172 / 365: One of the big worries of environmentalism and environmental philosophy is: how can people be motivated to protect the environment? There's the assumption of a moral truth on one side and a motivational deficit on the other -truth in bed with apathy. But I believe people pursue what they see is in their interest, provided that "seeing" implies a close-up, deep look, not simply an intellectual conversation. My grounds for this are biological: all animals -even plants- reach out for what they take to be good. In Greek: oikeiosis. So the task of environmentalism should be to risk showing people our good up close -'risk', because maybe there is some anxiety that what environmentalism takes to be good really isn't when you look at it up close in the complex underbrush of life. Or maybe it's too frustrating to form relationships with people and communities, and to take the time to really show something that is good, so that people appreciate it up close. Still, if people really see something as good, they will begin to steer their lives toward it.
173 / 365: When, in the Gospel according to Matthew, Christ says that we should love our enemies and those who persecute or hate us, he uses the analogy of God raining on the good and the evil, shedding sunlight on the bad and the decent alike. In other words, Earth's biotic capacity is the model for unconditional love. Think about that.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
170-1
170 / 365: "We, as gardeners, cultivate our land, our shelter[,] by taking care of the land for those to come after us - not being wasteful, but watchful - in what, how and why we care for our plot of land, whether we live in the country or [in] the city. We are 'gardeners', if we are aware to take care of the 'land', wherever we live." Aunt Evelyn Palik (née Bendik)
171/365: Raining in Bangladesh
Isaiah (age 5): "What's a fact?"
Jeremiah (age 40): "It's something absolutely true. Like, outside now it's sunny."
Isaiah: "Not in Bangladesh."
(Outside -taken literally, as outside the house. And including, logically, the whole world. Why not?)
171/365: Raining in Bangladesh
Isaiah (age 5): "What's a fact?"
Jeremiah (age 40): "It's something absolutely true. Like, outside now it's sunny."
Isaiah: "Not in Bangladesh."
(Outside -taken literally, as outside the house. And including, logically, the whole world. Why not?)
166-169
[N.B., This post was originally published on 6.10.10. I then deleted it, thinking I would combine it with the post from 6.12.10. However, I realized that key to this exercise is fidelity to real time. So I have split off this post again, and it should be considered as something I felt to post on 6.10.10. Although some may have no meaning in the end, the rhythms of writing and posting, whether in stretches or in snippets, are important to this exercise of writing a remark about our relationship to Earth's ecology every day of this year.]
Earth thought 166 / 365: I'm repeatedly struck by how service to this nation-state -the U.S.A.- is best done through education. My nation's culture has become so inarticulate and given to junk-food desires. Kids have to be shown something constructive to want to continue it their whole lives long. Perhaps this is why the school-gardening movement seems so healthy to me. Better than World Wide "Wrestling" and McDonald's.
167 / 365: So the neo-conservatives are claiming that B.P.'s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a minor thing and that it's an excuse for environmentalists to spout off. Where are the reality checks of people who listen to this stuff? The tone of the speakers says, ironically, "don't be responsible", "look at me" -it's vain. Everyday intuitions tell me this, the same a jury would sense in earnestly trying to objectively read a witness. The intuitions come from facts -for instance, that these voices ignore the people and non-humans hurt by the spill or the sheer shock of seeing a coastline and waters become waste. There's nothing liberal or conservative about taking your fellow's hardship to heart. It's called old fashioned decency and humility. I don't know what's happened to my country sometimes. It's like everything real's become a T.V. show.
168 / 365: The child's face in light.
169 / 365: Garden. Is it ecological, the cultivating not being wild, being us? But why do you separate the human from the plant? Aren't we, in this patch, symbiotic?
Earth thought 166 / 365: I'm repeatedly struck by how service to this nation-state -the U.S.A.- is best done through education. My nation's culture has become so inarticulate and given to junk-food desires. Kids have to be shown something constructive to want to continue it their whole lives long. Perhaps this is why the school-gardening movement seems so healthy to me. Better than World Wide "Wrestling" and McDonald's.
167 / 365: So the neo-conservatives are claiming that B.P.'s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a minor thing and that it's an excuse for environmentalists to spout off. Where are the reality checks of people who listen to this stuff? The tone of the speakers says, ironically, "don't be responsible", "look at me" -it's vain. Everyday intuitions tell me this, the same a jury would sense in earnestly trying to objectively read a witness. The intuitions come from facts -for instance, that these voices ignore the people and non-humans hurt by the spill or the sheer shock of seeing a coastline and waters become waste. There's nothing liberal or conservative about taking your fellow's hardship to heart. It's called old fashioned decency and humility. I don't know what's happened to my country sometimes. It's like everything real's become a T.V. show.
168 / 365: The child's face in light.
169 / 365: Garden. Is it ecological, the cultivating not being wild, being us? But why do you separate the human from the plant? Aren't we, in this patch, symbiotic?
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Earth thoughts 161-165
Earth thought 161 of 365: It's hard to know what makes machines into elements, for they are so unlike elements. So let me pose things this-a-way. Why are machines so un-elemental? You say, "because they are made". But love is made, and it's elemental.
Earth thought 162 of 365: Deleuze & Guattari take Artaud and cry of a "body without organs". As Peter Hallward has shown, the desire -fantasy, really- in all this is for a pure nothingness of spontaneous ...? What? The problem is that even energy is organized, and so too is movement, and any *thing* in existence. This is why Deleuze & Guattari are fundamentally anti-ecological thinkers, contra Manuel Delanda. The ecological is deeply organized, and any becoming is toward an "organ", for that is how life is. Funny our culture, when its high counter-culture, supposedly self-critical, is more like a T.V. fantasy than the reality of life on Earth.
Earth thought 163 of 365: Recently, the Alaotra grebe of Madagascar was declared extinct -yet another bird species, an increasing number. The causes are clear again -the incursion of humans into habitats, invasive species. So much so that it's starting to look like "globalization" should be called, really, "mass extinction". That pretty much shows you bad anthropocentrism in a snapshot. From the perspective of most of life on this planet, we are a mass extinction. From our own, "we are the world".
Earth thought 164 of 365: An "ethos" is Greek for a way of life. Sometimes, the word's translated as character. It's the root of our word, "ethics". But, as you can see, a way of life has broader connotations than "ethics" does. I believe that the way to think of environmental ethics is through an environmental ethos. This includes more than right and wrong, good and bad. It includes a sensibility and the orientation of meaning that expresses a wise relationship to the Earth. It includes beauty and ugliness, too. For instance, ugliness isn't the ugly duckling -or insect. It's the yearning of intellectuals for an abstract and otherworldly avant-garde, a kind of Dorian Gray veneer of sophistication under the rhetoric of modernism, post-modernism, critical theory -while underneath they betray an ignorance of the only world we know, one which far exceeds -in all domains of value- our own little "world". The teeming life of the planet.
Earth thought 165 of 365: Human rights were ill-conceived from their foundation, abstracting man from his ecological conditions. It was suggested that the Bubble -the state- was everything, maker or breaker of destinies. But the Earth's the maker or breaker of states. We cannot develop indefinitely once the Earth has limits -human rights never truly began from them. And it's no use expecting technology to catch desire -that's like making a problem for someone to fix. No, rights need to be thought from the *ground* up, which is why environmental justice is key to an adequate conception of human rights. Only when human rights are a tissue of Earth norms will they make sense. I don't *simply* have the right to all manner of developmental goods -and limitless child-bearing- when having it will sacrifice future generations and countless species of life. So: what should human rights be to respect the plight of the global poor (who often need many children, and need basic goods) while blocking the un-ecological fantasy of the utopian Bubble? And why should rights even be drivers? They bypass the local and the constitutional, even. They tend to the simplistic. I know all this sounds like scary, hard objection, but the Earth's limits will be scarier, hard fact. Island nations are already sinking underwater because of our "rights".
Earth thought 162 of 365: Deleuze & Guattari take Artaud and cry of a "body without organs". As Peter Hallward has shown, the desire -fantasy, really- in all this is for a pure nothingness of spontaneous ...? What? The problem is that even energy is organized, and so too is movement, and any *thing* in existence. This is why Deleuze & Guattari are fundamentally anti-ecological thinkers, contra Manuel Delanda. The ecological is deeply organized, and any becoming is toward an "organ", for that is how life is. Funny our culture, when its high counter-culture, supposedly self-critical, is more like a T.V. fantasy than the reality of life on Earth.
Earth thought 163 of 365: Recently, the Alaotra grebe of Madagascar was declared extinct -yet another bird species, an increasing number. The causes are clear again -the incursion of humans into habitats, invasive species. So much so that it's starting to look like "globalization" should be called, really, "mass extinction". That pretty much shows you bad anthropocentrism in a snapshot. From the perspective of most of life on this planet, we are a mass extinction. From our own, "we are the world".
Earth thought 164 of 365: An "ethos" is Greek for a way of life. Sometimes, the word's translated as character. It's the root of our word, "ethics". But, as you can see, a way of life has broader connotations than "ethics" does. I believe that the way to think of environmental ethics is through an environmental ethos. This includes more than right and wrong, good and bad. It includes a sensibility and the orientation of meaning that expresses a wise relationship to the Earth. It includes beauty and ugliness, too. For instance, ugliness isn't the ugly duckling -or insect. It's the yearning of intellectuals for an abstract and otherworldly avant-garde, a kind of Dorian Gray veneer of sophistication under the rhetoric of modernism, post-modernism, critical theory -while underneath they betray an ignorance of the only world we know, one which far exceeds -in all domains of value- our own little "world". The teeming life of the planet.
Earth thought 165 of 365: Human rights were ill-conceived from their foundation, abstracting man from his ecological conditions. It was suggested that the Bubble -the state- was everything, maker or breaker of destinies. But the Earth's the maker or breaker of states. We cannot develop indefinitely once the Earth has limits -human rights never truly began from them. And it's no use expecting technology to catch desire -that's like making a problem for someone to fix. No, rights need to be thought from the *ground* up, which is why environmental justice is key to an adequate conception of human rights. Only when human rights are a tissue of Earth norms will they make sense. I don't *simply* have the right to all manner of developmental goods -and limitless child-bearing- when having it will sacrifice future generations and countless species of life. So: what should human rights be to respect the plight of the global poor (who often need many children, and need basic goods) while blocking the un-ecological fantasy of the utopian Bubble? And why should rights even be drivers? They bypass the local and the constitutional, even. They tend to the simplistic. I know all this sounds like scary, hard objection, but the Earth's limits will be scarier, hard fact. Island nations are already sinking underwater because of our "rights".
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Earth thoughts 156-160
Earth thought 156 of 365: There is nothing currently as vivid as the Gulf oil spill to show us our thoughtless economy. We have allowed a major corporation to destroy the Gulf's life-systems perhaps in perpetuity for generations. Can you wrap your head around that -all the fishermen, all the coastlines, the teeming ocean bottoms, the life that would migrate through, the breeding and hatching grounds, the birds depending on the ocean life -all of that? And now wrap your head around human culture, around the communities and visitors who depended on the teeming Gulf life, their rituals, sense of beauty, and their meaning?
Earth thought 157 of 365: The sixth mass extinction is not simply an extinction of life-forms, but also of forms of life. What's the difference? The former is a biological notion, a "life-form". The latter is a cultural form, "a form of life". Human cultures are woven around life forms -whether through hunting and fishing, agriculture, religious symbolism, literature, or even a sense of the world (what would upstate N.Y. be without four seasons?). And the ecological processes that drive life-forms extinct also drive forms of life extinct.
Earth thought 158 of 365: I saw a Western last night -1868. And also a film about Beijing now -2005. In those 137 years, we have found electricity, cars, airplanes, computers, and industrial processes about which I can only guess. Population has rocketed skyward on a chart. A species did all this in not even a century and a half, in five generations? It's almost unimaginable to put the world of the Western next to 21st century Beijing.
Earth thought 159 of 365: The Buddhists aspire to a world without anger. Anger's an affliction, a root and form of suffering. In its place, they put compassionate responsibility, the intention to free themselves and others from the cycle of suffering. If we became as Buddhists think, we would evolve beyond our animal order, beyond homo sapiens. We would self-evolve and regard what evolved in us as unworthwhile. We would seize our nature's contingency in a form of moral necessity.
Earth thought 160 of 365: People talk about environmental “aesthetics”. But aisthesis is passive, and the development of the aesthetic approach, concomitant with the creation of the word “aesthetics” in the 18th century, is equally passive –about how a subject views the world. I agree with Karsten Harries that this approach gradually desiccates art and its meaning. Instead, we should talk about an ecological ethos. An ethos is a way of life, in which things are meaningful. It is more than what we now call “ethics”. It includes beauty and truth, not just goodness. An ecological ethos is active, because it is a way of living, not simply a way of perceiving.
Earth thought 157 of 365: The sixth mass extinction is not simply an extinction of life-forms, but also of forms of life. What's the difference? The former is a biological notion, a "life-form". The latter is a cultural form, "a form of life". Human cultures are woven around life forms -whether through hunting and fishing, agriculture, religious symbolism, literature, or even a sense of the world (what would upstate N.Y. be without four seasons?). And the ecological processes that drive life-forms extinct also drive forms of life extinct.
Earth thought 158 of 365: I saw a Western last night -1868. And also a film about Beijing now -2005. In those 137 years, we have found electricity, cars, airplanes, computers, and industrial processes about which I can only guess. Population has rocketed skyward on a chart. A species did all this in not even a century and a half, in five generations? It's almost unimaginable to put the world of the Western next to 21st century Beijing.
Earth thought 159 of 365: The Buddhists aspire to a world without anger. Anger's an affliction, a root and form of suffering. In its place, they put compassionate responsibility, the intention to free themselves and others from the cycle of suffering. If we became as Buddhists think, we would evolve beyond our animal order, beyond homo sapiens. We would self-evolve and regard what evolved in us as unworthwhile. We would seize our nature's contingency in a form of moral necessity.
Earth thought 160 of 365: People talk about environmental “aesthetics”. But aisthesis is passive, and the development of the aesthetic approach, concomitant with the creation of the word “aesthetics” in the 18th century, is equally passive –about how a subject views the world. I agree with Karsten Harries that this approach gradually desiccates art and its meaning. Instead, we should talk about an ecological ethos. An ethos is a way of life, in which things are meaningful. It is more than what we now call “ethics”. It includes beauty and truth, not just goodness. An ecological ethos is active, because it is a way of living, not simply a way of perceiving.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Earth thoughts 148-155
Earth thought 148 of 365: Inaccuracy hinders climate change debate to no small extent. The U.S. general public contains far too many who no longer know -or never learned- the scientific method and who are clueless about scientific peer review. They accept the ranting of both climate skeptics and climate apocalyptics without critical scrutiny. It is maddening, to try to debate with someone who thinks a scientific position is like an opinion or who thinks we've made no improvements in accuracy since we thought the Earth was flat and the Church suppressed science. Our educational systems are to blame, and a shameless media that drags its critical function low into "infotainment" (a word the formally displays the stupidity it denotes).
Earth thought 149 of 365: "Some things are better than others." Like health. It's better than sickness. But does health apply to ecological wholes -to ecosystems, bioregions, or the biosphere as a whole?
Earth thought 150 of 365: It is striking that mainstream, U.S. culture has no convention -like marriage, or swearing into office- by which a person commits her or himself to environmental stewardship. Do the mainstream religions have such a convention, or rite? How odd this vacuum of responsibility is, when you think about it.
Earth thought 151 of 365: Seeing cars backed up willy nilly on the interstate as they return from Chesapeake Bay. What's wrong with this picture? The absence of light rail.
Earth thought 152 of 365: Nature's pretty. Oh, we know. But the ugliness is just -even more- powerful. And what do you learn from it? And is it about you?
Earth thought 153 of 365: The "Anthropocene" -a proposed name for the geological era of homo sapiens. Eras usually span millions of years, and homo sapiens has yet to get anywhere near a million, much less a quarter of a million, or even a tenth? So what gives? Judged by our effect, though, we are a geological era in a sliver of time, like a meteor strike or a chain of volcanic eruptions. The Earth's become totally different after we struck. But an era? Perhaps not, perhaps we are more like an event, an eruption, a flash disturbance that opens some million on million year era we can hardly imagine, nor even name. I hope not, though. I hope we are in the anthropocene -for millions of years. First we were a spastic, wild event, changing everything. That took a mere 10,000 years, with most happening in a few hundred. Then, we got a grip of ourselves and became the first animals to tend to the biodiverse world, living with its wild life.
Earth thought 154 of 365: Hope is an important element of environmental activism -or at least it should be. I wish there were a name for the hope involved in claiming responsibility and acting on it -the hope that comes with agency. This isn't a hope that fantasizes a wish fulfilled, or covers one's world with sparkly treats. It is hardly dissociable from action, on the edge of the underside of action as you feel yourself effecting change -making what is a little bit into what should be, of setting the order straight. Kant called something like this hope a condition of action as such.
Earth thought 155 of 365: In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hanna Arendt proposed that evil in political-economies of scale, such as totalitarian ones, is “banal”, by which she meant a result not of diabolical intentions but of organized thoughtlessness. Robert Jackall’s Moral Mazes shows how banal irresponsibility with massive effects really is. Consider –the Gulf Oil spill currently risking the long-term destruction of the Gulf of Mexico’s life-systems appears to have been a result of organized corporate irresponsibility.
Earth thought 149 of 365: "Some things are better than others." Like health. It's better than sickness. But does health apply to ecological wholes -to ecosystems, bioregions, or the biosphere as a whole?
Earth thought 150 of 365: It is striking that mainstream, U.S. culture has no convention -like marriage, or swearing into office- by which a person commits her or himself to environmental stewardship. Do the mainstream religions have such a convention, or rite? How odd this vacuum of responsibility is, when you think about it.
Earth thought 151 of 365: Seeing cars backed up willy nilly on the interstate as they return from Chesapeake Bay. What's wrong with this picture? The absence of light rail.
Earth thought 152 of 365: Nature's pretty. Oh, we know. But the ugliness is just -even more- powerful. And what do you learn from it? And is it about you?
Earth thought 153 of 365: The "Anthropocene" -a proposed name for the geological era of homo sapiens. Eras usually span millions of years, and homo sapiens has yet to get anywhere near a million, much less a quarter of a million, or even a tenth? So what gives? Judged by our effect, though, we are a geological era in a sliver of time, like a meteor strike or a chain of volcanic eruptions. The Earth's become totally different after we struck. But an era? Perhaps not, perhaps we are more like an event, an eruption, a flash disturbance that opens some million on million year era we can hardly imagine, nor even name. I hope not, though. I hope we are in the anthropocene -for millions of years. First we were a spastic, wild event, changing everything. That took a mere 10,000 years, with most happening in a few hundred. Then, we got a grip of ourselves and became the first animals to tend to the biodiverse world, living with its wild life.
Earth thought 154 of 365: Hope is an important element of environmental activism -or at least it should be. I wish there were a name for the hope involved in claiming responsibility and acting on it -the hope that comes with agency. This isn't a hope that fantasizes a wish fulfilled, or covers one's world with sparkly treats. It is hardly dissociable from action, on the edge of the underside of action as you feel yourself effecting change -making what is a little bit into what should be, of setting the order straight. Kant called something like this hope a condition of action as such.
Earth thought 155 of 365: In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hanna Arendt proposed that evil in political-economies of scale, such as totalitarian ones, is “banal”, by which she meant a result not of diabolical intentions but of organized thoughtlessness. Robert Jackall’s Moral Mazes shows how banal irresponsibility with massive effects really is. Consider –the Gulf Oil spill currently risking the long-term destruction of the Gulf of Mexico’s life-systems appears to have been a result of organized corporate irresponsibility.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Earth thoughts 139-147
Earth thought 139 of 365: In the drama of most people's lives -for instance, the South Asian worker on the lift for the sixth straight day of work at 10-12 hours joining bolts to girders in Dubai- I just cannot fault our blindness to the environment. And often people outside the five star hotels like this, people know that we are wasting the planet. But it is powerlessness, a lack of political access that shuts the way. Then education happens -some are lifted up, up the economic gridwork of our world. And? Why do we forget? In the place of our former awareness comes a search for status and money. The missing link, education, has misled us. They went in paying large amounts to earn a better job. It was all about jobs, and -rubbing shoulders with their competing classmates- they emerged full blind to our wasteful life. Education, sadly, is the anti-ecological thing for many, blocking the way to politics by changing the focus of our minds. Then, the uneducated often know better, but lack the education to know how to better. And the educated, near to power, know worse.
Earth thought 140 of 365: I watched French cinema last week -Bob le Flambeur, Cours Toujours, Carnages- three very different films made decades apart from each other. Then, I realized that they all showed a keen awareness of chance, or luck, and of the way it intertwines us in happenings. Such a sensibility, I think, is key to grasping evolutionary life, is -you might say- a basic ecological sensibility.
Earth thought 141 of 365: End of semester grading, with its misshapen papers, academic dishonesty, appeals, emails, phone calls, running out pens, sore necks, weak eyes, lack of exercise, distraught students, angry messages, fine-grain policy, stress, and deadlines -is as messy as carnivores hunting on the savannah. Carnage!
Earth thought 142 of 365: "Let me shower, meditate, and get on with my day." Once again, like weather.
Earth thought 143 of 365: When's a home overlapping like an ecosystem? -When the papers lie on top of papers here, clothes hung there, a chair shifted to fit, and the fine sift of dust shades a corner. When it's lived in.
Earth thought 144 of 365: What is an ecological school? It is a school where the outside is in the inside, and where school time rests -self-aware- in seasonal and then geological time. Students must live with rock patterns in their hearts, and with the rise and fall of species. The school's design, too, is inside out -students and teachers alike confront the energy patterns and production histories, the choices made and missed of a purely recycle-able structure, roof to ground to power-lines to cups in the kitchen. An ecological school, in other words, is that first by the manner of its organization and the being of its materials -how its life itself is made self-aware of its indebtedness to the wider order.
Earth thought 145 of 365: I cannot imagine the aesthetics of loss that the sixth mass extinction deserves. I imagine a museum of foregone life, but it is just a museum of natural history. So, what, then? A day out of every school year, like Earth day? More tokenism, and then we return to exploitation. Perhaps the best way to evoke loss is to work on preserving life at risk of extinction. Then the struggle becomes clear, the complication, dense matter, difficult politics.
Earth thought 146 of 365: There is utopia in a million year old form of life. Look at it, how it has weathered and been weathered.
Earth thought 147 of 365: A religious person would say we have responsibility *to*, not *for*, Creation. There's a lot packed into a preposition.
Earth thought 140 of 365: I watched French cinema last week -Bob le Flambeur, Cours Toujours, Carnages- three very different films made decades apart from each other. Then, I realized that they all showed a keen awareness of chance, or luck, and of the way it intertwines us in happenings. Such a sensibility, I think, is key to grasping evolutionary life, is -you might say- a basic ecological sensibility.
Earth thought 141 of 365: End of semester grading, with its misshapen papers, academic dishonesty, appeals, emails, phone calls, running out pens, sore necks, weak eyes, lack of exercise, distraught students, angry messages, fine-grain policy, stress, and deadlines -is as messy as carnivores hunting on the savannah. Carnage!
Earth thought 142 of 365: "Let me shower, meditate, and get on with my day." Once again, like weather.
Earth thought 143 of 365: When's a home overlapping like an ecosystem? -When the papers lie on top of papers here, clothes hung there, a chair shifted to fit, and the fine sift of dust shades a corner. When it's lived in.
Earth thought 144 of 365: What is an ecological school? It is a school where the outside is in the inside, and where school time rests -self-aware- in seasonal and then geological time. Students must live with rock patterns in their hearts, and with the rise and fall of species. The school's design, too, is inside out -students and teachers alike confront the energy patterns and production histories, the choices made and missed of a purely recycle-able structure, roof to ground to power-lines to cups in the kitchen. An ecological school, in other words, is that first by the manner of its organization and the being of its materials -how its life itself is made self-aware of its indebtedness to the wider order.
Earth thought 145 of 365: I cannot imagine the aesthetics of loss that the sixth mass extinction deserves. I imagine a museum of foregone life, but it is just a museum of natural history. So, what, then? A day out of every school year, like Earth day? More tokenism, and then we return to exploitation. Perhaps the best way to evoke loss is to work on preserving life at risk of extinction. Then the struggle becomes clear, the complication, dense matter, difficult politics.
Earth thought 146 of 365: There is utopia in a million year old form of life. Look at it, how it has weathered and been weathered.
Earth thought 147 of 365: A religious person would say we have responsibility *to*, not *for*, Creation. There's a lot packed into a preposition.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Earth thoughts 132 - 138
Earth thought 132 of 365: I'm made like thunderclouds on days when my loved-ones hurt. Inner ecology -our heart-webbed realness.
Earth thought 133 of 365: 1970, 80, 90. We must come to terms with the impression that big universities and intellectuals have been as alive to the environment as drunken partygoers, puking with laughter in the bowl.
Earth thought 134 of 365: I am surprised that I have not heard more about the insurance industry being proactive about protecting the environment. You'd think it were in their interest to avoid environmental risk.
Earth thought 135 of 365: Allen Thompson talks about the importance of adapting humanity. He means adapting who we take ourselves to be -our self-conception composed of ideals and values. This needs adapting in the coming century to the new ecological limits we've encountered and will.
Earth thought 136 of 365: The issues that interest me most about Earth ethics concern how Earth's size, duration and intricacy pose a complex problem that exceeds us. Beyond my concern, I think I respect the intellectual challenge. There is also a kind of humility that interests me, although I am lacking the right word for it. This "humility" strikes me as wise, as the hook for much meaning even beyond its prudential nature.
Earth thought 137 of 365: The macro-perspective of geological time and global ecology makes it hard to keep in view, simultaneously, the human perspective. I look at a book bag I bought alongside my father –from Strand Books. On it, profiles of all different sorts of people. The warmth of that memory, which goes back to when I was young. The thought that every one of those faces has similar memories. From within each of our worlds, our loves are so intense, and it would be inhuman to forget them.
Earth thought 138 of 365: For the last two nights and tonight, the temperature has dipped, and will dip, below freezing. Three weeks ago, April saw the hottest day on record, at some 91 degrees. I have no idea if these extremes are climate change related -and we are forewarned not to generalize from such local fluctuations. But I am using what's happened to imagine what the Earth will be like: more extreme. And let's be real -these extremes this month are minor compared to what grandchildren of my generation will face when they are forty.
Earth thought 133 of 365: 1970, 80, 90. We must come to terms with the impression that big universities and intellectuals have been as alive to the environment as drunken partygoers, puking with laughter in the bowl.
Earth thought 134 of 365: I am surprised that I have not heard more about the insurance industry being proactive about protecting the environment. You'd think it were in their interest to avoid environmental risk.
Earth thought 135 of 365: Allen Thompson talks about the importance of adapting humanity. He means adapting who we take ourselves to be -our self-conception composed of ideals and values. This needs adapting in the coming century to the new ecological limits we've encountered and will.
Earth thought 136 of 365: The issues that interest me most about Earth ethics concern how Earth's size, duration and intricacy pose a complex problem that exceeds us. Beyond my concern, I think I respect the intellectual challenge. There is also a kind of humility that interests me, although I am lacking the right word for it. This "humility" strikes me as wise, as the hook for much meaning even beyond its prudential nature.
Earth thought 137 of 365: The macro-perspective of geological time and global ecology makes it hard to keep in view, simultaneously, the human perspective. I look at a book bag I bought alongside my father –from Strand Books. On it, profiles of all different sorts of people. The warmth of that memory, which goes back to when I was young. The thought that every one of those faces has similar memories. From within each of our worlds, our loves are so intense, and it would be inhuman to forget them.
Earth thought 138 of 365: For the last two nights and tonight, the temperature has dipped, and will dip, below freezing. Three weeks ago, April saw the hottest day on record, at some 91 degrees. I have no idea if these extremes are climate change related -and we are forewarned not to generalize from such local fluctuations. But I am using what's happened to imagine what the Earth will be like: more extreme. And let's be real -these extremes this month are minor compared to what grandchildren of my generation will face when they are forty.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Earth thoughts 122-131
Earth thought 122 of 365: A person comes into the world. Plants unfurl, push, pod their way through the soil down and up. Wasps cycle out from winter into the open. Cats cry in heat. Small birds appear on branches next to big ones.
Earth thought 123 of 365: Like life, I am taking a break from thinking today.
Earth thought 124 of 365: There must be ecosystem know-how similar to handyman know-how. I'm not saying that ecosystems can simply be fixed by going to Ace Hardware and knowing how to "change them out". I mean that people who know lands must have a sense of how they fit together and of how to bring them back. This eco-handyman knowledge is the cool, practicalness of the 21st century. "Let's help the watershed in our neighborhood by building a rain-water catch."-?
Earth thought 125 of 365: George Vaillant summarizes the wisdom of the Harvard happiness study in his book, Aging Well. The Harvard happiness study is among the longest longitundinal studies of a single cohort in the world. Emotional and social maturity are the surprise keys to happiness in old age, not physical health, money, career success or social status in your community. Ecological connection is completely absent from the book, except in the case of one subject whose environmentalism is discussed under the rubric of his spirituality. One wonders about this -how can we count ourselves happy without feeling a part of our home, the Earth?
Earth thought 126 of 365: I sat on the floor with students last night, revising their semester-long work. Harried and laughing, once near tears, they tumbled out of the system with no time to lose. And we are like that, we post-students, with our home improvements and loan improvements, our tasks, competition, and dinners. We tumble out of life with barely time to lose. The Earth's lost in all this. So it is really on us, really our thing, to build in time to think about the Earth. If we don't put the Earth into our school systems, students will cascade beyond it. And so, too, with the big people, we so-called adults, who are supposed to be responsible for our generation.
Earth thought 127 of 365: Goodbyes are important, and we don't do them enough, even to the seasons, and certainly to species. Leopold made a famous goodbye to the passenger pigeon. I wonder if it would help, or be good, to have a goodbye center for lost species?
Earth thought 128 of 365: Some environmentalists used to say that we -Westerners- are being aggressive with the Earth. But that's too easy. It would assume we *recognize* a personal relationship with the Earth. And that has often been missing in modern life. So, no, not aggressive -oblivious.
Earth thought 129 of 365: The view from the top of my house is different than the view from the sidewalk. Things flatten out and expand at once. New details emerge - the patchwork of roofs, and the shuffle of trees in stretches of seamless canopy. Now imagine you go up, up, to migratory height. Cold air all about you. Swoosh!
Earth thought 130 of 365: I worked outdoors all day yesterday, which was good for my vitamin D. Because many moderns don't spend time outside, many of us are vitamin D deficient. This is one of those cases where the evolved body suggests a healthier way of life -outdoors, some, each day. The post-modern world should have space for life outside each day.
Earth thought 131 of 365: Last summer, I saw the strata that were once alive where I live now. Here was once under water -an ocean with strange, shelled life. These overlays are compelling in a way advertisements are not, for they do not seduce desire; they are coolish fact, simple in their objectivity; they say, "the world doesn't spin around you". They say, "you are becoming, and many of your desires are mistakes". They say, "settle down, settle down now, and be awash".
Earth thought 123 of 365: Like life, I am taking a break from thinking today.
Earth thought 124 of 365: There must be ecosystem know-how similar to handyman know-how. I'm not saying that ecosystems can simply be fixed by going to Ace Hardware and knowing how to "change them out". I mean that people who know lands must have a sense of how they fit together and of how to bring them back. This eco-handyman knowledge is the cool, practicalness of the 21st century. "Let's help the watershed in our neighborhood by building a rain-water catch."-?
Earth thought 125 of 365: George Vaillant summarizes the wisdom of the Harvard happiness study in his book, Aging Well. The Harvard happiness study is among the longest longitundinal studies of a single cohort in the world. Emotional and social maturity are the surprise keys to happiness in old age, not physical health, money, career success or social status in your community. Ecological connection is completely absent from the book, except in the case of one subject whose environmentalism is discussed under the rubric of his spirituality. One wonders about this -how can we count ourselves happy without feeling a part of our home, the Earth?
Earth thought 126 of 365: I sat on the floor with students last night, revising their semester-long work. Harried and laughing, once near tears, they tumbled out of the system with no time to lose. And we are like that, we post-students, with our home improvements and loan improvements, our tasks, competition, and dinners. We tumble out of life with barely time to lose. The Earth's lost in all this. So it is really on us, really our thing, to build in time to think about the Earth. If we don't put the Earth into our school systems, students will cascade beyond it. And so, too, with the big people, we so-called adults, who are supposed to be responsible for our generation.
Earth thought 127 of 365: Goodbyes are important, and we don't do them enough, even to the seasons, and certainly to species. Leopold made a famous goodbye to the passenger pigeon. I wonder if it would help, or be good, to have a goodbye center for lost species?
Earth thought 128 of 365: Some environmentalists used to say that we -Westerners- are being aggressive with the Earth. But that's too easy. It would assume we *recognize* a personal relationship with the Earth. And that has often been missing in modern life. So, no, not aggressive -oblivious.
Earth thought 129 of 365: The view from the top of my house is different than the view from the sidewalk. Things flatten out and expand at once. New details emerge - the patchwork of roofs, and the shuffle of trees in stretches of seamless canopy. Now imagine you go up, up, to migratory height. Cold air all about you. Swoosh!
Earth thought 130 of 365: I worked outdoors all day yesterday, which was good for my vitamin D. Because many moderns don't spend time outside, many of us are vitamin D deficient. This is one of those cases where the evolved body suggests a healthier way of life -outdoors, some, each day. The post-modern world should have space for life outside each day.
Earth thought 131 of 365: Last summer, I saw the strata that were once alive where I live now. Here was once under water -an ocean with strange, shelled life. These overlays are compelling in a way advertisements are not, for they do not seduce desire; they are coolish fact, simple in their objectivity; they say, "the world doesn't spin around you". They say, "you are becoming, and many of your desires are mistakes". They say, "settle down, settle down now, and be awash".
Friday, April 23, 2010
Earth thoughts 111-121
Earth thought 111 of 365: Our dream-like states spread out, and don't matter, on ecological time. Bad weather in our head clears into clear skies. The shakes run and tumble and then are part of rough nature, roped and rooted as it is. Our characters smooth out over decades, like rocks under water.
Earth thought 112 of 365: Powering down means living simply. This is not so hard to do, but it involves some tricks. One of them is to live in a big city. That shares services and reduces total transportation. Another is to fly less. A third is to have fewer kids. A fourth is to demand that law make industry pay for every bit of pollution it generates -to internalize the cost of pollution in our prices.
Earth thought 113 of 365: Today's a day I thank all the people who've helped me become who I am. Gratitude is an ecological virtue, too, because not only people but our planet have helped us become who we are.
Earth thought 114 of 365: Moral heroism needs new categories when it comes to environmental problems. Many come from tragedies of the commons, or from organizational decisions that put the future incrementally at risk. Moral environmental heroes need not to stop a bullet with their bodies or risk danger to protect human dignity -although they might. They need to be the ones who unlock the patterns imprisoning us, design responsible institutions and make laws in the complex practicality of politics. Our heroic categories are not yet suited to find such people, although they must be if we are to face the greatest risks to human flourishing in our future.
Earth thought 115 of 365: Small houses / live in big ones. / Take the room / upon the room, / your washed bowls / airing nightly on the rack. / Outside, the soil is made of histories, / speechless and unending / for all of human time. / Midnight's chime.
Earth thought 116 of 365: And now by the lake. Someone I love loves lakes. And so I am going to sit by a lake in her honor. So we honor the lake, that is, thank it, unassumingly.
Earth thought 117 of 365: Some days, there's no better way to feel part of the planet than to exercise.
Earth thought 118 of 365: Headaches -the internal ecology clogged in some way.
Earth thought 119 of 365: A loss is a vacuum. Rush to fill it. A loss is a gain.
Earth thought 120 of 365: The Earth seeps into music. We know that. Song & birdsong. But what are the ethical implications of this?
Earth thought 121 of 365: We are, sometimes sadly, sometimes happily, and mostly beautifully, like weather. Character is made by resisting it, but our moods are real, and, just as clouds swirl in or clear later, so small things can suddenly aggregate in our souls and become fast moving systems. Love is made of this, and also anger at the diffuse nuttiness of life, and also foreboding, and sometimes -more often than foreboding- the bright salvation of the day, groundless and optimistic like the sun.
Earth thought 112 of 365: Powering down means living simply. This is not so hard to do, but it involves some tricks. One of them is to live in a big city. That shares services and reduces total transportation. Another is to fly less. A third is to have fewer kids. A fourth is to demand that law make industry pay for every bit of pollution it generates -to internalize the cost of pollution in our prices.
Earth thought 113 of 365: Today's a day I thank all the people who've helped me become who I am. Gratitude is an ecological virtue, too, because not only people but our planet have helped us become who we are.
Earth thought 114 of 365: Moral heroism needs new categories when it comes to environmental problems. Many come from tragedies of the commons, or from organizational decisions that put the future incrementally at risk. Moral environmental heroes need not to stop a bullet with their bodies or risk danger to protect human dignity -although they might. They need to be the ones who unlock the patterns imprisoning us, design responsible institutions and make laws in the complex practicality of politics. Our heroic categories are not yet suited to find such people, although they must be if we are to face the greatest risks to human flourishing in our future.
Earth thought 115 of 365: Small houses / live in big ones. / Take the room / upon the room, / your washed bowls / airing nightly on the rack. / Outside, the soil is made of histories, / speechless and unending / for all of human time. / Midnight's chime.
Earth thought 116 of 365: And now by the lake. Someone I love loves lakes. And so I am going to sit by a lake in her honor. So we honor the lake, that is, thank it, unassumingly.
Earth thought 117 of 365: Some days, there's no better way to feel part of the planet than to exercise.
Earth thought 118 of 365: Headaches -the internal ecology clogged in some way.
Earth thought 119 of 365: A loss is a vacuum. Rush to fill it. A loss is a gain.
Earth thought 120 of 365: The Earth seeps into music. We know that. Song & birdsong. But what are the ethical implications of this?
Earth thought 121 of 365: We are, sometimes sadly, sometimes happily, and mostly beautifully, like weather. Character is made by resisting it, but our moods are real, and, just as clouds swirl in or clear later, so small things can suddenly aggregate in our souls and become fast moving systems. Love is made of this, and also anger at the diffuse nuttiness of life, and also foreboding, and sometimes -more often than foreboding- the bright salvation of the day, groundless and optimistic like the sun.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Earth thoughts 104-110
Earth thought 104 of 365: "From predicting inevitabilities to shouldering responsibilities." That should be the title of a chapter on the next decade. Well, we should make it so. It's not enough to “dict” around anymore with what will and will not happen to the environment. Time to change who we are.
Earth thought 105 of 365: "Let cards drop in responsibility!" So says a vivacious five year old I know. We've left it up to chance long enough, haven't we? Roller-coasting it along as if something *up ahead* would save us. But joyride existence doesn't make it into the adult camp. Don't count on some discovery, some engineering pulling us out of overshooting the Earth's ability to sustain us. It's not responsible.
Earth thought 106 of 365: It's not uncommon to hear young people blame technology for things such as climate change and the sixth mass extinction. But blaming technology mislocates our flaw as a species. Our flaw is our shortsightedness and potential to defect from cooperative action -in a way, how we become a here and now self, rather than a "we" that becomes a "humanity" across generations. And this is a more traditional flaw -selfishness, although not malicious selfishness. I call it "futz and impatience selfishness, with a dash of genuine 'me, me, me'"! We will need even technology to get out of it -to plan ahead and obtain long-range and wide information.
Earth thought 107 of 365: What many people seem to want, even need, is clear, practical advice concerning the environment. Not something preachy, but consultative. And based less on "shoulds" than on "goods". More than anything -advice that is mostly informative, with an edge of "if you want this, then do that".
Earth thought 108 of 365: The jump from issues of recognition to issues of environmental health can be jarring. We've become used to worrying about our identities, about whether people see us, or respect us, or understand each other. And then environmental concerns are like brute facts, like fixing the plumbing -they summon pragmatic attitudes and seem to pull us out of the dreamy and hurt state of focusing on human slights.
Earth thought 109 of 365: (I drove back to New York State today.) A State starts to fit you like broken in jeans. How can lands do that?
Earth thought 110 of 365: Powering down. When we've been taught to "power up" by our educational systems, media, and career expectations, it is hard to power down. But that is what our ecological task is for this century -to power down. Perhaps I should do a series of these thoughts on what it feels like, and is, to "power down".
Earth thought 105 of 365: "Let cards drop in responsibility!" So says a vivacious five year old I know. We've left it up to chance long enough, haven't we? Roller-coasting it along as if something *up ahead* would save us. But joyride existence doesn't make it into the adult camp. Don't count on some discovery, some engineering pulling us out of overshooting the Earth's ability to sustain us. It's not responsible.
Earth thought 106 of 365: It's not uncommon to hear young people blame technology for things such as climate change and the sixth mass extinction. But blaming technology mislocates our flaw as a species. Our flaw is our shortsightedness and potential to defect from cooperative action -in a way, how we become a here and now self, rather than a "we" that becomes a "humanity" across generations. And this is a more traditional flaw -selfishness, although not malicious selfishness. I call it "futz and impatience selfishness, with a dash of genuine 'me, me, me'"! We will need even technology to get out of it -to plan ahead and obtain long-range and wide information.
Earth thought 107 of 365: What many people seem to want, even need, is clear, practical advice concerning the environment. Not something preachy, but consultative. And based less on "shoulds" than on "goods". More than anything -advice that is mostly informative, with an edge of "if you want this, then do that".
Earth thought 108 of 365: The jump from issues of recognition to issues of environmental health can be jarring. We've become used to worrying about our identities, about whether people see us, or respect us, or understand each other. And then environmental concerns are like brute facts, like fixing the plumbing -they summon pragmatic attitudes and seem to pull us out of the dreamy and hurt state of focusing on human slights.
Earth thought 109 of 365: (I drove back to New York State today.) A State starts to fit you like broken in jeans. How can lands do that?
Earth thought 110 of 365: Powering down. When we've been taught to "power up" by our educational systems, media, and career expectations, it is hard to power down. But that is what our ecological task is for this century -to power down. Perhaps I should do a series of these thoughts on what it feels like, and is, to "power down".
Monday, April 5, 2010
Earth thoughts 96-103
Earth thought 96 of 365: When our life on Earth was sustainable (because we didn't have the technology or population to do much damage), a cyclical sense of time made sense. The seasons endlessly came and went. Species died of their own course. We were embedded in a universe of life that transcended us, timelessly circling.
Earth thought 97 of 365: Even though you may have had bad times in life, failed relationships, lost friends, bitter fights, ambivalent seasons - you can see all these as part of your life's play. Then, even the bitter is dear, not to repeat it, but because it belonged to your time. ... So, too, an ecological attitude hovers over all that have lived with us, doves and feral cats, red maple trees and brown grass -and clings to their meaning, both melancholy, and transcendent.
Earth thought 98 of 365: It is dark now, and beautiful. The rain ticks as the radiators click, bending slightly from the heat. I can hear small rivers outside.
Earth thought 99 of 365: The rise of romantic environmentalism coincided with the industrial revolution. Both were equally separated from ecology. The romantics made nature into a passive fantasy meeting our need for rest. And industry chugged on, confident in its exploitative technology. But there is the dynamic reality of life on Earth - only through our technology can we do anything like rest. Only on Earth's scales and cycles can we eventually work. Romantics and industrialists -two sides of a coin whose name is "ignorance".
Earth thought 100 of 365: I saw the bees yesterday. Dozens of them, toiling around a circular patch of yellow and purple Crocuses. Now I know that when the bees are out, the ecosystem is healthy. They will pollinate and pollinate, such as they do. It's Spring!
Earth thought 101 of 365: James Lovelock -without whom we wouldn't have stopped the ozone hole from widening. Discoverer that Earth is a self-regulating system of integrated feedback loops. He's telling us to sit back and enjoy ourselves, because we can't save the planet. Extreme global warming is foregone. But Lovelock's authority concerns what we can't do, not what we should. In his 90 years, he's had the chance to see that ethics is as subtle as ecology. Dr. Lovelock, now tough questions start, and they concern the quality of life -no thing we can find with an equation.
Earth thought 102 of 365: Surely, the best thing that happened to us as a result of evolution is not that we can think, but that we feel joy in relating.
Earth thought 103 of 365: I am beginning to look at the current world of life as a strangely empty version of what was here before humans developed such population and power. A few large animals live wild in New York State -a fragment of what lived here thousands of years ago, once the glaciers receded.
Earth thought 97 of 365: Even though you may have had bad times in life, failed relationships, lost friends, bitter fights, ambivalent seasons - you can see all these as part of your life's play. Then, even the bitter is dear, not to repeat it, but because it belonged to your time. ... So, too, an ecological attitude hovers over all that have lived with us, doves and feral cats, red maple trees and brown grass -and clings to their meaning, both melancholy, and transcendent.
Earth thought 98 of 365: It is dark now, and beautiful. The rain ticks as the radiators click, bending slightly from the heat. I can hear small rivers outside.
Earth thought 99 of 365: The rise of romantic environmentalism coincided with the industrial revolution. Both were equally separated from ecology. The romantics made nature into a passive fantasy meeting our need for rest. And industry chugged on, confident in its exploitative technology. But there is the dynamic reality of life on Earth - only through our technology can we do anything like rest. Only on Earth's scales and cycles can we eventually work. Romantics and industrialists -two sides of a coin whose name is "ignorance".
Earth thought 100 of 365: I saw the bees yesterday. Dozens of them, toiling around a circular patch of yellow and purple Crocuses. Now I know that when the bees are out, the ecosystem is healthy. They will pollinate and pollinate, such as they do. It's Spring!
Earth thought 101 of 365: James Lovelock -without whom we wouldn't have stopped the ozone hole from widening. Discoverer that Earth is a self-regulating system of integrated feedback loops. He's telling us to sit back and enjoy ourselves, because we can't save the planet. Extreme global warming is foregone. But Lovelock's authority concerns what we can't do, not what we should. In his 90 years, he's had the chance to see that ethics is as subtle as ecology. Dr. Lovelock, now tough questions start, and they concern the quality of life -no thing we can find with an equation.
Earth thought 102 of 365: Surely, the best thing that happened to us as a result of evolution is not that we can think, but that we feel joy in relating.
Earth thought 103 of 365: I am beginning to look at the current world of life as a strangely empty version of what was here before humans developed such population and power. A few large animals live wild in New York State -a fragment of what lived here thousands of years ago, once the glaciers receded.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Earth thoughts 88-95
Earth thought 88 of 365: What can one sacrifice to help leave the world undisrupted by our collective myopia? Of course, goods. Yet more importantly, what time? Ethicists talk about redistribution and frugality. They'd do better to discuss vocation.
Earth thought 89 of 365: And now the U.S. is about to have health care. It is about time! But will the U.S. also have environmental health? Not so long as the human world entire can spew more than 8 gigatonnes of C02 into the atmosphere yearly. Health care is a great victory. But the future health of hundreds of millions depends on climate legislation.
Earth thought 90 of 365: You say you have to think of your children, but you ignore your children by thinking they do not want a dad who has his heart on the Good.
Earth thought 91 of 365: So, is vice symmetry? (cf. 61) Is it holding others to what I should demand only of myself? True, it is my fault if I'm not conserving life. But without law, environmental problems won't be solved. The evolutionary record is clear -humans have a tendency to wipe out species around them and to overuse resources for present interests. Laws correct this tendency and introduce foresight. So, vice is a kind of asymmetry. It's a world where people can exploit the present to the detriment of species and the future.
Earth thought 92 of 365: "Law", however, needn't be what the State calls law. The ancient Greeks had a category called "nomos" -it included city law and also custom. And before nations arose, societies all around the world regulated their shared environment through customs. Eleanor Ostrom won the Noble Prize studying modern and local versions of customs used in some places long ago.
Earth thought 93 of 365: For at least ten thousand years -some say fifty- we have been eradicating species with our technology. _Homo sapiens_ thinks time and again for present gain, whatever our race, culture or civilization. Technology + population = dead species.
Earth thought 94 of 365: There is nothing misanthropic in telling it like it is. Any value judgment or hatred implies a second argument beyond the facts. Besides, it's misanthropic to deceive ourselves about ourselves. Love of humans depends on being truthful about ourselves. Such love is humble, and starts from where we really are.
Earth thought 95 of 365: The simplest way to not see change is to sit inside yourself and worry. The simplest way to see change is to start talking to friends, family and neighbors to find practical ideas that are such low-hanging fruit, you'd be silly not to pluck them. So, talk!
Earth thought 89 of 365: And now the U.S. is about to have health care. It is about time! But will the U.S. also have environmental health? Not so long as the human world entire can spew more than 8 gigatonnes of C02 into the atmosphere yearly. Health care is a great victory. But the future health of hundreds of millions depends on climate legislation.
Earth thought 90 of 365: You say you have to think of your children, but you ignore your children by thinking they do not want a dad who has his heart on the Good.
Earth thought 91 of 365: So, is vice symmetry? (cf. 61) Is it holding others to what I should demand only of myself? True, it is my fault if I'm not conserving life. But without law, environmental problems won't be solved. The evolutionary record is clear -humans have a tendency to wipe out species around them and to overuse resources for present interests. Laws correct this tendency and introduce foresight. So, vice is a kind of asymmetry. It's a world where people can exploit the present to the detriment of species and the future.
Earth thought 92 of 365: "Law", however, needn't be what the State calls law. The ancient Greeks had a category called "nomos" -it included city law and also custom. And before nations arose, societies all around the world regulated their shared environment through customs. Eleanor Ostrom won the Noble Prize studying modern and local versions of customs used in some places long ago.
Earth thought 93 of 365: For at least ten thousand years -some say fifty- we have been eradicating species with our technology. _Homo sapiens_ thinks time and again for present gain, whatever our race, culture or civilization. Technology + population = dead species.
Earth thought 94 of 365: There is nothing misanthropic in telling it like it is. Any value judgment or hatred implies a second argument beyond the facts. Besides, it's misanthropic to deceive ourselves about ourselves. Love of humans depends on being truthful about ourselves. Such love is humble, and starts from where we really are.
Earth thought 95 of 365: The simplest way to not see change is to sit inside yourself and worry. The simplest way to see change is to start talking to friends, family and neighbors to find practical ideas that are such low-hanging fruit, you'd be silly not to pluck them. So, talk!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Earth thoughts 79-87
Earth thought 79 of 365: "The message sent / was of discontent, / from incline to incline." Broadcast, "Echo's Answer", The Noise Made by People, 2000 (see Earth thought 73.)
Earth thought 80 of 365: In 0 A.D., the idea of unconditional love was radical and unprecedented. In 2010, sustaining the diversity of life is as radical as unconditional love. Give the ones up ahead many chances to be who they are, to not be shrunken by conditions.
Earth thought 81 of 365: The modern era was substantially defined by the ascendancy of physics. Physics was the norm of nature. But in the 21st century, Earth science matters more and should be our reference point, our privileged science. Physics is indifferent to life.
Earth thought 82 of 365: If communism had not messed up our minds, and capitalism hadn't wrecked our hearts, we would be able to grasp the Winter Asymmetry [cf. 61]. I am part of a process, and to give myself to it is the human thing to do. Of course, I won't force others to.
Earth thought 83 of 365: "I want Goodness in the world, for all." "I oppose the invisible assaults." "I will not sacrifice the future on the mechanized bureaucracy of the present." "I will not sacrifice children to my own selfishness or nationalism." These were true against totalitarianism; they are still true regarding the environment.
Earth thought 84 of 365: Food revolution or population devolution? The Green Revolution said we can find a way to feed everyone. But greens today speak differently: "Increasing our numbers won't do. We've overshooting Earth's ability to sustain our way of life, and each new life adds to climate change over its lifetime. Time for fewer new born, no more than two per couple on average. But how to bring that about, fairly?"
Earth thought 85 of 365: What joys are more powerful than a warm, sun-lit day after months of gray winter?
Earth thought 86 of 365: It's ironic how I always have an excuse for an airplane ride.
Earth thought 87 of 365: A conceivable human future is not one in which Earth's diversity of life can recover from a mass extinction. The last recovery took tens of millions of years. All of recorded human history is just ten thousand years.
Earth thought 80 of 365: In 0 A.D., the idea of unconditional love was radical and unprecedented. In 2010, sustaining the diversity of life is as radical as unconditional love. Give the ones up ahead many chances to be who they are, to not be shrunken by conditions.
Earth thought 81 of 365: The modern era was substantially defined by the ascendancy of physics. Physics was the norm of nature. But in the 21st century, Earth science matters more and should be our reference point, our privileged science. Physics is indifferent to life.
Earth thought 82 of 365: If communism had not messed up our minds, and capitalism hadn't wrecked our hearts, we would be able to grasp the Winter Asymmetry [cf. 61]. I am part of a process, and to give myself to it is the human thing to do. Of course, I won't force others to.
Earth thought 83 of 365: "I want Goodness in the world, for all." "I oppose the invisible assaults." "I will not sacrifice the future on the mechanized bureaucracy of the present." "I will not sacrifice children to my own selfishness or nationalism." These were true against totalitarianism; they are still true regarding the environment.
Earth thought 84 of 365: Food revolution or population devolution? The Green Revolution said we can find a way to feed everyone. But greens today speak differently: "Increasing our numbers won't do. We've overshooting Earth's ability to sustain our way of life, and each new life adds to climate change over its lifetime. Time for fewer new born, no more than two per couple on average. But how to bring that about, fairly?"
Earth thought 85 of 365: What joys are more powerful than a warm, sun-lit day after months of gray winter?
Earth thought 86 of 365: It's ironic how I always have an excuse for an airplane ride.
Earth thought 87 of 365: A conceivable human future is not one in which Earth's diversity of life can recover from a mass extinction. The last recovery took tens of millions of years. All of recorded human history is just ten thousand years.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Earth thoughts 70-78
Earth thought 70 of 365: Do parents of the Big Cause sacrifice their children to It's More Important? O.k.: what cause is the grandchildren of your children's children's children?
Earth thought 71 of 365: In the future, one way to have a morally acceptable large family is by adoption. The children are already alive; better to care for them. To those couples wishing large families, then, we might say, "Have your two biological children, which is sustainable, and then adopt as many more as you can handle well."
Earth thought 72 of 365: When Christ went wild into the wilderness after being dunked into the river by the madman John the Baptist (Mark 1:9-13), he lived for "forty days" with "the wild beasts" and was finally ministered to by "angels". Here's a story of how wilderness calms the soul. The rhythms of beasts returned heart to the massively anxious breast. After that, Christ found his calling.
Earth thought 73 of 365: "The mountain mind / from invisible time. / I am next in line." - Broadcast, "Echo answers", The Noise Made by People, 2000
Earth thought 74 of 365: When I was a teenager, hanging out in the May air with nothing major to do and enjoying the sound of trees, I didn't realize that we were wrecking the environment. Its transcendence was a vast assumption.
Earth thought 75 of 365: Is it insignificant that you don't walk to work, or don't turn the thermostat to 62 instead of 67 degrees? Well, it won't make a noticeable difference in the climate. And yet, because millions don't do what you won't do, we do make a noticeable difference in the climate. The key is to think of yourself as part of a group, even a team. And you are failing the group's responsibility to others if you don't do your part. Slacker. You should be benched!
Earth thought 76 of 365: Being sick is a reminder of how our bodies are ecosystems organized by our form. The virus upsets the interdependences and disorganizes us.
Earth thought of 365: "I like it when I'm simple." Her thought after watching ice break off on the shore of Lake Ontario.
Earth thought 78 of 365: Many philosophy books are like kids with toys, forgetting that they are like kids with toys. Better either to be the kid or to be the adult. But how do adults write? "Adult" is an ethical category. It implies maturity. Adults have a life that they soak in, which is bigger than them, and which they have acquired the responsibility to protect. It is not a matter of toying with that life, but of discerning the many-textured meaning in it that should be enjoyed and preserved, and sometimes developed. Life is like a calm morning, then, in the sun; philosophy like the light that seeps through shutters and rests on the wall in warm patterns.
Earth thought 71 of 365: In the future, one way to have a morally acceptable large family is by adoption. The children are already alive; better to care for them. To those couples wishing large families, then, we might say, "Have your two biological children, which is sustainable, and then adopt as many more as you can handle well."
Earth thought 72 of 365: When Christ went wild into the wilderness after being dunked into the river by the madman John the Baptist (Mark 1:9-13), he lived for "forty days" with "the wild beasts" and was finally ministered to by "angels". Here's a story of how wilderness calms the soul. The rhythms of beasts returned heart to the massively anxious breast. After that, Christ found his calling.
Earth thought 73 of 365: "The mountain mind / from invisible time. / I am next in line." - Broadcast, "Echo answers", The Noise Made by People, 2000
Earth thought 74 of 365: When I was a teenager, hanging out in the May air with nothing major to do and enjoying the sound of trees, I didn't realize that we were wrecking the environment. Its transcendence was a vast assumption.
Earth thought 75 of 365: Is it insignificant that you don't walk to work, or don't turn the thermostat to 62 instead of 67 degrees? Well, it won't make a noticeable difference in the climate. And yet, because millions don't do what you won't do, we do make a noticeable difference in the climate. The key is to think of yourself as part of a group, even a team. And you are failing the group's responsibility to others if you don't do your part. Slacker. You should be benched!
Earth thought 76 of 365: Being sick is a reminder of how our bodies are ecosystems organized by our form. The virus upsets the interdependences and disorganizes us.
Earth thought of 365: "I like it when I'm simple." Her thought after watching ice break off on the shore of Lake Ontario.
Earth thought 78 of 365: Many philosophy books are like kids with toys, forgetting that they are like kids with toys. Better either to be the kid or to be the adult. But how do adults write? "Adult" is an ethical category. It implies maturity. Adults have a life that they soak in, which is bigger than them, and which they have acquired the responsibility to protect. It is not a matter of toying with that life, but of discerning the many-textured meaning in it that should be enjoyed and preserved, and sometimes developed. Life is like a calm morning, then, in the sun; philosophy like the light that seeps through shutters and rests on the wall in warm patterns.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Earth thoughts 62-69
Earth thought 62 of 365: Youth is self-assertion. It will give nothing up. But in mid-age, different thoughts scramble through the night, like bones. What good will I have done by being alive? Then conscience is more important than mineness. Then the I identifies with the process of life that has existed more than a billion years.
Earth thought 63 of 365: Hold both the child I love and The Long It Matters in my mind? In an unhelpful culture, one thinks of one's own with a selfish voice. The child, though, knows better. "What if the world is sick, mama? I don't want the world to be sick, mama."
Earth thought 64 of 365: It's hard to know whether ecological literacy or cultivating responsibility in students is more important to the Earthliness of our educational system, but I would side with the latter.
Earth thought 65 of 365: Individualism in the 70's made the world inside the rage. Meanwhile, around us all, industrial production spewed junk into the sky.
Earth thought 66 of 365: "All one needs is a system. Once a day, to do some small thing. Fill a glass of water from the tap. Flush it down the toilet -only that. The world would have to change." (Tarkovski, The Sacrifice). Inner work changes outer life, indirectly.
Earth thought 67 of 365: "What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality." ~Plutarch
Earth thought 68 of 365: These thoughts are a glass of rain poured down a storm drain daily. Writing should shape me, slowly, across the year. How? I catch the self drizzling down from my consumeristic culture ... and let it go.
Earth thought 69 of 365: When youth protects intrinsic value and old age sees beyond itself, the two are one.
Earth thought 63 of 365: Hold both the child I love and The Long It Matters in my mind? In an unhelpful culture, one thinks of one's own with a selfish voice. The child, though, knows better. "What if the world is sick, mama? I don't want the world to be sick, mama."
Earth thought 64 of 365: It's hard to know whether ecological literacy or cultivating responsibility in students is more important to the Earthliness of our educational system, but I would side with the latter.
Earth thought 65 of 365: Individualism in the 70's made the world inside the rage. Meanwhile, around us all, industrial production spewed junk into the sky.
Earth thought 66 of 365: "All one needs is a system. Once a day, to do some small thing. Fill a glass of water from the tap. Flush it down the toilet -only that. The world would have to change." (Tarkovski, The Sacrifice). Inner work changes outer life, indirectly.
Earth thought 67 of 365: "What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality." ~Plutarch
Earth thought 68 of 365: These thoughts are a glass of rain poured down a storm drain daily. Writing should shape me, slowly, across the year. How? I catch the self drizzling down from my consumeristic culture ... and let it go.
Earth thought 69 of 365: When youth protects intrinsic value and old age sees beyond itself, the two are one.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Earth thoughts 57-61
Earth thought 57 of 365: "Managers think in the short run[,] because they are evaluated by both their superiors and peers on their short term results." (R. Jackall, Moral Mazes, 2010, p. 89). So managers exploit the present, often to the detriment of the future. Until we plan for profit beyond the quarterly return, will our system run the Earth down?
Earth thought 58 of 365: Cormac McCarthy's The Road is supposed to show Old Testament toughness, and I've likened it to a premonition of environmental apocalypse. But to look on the future that pessimistically is just as sinful as to think everything will be hunky-dory.
Earth thought 59 of 365: "Industry and real estate are equally part of nature." Yes, physically. Seen by Earth science, however, they use and are used up on a different temporal scale than life. They don't take part in many positive feedback loops found in the wild, either. They are not yet, geobiologically, natural.
Earth thought 60 of 365: The pragmatists hold sway. How will conserving life serve us? Even the "virtue theorists" sound similar. Why is goodness beneficial? Does it fill out a narrow life's sense? I give up.
Earth thought 61 of 365: The Winter Asymmetry*. "I will not sacrifice another, nor let others sacrifice me, but I choose to make sacrifices." [*The expression is in honor of my grandma Keymer; see Earth thought 54.]
Earth thought 58 of 365: Cormac McCarthy's The Road is supposed to show Old Testament toughness, and I've likened it to a premonition of environmental apocalypse. But to look on the future that pessimistically is just as sinful as to think everything will be hunky-dory.
Earth thought 59 of 365: "Industry and real estate are equally part of nature." Yes, physically. Seen by Earth science, however, they use and are used up on a different temporal scale than life. They don't take part in many positive feedback loops found in the wild, either. They are not yet, geobiologically, natural.
Earth thought 60 of 365: The pragmatists hold sway. How will conserving life serve us? Even the "virtue theorists" sound similar. Why is goodness beneficial? Does it fill out a narrow life's sense? I give up.
Earth thought 61 of 365: The Winter Asymmetry*. "I will not sacrifice another, nor let others sacrifice me, but I choose to make sacrifices." [*The expression is in honor of my grandma Keymer; see Earth thought 54.]
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Earth thoughts 49-56
Earth thought 49 of 365: The Ignatian approach to sin asks the self-examiner to discover missed opportunities in life. "Sin", after all, is from a humble Greek word meaning "off the mark". It's no diabolic word. An interesting thing is that the environment is the opportunity that makes most opportunities possible. So to mistreat the environment and make it unhealthy is to sin many sins.
Earth thought 50 of 365: Is it human nature to be short-sighted, to think mostly of one's own life and those of one's kids or grandkids? How do we think ten generations ahead? Human creativity is meant for problems like these.
Earth thought 51 of 365: My end is another's beginning.
Earth thought 52 of 365: A city of open houses. Life passes through, like utopia. And yet this city is real, over a billion years old. The doorway is the species. A species is evolution's doorway for the ongoing stream of life. It is where evolution happens, what lets evolution through. When we make species extinct, we slam doors shut. Mass extinction closes most of the city for millions of years.
Earth thought 53 of 365: Every environmentalist should love valentine's day, for it is when we feel loved, and so fulfilled, that we stop chasing after material things and turn our minds to things that matter and outlast us, like the Earth.
Earth thought 54 of 365: Clarity. Planning and calculating and working the books are irrelevant. I look at life after remembering my grandmother, who died 9 years ago and whom I loved very much. Only the pure things stand out now, like branches in winter.
Earth thought 55 of 365: Has there ever been a movie about the environmental destruction caused by real wars?
Earth thought 56 of 365: Did we fully see the environmental devastation caused by "Shock and Awe" in Iraq? You would think, too, that sometimes the crater in the palm orchard shows how little we care about the palms of people's hands.
Earth thought 50 of 365: Is it human nature to be short-sighted, to think mostly of one's own life and those of one's kids or grandkids? How do we think ten generations ahead? Human creativity is meant for problems like these.
Earth thought 51 of 365: My end is another's beginning.
Earth thought 52 of 365: A city of open houses. Life passes through, like utopia. And yet this city is real, over a billion years old. The doorway is the species. A species is evolution's doorway for the ongoing stream of life. It is where evolution happens, what lets evolution through. When we make species extinct, we slam doors shut. Mass extinction closes most of the city for millions of years.
Earth thought 53 of 365: Every environmentalist should love valentine's day, for it is when we feel loved, and so fulfilled, that we stop chasing after material things and turn our minds to things that matter and outlast us, like the Earth.
Earth thought 54 of 365: Clarity. Planning and calculating and working the books are irrelevant. I look at life after remembering my grandmother, who died 9 years ago and whom I loved very much. Only the pure things stand out now, like branches in winter.
Earth thought 55 of 365: Has there ever been a movie about the environmental destruction caused by real wars?
Earth thought 56 of 365: Did we fully see the environmental devastation caused by "Shock and Awe" in Iraq? You would think, too, that sometimes the crater in the palm orchard shows how little we care about the palms of people's hands.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Earth thoughts 38-48
Earth thought 38 of 365: Environmental problems are well suited to Immanuel Kant's 'categorical imperative'. "What if everyone did that?" is the kind of thought that leaps from S.U.V. driving straight to global warming without any questionable causality in between.
Earth thought 39 of 365: What candle on what boat do you float out into the future? Will the trees be entwined around your love? Lake and shore, forest and night.
Earth thought 40 of 365: A clear face in fresh water, Lake Ontario. She's happier than I've ever seen her. Don't say the elements have nothing to do with this. Don't stop your identity at your body's edge. The lake swells as you in it, and drift clouds shift inside you in the sun.
Earth thought 41 of 365: Believing that virtue will one day bring happiness, for Kant, is an article of rational faith. Being reasonable, we must believe in a world where good people are happy -rather than the irresponsible hedonists. Or reason is senseless. A thought worth holding out as we head into the environmental chaos of this century.
Earth thought 42 of 365: Travel has become about friends and about sights. But what if travel were also an opportunity for world-mapping? Take your maps and internal maps with you next time, and see if you can feel the stretch of the Earth.
Earth thought 43 of 365: I don't know about you, but on very cold nights, I wonder how well the homeless are doing.
Earth thought 44 of 365: Would we be more concerned about our health in the environment if we were less enveloped by machines that make most of our functions seem smooth and effortless? If we had to fix broken things more often with our own hands?
Earth thought 45 of 365: The old, old things will calm you down.
Earth thought 46 of 365: Emotion, and music, and air, and rhythm - these can open a void for words, a ripening void, for words.
Earth thought 47 of 365: "Everything is backwards now. The true life is out there, while in here is the dream." (Avatar). This is the sensibility of someone who becomes aware of his alienation from all of life.
Earth thought 48 of 365: The surface. Human selfishness and self-absorption are a normal part of life. The undertow. No, they are not. They are part of a fundamentally alienated culture, a world of machines bent on exploitation of people, planets, and time. The pebble bottom. What is deepest in being human, our potential for connection with the world of life and with each other...
Earth thought 39 of 365: What candle on what boat do you float out into the future? Will the trees be entwined around your love? Lake and shore, forest and night.
Earth thought 40 of 365: A clear face in fresh water, Lake Ontario. She's happier than I've ever seen her. Don't say the elements have nothing to do with this. Don't stop your identity at your body's edge. The lake swells as you in it, and drift clouds shift inside you in the sun.
Earth thought 41 of 365: Believing that virtue will one day bring happiness, for Kant, is an article of rational faith. Being reasonable, we must believe in a world where good people are happy -rather than the irresponsible hedonists. Or reason is senseless. A thought worth holding out as we head into the environmental chaos of this century.
Earth thought 42 of 365: Travel has become about friends and about sights. But what if travel were also an opportunity for world-mapping? Take your maps and internal maps with you next time, and see if you can feel the stretch of the Earth.
Earth thought 43 of 365: I don't know about you, but on very cold nights, I wonder how well the homeless are doing.
Earth thought 44 of 365: Would we be more concerned about our health in the environment if we were less enveloped by machines that make most of our functions seem smooth and effortless? If we had to fix broken things more often with our own hands?
Earth thought 45 of 365: The old, old things will calm you down.
Earth thought 46 of 365: Emotion, and music, and air, and rhythm - these can open a void for words, a ripening void, for words.
Earth thought 47 of 365: "Everything is backwards now. The true life is out there, while in here is the dream." (Avatar). This is the sensibility of someone who becomes aware of his alienation from all of life.
Earth thought 48 of 365: The surface. Human selfishness and self-absorption are a normal part of life. The undertow. No, they are not. They are part of a fundamentally alienated culture, a world of machines bent on exploitation of people, planets, and time. The pebble bottom. What is deepest in being human, our potential for connection with the world of life and with each other...
Friday, January 29, 2010
Earth thoughts 28-37
Earth thought 28 of 365: "In what sorts of places do they sleep?" (Bernard Williams, Truth & Truthfulness, p. 24). Covered from the elements, or open to them, on occasion. In climes they make livable, if they can. In areas free of disruption, when possible, with their suckling young.
Earth thought 29 of 365: Earthgirl/Earthboy -the new punk. S/he cuts the bullshit on Mom & Dad's dumb world. Thinks, "Cosmokids are stupid: they ride too many planes. (And live online, not on Earth.)" S/he eats local, patches her own clothes. Adopts-a-species. Acoustic poets vote drives against sell-out politicians.
Earth thought 30 of 365: Find your body like it is. Why do you abuse it? It is clear with elements, funny, sticky, sweet. When your mind runs calm like water, why do you pour any other liquid in? Or movement, your animal friend, why do you leave it out? Away from the consumer world! Toward the origin body!
Earth thought 31 of 365: One view of Haiti is that the people are mostly peaceful while the aid agencies are fearful, afraid to distribute aid. (Matthew Price, BBC, 22 Jan.). What are the grounds for assuming environmental disaster will occasion vicious behavior?
Earth thought 32 of 365: On busy days, the Earth is hard to remember. Who has time for space & time, when you have no space & time? That is why habits are important: turning off lights, shutting off water, not idling or gunning the car. And these habits mold your mind: out with the wasteful companies and politicians!
Earth thought 33 of 365: Save yourself a child now, and you save a future child.
Earth thought 34 of 365: "I heard the ocean on the shore. The ruins of Europe in back of me." (Heiner Muller, Hamletmaschine) Self-destructiveness can take many forms. One is intentional -the most infamous. But another is unintentional, the result of omission. Our environmental situation is like that form.
Earth thought 35 of 365: "Environmental crisis" -shouldn't we be impatient? Yet, in a way, impatience is a cause of the crisis. Patience with what really sits well in our consciences, settling into home, will create a more careful world.
Earth thought 36 of 365: Now is a day for experience. When have you last spent an hour in water? If you can reach an ocean, do it. Or a lake. Even a pool. Or a small tub, letting your foot float in its original element.
Earth thought 37 of 365: And water. Drink it from the tap, if you can, or a bottle. It tastes clear. ... Many people today cannot find clean water. In the future, even more will be unable to, due to water shortages from climate change.
Earth thought 29 of 365: Earthgirl/Earthboy -the new punk. S/he cuts the bullshit on Mom & Dad's dumb world. Thinks, "Cosmokids are stupid: they ride too many planes. (And live online, not on Earth.)" S/he eats local, patches her own clothes. Adopts-a-species. Acoustic poets vote drives against sell-out politicians.
Earth thought 30 of 365: Find your body like it is. Why do you abuse it? It is clear with elements, funny, sticky, sweet. When your mind runs calm like water, why do you pour any other liquid in? Or movement, your animal friend, why do you leave it out? Away from the consumer world! Toward the origin body!
Earth thought 31 of 365: One view of Haiti is that the people are mostly peaceful while the aid agencies are fearful, afraid to distribute aid. (Matthew Price, BBC, 22 Jan.). What are the grounds for assuming environmental disaster will occasion vicious behavior?
Earth thought 32 of 365: On busy days, the Earth is hard to remember. Who has time for space & time, when you have no space & time? That is why habits are important: turning off lights, shutting off water, not idling or gunning the car. And these habits mold your mind: out with the wasteful companies and politicians!
Earth thought 33 of 365: Save yourself a child now, and you save a future child.
Earth thought 34 of 365: "I heard the ocean on the shore. The ruins of Europe in back of me." (Heiner Muller, Hamletmaschine) Self-destructiveness can take many forms. One is intentional -the most infamous. But another is unintentional, the result of omission. Our environmental situation is like that form.
Earth thought 35 of 365: "Environmental crisis" -shouldn't we be impatient? Yet, in a way, impatience is a cause of the crisis. Patience with what really sits well in our consciences, settling into home, will create a more careful world.
Earth thought 36 of 365: Now is a day for experience. When have you last spent an hour in water? If you can reach an ocean, do it. Or a lake. Even a pool. Or a small tub, letting your foot float in its original element.
Earth thought 37 of 365: And water. Drink it from the tap, if you can, or a bottle. It tastes clear. ... Many people today cannot find clean water. In the future, even more will be unable to, due to water shortages from climate change.
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