11,000 years ago the country where modern Iran is today was a “paradise”, according to the archeologists currently investigating the world’s oldest Stonehenge-type religious site there. This site is thousands of years older than the famed one in the British Isles. In the most recent issue of the Smithsonian, archeologists speculate that the landscape filled with lakes and leaping gazelles amidst fields of wild grain so inspired its human inhabitants that they raised this religious tribute to its ineffable beauty. The carved stones there include images of vultures that traditional mythology tells us carried off the souls of the dead to heaven. A splendid heaven it must have been, scattering light onto the fertile earth below.
Another tribute to the immense forest (remember the biblical cedars of Lebanon?) on this land remains on tablets of stone that tell the tale of Gilgamesh. This ancient king of Uruk has more power over other humans than he knows what to do with–and dangerous arrogance with respect both to his subjects and to the natural world.
The moving poem of joy to this forest on these stone tablets sits amidst the chronicle of the forest’s destruction by Gilgamesh. After he “conquered” that forest and its guardian spirit, things didn’t go well for this king and his wild-man companion (and only equal among men) Enkidu. Enkidu died shortly thereafter– after all, what is there for a wild man when the wilds are gone?
Gilgamesh defeated the forest and its guardian, but he ended his life in desperation. He had immense logs brought from the sacred forest to raise the mighty gates of Uruk where he ruled. But his heroic escapades did not save him from coming face to face with his own death in the cycle of nature.
The land he deforested as a heroic adventure has fared no better in actual history. The people of Uruk constructed elaborate irrigation canals which resulted in the salination of the water table. And their once-paradise became a desert. But for their stone homage to a land now gone dry, the people themselves have disappeared. Even their language has not been passed on. It is unrelated to any other language in the world, ancient or modern.
Bearing some resemblance to the paradise Gilgamesh came upon in the sacred forest, George Yount’s 1833 description of the Napa Valley went like this:
“It was more than anything a wide and extended lawn, exuberant in wild oats and the place for wild beasts to lie down in. The deer, antelope, and the noble elk held quiet and undisturbed possession of all that wide domain. The above-named animals were numerous beyond all parallel, and herds of many hundred, they might be met so tame that they would hardly move to open the way for the traveler to pass. They were seen lying or grazing in immense herds on the sunny side of every hill, and their young like lambs frolicking in all directions. The wild geese and every species of water fowl darkened the surface of every bay and firth, and upon the land in flocks of millions they wandered in quest of insects and cropping the wild oats which grew there in the richest abundance. When disturbed, they arose to fly. The sound of their wings was like that of distant thunder. The rivers were literally crowded with salmon. It was a land of plenty and such a climate as no other land can boast of.”
In 1850, Thomas Mayfield’s description of the San Joaquin Valley includes these words:
“As we passed below the hills, the whole plain was covered with great patches of rose, yellow, scarlet, orange and blue… some of the patches of one color were a mile or more across… Several times we stopped to pick the different kinds of flowers and soon we had our horses and packs decorated with masses of all colors.”
I like to imagine this moment, when a family of pioneers on their way to the California gold fields (as they were) were stopped in their tracks by the loveliness of the land. Can you imagine these pioneers so stunned by natural beauty they stopped the incessant journeying that caused the peoples of Oregon to term them the “moving people”–and covered themselves with flowers?
Something of the land stayed with this family. Mayfield, a child at the time, was adopted by the local peoples after his mother died and his father went on to the gold fields. The Indians raised Mayfield with love–and passed on their own love for the land to him as well.
But the land and people that nurtured him into manhood have not fared so well. If the Choinumni people fed the Mayfield family so that they would not hunt with their firearms and scare the game, their tribe is tiny and fighting hard for federal recognition. And the land they once cared for is no longer a place to accommodate herds of wild game. It has been plowed into vast irrigated fields for the mono-crops of industrialized agriculture. These fields today are becoming salinated in the same way as the fields of the ancient Middle East. Further, in some areas of the Central California Valley, chemical fertilizers and pesticides have had such a profound effect on the land that nothing will grow on its own. This land, that is, is biologically dead.
Taking down the forests is more than a matter of axes and saws or modern chainsaws, as the tale of Enkidu and Gilgamesh tells us. when we attack the spirit of the forest something vast in the potential legacy of human community dies with it. In the same way, remaking the land for industrial farming is more than a matter of plows and dams. These things are matters intertwined with the human soul. And something of “paradise” is lost when we change the land beyond its ability to care to revive itself and nurture wild things.
Clear cutting and industrial farming are not new things on the human horizon. As the tale of Gilgamesh indicates, humans have for thousands of years wrestled with the idea of taking down a forest–and they have not always won the struggle of conscience involved. The tale of Gilgamesh is a cautionary tale in this respect. as are the journals of Thomas Mayfield.
And so is the salt-ladden biologically dead farmland of the Central California Valley waiting to be reclaimed by a species of human care like that which the Choinumni once exercised.
Filed under: Environmental ethics, Environmental psychology, Folklore and Oral Tradition, Forest and farm, Indigenous, Land use, Middle East, Northwest History and Culture, Our Earth and Ourselves, environmental philosophy | Tagged: Environmental psychology, Folklore and Oral Tradition, Gilgamesh, sustainability, northwest history, worldviews
What extraordinary images you bring together here, accounts from earlier ages that sadden as they enlighten. I exult in the beauty and tranquility of those earlier times and grieve for their loss. Will our tormented earth ever recover?
A few years ago, traveling in New Zealand, I passed through a long valley carpeted with lupin, lupin in many gradations of color — blue, violet, pink, apricot. And elsewhere in New Zealand there were hlllsides ablaze with wild nasturtiums. It comforts me to remember these beautiful, peaceful places..
Hi Sylvia, thank you for your comment.
It is striking how the beauty of the natural world gives us courage and hope.
Knowing you as I do, I can respond to your question as to whether the earth will ever recover with the sense that it will be because of those like you who have dedicated their lives to protecting and recovering both justice and beauty.
I love these eloquent words of Linda Hogan’s (from Dwellings):
“The ears of the corn are listening and waiting. They want peace. The stalks of the corn want clean water, sun that is in its full clean shining. The leaves of the corn want good earth. The earth wants peace. The birds who eat the corn do not want poison. Nothing wants to suffer. The wind does not want to carry the stories of death.”
I am also thinking of Ellie Hillesum’s observation from a death camp during the Holocaust which would soon take her life. She observed how extraordinary it was that the lupines could bloom and two old women settle themselves for a chat in the sun in a camp in which the extreme of human cruelty was expressed. She concluded that our human mission in the worst of situations must be to act as a personal refuge for the beauty and decency that might otherwise be lost.
Your post also brings to mind the work of Lily Yeh, the artist who quit her job at the University of Pennsylvania to bring beauty (through sculpture and murals) to the most devastated areas of inner city Philadelphia. By bringing beauty there, she brought the community together: and in her decades of work, she has been the catalyst for reclaiming some 200 city blocks.
Beauty has an exquisite power if we let it speak to us–and your own life choices remind me of this.
It is sad to me that the messages that are sent down through the ages are now being ignored. With the epic of Gilgamesh, the storyteller believed it an important enough lesson to include in the story of their cultural heritage and someone believed it was important enough to record in writing so as to never be forgotten. Native Americans too have these stories of warning passed down through generations. These are stories of past mistakes that should not be repeated. Is it that we think that if we make these same mistakes the outcome will somehow be different? Or do we just no longer care about consequences?
You have likely heard this definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results.
You ask some questions that deserve some answers: We live in a culture which does not honor the past–and thus we do not regularly face our own mistakes, and thus we also do not learn from them.
It is about time, as you indicate, that we change this.
Assuming an ethical stance means understanding that our actions count–and thus we empower ourselves.
Once again, we live in a culture that values a few designated heroes and implies what the rest of us do does not count. I am glad that you feel differently, Tami!That difference is the first step of the change we need.
In many areas of the forest, humans have done so much work to develop cities that they have biologically killed the land where things can not grow on their own anymore. I was surprised that we know of a story 11,000 years ago where we see a powerful King destroying nature itself as we do to day. Human destruction is not new it has been going on for thousands of years evidently to attain a “better life”. Nature was doing fine on its own in their natural environment, but now man has disturbed it so much it doesn’t care to come back anymore. Man has depleted the land beyond the abilities for the land to rebound. We have taken a land of plenty and killed it to where it can not produce on its own, the land is biologically dead and people are to blame. A few people made choices that the rest of the people have to live with as well as nature. Now my generation and future generations will never get to see what paradise was once. I am thankful for theses stories so I can form pictures in my head but I am sad that people have done so much damage to natural ecological systems they don’t care to revive itself like in Gilgamesh. Like humans and all living things, nature has its own spirit. We need to learn from all this damage people have done to Mother Earth and get things back on track.
Hi Laura, thank you for your comment. There is much grief involved in the destructive changes we are making with respect to our environment (and certain kinds of societies have made historically). On the other hands, there are those who have worked in concert with land to strengthen its biodiversity. I am posting a page here of a draft of an article on Indigenous Peoples (http://holdenma.wordpress.com/culture-and-environment/indigenous-peoples/) I wrote for a forthcoming “green encyclopedia”. There is much to do, but perhaps this and other writings on this site will give you hope that humans can be a blessing (an anthropologist viewing indigenous eous California history put it) rather than a plague on the land.
Thanks for the link! It is so disheartening to envision such beauty and imagine what took place. It feels like my own beauty has been disregarded and pilleged and forgotten; and I suppose in essence that is exactly what is happening to women world-wide when the natural beauty of our planet is used up in this way.
Amazingly enough, though I yearn for that beauty around me all the time, I have an incredible desire to go to impoverished areas. I think I am searching for the feelings you described of the woman from the concentration camp. I feel as though I can have a greater positive impact on the world around me if I can truly see such hope and admiration, and love of beauty and life in the eyes of a people and a place that have been stripped of their rightful beauty. However, I do feel this is even possible in California, the Santa Cruz Mountains still spring up with wild strawberries, sweet old ladies still let wild skunks and other creatures into their houses and young girls can still go exploring along glistening stream beds. I remember when I was young, sneaking out of bed at night and feeling a huge escape and liberation just walking out to the little stream behind our house in the all but quiet night when the moon shone so bright that the water sparkled– I was always hopeful that some creatures might come and talk to me and give me wisdom and maybe they did because I was never afraid of being there, only of getting caught. I think there is hope, as long as people remember that we are in this together and the pointing of fingers transforms into individual acts of change. The most enduring change will come by example.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience in heeding the call of the natural world as a child. I concur with you on your point of hope: and my hope includes the wish that you find not only the beauty of nature that persists in daily life (in each of our bodies), but affirm your own beauty that you feel has been buried by cultural dynamics.
I recently attended a lecture on the importance of soil biology, and the fact that current agricultural processes are so counter-productive and destructive is maddening and terrifying! I don’t have a very deep understanding of it, but I have been learning the basics of how fungi works in an ecosystem as the natural detoxifiers and regulators of the system. The more I learn about mycellium, the more furious I become that we don’t honor and respect this form of life enough to allow fungus to help us fix our problems. Did you know that many forms of fungus actually thrive in fossil fuel-saturated pollution zones? They eat up this rich energy source, safely removing it from the environment, while at the same time encouraging biodiversity because fungus has so many symbiotic relationships with other life forms. Amazing! And yet, industry just keeps using more solvents and more salts, and no matter how optimistic we try to be, the truth is that the destruction is only speeding up. How many more oil spills and deserts will be added to the pile before we finally stop all this insanity?
I think your last question is the question of the age, Rachel. I do think that there is more destruction but also more and more people working to honor and protect nature’s resilience. The more that is destroyed, the more we must be creative in response– a challenge that I know can seem overwhelming at times.
The soil fungus is a marvelous thing: I love the feel and smell of those little white threads everywhere whenever I work in the dirt in my yard. I also understand that live soil renders millions of dangerous (to humans) bacteria like e coli neutral at an amazing rate. It is a beautiful soil-honoring custom of peasant farmers in Eastern Europe (though I don’t know how many do it anymore) to kneel and kiss the soil each morning. I think we must know it somewhere in our heart and bones when we walk on live soil as opposed to chemically-created deserts or cement.
Keep feeling deeply and learning and acting Rachel. Thank you on behalf of all of us, of current and future generations who share our earth.
It is true what they say, that “those who do not understand history are likely to repeat it,” and this article is a perfect example of this saying in action. It is all too often that when plans so bad people say “well, how was I suppose to know that would happen,” when we only need only look to the past to find answers for the future, such as the story of Gilgamesh. If more people knew and understood what happened to Gilgamesh, they would be doing things like draining resources from their land faster then they can be replaced.
Thanks for your comment, Jessica. I agree that we can’t start heeding the lessons of history too soon.
It is stories like these that always make me wonder if people on our earth will ever learn from their mistakes. How many times will history repeat itself and how many beautiful things that our earth has been blessed with will have to suffer and eventually cease to exist altogether? I really hope that the amazing things that this earth holds will still be around when my children and their children inhabit this planet, but stories like these make me feel as though places like the ones described in this article will not be around forever.
Hi Megan, there is certainly grief here, but my hope is that there is also, as you indicate, the ability to learn from the past. And to honor what you rightly call the “amazing” things this earth still holds. I think it is certainly true that if we don’t change our ways, such things will not be around for our children’s children to enjoy. That makes it all the more imperative that we act on behalf of that which we treasure. Thanks for your comment.
What a nice article and so many thoughtful replies. I think we all echo the sadness as well as the hope. We have to be positive, and I was especially moved by Madronna’s response to Sylvia, about the flowers and women sitting for a chat in the concentration camp. We have to carry that beauty and positivity, it is our responsibility or it dies in us and in the world. The force that underlies life continues, even as large, destructive forces try to eliminate it. It is our privilege to carry it. It all seems to come down to honor and respect for everything especially respecting ourselves and realizing that everything we say and do creates a ripple effect, good or bad. We have no choice but to be part of the good and the solution, and unfortunately that means we have to look at what is really going on. One of the saddest things for me is to see youth turning away from education and taking to drugs and the streets, before they ever have a chance to understand who they are, because their parents are also lost to themselves and the culture does nothing to support either. Just felt like saying that, but acknowledgment is the first step I guess.
Hi Lesley, acknowledgment is the first step–and it takes a whole community to give these kids a place in our world, not just parents who cannot always do it in isolation. Thank you for the warm response about the beauty and positivity that leads us into enacting our visions for a better world in the face of so much destruction and sadness. Sylvia is an amazing woman!
As Hegel once put, humans can be the best of creatures BECAUSE we can be the worst. We are creature of choice and those choices that make the difference between the one and the other. I do think, as well, that the beauty of the natural world calls us to our own higher selves. And sometimes I sense a fear of this beauty and what it calls us to on the part of certain humans who would therefore rather ravage it.
Sometimes it is much more difficult for me to “picture” how things were, from an environmental perspective, and how they are today without specific data involved. Beginning the article with a “snap shot” photo description of Iran today and it being a paradise much earlier, really hit home with me. This class continues to open my eyes surrounding the significance of all of our taking action now.
Good article,
Paul
Thanks, Paul! I hope that we are able to become a culture with wisdom– one of my own definitions being the ability to learn from the past. A Chehalis grandmother once told me that eveyone who relayed such information should tell it “as if you were right there, seeing it happen”. I like that advice.
Its scary to think what how this world will change 10, 20, 100 years from now. The more populated this earth becomes the more damage humans seem to cause. I lived in the same house for 21 years and now when I think of how it has my small town has changed over the years it blows my mind. What use to be parks and fields are now replaced with Wall Mart and sonic. It seems like every time I come home a new building is being built. 11,000 year ago Iran was a paradise and now it’s anything but that. My hope is that humans will take a look around an realize what an amazing place world we live in and start to change their consumer habits to keep its beauty for our children and grandchildren to see.
Hi Krissie, it is scary to contemplate the future if we keep going in the direction we are currently heading. Wouldn’t it be great NOT to repeat the mistakes of history that began so many years ago and think about how the changes in 10, 20 or 100 years would be in the RIGHT direction? Any ideas about what it might take to make our future something to look forward to rather than to be frightened of?
Anthropologic history is often ignored with disasterous results. The negligence of commonality and individual defiance towards seemingly unique goals with unique solutions stifles growth within human civilizations. The communities which ignore the experience of past generations are cursed to relive the toils and tribulations which their forefathers worked to ascend. However, the peoples who revere the human connection in past, present, and future generations are privileged to deeper comprehension and management of their lives and lineage.
Reinventing the wheel is a waste of time. Americas’ environmental degradation, health care mess, and economic woes are all phenomenons seen at different times by different peoples of the world. However, the recognition of tested solutions found elsewhere in Europe or the East jeapordizes our pride in innovation and domination. How can such a powerful country be advised by “weaker” nations? It’s like my private husband telling his lieutenant how to do things; unacceptable in American society. However, does rank really define human genius? No, absolutely not. In fact, the status of other nations’ failure via depleted resouces, which leads to national instability, is paramount knowledge in order to protect Americas bountiful resource base with wise lessons of what not to do.
I think it would be a nice addition to any cirriculum to include an Environmental World History course to perpetuate awareness of the natural interactions experienced by all peoples of the world over time. PHL 443 is an enlightening course along those same lines with comparison between indigenous and modernistic views. However, the current western mindset has perpetuated poor decisionmaking for some time and more awareness of the cause and effect relationships between the environment, economics, and politics would do some good in America.
Hi Jenna, thanks for your comment. I would certainly welcome an alertness to the intersection between culture/worldview and environmental results in historical perspective.
I have heard a great deal about salination of water tables through irrigation systems. Jared Diamond spends a great deal of time discussing it in his book Collapse. He notes that Australia in particular is suffering from this system. I don’t doubt that it is happening in the central California as well. I’m a curious though, how long does it take to undo these kinds of effects? It seems like even 4,000 years in the case of what used to be the fertile crescent hasn’t been enough. Are their modern technologies we can use to reverse these effects? I mean, I’d rather not wait 5,000 years or more for the Central Valley to recover. and I’m sure most Americans wouldn’t either. Are we passed the tipping point on our way to collapse down there?
Hi Mark– a very thoughtful question to which I do not know the answer. What I DO know is that the more humus (organic matter) in the soil, the more the soil can repair itself–and the less uptake of toxic chemicals in modern farms and gardens. Soils in the Central Valley that are biologically dead suffer from acid burnout because of chemical fertilizer usage–so that things can ONLY grow at all and take in nutrients through chemical fertilizers. So it is an addictive process, good for the chemical company profits. There are, however, some grape growers in the region who have gone organic (especially difficult with more fragile seedless hybrids) and brought the soils back to life (takes at least several years) through the introduction of organic humus. Check out the article (if you haven’t already) on the Green Revolution–Whoops! here (about Bangladesh). A very interesting thing about the re-introduction of these older farming methods is that they recharged the water table so that irrigation was not necessary in some of these rice paddies. Similarly, some Pueblo farmers in the American southwest have practiced dryland farming of corn for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, without
One of the reasons that the soils in the Middle East have not recovered is that they often remain denuded; the topsoil is almost entirely gone in many places, with just rock surfaces with which to terrace olive and fig trees that can hold onto the slopes. In this context I experienced an amazing traditional (and contrasting) Arab orchard on perhaps one half an acre that was lush with the inter-cropping of several grafted fruit trees and a vegetable garden (this was on the Mount of Olives). This was an oasis not created by natural variance but by continued traditional care for the land.
I’m not too fond of Diamond’s first books, as they seem to imply that if humans wind up in a particular landscape, it leads to social structures (and power structures) of various types– with no accommodation for human choice or responsibility in matter. However, cultures with entirely different social structures may survive in the same ecological framework (some examples in my page on Indigenous Peoples here). Jared seems to have come round to realizing how important human choice is in Collapse , which I find more nuanced–so I am glad you are reading that one.
I know that I’m not alone in thinking just how wonderfully amazing it would be to see the land as it once was and to see it as those famed naturalists saw it. It would probably enduce euphoria and even some tears. It makes me think of a natural version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory witha river of salmon and bounty aplenty.
If anyone has ever been deeper into the redwood forests, you will know the feeling of beeing minuscule and insignificant. It was amazing to see some of nature as John Muir had.
I can only imagine what a sea of camas would look like. I have seen smaller fields thick with them and it’s amazing. It is soo easy to undo and destroy the beauty of nature. It’s a shame that there wasn’t more foresight during the developement of this country. Ofcourse, hindsight is always 20/20. However, this doesn’t mean that we cannot learn from our mistakes.
Thanks for your thoughtful and feeling response here, Chris. I do think the true gauge of wisdom is being able to learn from our mistakes-and certainly, care for such wilderness landscapes where they still remain for the sake of those who come after us.
It’s sad to me that we have evolved to be so disconnected with the natural world. How did it come to be that we could cut down forests without thinking of how it may affect everything else around (including humans). Humans can be so near-sighted in this way. Only the people who have managed to maintain a connection to the land, water, animals and all other earth inhabitants, i.e. the indigenous people, seem to have the ability to see for many generations. Luckily, there are more and more people these days returning to indigenous wisdom and, in turn, remembering the interconnectedness of all things. It will be this movement that will encourage the healing of the planet through forward thinking.
We have an incredible opportunity to learn from the mistakes of our distant past and recent past (as Matt points out above). We are poised on a tipping point for humanity and the survival of life as we know it. I only hope that we can sustain the vision of the importance of reconnection before it is too late!
Hi Dazzia, I very much like your balance in this comment. Yes, we have some grave environmental issues to face– but we have the opportunity to learn from our past and reconnect with the natural world before–as you point out– it is too late.
My family has a cabin on a lake on the Utah and Idaho border called Bear Lake. It is a beautiful freshwater lake formed from an earthquake creating a deep valley which was filled by the bear river at the north end. The lake contains dissolved limestone which gives the water a very unique and breathtaking turquoise color. The ecosystem here is abundant, there is an estuary marsh for the diverse bird life which includes fresh-water pelicans. There is a breed of fish known as the sisco which is found only in this lake. The lake is surrounded by two mountain ranges and to me has always been a paradise. However it is quickly becoming a popular tourist attraction, something that the local crowd has been fearing for decades. Condo and other developments are cropping up on the foothills of the surrounding mountains, the first chain businesses starting appearing a few years ago. My family feels a huge sense of loss at the urbanization of this paradise valley that we are so blessed to know in a sacred manner. I feel like the urbanization we witnessed in out valley is of a similar loss to those of the lush paradise in IRan and what is starting to occur in Napa Valley. It is truly a heart-wrenching occasion.
Hi Anna, I am sorry that you are experiencing this loss– it is strange and sad thing that those things that attract us to a place (the setting you describe) might cause some to develop it beyond recognition. Losing a landscape that is sacred to you is the cause for grief, indeed. If the fish species exists only in that lake, you would think that might an occasion for protecting it. I am betting that your family is not the only ones feeling sad about this change– I am wondering if there is a way to unite with others to address issues of concern that you share.
And how would you like this to the dynamics of Gilgamesh? Can you say a bit more about this? Thanks for your comment!
I was unaware that thousands of years ago the middle east used to be a paradise. It is hard to picture the desert land as anything else. It is scary to think that this may be what other areas of the currently forest infested lands may be in a few more thousand years. If destruction of the rainforests and ecological productive lands is not stopped soon, it is possible that in thousands of years, the entire world will take on a desert like quality. I cannot picture a world without the beauty that I have seen and found in the natural world. Though deserts may have their natural beauty, the reason that I find this world to be so fascinating, is because of the diversity of the land. It would be devestating if the world continued on its destructive path towards all vegetation, and lost the beauty of diversity in the process.
Hi Katie, thanks for reminding us of the beauty of deserts in their own right. I think that deserts such as the American southwest, where plant and animal species have adapted for thousands of years (until recent human activity) are beautiful–but deserts created (such as the creeping Sahara) through human actions are alarming to me. And deserts created by logging a landscape two dozen times over certainly have something to teach us about human limits– and the repercussions of our actions!
Oy, tales of defeating the forest. Though it makes sense to clear forest areas for specific purposes, such as intentional burning that makes forest fires less damaging later, the notion of conquering a forest just seems silly. “I slaughtered the great plant enemy!” haha ridiculous. I think people may be afraid of the forest to some extent if they are raised in civilizations away from it and never exposed. What they don’t fully comprehend is that without the forest that so many systems thrive in, we lose valuable life. It is not merely trees that die through clear-cutting, and we don’t know what affects the destruction of forests will have in the long-run. The worldview of domination is evident here, with people considering themselves above plant species and therefore in control of them and not dependent upon them. If we have anything to conquer it is this unhealthy worldview.
Hi Karen, I think your send up of “slaughtering” the forest is apt. Just how brave are we to attack lives that cannot even run from us? You also point out some of the things we lose from such an attitude–not to mention the energy that might allow us to attack something more relevant and beneficial– such as our own ignorance. Thanks for your comment.
It is amazing to me that history is constinently repeating itself. We have thousand of years of history that is the same. A civilization starts, peaks, and thru its own means destroy itself. From the ancient world to now we are doing the same things. Will we ever learn?
That is a key question, Renae.
It is scary to think that all these historical lessons are available to us, however, we don’t seem to be taking the opportunity to learn from them as well as we could. The stories of various countries around the world tell us that if we don’t take care of the environment properly, the many species of animals and plants will abandon us and the land that will remain upon their departure will not be a suitable land for us to live on. There is the example of Palestine that you mentioned in one of your essays, where due to deforestation the topsoil was washed into the sea. As you mentioned previously, it takes 40 years to create 1 cm of soil – which I didn’t know and I was quite shocked by this information. Is it correct? Now there are other examples – that of Iran and Central California Valley. I think one of the lessons that we can learn from these stories is that no matter what technology we come up with, technology is not a substitute for treating the environment with care, respect and common sense and using the natural resources (including the land) in moderation. When thinking about all the irrigation works, clear cutting, industrial farming, using of chemical fertilizers and pesticides all around the world, I am thinking that we should all read the tale of Gilgamesh. When reading your article and considering the consequences of our approach to land, it also made me think that sometimes in the future humans really will have to apply the principles investigated by Gaviotas, because most of humans will probably live in hostile deserts with no productive soils.
This a thoughtful response, Iveta–and not so far off a prediction if we continue to squander our precious resource of soil: that statistic is taken from a book on the natural history of New York City, which notes that the soils there were not “particularly deep, having had only 18,000 years to form”! (Mannnahatta I have an advance copy of this book published this year, but it should be out and available now) The one cm/forty years is an average in temperate climates. It is a great tragedy that the kind of plowing we are doing in the midwest (where we found topsoils several feet deep) is causing it to blow up in dust and eventually be carried to river deltas (largely the Mississippi) where it creates a “dead zone” of soil and agricultural chemicals in the sea.
We certainly need to get smarter and soon! But the good news is that facing these sad consequences of our past actions can help to do that.