In one of my recent posts, I discussed the notion of post-naturalism, the idea that "nature" is not inherently valuable for its own sake but rather for the value it provides humanity, be it for economic reasons or mere aesthetic pleasure. I personally think that this philosophy is not objectively "better" than naturalism, but it does leave open an interesting question: what to do with species that don't have any such value?
A classic case in point is the guinea worm of Africa. The guinea worm is a parasite that breeds exclusively in the bodies of humans, which it enters by being ingested along with water as a larva. The adult female guinea worm can grow up to thirty inches long, and can lay thousands of eggs. When she is ready to do so, she emerges from her host and releases them into the nearest source of fresh water. Infection with a guinea worm is rarely directly fatal, but it is extremely painful and can cause malnourishment and starvation. In the 1980s, former US president Jimmy Carter began a program to eradicate the guinea worm completely, and as of 2016 the species is believed to be near extinction.
But is this really a good thing? After all, the guinea worm is an animal that is being driven to extinction by humanity-- under the Endangered Species Act, it would seem logical to have it declared a threatened species and protected as such.
The problem with this, of course, is that the guinea worm, and other parasites like it, have no alternate hosts. They cannot live as they are and do otherwise. This is one of the biggest dilemmas of the environmental movement--where does one draw the line when protecting biodiversity. If one decides that a species deserves to be driven extinct simply because it is a "pest" with no redeeming value to humanity, this reopens some old wounds that the Endangered Species Act was designed to heal. Many now-extinct animals, like the thylacine (a wolflike marsupial from Tasmania), were killed off simply because they were seen as useless pests. Today, we consider them tragic losses.
How is the guinea worm any different?
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Friday, April 22, 2016
Earth Day: A Retrospective
Today is April 22nd--in other words, Earth Day, a day that was dedicated in 1970 to environmentalism. Over time, the environmental movement has expanded and shifted in scope, but Earth Day has always been something of an iconic moment for it. What most of us seldom think about, even as we buy t-shirs, mugs, bumper stickers, and other products with tacky eco-friendly slogans, is where this tradition of dedicating one day a year to environmentalism came from.
Earth day was the brainchild of Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson. Nelson was a proud supporter of the environmental movement, which was in its infancy at the time, and suggested having a day when environmentalists like himself could gather and conduct what he called "teach-ins"--that is, events when they could educate the public about conservation.
1970 also saw the passing of major amendments to the Clean Air Act and the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, ushering in what I often call the "fad years" of environmentalism: the environmentalist frenzy of the 1970s. Similarly, Earth Day's 20th anniversary in 1990 was also marked by a major increase in environmental sentiment.
But has the establishment of Earth Day actually affected the protection of the world's ecosystems in the grand scheme of things? That's a complicated question. There's no denying that the first Earth Day in 1970 definitely increased environmental awareness; the fact that it happened during the hippie movement and the protests against the Vietnam War probably helped as well. The concept of ecology--the study of organisms and inorganic factors in an environment and how they affected one another--also became mainstream around this time. The first Earth Day played a significant role in making these things known to the world. But as time went on, Earth Day itself seemed to decline in importance. Today, it is seen more an a marketing opportunity than anything else, a chance for corporations to show off how "eco-friendly" they are.
The effects of the original 1970 Earth Day, however, are still being felt, and if anything that is what we should be celebrating.
Earth day was the brainchild of Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson. Nelson was a proud supporter of the environmental movement, which was in its infancy at the time, and suggested having a day when environmentalists like himself could gather and conduct what he called "teach-ins"--that is, events when they could educate the public about conservation.
1970 also saw the passing of major amendments to the Clean Air Act and the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency, ushering in what I often call the "fad years" of environmentalism: the environmentalist frenzy of the 1970s. Similarly, Earth Day's 20th anniversary in 1990 was also marked by a major increase in environmental sentiment.
But has the establishment of Earth Day actually affected the protection of the world's ecosystems in the grand scheme of things? That's a complicated question. There's no denying that the first Earth Day in 1970 definitely increased environmental awareness; the fact that it happened during the hippie movement and the protests against the Vietnam War probably helped as well. The concept of ecology--the study of organisms and inorganic factors in an environment and how they affected one another--also became mainstream around this time. The first Earth Day played a significant role in making these things known to the world. But as time went on, Earth Day itself seemed to decline in importance. Today, it is seen more an a marketing opportunity than anything else, a chance for corporations to show off how "eco-friendly" they are.
The effects of the original 1970 Earth Day, however, are still being felt, and if anything that is what we should be celebrating.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Eco-tainment #11: Under the Dome
I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Eco-tainment review series is almost over. After I finish 15 reviews of environmental-themed works of fiction, I'm going to conclude it with a two-part blog essay on what themes we can generalize about how environmentalism tends to be portrayed by writers, and what direction they should take in the future to communicate their message better. For the moment, though, here is the 11th review in the series.
This one is a rather odd nomination--Stephen King's novel Under the Dome. The premise is simple--a mysterious dome seals the town of Chester's Mill, Maine off from its surroundings and traps the citizens inside. A power struggle soon erupts, with Jim Rennie, a used-car salesman, becoming the de-facto leader. Rennie is portrayed as a stereotypical greedy, scheming, sexist, and racist Republican whose sole motivator is obtaining power. In fact, he could easily be compared to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, were it not for the fact that the book was published in 2009.
A far more serious concern, however, is the pollution from the town, which condenses under the dome and causes the air within it to become toxic. The dome fills with smog and poisonous gas, and the people trapped underneath choke to death in the polluted air. By the time the dome is destroyed at the end of the story, only a few dozen of the thousands of people in Chester's Mill are still alive.
Toward the end of the story, the nature of the dome is revealed--it is the creation of aliens who are using it to trap humans under "glass" and watch how we act, much as a human child might do with insects.
The environmental message in Under the Dome is rather blatant, especially for a work by Stephen King, and as a villain Jim Rennie is fairly two-dimensional and without redeeming aspects. Many of the protagonists are similar, being little more than mouthpieces for left-leaning political statements. None of this is necessarily bad per se, but it does make the story significantly more predictable than it might otherwise be. I have great respect for Stephen King as a writer, and while from a purely literary standpoint I enjoyed Under the Dome, from an environmental perspective it was rather clumsy with its message.
Under the Dome is, as usual for Stephen King's work, an excellent piece of writing, but it falls victim to overused stereotypes and cliches when it tries to deliver its environmental message.
This one is a rather odd nomination--Stephen King's novel Under the Dome. The premise is simple--a mysterious dome seals the town of Chester's Mill, Maine off from its surroundings and traps the citizens inside. A power struggle soon erupts, with Jim Rennie, a used-car salesman, becoming the de-facto leader. Rennie is portrayed as a stereotypical greedy, scheming, sexist, and racist Republican whose sole motivator is obtaining power. In fact, he could easily be compared to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, were it not for the fact that the book was published in 2009.
A far more serious concern, however, is the pollution from the town, which condenses under the dome and causes the air within it to become toxic. The dome fills with smog and poisonous gas, and the people trapped underneath choke to death in the polluted air. By the time the dome is destroyed at the end of the story, only a few dozen of the thousands of people in Chester's Mill are still alive.
Toward the end of the story, the nature of the dome is revealed--it is the creation of aliens who are using it to trap humans under "glass" and watch how we act, much as a human child might do with insects.
The environmental message in Under the Dome is rather blatant, especially for a work by Stephen King, and as a villain Jim Rennie is fairly two-dimensional and without redeeming aspects. Many of the protagonists are similar, being little more than mouthpieces for left-leaning political statements. None of this is necessarily bad per se, but it does make the story significantly more predictable than it might otherwise be. I have great respect for Stephen King as a writer, and while from a purely literary standpoint I enjoyed Under the Dome, from an environmental perspective it was rather clumsy with its message.
Under the Dome is, as usual for Stephen King's work, an excellent piece of writing, but it falls victim to overused stereotypes and cliches when it tries to deliver its environmental message.
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Pondering Post-naturalism
It goes without saying that I like technology. Without it, how could I write this blog? But there's an important question that I--and every environmentalist--have to think about when it comes to technology. The central premise of environmentalism, after all, is preserving organisms and ecosystems in as close to an undamaged state as possible. For most people, this means doing away with the destructive influence of human technology. This belief--the belief that nature is best left alone and attempts to alter it are always destructive--is called naturalism.
On the other side of the spectrum you get the idea or belief that intelligent life forms are the central force in the universe and have a moral status or value higher than that of all other organisms. This is called post-naturalism. From a post-naturalist perspective, the view of nature as inherently valuable for its own sake is flawed, and it is acceptable to change nature if it suits humanity's greater needs.
Which of these views is the "right" one? From a purely ecological perspective, the answer would appear to be the naturalist one--it gives us an objective view of the world and all of the ecosystems it contains. But rejecting something simply because it is not "natural" has its pitfalls. For example, many otherwise reasonable environmentalists rail against the proliferation of genetically modified vegetables, for no other reason than that they are "not what nature intended." While it is true that genetic engineering is a field that is not well understood, there is no good reason to shun it like that. The same is true, as I mentioned in a previous post, of nuclear power. It seems that many people who care about nature really only care about looking natural. This phenomenon-- the dark side of naturalism--has been termed "nature woo" by some writers.
On the other hand, the worldview espoused by post-naturalism is not without its own issues. Chief among these is the fact that it emphasizes the idea of humanity having a higher moral ground than all other species. Taking this to its logical conclusion, then, would mean that preserving nature for its own sake is not merely unnecessary but inadvisable.
In an ideal world, the two sides would be able to reach some form of compromise. Naturalists would be able to accept that in many cases human technology is the solution they are looking for. Likewise, post-naturalists would be able to acknowledge that simply because something is not immediately useful, it doesn't necessarily lack value.
Genetically-engineered crops are a source of contention between those who think that humans should not tamper with nature and those who think we have a right to. However, this need not be the case.
On the other side of the spectrum you get the idea or belief that intelligent life forms are the central force in the universe and have a moral status or value higher than that of all other organisms. This is called post-naturalism. From a post-naturalist perspective, the view of nature as inherently valuable for its own sake is flawed, and it is acceptable to change nature if it suits humanity's greater needs.
Which of these views is the "right" one? From a purely ecological perspective, the answer would appear to be the naturalist one--it gives us an objective view of the world and all of the ecosystems it contains. But rejecting something simply because it is not "natural" has its pitfalls. For example, many otherwise reasonable environmentalists rail against the proliferation of genetically modified vegetables, for no other reason than that they are "not what nature intended." While it is true that genetic engineering is a field that is not well understood, there is no good reason to shun it like that. The same is true, as I mentioned in a previous post, of nuclear power. It seems that many people who care about nature really only care about looking natural. This phenomenon-- the dark side of naturalism--has been termed "nature woo" by some writers.
On the other hand, the worldview espoused by post-naturalism is not without its own issues. Chief among these is the fact that it emphasizes the idea of humanity having a higher moral ground than all other species. Taking this to its logical conclusion, then, would mean that preserving nature for its own sake is not merely unnecessary but inadvisable.
In an ideal world, the two sides would be able to reach some form of compromise. Naturalists would be able to accept that in many cases human technology is the solution they are looking for. Likewise, post-naturalists would be able to acknowledge that simply because something is not immediately useful, it doesn't necessarily lack value.
Genetically-engineered crops are a source of contention between those who think that humans should not tamper with nature and those who think we have a right to. However, this need not be the case.
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