|
We are armed with the keys to the kingdom, but ....
By Jim Mosher
Friday April 25, 2008
 |
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) provides free monthly images of our changing planet.
See
Composite image, December 2004 — NASA’s Earth Observatory
|
Humans were handed ‘dominion’ over the flora and fauna of the Earth, according to the Old Testament account of God’s will. One would hope that Yaweh, as He was called then, had a better plan than just forking over the whole shooting match to us.
A more refined statement about what this ‘dominion’ meant would come later. It is tied to the concept of ‘stewardship’ -- that we are the ‘care’-takers of the Earth; that the planet is not there for the taking, as might be implied if ‘dominion’ is taken at face value.
The Judaeo-Christian tradition is founded on these twinned notions of dominion and stewardship. We may have the know-how and technologies to ‘dominate’ but that appetite must be tempered with the responsibility to be good stewards.
Farmers understand the concept of stewardship. Whether it’s good animal husbandry or rotating crops to enhance the productivity of soils, those who reap what they sow are invested in the land.
Farmers understand that the land they seed and sow must be available to future generations. They accept the precautionary principle -- do no harm but also do nothing that ‘may’ harm.
There is debate as to whether we humans are the principal players in the degradation of our environment. There is some debate, even, as to whether there is degradation -- of a kind and at a level suggested by ‘environmentalists’.
These debates emerge, partly, because we choose to be defined as being on one side of this great barrier of cause: the ‘environmental’ movement.
It could be argued that strident ‘environmentalism’ has done more to widen the gulf. ‘Environmental’ groups have take the environment -- and all the wonders and complexity that go with it -- as their own. The effect is that, should one have the temerity to disagree with the latest pronouncement of a self-described environmental group, you could be labelled ‘anti-environment’.
The environment, though, is owned by no one nor any thing, in spite of how groups, corporations or agencies describe themselves.
As Earth Day was celebrated April 22, it may have echoed that the blue orb circling the Sun is, in and of itself, a dynamic, adaptive planet that can be affected by the six billion-plus humans madly scurrying about on its surface and reaching high into its atmosphere.
Our responsibility to Earth is a collective one.
Our fates are inextricably connected to Earth’s fate. We derive all the materials we need to grow from this ‘tiny blue planet third from the Sun’. The oxygen we breathe, the nitrogen we need to fuel processes at the cellular level, the metals imbedded in the Earth and loosed by geographic processes and vegetative growth -- all of these are provided ... with just a few strings attached.
We must not take Earth for granted. The issue of moment is that we have taken Earth for granted. During the decades, then centuries of mercantilism and industrialization, we sailed the oceans to rape the lands of other countries to feed our latest gastronomic and fashion fancies; we pounded the skies with noxious fumes from coal smelting, arms manufacture and other production processes.
We thought Earth could sustain all our practices, if we thought at all. There is evidence that we were wrong if we thought about it; we were wrong if we ignored it.
In may be, though, that we have what may be called an imperative to survive. We, as other living things, are driven by a biological imperative to seek out any niche where we can thrive.
The difference we can herald and brag about is that we have the ability to choose. From an evolutionary perspective that may be a bad thing -- because we’ve often proven incapable of making good choices.
The evolution of the neocortex gave humans the gift -- or curse -- of consciousness. It imbued us with the ability to remember in context, to think about the past and the future, to weigh the effects of our actions. There’s been no assurance, no evolutionary get-out-of-jail-free card that protects us from the consequences of bad choices at the higher level of the civilizations we create.
We frequently absolve ourselves of personal responsibility when bad things happen. The war in Afghanistan is the federal government’s choice, not ours. Industry, regulated by government, is once again the responsibility of our higher-level creations.
We skirt responsibility -- actively detach ourselves from it.
If Earth Day says anything, it is that we cannot sustain this detachment from the collective consequences of our individual actions. It tells us, conversely, that incremental change by millions of people focussed on change and determined to realize it can achieve goals that may seem too lofty for a single person to aspire to achieve.
Earth Day becomes an object lesson in creative action.
It’s not about guilt.
In my household, we recycle but we don’t compost -- not as well as we should, anyway. So, yeah, you feel ‘guilty’. We still send one full bag, sometimes two to the garbage can each week. (There’s way too much packaging that cannot meet our local recycling uptake.)
It’s not about guilt. It’s about trying to minimize our impacts.
Have our actions changed the planet’s climate? Many scientists say our actions have changed some critical parts of the planetary climate dynamic.
But let’s say you don’t embrace that conclusion. The precautionary principle suggests that you don’t have to embrace the global climate change position. You just have to ask yourself: What if they’re right? What if our actions are -- as they ‘may’ be -- affecting global climate?
With a mind to caution, we accept that we ‘may’ be causing harm, then do what we can to minimize that presumed harm. What can it hurt to consume less water, to emit fewer toxins, to reuse, reduce, recycle?
Where is the harm, after all, of doing our little bit to ‘save’ the planet from insult, potential catastrophic injury?
Doing no harm can’t hurt.
|
