It’s our relationship with and within the natural world that needs to change
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Posted on December 21, 2006
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Fossil fuel dependency, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Industrial society took that Old Testament charge to dominate and subdue nature to the nth degree, forcing nature to submit to the will of Man [sic] as we westerners, fueled by the ideological mix of that religiosity and capitalist profit-seeking economics, just carved our way through the natural world, manipulating, extracting, destroying as we created the ‘way of life’ we have here in this country.
Now we have destroyed our way right into this ecological crisis, a mix of destabilization of our atmosphere because of our greenhouse gas pollution, living beyond the means of the Earth, maldevelopment models that have doomed much of the world to desperate poverty, etc., etc.
Now as we face this crisis, we must begin to restore our proper relationship with Nature or else Nature will destroy us. Therefore, we must change our entire approach to things like development, economic models, policies to address the crisis — indeed, let’s just say it , our very values, what we believe is important about being a human being on this Earth.
I enjoy looking at the contrasting responses to the crisis. They are revealing and instructive. Once again, I found such a contrast in the Business section of the NY Times. Side by side are two articles, one dealing with how Europe is approaching the issue of greenhouse gas pollution from air travel, the amount of damaging gases spewed from jets as they cross our skies; the other is how some people in the energy business are approaching the problem of looming oil shortages and our dependence on foreign oil.
The European Union wants to start imposing extra fees on foreign and domestic airlines that exceed certain levels of greenhouse gas emissions. It follows similar charges already in place for other industries like power and paper. Airlines don’t like the idea. Corporations almost never like it when governments force them to do something, no matter how beneficial. These fees would likely raise the cost of a plane ticket, but from the vantage point of this blog, that is a good thing, since those of us who emit carbon should be paying for it, or paying to stop doing it.
The other article is about US oil companies getting interested in one of the most ecologically destructive sources of oil that there is — oil shale. I leave it to you to read this and see what I mean. But one company, Shell, is considering drilling 2,000 foot holes in an area in Colorado, then placing heaters to cook the oil shale at 650 degress for 2-3 years until it liquifies and can be pumped out.
What?! And what, pray tell, are the possible responses from the Earth if they do this?! All this so that I can put gasoline in my car?! Are we really that crazy? Are we really that submissive to oil companies that we can’t get our priorities straight and start looking at reducing consumption, at energy efficiency and alternative fuels?
One response, that of Europe, seeks to move us in a direction of reducing our ecological footprint; the other is prepared yet again to bend nature to our will in an attempt to extract what we need to continue fueling the engine of this economy.
One is a step, however, small, towards human responsibility for what we have done and are doing; the other is an example of the human hubris — with mighty profits along the way for a select few — that has led us to the disaster already descending upon us.
Imagine the devastation, the waste of the Earth, we have in store if we don’t change how we think of ourselves on this planet. If we could begin to remove all that distracts us from that relationship and experience it once again in every cell of our natural bodies, we might begin to feel, really feel, this destruction as something that is also being done to us.
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