According to Rush Limbaugh the BP oil spill cleanup was just a huge waste of time. “It’s natural,” he said, “it’s as natural as the ocean water.” When I first heard this I dismissed it as more absurdist rhetoric from the king of talk radio, I find myself ashamed to admit that some part of me is beginning to agree. If we except that humans and their action exist in an ecological framework, than wouldn’t the BP oil spill technically be a natural event? Is the gulf ruined, or just changed? Rather than clamoring over a gulf ecosystem that has been thoroughly morphed, why aren’t we trying to adapt to these changes? Must we jump to make value statements about one ecological configuration over the other? As I sit in my classes, listening to my fellow classmates go on about their strictly organic grain diets and how the “radical” integration of an environmental ethic has changed their view of self, I can’t help but think about the massive contradictions of environmental/ecological movements.
For all the railing against humanist philosophies, Cartesian dualism, and the criticism of the west’s anthropocentric worldview, I don’t see how an environmental movement that idealizes and romanticizes “nature” and is the first to scream about the existential stakes of environmental destruction is not in the end anthropocentric. In many ways I feel like a lot interpretations of “ecological ethic” are really just a rearticulation of humanistic values. The underlying goal is the betterment of human health—adopting a notion of ecological awareness is a means to an end. There is also a pervasive notion of “how nature should be,” which is of course “healthy,” “green,” and configured in a mutually beneficial way for both humans and animals—back to (or closer to) the natural equilibrium that must have existed before us humans and our selfish consumption.
The only problem is that this equilibrium never existed; selfishness, however, probably did. This is painstakingly driven home by theorists and biologists like Richard Dawkins, who argues in The Selfish Gene that even seemingly altruistic behavior works only to further the reproductive goals of our individual genes. The point is that acting in our own self-interests has always been a trait of humans, animals, and even plants (a weed doesn’t really give much thought to biodiversity as it engulfs your garden, does it?). The environmental movement benefits from the fact that it appears to be in our best interest to “save the earth” from ourselves so that we can continue to enjoy it. But if we are to subtract the humanist element from this story and take ecology seriously it becomes a little unclear exactly what and from whom we are supposed to be saving.
If we reconfigure our idea of the human an existing within an ecological network, how do we maintain the difference between what is “good” or “bad” for the environment? If the actions of humans become effectively equated with other natural processes, the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ becomes incomprehensible. I support this interpretation of ecological ethics because it forces us to come to terms the changes we have made to our surroundings and imbues human actions and ideas with the gravity of “natural force.” This notion is reinforced by theories like the one put forth by biologist and historian Charles Mann that suggests that the “mini ice-age” of the 1700’s was in fact facilitated by the collapse of Native American populations due to new germs brought over from the first European explorers. Without these Native Americans, who had long practiced controlled burnings of North American forests, unabated growth ensued in the forested areas causing massive amounts of carbon dioxide to be sucked out of the air, initiating cooling throughout Europe. If true, this proves that humans have been a force of change in nature since well before the industrial revolution.
Perhaps rather than striving to convert (or revert) society into a state of supposed “natural equilibrium” and “sustainability,” environmentalism should concentrate more on the environmental realities going forward. As rapid changes in the environment become more obvious, maybe the conversation should be more about what to do going forward and how best to live in the strange new world that is emerging more and more everyday. If humans are a force of nature, our current impact and overconsumption is kind of like a hurricane, and you can’t just tell a hurricane to “stop” or change direction—you just have to wait until it blows over and hope you have something left.
As we continue to set in place increasingly complex systems and technologies in our pursuit of resources, disasters like the Deepwater Horizon spill will almost certainly reoccur. With or without human influence, the world is constantly shifting, changing, growing, and dying. Maybe we should concern ourselves more with learning how to adapt and change accordingly, rather than harping sustainability. This may sound like pessimism, but I think it is an exciting chance to look at things in a new way. As we in New Orleans are all too familiar with, sometimes even the worst disasters offer opportunities to rebuild and reinvent. And we will—it’s only natural.
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