Environmentalism Reconsidered
This is the first in a series of blog pieces that
offer a new way of contemplating environmentalism so please allow me to premise
all of the following comments by acknowledging the necessity for humans to
integrate their actions with natural systems. There have been damaging effects
requiring address from the industrialization of the world. To think human
actions, as humans now exist, can occur without effecting change on the plant
would be lunacy. As human understanding continues to grow at a startling pace,
greater opportunities are presenting themselves that will permit us to enjoy
abundant lives in harmony with natural systems.
Having been born on a farm in British Columbia and
then through the course of my working life being exposed to the natural world,
the state of the environment is a point of concern and contemplation. The
environment, particularly as it concerns humanity’s healthy existence needs to
take priority in the minds of the entire world’s population. A bold and
“truthful” assessment of the environmental situation needs to occur. Focused
debate on the next steps toward human harmony with nature still needs to take
place. While there is consensus that the environment is challenged; the
rhetoric we are hearing from the extreme elements of the environmental movement
is questionable at best. It’s apparent at times there is a religiosity
associated with some in the environmental movement, accompanied by the
indoctrination of recruits rather than their edification. This is evidenced by
the hostility encountered at the mere inquiry as to the credibility of claims
forwarded by some.
Nature to me is the smell of pine drifting across my
path on an August day in the high country. The smell of fresh-cut wood is pungent
in contrast to ambient fragrance. Nature is alpine flowers in July, ephemeral
beauty. Nature is the excitement, as a flicker of a whitetail passes from
view. Nature is hours spent astride a horse and watching the county pass by.
Nature is the bite of a cold winter wind, the shiver from early spring rain.
Nature is bold beautiful and powerful, comforting and intimidating. I’ve spent
my finest moments in life at the whim of nature, a crisp October morning giving
way to an afternoon’s nap against a south-facing rock. I’ve quacked at the
rustle of a bear in the bush. I wondered to find my way when a flat piece of the county on a cloudy day stole my sense of direction. I have spent time with
nature and felt bound to it and grown to love it, making an emotional bond. I
feel I understand it and appreciate it as well as anybody. Given this intimacy
I’ve developed with nature, when I hear someone speak of protecting “nature” my
ears prick up. When, however, I hear someone prostituting nature to promote
bygone political objectives, I become deeply offended.
Far too often I’ve turned my head toward individuals
expounding with save the earth rhetoric from the heart of urbansville, only to
hear every word they say underpinned by an ulterior motive. When they say “cap and
trade”, they really mean enforce monetary equality. When they say “100 Mile
Diet” they really mean down with world trade. When they say “community-managed
forest” they really mean stop logging. When they say save the earth, they really
mean stop everything, freeze it all, stop society dead in its economic tracks.
The constant salvo of urbanized thinkers trampling on the progress of humanity
in the absence of an aft-ward glance is offensive and most certainly
frightening. As Winston Churchill said, “the further back you look the further
ahead you see”, and when I look back to when nature had its full sway,
humanity was a small ship on a rough ocean. The modern world has brought both
promise and pearl to be sure. The reality is we are the earth’s stewards now,
and we are expanding, and we need to harvest nature’s generous bounty. Nature
exists in a changing landscape; a new road can be viewed as a scare or as a
mode of transport. There is a critical balance to be had to be sure, one needs
to be cognisant of the result of our actions, but action is necessary; more than
necessary it is exciting and filled with opportunity. This opportunity needs to
be pursued with a clear mind, however, informed by clear information. The
environmental message has lost resolution and fidelity, as it has been
appropriated by social
interest.
The modern western population is now predominantly
urban people who possess an idealistic view of nature. In grade school, they
were told about the “balance” of nature, how, as a rodent population exceeds its
food supply and they die off from starvation, and other examples of predator
populations declining in response to predator overhunting of prey. Nature is a
mass of happenstance and these are examples demonstrative of inherent imbalance
as opposed to balance, anthropogenic interventions in the form of mindful
stewardship can mitigate these fluctuations by integrating natural processes in
human action. Anthropogenic intervention can enhance natural processes through
the course of human endeavour. The view of human activity on the ground needs to
be transformed in the minds of people, from the shroud of detriment to the realization
human endeavour is integral to natural systems. A road built blind to the
requirements of nature is a scare on the land; a road built mindful of nature
serves to enhance human endeavour and maintains or enhances natural processes.
We can harmonize our actions with nature; that should be the focus, rather than
having social engineering take us off course.
The Dali Lama teaches us to “avoid putting a goat's
head on a yak's body”. This is precisely what many social activists are doing to
the environmental movement – perhaps the social activists are best regarded as
wolves in sheep’s clothing. The wolves are the authors of the environmental
manifesto and the builders of the road to subsistence.
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