Going into this class, I was (and I still remain) far from being the world’s greatest environmental scholar, activist, (wonk?), or advocate. However, taking this class has left me wide-eyed, interested, and motivated moving forward. I certainly don’t know everything, but at least by taking this class I learned more about what I didn’t know I didn’t know, and I know that there’s still more to learn and more work to be done.
One takeaway for me from this class has been that environment protection is not just about science or scientific solutions, but that it is largely political as well. The human-nature divide has shrunk, and we as humans cannot be absolved from the blame we deserve for past environmental destruction. Divides extend in every direction (North vs. South, Democrats vs. Republicans, wealthy vs. poor, etc.) but the problems are not divided at all, and rather they are universal. The blame game will not lead to solutions to fixing problems, but somehow we’ve landed on this track and it only detracts from constructive thinking. However, though it’s challenging to not blame people for past behavior, it is more important now to blame the largest continuing offenders (ex: big oil companies) who know what we know now, and still continue to create harm.
I’ve come to appreciate that there are numerous avenues for creating environmental change, but looking at the finish line, there is no one method that wins out over others. Though government has the ability to create top-down change, the government will not work without the will of its citizens, and this process will be interrupted when big corporations object, and depending on the issue (climate change vs. biodiversity loss), there will be varying degrees of interest. The methods for resolution are not independent but rather interdependent, and because of the magnitude and breadth of the dilemmas that need to be fixed, different methods will flex and change in influence. The phrase “if we just ____” as applied to any problem will not be enough to fix it, though unfortunately it’s not always apparent how to foster this cooperative relationship.
I guess I hadn’t considered myself an “environmentalist” before this class because I occasionally forgot to recycle, I took long airplane rides, I drove my car often, and overall I just didn’t emphasize “environmentalism” in my life. I didn’t feel I was interested enough or active enough to call myself an environmentalist, but then I realized that this doesn’t have to be a competition when we consider what is at the heart of the problems. I was both struck and relieved by what Michael Maniates said about using a disposable cup at the coffee shop at Oberlin and taking the occasional trip to McDonald’s—these minor acts do not disqualify a person from being an environmentalist, and it would be unfair to continue to stigmatize behaviors that lie outside the realm of being environmentally friendly. Most of this minor blame is just a waste of time given what still needs to be done. In general, simply advocating for one solution (international cooperation, government intervention, civil society activism etc.) is not enough to fix these problems, but this challenge is also not an excuse to abandon problems worth fixing.
I became interested in environmental issues around the 1st grade. The Montessori school I attended sent us to nature camps multiple times a year and we composted and recycled in the classroom as well as at home. Then through high school and into college I continued to believe tackling environmental issues was important and was often saddened by the news on oil spills and events I would study in the classroom. This International Environmental Politics class has been the first class I have ever taken where I have been told through authors such as Stephen Meyers, that there isn’t any hope of regaining what we have lost and we have lost so much that there isn’t any true-form nature any more. This is the first class I have taken where I have seen clearly the divide by those who believe a technological fix will come and those who believe our only option is to back out of our current system. I had become a Socialist after leaving my study abroad in Denmark, but I was not a Socialist because I believed Capitalism was bad. It was because I saw all the beauties of Socialism and the nations that engaged in it. This was the first class that made me dislike Capitalism for its very nature and to rethink my ideas about progress. I had never considered whether progress was an innate thing or not, I simply believed it was good. However this class, along with a development class I am taking has alerted me to the fact that progress is a concept we created, and furthermore, that it is impossible to continue having progress in the context we are thinking about it – progress is growth and growth outward. Indefinite, outward growth is impossible in an earth with finite resources and space. I had never looked at things this way.
This is the first time when I have seen that even if a technological fix were to come it would only allow for more resources and energy to be consumed. This is the first time I have seen humans as the single most destructive force on the planet and this is the first time when I have seriously thought, “good riddance.” From this class I have taken away that we will push ourselves and everything around us to the bring of distinction, when crisis and catastrophe hit (I know this sounds dramatic, but it continues to look like this), then we might try to make some changes, but it will be and already is too late. We will cease to exist, and life in some form will go on. New life will be created and Gaia will keep on cycling through her existence until the sun blows up or dies out. I had known about the Gaia hypothesis before, but I hadn’t agreed with it so much until now.
So, this class has made me a lot more apathetic and accepting of what I feel will be our fate and that of the present ecology we rarely see. However, then I begin to feel that the environmental movement has no point and that doesn’t feel like a good answer either. I’m either stupid because fighting for the de-growth I would like to see happen never will, so I’m fighting for a lost cause, or I’m lazy because I’m not fighting for the issues I know need to be changed. My internal response is that when I view birds that have died from plastic in their guts and oil spills and when I view CAFOs and images of shark finning, I decide to fight because these animals never asked for the stupidity and cruelty that humans have inflicted on their lives. The same can be said for those starving and homeless in many parts of the world because they did not ask for the environmental issues that caused their situations, they were simply born into them and the capitalistic system we love will continue to do harm to those people for the benefit of others. However, arguments that focus on animals and plants don’t go anywhere. Go eat some granola you hippy, they say, so I believe in making, and this class has taught me how to make, an anthropocentric argument, that we must save the planet for our own sake, for posterity’s sake, and for the sake of human life which has the divine sense of reason or God’s beauty or whatever value you may place on us. I make that argument and maybe some people will listen. I don’t think it will change much and I still stand by the Gaia hypotheses, but in order to fight for those who have no voice I must make that argument where at least I know I’ll get a few responses. At least that’s the best idea I’ve got.
What will I take away from this class? That’s a big question.
We have spent the semester covering a lot of issues: Thanks to Bill McKibben we got a startling vision of the doom and gloom trajectory the planet is headed in; we learned how governments try to tackle (and in many cases fail miserably) environmental issues; we learned, as is true with many things, money is often the root of the problem, and why environment cannot be separated from economy and development; we studied different ideas for solutions, and how those ideas are biased by the understanding of the problem; we debated the merits of technology versus ecology and how we will feed a world with 10 billion people; we thought about whether nature is worth saving or if we have fundamentally changed the process to suit us humans and what a world would look like with 1/10th the biodiversity of today; and then we got frustrated a little more by our governments who seem to be only interested in protecting their economic success so single-mindedly. While grey, we learned that the picture isn’t all bleak – those who are determined to find solutions are making progress; we have science to help us determine our boundaries, and new technology that can help us reach them; we have identified potential breakdowns in the systems that keep millions hungry, oil companies profitable, and so many of us content to keep up the status quo, just believing that somehow “everything will work out.” Finally, we listened to a new view – one that says “waste = food” and our problems today are just a design failure that we can avoid with a smarter plan designed for a future.
My takeaway from this class is a better understanding of the many arguments. I have learned that a real solution isn’t as simple as “plant a tree, ride a bike…” I have been through various levels of optimism, frustration, confusion, pessimism, blame, discouragement and encouragement. It can be daunting to find that that the more you think you know, the less you really know. But it is also a strong motivator to keep learning and though the problem is complex, the solution, in whatever form, will take people getting involved and paying attention. So, wow, this is a big question for a blog post. I can’t pick one topic as the most important to me – all parts are dependent on the others, if you change one, it will change everything. I guess my main takeaway is that we have to be informed, be involved, have discussions and press the issue before its too late. I feel more prepared to do that.
I took this class because I wanted to learn exactly what the title of the course says: international environmental politics. As a bio minor, I have always been very interested in environmental science, and have been pretty involved in the environmental community on campus and beyond. After four years of undergrad, I’ve realized that I have a tendency to gravitate to those organizations and initiatives that are focussed on the environment. However, one of the professors in the environmental department once accused me of being a “science nerd”, and as it turns out, he was right. I have always been more drawn to the scientific aspects of the environmental situation, and have always tried (albeit a bit unsuccessfully) to steer clear of politics of any kind. But for a problem like that facing the environment, politics play a major role not only in the issue but also in the solution. And in this day and age, especially in this country, politics always overrule the science.
I’ve taken classes in the past that have discussed the various regulations that have been implemented both on a national and international level in regards to improving environmental conditions, but a comprehensive analysis of such actions was not included. Coming into IEP, I was definitely of the “Plant a Tree, Ride a Bike” mindset that personal actions for living a more sustainable life and working to convince others to do the same was key to successfully combating environmental degradation. I still believe that such action is important. However, after reading about the cultural boundaries and political and bureaucratic red tape that pose the most formidable obstacles to successfully bringing about environmental change, which was clearly demonstrated in the carbon footprint exercise, I’ve begun to re-think what the best course of action towards bringing about the change needed would require. I do think that individuals need to make changes to their personal lifestyles in order to be much more environmentally friendly, but the way that I see people using these decisions is different. While people should be more conscious of their environmental impact and start off by making the small changes, in the end it is the political leaders with the power to enforce more sustainable actions that need to be convinced. Social action that starts from the bottom needs to focus more on getting the governmental authorities on board for environmental action. From what I can see after studying the international efforts towards implementing stricter (and what could ultimately be more efficient) environmental regulations, the US’ track record is incredibly lacking.
People such as Erik Assadourian argue that the culture of consumerism that reigns in this country must be changed in order to make progress towards saving the environment. While I’ve always thought this is true, I had looked at cultural change as a largely bottom-up strategy. This class has made me consider that change from the top is what might be more effective, as the “top” has the potential to have the more immediate effect that is so desperately needed. The government is constantly concerned with public opinion and approval – electoral votes tend to speak loader than the problems themselves – which to me opens the door for greater social movement on the issue. The public, while undertaking their own small changes, must make it clear to higher officials that action on the environment must be taken. However, the government can have a reciprocal effect on the public by taking the initiative on the environment and implementing more rigorous regulations to reduce the damage through factors such as green house gas emissions. Cultural change does take time, but it has to start somewhere. If it was done through a collective bottom-up and top-down approach in which the public worked to make individual changes while conveying to the government sustainable action is imperative, and the government put in place actions and legislation aimed at bringing about such environmental change, the shift towards a more environmentally sustainable life for both the public and the nation could potentially be accomplished.
An interesting project I came across while browsing through Grist is called the Pollinator Pathway and it is located in Seattle, Washington (http://grist.org/cities/bee-boulevard-how-to-turn-an-urban-corridor-into-a-haven-for-native-pollinators/). Created by Sarah Bergmann in 2008 as an art and ecosystem project, the pathway is a series of small gardens with native plants that link Seattle University and a local park. The pathway is approximately one mile long, and it houses over fifty native plant species and attracts native pollinators such as bumblebees, butterflies, and birds. With the honeybee population rapidly declining worldwide due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and pesticides that negatively impact these pollinators, this project aims to help the current species thrive by providing them a type of ecological highway to travel between existing green spaces in an urban setting.
Though this form of action is certainly only small-scale in its existing format, so far it has been effective in helping the native biodiversity populations. Prior to the pathway’s construction, no such native plants and animals had really existed in this urban environment, and now they are prevalent. Similarly, neighbors and ecological enthusiasts voluntarily maintain the gardens (though technically they belong to the city), and these people have become committed to protecting the pathway and ensuring that it thrives. The pathway integrates a natural environment into an urban setting, and the way these neighbors come together to maintain it reinforces their connection to nature and to their community.
Because the pollinators are such a vital link in our ecosystems, this project is certainly on the right track (no pun intended) to preserving these populations and garnering interest in their survival. The designers do not attempt to revive honeybee populations but rather they desire to eliminate the use of pesticides in order to focus on maintaining native populations instead.
At the moment the pathway is still isolated to urban Seattle but it could certainly be replicated in varying formats in other cities. In class we have discussed green bridges and other ways to link already green spaces, and this method only adds to current practices. Because it is unlikely that anytime soon we will leave our cities and move to rural areas, this project effectively links the two, and allows residents to both reconnect with nature and preserve native pollinator and plant populations along the way. The project is a relatively inexpensive and simple way to build community gardens because the gardens essentially function as enlarged sidewalks and the neighbors all contribute to their upkeep.
The Pollinator Pathway definitely gives me hope, even if simply for the renewed interest and community engagement in the environment. The project does not, nor does it claim to, make a pointed effort to target the declining bee predicament head on, so in that sense there is certainly more potential for an environmental group to project it to other cities for the long term. However, it is still an example of a positive action toward an environmental challenge, and it can serve as a stepping-stone for creating a larger movement.
I recently read Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder and believe that the practices of Dr. Paul Farmer, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, Ophelia Dahl, Tom White, and many others were effective at eraditcating disease, improving the environmental situation, alleviating extreme poverty and hunger, and improving general sanitaion and education worldwide. Because Dr. Paul Farmer’s story is not contained in any specific online article, I have included a Wikepedia summary of Mountains Beyond Mountains here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_Beyond_Mountains
Dr. Paul Farmer and his collegues focused on efforts ranging from development and the environment to politics and moral philosophy, therefore making it hard for me to focus on just one aspect of the global situations they touch upon. However, this is actually what made him so effective. He did not just try to tackle one aspect and leave it at that. He saw the whole situation and its interconnectivity – treating not only the symptom, but treating the “patient” as a whole. This seems particularly relevant given what we have been studying in class about, “diddling with the details” or making simple changes and how they in essence do nothing for the environmental situation. Dr. Paul Farmer took such vast, irrational, expensive, and supererrogatory actions that one wants to either look away or search Farmer meticulously for some fault. He changed what could be expected of someone – what should be expected from someone by setting a precedent previously unheard of. He went to Haiti, Peru, Siberia, Cuba, and many other countries to end the pandempic of infectious diseases there. While he was in country, he cleaned water supplies, provided education, health care, and job opportunities, distributed condoms and free TB, AIDS and HIV treatement, reconstructed or built living quarters, and worked with unrelenting effort until he had improved the lives and living situations of the people around him.
As I said, Dr. Farmer saw all the connections. One could not be healthy unless their environment was healthy and that meant no war, no famine, sanitary conditions, and sustainable lifestyles. He did this all, but his greatest efforts are documented in Haiti and Peru. Once, in order to reduce infant mortality he brought out a team to devise a plan that would bring clean water to those living in Cange. They used the natural force of an underground river to pipe the fresh water up 800 feet into communal spigots in the town. He also created Zanmi Lasante, which was a hospital in Haiti unlike anything they had before. It had competent doctors, expensive and new medicines, modern equipment, sanitary premises, and didn’t charge for treatment if one couldn’t afford it. The hospital had women’s literacy and AIDS prevention programs, and created schools and jobs for locals. Dr. Farmer’s use of antiretroviral drugs and the occasional flying of patients out of Haiti to Boston was seen by many as ludicrous and certainly not cost effective. However, he largely argued against their views and felt strongly about his practice. Occasionally, he would take note about what he considered “appropriate technology.” He appreciated technology, scorned what he called the “Luddite trap” and felt new technology was the answer to many of today’s problems, much like Market Liberals. However, there were times he believed one should use the simplest technologies necessary for a job especially in poverty-stricken countries. This was because the technology of the Western world may actually not improve the situation of the bottom billion in the ways we would expect.
He turned his vision into a success story that touched so many parts of the world. However, the question remains whether his methodology could be replicated today and indefinitely. I believe his methodology could be replicated in most all parts of the world with success, but not without him and certainly not forever. Dr. Paul Farmer was a genius and perhaps a saint. Whether driven by his own fear of guilt or by an incredible genetic inclination to altruism, he was not a normal man by any means. I am not convinced that his actions would be replicable in the future mostly because I cannot think of anyone willing to replicate them as he had originally done. I like to believe there are people out there that could, that even I could if I put my mind to it, but I’d be a fool. The man was crazy incredible.
I am hopeful, reading about Dr. Farmer’s life, that changes can be made that have big and positive impacts on the lives of millions and their environment. However, as I mentioned before, unless the rest of the world is willing to take up the same path as Dr. Farmer, I think this hope is only temporary. He is one man changing the world, but I think the world and its increasing problems are changing faster. Despite Dr. Farmer’s faith in technology, he believed that capitalism was at the root of the problem and that the rich by nature take from the poor and exasperate their situation. He laid a golden track for many of us to follow and if we all had a brain, soul, and thick skin like his, maybe the world could change. But I can’t say I’ve seen any of his clones walking around.
An article in Earth entitled “Getting Pumped for Renewable Energy” by Jay R. Thompson discusses a breakthrough in one of the biggest obstacles to large-scale solar energy use: storage. Solar energy is great when the panels are in direct sunlight – we can harness the renewable energy directly from the sun. But when its cloudy or dark outside, it is difficult for solar energy stores to support a heavy demand for energy. Low storage amounts also cause problems with reliability, something that coal and oil don’t struggle with. But perhaps a new solution will change all of that.
A group of researchers based out of Drexel University might have developed the solution: a new form of battery that combines the ability to hold a large amount of energy, refill quickly (when the sun is shining and demand for energy is lower than the amount being absorbed), and longevity (so that the ability of the battery to absorb energy doesn’t diminish over time, like a cell phone battery does). The battery is called a “supercapacitator-flow battery device”, drawing on the benefits of both the supercapacitator and flow batteries. While the invention is still being tested, it marks a great leap forward in the viability of solar energy to produce, more reliably, the energy that modern societies require.
Because carbon dioxide emission is arguably the most pressing environmental problem we face, a problem that requires a solution nearly immediately to avoid irreversible harm to the planet, tackling the obstacles that challenge our ability to move off of coal and oil is crucial. This battery is the bridge that will allow us to cross over from burning fossil fuels to efficiently using the solar technology that we already have. The battery is a scientific solution, which means that it can be replicated exactly the same way as many times as it is needed. It is also a solution that will be operable for a very long time rather than quickly become disposable, which will help make the production of the batteries sustainable. This invention is great cause for hope. Overcoming technical obstacles is the first step. This will help reduce the “plausible deniability” of governments who before had been able to claim that solar energy was just not a reliable option. By removing the arguments of those who are perfectly content (and making billions of dollars) to continue burning dirty energies, we can begin to pressure our government to take meaningful steps forward. Germany has been able to supplement up to 50% of its energy use with solar energy; Norway is taxing its own oil company for Carbon Dioxide emissions (and announced in October of this year that it plans to double the tax rate) and plans to be carbon-neutral by 2030. We know that it is possible to achieve some of these goals, and have already seen some countries making great strides toward them. If this new battery is successful, there will be no excuse for us not to be leading the pack.
*The article can be found in the September 17 issue of Earth magazine.
The article I found is entitled Inedible Edible: Supporting Food Independence in Todmorden, England, and talks about a program called Inedible Edible that is working to make the English town of Todmorden independent in terms of food supply by promoting local gardens. The program has become increasingly successful by making – and then meeting – small but significant goals as well as has taken part in “guerrilla gardening” as a leading-by-example tactic. Many of the local institutions are now involved, and positive action has been taken on the issue, such as the major housing authority giving tenants seed packets and gardening courses and local schools switching over to using only local produce in cafeteria as well as planting their own school gardens. The program offers the community courses on foraging, making preserves, and harvesting local chickens, and the town in hoping to create a fish-farming center as well. The program has been in action for two years; within this time period, a third more residents are now tending their own vegetable gardens and 15 times as many townspeople are keeping chickens in their backyard, putting the town on track to meet its goal to be food independent by 2018.
Considering the statistics and progress outlined in the article, I believe that this story has been effective. I think that food independence has already and will become a major issue for many communities throughout the world, as most nations import many foodstuffs from outside their country. By altering the present food culture to be geared more towards local farming, many environmental issues could be curbed. For one thing, local farming presents the opportunity to decrease transportation costs of transporting produce and other food goods. When food doesn’t have to travel far from the farm to the market, less energy and fossil fuel is required, effectively decreasing the amount of carbon and other green house gas emissions such as nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. More local food also tends to come from smaller-scale farms, which also require less heavy machinery that is very energy intensive that are used for the huge, industrial farm complexes prevalent in industrialized nations today. Food independence is not only an effective way to improve the food security of a town, region or country in terms of decreasing its dependence on outside food sources but can also be characterized by food security in the form of more diverse produce grown. In small, local gardens such as the ones cultivated by the Inedible Edible program, the growing of a variety of produce is common, which protects the produce from becoming subject to viruses or blights that large monocultures are much more highly susceptible to.
The Inedible Edible program seems to be very successful in recruiting the citizens of Todmorden to become involved and plant their own gardens as well as raise their own chickens. The program has targeted and recruited the facets of society that are most important in promoting such change, as the town council and schools are on board. In looking at Donella Meadows’ leverage points, Inedible Edible seems to be successfully working towards changing the paradigm of not eating locally, the first and most important leverage point highlighted by Meadows as the method for bringing about change in a system. Inedible Edible is changing the town’s perception of local food and where food should come from, a large part of which I think can be contributed to the increased number of courses offered to the townspeople focussed on gardening techniques and sustainable food practices. By changing the paradigm of non-locally grown food to one focussed on locally grown produce, the program is changing the town’s food culture to include more emphasis on local food. The recruitment of the town council is another important step, as integrating a sustainable mindset in the local government allows change to occur on a larger and more widespread scale. This program is definitely replicable, as can be seen by the trend of community gardens that has been established especially in the US; however, while there are more community gardens throughout the country than there used to be, I do not currently know of any programs as widespread as that of Inedible Edible. I do think that a great emphasis and effort be individuals and certain organizations can lead to an increase in towns that move to become food independent. The success of a program such as Inedible Edible makes me hopeful that such a program can become more widespread, as scattered community gardens are the first step in this process. It seems that more communities just need a push to get on the same track as Todmorden, England.
On my recent spring break trip to Malaysia this past March, I had an incredibly enchanting experience in the non-human world when my group took a break from navigating metropolitan Kuala Lumpur to visit the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM). Though we had initially anticipated going on the Canopy Walkway over the treetops, the site was under construction and we instead began hiking in a forest, led by the fearless Professor Heng. We came upon a small pool of water at the base of a rock-type waterfall that led to a larger waterfall. Clearly, I do not know the official names of any of these formations. We all ended up taking off our shoes and wading knee-deep in the water for over an hour. Our already small group slowly scattered and we all began to walk around and explore the various rocks, leaves, and tall trees in our immediate surroundings. We had spent the busy week exploring Malaysia’s more urban settings, and before that we had all been in DC, so we were a bit awestruck to be standing in the middle of a nature preserve.
We shouldn’t have to travel all the way to Malaysia to explore a natural environment, and we don’t. Sometimes we preoccupy ourselves with what we feel we need (technology and “civilization” immediately come to mind), and it’s easy for us to ignore “nature” when we spend most of our time in urban settings. In campaigns that converge on saving the dolphin, or the panda, or whatever charismatic animal will capture our attention, we can be reminded that our “civilization” is entwined with nature, but only when we feel particularly connected. On the same trip to Malaysia, I encountered mini-rainforests in a shopping mall and in the airport. It was incredibly disconcerting to see signs in a mall that said in vertical succession “Restrooms → Food Court → Rainforest ←.” Clearly we recognize the human/nature relationship, but how do we even begin to “save” it? How can we choose what to save, and what does this really look like? We as humans have been able to destroy entire ecosystems around us with few ramifications, at least ones that are obvious to us, and still many we have been able to largely ignore. When our water source is in jeopardy or when our favorite animal is placed on the endangered species list we might be motivated to act, but this motivation needs to extend to our natural environment as a whole, because none of these elements exist independently. As Meyer mentions we need an “ethical transformation” that establishes “moral linkages” between humans and nature, but this will not take place until we all have experiences that can truly influence our appreciation and respect for these surroundings (77-78).
I.
I have had bats invade my house 3 separate times, and not all the same house. The first time was in a house in Annapolis where I grew up. I was about 13 and watched the bat (who had apparently found a way in through a small hole in the chimney cap of the fireplace) through a window as he went crazy circling the living room. Thankfully we could seal the room off from the rest of the house by closing the door. At the time, my family had a cat, named Sniffy (my little sister picked the name…) who took care of the bat. Then again, I lived in another house in College Park and a bat flew its way in again through the chimney. A friend came over and caught the bat in a bag and let it outside. And then, I woke up once in the middle of the night from a sound sleep and felt something on my arm. Of course, being asleep, it didn’t register right away, and I brushed it off and kept sleeping. But I heard some kind of flapping circling my room, and as soon as it registered, I ran out of the room, locked the bat inside my bedroom and shoved a towel under the gap between the door and the floor so it wouldn’t escape and went back to sleep on the couch. The next morning, the bat was nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere, but chalked it up to a crazy dream. The next night, I was sitting in the living room, and from above my head, the bat flew out of the curtains and started going crazy! I ran around from the living room, to the kitchen, and the bat followed me. Then I ran to the bathroom and it followed me. By then, I had all the lights on in the house and I ran outside to get away from the bat. From outside, while thinking about how to get the bat out of my house, I watched it go ballistic from one room to the other. Finally, after about an hour, I mustered up the courage to go in and handle the bat, and as I opened the door, the bat flew straight at my head, and at the last second swooped away! While in the moment it was super creepy – I had visions of the bat trying to bite me, or some “vampire bat” situation. I know that poor bat was just as scared of me as I was of it. My rational mind tried to tell my emotional mind that bats are good, and they eat all kinds of pesky bugs. Of course, that really never helps when there is a bat in your house.
II.
I have some issue with the idea of “saving nature”. Of course, in an ideal world, it would be as easy as designating certain species of plant or animal that has a low population, and creating a figurative “fence” around them until they have repopulated. The problem is that this view is much too simplistic of an idea. There are so many problems to this approach, some which we read about such as a.) who gets to choose what to protect? b.) how much money will we spend to protect it? c.) is it a good preservation method to captivate the endangered species so that we can protect them, and if so, how many should we captivate? These kinds of questions can go on forever. And part of the problem is that they still do – when we leave it to our politicians to make decisions, they do what politicians do: talk, rather than do. Part of the problem with “saving nature” is that we still think about it in terms of “saving nature”. When we think in these terms, it creates the sense that we don’t HAVE to save nature, but that it would be a “nice” thing to do. It is something that you get extra credit points for, and can brag about the good deeds you have done to make yourself look good with your friends. We think that donating a bit of money to an organization (who is at the mercy of the politicians) means we are doing our part. This is the biggest problem. Of course we should be doing everything in our power to make sure that we don’t interfere with the intricate balance and inner workings of nature, so that habitats are preserved and human activity doesn’t impact the natural cycle. But that means more that “saving nature”. When we use those terms, we are saying that we are the heroes, when in fact, we are the ones who caused the problem. Our nature-saving approach is also a continuation of the very activity that caused the problem in the first place. How can we expect that taking animals from the wild, and putting them in zoos where we can “monitor” them, and feed them a precise diet is somehow saving them, when all they really needed us to do was leave them alone in the first place? (Unfortunately, in our human selfishness, we usually don’t realize the damage we were doing until it is too late.)
Obviously this is a multifaceted and highly complex problem, and there are many angles to the solution. But I think that it is extremely important to remember that the root cause of the issue is us. WE are the invading species. If we really want to save nature, we need to do it with a radically different approach, which means answering the hard questions, like how much are we willing to give up to save beetles, spiders, snakes, lizards, etc. If we say that we are, we need to be prepared for a complete shift in the way we live, and start looking at OURSELVES as part of the problem.
themeltingpot388 