Wolves, Ignorance, and the Oh-Holy Dollar

While sitting in the library I thumbed through the magazine, Alaska. It seemed like a good idea at the time - after all - I lived in this wondrous place as a child. I flipped the pages to the "letters" section and read with horror ". . . let the wolves die. . . . I go to visit Alaska to see moose and caribou not cowardly wolves." I blinked in horror. The author, a resident of Tennessee, went on to explain how "those conservationists" have had the audacity to reintroduce wolves and, heaven forbid, rattlers, to the Tennessee landscape. It's against the law to shoot them I'm informed by the author, but by golly the tax paying citizens of Tennessee get to reimburse ranchers and farmers for the livestock killed by these horrible creatures. I then read that wolves are, apparently, entitled to lamb chops and steaks and that the author is just sure that those conservationists live in 7-story condos [rules out NYC] where there aren't rattlers or wolves!

Not only was this letter appalling, it was frightening in its depth of ignorance. First - it is fact that the more habitat humans destroy or claim, the less there is to sustain other forms of life. This reduction often leads to the disappearance or even extinction of wildlife species. Second - we live in the time period of greatest extinction rates. We destroy hundreds of acres of rainforest daily, raze forests for logging and building, drain swamps and lakes, and dump pollutants in the air, water, and soil in the form of car exhaust, pesticides, herbicides, and manufacturing waste - all in the name of humanity and "progress." Yes, humans do impact life on Earth, and have been doing so since we hit the savannah on two legs. We are living beings who happen to reside on this planet. As such, we are highly successful - being able to adapt to different environs and over-power or kill other living creatures for our survival. From the earliest days of pastoralism in Africa at the Dahkleh Oasis in Egypt, wild beasts were kept away from watering holes and wild herbivores kept away from lush grasses so that the pastoralists' livestock would be safe and fed. This practice lead to the disappearance and extinction of several species. In the American West, great herds of buffalo were slaughtered in the name of Indian annhilation - in affect, whites chose to starve the competition. The added bonus for the reduction of buffalo was that locomotives could travel unhindered across the vast plains.

Humans are part of Earth's ecosystem; however, if people are supposedly "advanced, superior," and are to have "dominion" over plants and animals - perhaps we should recognize our responsibility and stop acting like spoiled children who feel they are entitled to whatever they want all in the name of the oh-holy dollar. I had the great fortune to see the Grand Canyon as my grandfather saw it; watched moose nibble bark off a tree in winter; watched bears eat wild berries, saw eagles soar on invisible air currents, and heard the eerie - yet majestic - call of wolves. God bless capitalism, egotism, corporations, and the church of Wal-Mart. Death to wolves! Amen.

Live harmoniously with nature. Appreciate Her beauty.

Evolution and and the Cultural Relativist

As I wandered through my collegiate education, I encountered the discipline of philosophy. One of the courses I took in this discipline concerned itself with the question, "What is art?" These three little words strung together in the form of a question entertained our thought processes for an entire semester. One by one we were introduced to various hypotheses as to how this question should and could be answered. Each time, I raised my hand, and said, "What if the people who created the object we call art, didn't think of it as such?" My professor, chuckled with a smile after I presented him with a picture of a Hopi Katchina while indicating that it's original purpose was ideological, not artistic. With a smile and a nod, he informed the class, that I was a Cultural Relativist. I smiled in return and replied, why of course, what anthropologist isn't? A cultural relativist takes the ethics of anthropology quite seriously - they view the world through the eyes of the culture or society in question. Everyone's world view is shaped and colored by what we are taught - by our parents, our community, our teachers, our friends, our religion, our government, books, TV, and radio. In other words, the world view of the Buddhist monk in Tibet will differ from that of the business man working on Wall Street. The cultural relativist tries to appreciate and respect the views of all peoples from around the globe.

Evolution. "Raise your hand if you're a cultural evolutionist," my professor asks. Two of us raise our hands. I receive glares from the student sitting in front of me. The professor then asks why we think the way we do. He started with the anti-cultural evolutionists. I heard arguments that it is a racist view.

Then, it was my turn. I smiled at the glaring faces and requested a piece of chalk - yes, in those days, we still used chalk and chalk boards. I then approached the board, drew a circle and several dots within it. I turned to my classmates and spoke, "Evolution simply means that change happens and that the way of being that is best adapted to any given situation survives." I pointed at my drawing. "Let me demonstrate. This circle is the Teotihuacan Valley in Mexico prior to the rise of Teotihuacan. These dots are small villages." I drew another circle, fewer outlying dots, and one dot in the center - slightly larger. I turned back to the class, "As time progressed, Teotihuacan's influence increased within the valley. People from surrounding villages moved into Teotihuacan, hence, there are fewer surrounding villages." I drew a third circle, a large dot in the center, and four outlying dots. "This is Teotihuacan at its height. The surrounding population is absorbed by this city which now has a population estimated at up to 200,000 people. The surrounding dots mark key resources such as obsidian. Teotihuacan has full control of this valley." I then draw a circle filled with many little dots. "This is the valley after Teotihuacan's fall. There is a power vacuum - so the people revert to a previous way of life - one that is simpler. This is the evolution of the Teotihuacan Valley. When Teotihuacan was powerful; it controlled the area - like Rome in Europe. Probably like Rome, there were armies for protection; life was predictable while Teotihuacan held sway. When the central power falls, a vacuum ensues. Society then evolves to fill or adjust to this vacuum - in this and many other cases, society reverted to a simpler way of being. You see this as well after the fall of Rome." I put the chalk down, wiped the dust from my hands and spoke, "Nothing in this world is static - including society. All things change, that is, they evolve. Whether those changes survive is due to its success in adapting to the situation at hand." No one continued to glare at me.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Having lived in the Southwest for many years and seeing firsthand the destruction of wild fires, I fully support forest thinning. Nature thins forests naturally through lightning strike induced fires thereby reducing combustible fuels such as over-crowded trees, leaf litter, pine needles, and thick stands of bramble. Without thinning, forest fires burn hotter and devastate all. With thinning, forest fires stay close to the ground and burn at cooler temperatures.

Then there's clear cutting, or to put it bluntly, razing. Flying over Washington state can give anyone a clear picture of what this entails - the literal removal of any and all trees over a vast area, usually on mountain slopes. Clear cutting is akin to unethical fishing techniques that entail dragging the ocean bottom thereby rendering that biome a lifeless moonscape for hundreds of years. Considered a "renewable resource," trees take several decades to grow. Clear cutting exposes the Earth's surface to direct sunlight which increases ground temperature. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that when it's hot outside, the temperature is cooler in the shade. Without root systems and foliage, torrential rains erode nutrient-laden soil - soggy soil moves down slope in the form of mudslides. Finally, trees produce more oxygen than any other plant. Most living creatures on this planet, humans included, breathe oxygen, not carbon. If you think you can handle carbon, you'd be able to breathe your car's exhaust without ensuing medical emergency or your death.

So, just because one can't see the forest for the trees doesn't mean that the forest should be razed.