A Sensible Rage over the Dying Out Of Earth’s Life – Part 2
Author: Ian Whyte, Ottawa.
Implementing Ecocentric philosophy, the 8 points of Deep Ecology or acting on the needs of non-human life, in time to make a difference to life’s current human-caused crisis, leads one to a (deeply) troubling position caused by the required and necessary questioning of one’s dearly held assumptions. Perhaps on a longer time scale this might not be the case, but the reversal of life’s substantial decline appears to require immediate and urgent action. After considerable personal observation, thought, reading, and anguish, I feel it has become necessary for me to attempt to address the implications of such action. I start from the position that life on Earth is being extinguished, that this is an atrocious catastrophe and that humans are the chief agent. We are as a cancer wiping out its host’s life, a dreadful mistake of evolution; society’s current paradigm is utterly, despicably, wrong,
Years ago my longtime friend David Orton wrote “We believe the world-wide industrial capitalist system is destroying the Earth. This system, with its human-centered view of nature as a “resource” and its roots in endless economic growth and consumerism, has us all on a death path. Needed are new ecological, social, political, spiritual and cultural visions, and a reduction in human population. A new environmental ethic and associated environmental economics are required. Societies have to be ecologically sustainable for the survival of all species on Earth.” This remains true today although I don’t believe that the “industrial capitalist system” is solely responsible. Much destruction occurred before this system was imposed on the Earth, and continues today outside it.
As stated in the previous essay, life’s extinguishment on Earth results from the impact of humanity’s grossly excessive, growing population and rate of consumption. Both of these factors must be reversed. Righting the balance between human life and the rest of life will necessitate a considerable curtailment of the human project, which many will see as unfortunate. So be it. There are two main questions: how much reduction, and how it achieve it.
The exact answer to the first question, “by how much?” is indeterminate so far but many of the estimates are in the range of 10 to 20% of current levels: .75 to 1.5 billion people consuming at much less than today’s first world’s per capita rate. (And, this is without the necessary reparations for past and current damage.) The direction is obvious; arguing about exact end points is fruitless when one considers how long it will take to get there. The important thing is to get started and to do least harm.
The second question, how will the necessary reductions be accomplished, is much thornier as this is where action will occur. Will it be initiated voluntarily by ourselves, or by a (likely much harsher) reaction of the ecosphere (accomplished, as usual, by Pestilence, War, Famine and Death, the Four Horsemen)?
Neither unlimited compassion nor unlimited human rights are sustainable. Rights appropriate and sustainable for 1 billion humans are not for 7.5 billion. In any case, human rights have been misunderstood. It makes more sense to think of “Life’s Rights” to which human rights are a minor extension to cover inter-human affairs. The paradigm of unlimited human entitlement must end and be replaced by an ecocentric, life-affirming paradigm. The proliferating list of human rights, (always claimed without corresponding responsibilities and duties) needs to be replaced by rights valid only if enjoyed equally by all species. The recently claimed “right” to clean water can be used as an example. Eccentrically, humans have that right only as a result of all life having that right, and only in proportion to the needs of all life. Another “right” which must change (and will change, even if only because Nature will impose it) is the “right” to have unlimited children. It is not appropriate to life itself in a full world, one that is being smashed by humanity.
It is easy, and relatively non-threatening, to get to this point. Beyond is trouble. But remember the problem is the diminishment and death of much of the life on Earth and the accompanying destruction of many ecosystems (see the references imbedded in the first essay). This is wrong on many levels including the immediately practical one that we require the Earth’s healthy functioning for our survival. Years ago a friend explained it to me in one short sentence: “It’s a sin to destroy god’s creations.”
It’s enough to harden one’s heart! Somehow, humans have to:
- reduce each of population and consumption by an order of magnitude,
- end our poisoning of the ecosphere with wastes, poisons and toxics
- end our co-option of habitat
- return at last half of the Earth to entirely natural processes (perhaps during and after some rehabilitation)
- grant and apply rights equally to all species; this equality should be a test of whether or not they are valid for humans
- end humanism, liberalism, anthropocentrism, industrialism, capitalism
- pursue an ecocentric standpoint: one in which nature takes centre stage, not as a receptacle for human activities, emotions, or narratives, but as itself, on its own inhuman terms (J. M. Greer)
- there’s lots more too, which I’m not listing
I am firmly convinced that something must be done. A quote from Mike Ryan’s part of Ward Churchill’s _Pacifism as Pathology_ (p161/162) is relevant: “If . . . we are sitting upon a dying earth, and consequently dying as a species solely as a result of the nature of our society . . . then is it not time – long past time – when we should do anything, indeed everything, necessary to put an end to such madness? Is it not an act of unadulterated self-defense to do so? . . . it may well be that our self-imposed inability to act decisively, far from having anything at all to do with the reduction of violence, is instead perpetuation the greatest process of violence in history. It might well be that our moral position is the most mammoth case of moral bankruptcy of all time.”
The following three quotes, from Systemic Disorder, perhaps illuminate a way forward:
- “As Frederick Douglass put it plainly a century and a half ago, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will.”“
- “The only route to a better world is through mass movements articulating clear goals. But instead of settling for reforms, the only way out of our present crises is to push beyond what is possible in the world’s present political systems.”
- “Either way, what we do in the streets, what pressure movements bring to bear, will be decisive.”
I’m not in a position to implement any changes, except in myself and by my advocacy. I am troubled by the numerous dire predictions from the environmental community, and others, in the past, that appear to have all been wrong (and often used as a donation extraction device). Additionally, the time frames and scale have been wrong, but often the message correct. This time, the predictions seem to be scientifically based on evidence, not donation based, but still, scientists are sometimes wrong (and science often changes its collective “mind”). So, on what grounds is it sensible to take strong action? Certainly not on donation driven evidence.
Action for me will be to become more involved with trying to create the will for change.
Part 3 will contain my proposed personal actions, and recommendations for society in general.
============================================================================
Bio of Author, Ian Whyte: I am a great-grandfather. Philosophically, practically and morally, I tend to follow the tenets of Deep Ecology and Ecocentrism. I came to support these positions as a result of understandings informed by a life-time spent as an amateur field naturalist.
Leave a Reply