Update on energy bill — but then, I really want to talk about a relationship
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Posted on June 15, 2007
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
The Republicans have blocked action on the energy bill in the Senate. They don’t like things like taxes on windfall profits for oil companies and regulations that would set a minimum standard for energy from renewable sources. I’ll just let you read about it here in the New York Times, and then I want to talk about something else.
Did you know that 60% of US forests are in the hands of private owners? I just found this out in the NYT yesterday. And most of these owners are older than 55 — and many of them, as interest wanes or taxes rise, or the children who will inherit them could care less, are thinking of selling.
For subdivisions, perhaps. To developers. For shopping malls.
Hard to say. Some may try hard to keep the forest intact, but costs and potential profits from selling will be in the mix of their decisions.
See, I think that this land should revert to public hands if it’s going to be sold. I think it should be put in land trusts, or bought up by governments who will protect them.
Now I want to mention another story in the NYT today. This one is about what we have done to meadow birds because of the way we live, because of unrestrained development and horrible land use policies.
Meadow birds in precipitous decline, Audobon says.
Spreading suburbs and large-scale farming are contributing to a precipitous decline in once common meadow birds like the Northern bobwhite, the Eastern meadowlark,
the loggerhead shrike and the field sparrow.
Sometimes I really do just want to sit down and weep.
Here’s yesterday’s press release from the Audobon Society. It’s pretty heartrending, if you care about birds — and if you don’t, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.
The dramatic declines are attributed to the loss of grasslands, healthy forests and wetlands, and other critical habitats from multiple environmental threats such as sprawl, energy development, and the spread of industrialized agriculture.
The study notes that these threats are now compounded by new and broader problems including the escalating effects of global warming. In concert, they paint a challenging picture for the future of many common species and send a serious warning about our increasing toll on local habitats and the environment itself.
You see? Even if we don’t care about the birds, this is an indication of what is happening to us, to the fabric of life of which we are a part. When you start to pull it apart thread by thread, the whole thing begins to unravel. Us, too. Despite what Western rationalism or our Western religious traditions tell us, we are of Nature, not apart from it. When we see signs like this, we have a measure of the trouble we are in.
That’s why those groups that try to keep the threads together are so important. Even more important is how we must change altogether our relationship with our Earth community that is us, surrounds us, holds us, without which we neither existed, exist, or have a chance at existence in the future.
Visit the Audobon website and listen to the birdsong. 
Go outside and look at these precious little guys that play a crucial role in the web of life, not least of which is the sheer joy they bring.
How much of this do we want to lose before we stop this insanity. No profit, no development, is more important than those birds, than the forests that support them and all life, even the air we breathe.
What are we doing? What are we doing?
Technorati Tags: meadow birds in decline, Audobon Society, energy bill, fabric of nature, migratory birds
Photo credits:
Eastern Meadowlark and Evening Grosbeak, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center & National Zoo
Northern Bobwhite, US Geologic Society, J.A. Spendelow
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