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Nature and Society Quotations used in the June-July 2006 edition
Only a tenth of China is cultivable, the rest deserts and photogenic mountains. This is half the land per head available to Indians, one-tenth the share of Americans. Murray Sayle
Joseph Tainter, analysing the collapse of civilisations, described three models of collapse. These are the Runaway Train, the Dinosaur and the House of Cards. These usually act together, so they are really aspects of the same collapse. The invention of agriculture, enabling large population growth until it hits the bounds of the food supply, is the Runaway Train. It encourages the growth of hierarchical systems, with an upward concentration of wealth, ensuring there is never enough to go round. (It is horrifying that no matter how wealthy people are today, they still claim to be unable to buy everything they need!) The rulers’ failure to tackle these problems is the Dinosaur aspect. The swift, irreparable and unforeseen (by the rulers, anyway) collapse represents the House of Cards. Ronald Wright
Science is a dangerous gift unless it can be brought into contact with the wisdom that resides in the sensual, intuitive and ethical aspects of our natures. ... [I]t is only when these other ways of knowing complement our rational approach to the world that we can truly experience the living intelligence of nature. Stephan Harding
It has been often said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ore gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only. Fred Hoyle
The French General, Field Marshall Leyoutey, once asked his gardener to go out and plant a tree. The gardener protested, saying that the tree was slow-growing and would not blossom for 100 years. “In that case,” replied the General, “plant it today!”
Perhaps the most important lesson from our exploration of the solar system is that the most terrible place on Earth is a Garden of Eden compared to the best place anywhere else. We must find out how to keep it that way. Robert L Park Medical experts worry that nature may swat us with disease: billions of overcrowded primates, many sick, malnourished and connected by air travel, are a free lunch waiting for a nimble microbe. Ronald Wright
Practising personal change should precede, or at least go hand in hand with, lobbying for government and institutional change. For it will only be with the experience that comes with personal change that we will get the wisdom to make the proper societal change. New Solutions, March 2006
As Turnock points out, the largest number of beneficiaries of public health can never show up at a public hearing and can never write a letter to the editor praising their health department because they have not yet been born. The public health movement is constantly working to make sure the world our children inherit is a decent place. But often theirs is a thankless job. Rachel’s Democracy and Health News
Further to your comments on climate change and its detractors, it’s been amusing to see all those die-hard climate skeptics on the right wing of the media suddenly become the greatest proponents of urgent climate action when writing in support of nuclear energy and uranium sales. Fiona Katauskas in
“The peak of world oil production is happening right now,” Ken Deffeyes, professor emeritus of geology at Princeton University, confidently declared. “Here is the most important story since the Industrial Revolution.” Deffeyes went so far as to attack news articles for including critical voices, saying attempts at being fair have obscured the truth. “Editors are one of the great enemies of the people right now,” he said. A more complete version of Deffeyes’ criticism is that the media often cover important issues superficially. Instead of presenting intelligent analysis, they quote two different sides, without investigating the trustworthiness of the sources or the underlying issues. This isn’t fair journalism; it’s lazy journalism. It favours well- financed propaganda sources. Bart Anderson, Energy Bulletin, April 2006
Nuclear never was part of the short-term solution to climate change, and the rapid growth in small-scale energy production means nuclear may not be needed as part of the long-term solution either. New Scientist
Animism has traditionally been considered backward and lacking in objective validity by Western scholars, but today philosophers, psychologists and scientists in our culture are beginning to realise that animistic peoples, far from being ‘primitive’, have been living a reality which holds many important insights for our relationships with each other and with the Earth. One such insight is that animistic perception is archetypal, ancient, and primordial; tha the human organism is inherently predisposed to seeing nature as alive and full of soul, and that we repress this fundamental mode of perception at the expense of our health, and that of the natural world. Stephan Harding
Gallon for gallon — or, given the size of lawnmower tanks, quart for quart — the 2006 lawn mower engines contribute 93 times more smog-forming emissions than 2006 cars, according to the California Air Resources Board. In California, lawn mowers provided more than 2 per cent of the smog-forming pollution from all engines. New York Times, 25 April 2006
The collapse of the first civilization on earth, the Sumerian, affected only half a million people. The fall of Rome affected tens of millions. If ours were to fail, it would, of course, bring catastrophe on billions. Ronald Wright
The perfection of hunting spelled the end of hunting as a way of life… The hunters at the end of the Old Stone Age … broke rule number one for any prudent parasite: Don’t kill off your host. As they drove species after species to extinction, they walked into the first progress trap. Ronald Wright
June-July 2006 edition accessible here
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