Post #4
The world is dying. How do we save it?
The scientific community has been warning the world for years, but now the effects are being felt and seen, shaking the global community—rising oceans, shrinking coastlines, desertification, burning forests, increasing incidences of severe weather systems, polluted air, contaminated water, depleted biodiversity, overpopulation. And though the wealthy of the world are seeing these effects and beginning to experience its effects, it is the poor that are facing devastating lifestyle changes. This was illustrated in his year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, Parasite. A rainstorm which mildly inconveniences a rich family entirely floods a poor family’s home with sewage, ruining their home. Likewise, Kiribati, a country in the Pacific, is experiencing the catastrophic effects of climate change. The seas are rising, contaminating the freshwater sources; and increasing storms are also contributing to the eroding shores. Cloutier writes in Moral Ground about the effects of climate change on the Inuit people, about how their natural resources their lives depend on are disappearing as the snow melts. These populations who are suffering the most are the ones who contribute the very least to climate change. The economic powerhouses of the world—the United States, China, the EU—are the ones who emit the most and feel the effects the least. And without the immediate effects to move people to action, these wealthier citizens of the world have little incentive to change their ways—especially when the secular religion of today is economic growth, as Speth states.
What the world needs today is a complete overhaul of its citizen’s relationship to the earth, its ultimate provider and source of life. As Larsen stated in his lecture, the Cheslatta Nation lives a life in balance with nature—one in which the definition of land includes not only the ground and the geographic forms, but also all of the living beings on it. The Cheslatta hope when they die to give the land exactly as they received it to their children—a drastically different approach and philosophy than the western idea of continual growth and accumulation. Place is more than just a location—it is an integral part of their culture, it is a history and a spiritual significance. The Cheslatta people believe that their descendants came from the lake, and that they are related to the other animals which inhabit their territory. Because of this, the flooding of the lake, caused by the creation of a dam down the river in order to create energy for an aluminum plant, was devastating not only to the environment and resources used by the Cheslatta, but also devastating to the Cheslatta’s culture and spiritual beliefs. Their holy sites and burial grounds—which are seen as necessary for the deceased to live a peaceful afterlife—are now ruined with blatant disrespect, akin to the desecration of a sacred burial site in the western world. Larson would agree that place has agency—as he experienced with the Cheslatta people, the physical location they inhabited was an integral part of their lifestyle and history. The land to them is a bountiful, giving entity, one in which they have a respectful and deeply intimate relationship with.
In western society, people have lost this connection with the land. Forests are plowed to create farms, people take without thinking to give, as though the world has limitless resources. In reality, we are destroying the paradise which was bestowed upon us without us doing anything to earn it. As Wilson states in Moral Ground, we are perverting nature, selfishly taking and destroying in the name of civilization.
The earth needs both individual action as well as large scale government regulation. Individual actions that most people are familiar with—such as reducing consumption of water, plastic products, electricity, and gas—are important for creating a culture of sustainability. Additionally, people need to move their governments to action by voting in representatives who care about the environment. In the United States, our president has already stated intention to back out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and has previously denied climate change. It is vital that those with power be the ones who will fight for our planet’s future.
South America 