John Muir´s war

 

This is a somewhat bizarre article from Live Science, arguing that a recent and sharp increase in bear attacks in Japan can be attributed to a lack of acorns. Apparently, if teddy doesn´t get his favorite snack, he beheads Japanese fishermen instead and munches on their tender flesh?! 

Not being a scientist specializing in the feeding frenzies of Nipponid ursids, I can´t really say, but surely there could be other explanations? Maybe somebody´s population has exploded lately (ursid or Mongoloid hominid), maybe some bears are improperly habituated, or maybe it´s just a co-incidence?

Or maybe, just maybe we see the beginnings of John Muir´s war...   

Bear attacks in Japan

God´s wilds

 

John Muir said that if humans and bears would ever wage a war, he would feel obliged to support the bears...

Seeking the greatest good at the end of time

“Seeking the Greatest Good” is nominally a documentary about Gifford Pinchot (1865-1964), the first Chief of the United States Forest Service, often regarded as the “father of American conservationism”. Pinchot was a close ally of President Theodore Roosevelt, a progressive Republican, and was fired from his position as head of the Forest Service by Roosevelt´s more conservative successor William Howard Taft. Pinchot´s family later established the Pinchot Institute for Conservation to continue supporting large-scale conservation projects of American forests. “Seeking the Greatest Good” is really an extended pitch for said institute, clearly directed at prospective donors. It´s interesting…in its own way.

Thus, the documentary constantly emphasizes Pinchot´s good breeding and high level political connections, and those of his family. JFK is featured as he was speaking at an event organized by the Pinchot Institute. “The life of the mind” is said to be important, as so is a serious commitment to your community and country, “seeking the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run”. Not a single colored person anywhere in this production – it´s lily White (and perhaps a bit green). The Institute is housed in a fancy castle-like building in the lush countryside. We are clearly dealing with the East Coast liberal establishment here. It´s also interesting to see how the documentary-makers approach Theodore Roosevelt. They like his way of using certain prerogatives of the executive power to quickly rush through the creation of 21 national parks literally at midnight before Congress knew what was going on. More annoying is the music in the background, with its “Messianic” flavor.

But OK, I´m waxing a bit ironic here. Actually, the Institute is doing useful things, too.

The present-day Pinchot Institute is trying to preserve forests (together with rivers and lakes) by working closely with the (relatively speaking) smaller land-owners. The main reason why they sell their forests to big logging companies is that they can´t afford health care insurance in old age. The Institute therefore administers a comprehensive health care program for elderly forest owners, on condition that they don´t sell their land or cut the trees. Apparently, the health care is ultimately paid for by buyers of carbon offsets! In Vernonia, Oregon, the Institute has convinced local land-owners to pay 10% of their carbon offsets to a local fund to attract physicians to provide health care for the struggling community. Also, they provide biomass for local electricity needs. The community has built an entirely new community center and a public school thanks to these efforts. In Delaware, conservation of the Delaware River and its drinking water is high on the Institute´s agenda.

The documentary also contains polemic against John Muir and his “preservationist” perspective – Muir met and befriended both TR and Pinchot back in the days, but his perspective was radically different. Today, Muir would presumably be counted among the deep ecologists or primitivists. From a Muir-esque perspective, Pinchot´s conservationism is really “conserve today, exploit tomorrow”. The Pinchot Institute believes that Muir´s approach was unhelpful and would never carry the day in the West, with its strong mining, logging and cattle-ranching interests. Pinchot-style conservationism, by contrast, could be sold as a compromise solution which would even benefit the business interests in the long run. The need for pragmatism, bipartisan consensus and political unity when dealing with environmental issues is constantly emphasized in this production. And yes, it was made in 2012. 

Today…well, the Pinchot Institute is actually still trying to sound reasonable and bipartisanish when criticizing the Trump administration, for instance over its failure to act in support of the communities devastated by the recent catastrophic fires in California. Since TR would have challenged Orange Man to a wrestling match to show who´s Alpha, I suppose the Institute should be commended for its moderation!

As for the issues at hand, they are not simple – we need long-term sustainability to survive as a species (and as a nation, if you´re American), but we can´t simply stop using fossil fuels or nuclear power tomorrow morning either, unless a massive economic collapse followed by a Sino-Russian nuclear first strike appeals to you. Time will tell if the Pinchot Institute´s pragmatic approach is the right way to go, and times is running short…

My first summer in the Sierra

Tired of horror flicks with only *one* kind of monster? Don't worry, "Day of the Animals" to the rescue! This unrealistic story features lethal attacks on humans by essentially everything. Eagles, vultures, wolves, bears, cougars, Alsatians, rats, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, Leslie Nielsen...all of nature plus our most cherished household pets and even a human (Nielsen, remember?) are running bezerk in this classical disaster movie from 1977.

The backdrop to the story is the fear of ozone depletion, the "global warming issue" of the 1970's. "Day of the Animals" features a group of rookies on a hike in the high hills of California, just when ozone depletion drives all beasts crazy at elevations above 5000 feet. Accosted by eagles, wolves and other wild animals, the inexperienced hikers must somehow get back to civilization. Unfortunately, all human settlements along the trail have already been abandoned and taken over by marauding gangs of Animalia...

John Muir famously said that if a war broke out between humans and beasts, he would side with the latter. I suppose this might have been one of Muir's favourite movies, had he somehow lived to see it. I can't say "Day of the Animals" is a *really* good movie, but it works well alongside other disaster movies of the "nature gone wild" type. Besides, I have a soft spot for its philosophical message (if that's the word for it).

I therefore very graciously award it four stars.

Baptizing John Muir

A review of "God´s Wilds: John Muir´s Vision of Nature" by Dennis C Williams. 

John Muir is usually seen as a pantheistic nature mystic heavily indebted to the Transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau. Dennis Williams disagrees. He argues that Muir was firmly rooted in evangelical Christianity, and that modern Green thinking and counter-culture has misunderstood the point of his writings on Nature.

Personally, I have no opinion on the matter, since I never read Muir's own writings (although I obviously heard of the man).

Firmly evangelical or not, Muir certainly had some ideas modern evangelicals (or Christians in general) would consider rather strange, even heretical. Thus, Muir believed that nature was inherently good and unfallen. Man was a fallen creature, but nature was still in pristine condition, just as God had created it. Love and harmony were the ruling principles of nature. Therefore, humans could learn something about God by studying it, from which follows that nature must be preserved. Muir considered exploitation of nature to be sinful, and seems to have believed that God didn't create it for the benefit of man, something proven by malarial swamps or dangerous predators, which obviously don't exist to benefit humans. And yes, Muir quipped that he would defend the beasts if there ever was a war between humans and animals. There was certainly a streak of nature mysticism in John Muir, but he believed it somehow pointed to the Christian God and revealed something about his character.

Williams believes that the counter-culture of the sixties read Muir's writings through their own, secularist spectacles and turned him into a pantheist. Perhaps.

But is that really so surprising? Somehow, I get the feeling that what Muir really accomplished, was to baptize pantheism...

"God's Wilds" is a scholarly work and could be difficult for the general reader, since it presupposes a great deal of foreknowledge of Muir, his writings and the general intellectual and political climate of 19th century America. Still, the book should be of considerable interest to those who already have a working knowledge of Muir or the relationship between religion and Green thinking.