Humankind’s Appreciation for the Environment Is Becoming Less Superficial
Part of the reason I’m optimistic about our civilization’s approach to sustainability is that more people care about the subject each year, and, at the same time, our understanding and appreciation of the subject continues to grow more profound. We’re increasingly aware that the progress we’ve made in terms of wealth has come at the expense of the Earth’s finite resources, and that this cannot continue indefinitely; this, of course, is why many scientists argue that we’ve entered a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene.
We’re starting to view all this as a holistic problem, examining the interplay between fossil fuel consumption, consumerism, climate change, the quantity and quality of food and water, human health, international hostility, the loss of biodiversity, and so forth.
Did you know that climate change is reducing the nutritional content of our food?
And here’s a segue you didn’t expect: a poem by Robert Frost (pictured). My point: Frost makes a characteristically keen observation about humankind, but, in the case of 21st Century environmentalism, our nature as shallow beings is starting to change.
Neither Out Far Nor In Deep
by Robert Frost
The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.
As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.
The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be-
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.
They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?
I applaud those like yourself to counterbalance the ever increasing cynicism of those like myself. Balance in all things.
Exactly. Everything in moderation, as my wife tells me (quoting Aristotle).
How like a poet to observe a feature of human nature that we all experience yet few articulate or contemplate. We do all stare at the ocean when we’re at rest on the coast.
Perhaps, like the stars and the sunsets, or even the deserts, the sea presents a vast beautiful and mysterious place beyond our ability to encapsulate and encompass.
Such places may offer an opportunity to allow a kind of waking trance of mental stillness, to rest the mind and turn ideas slowly within the unconscious, in a way we cannot easily achieve when faced with the maelstrom of daily events and the closeness and familiarity of routine locations.
I nearly always find visits to the ocean to be calming and contemplative.
Cameron,
The ocean can indeed be a source of calm contemplation. Especially, in Antarctica where it can induce a dangerous trance like state, often resulting in the unfortunate seafarer dying of hypothermia, or attempting to walk on the glacial water. (These effects are well documented, and can occur, en mass, affecting an entire crew.).
The ocean also never fails to impress with it’s vast size, majesty and massive power.
Recent human contact with the oceans are not all that great. The world oceans and inhabitants, have every reason to be angry with an essential terrestrial mammal, polluting the oceans with rubbish, over fishing, the wanton use of Bunker Oil, and vandalism of every kind !
It’s time the big maritime nations started getting their act together and cleaning up, and rehabilitating the worlds oceans.
Balance in all things. Classical easier said than done. To achieve balance in all things, we should capture the meaning of balance by achieving it day by day in all things. But what for? Well, reference is everything. You are not the same as when 5 years old, and so on and on, it seems nothing remains constant.
Nonetheless, there is a stable reference on which to base our balance: death. All activities, be individual or social, revolve around death.