Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumGeneration Anthropocene: How humans have altered the planet for ever
I commend this excellent essay to your careful attention.
In 2003 the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term solastalgia to mean a “form of psychic or existential distress caused by environmental change”. Albrecht was studying the effects of long-term drought and large-scale mining activity on communities in New South Wales, when he realised that no word existed to describe the unhappiness of people whose landscapes were being transformed about them by forces beyond their control. He proposed his new term to describe this distinctive kind of homesickness.
Albrecht’s coinage is part of an emerging lexis for what we are increasingly calling the “Anthropocene”: the new epoch of geological time in which human activity is considered such a powerful influence on the environment, climate and ecology of the planet that it will leave a long-term signature in the strata record. And what a signature it will be. We have bored 50m kilometres of holes in our search for oil. We remove mountain tops to get at the coal they contain. The oceans dance with billions of tiny plastic beads. Weaponry tests have dispersed artificial radionuclides globally. The burning of rainforests for monoculture production sends out killing smog-palls that settle into the sediment across entire countries. We have become titanic geological agents, our legacy legible for millennia to come.
There are good reasons to be sceptical of the epitaphic impulse to declare “the end of nature”. There are also good reasons to be sceptical of the Anthropocene’s absolutism, the political presumptions it encodes, and the specific histories of power and violence that it masks. But the Anthropocene is a massively forceful concept, and as such it bears detailed thinking through. Though it has its origin in the Earth sciences and advanced computational technologies, its consequences have rippled across global culture during the last 15 years. Conservationists, environmentalists, policymakers, artists, activists, writers, historians, political and cultural theorists, as well as scientists and social scientists in many specialisms, are all responding to its implications. A Stanford University team has boldly proposed that – living as we are through the last years of one Earth epoch, and the birth of another – we belong to “Generation Anthropocene”.
At this point I have almost completely let go of the world, at least in terms of finding personal value in its collective, social forms. My adjustment has been to turn to the personal: to my inner journey, my love for my wife and our dog, the relationships I have with a few close colleagues at work, and my informal Facebook sangha. What such a personal world lacks in breadth, it makes up for by being as deep as I care or dare to go. I no longer want any part of what the world has become.
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ladjf
(17,320 posts)This bountiful , beautiful Earth has more than enough resources to support us for millions of years if we will just take the time to understand how the "machine " works. That understanding does not require
genius intellect, just common, objective sense. Although the Sun will definitely "snuff out" all life on Earth within the next 7.6 billion years, it doesn't mean we have to check out in a few hundred years.
We must stop basing life on subjectively creating "notions" that are based on physics and start
objectively getting acquainted with the Earth, Sun, Solar System and Universe. The answers we need ARE there. The "Machine" runs beautifully.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)Objectively, there's no such thing as good or bad, right or wrong, it's just whatever keeps you going.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)We are social animals, after all. "Morality" is simply a cognized set of shared rules for social behaviour, rules that grow organically out of the physical, environmental and historical circumstances that shape any given society.
The key, it seems to me, is to recognize morality for what it is. Then we as individuals can step beyond it, and perhaps find ourselves in Rumi's field:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
~Rumi
ladjf
(17,320 posts)You are a good writer and thinker. nt
ladjf
(17,320 posts)I might be able to give. Obviously, anything I say is just my opinion based on whatever I might have
learned during my lifetime about the truths of existence, including my own.
Your question is at the heart of religious leaders biggest selling point which is that the non-believers
have no reason to be ethical because they don't believe in God. By making that statement about the non-believers, they immediately show that they don't understand the true basis of "ethics".
Ethics is a set of values pertaining to good and bad behavior. The acquisition of a set of beliefs pertaining to good and bad doesn't require the presence of a metaphysical concept such as God.
It only requires an understanding of the individuals relationships or connections with his/her World.
When a man and woman intentionally create a child together, they are acting out an "ancient mandate" to perpetuate the their species. It's in their DNA, just as it is in all living things. They will naturally do what it takes to assure that the baby has what it needs to survive and thrive, not because any outside metaphysically derived considerations have wished it, but because they know their
connection to the baby and will honor that responsibility if at all possible. And while it is no easy task
to raise a child, the rewards usually outweigh the difficulties.
The point I'm trying to make is that everywhere one turns, they will see that they are connected in one way of the other with everything else. A nuclear accident in Japan contaminates the Pacific Ocean to a dangerous degree for everyone who lives near the sea. Global warming, same thing.
The extinction of animals effects everyone to some degree. It is the realization that all of us are part
of a beautiful living organism that we label as "Universes". Once a person has reached that level of
mature understanding, he/she will naturally do what they can to perpetuate life and life giving elements without the need of external moral discipline.
That concept may sound unrealistic or ever ridiculous to those who have derived their moral system
from the "notions" of other humans. But, those "notions" come and go in a wide variety of styles
and often with questionable credentials. Which among the vast array of "moral notions" are the true
word that transcends all others?
When we were born into this Universe, as citizens of Planet Earth, our design had already been
approved by tested life experience of our predecessors and give to us in the form of our personal
genomes, the blueprints of how to make a human. All around us we found what we needed, air, water,food, moderate temperature, parents, companions and Nature. Many will succeed. Many will fail. That's life.
In answer to your good and sincere question, my opinion is that good and bad are most definitely
components of the life of objective individuals. In fact, the clarity of objectively derived values
is likely to create a heightened sense of joy and appreciation for having been given the opportunity
of living, even for one direct physical life and the after life influences of the life that was. That in itself is a real form of immortality even if that is limited to the life span of the Sun.
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)it hurts me to feel it
i also turn inward and huddle with loved ones for peace
ladjf
(17,320 posts)You sentences were ,to me, a short, perfectly expressed poem. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,038 posts)My wife and daughters, my pets, my close friends - my hobbies (gardening, writing, music, movies, kayaking) sustain me. We get the paper only on weekends, don't watch TV - so much of what I see just makes no sense....so at 60, I try to reside where things do make sense for me.
ladjf
(17,320 posts)deal of non-sensible behavior. I think it is the results of massive numbers of people who haven't
had the opportunity to understand connections. They are operating without adequate knowledge.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,038 posts)to continually learn and understand, have an open mind, but mostly, to be kind and view the world as one, a collection of individuals who all deserve a shot at happiness and success - a win-win. From my years in the corporate world, my experiences in life, there is far too much arrogance, hubris, hypocrisy. I know that each of us view the world through our own particular lens - which is in itself egotistic, in some sense. But I do draw the line at arrogance, personal wins at all cost.
ladjf
(17,320 posts)the interplay between your personal values and the ones you have observed in the outside World.
Binkie The Clown
(7,911 posts)Maybe half a million at the outside.
I saw a graph the other day that told me as white American male of age 70 I have roughly a 50/50 chance of living to be 80. I'm learning to adjust to my own inevitable mortality. It's a little harder to adjust to the demise of the whole species. But I'm finding a certain amount of inner peace just by learning to accept what is inevitable, and find what joy I can in daily life.
Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
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