“Too few of us seem to recognize that a) climate chaos is a subset of the larger threats-to-life problem, b) forests are as central to climate as emissions, and c) fixing emissions will not revitalize the bulldozed world.”
A sizable subset of threat to life dynamics exist. But they are all ancillary compared to emissions. The forest and bioregional Eco habitat systems around the globe need to be rebuilt and re-wilded, from a deep ecology perspective. Not having anything to do with climate change or weather chaos. Simply to restore the chance of complex life form of surviving.
I will say that it’s number two priority after a genuine effort to reverse our self inflicted climate catastrophe. Please don’t correlate to two. They are completely separate issues other than they both threaten existence of many lifeforms. The climate situation threatens existence of all complex multi celled organisms. Don’t get yourself. We could easily become Venus or Mars, depending on how things shake out. Most likely a larger less dense atmosphere of Venus.
Actually Jason, I am very happy to correct you on your perspective about cooperation between the faiths as that "firewall" doesn't exist on this issue of creation. I was on a Zoom meeting with Interfaith Power & Light this morning addressing local TX energy issues. We work with GreenFaith as well. ALL of our orgs. are multi-faith. LSM is open to all as long as they believe a higher power put all in motion so we have 2 members in TX who just say they are "spiritual" and do not attend any church or identify with a denomination. Our LSM TX chapter has 7 leadership positions and 2 are held by non-Catholics. Although the US Catholic church has not embraced what we call Care for Creation as aggressively as the other pro-life issue, the rest of the world Catholics have embraced it and are also working with other faiths for our "common home". You are correct, this is NOT "policy" nor "liberal"; it is a moral issue that many faiths (more so outside the US) are addressing. If you have 90 minutes to spare, watch THE LETTER (free on YouTube); the only documentary ever created at the request of the Vatican. Not one protagonist is Catholic but Hindu, Muslim, indigenous belief and agnostic and Pope Francis sat with all of them to listen to their first hand experience with the climate crisis. As an environmentalist since early childhood, I recognized long ago that to change how we treat our Mother Earth was going to require a true change in heart (not mind) for many people because altruistic behavior based on logic and reason rarely wins out in America. May this info. provide you with more hope.
"but we don’t want to change how we live, other than to allow the billions of impoverished people to live comfortable middle-class lives. We should be devoting our best minds, and our own quiet souls, to figuring out how to live with less." This passage echos the sentiments of Pope Francis in the encyclical, Laudato Si': Care for Our Common Home where he expresses that less is more and consumerism is not a symptom of happiness.
“At a large scale, dams can do for civilization what nature (even the miraculous beavers) cannot, storing vast quantities of water which can be transferred as needed to cities and agricultural areas hundreds of miles away.”
It’s my understanding this assumed benefit has always had limitations: namely, surface evaporation on large reservoirs. Hotter global temperatures increase evaporation. Coloradoriverscience.org has info specific to the issue with Colorado river dams (Glen Canyon, Hoover).
Really interesting essay, Jason. I was shocked to learn that only 3% of U.S. dams generate electricity. Was that number far higher a century ago? I viewed (perhaps incorrectly) U.S. dams as a major factor in becoming an industrial juggernaut during the 20th century.
We all argue and remonstrate finding many approaches to restoring the earth, many pathways to ecotopia. And when we take actions it's all for the good, for the health of the planet. What more can we do? we ask. We are faced with multiple symptoms of our dying earth and we apply remedies to the symptoms as we rapidly as we discern them. Yet we have a seeming blind spot. We don't want to see that it is we who are the root source of all the myriad symptoms- we and our activities. We don't want to see that directly because to do so requires us to address the problem directly. Jason, Hudson, there are just too many of us, far too many. The world would be better off without so many of us. How many? A very great number.
But we won't do that will we? We won't voluntarily reduce our population below 500 million total spread across the surface of the world. And even if we did it would be too late. Forces have been set in motion that will take hundreds of years to play themselves out. All we can do is simultaneously address as many of the symptoms as we can- rather like an attacker trying to heal the victim he savagely attacked.
“Too few of us seem to recognize that a) climate chaos is a subset of the larger threats-to-life problem, b) forests are as central to climate as emissions, and c) fixing emissions will not revitalize the bulldozed world.”
A sizable subset of threat to life dynamics exist. But they are all ancillary compared to emissions. The forest and bioregional Eco habitat systems around the globe need to be rebuilt and re-wilded, from a deep ecology perspective. Not having anything to do with climate change or weather chaos. Simply to restore the chance of complex life form of surviving.
I will say that it’s number two priority after a genuine effort to reverse our self inflicted climate catastrophe. Please don’t correlate to two. They are completely separate issues other than they both threaten existence of many lifeforms. The climate situation threatens existence of all complex multi celled organisms. Don’t get yourself. We could easily become Venus or Mars, depending on how things shake out. Most likely a larger less dense atmosphere of Venus.
Actually Jason, I am very happy to correct you on your perspective about cooperation between the faiths as that "firewall" doesn't exist on this issue of creation. I was on a Zoom meeting with Interfaith Power & Light this morning addressing local TX energy issues. We work with GreenFaith as well. ALL of our orgs. are multi-faith. LSM is open to all as long as they believe a higher power put all in motion so we have 2 members in TX who just say they are "spiritual" and do not attend any church or identify with a denomination. Our LSM TX chapter has 7 leadership positions and 2 are held by non-Catholics. Although the US Catholic church has not embraced what we call Care for Creation as aggressively as the other pro-life issue, the rest of the world Catholics have embraced it and are also working with other faiths for our "common home". You are correct, this is NOT "policy" nor "liberal"; it is a moral issue that many faiths (more so outside the US) are addressing. If you have 90 minutes to spare, watch THE LETTER (free on YouTube); the only documentary ever created at the request of the Vatican. Not one protagonist is Catholic but Hindu, Muslim, indigenous belief and agnostic and Pope Francis sat with all of them to listen to their first hand experience with the climate crisis. As an environmentalist since early childhood, I recognized long ago that to change how we treat our Mother Earth was going to require a true change in heart (not mind) for many people because altruistic behavior based on logic and reason rarely wins out in America. May this info. provide you with more hope.
"but we don’t want to change how we live, other than to allow the billions of impoverished people to live comfortable middle-class lives. We should be devoting our best minds, and our own quiet souls, to figuring out how to live with less." This passage echos the sentiments of Pope Francis in the encyclical, Laudato Si': Care for Our Common Home where he expresses that less is more and consumerism is not a symptom of happiness.
“At a large scale, dams can do for civilization what nature (even the miraculous beavers) cannot, storing vast quantities of water which can be transferred as needed to cities and agricultural areas hundreds of miles away.”
It’s my understanding this assumed benefit has always had limitations: namely, surface evaporation on large reservoirs. Hotter global temperatures increase evaporation. Coloradoriverscience.org has info specific to the issue with Colorado river dams (Glen Canyon, Hoover).
Thanks for this interesting post.
Really interesting essay, Jason. I was shocked to learn that only 3% of U.S. dams generate electricity. Was that number far higher a century ago? I viewed (perhaps incorrectly) U.S. dams as a major factor in becoming an industrial juggernaut during the 20th century.
We all argue and remonstrate finding many approaches to restoring the earth, many pathways to ecotopia. And when we take actions it's all for the good, for the health of the planet. What more can we do? we ask. We are faced with multiple symptoms of our dying earth and we apply remedies to the symptoms as we rapidly as we discern them. Yet we have a seeming blind spot. We don't want to see that it is we who are the root source of all the myriad symptoms- we and our activities. We don't want to see that directly because to do so requires us to address the problem directly. Jason, Hudson, there are just too many of us, far too many. The world would be better off without so many of us. How many? A very great number.
But we won't do that will we? We won't voluntarily reduce our population below 500 million total spread across the surface of the world. And even if we did it would be too late. Forces have been set in motion that will take hundreds of years to play themselves out. All we can do is simultaneously address as many of the symptoms as we can- rather like an attacker trying to heal the victim he savagely attacked.
Concerning the latter, you have to start with the trees.