enjoying the end

I enjoyed our discussion of Gaian apocalypse (human apocalypse, I mean, at the behest of Gaia) in NW this afternoon. That's a strange thing to say but it's definitely in the spirit of James Lovelock's counsel that we enjoy life while we can. I've been humming this ever since:



Also enjoyed Matthew's presentation and his call for common ground. The Creation is a good example of the sort of dialogue we desperately need, if we're going to forestall the end. Cosmopolitanism too. (Did you hear Anthony Appiah on "On Being" yesterday?)

Gaia going, going...

We've got more urgent things to do than try to save the planet? Maybe the coming climatic catastrophe (from our POV) will "select a better class of humans"? Wow. Does James Lovelock have grandchildren?





Vanishing Face of Gaia, 1-2

1. Why does James Lovelock consider the word "Earth" inadequate? What does he expect to experience in space?

2. What's the root cause of the climate crisis? What do Al Gore, the IPCC, business, & governments still not understand? What's our "proper place"? What should be our species' goal now?

3. How does Lovelock's view differ from that of most climate scientists? What is their allegedly-errant assumption? Who does he blame for their mistake?

4. How are we like flood victims? What's our greatest hubris? Should we fear wild nature?

5. What will the British Isles, New Zealand, and a few other temperate places be "for humanity," in the coming crisis? Can they "save the planet"? Can wind, solar, and biofuels?

6. What did William James say is our "trouble"? Which JPL scientist best understood Gaia? Why have Americans been slow to grasp it? Who manages the climate? Do we need the "moral equivalent of war" to confront it?

7. What have environmentalists mistakenly opposed? How have they "sown the seeds of their own destruction"?

8. What's Lovelock's response to the criticism that his position is hopeless? Does he think we should "plant a tree"? Does he think we've heard his (and Tim Flannery's) wake-up calls? What kind of philosophy do we need now? Will Gaia nurture us through our troubles? How are we a "vital part" of her?

9. Does the welfare of humanity come first, for Lovelock? Do our needs coincide with the planet's?

10. What kind of science is "biogeochemistry"?

11. Would a 60% global reduction in fossil fuel emissions be good?

12. What do humans hate above all? What did Bertrand Russell say about this?

trance-formers

Really enjoyed Willie's report this afternoon on trance, globalization, exopheremones, the doors of perception, animism... There's no question we'd be less apt to blow up mountaintops if we came (as a civilization) to harbor greater respect for life and all its planetary supports and expressions.

I happen not to believe that everything has a separable animal spirit, and I'm pretty sure "Gaia" is more metaphor than actual organism. But if a shift of consciousness will bring us into more respectful relations with the rest of nature, those are good fruits by which to know her-- and finally know ourselves.

Terence McKenna has interesting ideas. I'll bet they, along with this repetitive video wallpaper, seem even more trenchant when consumed under the influence of the right chemical "key" (as Kevin quoted Tim Leary).


(The salvia gardener definitely hasn't found the right key. Miley either. I really hope she isn't buying her Dad's folk wisdom about the temptations of the evil spirits.)

McKenna's surely right when he say we're too often missing "peace of mind in the felt experience of the moment." Maybe "trance" is a place for some to begin. I still just want to see how to connect the dots: how can we transform such exceptional personal experiences into constructive, collective environmental action? How do you turn trance into transformation?

"Gaia"

We've been reading James Lovelock in the environmental ethics class. He first introduced "Gaia," the Earth Goddess metaphor of a living and self-regulating planet that so many of the "scientifically correct" hastily rejected as mystical and New Agey, decades ago. Now, in Revenge of Gaia, Lovelock has gone apocalyptic: humans have plundered the planet and must consequently receive Mother Earth's harsh version of Tough Love. He predicts an 80% "culling" of the population in the next century, followed by a period of adjustment when the human survivors -- like those Irish monks -- will once more have to reinvent civilization.

Lovelock may be right, but I don't like his tone. I much prefer the perspective of Michael Pollan, whose Botany of Desire is our next read. Pollan, too, affirms that we are a part of nature; but his version of the relation between humans and non-human nature also acknowledges its "co-evolutionary" character. Our interests and desires have not just injured Gaia, in important ways they have defined her. We don't have to think of ourselves as forever harboring a toxic threat to the arc of our planet’s evolutionary destiny; we are one of its adaptations, and the only one capable of articulating a planetary point of view that recognizes planetary health as inseparable from human self-interest.

Al Gore made clever use of the Gaia metaphor in his testimony before Congress this week, noting that when your child is sick you don't ignore her condition because a scif-fi author [Michael Crichton, of course] said it wasn't a problem; you treat it.

I like Gore's tone more than Lovelock's, too. As Senator Gore wrote, way back when:

"For civilization as a whole, the faith that is so essential to restore the balance now missing in our relationship to the earth is the faith that we do have a future. We can believe in that future and work to achieve it and preserve it, or we can whirl blindly on, behaving as if one day there will be no children to inherit our legacy. The choice is ours; the earth is in the balance."