Comments EcoReason has made

Environment?

When did energy become "environmentalism?"  I mean, sure, yes, we need energy conservation and energy reduction and we need to do everything to decrease CO2 emissions, but when did this become the defining idea of environmentalism?

In other words, the leading Democratic candidates are not battling for a strong environmentalist position, they are fighting to sound best on the single issue of energy policy.

Where do they stand on the Endangered Species Act?  Genetically Modified Organisms?  Farm Subsidies?  Land Conservation?  Toxic and Hazardous Waste?  Methyl Bromide?  Mining?  Recycling?

Yes, Hillary's taken an easy position on a popular issue.  But let's not forget that Richard Nixon signed most of our most sweeping environmental legislation into law.  

And how long before Rudy jumps into this so-called 'environment' debate with proposals of his own?  Will Grist be gawking over him when he does?  How will they distinguish?

Peace,
KOn The full text of Clinton's plan posted 2 years ago 18 Responses

Surfing the Web

Contributes to global warming.  You cannot surf the web and be an environmentalist...?  In fact, it's probabaly easier to eat meat (which does require murdering an animal) without contributing to global warming than it is to read this explosion of posts wihtout sending up the temperature.

Save the planet, kill a tree...

Paradoxes abound in this mixed up world of ours.  That's what makes it so much fun.  Now I'm going to go get me a free range burger and turn this blasted thing off.

KCOn Animal-rights group makes the stupid claim that enviros must be vegetarians posted 2 years, 2 months ago 208 Responses

Same old

Members of this list blame human beings generally with the cultural excesses of a minority of the world population.  Let's focus on the worst offenders: United States citizens.

The technology that would most help us is a truly global education, not the shallow sloganeering that's all the fashion, but actual knowledge and information -- Americans (gristmillees included) are mostly myopic, ill-informed, self-centered, and generally ignorant of the conditions under which most people on the planet live.  Use global media to inform and educate the worst offenders - us.

But, this won't be accomplished without using another technology, the law, to remove the corporate stranglehold on information and technology development.

Do these two things and a conscience will do the rest.  Of that, I am confident.

Peace,
K.On For reducing the climate crisis posted 2 years, 4 months ago 39 Responses

Ugh!

Live8 was a scam.  So is this.  Rich people make themselves richer, pretending to care.  Famous people make themsleves famouser, pretending to care.  And, a bunch of overfed middle class gluttons, get to see another concert, pretending to care.  And, still, nothing changes.  Give me a break.  Now that it's hip to "care" about cimate change, every Tom, Dick, and Harry can drive their car to these electrified shows...for what?  Grist was once funny, even incisively witty (although never very deep).  Now, you're becoming part of the problem.  Can someone please tell me why this is environmental news?  Or why Grist editors waste their time promoting it?  Seriously?  Is there a carefully observant mind in residence over there in your Seattle hip shop?  Or is everyone of you vying for top billing on the "too cool to be careful/thoughtful/helpful" slate?

Ick, ugh, puh-lease! Open them eyes, stop surfing the web, and get back to the earth.

Disgusted in Florida.
EROn It's Official: He Rocks posted 2 years, 9 months ago 12 Responses

disagree-ish - It was the war, sillies.

I did not see environmentalism or an environmentalist agenda play at all in this election.  Wishful thinking only. (Was Robert Byrd outspoken on mountain top removal, for example?  Did Kennedy change his mind on the Cape wind farm?)

I do think there was a general message, however, - get the hell out of Iraq and stop busting our economy for your rich friends.  End the disaster of Bush II.  Sure, some green issues happen to be part of the platform of some Democratic candidates, but this election was all about that terrible war that we persitently ignore in enviro circles.

Environmentalists are foolish to read anything else into this re-taking of the Congress.  Do not be lulled into complacency; the hard work is still ahead.

Peace,
KipOn Voters like or don't like, nothing more complicated than that posted 3 years ago 2 Responses

*Warning* Highly Partisan Video

A small dose of righteous indignation just before the polls open (lest we forget what it all's about). Don't forget to vote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm2OXQh3duI

Have a happy, and safe, election day!
KipOn Looks like she might make it posted 3 years ago 4 Responses

Objections

Competition is playing and will continue to play a major role in leading us to solutions for our environmental crisis.

When a phenomenon presents partial-solutions to whole problems that are themselves the product of this phenomenon, are we to jump for joy?  Me, I can't even muster a half-hearted approval.

But, let me explain my disagreement by agreeing with you.

If competition is the essential natural impulse, why then object to the overwhelming success of the human species?  We out-competed every other species.  We have earned this special place by transcending the fitness limits presented by the environment.  We have made the environment fit for us.  Las Vegas may very well be the highest expression of evolution yet seen on the planet.

If competition is so essentially natural, what is it, exactly, that makes human competition and human success a phenomenon OUTSIDE of these processes?  Not the extinctions, that has happened before.  Not the global impact.  That has happened before.  Nothing, really...  ...and there goes  a critical leg of the environmentalist stool.  

Darwinism is a Trojan Horse.  It doesn't help.

Do you feel comfortable picking and choosing what you want to believe from what the world's leading scientists have to offer?

Why shouldn't I?  Is this against the rules?  Does the label "scientist" somehow put someone or their ideas above criticism?  Does the addition of the word "world" suggest I should be cowed into silence and quiet acceptance?  Did Darwin or Hawkins posses some special power that I or you do not have?

Yes, of course I feel comfortable picking and choosing.  The modern sciences were not constructed to stop conversation and debate and thinking...were they?

Which brings me to a final point: rational conversation is not competition, it is dialectic, a process of logic by which the whole is even greater than its parts.  It is driven by a desire to know, not a desire to exclude.

Peace,
KipOn David Quammen chats about evolution, science, religion, and his new book posted 3 years ago 38 Responses

Competitive Fetish

However, we do that for the most part to better compete against other cooperating groups of people.

Compete for what?

Respectfully,
KipOn David Quammen chats about evolution, science, religion, and his new book posted 3 years ago 38 Responses

Evolution

Competitive explanations for non-competitive behavior...  Am I the only one who finds a painful irony in this?  

This is the Darwinian baggage.  It IS cultural; it is classical economics.  It is also the architecture of Darwin's evolutionary theory.  Check out the book, I'm not making this up.

Respectfully,
Kip
On David Quammen chats about evolution, science, religion, and his new book posted 3 years, 1 month ago 38 Responses

Evolution?

I'm a believer, by which I mean that I believe that the fossil record and contemporary ecology are a historical text that biologists have successfully read.  Diverse biological organisms suddenly appeared about 650 million years ago.  Every several million years thereafter, these forms seem to have changed suddenly.  During long stretches of time between the disruptions, these forms appear to have changed gradually, filling increasingly specialized niches in an increasingly complex set of ecosystems.  In the periods immediately following the sudden disruptions, the renewel of species seems to have been the most transformative, with incidental forms becoming dominant and dominant forms becoming extinct.  Most recently, for example, mammals rising to replace dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

I am an athiest, in that I do not believe in a separate, conscious, or overseeing god.  I believe in Pliny the Elder's dictum: "where mortal helps mortal, there is god."

But I do believe that On the Origin of Species does us a terrible disservice in framing the causes of Natural Selection in strictly Hobbesian terms.  Darwin's Nature is a "war of all against all."  Indeed, his primary metaphor is competition between individuals - over sex and food and resources.  We are still stuck with this idea today, as if we were all permanently adolescents.

And I think most people say they "believe in evolution" with only a vague sense of what is actually in Darwin's book.  It is neither a process that gets turned on and off - as the debate about a very short period of reproductive success suggests it might be - nor is it a theory about intra-species interactions EXCEPT for the role of sexual selection.  It is a logical and materialist explanation of the morphological characteristics of biological organisms.  And it assumes not a single one of us (mammals or otherwise) thinks, dreams, wishes, hopes, creates, imagines, loves, empathizes, or otherwise behaves beyond the shear animalistic drive for food and reproduction.  It is classical economics disguised as the fundamental cause in biological history.

So someone explain to me how understanding Darwin's evolution helps the environmentalist cause?  Because, in fact, according to the record, periodic disruptions (extinctions) have been the best thing for overall complexity and diversity, and according to the causes offered by Darwin, it doesn't matter what we think anyhow.

Genuinely curious,
K. CurtisOn David Quammen chats about evolution, science, religion, and his new book posted 3 years, 1 month ago 38 Responses

Yes.

I think you're right, Kif, and I think you make very good points.  But - and forgive my pushiness on this, but I think it's important - what's your vision?

By this, I don't mean, what's your strategy?  (Because I think your strategy is clear, and a good one.)  I mean, what is the strategy trying to accomplish?  What does a non-climate-changing, non-bio-diversity-destroying, human-health-respecting, vibrant-habitat-enhancing world look like?  Is it dominated by huge multi-national coporations that control knowledge and information through slick ad campaigns?  Is it led by nation-states rooted in the military and warfare?  Does it contain 1 billion immiserated fellow human beings living in squalor?  Do authoritarian leaders enforce environmental standards?  Or, are we seeking something different?  Can we really become green within the constraints of the current global power structure?  Do we want to?  These are the kinds of question that remain unanswered, yet.  (And that all the informed fear in the world will probably not answer.)

Peace,
KipOn Hope: the new fear posted 3 years, 8 months ago 12 Responses

This is precisely why

we need an ideology.On Climate neutral carpet posted 3 years, 8 months ago 1 Response

Boring is all in the imagination, I think.

The "wild" is Henry David Thoreau's term for the animating spirit of nature.  Life.  It is a marvellous and paradoxical and tenacious and fragile and agressive and hopeful tendency.  The wild is certainly out there in those museum-piece wilderness areas, it is also along the side of country road where Queen Anne's lace and chickory line a field of perfectly distributed rows of corn.  Thoreau could find it where a seed sprouted a birch tree in a downtown gutter.  You might find it in the dogged crabgrass nestling through cracks in the concrete of mid-town Manhattan or rats sneaking along the side of a steel rail three stories beneath the surface.  It is also, the wild, in your imagination, so says Thoreau.  A great idea, an epiphany, an insight.  That's the same tenacious impulse.  The wild and wild nature are everywhere; that's why I love this planet so much.

And any conscious encounter with the wild, again, so says Henry, brings value, because it lifts the spirit, ennobles the mind, and provides the most delightfully complex referent for one's thoughts and ideas.  "In wildness is the preservation of the world," wrote Thoreau.  Francis Kuo's research supports this idea.  There is much more value in urban nature (and in working very hard to enhance urban nature) than the U.S. environmental movement's 'wilderness' fetish allows.  And it doesn't diminish wilderness one iota to recognize that fact.

Peace,
KipOn An interview with Richard Louv about the need to get kids out into nature posted 3 years, 8 months ago 13 Responses

Urbanites

Richard Louv joins a growing chorus of thinkers and writers who recognize the vital importance nature to children's healthy emotional and intellectual development.  If you haven't read any Gary Nabham (The Geography of Childhood especially) add that to your summer reading list.  There is also a well-established place-based education community throughout Northern New England (see Antioch New England for example) that I'm sure is mirrored in other states around the country.  I applaud these efforts and have found myself again and again inspired by the results they have rendered.

So far, however, these efforts seem to be limited geographically and demographically.  They seem to be limited to places where chunks of forest and/or seashore are available nearby - rural and ex-urban America.  As a result, they mostly serve the economic elite and/or the social majority.  I think some might say, 'well, that is because those are places where nature is,' dismissing the possibility that wild nature can be found in cities.

But wild nature can be found in the city and probably shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as "sterile green places."  Recent studies are showing the importance of any exposure to the wild in kids' emotional and intellectual development.  Francis E. Kuo a social psychologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has published findings showing that even the mere presence of a tree outside the window of a child living in the ghetto improves self-discipline, behavior, and academic achievement ("Views of Nature and Self-Discipline: Evidence from Inner City Children," Journal of Environmental Psychology 21 (2001)).  I think we should take these kinds of studies seriously and think about ways to put more wild nature all over our urban habitats - street trees, boulevards, flower pots, bird houses, parks and greens, etc. - starting with the inner city.  And we should encourage urban schools to use these urban wilds as their outdoor classrooms.  Every practical exposure to wild nature we can create is going to contribute to the changes we seek.

Peace,
KipOn An interview with Richard Louv about the need to get kids out into nature posted 3 years, 8 months ago 13 Responses

The First Green Building

"Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have." Walden, "Economy"

Thoreau wrote these words in the late 1840s after his experiment at Walden Pond where he built a 10 x 20 foot house out of mostly scavenged materials that served every purpose a house could serve for two years, two months, and two days.  It cost him $28.12 for materials (about $6,000 - 10,000 in 2004 money).

"I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement."  Walden, "Economy"

Biodiversivist's last comment, "The only genuinely green stand-alone house is a small one," reminded of Henry Thoreau's (still useful) experiment in the 1840s.

Peace,
KipOn For single-family homes, small equals green posted 3 years, 8 months ago 19 Responses

And this:

Robert Bruegmann, Sprawl: A Compact History (University of Chicago Press, 2006): "After 70 years of suffering slings and arrows of academic criticism, suburban life finally finds a compelling defender in Bruegmann.  He demonstrates that urban sprawl is a natural process as old as the world's oldest cities...." so says Publisher's WeeklyOn Speaking of new urbanism posted 3 years, 8 months ago 3 Responses

Yes.

perhaps we should take the opportunity ... to re-curate - not abandon - the heroes of the environmental movement in a critical light that will truly illuminate the strengths and shortcomings of the movement up to this point, and shed some light on where we need to go from here.

Exactly.  The only thing divisive about the critical use of history is that it can make those who have acted prior to these insights defensive about their (understandable) mistakes.

Klingle and Taylor are simply pointing to the historical conditions and trends lying in underneath the mythologizing that environmentalists tend to do about their heroes and icons (that everyone does about their heroes and icons).  This is a healthy thing to talk about.  Good for them for doing so.

Peace,
KipOn Environmentalism's elitist tinge has roots in the movement's history posted 3 years, 8 months ago 17 Responses

Ok Jeff

If you say so.

Peace,
KipOn A guest essay by Arthur Coulston posted 3 years, 9 months ago 26 Responses

It wasn't

misinformation that diminished EF!, Dr. X.  If anything, it was because many of those who embraced the purist philosophy offered too much information (i.e. like writing that AIDS was a good thing for the earth, and arguing that illegal immigrants were destroying America.)  Sometimes it's not a conspiracy, sometimes things are ignored and diminished because they have no value.  KipOn A guest essay by Arthur Coulston posted 3 years, 9 months ago 26 Responses

Misanthropy

Cheers to Arthur Colston!  

Jeff, Birdboy, Dr. X:  I have to say, after our discussion over at the Green Index-Card thread, I was hoping you'd at least reflect on the character and implications of environmental authoritarianism.

Sadly, however, you don't.  And by not doing so, you strengthen Arthur's point: "Climate change ... exposes the limitations of the environmentalists identity."

Let's just say it plain:  The reason the purist view has no traction is because it is misanthropic.  Politics requires people.  The views you articulate despise them and reactively resents any talk of including them in the politics of nature or the environment.  I know you all mean well, that's I keep trying, but I think you're missing the boat, badly.

It did not make sense for EarthFirst! to evolve into a people-hating organization in the 1980s and it does not make sense for those views to continue to be articulated as if they represent some sort of reform politics.  As expressed here, these views represent something akin to an environmental "final solution" in which the purists somehow figure out how to remove the "cancer" of humanity and restore a pure Nature.

So, I ask again, as I asked before:  How precisely do you propose to "save Mother Earth" without including people in the decision-making and political process and without resorting to horrific exercises of authoritarian rule?  Or are you just plain ok with that?

In my view, misanthropy is not politics; it is a very dangerous philosophy.

Caring for nature cannot exclude caring for people.  And, if you read carefully, you'll see that, for those of us trying to get environmentalism to mature as an idea, the reverse is also true.  Come on aboard...please.

Again, hooray to Arthur!  We need more of this!

Peace,
KipOn A guest essay by Arthur Coulston posted 3 years, 9 months ago 26 Responses

Don't

give up on this now, Jeff, it's finally getting good.  

1.  I can imagine how things in nature might feel; never said I couldn't.  But, like I said in my post before, that is my imagination.  It's an exercise in projection.  Not an exercise in knowledge.

2.  How do you decide whether something is "natural" or not?  Was hurricane Katrina "natural?"  Because I read that it was so intense becasue of warm seas, resulting from the greenhouse effect, which was caused, as you know, by people burning things.  And how do you decide what is pollution and what is not?  Volcanoes, for example, release enormous amounts of CO2 and have in the past radically changed the climate to the detriment of the then-evolved species.

3.  "You also don't get overpopulation."  Actually, Jeff, I do.  It's just not according to your simple equation of volume = impact.  I believe in the nuance of human culture and society and individuals; and that is where we are going to find answers to these problems.

4.  "I'll just leave the poverty issue at Earth First!, humans after the Earth is taken care of."  Right.  And who's going to "take care of" the Earth?  You?  The hundred or so other people who also hate humanity in the same way?  And how?  What are the political actions you can imagine that follow from this kind of proposal?

5.  "Individuals are irrelevant in determining what humans as a whole are doing to the planet."  Huhn?  Umm, so does that include you?  Are you are irrelevant to these questions?  Hmm...  That's a curious position to take if you want to make change, isn't it?  How am I to take anything else you say seriously if you are irrelevant?

6.  "Finally, we agree that the best solution to all this would be for humans to evolve enough to respect other forms of life as much as themselves."  Well, you believe this, which seems to be why you don't trust people.  I think a.) it's not a question of 'evolution" but education and b.) humans have already achieved this, but they are not free enough to express what it means.

7.  American Heritage Dictionary: "Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethic or ideological group, a contempt for democracy, an insistance on obediance to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach."  Big business?  I don't get your peeve, Jeff, because this description sounds a lot like what your ideas about 'humanity' imply for political action.

Peace,
KipOn A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card posted 3 years, 9 months ago 61 Responses

Um...ok...maybe...well...?

Hi all - Thanks for all the thoughtful and impassioned responses.  Just to be clear, I'm not accusing anyone of being insincere or not embracing their convictions.  I really believe you all mean well and best; I just think we all need to assess the contours of our convictions a little more critically.  I'm challenging my own assumptions here, not just yours.

SMLowrey: Um...Ok.  So tell me what it means to "love the Earth."  Not in an abstract way, but in terms of action.  When I started working in environmental education, this is precisely what we wanted to teach all children: love the earth.  But does "love" do enough?  Don't we sometimes hurt those that we love?  Don't those that we love sometimes hurt us?  Isn't love a bittersweet emotion?  And, secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what exactly do you mean  that it doesn't matter who is in power because the "system" is itself "self-perpetuating?"  It is?  Where does the momentum come from?  That to me is precisely the kind of taking people out of the structrues of power that concerns me.

Birdboy: I have no qualms with earth-centered spirituality.  I just don't see how it helps us out of our difficulties on its own.  Please don't conflate my critical questions with my rejection of ideas.  And, I beg to differ about your accusation that I offer no ideas.  That's what got this started in the first place, go back and look.  As for the rest of your post...maybe you're right, but what is "harmony?"  How do you know when you see it?  How do others?  Tell me where harmony and stability exist out there in nature so I can begin to use that standard as my baseline and begin measuring my behavior and others against this standard.  And, yes, if you are giving human qualities to nature, you are anthropomorphising nature.  What else would you call it?  Nature is not an individual, it is not a human beings, and as far as my experiences have revealed to me, there is no accessible conscience or consciousnes out there, only the one I have in here and you have in there.  They are human characteristics.  And yes, you anthropomorphise humanity too.  Humanity is not a human being either, and it does not act according to a single interest, yet your construction suggests that it does (e.g. humanity as cancer: if that is true, how do you explain you?).  And, just because western culture moves along masculinist lines does not mean you are either obligated to do the same or excused from the accusation when you do.  Finally, I am happy to dispense of thinking that anyone has a special insight into nature; that's my point.  You don't, I don't.  No one does.  And that's why "saving nature from humans" is as empty a slogan as "fight terrorism," both are meaningless phrases that lead to other bad behaviors and not the purported end.

Jeff - Day jobs are good.  Mine keeps me busy too.  But, ok, well...I'm trying to imagine how a river feels when it is killed and I'm having a tough time.  I'm wondering how a river feels to be alive.  I'm wondering how a river feels at all.  Where does this feeling take place?  In its water?  Along its banks?  Show me some evidence of these feelings that don't point back to your imagination or my imagination.  I'm not sure that you can because if you're honest, you know that the only feelings you actually know concretely are your own, and the only ones you have ever heard about that could possibly relate to your own have come from other people's descriptions.  Anything else, I think, is just you projecting your own feelings out onto this thing, nature.

"Where we differ is that I don't think that humans should kill anything they don't eat or should pollute anything."

I don't entirely disagree, but I don't think you entirely agree with this statement.   First, there are dozens of other activities out there in the world that have horrifying implications for biodiversity, ecosystem health, and the general thriving of life on earth that are neither killing nor polluting.  How do you presume to identify and control those?  Second, death and pollution are also part of nature.  Why are humans a special case for you?  What about the things that kill wantonly and are not human?  (Hurricanes, fires, tornados, lightning, earthquake, disease) should we punish and constrain all of those forces too?  Volcanoes create tremendous air pollution.  Should we banish them too...to where?  Or only death and pollution at human hands is wrong?  What about when humans cause the death of other humans by denying them access to their own lands?  Or is that ok becasue it protects the environment?  You accuse me of having different concerns than yours, which may be true in that it seems your concerns are about regulating the behavior of this thing humanity as it tries to act in this thing nature; mine is to solve our contemporary sustainability crisis.  Yours is solved when people are gone.  Mine is solved by people.  

Everyone makes their claims to poverty, but you are right, your poverty doesn't really count.  Nor does mine.  By dint of being here, having the technology that you do, and the time to stop and use it, by definition, you are not among the radically dispossessed.  So I stand by my claim.  Your footprint is huge.  You cannot help it, you are a United Statian with access to resources.  Most people aren't.  You end up looking a touch disingenuous and even somewhat callous making the kinds of judgements about aleviating poverty that you do (i.e. that it's a problem because it will just destroy your precious earth).

Your final point runs into the same problem of category reification that I have been pointing to thus far:  You claim to speak for some "nature" that the "human race" otherwsie does not know.  And your solution is to refuse to give "humanity" access to "nature" (even in this online discussion that poses no real world applications whatsoever).  Hmmm.  I'm am very certain that you are not a fascist and do not want to be spouting fascist ideology, but isn't the idea of having your rule over the rest of humanity so that you can create a idyllic nature of your dreams very much like the final solution?  If you do not let people decide (and our society by and large DOESN'T let people decide) then who will decide?  Some cadre of "experts?"  I have more faith in human nature and intentions than that.  I believe that you and the millions of environmentalists in the United States and around the world are much more indicative of the promise of human culture than the "humanity" that you imagine.  (I again return to the question: how do you explain yourself if people are so incredibly bad?)  When you give power to people, not to institutions, people take care of their homes.  Thats' what we want.  If you deal with human suffering and poverty, which requires that you also deal with human extravagence and wealth, you will get what you want AND you will not have to repress, oppress, or otherwise restrict the rights of normal individuals - ecological democracy, not environmental authoritarianism.

Sadly, your visions of wilderness is one that accepts the current capitalist world as is (wilderness is just the other side of the coin of land exploitation).  Mine doesn't.  We need to fix human habitat, because it is not working, and we need to do so democratically because anything else would be immoral and un-ethical.

I await your engaging resonses!  Eviscerate me!

Peace,
KipOn A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card posted 3 years, 9 months ago 61 Responses

Deluge

Great roaring onslaught!  Thanks for all the thoughtful replies.  Lots of things come to mind in response:

Jeff - How can you possibly know the view of non-human nature (Which you have, incidentally, anthropomorphised and given an individual opinion about human history)?

In terms of rhetorical strategies, you have substituted "non-human nature" for yourself and your cohort's opinions about human development.  In terms of metaphors, you have imagined a pure, untouched (can we say 'virgin' since that is your basic principle) nature who is ruined by the penetration of man and the plow, and rendered "helpless" by man's actions.

Unfortunately: A.) It has no basis in ecology.  B.) It is so familiar a narrative trope (and a touch sexist at that) that you probably can't claim it to be uniquely yours or unique to environmentalism.

However, I think that the fact that you believe that you can know something about nature and speak for nature is crucial.  I believe you can too.  Why?  Because it is you, and you are it.  ...unfortunately, so is the rest of humanity.

As for the rest of your post.  I think you haven't looked around at the world situation very carefully if you think we have tried to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate people.  And, if you'll pardon my forcefulness, isn't it extremely arrogant and self-centered to presume you have superior knowledge of nature to the rest of humanity?  Just for contrast, how do you think the 1,000 or so people out there who subsist daily on the same resources you as an individual use each day would respond to your claims of special insight to how people should behave?

Finally, you offer two choices:  A.) Do what you want with the land or B.) you, with this special insight to nature's feelings, keep people from the land.  How about a 3rd?  Manage land and ecosystems with representative democratic institutions.  You may not get "wilderness" as American's define it, but you probably won't need it.

Birdboy - Same metaphor problems.  Plus, what's your standard for good behavior in nature?  Spell it out.  Because I think, in feminizing and anthropomorphizing nature, you also create an anthropomorphized masculine human culture that in your thinking somehow acts in a unified fashion (well, except for you and your small sect of true nature knowers) against nature.  By doing so, I think you so diminish the true complexity of our challenge that we cannot (indeed, by your telling are not even allowed to) analyze the multiple nuances of human behavior.  'Save nature from humans'...to me, it is of the same quality an idea as 'fight terrorism'.

SMLowrey - I agree with much of what you say.  Our culture does not cultivate a sense of miracle in nature, and yet every spring up here in Massachusetts the trees start to bud, birds return and the cycle of the season begins anew, people wander outdoors and feel a sense of renewal in their spirits - there are miracles all around us that go unnoticed or barely noticed.  We need to cultivate that lost sense of wonder at the wild.  Where I disagree is with this notion of "Earth-centered" somehow being distinct from human centered.  I think you end up conflating human beings as a species with the current structures of power that are destoying us and our ecosystems.  Your own post talks about "earth-centeredness" as a focus on the earth, and then you go on to point to humans and human activity in the aggregate, which are going to be punished by an Earth that takes care of things (Gaia, presumably).  These kinds of binary constructions (I believe) actually serve the forces of social power who have no interest in our vision of nature.

Maybe things are getting worse, not because we don't have ample great ideas about how to love nature and the wild and not because there aren't millions of people out there who don't recognize the vitality of our place in nature (and their place), BUT because we have simplified the problem into a human's v. earth conflict, which, unfortuanely, isn't an accurate rendering of things to most people - because it isn't actually true.

Dave - Hear hear!  My only quibble with Lester is this idea of "National Security Problem."?   Human poverty is a moral and ethical problem (and so is nationalism, for that matter).  But the circular link he draws makes good sense to me.

Gracias por la conversacion muy interesante!

Paz,
KipOn A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card posted 3 years, 9 months ago 61 Responses

Orgs

David - I know a whole lot of organizations that work with the disempowered and as a result create value.  ;)  More imporatnt than money any day.    KipOn Bleg posted 3 years, 9 months ago 6 Responses

David,

I sense from your tone that you've tired of discussing this issue, but here goes anyway:

"Getting there means very different things for us in the Western world than it does for those in poverty and failed states..."  And "we need to help them...because if we don't, their numbers will expand."

This way of understanding it is the problem, in my opinon:  I believe that this statement is the same kind of binary construction that pits people against nature (to no useful end).  We need to deal with poverty, David, because it denies fellow human beings the right to flourish.  There's no us or them here; your ability to live (relatively) luxuriously is part of the same package that renders more than half the human population radically alienated from place.  Systemic, entrenched poverty (the denial of the basic necessities of life: food, shelter, clothing, education, and health) is immoral and unethical by any standard.  But your construction of the problem here renders these wrongs a problem of mathematics; another mechanical metaphor to describe organic life...  And another residual of the latent mysanthropy embedded in our environemntalist constructions.

Attacking this problem (poverty and human suffering) as part and parcel of our manifesto  strikes me as the only moral and ethical way toward sustainability.  Anything else is paternalistic imperialism.  How can it be otherwise?  Without the full participation of impacted populations, your are not describing a democratic process.  Whether or not you feel it in your heart, it is there in your expressions.  That's why language is so important: it exposes our unexamined assumptions we carry.  

Let me say it plain: I think poverty and the human condition has to be the central problem of environmentalism today or environmentalism will fail.  Right now, your manifesto doesn't effectively do this. (But I know you  are revising...)

This is not about race or racism or political correctness or shifting the long term goals of environmentalism.  It is about finding a way to honestly and truly understand and confront the problems we face.  It won't be easy, but I think it is our only sane choice.

Peace,
KipOn A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card posted 3 years, 9 months ago 61 Responses

Poverty

This is a good dialogue to have.  I know a couple of you have expressed impatience and/or frustration with having to "unsimplify" the manifesto or "shoehorn" a side issue into what you believe are the true first steps of environmentalism, but I appreciate your staying with this.  Without dialogue, the best manifesto in the world will fail.  Sound bites and simplification only serve opposite ends than ours.

Two points:

1. Dave, I'm still not convinced by your description and demotion of of 'poverty.'  Notice how you used the machine metaphor ("efficiency") to represent the flaw of poor people? They are 'inefficient".  Isn't it possible that the value system informing you that our society (the one you yourself admit no one else can aspire to) is better in any way may be the source of the flaw?  What is 'efficiency,' after all?  Anyway, I refer back to my original post about this concept.  Efficiency is for machines, we are organic.  We require things like health, vigor, and sustencance to operate well.  In my opinion, the problem with poverty is that it denies people these fundamental qualities.

I still maintain - and would hold this instance as a representative example - that getting our language and metaphors right is crucial.

2. I would also ask you to re-examine the assumptions embedded in your explanation of the "poverty problem."  Your logic goes:

Poverty is growing world wide, the problem with poverty is that poor people and "failed states" don't care about the conservation of resources, therefore ... what?  We must impose ourselves upon them so that they recognize the truly universal value of nature in their midst?  What is the logical outcome of this train of reasoning?  I follow it every time to environmental authoritarianism...  Back to Arendt: if we construct authoritarian means, we will have authoritarian means in our midst.

Worse, this view pits the disempowered of the world against your very western notion of 'environmentalism' (e.g., land conservation).  In the larger international dialogue about sustainability, you won't get out of the starting gate with these assumptions.

The other problem with poverty you present, is that large masses of people in the world are at the cusp of becoming wealthy (They do so with our billions, I might add: we float the Chinese miracle).  We must prevent them from becoming like us, lest they ravage the earth as we did.

Ok, I know it was late, but can you now see how this is exactly the opposite argument as the first?  If we are the most efficient, why wouldn't we want them to be like us?  Ah ha!

Because at its heart, I think your manifesto still alienates people from nature.  I don't say this to make idle arguments, or simply to be contrary.  I say it because when I look carefully, that is what I find.

I am worried that you are unintentionally restating an environmentalism that does not take human habitat seriously, and that does not include human life as a valued part of its ethical obligations.  I think any successful environmentalism will have to.

I have been a dedicated environmentalist since the 1970s, which is only to say I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about environmental issues and working toward environmental goals.  I also happen to believe very strongly in the principles of justice and democracy.  These values and my experiences lead me to the views and criticisms I present here.

I, as much as anyone reading this, want us to get it right.  And I hope everyone can read and engage these questions and ideas in that light.

Dialogue is good.  We want it in our ideal society, do we not?  Let us practice it then.

Peace,
KipOn A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card posted 3 years, 9 months ago 61 Responses

Poverty and wilderness

I wonder if it is worth fleshing out both of these ideas a little more? As categories, are we using them in ways that serve our ends? What are the 50% of the human population to make of a political philosophy that frames species loss as a "crisis" in demand of immediate steps to "stop the bleeding," but describes their condition of poverty as a "worthy goal," "if" we can afford it.

I don't think this hierarchy of values is unique to the list above; I think it is common to our perspective as environmentalists.  But I also think that it may be the single most difficult conceptual obstacle we face in framing a workable future.

Hannah Arendt in On Violence makes the point that in politics we can never really know what the ends are going to be; all we have are means, and politics is the ongoing negotiation of those changing conditions.  Her point was to emphasize the political irrationality of warfare and violence in the wake of World War II.  I wonder if it doesn't also help environmentalists locate their processes a little better.

Our end is not a nature free of humans, is it?  Then why would we make that idea a part of our means?

Isn't it more encompassing to recognize something like: poverty is our environment and so, by extension, social justice should be a de facto cornerstone of sustainability?  

Rather than a trade-off (which is really their argument, not ours), we could imagine a continuum of healthy, vibrant habitats, including our own...?  And I'm not sure how we have a healthy human habitat without confronting the conditions of wealth and poverty extant today.

KipOn A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card posted 3 years, 9 months ago 61 Responses