Quiz Sep8

Ch5

1. What's the dominant conceptual model used by today's decision makers?

2. How does our culture rationalize drawing down finite resources without worrying about tomorrow?

3. Who's the patron saint of extractivism, and what's the ironic legend of his death?

4. Who calls coal a "natural sponge"?

5. What's the antithesis of extractivism?

6. Who advocated a "land ethic"?

DQ

• What's the moral of the Nauru story? Is our "disposable" culture of "disavowal" on the same track?
• Do you ever suffer local or global "solastalgia"? 165
• Is it entirely delusional to hope we'll "invent our way of " the climate crisis? 166
• What's good about Francis Bacon's worldview? 170f.  Is there an ecologically-defensible way to "dominate" nature, without damaging our relation to it?
• If "Mother Nature bats last," can we at least hope for extra innings? 174 
• What would you say to Thoreau and Bacon, if you could? 184
• Was "Ding" Darling right about Leopold's land ethic? 185
• Was Rachel Carson right about the arrogance of "control"?
• Was the Club of Rome right about the limits to growth?
• Your DQs please

Obama’s View of His Legacy? Fighting Climate Change

In an interview with The Times, President Obama said his efforts to slow global warming would be more important than anything he’s done about health care, race or the economy... (continues)
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Obama the Conservationist
Despite Congress’s opposition, he has put more acreage under protection than any other President.

By Elizabeth Kolbert

In the spring of 1903, while visiting Yosemite, President Theodore Roosevelt slipped his Secret Service detail to go camping with John Muir. The first night, the President, the naturalist, and two park rangers camped out by a grove of sequoia; the second, in a hollow at Glacier Point. Roosevelt emerged from the woods to learn that an elaborate banquet had been planned for him, complete with fireworks. He stayed long enough for a glass of champagne, then announced that he was skipping the rest of the festivities. He and Muir spent a third night camping in the shadow of El Capitan.

The only record of what passed between Roosevelt and Muir during their trip comes from one of the rangers, Charles Leidig. According to Leidig, among the topics the two discussed were: lion hunting; Muir’s theory—controversial at the time—that Yosemite had been shaped by glaciers; the importance of forest conservation; and the need for more national parks. Roosevelt and Muir had some difficulty communicating, Leidig observed, “because both men wanted to do the talking.” Nevertheless, their journey has been described as the most consequential camping trip in American history. Roosevelt went on to create eighteen national monuments, five national parks, and a hundred and fifty national forests. All told, he conserved some two hundred and thirty million acres—an area larger than Texas.

This past spring, President Obama visited Yosemite. Instead of camping, he stayed at the park’s fanciest hotel, and, instead of ditching his Secret Service detail, he was accompanied on his hike by snipers posted strategically on the rocks. Still, he, too, seems to have been moved by the spirit of John Muir... (continues)