Earth in Our Care: Ecology, Economy, and Sustainability

Introduction

1 Introduction The ultimate test of human conscience may be the willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.—Senator Gaylord Nelson Although planet Earth reveals its secrets slowly, we now have far more knowledge of the world in which we live than did our forbearers. Therefore, we not only have greater opportunities than they did but also are confronted with greater responsibilities because we are now part of an interconnected global society, whether or not we fully understand the idea or even like it. Just as their decisions set the stage for our reality, our decisions will determine the options of tomorrow and write the history of yesterday. If humanity is to survive this century and beyond with any semblance of dignity and well-being, we must both understand and accept that we have a single ecosystem composed of three inseparably interactive spheres: the atmosphere (air), the litho-hydrosphere (the rock that constitutes the restless continents and the water that surrounds them), and the biosphere (all life sandwiched in the middle). And because this magnificent, living system—planet Earth—simultaneously produces, nourishes, and maintains all life, we would be wise to honor it and care for it. If we do not, if we cause too much damage to any one of these interdependent spheres, we will be the authors of our own demise—and that of all the world’s children. Here, it must be understood that every system in the universe, both living and nonliving, is governed by variability. No system is controlled by the averages. I say this because everything in the universe is defined by its ever-shifting relationship to everything else, which means that “freedom”—perceived as a lack of constraints —is always relative, never absolute. Every change, no matter how minute, constitutes a systemic modification that produces novel outcomes. Here is one of life’s abiding paradoxes: change is a constant process, which honors the Buddhist notion of impermanence—a biophysical reality that forever precludes the existence of an independent variable or a constant value of any kind. Put a little differently, nothing can exist as a separate reality that is independent of anything else. Whatever is created, therefore, is the introduction of a unique, never-ending story of cause and effect in a finite world, as eloquently bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb pointed out by conservationist David Brower: “There is but one Ocean, though its coves have many names; a single sea of atmosphere with no coves at all; the miracle of soil, alive and giving life, lying thin on the only Earth, for which there is no spare.”1 The invariable process of ever-shifting relationships totally negates the possibility of anything being reversible. Although we may have reams of data and use them in our bid to return something to an earlier condition (termed restoration), we cannot do so because the eternal now is all we have or ever will have. We can, however, physically revisit a given place and do our best to emulate—but only emulate—what we perceive a prior condition to have been like in some former time. Whatever we create will be original and immediately entrained in the perpetual novelty of change. By way of analog, your grandmother’s rocking chair is missing part of its back and has a broken rocker. The chair is now yours, and because it reminds you of your grandmother, whom you loved, you want it restored to its original condition. You therefore take it to a repair shop, where the chair is fixed but with different wood and modern finishing materials by someone who did not build it in the first place. Although the chair now functions as it is meant to, it has not been returned to its original condition and never can be. Moreover, it has again entered the conveyer of change, the continuum of time. The concept of interdependence (and its antithesis: absolute freedom) relates to our human condition, which itself is an abiding paradox in that we are each self-aware and seemingly able to act in accord with our own dictates, yet are bound by our character and held prisoner by our fears. Ultimately, all we humans do—ever—is practice relationships with energy of one kind or another, energy that is always pulsing, never even in its flow. In so doing, we experience ourselves experiencing the practice of relationships with ourselves (emotions), with one another (friendship, hatred, prejudice), with nature...