Thursday, 3 June 2010
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Solastalgia, Soliphilia, Eutierria and Art.
Many traditional cultures and their indigenous languages have words for home-heart-environment relationships, however, it is interesting to note that modern English has very few. I created the concept of ‘solastalgia’ to fill this void and to give expression in the English language to a fundamentally important relationship between people, communities and their home environment. I also feel that we need many more new concepts that recapture the closeness that human animals have with their support environment or habitat. The realm of the ‘psychoterratic’ or positive and negative relationships between human mental health (psyche) and the earth (terra) has to be re-created in the twenty first century.
The solace and comfort gained from a positive and creative relationship to home is conducive to physical and mental health. When the human-nature relationship is spontaneous and mutually enriching (symbiotic) we experience a state of ‘eutierria’ which I define as a positive feeling of oneness with the earth and its life forces (eu=good, tierra= earth, ia= suffix for member of a group of {positive psychoterratic} conditions). By contrast, when the home environment is changed in ways that take solace away and create feelings of distress, the result can be a breakdown in physical and mental health. Solastalgia is the melancholia or homesickness you have when you remain locked in your home environment while all around you, your home environment is being desolated in ways that you cannot control. The existential and emplaced feelings of desolation and loss of solace are reinforced by powerlessness.
Transformation at small scales of human habitation can be liberating for some but a source of melancholia for others. Place-based repair of damaged landscapes, relocation and/or travel were options for negating solastalgia at a time when the scale and pace of life was small and slow. However, when transformative forces begin to undermine the foundations of sustainability for the Whole Earth, there is potential for solastalgia to become a globally significant source of melancholia and distress. We are now living within these global transformative times as we face up to the universal loss of ecosystem health in the form of toxic pollution and a warming climate with attendant climate chaos. Our home, the Earth, is now under siege from one species and its power and we are beginning to suffer self-imposed solastalgia.
Creative writers and artists have always intuited ‘solastalgia’ in varying degrees. Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ was painted in response to the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. The blood red sky was a product of volcanic dust ejected into the global atmosphere, but Munch produced an archetypal, ecoapocalyptic response in the famous painting. A lesser degree of existential distress at environmental disturbance can also be found in the work of surrealists such as Salvador Dali and his response to the desolation of mind and landscape as a consequence of transformative powers such as war. Romantic and Nature poets such as Wordsworth have also contributed to the theme of the gradual loss of a loved home environment. Contemporary environmental art portrays the loss of species and ecosystems as something more than loss of biodiversity ... it also depicts the loss of something vital within us ... the negation of the very possibility of eutierria.
The challenge of recognising and responding to solastalgia is now more important than ever. Yes, small scale, local damage is still happening to loved home environments as globalisation homogenises all before its bulldozers, cookie-cutter buildings and neon signifiers of McLandscape. Good people lament the loss of their endemic landscapes as a universally branded global culture obliterates the distinctive and the unique. Urban solastalgia is the distress caused by unwelcome changes to the physical appearance of local and city landscapes, including sensescapes and streetscapes (it is no wonder the graffiti artists want to tag every surface with a reasserted local identity). Rural and regional solastalgia is produced under the impact of mining and agribusiness as they bring unwelcome homogeneity on a huge scale. Humans now possess the power to rapidly change home environments with powerful transformative technologies.
As bad as local and regional neg-transformation is, it is the big picture, the Earth, which is now a home under assault. That Munch feeling is reasserting itself as the planet warms to a Krakatoa-like conclusion. In a greenhouse that is getting hotter, the cryosphere weeps into the ocean and we all get that sinking feeling. As the climate gets hotter, more hostile and unpredictable ... we seek solace wherever it is offered. Even virtual worlds depicted in films like Avatar seem better than the one we are creating for ourselves here on earth. We have virtual solastalgia within a film for a world that delivers moments of eutierria but is under assault from the earth miners. We feel elation when the Na'vi win back their planet with the help of human eco-warriors. It would be good if such eutierria could prevail here on the real earth as bad climate change is reversed and genuine moves are made to be sustainable with clean, safe renewable energy and resources. For this to happen, a new social movement based on what I call ‘soliphilia’ will be needed. Soliphilia is the political affiliation or solidarity needed between us all to be responsible for a place, bioregion, planet and the unity of interrelated interests within it. Solastalgia will be overcome only when sufficient of us act in solidarity to defeat the forces of desolation. A cultural and political movement based on soliphilia is now needed to protect the possibility of that wonderful psychological state I call 'eutierria' being experienced by future generations.
Artists already know this.
The solace and comfort gained from a positive and creative relationship to home is conducive to physical and mental health. When the human-nature relationship is spontaneous and mutually enriching (symbiotic) we experience a state of ‘eutierria’ which I define as a positive feeling of oneness with the earth and its life forces (eu=good, tierra= earth, ia= suffix for member of a group of {positive psychoterratic} conditions). By contrast, when the home environment is changed in ways that take solace away and create feelings of distress, the result can be a breakdown in physical and mental health. Solastalgia is the melancholia or homesickness you have when you remain locked in your home environment while all around you, your home environment is being desolated in ways that you cannot control. The existential and emplaced feelings of desolation and loss of solace are reinforced by powerlessness.
Transformation at small scales of human habitation can be liberating for some but a source of melancholia for others. Place-based repair of damaged landscapes, relocation and/or travel were options for negating solastalgia at a time when the scale and pace of life was small and slow. However, when transformative forces begin to undermine the foundations of sustainability for the Whole Earth, there is potential for solastalgia to become a globally significant source of melancholia and distress. We are now living within these global transformative times as we face up to the universal loss of ecosystem health in the form of toxic pollution and a warming climate with attendant climate chaos. Our home, the Earth, is now under siege from one species and its power and we are beginning to suffer self-imposed solastalgia.
Creative writers and artists have always intuited ‘solastalgia’ in varying degrees. Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ was painted in response to the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. The blood red sky was a product of volcanic dust ejected into the global atmosphere, but Munch produced an archetypal, ecoapocalyptic response in the famous painting. A lesser degree of existential distress at environmental disturbance can also be found in the work of surrealists such as Salvador Dali and his response to the desolation of mind and landscape as a consequence of transformative powers such as war. Romantic and Nature poets such as Wordsworth have also contributed to the theme of the gradual loss of a loved home environment. Contemporary environmental art portrays the loss of species and ecosystems as something more than loss of biodiversity ... it also depicts the loss of something vital within us ... the negation of the very possibility of eutierria.
The challenge of recognising and responding to solastalgia is now more important than ever. Yes, small scale, local damage is still happening to loved home environments as globalisation homogenises all before its bulldozers, cookie-cutter buildings and neon signifiers of McLandscape. Good people lament the loss of their endemic landscapes as a universally branded global culture obliterates the distinctive and the unique. Urban solastalgia is the distress caused by unwelcome changes to the physical appearance of local and city landscapes, including sensescapes and streetscapes (it is no wonder the graffiti artists want to tag every surface with a reasserted local identity). Rural and regional solastalgia is produced under the impact of mining and agribusiness as they bring unwelcome homogeneity on a huge scale. Humans now possess the power to rapidly change home environments with powerful transformative technologies.
As bad as local and regional neg-transformation is, it is the big picture, the Earth, which is now a home under assault. That Munch feeling is reasserting itself as the planet warms to a Krakatoa-like conclusion. In a greenhouse that is getting hotter, the cryosphere weeps into the ocean and we all get that sinking feeling. As the climate gets hotter, more hostile and unpredictable ... we seek solace wherever it is offered. Even virtual worlds depicted in films like Avatar seem better than the one we are creating for ourselves here on earth. We have virtual solastalgia within a film for a world that delivers moments of eutierria but is under assault from the earth miners. We feel elation when the Na'vi win back their planet with the help of human eco-warriors. It would be good if such eutierria could prevail here on the real earth as bad climate change is reversed and genuine moves are made to be sustainable with clean, safe renewable energy and resources. For this to happen, a new social movement based on what I call ‘soliphilia’ will be needed. Soliphilia is the political affiliation or solidarity needed between us all to be responsible for a place, bioregion, planet and the unity of interrelated interests within it. Solastalgia will be overcome only when sufficient of us act in solidarity to defeat the forces of desolation. A cultural and political movement based on soliphilia is now needed to protect the possibility of that wonderful psychological state I call 'eutierria' being experienced by future generations.
Artists already know this.
Friday, 12 March 2010
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Ecoparalysis
The inability to meaningfully respond to the climatic and ecological challenges that face us is not always an expression of apathy. The intractable nature of the problems, the fact that they are tied to the very foundations of our present economy generates dilemmas not seen before in human history. People appear apathetic and disengaged with reality as it unfolds, but their detachment might be ecoparalysis rather than apathy or avoidance.
As we learn more about our carbon footprint it seems that every option to retain life as usual ends in contradiction. Even the idea that we save energy and hence carbon emissions by doing business and personal communication electronically runs into the uncomfortable truth that the annual amount of energy required to run the world-wide-web is roughly the equivalent to the annual energy use and carbon emissions of global air traffic. Not many people in rich, technologically sophisticated parts of the world are prepared to embrace the full implications of a severely carbon constrained world. While many now clearly see the extent and nature of the problem, future negative events, even those that will impact on their own children, are insufficient to change behaviour as usual. I suggest that such gaps between knowledge, values and behaviour are now sources of ecoanxiety and causes of ecoparalysis worldwide.
[concept first presented at the Cultures of Sustainability Conference RMIT 2008]
As we learn more about our carbon footprint it seems that every option to retain life as usual ends in contradiction. Even the idea that we save energy and hence carbon emissions by doing business and personal communication electronically runs into the uncomfortable truth that the annual amount of energy required to run the world-wide-web is roughly the equivalent to the annual energy use and carbon emissions of global air traffic. Not many people in rich, technologically sophisticated parts of the world are prepared to embrace the full implications of a severely carbon constrained world. While many now clearly see the extent and nature of the problem, future negative events, even those that will impact on their own children, are insufficient to change behaviour as usual. I suggest that such gaps between knowledge, values and behaviour are now sources of ecoanxiety and causes of ecoparalysis worldwide.
[concept first presented at the Cultures of Sustainability Conference RMIT 2008]
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Avatar and Virtual Solastalgia
As the real world is being desolated (climate change, ecosystem distress etc etc), real people experience solastalgia. When, in Avatar, they can 'see' an alternative world, which is beautiful, diverse and complex, one that meets their aesthetic, spiritual and ethical needs, they want to live within it. During the movie, they experience a virtual solastalgia as they become virtual participants in the attempted destruction and desolation of the Na'vi and other life forms in this pristine environment ... all for the sake of a meaningless materialism. The movie becomes, for such people, an existential experience of negative environmental change (defined as solastalgia). At the conclusion of the movie when they must accept that such a world is virtual only, they experience a virtual nostalgia for it and become depressed.
The irony of humans finally seeing the value of life, different ways of being 'human', non-human beings and living systems via a movie about a virtual world and its destruction is not lost on me. That a brilliant movie with all of its digital special effects can be more powerful as a change agent than the environmental writers and commentators of the world says something important about environmental education in critically important domains such as global warming, environmental and animal ethics, and habitat destruction.
The irony of humans finally seeing the value of life, different ways of being 'human', non-human beings and living systems via a movie about a virtual world and its destruction is not lost on me. That a brilliant movie with all of its digital special effects can be more powerful as a change agent than the environmental writers and commentators of the world says something important about environmental education in critically important domains such as global warming, environmental and animal ethics, and habitat destruction.
Friday, 18 December 2009
Innocide and Earthlings
The Ongoing Apology to Young and Future Earthlings
From Glenn Albrecht, Earth Citizen, 17 Wanliss Street, Jarrahdale, Western Australia.
My fellow Earthlings,
We have reached a point where we must acknowledge the severe injustice that is being perpetrated on the lives of current and future beings. We must say to the recently conceived, newborns, infants, young children, youth, young adults and all future generations on Earth, that we are sorry your future is being put at risk by dangerous climate change. In addition, to those in low-lying countries and especially the poor who cannot possibly adapt to consequences of a warming world ... we say sorry.
The callous abuse and mistreatment of the Earth and its climate is a source of deep shame. In particular we need to offer you, the innocent and non-consenting parties to this desolation, a profound and deep-felt apology for failing to implement binding targets for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions that would deliver stabilisation of the earth’s climate.
We must apologise in advance for the massive hardship that will occur to every facet of life as the climate gets hotter; disease, heat stress, drought and fire frequency increase, ecosystems and agriculture collapse, sea level rises and powerful storms wipe out our communities.
To all human beings who will be disadvantaged and who will have their life potential cut short by climate chaos … we say sorry. To all non-human beings who will face extinction from enormous impacts to their habitats, we say sorry.
To avoid a warming and unpredictable climate you, the occupants of the future, need right now to be represented by well informed people with wisdom and ethical courage. Instead you have political and other leaders, who, in their denial or inaction on the reality of a warming world are putting you all at risk. To continue to abuse the earth and knowingly bring suffering to its future inhabitants is an ethical failure of the highest magnitude.
In a slow motion tragedy, the majority of global leaders are risking the future of the Earth for dubious benefits in the here and now. The so-called representatives of the developed countries of Earth must now be seen and judged for what they are … intellectually and ethically bankrupt. For their gross lack of integrity, for putting the poor, children and families last and for not listening to the advice from scientists about the serious risks of a warming world … we say sorry.
The time has come for elders and those in privileged positions to stand up to such selfishness and egocentricity. Fellow inhabitants of the Earth, we must care about the future. We must make a rapid transition to an ecologically sustainable economy, one that is in harmony with our environment and climate. With courage and action we can right a future wrong in the here and now.
From Glenn Albrecht, Earth Citizen, 17 Wanliss Street, Jarrahdale, Western Australia.
My fellow Earthlings,
We have reached a point where we must acknowledge the severe injustice that is being perpetrated on the lives of current and future beings. We must say to the recently conceived, newborns, infants, young children, youth, young adults and all future generations on Earth, that we are sorry your future is being put at risk by dangerous climate change. In addition, to those in low-lying countries and especially the poor who cannot possibly adapt to consequences of a warming world ... we say sorry.
The callous abuse and mistreatment of the Earth and its climate is a source of deep shame. In particular we need to offer you, the innocent and non-consenting parties to this desolation, a profound and deep-felt apology for failing to implement binding targets for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions that would deliver stabilisation of the earth’s climate.
We must apologise in advance for the massive hardship that will occur to every facet of life as the climate gets hotter; disease, heat stress, drought and fire frequency increase, ecosystems and agriculture collapse, sea level rises and powerful storms wipe out our communities.
To all human beings who will be disadvantaged and who will have their life potential cut short by climate chaos … we say sorry. To all non-human beings who will face extinction from enormous impacts to their habitats, we say sorry.
To avoid a warming and unpredictable climate you, the occupants of the future, need right now to be represented by well informed people with wisdom and ethical courage. Instead you have political and other leaders, who, in their denial or inaction on the reality of a warming world are putting you all at risk. To continue to abuse the earth and knowingly bring suffering to its future inhabitants is an ethical failure of the highest magnitude.
In a slow motion tragedy, the majority of global leaders are risking the future of the Earth for dubious benefits in the here and now. The so-called representatives of the developed countries of Earth must now be seen and judged for what they are … intellectually and ethically bankrupt. For their gross lack of integrity, for putting the poor, children and families last and for not listening to the advice from scientists about the serious risks of a warming world … we say sorry.
The time has come for elders and those in privileged positions to stand up to such selfishness and egocentricity. Fellow inhabitants of the Earth, we must care about the future. We must make a rapid transition to an ecologically sustainable economy, one that is in harmony with our environment and climate. With courage and action we can right a future wrong in the here and now.
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Soliphilia
Soliphilia: The Antidote to Solastalgia
I have a neologism for you (yes, another one). I have developed the concept of solastalgia to describe the pain or sickness caused by the inability to derive solace from the present state of one’s home environment. It is the lived experience of negatively perceived environmental change to one’s ‘sense of place’ and existential well-being. It is closely linked to feelings of powerlessness and a loss of hope about the future. In summary, it is the melancholia or homesickness experienced while you are still at home and your home environment is being gradually desolated. I have written about solastalgia in relation to large-scale mining, drought and changing climates. There are many posts on this Blog (Healthearth) that give more detail on solastalgia.
I am now working on the positive concept of soliphilia. I define soliphilia as:
the love of and responsibility for a place, bioregion, planet and the unity of interrelated interests within it.
The soli is from solidarity with meanings connected to:
A union of interests, purposes, or sympathies among members of a group; fellowship of responsibilities and interests.
[French solidarité, from solidaire, interdependent, from Old French, in common, from Latin solidus, solid, whole.] (http://www.answers.com/topic/solidarity )
I offer this concept as a cultural and political addition to the other ‘philias’ that have been created. E.O Wilson’s biophilia or the love of life is critically important in the context of empathy and engagement with all life. Tuan’s concept of topophilia is a vital part of love of landscape and place and our sense of place. Soliphilia is now added to love of life and place to give us the love of the whole (life + place at all scales) and the solidarity between us that is needed to keep what we all hold in common healthy and strong. Now we have a love of the politics of place where our motivation to defeat solastalgia and other forces that cause sickness and extinction is captured in a new concept. Soliphilia goes beyond left-right politics and provides a universal motivation to achieve sustainability.
I would like your thoughts on this neologism and my reason for creating it.
Yours, in soliphilia, Glenn.
Solastalgia
Soliphilia
See RSA website for more
Friday, 13 February 2009
Fire and the Psyche (written in 2002 in response to massive bushfires in the Sydney and Hunter areas)
Life for both human and non-humans can be put at risk in an instant by wildfire. Wildfire has the potential to kill and maim many hundreds of humans and destroy their property (Ash Wednesday, Black Friday). The destruction of the natural environment and its animals is also devastating, despite claims that the Australian bush is “fire tolerant”. With the fire season already upon us, it crucial that we re-assess our views and values about the relationship between humans and the land in Australia. I shall describe four positions that try to cover the spectrum of possible views.
Alienation and Arson
The first position is full alienation from our own country. As a colonising culture we come to this continent and bring with us our European conceptual baggage which includes a belief in the inferiority of all things indigenous (including the indigenous people) and the inherent superiority of all things European. Symptoms of alienation gone crazy include “mad palm”, “mad lawn” and “mad paver” diseases. We have created a culture determined to supplant the endemic with the exotic irrespective of the environmental costs. Where the endemic situation threatens the colonist, the response is always extermination of the native. The coloniser mentality is inclined to remove the threat and replace it with certainty and safety. Along with the forests go the Thylacines and Koalas, while exotic palms, pools, pussy cats, pooches and Porsches move in. Unfortunately, so too do the psychopath pyromaniacs who like nothing better than to light fires and watch the carnage. We see our native vegetation as a threat and perceive it as ‘fuel’ for fire. The full alienation results in perpetual burning, concrete and asphalt with no ‘natural’ threats or danger and nothing distinctively Australian left in the landscape.
Design Against Nature
A second option is to design urban structures so as to make them immune from the unwanted features of the bush such as poisonous snakes, quolls, ticks, leeches, spiders and fire. We live close to the bush, but protect ourselves from those aspects of biodiversity and ecosystem processes that are inconsistent with our lifestyle choices and personal safety.
We can work harder to make our dwellings fire resistant or even fire proof. We design to live with fire and keep the bushland as well. However, despite saving human property and lives, the ‘fire bunker’ with its passive (materials) and active (sprinklers) systems does not address the fundamental issue of alienation from the bush. The more we think that we can defeat fire, the more bushland will be infiltrated by urbanisation. Along with the fire-proof urban front comes the armada of insults to the bush outlined above and out go the endemic ‘undesirables’. In defeating fire we defeat the bush.
Phased Transition to ‘the Bush’
A third position is to think about overcoming the alienation with a phased transition from city to bush. In this option, we concede that humans in urban systems have needs that are inconsistent with the presence of unmanaged ecosystems and wild creatures. At the core of city/suburbia is a ‘humans only’ zone where all undesirables (including fruit bats) are excluded. The only animals permitted to dwell within are those that are quasi-human such as dogs and cats that are companion animals for humans. The landscape around such a core is also artificial and celebrates its triumph over the endemic in the form of concrete, pavers, asphalt, manicured lawns, resort style palms and exotic trees.
On the fringes of such an artefact there are highly managed corridors of multiple use park-like reserves where conventional houses sit safely in mowed and maintained transition zones before the real bush. Some undesirables will occasionally slither down the corridor but a four-by-two or a professional pest exterminator easily deals with them. Property damage from fire is virtually non-existent as there is no dense bushland next to housing. The corridors lead to tracts of ‘wilderness’ where no human property or life is at direct risk from fire or pests. Bush fire control is then the responsibility of organisations such as NPWS and its goal is to stop the destruction of our national parks and their biodiversity. The majority of the people at the core of this system remain deeply alienated from endemic Australia, however, those at the periphery get glimpses of the real thing. Those in power sit in the very centre of the core and turn up the air conditioning when the heat is on.
Living Within Nature
A fourth option suggests that a non-alienated way of life might be possible for Australians if the city/urban environment is re-constructed so as to maximise the possibility of an endemic sense of place. Such reconstruction entails the systematic removal of exotics and their replacement with native vegetation and native fauna. From gardens to streetscapes to urban parks, the idea is to always promote the native and to expunge the exotic. Implications here include the complete banning of free-range companion animals. Rather than fence in the natives (the failed Earth Sanctuary idea) we fence in the pooches and pussies so that they constitute no threat to the natives.
For example, we can learn to live with free ranging Koalas, Possums and Bandicoots in our gardens and design our dwellings/gardens to fit with their needs. Such a mentality of ‘inclusion’ also requires a degree of coexistence with the undesirables (spiders, snakes and carnivores) as they too are integral parts of endemic ecosystems and their flora and fauna. Fire too is a normal part of the system and can be used, much as it was by Aboriginal people, to actively manage the environment. Creative use of fire to maintain habitat for native plants and animals and reduce the threat of wildfire for all living things could be considered to be an art as well as a science. However, the reality of fire in a dry landscape means that wildfire will still occur and that sometimes it will kill and maim living things.
Fire and the Psyche
We accept with resignation the death of about 2,000 and the serious injury of 30,000 people a year on our national road system. Yet the death of even one person by bush fire seems to strike at the heart of the Australian psyche. I wonder why such a contrast in our perception of death and injury should prevail. It is possible that our alienation from the land is so profound that we cannot accept that it might be opposing our presence at times.
A reassessment of where and how we are living might be a more appropriate response than calling Fat Elvis. Consideration of the ‘phased transition’ and ‘living within nature’ might help us come to appreciate the privilege of living within the beauty and danger of the Australian landscape. With climate change and more warming inevitable now, we are all going to have to live with fire.
Alienation and Arson
The first position is full alienation from our own country. As a colonising culture we come to this continent and bring with us our European conceptual baggage which includes a belief in the inferiority of all things indigenous (including the indigenous people) and the inherent superiority of all things European. Symptoms of alienation gone crazy include “mad palm”, “mad lawn” and “mad paver” diseases. We have created a culture determined to supplant the endemic with the exotic irrespective of the environmental costs. Where the endemic situation threatens the colonist, the response is always extermination of the native. The coloniser mentality is inclined to remove the threat and replace it with certainty and safety. Along with the forests go the Thylacines and Koalas, while exotic palms, pools, pussy cats, pooches and Porsches move in. Unfortunately, so too do the psychopath pyromaniacs who like nothing better than to light fires and watch the carnage. We see our native vegetation as a threat and perceive it as ‘fuel’ for fire. The full alienation results in perpetual burning, concrete and asphalt with no ‘natural’ threats or danger and nothing distinctively Australian left in the landscape.
Design Against Nature
A second option is to design urban structures so as to make them immune from the unwanted features of the bush such as poisonous snakes, quolls, ticks, leeches, spiders and fire. We live close to the bush, but protect ourselves from those aspects of biodiversity and ecosystem processes that are inconsistent with our lifestyle choices and personal safety.
We can work harder to make our dwellings fire resistant or even fire proof. We design to live with fire and keep the bushland as well. However, despite saving human property and lives, the ‘fire bunker’ with its passive (materials) and active (sprinklers) systems does not address the fundamental issue of alienation from the bush. The more we think that we can defeat fire, the more bushland will be infiltrated by urbanisation. Along with the fire-proof urban front comes the armada of insults to the bush outlined above and out go the endemic ‘undesirables’. In defeating fire we defeat the bush.
Phased Transition to ‘the Bush’
A third position is to think about overcoming the alienation with a phased transition from city to bush. In this option, we concede that humans in urban systems have needs that are inconsistent with the presence of unmanaged ecosystems and wild creatures. At the core of city/suburbia is a ‘humans only’ zone where all undesirables (including fruit bats) are excluded. The only animals permitted to dwell within are those that are quasi-human such as dogs and cats that are companion animals for humans. The landscape around such a core is also artificial and celebrates its triumph over the endemic in the form of concrete, pavers, asphalt, manicured lawns, resort style palms and exotic trees.
On the fringes of such an artefact there are highly managed corridors of multiple use park-like reserves where conventional houses sit safely in mowed and maintained transition zones before the real bush. Some undesirables will occasionally slither down the corridor but a four-by-two or a professional pest exterminator easily deals with them. Property damage from fire is virtually non-existent as there is no dense bushland next to housing. The corridors lead to tracts of ‘wilderness’ where no human property or life is at direct risk from fire or pests. Bush fire control is then the responsibility of organisations such as NPWS and its goal is to stop the destruction of our national parks and their biodiversity. The majority of the people at the core of this system remain deeply alienated from endemic Australia, however, those at the periphery get glimpses of the real thing. Those in power sit in the very centre of the core and turn up the air conditioning when the heat is on.
Living Within Nature
A fourth option suggests that a non-alienated way of life might be possible for Australians if the city/urban environment is re-constructed so as to maximise the possibility of an endemic sense of place. Such reconstruction entails the systematic removal of exotics and their replacement with native vegetation and native fauna. From gardens to streetscapes to urban parks, the idea is to always promote the native and to expunge the exotic. Implications here include the complete banning of free-range companion animals. Rather than fence in the natives (the failed Earth Sanctuary idea) we fence in the pooches and pussies so that they constitute no threat to the natives.
For example, we can learn to live with free ranging Koalas, Possums and Bandicoots in our gardens and design our dwellings/gardens to fit with their needs. Such a mentality of ‘inclusion’ also requires a degree of coexistence with the undesirables (spiders, snakes and carnivores) as they too are integral parts of endemic ecosystems and their flora and fauna. Fire too is a normal part of the system and can be used, much as it was by Aboriginal people, to actively manage the environment. Creative use of fire to maintain habitat for native plants and animals and reduce the threat of wildfire for all living things could be considered to be an art as well as a science. However, the reality of fire in a dry landscape means that wildfire will still occur and that sometimes it will kill and maim living things.
Fire and the Psyche
We accept with resignation the death of about 2,000 and the serious injury of 30,000 people a year on our national road system. Yet the death of even one person by bush fire seems to strike at the heart of the Australian psyche. I wonder why such a contrast in our perception of death and injury should prevail. It is possible that our alienation from the land is so profound that we cannot accept that it might be opposing our presence at times.
A reassessment of where and how we are living might be a more appropriate response than calling Fat Elvis. Consideration of the ‘phased transition’ and ‘living within nature’ might help us come to appreciate the privilege of living within the beauty and danger of the Australian landscape. With climate change and more warming inevitable now, we are all going to have to live with fire.
Saturday, 6 September 2008
Against Marohasy on Climate Change
We need to take a good hard look at the type of ‘facts’ Jennifer Marohasy (JM) presents before signing on to her view of the world.
Also, take a good hard look at the above photo supporting the article. It shows a river with many dead trees (river red gums?) on its edges. The caption says “Catastrophe Averted: Salinity levels in the Murray have halved, but you won’t hear that from global warming zealots”. Is Marohasy and her paymaster (The Australian) actually suggesting that the landscape in the photograph shows a system in recovery? It looks more like a catastrophe to me.
See: http://multifaith-newcastle.googlegroups.com/web/Fuzzy%20but%20Cold.pdf?gda=M4z3uEwAAABOQTftyhqJubHCkUbQuhxW5kuQK5Hu7aflLRwsWWPzpuyPDPBtASCBtxegF3TlLelmqPZxlyfqqX6aflnmKKQG_Vpvmo5s1aABVJRO3P3wLQ
For an updated PDF of the material presented below
Also, see my new ethicsclimate Blog (follow link)
Monday, 4 August 2008
Global Solastalgia
People in the front line of environmental change are now telling their stories of distress in the face of unwelcome disturbance to their homes. The Inuit of the Arctic Circle now use the word, “uggianaqtuq” to liken the weather to a once reliable and predictable old friend who is now acting very strangely. Solastalgia is a new concept in the English language I have developed to help explain the distress that comes from the lived experience of such unwelcome environmental change to a person’s sense of place.
As case studies the regions of Appalachia and the Hunter Valley of Australia have much in common. Both places were once seen as places of great beauty where humans could live in harmony with their bioregion. The Hunter Valley was once described as “the Tuscany of the South” while Appalachia has been praised in poetry, music and dance:
From The Bridge: The Dance
by Hart Crane
I took the portage climb, then chose
A further valley-shed; I could not stop.
Feet nozzled wat’ry webs of upper flows;
One white veil gusted from the very top.
O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;
Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends
And northward reaches in that violet wedge
Of Adirondacks!—wisped of azure wands,
Excerpt taken from: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=172029
Martha Graham named her ballet ‘Appalachian Spring’ after the lines from Crane’s poem and Aaron Copeland’s famous music for the dance is known by this title. In her Blood Memories, Graham said that her choreography
… is essentially a dance of place. You choose a piece of land, part of the house goes up. You dedicate it. The questioning spirit is there and the sense of establishing roots.
(Martha Graham, Blood Memories: See http://www.cmi.univ-mrs.fr/~esouche/dance/Appala.html )
Despite the rich natural and cultural histories, both places are now being transformed by the simultaneous processes of large scale coal mining and climate change. In response to the double pressures of ecosystem distress and a climate that is beginning to act in hostile and unpredictable ways, many people are experiencing solastalgia, a feeling of existential distress about negatively felt change. These people are feeling a kind of homesickness yet they are still at home. As your home is being desolated, that which once gave you solace is now giving you solastalgia.
There is no more graphic illustration of how people respond to a shift or change in the environment than with the case of mining. Mining literally takes your environment away from you; it undermines your sense of place. In Appalachia, mountain tops are removed; in Australia, the land becomes scarred like burnt flesh, new mountains of spoil and waste are formed while massive voids are carved out of the land.
As if this physical desolation was not enough, the climate, under the influence of global warming, is also becoming unpredictable and it is on the move. In coastal eastern Australia, you would now have to live about 150 kilometres further south than your present location in order to experience a climate similar to that of only 50 years ago. Earlier and warmer springs in the USA and Canada have already changed the sense of place and many species are moving their range further north and into higher altitudes. In order to stay in their home, some of the residents of our ecosystems are packing up and moving further north or south … depending on the hemisphere. Yet we humans remain rooted to the spot and wonder what is going on? For those sensitive enough to notice and bear witness to these unwelcome changes to well-being and sense of place, this addition to Healthearth will show that they are not alone and that solastalgia must be defeated in the simultaneous restoration of human and ecosystem health.
As case studies the regions of Appalachia and the Hunter Valley of Australia have much in common. Both places were once seen as places of great beauty where humans could live in harmony with their bioregion. The Hunter Valley was once described as “the Tuscany of the South” while Appalachia has been praised in poetry, music and dance:
From The Bridge: The Dance
by Hart Crane
I took the portage climb, then chose
A further valley-shed; I could not stop.
Feet nozzled wat’ry webs of upper flows;
One white veil gusted from the very top.
O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;
Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends
And northward reaches in that violet wedge
Of Adirondacks!—wisped of azure wands,
Excerpt taken from: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=172029
Martha Graham named her ballet ‘Appalachian Spring’ after the lines from Crane’s poem and Aaron Copeland’s famous music for the dance is known by this title. In her Blood Memories, Graham said that her choreography
… is essentially a dance of place. You choose a piece of land, part of the house goes up. You dedicate it. The questioning spirit is there and the sense of establishing roots.
(Martha Graham, Blood Memories: See http://www.cmi.univ-mrs.fr/~esouche/dance/Appala.html )
Despite the rich natural and cultural histories, both places are now being transformed by the simultaneous processes of large scale coal mining and climate change. In response to the double pressures of ecosystem distress and a climate that is beginning to act in hostile and unpredictable ways, many people are experiencing solastalgia, a feeling of existential distress about negatively felt change. These people are feeling a kind of homesickness yet they are still at home. As your home is being desolated, that which once gave you solace is now giving you solastalgia.
There is no more graphic illustration of how people respond to a shift or change in the environment than with the case of mining. Mining literally takes your environment away from you; it undermines your sense of place. In Appalachia, mountain tops are removed; in Australia, the land becomes scarred like burnt flesh, new mountains of spoil and waste are formed while massive voids are carved out of the land.
As if this physical desolation was not enough, the climate, under the influence of global warming, is also becoming unpredictable and it is on the move. In coastal eastern Australia, you would now have to live about 150 kilometres further south than your present location in order to experience a climate similar to that of only 50 years ago. Earlier and warmer springs in the USA and Canada have already changed the sense of place and many species are moving their range further north and into higher altitudes. In order to stay in their home, some of the residents of our ecosystems are packing up and moving further north or south … depending on the hemisphere. Yet we humans remain rooted to the spot and wonder what is going on? For those sensitive enough to notice and bear witness to these unwelcome changes to well-being and sense of place, this addition to Healthearth will show that they are not alone and that solastalgia must be defeated in the simultaneous restoration of human and ecosystem health.
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Solastalgia: The Origins and Definition
As an environmental philosopher at The University of Newcastle I had a reputation within my region as an activist and advocate for environmental conservation and I had published a number of academic and media articles on the environmental history and sustainability of the Hunter Region.
From about the year 2000 onwards, residents within the region would often ring me at work and talk to me about their concerns about particular environmental issues and I would advise and help as best I could.
However, I began to notice the increasing number of people who were concerned about the sheer scale of the environmental impacts in the Upper Hunter Region of NSW. In their attempts to halt the expansion of open cut coal mining and to control the impact of power station pollution, individuals would ring me at work pleading for help with their cause. These people were clearly distressed about the relationship to their home environment and the threat to their identity and well-being from changes to their environment. A visit to the Upper Hunter and close examination of the mining affected landscape confirmed the sheer scale and intensity of the negative changes to the environment.
I had been thinking about the relationship between environmental change, ecosystem distress and human distress for some time. Under the influence of Canadian ecosystem health guru David Rapport and his concept of ‘ecosystem distress syndrome’ I had been working through some of the influences on my own thinking about this relationship. The two major influences at this time were Aldo Leopold and his own concept of ‘land health’ and the Australia’s own pioneer environmental thinker, Elyne Mitchell.
I sought a suitable concept to describe the distress the people in the Upper Hunter were suffering. One word, ‘nostalgia’, came to prominence as it was once a concept linked to a diagnosable illness associated with the melancholia of homesickness for people who were distant from their home. It seemed very close to the condition that Upper Hunter people were manifesting yet had an obvious limitation in that I was dealing with people who were not distant from their home.
Nostalgia
Nostalgia (from the Greek nostos - return to home or native land - and the New Latin suffix algia - pain or sickness from the Greek root algos) or literally, the sickness caused by the intense desire to return home was considered to be a medically diagnosable psycho - physiological disease right up to the middle of the C20. Found in the English language from 1757, nostalgia has been defined differently in different epochs. In 1905 nostalgia was defined as “…a feeling of melancholy caused by grief on account of absence from one’s home country, of which the English equivalent is homesickness. Nostalgia represents a combination of psychic disturbances and must be regarded as a disease. It can lead to melancholia and even death. It is more apt to affect persons whose absence from home is forced rather than voluntary" (William Fiennes 2002:122).
Nostalgia was particularly evident in soldiers fighting in foreign countries who experienced homesickness to the point where they became ill and unable to perform their duties. The cure for nostalgia was a prescription for afflicted soldiers to return home to recuperate and restore their well-being and health. According to Feinnes, nostalgia was still being discussed in journals such as War Medicine in the 1940s and “as late as 1946 was termed a possibly fatal ‘psycho-physiological’ complaint by an eminent social scientist”.
However, in general, reference to ‘nostalgia’ as a sickness resulting from a longing or desire to return home while one is away from ‘home’ is no longer in common use. The more frequent modern use of the term loses its connection to the geographical or spatial ‘home’ and suggests a temporal dimension or ‘looking back’, a desire to be connected with a positively perceived period in the past. Typically, there is a longing for a cultural setting in the past in which a person felt more ‘at home’ than the present. For individuals who see the past as better than the present there is the possibility that nostalgia remains a very real experience that can lead to deep distress. For example, for Indigenous people who have been dispossessed of their lands and culture, the nostalgia for a past where former geographical and cultural integration was both highly valued and sustainable is an ongoing painful experience.
In the Upper Hunter, people were suffering from both imposed place transition (place pathology) and powerlessness (environmental injustice). In overview, there seemed to be some justification for the creation of a new concept that captured the conceptual space or territory connected to this particular constellation of the factors that define place and identity. The people I was concerned about were still ‘at home’, but felt a similar melancholia as that caused by nostalgia connected to the breakdown of the normal relationship between their psychic identity and their home. What these people lacked was solace or comfort derived from their present relationship to a ‘home’ that was being desolated. In addition, they felt a profound sense of isolation about their inability to have a meaningful say and impact on the state of affairs that caused their distress. ‘Solastalgia’ was created to describe the specific form of melancholia connected to lack of solace and sense of desolation in the everyday and lived experience of people within their ‘home’. The English language lacked such a concept.
Solastalgia
Solastalgia has its origins in the concepts of nostalgia, solace and desolation. Solace is derived from the Latin verb solari (noun solacium or solatium), with meanings connected to the alleviation or relief of distress or to the provision of comfort or consolation in the face of distressing events. Solace has connections to both psychological and physical contexts. One emphasis refers to the comfort one is given in difficult times (consolation) while another refers to that which gives comfort or strength. A person or a landscape might give solace, strength or support to other people. Special environments might provide solace in ways that other places cannot. If a person lacks solace then they are distressed and in need of consolation. If a person seeks solace or solitude in a much loved place that is being desolated, then they will suffer distress.
Desolation has its origins in the Latin solus (noun desolare) with meanings connected to devastation, deprivation of comfort, abandonment and loneliness. It too has meanings that relate to both psychological and physical contexts … a personal feeling of abandonment (isolation) and to a landscape that has been devastated.
In addition, the concept of solastalgia has been constructed such that it has a ghost reference or structural similarity to nostalgia thereby ensuring that a place reference is imbedded.
Hence, solastalgia has its origins in the New Latin word ‘nostalgia’ (and its Greek roots nostos and algos), however, it is based on two Latin roots, ‘solace’ and ‘desolation’, with a New Latin suffix, algia or pain, to complete its meaning.
Solastalgia is the pain or sickness caused by the loss or lack of solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one’s home and territory. It is the 'lived experience' of negative environmental change. It is the homesickness you have when you are still at home. It is that feeling you have when your sense of place is under attack. While I claim responsibility for creating the concept of solastalgia and its meaning, I am aware that that the existential experience underlying it is not new ... only that it is newly defined in English (but possibly represented in many other languages). The experience of solastalgia might well be ancient and ubiquitous and under the impact of relentless environmental change, ecosystem distress and climate chaos, it may well become much more common. It is my sincere hope that the negative experience of solastalgia can be overcome by the restoration of ecosystem and human health via every form of creative enterprise at our disposal.
From about the year 2000 onwards, residents within the region would often ring me at work and talk to me about their concerns about particular environmental issues and I would advise and help as best I could.
However, I began to notice the increasing number of people who were concerned about the sheer scale of the environmental impacts in the Upper Hunter Region of NSW. In their attempts to halt the expansion of open cut coal mining and to control the impact of power station pollution, individuals would ring me at work pleading for help with their cause. These people were clearly distressed about the relationship to their home environment and the threat to their identity and well-being from changes to their environment. A visit to the Upper Hunter and close examination of the mining affected landscape confirmed the sheer scale and intensity of the negative changes to the environment.
I had been thinking about the relationship between environmental change, ecosystem distress and human distress for some time. Under the influence of Canadian ecosystem health guru David Rapport and his concept of ‘ecosystem distress syndrome’ I had been working through some of the influences on my own thinking about this relationship. The two major influences at this time were Aldo Leopold and his own concept of ‘land health’ and the Australia’s own pioneer environmental thinker, Elyne Mitchell.
I sought a suitable concept to describe the distress the people in the Upper Hunter were suffering. One word, ‘nostalgia’, came to prominence as it was once a concept linked to a diagnosable illness associated with the melancholia of homesickness for people who were distant from their home. It seemed very close to the condition that Upper Hunter people were manifesting yet had an obvious limitation in that I was dealing with people who were not distant from their home.
Nostalgia
Nostalgia (from the Greek nostos - return to home or native land - and the New Latin suffix algia - pain or sickness from the Greek root algos) or literally, the sickness caused by the intense desire to return home was considered to be a medically diagnosable psycho - physiological disease right up to the middle of the C20. Found in the English language from 1757, nostalgia has been defined differently in different epochs. In 1905 nostalgia was defined as “…a feeling of melancholy caused by grief on account of absence from one’s home country, of which the English equivalent is homesickness. Nostalgia represents a combination of psychic disturbances and must be regarded as a disease. It can lead to melancholia and even death. It is more apt to affect persons whose absence from home is forced rather than voluntary" (William Fiennes 2002:122).
Nostalgia was particularly evident in soldiers fighting in foreign countries who experienced homesickness to the point where they became ill and unable to perform their duties. The cure for nostalgia was a prescription for afflicted soldiers to return home to recuperate and restore their well-being and health. According to Feinnes, nostalgia was still being discussed in journals such as War Medicine in the 1940s and “as late as 1946 was termed a possibly fatal ‘psycho-physiological’ complaint by an eminent social scientist”.
However, in general, reference to ‘nostalgia’ as a sickness resulting from a longing or desire to return home while one is away from ‘home’ is no longer in common use. The more frequent modern use of the term loses its connection to the geographical or spatial ‘home’ and suggests a temporal dimension or ‘looking back’, a desire to be connected with a positively perceived period in the past. Typically, there is a longing for a cultural setting in the past in which a person felt more ‘at home’ than the present. For individuals who see the past as better than the present there is the possibility that nostalgia remains a very real experience that can lead to deep distress. For example, for Indigenous people who have been dispossessed of their lands and culture, the nostalgia for a past where former geographical and cultural integration was both highly valued and sustainable is an ongoing painful experience.
In the Upper Hunter, people were suffering from both imposed place transition (place pathology) and powerlessness (environmental injustice). In overview, there seemed to be some justification for the creation of a new concept that captured the conceptual space or territory connected to this particular constellation of the factors that define place and identity. The people I was concerned about were still ‘at home’, but felt a similar melancholia as that caused by nostalgia connected to the breakdown of the normal relationship between their psychic identity and their home. What these people lacked was solace or comfort derived from their present relationship to a ‘home’ that was being desolated. In addition, they felt a profound sense of isolation about their inability to have a meaningful say and impact on the state of affairs that caused their distress. ‘Solastalgia’ was created to describe the specific form of melancholia connected to lack of solace and sense of desolation in the everyday and lived experience of people within their ‘home’. The English language lacked such a concept.
Solastalgia
Solastalgia has its origins in the concepts of nostalgia, solace and desolation. Solace is derived from the Latin verb solari (noun solacium or solatium), with meanings connected to the alleviation or relief of distress or to the provision of comfort or consolation in the face of distressing events. Solace has connections to both psychological and physical contexts. One emphasis refers to the comfort one is given in difficult times (consolation) while another refers to that which gives comfort or strength. A person or a landscape might give solace, strength or support to other people. Special environments might provide solace in ways that other places cannot. If a person lacks solace then they are distressed and in need of consolation. If a person seeks solace or solitude in a much loved place that is being desolated, then they will suffer distress.
Desolation has its origins in the Latin solus (noun desolare) with meanings connected to devastation, deprivation of comfort, abandonment and loneliness. It too has meanings that relate to both psychological and physical contexts … a personal feeling of abandonment (isolation) and to a landscape that has been devastated.
In addition, the concept of solastalgia has been constructed such that it has a ghost reference or structural similarity to nostalgia thereby ensuring that a place reference is imbedded.
Hence, solastalgia has its origins in the New Latin word ‘nostalgia’ (and its Greek roots nostos and algos), however, it is based on two Latin roots, ‘solace’ and ‘desolation’, with a New Latin suffix, algia or pain, to complete its meaning.
Solastalgia is the pain or sickness caused by the loss or lack of solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one’s home and territory. It is the 'lived experience' of negative environmental change. It is the homesickness you have when you are still at home. It is that feeling you have when your sense of place is under attack. While I claim responsibility for creating the concept of solastalgia and its meaning, I am aware that that the existential experience underlying it is not new ... only that it is newly defined in English (but possibly represented in many other languages). The experience of solastalgia might well be ancient and ubiquitous and under the impact of relentless environmental change, ecosystem distress and climate chaos, it may well become much more common. It is my sincere hope that the negative experience of solastalgia can be overcome by the restoration of ecosystem and human health via every form of creative enterprise at our disposal.
Sunday, 21 October 2007
Heads are Burning
Heads are Burning
Out where the river dried
The farms and the desert fried
Human wrecks and boiling birds
Dying in forty five degrees
Out where the river dried
The farms and the desert fried
Human wrecks and boiling birds
Dying in forty five degrees
The time has come
To clear the air
To stop the gas
To stop the gas
To do our share
The time has come
A fact’s a fact
Too much C02
Let’s bring it back
How can we dance when our world is heating
How can we dance when our world is heating
How do we sleep when our earth is burning
How can we dance when our world is heating
How can we dance when our world is heating
How do we sleep when our earth is burning
The time has come to say fair’s fair
To clear the air, now to do our share
Big engines suck the fossil fuel
From New York to Katmandu
The whole world melts and heats
Slow death by degrees
The time has come
To clear the air
To stop the gas
To stop the gas
To do our share
The time has come
A fact’s a fact
Too much C02
Let’s bring it back
How can we dance when our world is heating
How can we dance when our world is heating
How do we sleep when our earth is burning
How can we dance when our world is heating
How can we dance when our world is heating
How do we sleep when our earth is burning
The time has come to say fair’s fair
To clear the air, now to do our share
The time has come to say fair’s fair
To clear the air, now to do our share
The time has come, a fact’s a fact
Too much C02, let’s bring it back
How can we dance when our world is heating
How can we dance when our world is heating
How do we sleep when our earth is burning
(With apologies to Midnight Oil, and their song, Beds are Burning, but not to Peter Garrett who has sold out on global warming and the role of coal mining in Australia to the problem)
(With apologies to Midnight Oil, and their song, Beds are Burning, but not to Peter Garrett who has sold out on global warming and the role of coal mining in Australia to the problem)
Wednesday, 3 October 2007
For the climes they are a-changin'
Come gather 'round people
wherever you roam
And admit that the carbon
Around you has grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your clime to you
is worth savin'
Then you better start thinkin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the climes they are a-changin'.
Come scientists and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And speak right now
For the sceptics still spin
And there's no tellin' what
Lies they're namin'
For the liars now
They will never win
For the climes they are a-changin'.
Come politicians, businessfolk
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For those that get hurt
Will be they who are poor
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon drown your coastlines
And blow away your walls
For the climes they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
Do criticize more
Because you can understand
Your sons and your daughters
Will not have a chance
The old world is
Rapidly warmin'.
Help healthearth
You can lend your hand
For the climes they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The carbon is cast
The slow ice melt now
Will later be fast
As the death drought grows
The dry winds will blast
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first to change now
Will be without carbon sin
For the climes they are a-changin'.
With apologies to Bob Dylan. Perhaps these are the lyrics he would have written if 'the times' was written today?
wherever you roam
And admit that the carbon
Around you has grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your clime to you
is worth savin'
Then you better start thinkin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the climes they are a-changin'.
Come scientists and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And speak right now
For the sceptics still spin
And there's no tellin' what
Lies they're namin'
For the liars now
They will never win
For the climes they are a-changin'.
Come politicians, businessfolk
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For those that get hurt
Will be they who are poor
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon drown your coastlines
And blow away your walls
For the climes they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
Do criticize more
Because you can understand
Your sons and your daughters
Will not have a chance
The old world is
Rapidly warmin'.
Help healthearth
You can lend your hand
For the climes they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The carbon is cast
The slow ice melt now
Will later be fast
As the death drought grows
The dry winds will blast
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first to change now
Will be without carbon sin
For the climes they are a-changin'.
With apologies to Bob Dylan. Perhaps these are the lyrics he would have written if 'the times' was written today?
Thursday, 27 September 2007
The Lomborg Move
A response to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald September 27 2007
It is hard to take Bjorn Lomborg seriously when he writes about organic food, disease, global poverty, polar bears and global warming. His arguments seem superficially convincing and there are statistics to back them up. However, it takes very little to expose the lack of substance behind his so-called arguments. Having accepted that there can be a causal link between (toxic) chemicals and cancer he goes on to make the claim that:
If you reduce your child's intake of fruits and vegetables by just 0.03 grams a day (that's the equivalent of half a grain of rice) when you opt for more expensive organic produce, the total risk of cancer goes up, not down. Omit buying just one apple every 20 years because you have gone organic, and your child is worse off.
The naivity of this argument is breathtaking. People who spend more of their money on organic food are also likely to spend less of it on high fat, low nutrition, high sugar, highly processed (additives, coloring, preservatives) food. Hence, their children are likely to get more ‘good’ food and less ‘bad’ food. Omit buying just one packet of fried potato chips for your kid every day because you have gone organic, and your child will be better off.
On the issue of carcinogens, pathogens and toxins in food, it is clear that organic food is less risky for the consumer than intensively produced food that has been exposed to the standard array of ‘cides’ in production (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides). The rates of increase in breast cancer and prostate cancer incidence is linked to exposure to pesticides as is the rate of premature births in countries where exposure to pesticides is common. While regulation of pesticides might be good in some countries, we now live in a globalised economy where fruit and vegetables can be flown in from distant places where regulation and standards are poor. Eating organically produced food grown in places where standards are regulated and monitored will be safer for young and older bodies than non-organic food. It will also be better for ecosystem health generally. Given the increasing rates of obesity (in children as well as adults) in developed countries, the idea that we might all need to eat less but better quality food, is not such a radical thought.
Next, Lomborg gets into the plight of the polar bear under climate change:
Consider a tale that has made the covers of some of the world's biggest magazines and newspapers: the plight of the polar bear. We are told that global warming will wipe out this majestic creature. We are not told, however, that over the past 40 years - while temperatures have risen - the global polar bear population has increased from 5000 to 25,000.
Now, like Lomborg, I am no expert of the breeding biology of polar bears, but the latest research from those who are experts is cause for legitimate concern. The polar ice flows that constitute Polar bear habitat are shrinking. So much so that it was reported recently that Arctic sea ice shrank to the smallest area on record this year and that the Northwest Passage has opened for the first time. Habitat is important for all species and a disappearing habitat spells disaster.
In western Hudson Bay, Canada, where recent studies of polar bear numbers have been undertaken by qualified scientists, they found that the population has reduced by 22% from 1194 to 935 between 1987 and 2004. Another population in Alaska that has been studied also show reduced numbers and lower adult weights and increased cub mortality. Populations that have increased in number (only two have been reported) are in areas where numbers are recovering from hunting pressure and where protection is now being provided. That bastion of extremism, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has recently proposed listing polar bears as a threatened species.
Despite evidence available that does not support his claim, Lomborg, continues the ignorance with the argument that:
Campaigners and the media claim that we should cut our carbon dioxide emissions to save the polar bear. Well, then, let's do the math. Let's imagine that every country - including the United States and Australia - were to sign the Kyoto Protocol and cut its carbon dioxide emissions for the rest of this century. Looking at the best-studied polar bear population of 1000 bears, in the West Hudson Bay, how many polar bears would we save in a year? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? Actually, we would save less than one-tenth of a polar bear.
If we were to stop the increase in global warming with cuts in our carbon dioxide emissions such that we would stop global temperature increase at no more than 2 degrees of warming, then actually, we might save polar bears from extinction by loss of habitat. In doing this, we save the habitat of many other species as well. Most scientists are arguing that if you save the habitat of this admittedly iconic species, then you save whole Arctic ecosystems. Lomborg is clearly attacking a straw bear. You do not have to do the math to figure out that preventing further polar bear habitat from melting will have the outcome of whole (not fractions) polar bears being saved.
Lomborg then argues:
If we really do care about saving polar bears, we could do something much simpler and more effective: ban hunting them. Each year, 49 bears are shot in the West Hudson Bay alone. So why don't we stop killing 49 bears a year before we commit trillions of dollars to do hundreds of times less good?
Yes, Bjorn, it would be a good idea to stop hunting and killing a rare and endangered animal. Perhaps we could do that and tackle the problem of greenhouse gas emissions at the same time? Perhaps we could do “hundreds of times more good” by chewing gum and walking at the same time?
Next, in a now classic Lomborg move, the argument is put that we should not worry too much about these known unknowns (global warming, terrorism, pesticides, and the loss of biodiversity) because there are knowns (e.g., the terrible conditions of the world’s poor) and they should concern us more! His text goes:
Much of my work is to make sense of all these global warnings. I try to put them in perspective and figure out which ones really should concern us, and when we should act on them.
Perhaps surprisingly, not everything of concern should be dealt with immediately. If we don't have a good way to fix a problem, it might be better to focus on something else first. After all, when you don't know where your next meal is coming from, it's hard to worry about what global temperatures will be 100 years from now.
Well Bjorn, we do have a good way to to fix the problem of global warming … reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, stupid! After all, if you are not sure if there will be a habitable planet for humans in 100 years from now, it must be hard to swallow your next meal. Especially when right now, the numbers of over-nourished people on the planet roughly equals that of those who are undernourished (1.2 billion). Perhaps it would be good to commit to reduce global hunger in addition to reducing greenhouse gases?
Lomborg tells us the good news is that things are getting better for humans and that we can expect such trends to continue into the future. The facts, according to Lomborg are:
By the close of the century, incomes will have increased sixfold in industrialised countries and 12-fold in developing countries, making the average person in the developing world richer in 2100 than the average American or European is today. The number of poor will drop from a billion to less than 5 million.
Perhaps so, but maybe you have to factor in peak oil and climate change as the fossil fuel based economy and the global environment simultaneously crash in a fiscal and bipolar meltdown. In a non-linear world, making linear projections of past trends into the future is nice science fiction, but it is not the provision of facts. There is no ‘math’ here, just reading the entrails of goats and hoping that people won’t notice the difference between sheer speculation and real science.
Finally, we get to the end of the fantasy. Lomborg tells us that:
None of this means we should stop worrying about the future. But it does mean that we can quit panicking and start thinking calmly to ensure that we focus on the right issues. Global alarm bells might cause pangs of guilt for wealthy Westerners, but they don't give us an adequate understanding of what is going on. We all need to hear both sides of the story.
Bjorn Lomborg is confident that the right issue is the elimination of poverty by continuing the process of wealth creation under consumer capitalism. That rapid increases in economic growth are needed to overcome global poverty is not a new thesis: the Brundtland report in 1987 ran the same line under the label of ‘sustainable development’. It is even called the “trickle down theory of wealth”. Cranking up economic growth just at a moment of much needed greenhouse gas emission reductions is just plain stupid!
Well, we have heard your side of the story Bjorn and it is a confused and pathetic defense of the indefensible.
It is hard to take Bjorn Lomborg seriously when he writes about organic food, disease, global poverty, polar bears and global warming. His arguments seem superficially convincing and there are statistics to back them up. However, it takes very little to expose the lack of substance behind his so-called arguments. Having accepted that there can be a causal link between (toxic) chemicals and cancer he goes on to make the claim that:
If you reduce your child's intake of fruits and vegetables by just 0.03 grams a day (that's the equivalent of half a grain of rice) when you opt for more expensive organic produce, the total risk of cancer goes up, not down. Omit buying just one apple every 20 years because you have gone organic, and your child is worse off.
The naivity of this argument is breathtaking. People who spend more of their money on organic food are also likely to spend less of it on high fat, low nutrition, high sugar, highly processed (additives, coloring, preservatives) food. Hence, their children are likely to get more ‘good’ food and less ‘bad’ food. Omit buying just one packet of fried potato chips for your kid every day because you have gone organic, and your child will be better off.
On the issue of carcinogens, pathogens and toxins in food, it is clear that organic food is less risky for the consumer than intensively produced food that has been exposed to the standard array of ‘cides’ in production (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides). The rates of increase in breast cancer and prostate cancer incidence is linked to exposure to pesticides as is the rate of premature births in countries where exposure to pesticides is common. While regulation of pesticides might be good in some countries, we now live in a globalised economy where fruit and vegetables can be flown in from distant places where regulation and standards are poor. Eating organically produced food grown in places where standards are regulated and monitored will be safer for young and older bodies than non-organic food. It will also be better for ecosystem health generally. Given the increasing rates of obesity (in children as well as adults) in developed countries, the idea that we might all need to eat less but better quality food, is not such a radical thought.
Next, Lomborg gets into the plight of the polar bear under climate change:
Consider a tale that has made the covers of some of the world's biggest magazines and newspapers: the plight of the polar bear. We are told that global warming will wipe out this majestic creature. We are not told, however, that over the past 40 years - while temperatures have risen - the global polar bear population has increased from 5000 to 25,000.
Now, like Lomborg, I am no expert of the breeding biology of polar bears, but the latest research from those who are experts is cause for legitimate concern. The polar ice flows that constitute Polar bear habitat are shrinking. So much so that it was reported recently that Arctic sea ice shrank to the smallest area on record this year and that the Northwest Passage has opened for the first time. Habitat is important for all species and a disappearing habitat spells disaster.
In western Hudson Bay, Canada, where recent studies of polar bear numbers have been undertaken by qualified scientists, they found that the population has reduced by 22% from 1194 to 935 between 1987 and 2004. Another population in Alaska that has been studied also show reduced numbers and lower adult weights and increased cub mortality. Populations that have increased in number (only two have been reported) are in areas where numbers are recovering from hunting pressure and where protection is now being provided. That bastion of extremism, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has recently proposed listing polar bears as a threatened species.
Despite evidence available that does not support his claim, Lomborg, continues the ignorance with the argument that:
Campaigners and the media claim that we should cut our carbon dioxide emissions to save the polar bear. Well, then, let's do the math. Let's imagine that every country - including the United States and Australia - were to sign the Kyoto Protocol and cut its carbon dioxide emissions for the rest of this century. Looking at the best-studied polar bear population of 1000 bears, in the West Hudson Bay, how many polar bears would we save in a year? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? Actually, we would save less than one-tenth of a polar bear.
If we were to stop the increase in global warming with cuts in our carbon dioxide emissions such that we would stop global temperature increase at no more than 2 degrees of warming, then actually, we might save polar bears from extinction by loss of habitat. In doing this, we save the habitat of many other species as well. Most scientists are arguing that if you save the habitat of this admittedly iconic species, then you save whole Arctic ecosystems. Lomborg is clearly attacking a straw bear. You do not have to do the math to figure out that preventing further polar bear habitat from melting will have the outcome of whole (not fractions) polar bears being saved.
Lomborg then argues:
If we really do care about saving polar bears, we could do something much simpler and more effective: ban hunting them. Each year, 49 bears are shot in the West Hudson Bay alone. So why don't we stop killing 49 bears a year before we commit trillions of dollars to do hundreds of times less good?
Yes, Bjorn, it would be a good idea to stop hunting and killing a rare and endangered animal. Perhaps we could do that and tackle the problem of greenhouse gas emissions at the same time? Perhaps we could do “hundreds of times more good” by chewing gum and walking at the same time?
Next, in a now classic Lomborg move, the argument is put that we should not worry too much about these known unknowns (global warming, terrorism, pesticides, and the loss of biodiversity) because there are knowns (e.g., the terrible conditions of the world’s poor) and they should concern us more! His text goes:
Much of my work is to make sense of all these global warnings. I try to put them in perspective and figure out which ones really should concern us, and when we should act on them.
Perhaps surprisingly, not everything of concern should be dealt with immediately. If we don't have a good way to fix a problem, it might be better to focus on something else first. After all, when you don't know where your next meal is coming from, it's hard to worry about what global temperatures will be 100 years from now.
Well Bjorn, we do have a good way to to fix the problem of global warming … reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, stupid! After all, if you are not sure if there will be a habitable planet for humans in 100 years from now, it must be hard to swallow your next meal. Especially when right now, the numbers of over-nourished people on the planet roughly equals that of those who are undernourished (1.2 billion). Perhaps it would be good to commit to reduce global hunger in addition to reducing greenhouse gases?
Lomborg tells us the good news is that things are getting better for humans and that we can expect such trends to continue into the future. The facts, according to Lomborg are:
By the close of the century, incomes will have increased sixfold in industrialised countries and 12-fold in developing countries, making the average person in the developing world richer in 2100 than the average American or European is today. The number of poor will drop from a billion to less than 5 million.
Perhaps so, but maybe you have to factor in peak oil and climate change as the fossil fuel based economy and the global environment simultaneously crash in a fiscal and bipolar meltdown. In a non-linear world, making linear projections of past trends into the future is nice science fiction, but it is not the provision of facts. There is no ‘math’ here, just reading the entrails of goats and hoping that people won’t notice the difference between sheer speculation and real science.
Finally, we get to the end of the fantasy. Lomborg tells us that:
None of this means we should stop worrying about the future. But it does mean that we can quit panicking and start thinking calmly to ensure that we focus on the right issues. Global alarm bells might cause pangs of guilt for wealthy Westerners, but they don't give us an adequate understanding of what is going on. We all need to hear both sides of the story.
Bjorn Lomborg is confident that the right issue is the elimination of poverty by continuing the process of wealth creation under consumer capitalism. That rapid increases in economic growth are needed to overcome global poverty is not a new thesis: the Brundtland report in 1987 ran the same line under the label of ‘sustainable development’. It is even called the “trickle down theory of wealth”. Cranking up economic growth just at a moment of much needed greenhouse gas emission reductions is just plain stupid!
Well, we have heard your side of the story Bjorn and it is a confused and pathetic defense of the indefensible.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Rethinking the Limits of Ethics
Cosmocentric Ethics and Climate Chaos
It is the sheer complexity and potential for devastation of present and future impacts of global warming on global climate that drives the necessity for innovative transdisciplinary responses. In ethics, no less than other domains of research, new perspectives that go beyond or transcend previous ethical frameworks are urgently needed. Under the imperative of sustainability, there has been an expansion of the scope of ethics from purely anthropocentric to ecocentric concerns and values.
Global warming pushes the boundaries of ethical consideration even further into the atmoscentric and climacentric, where new approaches to ethics are being driven by changes to the atmosphere and climates of the planet. All human cultures, all sentient creatures and every type of ecosystem are being profoundly affected by cumulative climate change. The movement from self-interest to planetary interest culminates in cosmocentric ethics or ethical concern about the status of the whole earth.
The transdisciplinary nature of cosmocentric ethics is clear when it is observed that changes in scientific understandings have been the major driver of changes in values and ethics. From a theocentric ethic humans have progressively moved to new ethical dimensions. The issues of sentience were highlighted by the sciences of comparative anatomy and physiology, the temporal and spatial interconnections of living and non-living systems were discovered by evolutionary and ecological sciences and now, the understanding of complex relationships between biodiversity, terrestrial ecosystems, oceans, the atmosphere and climate is being delivered by sciences/studies that transcend traditional discipline boundaries.
Added to the knowledge base delivered by these sciences is the emergence of new transdisciplinary fields of knowledge such as complexity theory and sustainability science. Discipline-based scientific knowledge that is seeking interconnections with other related disciplines and the new transdisciplinary domains, provide a new foundation for ethics. Cosmological citizens, informed about ethics via transdisciplinary environmental education, are in the best position to act on the implications of impending climate chaos.
It is the sheer complexity and potential for devastation of present and future impacts of global warming on global climate that drives the necessity for innovative transdisciplinary responses. In ethics, no less than other domains of research, new perspectives that go beyond or transcend previous ethical frameworks are urgently needed. Under the imperative of sustainability, there has been an expansion of the scope of ethics from purely anthropocentric to ecocentric concerns and values.
Global warming pushes the boundaries of ethical consideration even further into the atmoscentric and climacentric, where new approaches to ethics are being driven by changes to the atmosphere and climates of the planet. All human cultures, all sentient creatures and every type of ecosystem are being profoundly affected by cumulative climate change. The movement from self-interest to planetary interest culminates in cosmocentric ethics or ethical concern about the status of the whole earth.
The transdisciplinary nature of cosmocentric ethics is clear when it is observed that changes in scientific understandings have been the major driver of changes in values and ethics. From a theocentric ethic humans have progressively moved to new ethical dimensions. The issues of sentience were highlighted by the sciences of comparative anatomy and physiology, the temporal and spatial interconnections of living and non-living systems were discovered by evolutionary and ecological sciences and now, the understanding of complex relationships between biodiversity, terrestrial ecosystems, oceans, the atmosphere and climate is being delivered by sciences/studies that transcend traditional discipline boundaries.
Added to the knowledge base delivered by these sciences is the emergence of new transdisciplinary fields of knowledge such as complexity theory and sustainability science. Discipline-based scientific knowledge that is seeking interconnections with other related disciplines and the new transdisciplinary domains, provide a new foundation for ethics. Cosmological citizens, informed about ethics via transdisciplinary environmental education, are in the best position to act on the implications of impending climate chaos.
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Solastalgia and Soundscapes
Solastalgia and Soundscapes
I have solastalgia at the fading of natural sounds in the environment ... our soundscape is changing. We are in fact experiencing an aural invasion … the sounds of the natural world are slowly being silenced by the noise pollution of industrial society. If it is not the cacophony of air conditioners, road and air traffic, it is the digital roar inside the earphones … cancelling out the symphony of nature.
Bernie Krause (Wild Soundscapes 2002) has created a division of soundscapes into Biophony, Geophony and Anthrophony. The term ‘biophony’ has been used to describe the noises produced by, for example, birds and insects in a natural environment. Perhaps we should add Ecophony (see Peter Russell Crowe) since the interrelationships of the physical (wind) and the biological (trees) in the total ecosystem is a source of sounds in a landscape). Geophony is the noise from natural landscape features such as moving water while Anthrophony is the total soundscape produced by human societies.
In the US people are recording the natural soundscape in parks in order to document it before it is completely lost to the Technophony or that part of Anthrophony that consists of the noises produced by human technology (see: http://ltm.agriculture.purdue.edu/ear/default_files/Page424.htm ).
The now ubiquitous noises of modern technologies such as aircraft wipe out the possibility of listening to the natural world and its ecophony. I recently listened to a resident of Salt Spring Island (West coast of Canada) tell his story of life on Ganges Harbour being forever changed by the constant traffic of float planes into and out of the island. He came to SSI for its beauty, peace and serenity. Now he lives right next to a busy airport that was never planned and approved and he experiences acute solastalgia as the floatplanes roar past his home and cancel the sounds of gulls, loons, turkey vultures and the hum of the hummingbird.
I have solastalgia at the fading of natural sounds in the environment ... our soundscape is changing. We are in fact experiencing an aural invasion … the sounds of the natural world are slowly being silenced by the noise pollution of industrial society. If it is not the cacophony of air conditioners, road and air traffic, it is the digital roar inside the earphones … cancelling out the symphony of nature.
Bernie Krause (Wild Soundscapes 2002) has created a division of soundscapes into Biophony, Geophony and Anthrophony. The term ‘biophony’ has been used to describe the noises produced by, for example, birds and insects in a natural environment. Perhaps we should add Ecophony (see Peter Russell Crowe) since the interrelationships of the physical (wind) and the biological (trees) in the total ecosystem is a source of sounds in a landscape). Geophony is the noise from natural landscape features such as moving water while Anthrophony is the total soundscape produced by human societies.
In the US people are recording the natural soundscape in parks in order to document it before it is completely lost to the Technophony or that part of Anthrophony that consists of the noises produced by human technology (see: http://ltm.agriculture.purdue.edu/ear/default_files/Page424.htm ).
The now ubiquitous noises of modern technologies such as aircraft wipe out the possibility of listening to the natural world and its ecophony. I recently listened to a resident of Salt Spring Island (West coast of Canada) tell his story of life on Ganges Harbour being forever changed by the constant traffic of float planes into and out of the island. He came to SSI for its beauty, peace and serenity. Now he lives right next to a busy airport that was never planned and approved and he experiences acute solastalgia as the floatplanes roar past his home and cancel the sounds of gulls, loons, turkey vultures and the hum of the hummingbird.
I wonder how many other people lament the deafening of a once loved soundscape?
As an academic, I work on campuses that have become battlegrounds of technophony as each building competes with the one next door to overwhelm the environment with the noise of fans, compressors and pullies. It is a dull roar, but one that makes contemplation in quietude impossible. The irony is that one has to close a window and shut out fresh air and the ‘outside’ in order to have silence in a room! The birds and animals that inhabit the campus must have to yell at each other to be heard. The subtleties of territories and communication are trashed in a cacophony of competition from technosounds. I have read about how the noise of ships propellers, sonar and other technophony in the oceans has made communication for the creatures of the sea difficult, if not impossible (See: http://www.acousticecology.org/oceanreports.html ).
As an academic, I work on campuses that have become battlegrounds of technophony as each building competes with the one next door to overwhelm the environment with the noise of fans, compressors and pullies. It is a dull roar, but one that makes contemplation in quietude impossible. The irony is that one has to close a window and shut out fresh air and the ‘outside’ in order to have silence in a room! The birds and animals that inhabit the campus must have to yell at each other to be heard. The subtleties of territories and communication are trashed in a cacophony of competition from technosounds. I have read about how the noise of ships propellers, sonar and other technophony in the oceans has made communication for the creatures of the sea difficult, if not impossible (See: http://www.acousticecology.org/oceanreports.html ).
The silence of the whales,
the deafness of the dolphins.
Drowning in an ocean of noise?
I am even beginning to find the hum of the refrigerator annoying … it is denying me access to that interior silence of night thoughts. Our heads are filling up with the subtle, but pervasive tinnitus technophony of hard drives that play digital tricks on our ears. A wall of noise hits us inside and out. Who knows what damage the earphone is causing to our aural sense? Excessive noise damages ecosystem and human health.
I am even beginning to find the hum of the refrigerator annoying … it is denying me access to that interior silence of night thoughts. Our heads are filling up with the subtle, but pervasive tinnitus technophony of hard drives that play digital tricks on our ears. A wall of noise hits us inside and out. Who knows what damage the earphone is causing to our aural sense? Excessive noise damages ecosystem and human health.
The warnings about deafness go unheard.
Sorry, I can’t hear you …
We must defeat negative technophony and overcome the solastalgia produced by fading soundscapes. As well as the loss of loved physical landscapes, we are losing their sounds. It is time to turn the I-Pod off and give voice to this loss.
We must defeat negative technophony and overcome the solastalgia produced by fading soundscapes. As well as the loss of loved physical landscapes, we are losing their sounds. It is time to turn the I-Pod off and give voice to this loss.
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Something Borrowed
Something Borrowed …
A connoisseur
of the consumer society
Collector of pegs, plastic
and precious cobalt antiques
Finder of lost marble memories
Indigo eye ego artist
‘stick figure with charcoal wash’
An amorous avenue for
feather dancing to liquid song
the bower of babble on
Cryptic green female critics
searching for …
Something blue.
---------------------------
Copyright Glenn Albrecht 2007
Image from: http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/satin_bowerbird.htm
With thanks to The Australian Museum.
A connoisseur
of the consumer society
Collector of pegs, plastic
and precious cobalt antiques
Finder of lost marble memories
Indigo eye ego artist
‘stick figure with charcoal wash’
An amorous avenue for
feather dancing to liquid song
the bower of babble on
Cryptic green female critics
searching for …
Something blue.
---------------------------
Copyright Glenn Albrecht 2007
Image from: http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/satin_bowerbird.htm
With thanks to The Australian Museum.
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
Measuring Our Integrity
Measuring our Integrity
We all need measurements of our Greenhouse gas pollution. The ClimateCam or greenhouse gas speedometer now being championed in Newcastle is one way to understand the relationship between consumption and pollution. However, while school kids might learn that turning off the classroom lights at lunchtime will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this is not a realistic response to the scale of the problem we face. One new coal mine, a new coal fired power station or a single ship leaving the port of Newcastle fully laden with coal will instantly wipe out the value of all of Newcastle’s light bulb changing and energy conservation measures. The real greenhouse gas index (GGI) that we need must measure is the concentration of greenhouse gases in the global atmosphere and we must be able to see that we are actually lowering the emissions at a global level. It is the GGI that will be far more important than the Dow Jones or the All Ordinaries and we will need to watch it come down every year.
There is no doubt that global warming is serious business and changing the climate should not be trivialised with public relations stunts. The Hunter region in particular will be hit hard by increased heat stress and disease in humans and other animals, worse droughts and water shortages, severe storms and flash flooding and sea level rise that will inundate all the land many metres above the current sea level. The expensive water front property, port infrastructure and our beaches will become water world. All these hugely costly changes will occur within the lifetime of the current and next generation of Novocastrians, that is, 50 – 100 years from right now.
The trouble with these problems is that although we can, in theory and with massive investments, adapt to slow change, climate scientists are suggesting that the nature, speed and intensity of the changes might not be predictable. The systems we are dealing with are immensely complex and have tipping points or thresholds that when met, are capable of delivering sudden and disastrous impacts. There may be no opportunity to adapt to enormous changes and even if we try, further unpredictable change might render futile all our efforts to avoid catastrophe. A bi-polar meltdown of ice and a sudden and large rise in sea level will just flow right over the top of any hugely expensive adaptive barrage or levee system we commit to protect our property in the near future. The Hunter is in an extremely vulnerable position with respect to all of the worst possible impacts of climate chaos. Our coastal lifestyle and real estate values, industry, our city and port, Lake Macquarie and agriculture are all at risk. In the face of growing evidence of real world change in response to global warming, it is not scare mongering to argue that the total environment is at foreseeable risk of dangerous change.
The cause of this really bad future scenario is our increasing greenhouse gas problem. For politicians … ‘It’s the climate, stupid’. We must urgently reduce our greenhouse gas emissions until we bring the planet’s climate back into a reasonably predictable pattern. With global greenhouse gas concentrations already close to dangerous levels for further warming and climate chaos we cannot afford any longer to play Russian roulette with the future. The science and the ethics are telling us to change and change right now!
Having delayed reasonable responses to global warming for over a decade it is now necessary that drastic changes take place. The fossil fuels that drive a combustion economy must be urgently phased out. In Australia, we must leave coal in the ground and show that we are prepared to make a sacrifice of cheap but polluting energy for the benefit of all global citizens and all future generations. Ethical leadership on the global warming issue will demonstrate such generosity towards the future.
The GGI as a measure of total concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the only relevant measure of greenhouse gases and the only way to substantially reduce that concentration is to massively reduce our use of fossil fuels. We just have to stop exploding and burning things to run an economy. Climate chaos and an environment in crisis deliver an economic super-depression. It is not a question of balance. A foundation for society based on genuinely clean, safe and renewable energy is vital to our needs in the post combustion economy. These technologies are available right now and for the current generation of political leaders and captains of industry to be investing billions in the filthy lie of ‘clean coal’ and insanely dangerous nuclear energy is ethically bankrupt. Perhaps worse is a possible outcome of a lifestyle related Greenhouse Gas Speedometer that gives children the impression that the world will be saved if only they change their light bulbs. While the GGS in Newcastle might go down, the GGI continues to rise steeply as the Port is expanded to export more coal.
Our children need to know the truth about what is happening to their world and a vital part of that truth is that we all must understand that the coal-based wealth of the Hunter region and the Port of Newcastle is built upon the very cause of climate chaos. Our children deserve much more and much better.
Glenn Albrecht Tuesday 17th April.
We all need measurements of our Greenhouse gas pollution. The ClimateCam or greenhouse gas speedometer now being championed in Newcastle is one way to understand the relationship between consumption and pollution. However, while school kids might learn that turning off the classroom lights at lunchtime will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this is not a realistic response to the scale of the problem we face. One new coal mine, a new coal fired power station or a single ship leaving the port of Newcastle fully laden with coal will instantly wipe out the value of all of Newcastle’s light bulb changing and energy conservation measures. The real greenhouse gas index (GGI) that we need must measure is the concentration of greenhouse gases in the global atmosphere and we must be able to see that we are actually lowering the emissions at a global level. It is the GGI that will be far more important than the Dow Jones or the All Ordinaries and we will need to watch it come down every year.
There is no doubt that global warming is serious business and changing the climate should not be trivialised with public relations stunts. The Hunter region in particular will be hit hard by increased heat stress and disease in humans and other animals, worse droughts and water shortages, severe storms and flash flooding and sea level rise that will inundate all the land many metres above the current sea level. The expensive water front property, port infrastructure and our beaches will become water world. All these hugely costly changes will occur within the lifetime of the current and next generation of Novocastrians, that is, 50 – 100 years from right now.
The trouble with these problems is that although we can, in theory and with massive investments, adapt to slow change, climate scientists are suggesting that the nature, speed and intensity of the changes might not be predictable. The systems we are dealing with are immensely complex and have tipping points or thresholds that when met, are capable of delivering sudden and disastrous impacts. There may be no opportunity to adapt to enormous changes and even if we try, further unpredictable change might render futile all our efforts to avoid catastrophe. A bi-polar meltdown of ice and a sudden and large rise in sea level will just flow right over the top of any hugely expensive adaptive barrage or levee system we commit to protect our property in the near future. The Hunter is in an extremely vulnerable position with respect to all of the worst possible impacts of climate chaos. Our coastal lifestyle and real estate values, industry, our city and port, Lake Macquarie and agriculture are all at risk. In the face of growing evidence of real world change in response to global warming, it is not scare mongering to argue that the total environment is at foreseeable risk of dangerous change.
The cause of this really bad future scenario is our increasing greenhouse gas problem. For politicians … ‘It’s the climate, stupid’. We must urgently reduce our greenhouse gas emissions until we bring the planet’s climate back into a reasonably predictable pattern. With global greenhouse gas concentrations already close to dangerous levels for further warming and climate chaos we cannot afford any longer to play Russian roulette with the future. The science and the ethics are telling us to change and change right now!
Having delayed reasonable responses to global warming for over a decade it is now necessary that drastic changes take place. The fossil fuels that drive a combustion economy must be urgently phased out. In Australia, we must leave coal in the ground and show that we are prepared to make a sacrifice of cheap but polluting energy for the benefit of all global citizens and all future generations. Ethical leadership on the global warming issue will demonstrate such generosity towards the future.
The GGI as a measure of total concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the only relevant measure of greenhouse gases and the only way to substantially reduce that concentration is to massively reduce our use of fossil fuels. We just have to stop exploding and burning things to run an economy. Climate chaos and an environment in crisis deliver an economic super-depression. It is not a question of balance. A foundation for society based on genuinely clean, safe and renewable energy is vital to our needs in the post combustion economy. These technologies are available right now and for the current generation of political leaders and captains of industry to be investing billions in the filthy lie of ‘clean coal’ and insanely dangerous nuclear energy is ethically bankrupt. Perhaps worse is a possible outcome of a lifestyle related Greenhouse Gas Speedometer that gives children the impression that the world will be saved if only they change their light bulbs. While the GGS in Newcastle might go down, the GGI continues to rise steeply as the Port is expanded to export more coal.
Our children need to know the truth about what is happening to their world and a vital part of that truth is that we all must understand that the coal-based wealth of the Hunter region and the Port of Newcastle is built upon the very cause of climate chaos. Our children deserve much more and much better.
Glenn Albrecht Tuesday 17th April.
Sunday, 8 April 2007
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
Life Out of Balance
Life Out of Balance
A thousand years of Aamjiwnaang dreams
spirits touched by pure steam
from sweat lodge rocks
that release a culture’s memory.
One hundred short years of inversion
in the Chemical Valley
fugitive emissions into every space
Is the maple syrup really sweet?
Geese struggle for formation in miasmic air
benzene tears in the artist’s eye
reveal the reasons for
Benjamin Chee Chee’s suicide.
Sweet innocent boys go missing
So too the Snapping Turtle penis
shrinking in the chromosome chaos
the Hopi call Koyaanisqatsi.
A hundred long years of restoration
Geese, turtles and children
once again in perfect formation
life in beautiful balance.
Copyright: Glenn Albrecht
*also A Film by Godfrey Reggio, with Music by Philip Glass.
Ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. Crazy life. 2. Life in turmoil. 3. Life disintegrating. 4. Life out of balance. 5. A state of life that calls for another way of living.
Written on the release of information about the feminisation of the population of Aamjiwnaang First Nation people and snapping turtles. Twice the number of girls are being born than boys and the ‘feminised’ turtles have diminished penis size. Pollution from ‘chemical valley’ (Sarnia, Ontario) is thought to be implicated. Benjamin Chee Chee was a Native American artist, now famous for his portraits of Canada Geese and other birds. His Autumn Flight is depicted. I see his attempt to keep the world in order/balance in geese art as his way of trying to defeat the pathology and tragedy of nostalgia and solastalgia. The Aaamjiwnaang tell of geese trying to land in Chemical Valley in a cloud of benzene and dying before they hit water. Chee Chee's suicide, the problems of Indigenous people and the death of order in Canada Geese seem somehow connected.
Benjamin Chee Chee Image from http://www.whetung.com/chee.html with deep appreciation.
A thousand years of Aamjiwnaang dreams
spirits touched by pure steam
from sweat lodge rocks
that release a culture’s memory.
One hundred short years of inversion
in the Chemical Valley
fugitive emissions into every space
Is the maple syrup really sweet?
Geese struggle for formation in miasmic air
benzene tears in the artist’s eye
reveal the reasons for
Benjamin Chee Chee’s suicide.
Sweet innocent boys go missing
So too the Snapping Turtle penis
shrinking in the chromosome chaos
the Hopi call Koyaanisqatsi.
A hundred long years of restoration
Geese, turtles and children
once again in perfect formation
life in beautiful balance.
Copyright: Glenn Albrecht
*also A Film by Godfrey Reggio, with Music by Philip Glass.
Ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. Crazy life. 2. Life in turmoil. 3. Life disintegrating. 4. Life out of balance. 5. A state of life that calls for another way of living.
Written on the release of information about the feminisation of the population of Aamjiwnaang First Nation people and snapping turtles. Twice the number of girls are being born than boys and the ‘feminised’ turtles have diminished penis size. Pollution from ‘chemical valley’ (Sarnia, Ontario) is thought to be implicated. Benjamin Chee Chee was a Native American artist, now famous for his portraits of Canada Geese and other birds. His Autumn Flight is depicted. I see his attempt to keep the world in order/balance in geese art as his way of trying to defeat the pathology and tragedy of nostalgia and solastalgia. The Aaamjiwnaang tell of geese trying to land in Chemical Valley in a cloud of benzene and dying before they hit water. Chee Chee's suicide, the problems of Indigenous people and the death of order in Canada Geese seem somehow connected.
Benjamin Chee Chee Image from http://www.whetung.com/chee.html with deep appreciation.
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