Gary Wedgewood, November 25, 2022 (Native American Heritage Day)

Final Essay for:  Environmental Ethics - PHIL 3340, Fall 2022

Wilding:

In the 1970’s I remember debating in my dorm room with a fellow college student (whom we had nicknamed “Chatsworth”) about the importance of caring about the well-being of other people.  He was a pre-med student and I was a philosophy-religion and religious studies major.  At some point in the debate I suggested that it bothered me to think about the suffering of others and I used the word “integral”.  Chatsworth (which referred to his privileged background which stood in contrast to my origins in urban poverty) was gob smacked, insisted that there was no such word as integral, ended the debate, and stormed out of the room.  I always wondered if he ever became a medical professional charged with caring for other people.

So, when Paul Hawken used that word, integral, he got my full attention.  It occurred to me that I have always viewed the natural world as a living organism.  I guess my early experiences as a city boy visiting my grandparents farm and as a boy scout going camping awakened me to this view of the environment as an organism.

Hawken writes:  “Nature is not an “it” out there. It is us…. When we think about how to end the climate crisis, we rarely consider wildness as being integral… We damage our internal wildness when we take antibiotics, eat processed foods, or over sterilize our living environment… (similarly we can damage external wildness when we add chemicals, extract from it, and exploit it)…When we restore wildlife habitat, we restore resiliency, reproduction, viability, and evolution… Nature repairs quickly, elegantly, and abundantly when harm ceases.”  Hawken, Paul. Regeneration (p. 63). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

In 2018-21, as I watched the house we would retire to being constructed in a suburban community I recalled being shocked and sometimes sickened by the destruction of the natural environment and the waste associated with modern construction.  I salvaged bits of scrap wood and saved bricks, shingles, sheetrock, tile, grout, and a window for the day when I might need to repair my house in the future knowing that it is often impossible to get the exact same material of the same color for future repairs.  I made bird houses and Jenga games out of some of the wood during the Covid-19 shut down.  I made tomato stakes and provided tile and grout when an improperly constructed shower-drain needed repair.  I am now encouraging my HOA to maintain and expand the remaining wild and wetland on common properties and greenways in the community.  I am encouraged at seeing many homeowners growing small gardens in pots or raised beds.  I am noticing the remarkable amount of wildlife that has returned to our community after the destruction/construction phase has wound down.  We see hummingbirds, ducks, a variety of other birds, deer, fox, squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs, and a great variety of insects returning to our somewhat sterilized bit of land that was once forest and farm land.

Hawken writes: “In general, the more species living in an ecosystem, the higher its productivity and resilience. Such is the wonder of life… Population crashes and extinctions are the signs of an ecosystem unravelling…(About the transformation of Knepp Castle he quotes) Charlie and I embarked on the project out of an amateurish love for wildlife and because we would have lost an impossible amount of money if we had continued to farm. We had no idea how influential and multifaceted the project would become, attracting policy makers, farmers, landowners, conservation bodies, and other land-management NGOs, both British and foreign. We had no idea Knepp (Castle) would end up a focal point for today’s most pressing problems: climate change, soil restoration, food quality and security, crop pollination, carbon sequestration, water resources and purification, flood mitigation, animal welfare, and human health… if it can happen here, on our depleted patch of land in the over-developed, densely populated southeast of England, it can happen anywhere—if only we have the will to give it a try.” Hawken, Paul. Regeneration (p. 79). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

As a philosophy/religion student I have most enjoyed reading the original writings of philosophers and religious leaders, as opposed to reading books about their thinking, over the years.  Something William James suggested has stuck with me, when he spoke about how the views of a given thinker all go back to their temperament, a quality developed due to their upbringing, the environment they live in, and life experiences (good and bad).  When Montaigne almost died after a horse-riding accident it changed his temperament.  The temperament of James himself was affected by his emotional distress and suicidal thoughts over the years.  I think it would be accurate to say that the temperament we each have is a product of our environment and our experiences while living in that environment.

Hawken writes:  “For the last forty years I’ve had a quote from Gandhi pinned somewhere in my office through several moves. He said that “what we each do seems insignificant, but it is most important that we do it.” It can be something little and local, or maybe something big.”  Hawken, Paul. Regeneration (p. 93). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

However, how we have each been shaped by our environment, whatever temperament we have developed as a result, and how we currently think (philosophize and believe), ought to be translated into “what we each do” in our community and in the environment.  My brother two years younger than me spent his career working in research and development for the Dupont Chemical Company which no doubt contributed greatly to the destruction of the environment over the years.  This shaped his current temperament and he now is a strong advocated for the saving of the ecosystem who has installed solar at his home, drives electric or hybrid cars, and contributes his time both as an election worker and as an home energy auditor.  Truly, each of us can make a difference.

Land:

The bottom lands of my grandparent’s farm were never very rich farmland.  I remember a lot of clay and rocky soil.  However, the fact that the Ohio river occasionally flooded and deposited sediment on this land is probably why it is still production farm land to this day.  As I was growing up in Chicago, I spent many weekend camping with my boy scout troop in the forest preserves and state parks around Illinois.  We also, always had a vegetable garden in our small backyard.  Finally, in my high school, college, and seminary years, I spent my summers working and later as a live-in custodian and camp counselor for the Apache Day Camp, situated on ten acres in the suburbs of the city.  What I noticed in all of these places was the rich black loom soil that was two to four feet deep in this area that had once been scraped by glaciers.  It was pointed out to me at some point, that in building on this land, often the topsoil was removed and sold and only a thin layer of topsoil would be returned to support sod in the yards around whatever had been built on the sterilized and denuded land that remained.

Hawken writes:  “As plants and microbes flourished and perished, they deposited organic sediment. It was the beginning of the soil we know today, the nutrient-laden medium that sustains 80 percent of all life on land… In the past two thousand years—a fraction of geological time—cities, agriculture, and deforestation have dramatically altered the natural carbon cycle… When you gather a teaspoon of healthy soil, you have at hand one of the most complex living systems on earth… 15 million smallholder farmers and tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers are employing agricultural methods to reverse the loss of soil health, restore land, and bring agriculture and food back to life… George Washington Carver, who studied them scientifically and shared his knowledge, (became) the progenitor of regenerative agriculture in the United States in the early 1900s… About one-sixth of global greenhouse gas emissions arise from the farm sector… Soil is a community, not a commodity… In Oklahoma, for every pound of wheat produced conventionally, three pounds of soil are lost to erosion… A healthy farm must also provide habitat for birds, pollinators, predator insects, earthworms, and microbes, integrated together… soil health is plant health is human health… Our fruits and vegetables have significantly less nutrition than they did fifty years ago… Regenerative agriculture is at the heart of a regenerated society…”  Hawken, Paul. Regeneration (p. 95-99). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition…

One of the most encouraging things I learned in reading Regeneration was that in many cases wildlife returns and soil can begin regenerating if land is re-wilded and sustainable agriculture methods are used.  Certainly, in my lifetime, things cannot return to what they were when the land was wilderness and undisturbed, but each of us can do better with whatever parts of the environment we are entrusted to care for.  I will always remember a couple I got to know in my Seminary years who were farming a bit of land in a sustainable way.  One day, I asked them if they owned their land and the reply was “no, we are just taking care of it temporarily”.  In other words, in their view, the Creator would always “own” the land and we humans would always be mere temporary custodians as most indigenous people have always known.  It was very notable when we toured the Crazy Horse Monument in South Dakota near Mt. Rushmore last October, that our tour guide clearly expressed this view of ownership of the land.  At the same time, the project is blasting to bits a mountain to create a gigantic statue…hmm.  I guess some of the modern ways have even infiltrated the Lakota tribe.