Alternative Earth Visions (or is the planet just a dead resource for humans to consume?)
This topic is at the core of dealing with the exponentially intensifying environmental crisis.
What is society’s/other cultural traditions'/ or your own personal vision of the Earth?
What principles do older mythologies/beliefs contain that once helped people live in balance with nature?
I hope this thread takes off. To start, I bring up the example of a First Nations member who described climatic changes he was seeing. Talking about abnormal wind storms, he said something to the effect of: “These winds are just Mother Earth working so hard to heal herself.”
This sounds more hopeful than a reductionist view of the earth that would explain the windstorms in mechanistic meteorological terms.
This view also takes “mother earth” to be an active agent - not just some metaphor without volition, as the term “mother earth” is often used by westerners.
Comments
There's plenty of ambiguity (intentional or not) of the phrase "control our populations." Could mean projected size of population, behavior of already existing population, self control, control by others, combinations of more than one of these, and surely other interpretations. I don't mean to nitpick at the language, I'm just saying there are a number of different opinions on what "control populations" may mean. Anyway, there are entire threads on the topic of population, let's make worldviews the central focus here.
Noise opened the can on an important question of environmental philosophy, what the heck does it mean for people to be in balance with nature? Have humans ever been in balance? Have humans ever NOT been in balance? Where is the dividing line between "human" and "nature?"
There are growing amounts of documentation on how "wild" places were/are in fact places very well-gardened by humans, for example, mixed cultivation of food and other useful plants at every level of the forest canopy in tropical climates. Humans have in many instances created environments in which biodiversity flourished, and at the same time, these peoples learned how to live off the diversity. Not fitting into the human VERSUS nature false dichotomy, these places were neither domestic nor wild, rather more like "wild gardens." Sorry I can't dig up specific examples now. In any case, "respect for all things on earth animate or inanimate" seemed to be an underlying principle.
I believe we also need to make cities more "wild," not by shipping people out, but by applying techniques of "urban permaculture."
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The change to the political economy won't come because we planned ahead. It will come because it will have to when the waters rise. -sigh-
It may not be so tantalizingly drawn out. Big changes will come when food and water tipping points are hit and wars big and small break out. Oh, and then the political economy can just go on being what it is, dominated by people with armaments. -sigh-
On a more positive note, it doesn't necessarily have to be so.
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If humanity dies, the greatest understanding of itself the Earth has managed to produce dies... In who's opinion is that the best thing for this planet? Sometimes it's hard to remember that the same Earth that spawned these bees and worms so essential to life as we know it, also spawned us. [joke] Perhaps us dissapearing from the Planet is the worst possible thing for the planet as we represent the planets only defence vs a comet [/joke] ;)
[Note: I know there are holes throughout the following paragraph, but heck I don’t have time to write a full-fledged essay here. Pointing out the holes is most welcome of course.]
As I understand Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the noosphere: First there was the geosphere, the physical earth. On which grew the biosphere, life on earth. Then emerged the noosphere, consciousness on earth. So out of the biosphere, the limits of which we are only realizing now, hopefully can emerge a greater consciousness and appreciation of earth, the universe, and the interconnections. Within the human species is the potential evolution of the noosphere – the universe becoming conscious of itself. Our species still has a long way to go, I think, towards becoming more conscious. Part of this consciousness IMO would be the humble realization that humans will never be masters over nature. I don’t think the human species is obliged to evolve the noosphere, but it would be awfully nice if it did, if only because it could be a beautiful thing.
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If dangerous climate change doesnt cause mass die-offs and wars for resources, or ambush meteors, or another cryogenic period lasting 200 million years, or a black hole rips the planet to pieces as unseen blackholes will do every so often, then we have about another five billion years before the sun becomes a red giant and puts an end to planet earth for all time. Just think if it that meteor 65 million years ago was about a half an hour sooner or later, it would have missed the earth. And there'd be dinosaurs driving down main street today in some pretty large SUV's and buses.
We'll have to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. And we're going to need a lot of clever people to get there. We'll have to rig the lottery and buy as many human tickets as possible to increase our chances of winning several jackpots in a row. Time is worth a helluva lot more than money.
Yes, good questions, Noise.
Ecological crises have occurred before. There have been peoples in the past that lived in balance (ie, they lived sustainably, meaning they did not destroy their own base of sustenance nor the base of sustenance for their progeny), and there have been peoples that did not live sustainably (classic example: Easter Islanders.)
To answer Noise's questions above, I think the earth will not allow the human species to live on this planet much longer without (re-)learning how to respect it. What characterizes the current mega-crisis, obviously, is that it involves the whole planet. We have to learn as a species, or go extinct.
I know, there remain unanswered questions: How is survival defined? 1%? And survival at what costs? There's also the possibility of some groups of humanity going off and establishing little technology-sustained pockets of livability. These places would be well-defended, they'd ruthlessly rule over and exploit the hinterland with no compunction, and likely not be democratic internally. (There must be a sci-fi book/movie based on a similar scenario - anyone know of one?) This situation would not require any warm fuzzy planetary ethical, spiritual or ecological learning of the type that I am fond of espousing.
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Back to the "alternative visions of earth" thing, in the book Sacred Ecology, prof Fikret Berkes describes how one indigenous group (Cree? Inuit?) believed that in order to be a successful hunter, it was not so much a matter of the hunter knowing the land, rather the land had to get acquainted with the hunter. Was the hunter respectful and worthy of the land giving up its bounty to him?
(I know, I know, technology changes the variables drastically.)
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Gram:
Heh, gotta love it when someone pinpoints the angle I'm coming from ;) My definition for Geosphere is all that physically is (at this level, nothing inheritantly has value as there is nothing to interpret that value). The Biosphere is the manipulation of the Geosphere, particles rearranging particles, for no other reason than an attempt at experiencing itself in an infinite range of possibilites (of course, there are stages and degrees in which the biosphere can manipulate the geosphere). The Noosphere brings consciousness, but moreso... It bring Interpretation and ultimately Value. Heh, of course It gets much more confusing when you find within physics the acceptance that the geosphere, biosphere, and noosphere are all representations of the same thing (consciousness and matter as one).
I'd love to indulge in this conversation further... But I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow and won't be anywhere near canada or a computer until March. Heh, perhaps at a later time?
It ties in with a few recent God threads as well. Our concept of God has purpose rolled up into it... A purpose that spans well beyond our individual lives. Without God, what is humanity's purpose, and are we ready/capable of having our own purpose independant of an image of an all-powerful Lord? It's one of those haunting questions... If we were to colonize the stars, we'd just have that many more humans across a much wider distance wondering what the purpose of colonizing the stars was. Without this meaning, we're consuming to exist and existing to consume, nothing more.
I'm not sure if humans have ever been in balance. We've been states where we were relatively unable to affect the 'balance', but whether or not that means we were living within that balance is a different matter. I'm not sure if I fully agree with this arguement, but something to consider:
Hawking introduced the idea that to survive humanity will need to colonize more than just Earth... Does that not imply alot of the nature of humanity? We don't exist in harmony with any environment if given the chance to grow. More like a virus that will plunder one host knowing full well survival hinges on 'colonizing' the next host. The 'stars' are our next host, we need to infest them before we finish off this planet for good.
y'know, I'm not sure if I've ever considered that argument before... The Noosphere thriving only through exploitation and destruction of the biosphere.
Any book by Castaneda on the Yaqui Indian sorcerer Don Jaun Matus follows the same line (holy crap, Don Jaun has a wiki entry). Reality tends to be what you make it.
You can't discuss "exponentially intensifying environmental crisis" without discussing human population. To pretend we can is just bullshit.
That's bringing 'em down to earth, FM! None too soon, either.
If I might continue in response to the first posting in this thread, I would like to start with the title/name of the thread: "Alternative Earth Visions (or is the planet just a dead resource for humans to consume?)"
To begin, and this is not even a critique of the posting but questions as to possible implied meanings, I turned to some definitions of "alternative". For myself, I have grown up within and influenced by certain traditions - which I hope will be evident.
1.a choice limited to one of two or more possibilities, as of things, propositions, or courses of action, the selection of which precludes any other possibility: You have the alternative of riding or walking.2.one of the things, propositions, or courses of action that can be chosen: The alternative to riding is walking.3.a possible or remaining course or choice: There was no alternative but to walk.–adjective4.affording a choice of two or more things, propositions, or courses of action.5.(of two things, propositions, or courses) mutually exclusive so that if one is chosen the other must be rejected: The alternative possibilities are neutrality and war.6.employing or following nontraditional or unconventional ideas, methods, etc.; existing outside the establishment: an alternative newspaper; alternative lifestyles.7. Logic. (of a proposition) asserting two or more choices, at least one of which is true.
(dictionary.reference.com)
As I read the subject of the thread, I am struck by the ways in which it resonates and doesn't with these definitions (which I do not hold as some kind of sacrosanct truths, but are treated as possible starting points). And, I wonder to what extent that an individual might view the notion of "alternative" as a choice between one or two (known) possibilities? And, I wonder why there is the need to preclude/exclude the other?
To imagine an "alternative" as simply being one of many things that can be chosen doesn't seem quite so offensive or naive. Culturally speaking, there are (clearly) many different perspective to be had, thought about, and respected. The third definition, however, fails to suggest some kind of respect - an alternative will always come 'second", suggesting something not quite as good as the first.
Looking further, we see that the choices are to be mutually exclusive... which I don't buy either. And, there is also the idea of "nontraditional" and "unconventional". Surely, such notions demand the question "To and for whom?" [And, now, i suspect that one could talk about the notion of "power".)
Is the notion of an "alternative" a Western concept? Do traditional peoples, cultural groups, frame the world through "alternatives" - alternative in the senses of 'seconds", "not-so-good", and mutual exclusiveness?
I wonder if, instead of playing the "usual game" of mutual exclusiveness and so on, it might be possible (and better) to look at shared underlying principles?
Personally, when I (tend to) think about various matters and phenomena, I frame that thinking in terms of "dynamical systems" - relationships, self-organizing patterns, importance of diversity (and redundancy), interactions, and so on. I see these are principles. And, then, I tend to think in terms of "portraits" - the images, pictures, patterns, descriptions and narratives of the world which, in my mind anyway, seem to align well with more (w)holistic framings of "health". And, last, i consider implications for "practice" - inherently a relational action with the world.
It does seem that "mechanistic" terms could be used to describe the world - if it were linear, predictable, but also ill or dis-eased. If one considered various forms of heart conditions, congestive heart failure is highly predictable, sinusoidal. At the other end, atrial fibrillation, the heart is quite erratic - almost chaotic (in a non-scientific sense). It is, i would suggest, that when the heart is "in the middle" that it is healthy.
i wonder if there are Other stories/frames to understand this phenomena? How might a Traditional Chinese perspective view this? a First Nations perspective?
(Thanks for starting off this post. I have just joined rabble and I am looking forward to hearing from others and participating in the discussions.)
Can't remember where I heard this quote but I like it (not as hopefuly but I believe very true):
The idea that we will destroy the Earth is the utmost in arrogance. We can’t destroy the Earth. We can only destroy ourselves and the unfortunate organisms who presently occupy the Earth with us.
The context I heard it in was that if we mess with the earth enough it will become unihabitable......for awhile........then it will begin life anew once it stabilizes again after the mess we created, but we will be long gone.
So to me the fight against Global Warming / Climate change, whatever you want to call it is a fight for our survival and for the survival of the animals that would perish along with us (how much would you like to bet the cockroaches will survive!).
We are actually getting upset that the earth is going through climate change, but we should be rejoicing that at least the earth is doing something to make itself better, even if we are not. The key is to stop messing with the Earth so that when the earth makes itself better it doesn't do it to the drastic sense of making life unihabitable for us. I think the earth will do just fine in the end.
We live because we were able to adapt to our climate... Our survival on these terms will be measured by our ability to continue to adapt to the changing climate, not our ability to force the climate to suit our lives.
More just a bit of devils advocate, but I don't agree that our survival is dependant on stopping climate change... If anything, resisting change has the opposite effect on our survival (It's not like denying change works any better).
The only reason why I'd argue that is to open up the scope of this thread... If survival alone is dependant on our ability to adapt to change, what reasons are there to 'fight climate change'? I think this means when providing an Alternative Earth Vision, it needs to define what climate we are promoting far beyond the simple survival criteria.
So whats the goal here? To provide an image of the globe that we may exploit and re-exploit indefinately? To survive exactly as we are? To maintain the globe in a state in where we really don't have to pay attention to it and go about other much more entertaining activities?
From the OP:
Hard to say if we ever lived in balance with nature, with the possible exception of times when we killed each other off faster than we could impact nature. Admittadely, any belief that seperates us from nature (as in a God created humanity and not nature) tends to have a far heavier impact.
Today, our population plus technology allows us to impact the globe in manners previous cultures would never had to consider... So why would they have?
I am not extremly well versed in climate change as a science but I do know that more drastic weather patterns are coming faster.
What about the possibility that it happens faster than we can say create safe warm environments if another ice age comes?
They won't. Read the excellent book The World Without Us. ( http://www.worldwithoutus.com/index2.html )
The issue is not just climate change. As a species as intelligent as we are, we also seem entirely incapable of assessing the big picture beyond a single aspect. The entire eco-system is in distress and nearing collapse. Every aspect. And they are all inter-related.
I was reading last week that scientists have discovered fish poop helps remove carbon from the oceans. This after fish species have been devastated.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16432-fish-an-ally-against-climate-change.html
We know what we're doing ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/science/earth/20reef.html?_r=1
... and we do it anyway.
The only possibility for human survivial on this planet is to control our populations, learn to live within the limits of the planet's resources, with a simple philosophy of replacing whatever we take, and with respect for all things on earth animate or inanimate.
Given the state of the competition between human restraint and human greed, I think we're fucked big time.
Yet, if revolutionary solutions are increasingly required to address the ecological problem, this is precisely what the existing social system is guaranteed not to deliver. Today’s environmentalism is aimed principally at those measures necessary to lessen the impact of the economy on the planet’s ecology without challenging the economic system that in its very workings produces the immense environmental problems we now face. What we call “the environmental problem” is in the end primarily a problem of political economy. Even the boldest establishment economic attempts to address climate change fall far short of what is required to protect the earth—since the “bottom line” that constrains all such plans under capitalism is the necessity of continued, rapid growth in production and profits.
http://links.org.au/node/518
The change to the political economy won't come because we planned ahead. It will come because it will have to when the waters rise. -sigh-
Makes me wonder if this was what Hawking was considering when he said we must colonize the stars to survive.
Refuge:
Ya, when faced with a survive or die scenario, you'll be surprised what we're capable of. It becomes a debate of what exactly 'surviving' entails (does a catstrophic event where 99% of us die ultimately mean we survived it?)
More energy in the system tends to do that. It's why 'global warming' isn't a very good description... The majority of the extra energy the Earth is retaining is converting ice to water which includes no actual warming. This forming and melting of ice basically acts as a buffer allowing the earth to regulate it's temperatures. On the enmasse.ca environmental forums, there are threads that actually show the amount of energy that would be required to melt off the arctic ice cap to the extent it has. The same amount of energy would have fried the atmosphere and then some.
Pressure is quite important in weather systems... Pressure is simply volume x temperature, so altering global air temperatures or adding more gasses to the system would be potentially messing around with pressure systems.
Global warming isn't all in one direction either which brings up disputes. Hurricanes for example... A few aspects of global warming appear to be inhibitting hurricane developement and that possibility caused a split on the impact of global warming on hurricanes. Global warming increases ocean temperatures, ocean temperatures fuel hurricane development, higher temps bigger 'canes. However, low windshear values are required for hurricane developement and Global warming would appear to be increasing wind shear values (windshear is the difference between the wind at 200mb and 850 mb... So the wind speed at the top of the hurricane compared to the bottom). A high windshear value (20MPH+) will inhibit hurricanes from even forming... Really strong windshears actually rip them completely apart (we got to watch a few hurricanes die this past season like that... Takes the cloud cover right off the hurricane and all thats left is a bit of surfce clouds in the distinct hurricane shape before it disipates). Ultimately, this should mean less hurricanes forming, but when they do their growth will be explosive. I beleive every record relating to the speed of hurricane growth was broken by a significant margin in the past 2 years, so there does appear to be evidence supporting this.
FM:
We're not intelligent as a species. We tend to be intelligent and advanced individually and on a technological level... Our developement on a social 'We' level seems pretty poor at best. Comprehending the picture outside of our live spans doesn't really happen, and it seems the majority of the time that we try to look at that picture, it's Gods will and not ours so why worry?
Just so I understand the direction you're going with this FM... What is your opinion on the belem-ecosocialist-declaration ?
It's going to take a pretty big 'wake-up call' event before the majority of peoples start considering these lines of action.
Very good questions to consider. Like people have said, we're remarkably narrow-visioned, those of us who are the cause of this mess. And I'm referring to the non-sustainable lifestyles of we in the developed North and West.
I read a piece by David Suzuki recently about bees and worms and us. We all know that if the bees all died, or the worms all died, the planet would not be able to sustain life as we know it. If we humans all died? Probably the best thing for the planet in several thousand millenia.
And saga, dontcha think that by the time the waters rise, it's too late?
I agree.
I see statements of principles but I also see a failure to grasp the reality of the situation. For example, where will the resources come from to sustain cities, lay rail, and build rail cars? What will power them? And homes? Just wind? What about population?
Currently, we are well on our way to 7 billion human beings on this little planet. How will we feed them? The only way to feed all the people on earth, poorly, is through the very industrial systems that allowed us to reach this point of overshoot and places us at the point of collapse.
If we eliminate fossil fuels from agriculture we lose millions of acres of land to feed the horses and oxen required to do the work of tractors. If we eliminate fossil fuel from textiles and materials, we lose millions more to cotton and pasture for wool.
If we divert ever scarcer water ( http://www.truthout.org/012109EA ) to cities we lose water for irrigation and people starve. If we divert for irrigation cities go dry and precious top soil is risked through over production.
You see, we have ourselves trapped. If we stop we collapse and if we continue we collapse.
Maysie:
If humanity dies, the greatest understanding of itself the Earth has managed to produce dies... In who's opinion is that the best thing for this planet? Sometimes it's hard to remember that the same Earth that spawned these bees and worms so essential to life as we know it, also spawned us. [joke] Perhaps us dissapearing from the Planet is the worst possible thing for the planet as we represent the planets only defence vs a comet [/joke] ;)
Too late to do what? ;) Too late to Survive, or too late be able to continue consuming without caring about it?
FM:
Interesting article... I've never seen it refered to as the 'third pole' like that article does.
Refuge... For that adapt fast enough question, I think you're begining to see the first efforts appear in these water issues. Most of us in North America and Europe are going to see what happens to people when water supplies become effected by watching what happens to the 2 billion people referred to in that article... How we respond to that will display whether or not we can adapt on a humanity wide scale. Failure at that level... We'll see how well the individual can survive instead.
Yes, I see the trap now.
I find theres a similiar trap with production and consumption that the auto industry bailout highlights too. The best justification for me was the millions of people who's jobs depend on continuing to create the cars for us to consume, leaving their livelyhoods dependant on our ability to consume the cars, all so these people making the cars can continue to buy the shit I/others make. Leaves us in a cycle where we must continue to consume simply to allow us to continue to produce. The possibility of not needing more cars or the ability to manufacturing something else seems to be excluded from the discussion of course.
What do you think it'd take for humanity to percieve a greater picture that spans several of our lifetimes? Heh, in some ways I see religion as an attempt to do that, setting that purpose as a higher will beyond ours. Are we ready to define our own purpose, or do we still need a giant father figure to provide that for us?
Thanks rdstanley on your thoughts on the word "alternative." Maybe I could have used the word "complementary." But I did have in mind "alternatives" (not necessarily inferior or mutually exclusive ones) to the dominant mechanistic worldview. Indeed we have to look for common underlying principles.
That said, here are some very relevant paragraphs from Sacred Ecology, (2nd edition, Fikret Berkes [prof at U. of Manitoba], Routledge, 2008, pp. 252-253.)
[Quote:]
There are only a few places in the world, often in isolated areas, where purely traditional systems of resource use are still in force. The globalization of Western culture has meant, among other things, the global spread of Western ways of environmental and resource management. The remaining pockets of traditional systems probably cannot escape history, but they can transform themselves into diverse and creative hybrid systems that build on traditional ways of knowing, and take advantage of windows of opportunity (e.g., entry into bioeconomy) in a rapidly changing world. They can also inspire new approaches to environmental stewardship, and suggest more participatory and locally grounded alternatives to top-down, centralized environmental management.
During the past century, a diversity of traditional knowledge and practice systems all over the world has been replaced by a monolithic Western resource management science, while many traditional stewardship approaches have disappeared. Until only a few years ago, the spread of modern, rational, scientific resource management was considered a part of “natural progress.” The problem is that Western scientific resource management, despite all of its power, seems unable to halt the depletion of resources and the degradation of the environment. Part of the reason for this paradox may be that Western resource management, and reductionist science in general, developed in the service of a utilitarian, exploitive, dominion-over-nature worldview of colonists and industrial developers (Worster 1977; Gadgil and Berkes 1991). Utilitarian sciences were best geared for the efficient use of resources as if they were limitless, consistent with the laissez-faire doctrine still alive in today’s neoclassical economic theory (e.g. Daly and Cobb 1989). But utilitiarianism is ill-suited for sustainability, which requires a new philosophy that recognizes ecological limits and the unity of humans and nature, and strives to satisfy social as well as economic needs.
Perhaps the most fundamental lesson of traditional ecological knowledge is that worldviews and beliefs do matter. Almost all traditional ecological knowledge systems may be characterized as a complex of knowledge, practice, and belief. Almost universally, one encounters an ethic of nondominant, respectful human-nature relationship, a sacred ecology, as part of the belief component of traditional ecological knowledge. This is true not only for the Cree people or Australian aborigines, but for many other groups as well. For example, the Fijian expressions of spiritual affinity with land, ne qau vanua (“the land which supports me and to which I belong”) and na vanua na tamatu (“the people are the land”) (Ravuvu1987)., could have just as easily come from traditional peoples of the Americas, Africa, Australia, or New Guinea (Ballard 1997). The notion of unity of people and land is not absent in Western societies, either. For example, witness the Gaelic greeting, “where do you belong to?” signifiying specific connections to land (Mackenzie 1998).
[End quote]
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