We ARE the Environment
Harry T. Cook

By Harry T. Cook
6/12/15
 

 

 

 

"The spirit of capitalism is the spirit of an irreverent exploitation of nature, conceived as a treasure-house of riches that will guarantee everything that might be regarded as the good life/1... Greed of the sort that pillages Earth is a form of the will-to-power -- particularly flagrant sin in the modern era." /2

-- Reinhold Niebuhr, 1941

 

Earth's resources cannot be misused or abused to the extent that present and future generations are left inhaling more toxins than oxygen, are drinking slime rather than H2O, or having to defend themselves against those whose stomachs growl more loudly than those whose food they would kill to steal. Caring for the environment is a means to achieve the survival of Earth's present population.

 

For that reason alone, environmental sustainability must not only be sought for, but fought for.

 

Here is just a sample of what we're up against: The Environmental Protection Agency is about to issue new rules to assure the availability of safer drinking water across America. The oil, gas and coal lobbies joined by the Farm Bureau are up in arms. They complain that the rules would serve to reduce their profits if they were to be required to conduct their drilling, mining, transport and waste disposal in a responsible manner. Avoiding the central issue, the lobbyists insist that the proposed rules are nothing more than "a federal overreach." Conservatives in Congress are quick to agree.

 

It calls to mind the Texas legislator who recently introduced a bill that would allow the reintroduction of more fatty foods in school lunches in defiance of federal guidelines notably advocated by Michelle Obama. "It's not the French fries. It's freedom," saith he.

The effete way to seek environmental sustainability is something like going to confession periodically and, after the promise of a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers, to be given absolution and to hear the most na�ve words ever spoken by one human being to another: "Go and sin no more."

 

Even Henry David Thoreau couldn't do it. He would sojourn at Walden Pond pretending to have found a sustainability of sorts, but only if he could repair to his mother's abode for a frequent dinner.

 

I have known people who signed on to one of those frontier-like things whereby they agreed to be dropped off in some wilderness or another with not much more than a sharp knife and sufficient raiment to brave inclement weather plus a few rations. There they sojourned for some days and nights eating what could be plucked from tree or bush, or pierced and skinned with the knife. Out they came at the end, ruddy, happily soiled and headed for the nearest motel to luxuriate in a hot shower.

 

Of them I can only say that I am amazed and envious, all the while knowing that I could not bring myself to do what they had done, in that I am so very much like the lot of us who are not about to abandon the hot air furnace, central air conditioning, electric lights, the comfortable automobile and the thousand and one conveniences and comforts that have come to define life on Earth for the fortunate. Taking one of us with the other, it is clear that we do not feel pressure to give up much of what we enjoy, knowing that any social consensus to do so is far from being realized.

 

In the dictionary at my desk, "environment" means "that which encircles or surrounds." The sense is that we cannot escape it. We ourselves are part of that which surrounds us. We're it. We imbibe it. It interacts with us. With every breath we take, it enters us. With every exhalation, we breathe into it. With every step we take into a forest, other bio-forms are affected. With every discharge we cause to be made in any body of water, other life forms are affected.

 

As Joan Cook (no relation), a Michigan thinker and writer, puts it: "We are actually a biological village on two feet ... we are all made of sunshine and mud pies, treetops and sludge, eagles and worms and everything in between."

 

Looking at it that way, we can see that environmental sustainability is at base taking care of ourselves. It is doing no harm to ourselves. It is, therefore, doing no harm to any life form that is part of what encircles or surrounds us even as we do not wish to have harm done to ourselves by anything other life form. The Golden Rule?

 

Well do I remember as a boy of around 12 years old watching a neighbor walk out of his tool shed with a large axe in hand. He advanced upon a lissome birch tree, and with not more than two or three mighty strokes, he felled it. It was late summer, and the leaves on that birch were golden, its bark a mellowed white. I will tell you that I felt every blow of that axe.

 

It turned out that he wanted to build a table with legs of birch wood. Gone for a table he didn't need was a tree that by its very being there had awakened in my young self a sense that nature was more than just a biological-botanical happenstance and that the tree's existence was no less important than my own.

 

Many years later, I came across this bit of verse by Robert Frost concerning another birch tree and never forgot it: it was there to be admired, And zeal would not be thanked that cut it down ... It was a thing of beauty and was sent To live out its life as an ornament./3 Without ever having heard at that stage of my life the word "environmentalist," I became one.

 

Certainly some things have gone too far for amelioration in our time or in that of the next couple of generations. In some ways, parts of the planet are so damaged that it would take a very long time for them to be restored, if restored they could ever be. That means our desire for their being sustained must be rethought and remodeled.

 

Of course, we must tend to the simple tasks of conservation. But also and just as important, we have to look to the world of electoral politics and join with groups whose leaders understand that until elections are separated from money, and campaigns consist of aspiration based on information rather than base schoolyard taunts, the environment will be at risk. Soulless men will still cut down the tender birch. Oil, gas and coal interests will continue to lay pipelines under precious rivers, streams and farmland, and blow off the tops of purple mountain majesties, oblivious of the ruin that results.

 

It is, in a way, war. Seeking environmental sustainability is one thing. Fighting for it is another.

 

1/ Nature and Destiny. New York, NY. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941. 20

2/ Nature and Destiny. 191

3/ "A Young Birch." Complete Poems. New York, NY. Henry Holt and Company, 1957. 517

 

 

 

This essay is an abstract of a lecture given at C3Exchange in Grand Haven, Michigan, on May 24, 2015.

 


Copyright 2015 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 


Readers Write
Re essay of 6/5/15 One Smooth Stone
 

 

 

Harvey H. Guthrie, Fillmore, California:

Wonderful. The style is fine, old, newspaper columnist, but the feel is of black church preaching. Great!

 

James Boxall, Alexandria, Virginia:
Bring on the Sling and the Stone" INDEED! Thanks for your comments about the current state of the American political environment. They are spot on. The eight principles you articulate are a must for an ideal Democratic candidate. It remains to be seen how close the eventual Democratic nominee comes to these positions. We know that the Republican candidate will register a robust .000. Sunday afternoon I will be mingling with the Democratic faithful of Arlington County Virginia at a campaign kickoff event for my friend Patrick Hope who is seeking his fourth term in the Virginia House of Delegates. He supports all eight principles. Unfortunately, he and his fellow House Democrats are outnumbered 2-1. Much work lies ahead to restore America.

 

Mark Bendure, Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan:

From all I have heard, Bernie Sanders would make a wonderful President with views I could really support.  Alas, I fear that the political process will continue to make it impossible for the best to preside. What does it take to become President?  It starts with currying favor with party bigwigs who have their own agendas that may not coincide with the public good.  Then, it takes supporters willing or able to donate the tremendous amount of money it takes to mount a nationwide campaign---bearing in mind that there are not a lot of well-heeled donors standing in line for the election of someone they perceive to be against their economic self-interest (erroneously, in my view -- living in a just and prosperous environment is a worthwhile reward for modest tax payments). At the same time, those whose economic self-interest would be served by his election lack additional money to give to a cause like politics when there are more pressing survival demands. Getting through that process gets one to the convention where a national line-up of powerbrokers and those whose vote they control must be appeased, often with trade-offs and compromise. If somehow nominated, they get to go through the same money-raising routine, but on a much larger scale. Meanwhile, they are the target of every crackpot rumor-monger who can spin some false or distorted tale of how their election will make pedophilia mandatory or displace the Constitution with Sharia. Do you really think this process is one that the best and brightest want to put themselves through?  To get before a Congress dominated by dogmatic representatives of gerrymandered districts designed to stack the deck? To my dying day I will support those running for office with pure and honorable intentions. I will forever root for David and try to emulate his giant-slaying accomplishments (figuratively, not literally, of course). I will cheer for Mr. Sanders as long as he seems to be the most idealistic candidate, as I did with President Obama. Forgive me, though, if my optimism has waned with the years.

 

Tom Hall, Foster, Rhode Island:

Bring on the sling and the stone ... and stand by to overturn the tables manned by a self-serving cult of power.

 

Frieda Rogers, Portland, Oregon:

Sir, your innocence has caught up with your liberalism. Bernie Sanders is no David because there is no such a human being in real life. He (Sanders) could not possibly serve as you would have him do, even if he were elected. I love your sentiment, but just want to pat you on the back and say, "There, there, dear."

 

Gloria Holzman, Southfield, Michigan:

Can't thank you enough for this clarion call for justice.

 

Fred Fenton, Concord, California:

[Yours] are the questions that should be asked of anyone presuming to run for President. I believe Sanders is running because it gives him an opportunity to say to the whole nation what he has been arguing for years, that the poor are being left out of serious political dialogue and the middle class is fast disappearing, while everything favors big corporations, major banks, hedge fund managers, and the super rich. It is a crisis that if not turned back at the polls must eventually bring social and economic disaster to the nation.

 

Tom Richie, Anderson, South Carolina:

I love your David/Bernie Sanders piece. Thanks for writing so clearly the platform for this political season. What if some politicos actually read it and took it seriously? An exciting possibility!

 

Blayney Colmore, Jacksonville, Vermont:
You shame me as you often do, by your willingness to sponsor what you passionately believe even if its efficacy seems hopelessly remote. Of course I mean Bernie Sanders, the only person visible so far for whom I could muster honest enthusiasm. Two things keep me from throwing myself into his camp with money and energy. The first is the Jimmy Carter thing. Jimmy Carter was the last president I let myself believe might take on our long slide into plutocracy. I believe Senator Sanders (my senator!) feels passionately about addressing everything on that list you brilliantly constructed of those things that must be faced down if we are to regain any sense of justice and a right to call ourselves a democracy. So did Jimmy Carter. It took President Carter nearly a decade after his defeat to recover from his anger and disillusionment at how totally his presidency was destroyed by those who feared he might actually cause change. The second is Sanders' age, 73, just two years younger than I am. Unless he has found some elixir for which those who dream of immortality have long searched, he simply hasn't the energy and acuity the job requires. I may yet decide I'm too old to make pragmatic compromises with what I passionately believe, and choose to hitch my wagon to Bernie's very appealing star. And maybe Bernie will prove my reservations wrong.

 

Marina B. Brown, Ann Arbor, Michigan:

It is barely 6 a.m. and I read your essay "One Smooth Stone." It did wake me up fast. It is a very clear and important look at the issues we face. Thinking about the dismal state of our "democratic" panorama you essays shows that we should focus on important issues and leave the media frenzy of unimportant tidbits out of our brains.

 

Joel Pugh, Dallas, Texas:

David and Goliath. Great story. Also, therein a miracle, at least according to the fundamentalists who believe their bibles to be the inerrant word of God. The Hebrew Masoretic text, the source for most of our printed bibles, puts Goliath at 6 cubits and a span, about 9 feet. Earlier Hebrew texts (Septuagint, Josephus and Dead Sea Scrolls) describe Goliath as 4 cubits and a span, about 6' 6". The often unrecognized miracle herein, assuming at least the Dead Sea Scrolls and our bibles to be the word of God, would be that Goliath grew about 2 or 3 feet taller a thousand years after his head was cut off.

 

Grant Hutchinson, Durham, North Carolina:

Would that your vision might be realized and Bernie Sanders would be the Democratic nominee. He'd be pretty old going in, but so was Reagan. Maybe Bernie would press out the kinks Ronnie made in the fabric of our nation.

 

Nicholas S. Molinari, Brick, New Jersey:

Your eight-point challenge to American politicians could be met only by a single candidate, Bernie Sanders, a.k.a. David. How sad Bernie the most worthy candidate hasn't a chance of winning, not the nomination, not the presidency, not even a piece of the avalanche of bribery-cash descending into the venal hands of our politicians in this disgraceful system of elections. Thanks a lot, you 5 Justices! Sad also that the current candidates in both major parties would be too fearful to espouse your 8 points, at least not without substantial qualifications. American voters are simply not truthful enough; not caring enough; not intelligent enough; not generous enough...to pivot away from endemic greed, their worship of our national religion Capitalism, their obsessive machismo flooding every region and city with nastiness and hatred. Frivolity and fun prevent and/or distract those who might have entertained the notion of mature thought and compassionate conduct from moral and intellectual growth beyond the level of adolescents.

 

 

What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at [email protected].