And yet, nevertheless, as Shambu suggests, we are attached to that place; we have a responsibility to that place.
We ask ourselves: Does my love of human beings lead me to believe that drilling for petroleum on the coastal plain is OK? Does my love of human beings lead me to believe that finding unnecessary jobs for industrial workers from the Lower 48 is OK? Does my love of human beings lead me to believe that the livelihood of the Gwich'in, who depend on the health of the Porcupine caribou herd, should be destroyed? Does my love of human beings lead me to believe that the Gwich'in either are not human beings, or do not count as much as others?
"Love," abused in the resourcist mouth, becomes a kind of blasphemy.
Resourcist belief is full of moral problems. Resourcist rhetoric is full of bullying and deceipt.
Please let us stay far away from these people.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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spaceshaper Posted 8:44 pm
26 Mar 2007
Wildness is important to the earth itself, for reasons nothing to do with human need other than the need to know it exists as a deep bass note, a reference point for our own weird, erratic and unusual human lives. At the same time, where we are, wilderness is not. We are not likely to totally remove our weird selves from the earth equation intentionally. Given the choice between not existing as a species and existing wisely as a species within nature, few would expect to find human consensus on the former. We are capable though of eradicating ourselves by gross mismanagement, which is where resourcism comes in. Setting aside some parts of the earth in which we do not actively try to intervene is important from this perspective because it offers a degree of protection of the global resource from even our well-intentioned management mistakes.
I offer this lovely poem as a peace offering. I believe it speaks to the complex symbiosis which exists between human culture and wild nature. Perhaps it means something entirely different. Such is the glorious nature (that word again) of poetry.
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
Anecdote of the Jar, Wallace Stevens
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:15 am
27 Mar 2007
Of course, under corporate utilitarianism, the rest of the symbiotic ecosystem is there to serve human kind, none of those lesser entities figure into the utilitarian equation. Plankton and blue whales are not shareholders, screw 'em.
Quantity or quality? Hidden within utilitarian arguments is the mother earth killing concept of unlimited growth. Greatest good for the greatest number? Simply increase the numbers of humans, then maintain them at an adequate level of goodness.
For example: Let human population growth, steered by commercial and military concerns, proceed unchecked. When people suffer, claim that their suffering is due to a lack of DDT, or genetically engineered crops, or unregulated corporate expansion.
Blame the suffering on environmentalists, instead of the lack of reproductive rights for women, that caused the over population.
Make environmentalists look like a force for genocide in under developed areas. Unlimited growth, for human population and corporate profits. The greatest good for the greatest number.
On the other hand we have the spiritual/ethical sense informed by empathy. That sense that comes directly into us by natural example. The basis for all civilization. Empathy, symbiosis, quality of life.
Over quantity, over unlimited growth, over perpetual war and tyranny. The four horsemen ride over the land on horses made from corporate utilitarianism.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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atreyger Posted 12:34 am
27 Mar 2007
Gifford Pinchot: conservationist
John Muir: preservationist
Foreman: PRESERVATIONIST
Preservation is a wrong approach, because it does not work with 95% of the population, as they (me too, even though I am broke) do not like not making money.
Foreman's attempt to classify conservationists as 'resourcists' is a blatant redefinition of a philosophical axiom, if you will, to fit his own political goals. Thank you, Robert Delfs, for eloquently describing the situation.
canis, I am not so sure you are right about your statements simply because you do not bring forth any reasons besides a strawman about ANWR, even if this time you aren't talking about style or religion.
Thank you, spaceshaper, for really bringing the duality of mankind and our definitions to the forefront of the discussion, since you have a firm grasp of the discussion.
'Smart growth' and 'sustainable development' are concepts meant for dealing with a burgeoning population, not as a cop-out. These are ideals, not prescriptions, and our approach to these is or should be constantly evolving and tailored to the specifics of the locality and time period. Money, after all, is the real driver in our system, and by suggesting that we (take away growth? I'm not sure what Shambu is suggesting) not apply these concepts to our economy, we are essentially dooming both the people and the environment.
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ebaerren Posted 12:34 am
27 Mar 2007
The obvious rejoinder to "environmentalists care more for trees than they do people," is "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." We hear Ed Abbey's classic line all-too-infrequently these days.
The problem is that this cedes a very important position ... that is, it is a tacit endorsement that economic growth is always good. We know it isn't, least of all for our own collective satisfaction (anyone else read the Bill McKibben essays floating around that argue that the creation of wealth has gotten to the point where it's made us a nation of unhappy people?).
All of us understand that when we argue in favor of wilderness, or leaving something the hell alone so it can just be, we're also arguing in favor of something that benefits us as a people. I know that when I go out into the wilderness, part of the enjoyment I get is the knowledge that I am ultimately responsible for everything ... not only do I have to cook my own food, but I also have to supply the fire even if it means priming and lighting a portable stove. I know that if I do something stupid, it's up to me to get myself out of the mess. There is no wealth created, but I come out of the experience happier and more satisified. I am also happier for having been away from the city and the rat's race for a period of time.
I get all of this on land, near water, and in air that isn't being developed, that is being left to its own devices, where natural processes are more obviously dominant. This is nature for nature's sake, and there is value in it not only for nature but also for me.
How this translates overseas isn't of concern to me. I wish those people well, and I hope they can balance development and the environment, but I'm not going to give in to the idea that nature for its own sake is an albatross around my neck simply because I'm afraid Rush Limbaugh or Jonah Goldberg will say I don't care about the Third World.
Why pretend that this criticism has merit? As we've seen with the debate over global warming, those kinds of people aren't the least bit afraid to say something stupid if they think it'll advance their political agenda. Why cede that growth and jobs are automatically our top priorty, when we know that they shouldn't always be?
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josullivan58 Posted 2:00 am
27 Mar 2007
There are people who don't care about nature for nature's sake and they won't support environmental protection if there are not more utilitarian reasons.
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ebaerren Posted 2:33 am
27 Mar 2007
Nature for nature's sake works.
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Stephanie Ogburn Posted 3:07 am
27 Mar 2007
Now, unless we expect the global North to stop its demand for these resources, and unless we are brazen enough to say to places like India, China, Brazil, and Egypt something along the lines of: "Well, we developed, and then decided we wanted to preserve our wildness, so we'll just use yours to get our raw materials if you don't mind. But while we're using your resources to increase our own standard of living, it would be nice if y'all could remain subsistence farmers, stop building power plants to increase your own standard of living, and let us lock up your biological "hotspots" so that we can feel good about preserving the Siberian tiger."
So, although I'll criticize the overuse of the term "sustainable development" along with the rest of my enviro pals, the fact is, we use resources. And we use a lot of resources from other countries, often in ways that destroy people and places. So let's try to do that better, which is what we mean by "sustainable," and lets also understand that the ability to care about wildness and preserve wetlands, deserts, and boreal forests in our own country is a luxury built on the exploitation of the resources of others. It is a luxury I cherish, but it is most definitely a luxury. Just something to think about.
Stephanie
http://www.stephaniepaigeogburn.com
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GreenEngineer Posted 3:13 am
27 Mar 2007
Regardless of how highly one values wilderness (and I value it very highly, personally, even though I rarely see it myself), we have to deal with the simple reality that nature for nature's sake works in the developed world. Wilderness preservation for its own sake (or for the sake of distant n-th order psychological benefits to humans) is a luxury (in the short-term context; even if it's a necessity in the long term). People who are hungry, whether for food or for a more modern lifestyle, aren't going to go for it. If we try to impose our priorities on them, we will ultimately fail. We will also, necessarily, engage in a sort of colonialism/imperialism in the process, with all that that implies.
There's also the problem that there are few ecosystems left that are both truly wild and still healthy, at least in the developed world. We should certainly preserve those few that we still have (ANWR, etc). But for the most part, we are going to have to take an active role in the management and restoration even of undeveloped land, because it's been too heavily damaged (either by extraction/exploitation, or by upstream activity) to recover on its own. Hewing to a pure preservationist ethic in those cases ignores the sad but inescapable fact that the thing we wanted to preserve is gone.
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ebaerren Posted 4:04 am
27 Mar 2007
My point wasn't that the Third World doesn't matter. It was that I'm going to take full advantage of the opportunity (yes, privilege) to argue on my terms when I can. I don't consider this a luxury built on exploitation of the Third World, because I assume that the same people who are exploiting the Third World don't see it as an either-or proposition. They'd happily drill for oil in Alaska and Nigeria, or log both Indonesia and the redwoods of California, at the same time.
I acknowledge that this is an inconsistent approach. I also acknowledge that it opens me to criticisms that I care more for trees than I do for people. I just don't care.
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GreenEngineer Posted 4:42 am
27 Mar 2007
If we didn't preach economic growth as an inherent good, we wouldn't need to rely so much on exploiting the Third World.
No argument there.
I don't consider this a luxury built on exploitation of the Third World, because I assume that the same people who are exploiting the Third World don't see it as an either-or proposition.
I agree it's not an either/or situation. But insofar as your position has any hope of gaining traction with the public, it is a luxury built on exploitation of the Third World: the resources we have stolen from them have made us rich enough to consider preserving "wilderness for its own sake". Not saying it had to be that way, but that's the situation we have.
I acknowledge that this is an inconsistent approach. I also acknowledge that it opens me to criticisms that I care more for trees than I do for people. I just don't care.
Do you care that your approach is likely to be, not only ineffective, but actually counterproductive to achieving your stated goals?
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danb635 Posted 4:53 am
27 Mar 2007
Likewise, if by development, you mean conversion of something into whatever is being developed, at some point, you will have converted all there is to convert and everything will be developed. The only way to make this sustainable is to un-develop at an equal rate to development. In my view, sustainable growth/development are just warm fuzzy terms to tell people that we are trying to delay the onset of problems. I don't see any way to fix them without radical human population control.
Of course, on an evolutionary or geologic time scale, these problems have always fixed themselves and I am confident our present ones will too. Maybe we should all step back and admit that we are all talking about improving the experience we or our recognizable heirs experience over the next few years or centuries.
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ebaerren Posted 5:08 am
27 Mar 2007
...
Do you care that your approach is likely to be, not only ineffective, but actually counterproductive to achieving your stated goals?
It has been effective. That's the whole point. Drilling in ANWR wasn't prevented on conservationist grounds. It was stopped on preservationist grounds. David Brower's ad in the New York Times didn't help kill off the proposed dam in the Grand Canyon arguing that it was an unwise use of resources. He asked whether we'd also flood the Sistine Chapel. Thousands of postcards from very angry people later, the project was dead.
These kinds of things don't need to gain traction with the public. The public is already more sympathetic to these kinds of sentiments than are our politicians.
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GreenEngineer Posted 5:21 am
27 Mar 2007
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GreenEngineer Posted 5:28 am
27 Mar 2007
You are quite correct, if growth in a purely physical sense is all that is considered. If you look at it through that lens, it's a zero-sum game. However, we can avoid that trap, if we look at growing the things we want (which are mostly services) rather than just focusing on stuff and space. More service (ecosystem and otherwise) can be rendered from the same amount of stuff. More natural capital can be concentrated in a particular piece of land. A place can be designed to serve both humanity and nature. All three represent paths of growth that don't have a clear top end, the way that physical growth does.
Maybe we should all step back and admit that we are all talking about improving the experience we or our recognizable heirs experience over the next few years or centuries.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing (although on a scale of centuries, I hope, rather than years). I think that's what most of the rest of us are here for, too. What's your point?
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caniscandida Posted 6:53 am
27 Mar 2007
I very much like what EBaerren has been writing in this thread.
And I love the essay by Dave Foreman, which I cannot help but feel has been poorly understood by Stephanie (note the patronizing "glacier lilies" bit), and which Robert Delfs reads with hostile prejudice. I know nothing about his background, and am agnostic about his rhetoric, which Robert oddly finds offensive, and about the "rewilding" business, heavy on carnivorous mammals. Nevertheless, he is absolutely right to denounce anthropocentrism, and to remind us that it is those environmentalists who compromise and accept an anthropocentric worldview who need to explain themselves. If they go on using "Love of humanity" as their motto, slogan, battlecry and mantra, they are in grave danger of blaspheming.
I respect Robert Delfs and GreenEngineer greatly, and read all that they write with interest and pleasure. Therefore I am disappointed that they have professed a short-term practicalist approach. "In the long term, we are all dead," said John Maynard Keynes, famously. And that is true, on a certain level. But it is a very small and limited truth. There are other truths which are far greater. And it is inhumane, approaching injustice, to seek to silence Dave Foreman, and others like him, who think, philosophize, speak and write about the greater truths.
As for Robert's mocking expression, "waiting on a mountaintop in Bozeman for Arne Naess": Actually, Bozeman is some distance from the Bridger Range. And Deep Ecology, like Platonism and Christianity, is similarly misrepresented, if it is believed to be a closed system, no more than a set code of unchanging doctrines. Rather, Deep Ecology (like Platonism and Christianity, correctly understood) is an affirmation of the personal values of many of us, and an inspiration to be creative.
Robert, GreenEngineer and Stephanie are absolutely right to insist that short-term practicality is morally imperative, that we are faced by a number of crises that demand action, especially the biodiversity crisis, the climate-change crisis and the global inequity of basic standards of living. And I am by no means advocating that a career of inactive philosophizing is preferable to being actively engaged in dealing with those crises.
But I want to insist again that we need people like Dave Foreman and Arne Naess and Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme (and SMLowry and AmazingDrX ... ) to keep thinking and writing, and to keep encouraging us to think and to write.
On style: Dear ATreyger, Adirondack pal, style does indeed matter. It is not a dismissable discardable piece of fluff. Frankly, I have been having a hard time with Stephanie's style. She comes across as cagey, intentionally unclear, refusing to come clean with us regarding what she knows and what she believes.
Fortunately, her message to this thread is an improvement in this regard over her original post. But notice this remarkable incomplete sentence, lacking a main clause:
<<
Now, unless we expect the global North to stop its demand for these resources, and unless we are brazen enough to say to places like India, China, Brazil, and Egypt something along the lines of: "Well, we developed, and then decided we wanted to preserve our wildness, so we'll just use yours to get our raw materials if you don't mind. But while we're using your resources to increase our own standard of living, it would be nice if y'all could remain subsistence farmers, stop building power plants to increase your own standard of living, and let us lock up your biological "hotspots" so that we can feel good about preserving the Siberian tiger."
>>
There is no main clause to respond to the parallel subordinate "unless" clauses at the beginning. True, the hypothetical quotation is well done. But she is going to have to write better than this if she wants us to take her seriously.
A couple of quibbles on substance:
<<
the fact is, we use resources.
>>
The fact is, it is inaccurate to think of the elements of the living cosmos as "resources." And it is an injustice to encourage human beings, e.g. our readers, to think of them that way.
<<
And we use a lot of resources from other countries, often in ways that destroy people and places. So let's try to do that better, which is what we mean by "sustainable,"
>>
Whoa! Is that indeed what we mean by "sustainable"? She may be right, but she needs to explain this.
And by the way, it should go without saying that I applaud her terrificly for deploring the "destruction of people and places."
<<
and lets also understand that the ability to care about wildness and preserve wetlands, deserts, and boreal forests in our own country is a luxury built on the exploitation of the resources of others.
>>
Ummm. Well, yes and no. This is a highly controversial statement. "Luxury" and "exploitation" require explanation. Actually, I am inclined to accept that bit, though I dislike the language. But I strongly disapprove of the intimation that Dave Foreman is a lazy, luxurious, thoughtless, slave-owning, hard-hearted hypocrite.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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spaceshaper Posted 7:16 am
27 Mar 2007
Sorry to keep harping on about this but we will keep failing to live well on this earth as long as we continue to insist that humanity and nature are two different things. Our job is to understand our place in nature, not to deny it.
Seeing nature as separate and therefore to be unaffected by our existence is as misguided as to see it as separate and therefore available to be consumed and destroyed by us at will. This pervasive illusion about not being ourselves a part of nature has misled our culture into conducting a fairly determined war on nature (and thus on ourselves) for at least the last couple of hundred years, and just as in the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on poverty etc. where the other side doesn't know, understand or give a damn about our rules, we are losing. Nature has been very patient thus far but is showing signs of getting quite irritable.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:42 am
27 Mar 2007
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Stephanie Ogburn Posted 8:27 am
27 Mar 2007
Re: style -- if it's coming across as less-than-readable, I'll work on it. I'm kinda new at this blogging thing, at least for a wide audience. I'll continue to improve with practice, I'm sure. But as noted above, I'm very interested in discussion, which is why I posted the Foreman piece in the first place.
Re: my position -- A lot of my fellow student friends, and I debate sustainable development ad infinitum. We talk incessantly about growth, and capitalism, and their inherent problems. I lament unfettered capitalism on a daily basis, as I see it beginning to undermine movements who buy into its worldview to gain credence (i.e. organic), and watch market forces co-opt the original visions of people who sought to craft something truly different and world changing. My research is with small scale agriculturalists, and my prior work experience is with the students of migrant farmworkers, so I've certainly seen how industrial culture tends to negatively impact those who it views merely as sources of labor or capital. And it is heartbreaking, truly.
But, while we can work on changing the system, we also need to work with the growth that is happening to influence how it happens. It is unfortunate but true that the dominant paradigm of the modern world is an economic paradigm founded upon a growth mentality. And I think one needs to learn to speak the language of the dominant group in order to effect change, because revolutions hardly ever work, but gradual shifts and social movements seem to be both more effective and, in the end, less despotic.
So I try to hold onto both my idealistic and my pragmatic selves, but I think my pragmatic self is more apparent in this posting and perhaps in more of my writing here, possibly because I feel that being practical is something not that many enviros do all that well, at least rhetorically. And I do love glacier lilies, and columbines in the summer, and being alive at the perfect time of afternoon to see a herd of elks gather in the valley below. But I also love a conversation with a friend in a coffeeshop, watching one of my ELL students work incredibly hard just to get up to grade level in reading, and watching all the silly/beautiful people collectively sun themselves in Central Park on a sunny day in late February. Both the human and the natural are important, and, to me, less separate than we make them.
And, to close, thank you all so much for having such a good discussion. Citizenship is alive and well on grist.org, and I find this totally inspiring. A civilized debate on issues that matter to all of us--how rare and refreshing! I just spent two hours of my life getting droned to about the shocking lack of healthcare in America, and then I get to read all these passionate and engaged posts--what a thrill.
Stephanie
http://www.stephaniepaigeogburn.com
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caniscandida Posted 8:36 am
27 Mar 2007
So, we muddle along, wagging our fingers at one another.
Dear Spaceshaper, I was distracted earlier, and failed to thank you for that lovely poem by Wallace Stevens. It made me think of the late biblical Book of Daniel, and so I rechristened it -- for personal use only! -- "Al Gore's Dream."
Send us as much poetry as you like. Walt Whitman, whom you also quoted, one of the most highly regarded homosexuals in American history, would be a great place to start.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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caniscandida Posted 10:30 am
27 Mar 2007
I did indeed catch that suggestive glint of hammer-and-sickle in a few things that you wrote. Good for you, Tovaritza! DR is ready to sell his grandmother to the capitalists for the sake of his agenda, after all. But it is just a matter of time before Jason Scorse comes sharkishly shircling in ...
Which is just as well. "Sustainable development," as a concept, certainly deserves far more Gristmill attention than poor Dave Foreman and resourcism.
FYI, sincere admirer of Shambu that I am, I am still agnostic on the subject of "sustainable development" at this point, so the ten-pounders will remain rolled back for a while.
On observing silly and beautiful people in Central Park: yes, that is indeed one of urban life's great pleasures. And it is one of global warming's trivial ephemeral benefits, that the silly, beautiful people are tempted to reveal their limbs earlier and earlier. Ideally, one can find just the right combination of silliness and beauty, so that the silliness throws all doors open to the complete appreciation of the beauty.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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birdboy Posted 10:50 am
27 Mar 2007
The argument that 'we have to preserve nature to save ourselves', fails because if saving humans is all that matters, then it's not hard to convince people that man, in his infinite wisdom and limitless capability, will (at some time later) find a way to fix what we screw up today, and this justifies whatever damage may occur when we take what we need or want from nature today.
Framing environmental arguments in terms of what humans need is giving in to this selfish and dangerous perspective. Conservationist efforts may slow the pace of destruction, but as long as we do it for humankind, we are continuing the conversion of nature into man's resources, and through our selfish arrogance, we will continue the destruction of nature.
We are indeed connected to the web of life, in infinite ways. While we may not see or feel the effects of the loss of glacier lilies in the Arctic, it does effect us and it will come back to us. Our message should never give in to the notion that Nature has no intrinsic value, or that human comfort is most important, or we give in to the obscene notion that we can exist without Nature.
a liberal in redsville
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:13 pm
27 Mar 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jason D Scorse Posted 3:19 pm
27 Mar 2007
That being said, I think Foreman's worldview is extreme because it actually puts the values of nature above humans, which is too far a swing of the pendulum and leads to conclusions that allow people to engage in extreme acts, as Foreman once did.
Finding a balance between the defense of nature and wildlife and the constraints it requires and the legitimate needs and desires of humans is obviously not easy to strike. I don't claim to have anywhere near all of the answers and anyone who does is likely an ideologue.
J.S.
I teach environmental economics and blog at http://www.voicesofreason.info. I am a proud liberal, who stands on the shoulders of giants.
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Rune Posted 3:42 pm
27 Mar 2007
-- Herman Daly, former World Bank economist
As Birdboy noted, if we can see ourselves as a part of nature, nature can have quite a lot of value apart from its potential for use to devour much or all of it. Much of the discussion seems to come from the perspective that we are consumers first and last, that all good in the world and all well being in our lives hinges upon our ability to suck down as many resources a we can (sustainably, of course), and that all precepts of healthy, natural, and thriving ecosystems having value just as they are is as foreign as praying to a god of rain for precious water in our midst--which we may be doing in the foreseeable future.
On that note, perhaps we can consider for a moment that there is no such thing as sustainable development, there is, at best, wise and flexible use and reuse of some resources, subject to what promise to be rapidly changing conditions. Being wise and flexible in this context entails a bit of sensitivity and unity with nature if we are not to get bitten in the butt by yet more unintended consequences. One way to gain that sort of wisdom and sensitivity is to not only go visit nature--out there somewhere?--but to do what you can to make sure it stays with you and surrounds you as much as possible. But if everything is to be thought of in terms of extractable or extracted resources, that cannot and will not happen.
Foreman is making sense to me as someone who sees the need to build a strong hedge against alienating ourselves once and for all from nature . . . our nature. I suppose if you can't get past being nothing but a consumer, what he wants to stake out and appreciate would probably be termed a luxury good, as it is in so many environmental texts. But for some, it is simply sacred and beautiful. Much of it stands out as not a good at all, not something to be traded or consumed, but something to be revered and to learn from. And in that, there is great value, both in immediate and practical terms and more esoteric terms of wellness and well being. Personally, I find it troubling that so few seem to appreciate that these days. No wonder Dave Foreman looks like nothing but an unhinged idiot to you.
And I think one needs to learn to speak the language of the dominant group in order to effect change, because revolutions hardly ever work, but gradual shifts and social movements seem to be both more effective and, in the end, less despotic.
Stephanie, it's all fine and well to learn another's language and even to take care not to use the trigger words that will set off people you hope to have a meaningful conversation with. It's quite another thing, however, to adopt their world view and metaphors, however. If we want them to understand our perspectives and values, it's important to cling to them and speak clearly and determinedly about them, lest we lose them and our arguments all in the same course. Like caniscandida, it seems to me that you could do a better job of showing some backbone and saying what you feel and believe right up front. It doesn't appear to me that anyone is going to be so intimidated that they will fail to say what is on their mind, too.
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caniscandida Posted 5:39 pm
27 Mar 2007
At the same time, I admit I was wrong at first to place Stephanie in a committedly adversarial camp.
Here is another perspective on all this, a brief comment on a quote from Dave Foreman's essay:
<<
David Ehrenfeld warns in The Arrogance of Humanism, "Resource reasons for conservation can be used if honest, but must always be presented together with the non-humanistic reasons, and it should be made clear that the latter are more important in everycase."
>>
I have no idea who David Ehrenfeld is. And of course I have not read his book. Probably I would find it interesting, and would approve of much of its contents.
But I have a grave objection to the use of "humanism" in the title, and to the use of that word and its derivatives within the text.
The term "humanism" is associated specifically with the remarkable, overwhelmingly beautiful, civilization-altering activity of a number of 15th-century Italians, writers, scholars, artists, and their patrons; and more generally with all scholarship, the love of learning, the discovery of ancient and foreign languages and literatures, the cultivation of the arts, and the re-formation of culture as essentially requiring the free admiration of human values.
As a Christian Incarnationalist, i.e. one who believes that the infinite perfect God actually chose to become a human being and be born of this Jewish girl named Mariam, and so "assumed all the human nature" (an idea that Jews and Muslims have traditionally had a hard time with), I cherish the word "humanism" as one of the most precious words in my vocabulary.
Therefore, I powerfully dislike the attempt of this David Ehrenfeld to devalue the word, and to equate it with the truly contemptible concept "anthropocentrism."
So, how are those words different? How do they mean different things?
It is very simple to explain. Within the context of environmentalism, "anthropocentrism" means that nothing has any value, unless it is of some use to human beings. By contrast, "humanism" means that human beings do not discover their true nature, and what it is all about, and what virtues are there for human beings to exercise, and what happinesses are there for human beings to enjoy, until they understand their relationship with all the universe, including the non-human creation.
Humanism, as I understand it, along with Saint Francis of Assisi and in fact a great number of Christians (who by the way would not all technically like to refer to themselves as "evangelicals"), is therefore just about as environment-loving and biodiversity-loving as you can get.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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spaceshaper Posted 9:04 pm
27 Mar 2007
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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elanus Posted 5:28 am
28 Mar 2007
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GreenEngineer Posted 5:59 am
28 Mar 2007
I think that we come that way from the factory, as it were. In fact, individual humans start out believing that only they, personally, matter at all. (Spend some time with a baby if you disagree.) Recognizing that other people exist, and matter, is a form of mental evolution that most of us undergo at an early age, essentially because we are forced to do so. Recognizing that other creatures matter, and the health of the ecosystem matters, is another, more complex level of evolution of thought.
In more direct answer to your question: I don't know how to induce that evolution of thought in people, but I do know how to prevent it. If you separate people from the world, so that they think food comes from the store, water from the tap, and power from the wall socket, then they will simply fail to understand the connection between themselves and nature. It's ecological illiteracy, and it's all around us. And, really, it's not surprising. What evidence do most Americans have, based on their experience, that nature matters to them?
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Delay And Deny Posted 6:29 am
28 Mar 2007
I am starting a new field called "Selectionism" to combat "environmentalism". Environmentalists are basically preservationists. They take a point in time and insist that nothing ever change.
A selectionist is dynamic and believes that evolution (which is good) happens faster in times of stress and changing 'environments'.
We propose to increase the speed at which Man changes the environment in order to speed evolution and create new and better species.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services. http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com
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SMLowry Posted 6:31 am
28 Mar 2007
Anyway, I agree with Rune, that speaking the language of the dominant group is all well and good but we'd best be careful and extremely aware when we do it that we don't eventually allow ourselves to become coopted, which happens all too often, especially when it appears we're being offered a seat at the table, so to speak. Because if those of us who love and care for the Earth and all nature (which includes humans) don't speak out clearly and strongly, then who will?
By the way, that article of Dave F.'s was no rant. I've read his rants and this was reasoned, fair, and very clear.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:00 am
28 Mar 2007
You definantly have a break between those who are
"Saving the environment for the benefit of mankind"
And those who are
"Saving the environment for the environment's sake."
_
We propose to increase the speed at which Man changes the environment in order to speed evolution and create new and better species.
We propose to increase the speed at which Man changes the environment in order to speed evolution and create new and better species.
Isn't that just another way of saying, the faster the climate changes, the closer species will be brough to extinction, leaving only the tolerant species, and subspecies.
And how exactly do you gauge "better" ?
Since tolerant species are likely not anything that pleasant to be around.
For instance, Cane Toads.
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earthpoint83 Posted 7:03 am
28 Mar 2007
Isn't this what we wanted though? Or did we just want everyone to FEEL the same way we did? That's impossible.
Show one person your emotional ties to an idea and you might make a difference with a handful of people. Show an opportunity to all people and you'll get a movement. We have little effect on another's intentions. Let's be happy with the results.
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earthpoint83 Posted 7:05 am
28 Mar 2007
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Stephanie Ogburn Posted 7:49 am
28 Mar 2007
Stephanie
http://www.stephaniepaigeogburn.com
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Mmimika Posted 8:12 am
28 Mar 2007
Perhaps rural folks, surrounded by nature which they use for farming, hunting and fishing, grow up in an instrumental context with nature.
Folks from industrial urban areas, growing up in built environments and earning a living on service and manufacture, grow up relating to nature for itself, having no 'need' for nature, and seeing it only in zoos, gardens, acquariums and parks, fauna in zoos.
If its true, you'll see regional splits between the two ideologies. And for the future of environmentalism, it would be important that each appreciates the other as a source, or rhetoric, or expression of environmentalism, rather than a competing strategy.
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atreyger Posted 5:16 am
30 Mar 2007
By the way, we are US citizens, and had the ancestors of the majority of the country not used and overused the resources, our economy and the environmentalist movement would not exist.
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logorhythmic Posted 3:05 pm
03 Apr 2007
Dan dismisses this, but is it completely dismissable? I'm thinking of great swaths of Russia and Eastern Europe in which entire villages have been abandoned because of either greater fortunes found elsewhere or negative population growth. In the U.S., urban places like Detroit and other Rustbelt cities that have seen hard economic times and mass out-migration. Here in Montana, there's plenty of old mining towns whose heydays have long gone. And the transition to industrial argriculture has rendered rural farm towns throughout the U.S. obsolete.
All these places were at one time wilderness. Is it absurd to consider rebuilding wilderness, one block at a time?
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