“From here on, the primary judgment of all human institutions, professions, programs and activities will be determined by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore or foster a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.” This is what Thomas Berry said in an interview a few years back, as quoted in his recent “NY Times” obituary. Berry was a profound and influential voice calling humankind back to its natural relationship with the earth and the cosmos. Andy Revkin, who wrote the obit, had more to say at his blog with quotes from a number of others, including Bill McKibben saying that Berry’s work went “…straight to the heart of how we understood ourselves, and that our traditions would have to bend to reflect those new understandings.”
I’ve been a working environmentalist for more than 25 years but I haven’t always stopped to delve deeply into the work and writing of some of the visionaries who’ve brought us – in my opinion – to the brink of learning how to live in peace with our planet and ourselves. I’ll be teaching a class on the history of the American environmental movement this coming fall and so I will be thinking a lot more about some of these great souls like Thoreau, Muir, Leopold, Dubos, Brower and Berry. I’ve had the good fortune to know Barry Commoner, however briefly, but I’ll enjoy learning more about these others. For more on Thomas Berry, go to his foundation’s website.
On a similar note, I referenced the “FT” columnist, Harry Eyres, in this post several months back: A Different View of Freedom. He had a column the other day, The sour smell of excess, that riffs on frugality. Imagine! He notes a recent report, Prosperity without Growth?, from the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission on forging a new economic system in the wake of the recent world economic meltdown. The report, by Tim Jackson, has, according to Eyres, “…a verve and passion you would not expect from a government-sponsored initiative.” Eyres writes that “…daringly, Jackson questions the shibboleth of economic growth and the potentially destructive way in which the ‘profit motive stimulates a continual search by producers for newer, better and cheaper products and services,’ and a restless desire on the part of consumers to purchase those products and services. The resulting ‘iron cage of consumerism’ is neither environmentally sustainable nor humanly sustaining.” (This certainly echoes “The Story of Stuff” – see post from Wednesday just below.)
