Thoughts on Ecology

We’ve been thinking a lot here at MTSP about Ecological Awareness – specifically about Life Cycle Assessment and transparency as a manifestation of the system – our system or production – becoming aware of itself: developing its industrial consciousness. There’s a neat article we linked to some days back more or less about this idea from a Buddhist perspective.

I have a few questions. First – what do we think we are? In environmental discussion there’s an assumed, sublingual distinction made between the environment and humans – both as beings and in terms of the things we make and use.

There’s this great line from Michael Lerner at the end of ‘Environmental Health, Human Healing’, where he’s talking about how environmentalists mention we need to save the world – he says “The Earth doesn’t need saving – we do.” I think this gets at the issue quite well – we tend to anthropomorphize things far outside of their real existence. To know the true reality of anything it is necessary to be that thing – all we know is ourselves. We are conscious of this knowing to varying degrees at various times, but the knowing never changes.

Max Plank wrote all about the issues with this anthro-centric tendency a century ago. This tendency seems to emerge because life as experience is radically subjective – and so we see the polar bear is sad, and the Earth is sick. Maybe. Maybe not. Disney had a lot to do with this too, in my opinion.

Ok. My friend was just up in Juneau doing beaver-control at Glacier National Park and the salmon were running. He was watching grizzly bears fishing, and said they would pick up the female salmon, bite into them and eat the eggs, then eat the brain, and then throw the fish away. This is while other bears are staving in BC.

Save the wasteful bears! Nature is us, and we are it.

If we’re part of nature – (everything that lives and all of the things those things live on – though we usually picture fields of grass, as though grass were the big, fresh deal) – our actions are part of nature. It’s not like Chevron and Target Superstores are organic life forms, but they are ‘naturally occurring’. Or are they divine? Supernatural? They’re at least as natural as wasteful bears. To think there is an earth without everything we’ve ever done is a little out there.

Titch Nat Hann, quoting Wittgenstein wrote: “There’s no president without the country”. There’s likewise no environment without an us. If a Walmart appears in the forest, and there’s no one there to shop it, does it make a profit? No! The answer is no, it doesn’t.

What am I getting at? If we’re part of nature – if experience is subjective – if Disney was started by human beings – as we come to be more aware of what we do, and more careful that what we do not kill or hurt anyone else, and not make the polar bears sad, we help only ourselves. But that’s great, because we are us, after all.

Here’s to mindfulness!

I’ve heard this example: When we’re young, we’re told and shown that it’s bad to cross the street without looking. So we don’t do it. Our mom gets mad. So we don’t. As we grow up we realize it’s not bad but we still look, to avoid getting squished. Because who wants to get squished? No one!

See the same thing with the environmental movement, perhaps. All this doom and gloom about losing our planet – mom’s mad! She’s not going to take your Target Superstores anymore! Wise up, or she’ll kick you ass! As we get older we perhaps realize that this may not be true. Maybe we just don’t want to get squished. One can have compassion for this viewpoint. Still, the old caveat remains: beware a lack of humor – it always masks some attempt at controlling others.

This is why the truly inspiring rationality and equanimity of Greg Norris is so needed right now: (Audio Clip!). You can’t retroactively punish ‘corporations’ or ‘consumers’ for doing what they’ve ‘done’ to the planet. The workable viewpoint is let’s try to not get squished. Supporting solutions, instead of attacking problems. Does the heart good.

- Max