Category Archives: New Attitude to Nature

Losing Ones Soul: 4 horses of the Scientific Apocalypse

New Attitude to Nature

 

Professor John Moriarty, who guided me on this attempt to walk beautifully in the world, reminded that beliefs are important. They are actions. The beliefs like the belief in a Big Bang have been inherited by us. Scientists have led us into a “nothing but universe” that is without things.  “These are like the 4 horses of the scientific apocalypse,” says Moriarty. The world has been reduced to ‘nothing but, by the Newtonian universe.’ This is the nothing but universe and he says,  “in it our souls have drained away.” That does not make scientists wrong. In the hands of lesser persons than Newton such ideas are deadly. Destructive. “Add that to Genesis 1:26 and 28 and you have the formula for the modern world.” Those are the passages of the Bible that purport to give humans the right to dominate the world as they see fit.

 

In other words, Moriarty warns against the combination of Genesis and the ‘nothing but Newtonian universe. Moriarty believes that Europeans have come so far in the last 3 centuries that “we have lost our souls.”

 

According to Moriarty, the first peoples of the world, who he refuses to call primitive people because that assumes that we of the west are superior to them, have realized that to lose your souls is a great calamity. Only the greatest medicine or shaman or spirit guide can bring you back to your soul once you have lost it. “Because we have lost our soul we are not able to see soul in anything else,” according to Moriarty.

 

We have reached a stage where the universal European attitude is the utilitarian attitude. It is only if something is useful to us that it has value. This, he says, was the attitude of John Stuart Mill and the utilitarians. In other words, things that have use and benefit have value, and nothing but those things have value. It is an idea that Moriarty is convinced is a fundamental mistake. What I have called “the original sin.” We think we are superior to everything in nature. This is a powerful illusion.

 

As a result, he says, “our eyes are now like brain tumours.” All we see is economics. Farmers see a cow and all they see is kilos of milk. They don’t see a living being with soul. Just kilos of milk. Pig farmers see pork. Nothing else.

 

Moriarty recalled being near a salmon river in Ireland where “the river seems to be liquid soul—all soul.” The river “gives you your soul.”

 

When we reach the stage where we see a cow and see kilos of meat, or see a magnificent tree and all we see is how many board feet of timber we could get from it, or the stars at night and see the big bang or big crunch we have arrived at terrible universe. We have lost touch with the soul in us and therefore we can’t see soul. We can’t see aliveness; all we see is biology. If you ask these utilitarians, ‘well then what am I?” the answer of course would be “you are transformed groceries.” Moriarty says if the woman I love is merely transformed groceries how can I write a sonnet to her? We have destroyed her. We have destroyed the art of the sonnet. We have reduced Shakespeare to mush.

 

Original Sin

2018 Trip to Southwest USA, New Attitude to Nature, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

 

According to Professor John Moriarty, my guide on this particular meander, things went wrong right at very  beginning with the first chapter of Genesis. In chapter 1 verses 26 and 28 where God is saying “let us make man in our image and likeness where God gives man a divine mandate to rule over the earth, to subdue it, and have dominion over it.”

It followed directly from that the world was created by God for “man’s use and benefit.” Moriarty compared this to saying the earth, which is a jewel hanging in space, is more like a sink or a toilet bowl—i.e. for the use and benefit of humans.

 I would characterize this as the original sin. Right from the start, Moriarty says, “our attitude to the earth was all wrong.”

 In Job, God withdraws the commands to rule the earth. There in Job he says man cannot and will not haver dominion over the behemoth. Jesus was “Grand Canyon deep in the world’s karma,” according to Moriarty. So it is not a bad thing that many are in religious collision with his holy book. This is as it should be.

Moriarty asks if one can be “not rebelliously but religiously, in collision with the Holy Book?” Is that even possible? He says Man must resist that command. Just as if a man was commanded to have dominion over his wife, and the wife must refuse, so many must refuse the command to rule the earth. If God said to man rule over that dog, the dog could not manifest his nature to man. So too with the world.

As a result, Moriarty rejects this early commandment of God. That is a bold move. Instead, Moriarty seeks to walk beautifully over the earth. That is Professor Moriarty’s religious quest.

 

Seeking to Walk Beautifully on the Earth : A Surreal Meandering Adventure of the Mind

New Attitude to Nature

John Moriarty, was lecturer I encountered briefly, in 1967-68 at the University of Manitoba where he taught English literature and I was a humble but eager freshman student trying to soak up as much knowledge as I could.  It was an incredible experience being lifted from a small town to what I thought was the intellectual centre of the universe.

I have posted about him once in the past so this post is a bit repetitive because it has taken me a long time to meander back to it. That is how meandering works. Slowly.

After that year I never saw him again. I lost complete track of him. I didn’t know what he had done after that year. Did he return to Ireland? Did he get to teach at another Canadian or American university? I did not know.

Moriarty had been a beloved Professor by many students, even those, like me, who never took an actual course or class with him, but just heard him lecture a few times.

Since then, thanks to the Internet I have learned that Professor Moriarty died in 2007. Thankfully, some fans recorded a lecture he gave a couple of years before he died, and posted with it one photograph on YouTube. Listening to the talk brought me back to 1967. This was a remarkable experience.

I was astonished when I listened to it, that the good Professor had been absorbed with some of the same issues that have been tugging at me for years now, mainly around the subject of the necessity for a new attitude to nature and what indigenous people of North America can teach us about that. That was precisely his search. He said, at the end, it was a search for the Navajo Cradle.

I want to blog about some of the things he talked about in his lecture and add my own comments to them for what those comments are worth.

For me this has been an experience of delight. He called his lecture, learning to walk seeking to walk beautifully on the earth. What a great idea.

That epitomizes what I have beeb talking about more prosaically as  new attitude to nature.

 

Forests are our Friends

Nature, New Attitude to Nature

 

We must learn to have a new attitude to nature. That includes a new attitude to our forests. Forests are our friends. As David Attenborough said about forests, “They are the best technology nature has for locking up carbon.”

 

Once more what is good for nature is good for us.  What is good for forests is good for us.  Forests are a wonderful source of bio-diversity and bio-diversity is essential for human health on the planet. Some people say happy wife happy life. I am not stupid enough to quarrel with that. I just want to add, happy forest happy life.

 

Forests will be a vital part of any recovery we can make of the natural world. They provide two very important things that will be vital for the recovery. First, forests are very important in storing carbon rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. They are among the best of our technology. If we are going to hold down to a minimum the effects of climate change we must take advantage of the things forests can do to help. Secondly, forests are critically important for maintaining bio-diversity. We are losing our biodiversity at a stunning rate. We must stop deforestation everywhere for both of these reasons. Both of these processes work well together.

Costa Rica provides an example of what must be done. Early in the 20th century more than was 75% of Costa Rica was forested. By the 1980s this was reduced to ¼.   Costa Rica realized this was unwise and made serious efforts to change the depletion of the forests. Costa Rica encouraged land owners to plant trees. This turned out to be remarkably effective. According to Attenborough,

“In just 25 years the forest of Costa Rica has returned to cover half of Costa Rica once again. Just imagine if we achieved this on a global scale. The return of the trees would absorb as much as 2/3rds of the carbon emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by our activities to date. With all of these things, there is one overriding principle: nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration. We just have to do what nature has always done. It worked out the secret of life long ago. In this world a species can only thrive if everything around it thrives too. We can solve the problems we now face by embracing this reality. If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us. It is now time for our species to stop simply growing and establish a life on this planet in balance with nature, to start thrive .”

This applies to us as well. We will only thrive if nature around us thrives.

Of course, it is not just forests that are important. Nature is important. People not so much. People think we are important. We are wrong. If nature does not thrive, we do not thrive. It really is that simple.

 

Farming Smart: The Dutch Way

2017 Trip to Southwest USA, New Attitude to Nature

 

If you recall,  as I learned when I arrived in Arizona earlier this year, David Attenborough was pointing the way towards a new attitude to nature. Part of this project involved the Dutch.

The Dutch are smart. The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated places on earth. Their land is filled with mainly family home farming operations. There is really little land left over for more farming, Therefore, they have to be smart. As David Attenborough said,

“Dutch farmers have become expert at getting the most out of while at the same time every hectare of farm land. Increasingly they are doing so sustainably, raising yields tenfold in 2 generations while at the same time using less water, fewer pesticides, less fertilizer and emitting less carbon! Despite its size the Netherlands is now the world’s second largest exporter of foods! It is entirely possible for us to apply high tech and low tech to produce much more food from much less land.”

 

It is difficult to deny that Dutch farmers are smart. As I learned from one of my Dutch clients, before I became a recovering lawyer,  Dutch farmers manage to have intensive livestock operations while minimizing the impact on their environment.  Because their country is  small they cannot waste land.  Intensive livestock operations emit a lot of unpleasant   odours and chemicals. At least in Canada.  Yet Dutch farmers have such operations right next to residential areas largely without complaints from the residents. They have learned how to manage farm odours, and chemicals, and not just carbon emissions. In Canada we do this by using more land and keeping neighbours apart from each other. We should try to be smarter instead. Like the Dutch.

Attenborough also said “we must learn to produce food in new places such as indoors within cities. Even in places where there is no land at all.”  For example, we must learn to farm vertically. Or produce food in the ocean. Some farmers are already doing this. More must do that. The smarter we get the more burgers we can eat.

Attenborough also said, “As we learn to farm smarter, we can reverse the land grab we have been involved in ever since we began to farm, because we have an urgent need for all that free land.”

This really is a new attitude to nature. It requires us to be smarter.

 

Chief Seattle: An Old Attitude to nature can provide a New Attitude to Nature

Affinity, expansive religion, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, New Attitude to Nature, Philosophy/Ideas, religion

 

A few years ago, in New Zealand I purchased a poster containing the complete text of the response by Chief Seattle to the President of United States to his offer to purchase land from his tribe, which I posted about yesterday.  I had only read part of it before.  It was one of the most eloquent statements I have ever heard about a genuine approach to nature that was, to some extent, the position of  many North American indigenous people.  It was radically different from the approach of the arriving Europeans.

I recognize that there is controversy over the extent to which this version or any other version accurately records what Chief Seattle said to the President, but I believe the general tenor of the letter records a profound philosophy which I am content to ascribe to Chief Seattle as I don’t know who better deserves the credit for it. I certainly think the thoughts deserve our attention.

The renowned English philosopher A. N. Whitehead once said, “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” I think the same things can be said about Chief Seattle. At least as far as environmental philosophy goes. And to think I learned absolutely nothing of it in 4 years of university studying philosophy, proving how deficient my education was at that time, nearly 50 years ago.

Chief Seattle was a Suquamish and Duwamish chief in what we now call western North America. The city of Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, was named after him.

As Chief Seattle said,

 

“We are part of the earth and it is part of us.

The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.

The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man—all belong to the same family.”

 

Another way of saying is to say we are all kin. All people and all creatures of the natural world are kin. This basic premise has profound philosophical consequences. For if we recognize that we are all kin we ought to treat each other, and other creatures too, with respect.  I will get to Darwin later, for he gave the scientific basis for this view. I cherish the idea that indigenous philosophy and western science are deeply interwoven. Realizing that also has profound consequences.

To many of the First Nations of North America, they saw themselves as a part of their world.  Their philosophies vary from tribe to tribe, but a common thread, is the recognition that the Earth is our Mother and we are all together. We are all connected. We are all part of Mother Earth. Earth is not separate and apart from us. We are woven together.  This is profound fellow feeling. This philosophy recognizes that what we do to nature we do to ourselves. That is what I call affinity.

 

This idea also has profound significance in the history of religious thought.  The Indo-European word “religio” , which is the root of the word religion, means “linkage” or “connection” and is in my view the basis of all major religions. In fact, it is the core of all religions. More on this later.

I never learned any indigenous philosophy while I pursued a 4 year Honours Arts program in philosophy and English literature. I never even heard of indigenous philosophy. I did not even think such a thing was possible.

This philosophy echoes or even sums up much of what I have learned over the years, starting with German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world.  Only Chief Seattle was much more clear and easier to understand, without being any less profound than Martin Heidegger.  The natives of North America often felt a deep connection to the land.  They felt that they were a part of it.  To the Europeans on the other hand, nature was a resource ready to be exploited.  And from these two disparate attitudes springs much that is wrong with western society.

This is an old attitude to nature, which I am proposing as a new attitude to nature. It owuld be a worthy replacement for the old western attitude,.

Chief Seattle’s statement is a stunning statement about humans and nature, and all the more amazing because a “savage” (as he was wrongly called made it in 1854. Who was the savage?

 

Chief Seattle

Fellow Feeing, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, New Attitude to Nature

 

Let me say at the outset that I am a white guy so what you read here is my interpretation of indigenous philosophy. Everyone should talk to indigenous people or read their own works to get the perspective of indigenous people about indigenous philosophy.  I think their philosophy is important and worth everyone’s attention. That is why I am giving my interpretation, but it is not intended to displace indigenous perspectives about their own philosophy.

I will start with a famous work of indigenous philosophy often attributed to Chief Seattle a famous indigenous chief. The I will give my views on it.

The Earth is Precious

 

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land?  The idea is strange to us.

If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

 

All Sacred

 

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.

Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.  The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars.  Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man.

We are part of the earth and it is part of us.

The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.

The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man—all belong to the same family.

 

Not easy

 

So when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us.  The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves.

He will be our father and we will be his children.  So we will consider your offer to buy our land.

But it will not be easy.  For this land is sacred to us.

This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors.

If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people.

The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.

 

Kindness

 

The rivers are our brothers; they quench our thirst.  The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children.  If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways.  One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.

The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on.

He leaves his father’s graves behind, and he does not care.  He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care.

His father’s grave, and his children’s birthright, are forgotten.  He treats his mother, the earth, and this brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold, like sheep or bright beads.

His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a dessert.

I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways.

The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man.  But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.

There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities.  No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect’s wings.

But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand.

The clatter only seems to insult the ears.  And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night?  I am a red man and do not understand.

The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or scented with the pinon pine.

 

Precious

 

The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the breath—the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath.

The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes.  Like a many dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.

But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares it spirit with all the life it supports.  The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.

And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow’s flowers.

 

One condition

 

So we will consider your offer to buy our land.  If we decide to accept, I will make one condition:  the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

I am a savage and I do not understand any other way.

I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train.

I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

Why is man without beasts?  If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit.

         For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man.  All things are connected.

 

The Ashes

 

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers.  So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin.

Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.  If men spit upon the ground they spit upon themselves.

This is we know:  The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth.  This we know.

All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.  All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of he earth.  Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.  Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

We may be brothers after all.

We shall see.

One thing we know, which one the white man may one day discover—our God is the same God.

You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot.  He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white.

This earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creator.

The whites too shall pass: perhaps sooner than all other tribes.  Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man.

That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires.

Where is the thicket?  Gone.

Where is the eagle?  Gone.

The end of living and the beginning of survival.

 

 

I have been blogging about a new attitude to nature.  The ancient attitude of indigenous people as exemplified by Chief Seattle in my mind sums up that new attitude to nature.

The Ocean is our Friend

Bio-Diversity, Ecocide, New Attitude to Nature

All life on the planet relies on our oceans for survival. As David Attenborough said,

“The animal world can’t operate without a healthy ocean and neither can we. The ocean is a critical ally in our battle to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. The more diverse it is the better it does its job.”

 

The nations of the world recognized in 2022 at the UN conference on bio-diversity, held in Canada, that bio-diversity was vital to the world but was under attack by human activity.

The ocean is also a vital source of food and again, that source is under siege as a result of human actions. The healthier our oceans are the more food it can supply. What’s bad for the ocean is bad for us too.

Our world with its growing populations needs all the healthy food it can get. We must be careful not to ruin good sources of food. It would be in our best interests to conserve those sources, including clearly, the oceans.

Palau is an island nation that recognized the importance of its marine life and also recognized that the marine life was disappearing. As a result, it established reserves where fishing was not permitted. Consequently, those actions were so successful that the fish population increased substantially. In fact, fish populations were so healthy and abundant that marine life spilled over into unprotected areas where fishers could catch the prey. The local fishers benefited as their coral reefs recovered too. That is a win/win situation, to use an over-worked phrase. Why don’t we do that around the world?

According to Attenborough,

“Estimates suggest, that no fish zones in one third of our coastal seas would be sufficient to provide all the fish we will ever need.  In international waters, the UN is attempting to create the biggest no fish zone of all. In one act this will transform the open ocean from a place where fish are exhausted by fishing fleets to a wilderness that will help us all in our efforts to combat climate change. The world’s greatest wildlife reserve in the world.”

 

And of course, at the same time, such measures will increase our supply of healthy food immensely!  And, to get mushy, millions of fish will be happier.

The ocean is our friend.

 

This can be done

Climate change, Decline of the west, Environmental Apocalypse, New Attitude to Nature

 

 

 

 Sunset at Peggy’s Cove

David Attenborough reminded us in his testament statement that

 “The living world is essentially solar powered. The world’s plants capture 3 trillion kilowatt hours of solar energy each day. Almost 20 times the energy we need just from sun light. Imagine if we phase out of fossil fuels and run our world on the eternal energy of the natural energy of the sun too.”

Of course, we could add wind and geothermal and other unlimited sources of energy. We could transform the world. For example, Morocco used to get all of its energy from foreign oil and gas and now it gets 40% of energy from internal natural renewable sources. It might be an exporter of energy to Europe by 2015. By 2015 renewables are predicted to be the main source of power.

However instead of changing with the times, our banks, our pension plans, our business leaders, and some of our governments, like Canada are investing Bigly in fossil fuels. Canada spent billions on a gas pipeline as it promised to get off fossil fuels.

Renewables are also a smart investment for many reasons. The energy will be more affordable. It will make our cities quieter and with cleaner air. We never have to worry about running out of sunlight and wind and heat from under the ground. Added to that, we won’t be subject to extortion from undemocratic dictators like Putin or sheiks from the Middle east when we rely on renewables obtained from inside our own borders. Currently air pollution is a major health consequence of our reliance on fossil fuels when there is a better way. We can avoid many of these problems if we switch our reliance on fossil fuels to renewable energy. Yet we find that difficult.

We have to change our attitudes so that we can change our ways.

Re-wild the Planet

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Anthropocene, Bio-Diversity, Decline of the west, Environmental Apocalypse, New Attitude to Nature

David Attenborough in his testament statement on  his show A Life on the Planet, said there was a straightforward way out of our world crisis. I found this very difficult to believe.  He said we had to re-wild the planet and we could do it, so that 100 years from now the planet will be wild again.

One of my favorite environmental writers, George Monbiot, a columnist for the The Guardian said something similar. Since two of my favorite environmentalists made a similar statement, I decided I should pay attention.

Attenborough said every species reaches a natural limit of its population. That is the population that can be supported by our planet. Anything more makes our life here unsustainable.

Because there is nothing restricting us, during my lifetime, the human population has been growing dramatically. During my lifetime so far, the population has grown from approximately 2.5 billion people to 8.2 billion. That is a pretty big increase. Scientists are predicting that there will be 11 billion people on earth by 2100. That is about when my youngest granddaughter will reach 80 years old (I hope).

We could stop population growth before it reaches that point. Japan has stopped its population growth. They are actually worrying about not having enough people and are encouraging their citizens to have more children, but the people of Japan are resisting.

The birth rate fell in the last half of the 20th century as their standard of living grew. Their population growth has stabilized. Attenborough says, there are signs that it is happening around the world. The number of children being born around the world and the growth of the population is about to level off. It is likely that the population growth of the world will peak in the near future for the first time. That will make everything we have to do easier, says Attenborough. But not easy.

What we need to do is help people to live better! In other words, we should help people get out of poverty, give all access to health care, and enabling people, girls in particular, to stay in school as long as possible, we can make the world’s population peak sooner and at a lower level.

 

Why wouldn’t we want to do that?  Many will say they don’t want to pay for this. But this would benefit all of us! Not just those in the poorer countries. All of us benefit from this approach! We should help others to reach these goals for our selfish reasons! Because it will be good for us!

 

But we have to raise the standard of living of people around the world without raising their impact. Attenborough says there are ways that we can do this. That is the challenge.