Fouling the Nest

Tin cans filled with air from
stables and barns are an instant hit
for nostalgic city-dwelling Germans.

Is there something about the concept of “fouling your own nest” that is too complicated for the human mind to grasp? I have been thinking about this for a long time. It seems to me that humans have, since the beginning of history, been either oblivious to this problem or, if not oblivious, recklessly ignoring it. I suppose one might make a case that fouling your own nest was not perceived as a problem at first, when there were relatively few humans with a seemingly endless universe at their disposal. Here in the U.S. for example, when Europeans first arrived, there were seemingly endless forests, hundreds of thousands of miles of pristine rivers so heavy with fish they could almost literally walk across the water on the backs of salmon and other species. Animals of all kinds were in abundance and land was so available it was given away to those willing to work on it. People obviously didn’t give much thought to preservation and the idea that this wealth of resources might run out seems not to have been much on anyone’s mind. I can understand this. But even so, it doesn’t really explain the gluttony that accompanied the discovery of this wealth of resources. There were, for example, literally billions of Passenger Pigeons, billions! They were so thick they sometimes blocked out the sun. But in a relatively short time they were gone, extinct, the very last one shot. There were buffalo, apparently some 50 million of them. In a relatively short time they, too, were almost destroyed. If a few had not managed to cross into Canada they may well have become extinct. In the Kootenai River here where I now live the burbot (ling cod) were so thick people harvested them by the wheelbarrow load and fed them to their pigs. They are now so close to extinction they may as well be so considered. Sturgeon, too, were common here, some so large they needed horses to drag them from the river, and they, too, are now virtually extinct in the Kootenai. The rivers were dammed and many of the miraculous salmon runs disappeared. The virgin forests were clear-cut with no remorse or thought for the future, and the mines and mills discharged their pollution directly into the rivers, turning them into filthy, dirty gray wastelands in which no living creatures survived, and similarly fouling the lakes that depended on those waters. But, yes, we might understand that the people involved at that time were living in such luxurious resources were not given to thoughts of the future or worried about what they were doing to mother earth. That doesn’t explain the gluttony but perhaps explains the short-sightedness.

There is no excuse, however, for what is happening today. There are many, mostly Republicans, who are seemingly unable to understand the concept of “fouling the nest.” At this very moment they are trying to do away with, or at least hobble, the Clean Air Act. They are also attempting to defund t he Environmental Protection Act, along with the Endangered Species Act. They are promoting more deep-water drilling for oil in spite of the recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. They also want to protect coal mining in which mountain tops are removed and dumped into the valleys and rivers. Logging, in their view, should still be permitted even in the few supposedly protected places, and they insist on drilling for oil in Anwar and everywhere else, environmental protections be damned. Nuclear energy, the most potentially disastrous means of energy production, is being promoted, as are wasteful and polluting waste to energy plants. Although our oceans are known to be full of plastic island dead zones there is little or no attempt to stop the production of plastic bottles, bags, and other assorted junk. Our oceans have become overfished, coral reefs are being destroyed, more and more species are disappearing, and global warming, perhaps the most serious problem ever to confront us as a species, proceeds apace. Then, of course, there are our endless wars, now being fought with the most environmentally destructive weapons ever conceived, agent orange, nuclear munitions that pollute long after the battles have been fought, phosphorous and cluster bombs, and so on.

There are Democrats, too, who seem relatively oblivious to what we are doing to the environment and ourselves, but by and large, I believe this is more a Republican disaster in the making. They are far more likely than Democrats to defend these environmentally unsound and dangerous practices. Of course the reason for this is clear enough, it comes down basically to greed, and short-term profits. We can’t have clean air and water because it might interfere with business, impinge on profits. As long as corporations are in control, and as long as profit is their primary motive for being, this unfortunate situation will continue. That is not difficult to understand. But it doesn’t change the terrible basic fact that WE ARE FOULING OUR OWN NEST! Those who continue to insist on business as usual, choose to ignore the scientific facts of global warming, and continue to pollute irresponsibly, are, in fact, putting all of us at risk. It seems to me obvious that most of what they are promoting and supporting is diametrically opposed to the best interests of human life on earth. This is nothing short of criminal.

LKBIQ:
We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it as a living organism. Land can be healthy or sick, fertile or barren, rich or poor, lovingly nurtured or bled white. Our present attitudes and laws governing the ownership and use of land represent an abuse of the concept of private property.... Today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see and nobody calls the cops.
Paul Brook

TILT:
The term “collective bargaining” was first used in 1891 by Beatrice Webb.