.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
Posts tagged species extinction
Ancient Root
Apr 28th
Ancient Root
“I don’t know what kind of person steals a life for money, prestige, or status, what kind of animal that may be, but these people make a statement about all of us as a species, as varied as we are, as if to say we are cold of eye, colder of heart, and frozen in spirit. Then there are those of us who are filled with compassionate heartbreak and awe at the magnificence of all the lives around us, and these people grieve the many losses.”
Emergence Magazine Ancient Root Linda Hogan
https://emergencemagazine.org/story/ancient-root/
Linda Hogan is a Chickasaw novelist, essayist, poet, and environmentalist. She is author of Mean Spirit, winner of the Oklahoma Book Award and the Mountains and Plains Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is currently finishing a book of essays entitled The Radiant Life of Animals.
Society as Ecosystem in a Time of Collapse, Part I
Aug 1st
Society as Ecosystem in a Time of Collapse, Part I
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018-07-30/human-predators-human-prey/
By Richard Heinberg, July 30, 2018
First of three parts
Richard Heinberg is the author of thirteen books including: – Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy, co-authored with David Fridley (2016) – Afterburn (2015) – Snake Oil (July 2013) – The End of Growth (August 2011) – The Post Carbon Reader (2010) (editor) – Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last…
Too many businesses are treating the Earth like a huge candy store
Jul 29th
Too many businesses are treating the Earth like a huge candy store
“We’re dealing with ‘a highly degraded ecosystem of forests that just get continuously logged over and over again.’”
Danna Smith of the Dogwood Alliance, a nonprofit organization.
“…trees cut down in the Southeast are usually replanted. But it can take a sapling decades to grow large enough to absorb and store as much carbon as the tree it replaced.”
An Ozymandian Nightmare Part 12
Jun 18th
What’s with Ozymandias?
Roman-era historian Diodorus Siculus, who described a statue of Ozymandias, more commonly known as Rameses II (possibly the pharaoh referred to in the Book of Exodus). Diodorus reports the inscription on the statue, which he claims was the largest in Egypt, as follows: “King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.” (The statue and its inscription do not survive, and were not seen by Shelley; his inspiration for [the sonnet] “Ozymandias” was verbal rather than visual.) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/238972 View Shelley’s sonnet here.
This paper is a commentary on the book; Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth
The book is Edited by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist, and Tom Butler. Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology in collaboration with Island Press, 2014, Washington D.C.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This entry is an editorial, ‘The New Conservation”
published on-line in the Society for Conservation Biology, 19 September, 2013.
Herein, Soule speaks out in response to a postmodernist approach to conservation. He points out that ninety eight percent of charitable contributions in the US target humans and human issues “that may seem more tangible to the average citizen than Earth’s unravelling ecological fabric.” If the “new Conservationists” can be taken seriously, it appears that humanitarianism should take prominence over Nature and the other-than-human beings that have become before us and to whom we owe our very existence and continuance as a species. Soule speaks of how this new movement seeks to “replace the biodiversity-based model of traditional conservation with campaigns emphasising human economic progress.” Under the new regime, humans will makeover the so-called “failed” efforts of conservation measures and manage the Earth as a garden for human use and welfare. Perhaps Erle Ellis puts it succinctly: “Nature is gone.”
“The manifesto of the new conservation movement is “Conservation in the Anthropocene: Beyond Solitude and Fragility” (Lalasz et al. 2011; see also Kareiva 2012). In the latter document, the authors assert that the mission of conservation ought to be primarily humanitarian, not nature (or biological diversity) protection: “Instead of pursuing the protection of biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake, a new conservation should seek to enhance those natural systems that benefit the widest number of people, especially the poor” (emphasis added). In light of its humanitarian agenda and in conformity with Foreman’s (2012) distinction between environmentalism (a movement that historically aims to improve human well-being, mostly by reducing air and water pollution and ensuring food safety) and conservation, both the terms new and conservation are inappropriate.
Proponents declare that their new conservation will measure its achievement in large part by its relevance to people, including city dwellers. Underlying this radically humanitarian vision is the belief that nature protection for its own sake is a dysfunctional, antihuman anachronism. To emphasize its radical departure from conservation, the characters of older conservation icons, such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Edward Abbey, are defamed as hypocrites and misanthropes and contemporary conservation leaders and writers are ignored entirely (Lalasz et al. 2011).”
“(1) The new conservationists assume biological diversity conservation is out of touch with the economic realities of ordinary people, even though this is manifestly false. Since its inception, the Society for Conservation Biology has included scores of progressive social scientists among its editors and authors (see also letters in BioScience, April 2012, volume 63, number 4: 242–243).
(2) The new conservationists also assert that national parks and protected areas serve only the elite, but a poll conducted by the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association and the National Park Hospitality Association estimates that 95% of voters in America want continued government support for parks (National Parks Conservation Association 2012).
(3) Furthermore, Lalasz et al. (2011) argue that it should be a goal of conservation to spur economic growth in habitat-eradicating sectors, such as forestry, fossil-fuel exploration and extraction, and agriculture.
(4) The key assertion of the new conservation is that affection for nature will grow in step with income growth. The problem is that evidence for this theory is lacking. In fact, the evidence points in the opposite direction, in part because increasing incomes affect growth in per capita ecological footprint (Soulé 1995; Oates 1999).”
© 2013 Society for Conservation Biology
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12147/full Contains full article
An Ozymandian Nightmare Part 11
Jun 15th
An Ozymandian Nightmare Part 11
What’s with Ozymandias?
Roman-era historian Diodorus Siculus, who described a statue of Ozymandias, more commonly known as Rameses II (possibly the pharaoh referred to in the Book of Exodus). Diodorus reports the inscription on the statue, which he claims was the largest in Egypt, as follows: “King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.” (The statue and its inscription do not survive, and were not seen by Shelley; his inspiration for [the sonnet] “Ozymandias” was verbal rather than visual.) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/238972 View Shelley’s sonnet here.
This paper is a commentary on the book; Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth
The book is Edited by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist, and Tom Butler. Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology in collaboration with Island Press, 2014, Washington D.C.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conservation in No-Man’s-Land
Claudio Campagna and Daniel Guevara provide a well prepared rebuttal of the claims of the HCCs. [Human Centred Conservationists]
Claudio Campagna is a Senior Research Zoologist affiliated with the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Daniel Guevara is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
They pose that the “deepest issue – the real crisis – is that we do not have the concepts or language for expressing, or explicitly understanding, the intrinsic value of Nature; nor, therefore, for articulating its violation.”
I fully agree and add that the reason for this is primarily that we do not realise that we are the Earth. We are Nature. We use tools designed to measure “things”, mechanical objects and use the results to pronounce about the hows and whys of a living being. Further, Earth is an immense and intelligent living being. We treat Earth the way we do because we do not love the Earth, our higher self. Unfortunately for Earth, including all life therein, we speak of the planet as “it” and consider “it” as out there.
Our religious traditions were formed by people utterly devoid of scientific knowledge, steeped in hubris, and dedicated totally toward establishing principles approved by their personal God. Next they set up a hierarchy of special men who were imbued with the authority to speak “for” God. Following was a kicker message devised to frighten the masses into submission by pronouncing that their God would punish them for disobeying the opinions of their God’s spokespersons on Earth. Even into modern times, we have millions who live in fear of damnation and disapproval of their God.
Sadly, when so many people believe that humans are especially fabricated in God’s image and then thrust upon the Earth to, as written in Genesis 1:28 “…Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
Actually, the domestication of the Earth underpins the religious foundation of both Christianity and Judaism.
How could we ever expect a population from Christian and Jewish religious Sunday schools to love and cherish the Earth when they have been taught that their God has given the Earth to humans to subdue?
An Ozymandian Nightmare Part 10
Jun 13th
What’s with Ozymandias?
Roman-era historian Diodorus Siculus, who described a statue of Ozymandias, more commonly known as Rameses II (possibly the pharaoh referred to in the Book of Exodus). Diodorus reports the inscription on the statue, which he claims was the largest in Egypt, as follows: “King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.” (The statue and its inscription do not survive, and were not seen by Shelley; his inspiration for [the sonnet] “Ozymandias” was verbal rather than visual.) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/238972 View Shelley’s sonnet here.
This paper is a commentary on the book; Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth
The book is Edited by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist, and Tom Butler. Published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology in collaboration with Island Press, 2014, Washington D.C.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What’s So New about the “New Conservation”?
Curt Meine
Curt Meine, Ph.D., is a conservation biologist, historian, and writer.
Let us schedule that Funeral
In this essay Meine begins with a story, somewhat of a parody concerning the new Conservationists. As I’ve posted, I choose to refer to them as Human Centred Conservationists as opposed to the established and sensible effort to protect the biodiversity and integrity of all life on Earth. Life on Earth is NOT all about people. We emerged only yesterday in the chronology of Earth’s development and our frontal lobe growth may at the end of the day cause us to be a failed experiment or failed evolutionary development.
Meine continues on the theme of disagreeing that the “old” conservationists agreed and promoted the idea that wilderness must be “pristine” and excluded humans. There is valid evidence that this is absolutely false. This falseness is exposed here and in several essays to follow. “Old” conservationists did acknowledge the rights of humans to co-exist with other-than-human beings. “Old” conservationists did not blindly adhere to the mythical “balance of a static Nature. “Old” conservationists disagree that modern science has pronounced that the Earth is actually tough and resilient. Looking at Earth as a living being must remind us that humans, for instance, can look resilient yet suffer and sustain life threatening illness. Destroying diversity is dangerous to the maintenance of Earth’s Health. A healthy human population requires a healthy Earth. “Old” conservationists failed according to HCCs. One look at the Wildlands Network: http://www.wildlandsnetwork.org/our-network reflects the unfairness of this statement. Anyway, whatever the limitations to conservationists goal achievement such would not justify giving up the attempt. Children still smoke, but who would use this as an excuse to give up trying to prevent the exploitation of the young by selling them tobacco?
Meine concludes with this quote from Aldo Leopold, the honoured prophet and mentor of the conservation movement:
“I have no illusions about the speed or accuracy with which an ecological conscience can become functional. It has required 19 centuries to define decent man-to-man conduct and the process is only half done; it may take as long to evolve a code of decency for man-to-land conduct.
[Sky: Sorry, but we just don’t have that long to wait. Aldo couldn’t have known this. Who knows what he would have said could he have had access to the climate change scientific evidence we have now?]
In such matters we should not worry too much about anything except the direction in which we travel.
[Sky: We know now that speed is important]
The direction is clear, and the first step is to throw your weight around on matters of right and wrong in land-use. Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits,
[Sky: Avoiding air travel whenever possible falls into this category. It is just not true that “the plane will fly anyway even if you don’t”. Every 50 or so people that quit flying along a particular connection means too many empty seats and the cancellation of that flight. When these individual actions add up to significant drops in passenger miles, new aircraft builds will be cancelled and flight frequencies lowered. The law of supply and demand still rules.]
or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.
[Sky: This is the pragmatist outlook which I despise now and the moment I first read about it in 1958]
That philosophy is dead in human relations, and its funeral in land-relations is overdue.”
[Sky: well, it has been resurrected by the HCCs – Human Centred Conservationists]
Yes, it is long overdue and Conservation Biologists worldwide and lay-people like myself can work tirelessly to schedule that funeral.
Keeping the Wild
Mar 21st
Keeping the Wild
This book might be a great help in understanding why humans are destroying Nature. The quote below makes a connection that has gone over my head until a few days ago.
“From time immemorial, just as today, the underclass and the powerless have been forcibly limited from accessing resources for their own material advantage. It is thus injustice toward the more-than-human world – stripping it into being-for and value-for people (“resources”) that constitutes the foundation of social injustice and inequality.” Eileen Crist in “Keeping the Wild”
This book might be a great help in understanding why humans are destroying Nature. Is it not rather bizarre and crazy-making that whilst we, as just one species of many, have given ourselves the right to slash and burn, poison and desecrate as we choose whilst energetic and physical essence that we depend on for our very existence has no rights whatsoever?
Skeptical Science: Time is running out on climate denial.
Jan 2nd
“Greg Craven summarized why by examining the extreme possible outcomes in his viral climate ‘decision grid’ video.”
Posted on 30 December 2014 by dana1981
http://www.skepticalscience.com/time-running-out-on-climate-denial.html
If you can afford to watch a video for 9+ minutes, this is a good investment. And, as I recollect, the US government made the column “A” choice over the possibility of a nuclear attack by Russia in the 50’s. Billions of dollars, maybe all total over a trillion, were spent on the nuclear deterrent, mainly by the Air Force Strategic Air Command keeping bombers in the air heading towards targets 24/7 plus a 24/7 command aircraft in the air plus who knows how many Nike missile sites and hundreds of missiles: not to mention the personnel and support costs. The US government definitely took column “A” and avoided the column “B” true. So the method has been tried and proven effective in that case. I suggest it will work in the case of climate change caused by global warming. The boss may not always be right but is still the boss. Humans may not be causing global warming but the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are still warming. What do you think?
Waiting for Godot?
Nov 3rd
“The overall rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the last deglaciation was thought to have been triggered by the release of CO2 from the deep ocean – especially the Southern Ocean. However, the researchers say that no obvious ocean mechanism is known that would trigger rises of 10-15 ppm over a time span as short as one to two centuries.”
“The oceans are simply not thought to respond that fast,” Brook said.
http://phys.org/news/2014-10-abrupt-pulse-carbon-dioxide-deglaciation.html
I read daily updates on climate change science and suspected results of the certain rapid increase in CO2 and methane levels in both the atmosphere and oceans. In the oceans it increases acidification to the detriment of crustaceans and other hard shelled animals. In addition I read about climate change deniers and detractors; many of which are paid to create cherry picking and inaccuracies that result in doubt in public opinion.
I find constant revisions and updated findings. The uncertainty fuels deniers who demand scientific “proof.”
Science does not and never has supplied “truth.” The primary cause of the subject of uncertainty is a misunderstanding of the nature of Earth. Earth is a living being and not a machine. Earth events are often unpredictable and constantly break the “laws of Nature” that we persist in holding onto. Earth rhythms and cycles never exactly repeat. Variation resides in the very core of what it is to be planet Earth.
Take our medical Doctor visits. We learn to accept the “uncertainty” of our health and our illness treatments. We think nothing of following medical advice. For instance, the exact cause of an illness often cannot be determined accurately. We are sometimes told to take this medicine and come back in awhile to see if it worked. If not then other medicine is prescribed.
Governments and other power structures have habituated the “do nothing until we have absolute proof,” and “not enough data has been collected” excuses. They fiddle while Rome burns. It is time to stop searching for who started the fire and concentrate on putting out the fire.
We don’t need to know the exact extent of anthropogenic causes to become aware that humans, within the present cultural and global economic system, contribute a significant and irrefutable amount of greenhouse gases. These gasses are undeniably present and increasing. Weather in most regions of Earth is becoming more severe,[see: http://mashable.com/2014/11/02/super-typhoon-nuri-strongest-storm-2014/#:eyJzIjoiZiIsImkiOiJfeGhoOTN4dDhsbmZvcmc1ayJ9] sea levels are rising, glaciers and polar icepacks are melting faster than predicted, and oceans are warming while life-forms that make up our food chain are dying. Desertification is increasing whilst global air currents carry little or no moisture from the rainforests to sustain vegetation.
Surely it is obvious to all rational beings that we can wait no longer for certainty, for “scientific proof.”
Save the Cardamom Forest
May 26th
Can A Few Monks Save the Cardamom Forest?
By Luke Duggleby May 16, 2013
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/can-a-few-monks-save-the-cardamom-forest/614/
“Cambodia’s forests were once described by the World Bank as the country’s “most developmentally important resource”, but according to the international group Global Witness, by 2009 these rich forests had been largely degraded by unrestricted logging, the valuable timber sold off by the political elite for quick, private profits.”
Who gave humans who govern countries the right to pillage and destroy precious trees?