POLITICS AND NATURE

Nearly every religion of which I know speaks to the human spirit about balance, living a good life, and raising our standards to a higher level. There are, of course, exceptions like Dionysians, and it surely does a body good to partake in a good hearted Bacchanalia now and then. But the rest of the spiritual mothers and fathers of human kind remind us of the need to temper our drive for material gain through heartfelt participation in the human story. How we do this is often, at least within Protestantism, left open for each of us to discover the way which best fits our personality and inner conscience. How this relates to society as a whole, however, is a wholly different matter and it is only through discussion of issues which we can find our way through the hazy tunnels life creates for us.

Wilderness has been much on my mind of late; more specifically, the relationship between wilderness, other protected lands, and social/political health. Anthropologists argue America was discovered thousands of years ago when people crossed the Bering Straight ice bridge and perhaps, floated across the Pacific Ocean from island to island until finally reaching the land mass of what we now know as the Americas. I’ve had friends who dismiss such foolish talk because, after all, those who were here prior to the Europeans sprouted out of the ground, or emerged from a different universe from a ladder; no less logical or unreal than Adam and Eve’s garden. One thing is certain, wilderness is always the place where people have gone to get right with God, the Creator, or what you will. Atheists and agnostics also find solace in the wilderness. In other words, it is imprinted upon our spirits and health and well being depend upon it.

The reason wilderness made such an impression on me is I’ve been considering writing my dissertation on the relationship between politics and wilderness. Additionally, my trip to the desert in March of this year was made in a trailer to an area filled with people. The OHV area I wrote of in my last article was packed with people in expensive RVs with all the necessities for towing their 4 wheelers and setting up home in the desert a stone’s throw from the city. Noise and dust hovered incessantly, especially on the weekend. Yet, I was able to hike ten minutes into the desert without hearing nary a sound. Hell’s Gate Wilderness lay near the area so I started pondering: what is the relationship between what many would call a sacrifice zone for OHVs and the broader protection of nature?

Surely the existence of the OHV area which allows people to get out into nature (albeit with all the comforts of home in a 100K RV equipped w/TV, bathroom, and storage for toys) plays a tremendous role in building support for the greater purpose of preserving wilderness from the expanding reach of industry and technology.

Now, I am not a fan of 4 wheelers or dirt bikes or the other motorized forms of entertainment which so many of my fellow citizens can not seem to do without. Still, I am a child of the late twentieth century and a man of the twenty first century. I do not live in the wilderness, nor do I want to. And, unlike advocates of a utopian ideology promoting a return to agrarian lifestyles, like Wendell Berry and so many others, I do not want to farm. Capitalism and the division of labor allow us each to pursue our interests while seeking profit from those interests.

What I wonder throughout all of this is: whether having zones where people can go and experience at least a modicum of nature, while enjoying their toys, can be used to develop a greater appreciation for the earth thus enhancing our abilities to continue expanding wilderness protection and building up our national system of protected lands.

The evidence I witnessed outside of Phoenix leaves me thinking this is a pipe dream. In the end, we will use every resource available to us with abandon until we are left like a spoiled and unappreciative child who dropped his ice cream in the sand. Generations will wail and gnash their teeth until we figure out what people like Berry have been trying to tell us all along, we don’t have to continue living the way we do.

The depressing portions of this journey were not related solely to the noise or the absolute consumptive abandon in the desert (although these have given me pause many times since). Trash was the culprit causing my greatest despair. Inevitably, whenever you travel into the woods or other natural areas, man leaves his trace. Now, in wilderness thinking, this is anathema to our ability to truly appreciate nature.

Bill McKibben wrote, way back in 1989, that nature no longer exists due to human infection. I agree with McKibben’s prescription for dealing with our problems with nature, a greater respect for nature’s reason d’etre beyond human wants/desires/needs, but I don’t fully agree with his analysis of the situation we face. Human traces existed in 1492 all over the lands we now call the Americas. Every white explorer who claimed to be “the first” to “discover” this or that was both arrogant and ignorant and we still coddle their departed egos today.

But when we continue to illustrate contempt for nature’s needs and trash the planet with such reckless abandon, I feel a sad slipping away of my natural optimism and my outlook turns towards the bleak and hopeless abandonment so often expressed in nature writing and ridiculed by those who sponsor “progress”: the ripping out of every tree and the endless dumping of toxins in areas where children will some day play.

It is always easy to blame the big evil corporate overseers for the pollution, selfishness, greed, and environmental abuse. What does it mean, though, when all of the regular folks out enjoying the weekend with the whole family (there were small RV/OHV villages out there) discard the amounts of garbage I saw? It means we really, as a society, do not give a darn about our world or what we will bequeath to tomorrow’s generations.

We have been working on a tremendously mistaken concept of what the good life is and how to live it. I am not saying everyone needs to be a monk and live off their own little potato garden like Thoreau or climb mountains with only bread and tea like Muir. I do not do these things.

I do have to wonder, however, if we will ever learn from our past mistakes or continue to use and discard in an endless cycle. What does it say of our culture that we are so wasteful? What does it say of our country that we care not for the rights of anything or anyone but ourselves? It is very sad sometimes.