As some of you may have noticed, I’ve not been posting as regularly as I usually do.  Sorry!  But this is mainly on account of the fact that I am now on summer break, and will remain so until the end of September.

“But doesn’t that mean you have a TON of free time on your hands to write in your blog?” you may be asking.  Well, actually, I work more in the summer, because I work full time, so sadly, I will be taking a break from this blog until September.

I will continue to check back for comments on old posts, and may occasionally make new ones if I find the time.  If any of you have this on RSS, consider keeping it on there; if you don’t, well, check back every once in a while!

This is sort of disappointing to me, because the last few weeks more and more people have been reading this blog, so it comes at a rather inconvenient time.  So, I apologize, and hope you’ll come back soon!

I wish everyone a safe, happy, and nature-filled summer!  Take care.

Bryson

P.S.  I made this post in case some of you thought I’d dropped off the face of the earth or something.

Here’s another essay I had to write for a class; it was for a take-home final. I haven’t posted a lot recently because of finals week, but after this, I’ll hopefully have a lot more time to dedicate to coming up with new stuff to write about.

Also, unless anyone specifically asks, I’m not going to include my Works Cited, just because I’m tired and don’t feel like doing it. Heh, so if you want them, ask, and you shall receive.

* * *

Is there any one worldview that can completely ease the pains of our ecological crisis? I’m not sure. However, I do think that there is a source of this pain, and any attempt to solve ecological problems should at least implicitly address it. That pain is simply the result of the great divide between humans and the rest of nature. There came a point in our relationship with nature that we ultimately decided to reject our relationship with every other species, and forge ahead on our own. Neil Evernden writes that “…the central problem of human ecology is the relationship of mind to nature” (Evernden 36). We need a worldview that will bring us back into the fold. That’s a large task, and I think that the first thing that needs to be addressed is our view of nature, and then recreate a myth of creation in order to place ourselves in the proper cosmic context.

The scientific worldview is currently the dominant perspective that guides most of the developed world’s perception of nature. In this paradigm, nature is mechanical. Made up of atomized and disconnected blocks, science suggests that there is no limit to our knowledge of nature, and thus, our dominance over the world is confined only to the extent of our knowledge. As Francis Bacon, one of the fathers of modern science, “Knowledge is power.” Science has taught us to view nature as a resource to be used, not an entity worthy of respect on its own. This view has led us to the point in ecological history that we are right now.

So, what to do? I think that we have to begin by taking another look at our creation stories. Our current creation story goes something like this: about fourteen billion years ago, matter was created in the Big Bang. Earth was formed in a solar system around an average star that moves slowly around the fringes of a typical galaxy (one of about 125 billion). We evolved from crude competition between species; nature repeatedly culled the weak and favored the stronger. That story is the story we hear: a story of domination, of loneliness. But is that the story that we should hear? Is that the story we should teach to our children?

Brian Swimme writes, “To be human is to be a story. To forget one’s story is to go insane” (Swimme 250). The first steps towards regaining our connection with the planet is to rewrite our story, our history, and make it so that we understand ourselves as integral parts of nature, not atomistic blocks cut off from reality. If we cannot do this, than any attempt to restructure our patterns of thought will ultimately fail. Humans naturally look to their origins to find out who they are, how they ought to treat others, and what their place in the world is. If we can create a story that is ecological, or rather, one that is integral, we will enable ourselves to act in the world as participants and not as objects (a word that etymologically means “thrown out”).

Treating other beings with respect is the first step in the reunification of humanity with nature. If we learn to love nature, we will ultimately choose to treat it well. The Kogi are an excellent example of this, as are many pre-modern cultures. Instead of choosing to expand, grow, and eclipse the natural environment, these societies have learned to embrace the delicate balance of living healthy lives and letting other beings live healthy lives, as well. David Kinsley quotes a First People’s hunter, who says, “A hunter cannot just go and demand of a tree that it give him something, help him, aid him, cure him from sickness. You have to give something back for what it gives you” (Kinsley 14). Non-humans are thus treated with the same respect given to other human beings. This sort of reciprocity encourages living a life of respect for nature.

But the reconnection of humans to nature does not simply stop at ethical boundaries. Our creation stories will do more than just teach us about how to interact with other beings; it will even teach us more about who we are. This is the end goal of such stories. When we restructure our creation stories, we will ultimately have to rethink our own ontological status in the universe. If our creation stories tell of a universe that is ultimately shared, we will reach a point where we realize that we share not only physical resources, but perhaps even our own being. Joanna Macy writes,“As open, self-organizing systems, our very breathing, acting, and thinking arise in interaction with our shared world through the currents of matter, energy, and information that flow through us” (Macy 262). No longer will humanity act simply on a object to subject basis, but instead, will act on a subject-subject basis.

Many thinkers have discussed this process and evolution of consciousness extensively. However, one particularly interesting dialogue about the unification of human being with other being comes from the Himes brothers in their essay, “The Sacrament of Creation: Toward an Environmental Theology.” Though the Himes brothers do not go so far as to suggest that all being is intermeshed, they do provide some interesting insights into a Christian approach to such an understanding of ontology. In their essay, they outline a challenge to the modern Christian view of stewardship. This view suggests that humans are above or are at least more favored than the rest of nature. Instead, the Himes brothers advocate a deeper shift towards something they call companionship. “The theme of companionship, the relationship which exists not only between human persons but between humans and nonhumans, has been largely submerged in the stewardship theme. We need to recover it. Companionship implies mutuality. It excludes the reduction of either side of the relationship to a tool of the other’s purposes” (Himes 274). Thus, nature and human beings are unified together in Creation.

It all begins with the beginning: readjusting our creation stories to show our connection to the earth, reevaluating our place in nature ethically, and ultimately, stepping back into the being of the universe peacefully, no longer struggling to dominate everything we touch. If we have the courage to change the way we teach our children the origins of the universe, we may be able to change the dangerous path humanity now treads, and alter our course to one that is beneficial, peaceful, and harmonious.

This isn’t really technically related to the environment (so far as I know).  But I think if you watch it, you can definitely infer some tragic, maybe ecological overtones.

The dancers and the music very much touched me.  I hope you’ll watch it…the very end is so amazing.  The dancers look like they’re reaching for heaven, like tree branches, shaking, waiting for something to save them, but in the end, they just sort of decay away.  When I watched it, I was thinking about this clear cut I walked through with a professor once…it was agonizing, it was heartbreaking.  This music totally captured the mood I was in while I was standing there.  For anyone who’s actually stood in that place, you’ll know exactly how I feel.

It’s this strange mixture of heartbreak and tragedy and just sorrow.  And disbelief.  It’s heart stopping.  I can’t really describe it, but if you know what I mean, you know what I mean.

Let me know what you think.

P.S.  Arvo Part is a modern classical music composer.  Check him out, he’s amazing.

Many of you already know how bad it can get out in the world of businesses and corporations:  oil companies paying for junk science to try and discredit the scientific consensus behind climate change, ad campaigns launched against Al Gore, supposed “experts” who are paid by the corporations to publicly criticize climate change…scare tactics that are eerily similar to the tactics used by tobacco companies during the rise of the anti-smoking movement.

Well, you know it’s gotten really bad when that sort of manipulative lying comes not only from private corporations, but even from our own government.  The inspector general of NASA has recently come out with a damning report that states the political appointees that were in the press office of NASA from 2004 to 2006 deliberately distorted the news coming out of the scientists at NASA concerning climate change.

According to the New York Times, “Our investigation,” the report said, “found that during the fall of 2004 through early 2006, the NASA Headquarters Office of Public Affairs managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public.”

Wow.  Now you can’t even trust what comes out of the NASA press office.  I think it’s important to note that the scientists at NASA were staying true to their data and their principles, and that it was the political appointees in the press office that were mismanaging the information.

From the Washington Post:  “James E. Hansen, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences.”

What’s sad to me is that I’m not sure it’s all too shocking.  The past seven years have yielded many stories similar to this, from lying about reasons to start a war with another nation, to lying about whether or not our own government tortures prisoners of war, to ignoring Congress and its demands to hold investigations into the unjust firings of eight US attorneys, and now, this.

Again, a quote from the New York Times:  “Global warming is the most serious environmental threat we face, but this report is more evidence that the Bush administration’s appointees have put political ideology ahead of science,” Mr. Lautenberg said in an e-mailed statement. “Our government’s response to global warming must be based on science, and the Bush administration’s manipulation of that information violates the public trust.”

An old friend of mine asked me to give the environmental perspective at a panel the other day about the infamous Makah whale hunt. It was a very interesting panel, and the audience wasn’t always very receptive to what I had to say. In the end, though, I think we were able to find more things that we agreed on than otherwise, which left me feeling pretty good.

So what exactly is this controversy all about? It’s a bit complicated. Essentially, the Makah tribe, a recognized sovereign nation located on the tip of Washington’s Olympic peninsula, signed in the 19^th century a document called the Treaty of Neah Bay. It was pretty much your typical treaty between the US and a Native tribe: you can have a small strip of your former home, and we get everything else. The difference, however, in this treaty from other treaties was that the Makah were granted the right to whale without condition.

Fast forward to the 1930s. The gray whale, the whale traditionally hunted by the Makah, has been nearly wiped out by commercial whaling (which, just to be fair, some members of the Makah tribe participated in). Instead of continuing to whale, the Makah decided to voluntarily halt their whaling practices indefinitely, or at least until the gray whale population becomes healthy again.

In the meantime, the world was changing. About forty years after the Makah voluntarily stopped their whaling, the United States entered into the International Whaling Commission and at the same time passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), a predecessor to the Endangered Species Act (which I’ve talked about extensively in the snail darter post). When the US went to negotiations for the IWC, they represented Alaskan native tribes in the North, and were able to secure the Alaskan natives rights to hunt baleen whales (interestingly, these whales are on the endangered species list, but the Alaskan natives are still allowed to hunt them). However, because the Makah weren’t hunting at the time, the US didn’t secure whaling rights for them.

Fast forward again to the 1990s. The Makah feel that it’s time to start whaling again, after nearly seventy years without it. They have to rediscover the techniques used to whale, the rituals surrounding the whaling…essentially, reestablish and rebuild a very large part of their culture. The United States grants them the right to whale, and the Makah prepare.

Naturally, things don’t work so smoothly. Animal rightists and environmentalists catch word of a Native tribe that was granted whaling rights, and they’re infuriated. 27 environmental groups and a whole bunch of animal rights groups oppose the whaling, and begin their protests. Of course, not all environmentalists agree: both the Sierra Club and even Greenpeace remain neutral, refusing to support the activities of the groups in opposition. These groups, led by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, continue to protest the whaling, right up until May 17, 1999.

That’s the day that the Makah kill a two year old, male gray whale.

But the fight’s not quite over, yet. Animal rights groups take the Makah to court, and a judge rules that unless the Makah secure a waiver for the MMPA from NOAA, the Makah whale hunt is illegal. And so the Makah do, filing a petition for a waiver in 2005.

The story, sadly, does not even end there. In protest, five Makah members harpooned and shot a gray whale without the permission of the US government and also without the permission of their tribe. A biologist for the Makah tribe reported that the whale almost certainly died from its wounds. The crime is denounced by both the protestors and the Makah, as well as the US government.

The petition to waive the MMPA for the Makah is still being worked out; the draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has actually just been published (I believe it was published May 9^th), and NOAA is accepting public comment. If you’re interested in this issue, I’d strongly encourage you to write NOAA and let them know how you feel about the matter. DEIS is here.

So. Now you know, more or less, the back story of the Makah whaling controversy. It’s a whale of a tale (ho ho!), and it’s definitely not over. You can bet that when the FEIS (final Environmental Impact Statement) is published in 2009 (it should be published then, I think) that the Makah will face even more opposition than before.

The panel began with a quick overview of the Makah’s position, and the first person to talk was Dr. Ted Fortier from the anthropology department. His speech outlined how important the whaling is to the Makah tradition, how the Makah respected the whale immensely, etc. It was pretty interesting, and his comments during discussion were really insightful, and educational, particularly for someone not well studied in Native culture.

Then it was my turn. I started my talk by outlining a few ecological facts I’d found on the internet: the gray whale is not endangered or threatened, the Makah would be unable to harvest the whale commercially, and it was unlikely that any drastic environmental damage would occur on account of whaling. I briefly mentioned the Treaty of Neah Bay, and then, I went into the main problem I have with the whaling.

The problem as I see is mainly one of the manner in which the Makah are handling the situation, and the framework they’re using to advocate for their right to whale. The argument they’re using is basically this: we have a cultural right to these whales. And that’s the way the situation is being framed, and that’s ultimately going to set some bad precedents.

Let me start by saying that the Makah do not have a cultural right to these whales. I really don’t believe that anyone has a cultural right to anything whatsoever, and certainly not to a living organism that has inherent rights. If the Makah win this national debate by claiming their culture inherently possesses a right to whale, that argument can be expanded to any number of situations. Is it not true that the Israelis use the same argument to justify their occupation of some areas of Palestine? I think that basing any sort of right on culture is scary and wrong.

But on the other hand, I believe that the Makah should be allowed to whale. However, instead of using the “culture” argument, I think the Makah should focus on a different argument. That argument is simply this: we have a guarantee from the US government that states we’re allowed to whale. Period.

This debate could be refocused around the very controversial and important discussion of Native American treaty rights. And that’s really where this needs to go.

I’ll stop here, and see if anyone has any comments. Please do give me your thoughts and opinions; this is a pretty controversial issue, and I’m curious to know what people think.

Here’s a little paper I wrote for my Environmental History class.  The sources are probably out on the internet, and if you ever get the chance, Donald Worster’s Dust Bowl is actually a really interesting book.

Without further ado:

Closed and Open Systems:  Two Arenas of Human History

The Dust Bowl was one of America’s greatest environmental catastrophes, and as such, many environmentalists use the Dust Bowl as an example of what occurs when there is rampant disregard for natural processes.  However, not everyone agrees with the environmentalists’ view of the circumstances surrounding the Dust Bowl.  In particular, three historical interpretations can be seen as indicative of various approaches to environmental disasters, each with its strengths and weaknesses.  James C. Malin’s belief in an open system is the idea around which he forms his interpretation of the Dust Bowl, whereas Donald Worster’s roots in ecological thinking and critique of unfettered development, both of which assume a closed system, that informed his thesis of an anthropogenic Dust Bowl.  The third interpretation from the Great Plains Committee will be used as a parallel to Worster’s own interpretation, though it, too, is unique.  However, the dichotomy between viewing the world as closed or open is the ultimate difference between interpretations of Worster and Malin.  It is also the reason that Worster’s argument is the stronger.  By taking into account the drastic changes that took place along the prairie with the rise of industrial agriculture, Worster is able to form a more complete explanation of the Dust Bowl than Malin.

Malin outlines his philosophic approach to the Dust Bowl in his book, The Grassland of North America. In the chapter entitled, “An Open System,” Malin states that “The world is no more closed in 1946 than in 1446…” (Malin 335).  Here, Malin gives his view of nature.  Simply stated, Malin discusses nature as an infinite resource that has no limits and which can always be developed.  Because nature is constantly changing, and thus, has no state of equilibrium that can be violated, humanity cannot conceivably overexploit the planet.  Instead, should humanity encounter what we might call a “natural disaster” such as the Dust Bowl, Malin believes the disaster occurred simply because of a lack of human ability to adapt, rather than the human ability to be the cause of its own ills.  This view can certainly be seen in the context of the time in which it was written, the mid-twentieth century, during which technology was seen as the answer to many of humanity’s troubles.

Thus, for Malin, the problem of the Dust Bowl was not that the farmers unintentionally created a dangerous situation through unwise agricultural practices, as Worster and the Great Plains Committee believe, but rather, that the farmers were simply the unlucky inhabitants of a land that naturally acted in such a destructive manner.  Agents such as animals, drought, and fire were “continually disturbing some part of the grasslands, delaying or destroying a theoretically normal succession series and forestalling any achievement of a uniform theoretical climax” (Malin 138).  The statement outlines, again, Malin’s belief that harm cannot be done, because there is no stable ecological system to damage, and that the Dust Bowl was not anthropogenic.

Worster’s interpretation differs tremendously.  First, his philosophic outlook is based on his view of science as a necessary tool to explore the realities of history.  In his book, Dust Bowl, Worster says that, “…science is our indispensable ally in understanding the past in a fuller and more authoritative light” (Worster 247).  This world view is coupled with a near-Marxist (though Worster is careful to distance himself from the “Marxist” label) critique of capitalism.  In fact, it is the unrelenting onslaught of the laissez-faire 1920s to which Worster credits the Dust Bowl.  “There was nothing in the Plains society to check the progress of commercial farming, nothing to prevent it from taking the risks it was willing to take for profit.  That is how and why the Dust Bowl came about” (Worster 7).  Both of Worster’s foundations, that of ecology and also a critique of unrestrained capitalism, imply a closed system view of nature, as opposed to Malin’s belief in an open system.

On account of his closed system view, Worster suggests that it was the growth of the wheat crop that helped to create the Dust Bowl.  “For the “dirty thirties,” as they were called, were primarily the work of man, not nature…natural factors did not make the storms - they merely made them possible” (Worster 13).  Unlike Malin, Worster does not believe that nature was entirely the cause of the Dust Bowl.  He continues:  “The storms were mainly the result of stripping the landscape of its natural vegetation…” (Worster 13).  Instead of suggesting that the problem of the Dust Bowl was human inability to cope with natural forces as Malin does, Worster is insisting that it was human damage to the natural environment that altered the Great Plains so drastically and ultimately caused the Dust Bowl.

The third and final interpretation comes from the Great Plains Committee, a federal organization whose mission was to investigate the causes of the Dust Bowl and further, to suggest a solution.  Their view of the Dust Bowl paralleled Worster’s.  The empirical reasons for this are obvious:  the data that the Committee analyzed was from their own time period.  Of course, this leaves the Committee’s interpretation open to the criticism of Malin, who states that the Committee didn’t analyze the history of the Pre-Columbian Great Plains.  However, the Committee was not entirely concerned with historical interpretations of the plains.  Rather, the Committee was concerned with comforting a nation facing a large crisis, and to offer a solution to that problem.  If the Committee had simply created a Malin-like interpretation, one that placed the cause of the problem outside of human control, the solution to the problem would similarly be outside the scope of human ability.  This interpretation would certainly have been looked upon negatively by the people of the Great Plains as callous and ultimately useless.  Such a situation may not have been a primary or even direct cause of the Committee’s choice of interpretation, but because the Committee was more or less a political body, the effect of public opinion on the creation of the Committee’s document cannot be disregarded.

Worster’s interpretation, however, combines the best elements of the Committee’s view with more recent and less biased scholarship.  Worster is able to recognize the direct and heavy impact of human civilization on the land, whereas Malin trivializes the impact by suggesting humans simply expedited already occurring natural processes.  This is a good example of Malin’s short sightedness:  though he is the only author to use geologic data from millennia ago to make his case, Malin seems painfully unaware of the length of time he is studying.  While it is undeniable that the Great Plains have changed dramatically over thousands of years, Malin does not acknowledge the extremely slow rate at which those changes took place.  Why?  Perhaps it is because as a traditional historian, Malin is unable to see nature as anything but the “stage” upon which human drama unfolds.  The idea of history as a study of human and environment interacting seems to be incomprehensible to Malin.

Worster, however, is able to see that human impact on the Plains took place and form his own interpretation of the Dust Bowl.  Instead of ignoring or trivializing the effects humans have on the Great Plains, Worster uses the relationship as a way to understand what actually occurred in the 1930s.  It is this approach, one that seeks to integrate a complicated mixture of science, history, and anthropology that ultimately gives the most holistic picture of the Dust Bowl.  Worster gives a firmer interpretation of the Dust Bowl because he understands the reciprocal nature of the human interaction with the land.

These interpretations are thus based on contrasting world views.  Malin’s closed system, Worster’s open system, and the Committee’s concern for providing an immediate solution to the beleaguered farmers all influence the manner in which the authors see the events of and leading up to the Dust Bowl.  Though each interpretation has its strengths, it is Worster’s that ultimately stands out.  Because of his view of the world as a closed system and the ethical and historical implications that follow from it, Worster best and most creatively analyzes the Dust Bowl.

*This table outlines some of the main differences between Malin and Worster.

Works Cited

Malin, James C.. The Grassland of North America: Prolegomena to Its History, with Addenda & Postscript. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1967.

United States. Great Plains Committee.The Future of the Great Plains. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1936.

Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl. 25th Anniversary Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979, 2004.

Ah, Japan…land of the samurai, the graceful movements of the tea ceremony, and really weird cartoons. Is it any wonder that a perfect parable of the ruined relationships caused by wasteful living would come from that fine land?

Crows are on the attack in Japan, and apparently, they’re quite the formidable opponent.

Blackouts are just one of the problems caused by an explosion in Japan’s population of crows, which have grown so numerous that they seem to compete with humans for space in this crowded nation. Communities are scrambling to find ways to relocate or reduce their crow populations, as ever larger flocks of loud, ominous birds have taken over parks and nature reserves, frightening away residents.

It is a scourge straight out of Hitchcock, and the crows here look and act the part. With wing spans up to a yard and intimidating black beaks and sharp claws, Japan’s crows are bigger, more aggressive and downright scarier than those usually seen in North America.

This was published in an article in the New York Times, and I have to say, I was fascinated by it.

It seems that the crows are building nests in power lines, damaging the electric infrastructure of the country. The problem has become especially prominent in recent years because of the expansion of the crow population — and guess what caused the population boom. Yup, humans.

How? Waste. Because crows are scavengers, they often feed off the trash left out by humans. And according the New York Times, Japan’s been generating more and more waste as it embraces a more Western approach to waste management. Thus, more waste, more crows, more problems.

But the fight of humans and crows is complicated; the crows are very foxy (no pun intended…okay, a little bit of a pun intended). They build fake nests in order to distract the workers ordered to remove the nests; they have found ways around nets that are meant to keep the crows from tearing into the garbage. Aside from hunting down the crows one by one and killing them, not many solutions seem to have worked. Probably one of the neatest, and most eerie, quotes I’ve ever come across in a news article was in the piece.

“Japanese react to crows because we fear them,” said Michio Matsuda, a board member of the Wild Bird Society of Japan and author of books on crows. “We are not sure sometimes who is smarter, us or the crows.”

Spooky.

But I think the question is interesting, because it sort of calls into question this whole idea of human domination. If anything, we’re constantly being bombarded with information about the way nature dominates humans, even if it seems to work the other way around (wishful thinking at its best). But for the most part, even if modern humans are somewhat enlightened enough to realize that they’re not in control of the wild, most people still believe that our cities are within our grasp.

After all, we build them the way we want them to be. The buildings are ours; the land is ours. We live there, our businesses are headquartered there, we drive our cars on the city streets. If threre’s something that we want in a city, the only things to stop us from getting it are money and time. Need a mall? Whoosh! There’s a mall. Need a skyscraper? Whoosh! There’s a skyscraper.

And through that whole process, because we build over forests and marshes and even the sea, we think that it somehow becomes ours. Hell, even I sort of believe hesitatingly in the polarity of society and wilderness.

But in Japan, we see that it is not so. In some ways, the city is the dwelling of the crows; it is their paradise, not ours. And when you start to look around your own city (if you have the misfortune to live in one), you might see that the place you think is yours might not be yours after all. Pigeons, crows, squirrels, rats…all of these creatures make their way in the city.

So. Who’s city is it? Good question. In the battle between crows and humans, it might turn out that we’ll just have to eventually give up, exasperated, and start to realize that even the cities aren’t ours.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may remember a previous post I made about a short little talk I gave at a forum on my campus. The forum was about trying to ban plastic one-use water bottles on campus, and you may be happy to know, the administration has agreed to get rid of plastic water bottles by phasing them out over the next three years! Pretty neat, huh?

In any case, my current professor also spoke at the forum, and now that I have him for a class, I was able to get an interesting list he created, entitled, “Top Ten Reasons Not to Buy Bottled Water.” There are some very interesting statistics in there, so I hope you’ll give it a shot! My professor’s name is Gary L. Chamberlain, Seattle University. Please do not use this list unless you have been given specific permission from the author. This is copyrighted material.

In any case, without further ado:

TEN REASONS NOT TO BUY BOTTLED WATER

Since 1976 there has been an increase of 1625% in the consumption of bottled water. In 2006 people in the US consumed 8.25 billion gallons of bottled water, or 30 billion actual bottles, a 9.5% increase from the year before.[i]

1. Research shows that bottled water is not purer than tap water. Recently, Pepsi was forced to admit that its bottled water, Aquafina, is actually certified tap water. 60-70% of bottled water is tap water with carbonation, seltzer, etc. In fact, an “estimated 25 to 40 percent of bottled water really is just tap water in a bottle—sometimes further treated, sometimes not.”[ii] According to the National Resources Defense Council, 25-40% of bottled water is tap water that has been treated, but sometimes not.
2. Tap water is regulated by the EPA, and is tested 3 to 4 times DAILY; bottled water is regulated by the FDA, and is tested once a week at the most. A recent Cast Western Reserve report found that 15 of 19 samples of bottled water had bacterial counts almost 2 times as high as Cleveland tap water.[iii]
3. If bottled water is derived in-state, then there may be no regulation. One in five states have no regulations for bottled water “made” in that state; there are no requirements that bottled water has to ban e-coli or fecal matter.
4. More water is used in making the plastic bottle that holds the bottled water than is in the bottle. At Coke’s India plants according to the company’s own report “3.9 liters of water are needed to produce each liter of beverage” because of the need to wash bottles, floors, and equipment in addition to the water used in the drink itself. Coke has 50 plants in India, using “hundreds of thousands of liters of water” per day.[iv]
5. The cost is much more: $1-$1.50 per bottle = $10/gallon for bottled water vs. $.04-$.05 per gallon for tap water. In Los Angeles you get 450 gallons of tap water for the price of one bottle of Evian![v]
6. The environmental impact is great. Bottled water impacts stream and river flows by drawing down water, reducing the water for vegetation, bird and animal needs. Bottled water is connected to global warming, using huge amounts of fossil fuels to manufacture and transport them bottles. The National Resources Defense Council estimates that 4000 tons of carbon dioxide is produced yearly—which is equivalent to the emissions of 700 cars yearly—by importing bottled water alone, not to mention the amount produced by transportation in the US.[vi]
7. It takes 1.5 million barrels of crude oil to create the plastic in one’s year’s supply. That would fuel 100,000 cars a year. Distribution requires the equivalent of 37,800 18 wheel trucks.[vii]
8. Plastic bottles create 2.7 billion pounds of plastic garbage in the US per year![viii]
9. There are cheaper alternatives: a carafe (e.g. Brita) = $.31/gallon; faucet filter = $.34/gallon; undersink filter = $.42/gallon
10. Coke and Pepsi bottled water factories in India (one of the largest sources) draw water from aquifers, depleting the water for farmers in the surrounding areas.

Some of you may be familiar with the finer aspects of the philosophies of environmentalism; others, maybe not so much. If you find yourself in the latter category, this post may be helpful.

That might sound a bit arrogant, but I promise, it’s not, because I’m not going to write the main of this post. Instead, I’m going to copy and paste some posts that I’ve made recently on another cool blog, Media and the Environment.

Ultimately, I disagreed with my fellow blogger, Lauren Keith. I want to say, of course, that I respect her a great deal; it seems pretty evident to me from reading her posts that she’s a dedicated environmentalist. But it’s also evident that she and I disagree philosophically in our approaches to environmentalism. And that’s fine, and even useful, because I think our replies to each other are sort of indicative of the dialogue that’s happening between environmentalists right now.

So, without further ado, here’s the link to the blog post itself.

The debate essentially centers around a single question: how should environmentalism approach the general public? Lauren states that:

I don’t shop at The Merc to save the polar bears. I don’t make my roommates unplug the microwave (and soon the refrigerator, they joke) because the glaciers are melting. I do it so we can save ourselves.

This is the main point of hers with which I found I disagreed. To her credit, she states later:

It saddens me that a more expensive case of Bud Select has my friends more worried about the state of the environment than a carbon dioxide graph did, but I’m ready to meet them where they are: at the grocery store.

Essentially, she’s suggesting that environmentalism appeal to people’s sense of selfishness in order to get them to live a more sustainable lifestyle. For Lauren and many environmentalists in her camp, we need to bring the dialogue to the people, and not the other way around. Of course, this argument has many merits: such a strategy would be palatable to the population at large, and would be fairly effective fairly quickly. It makes the most sense in our unreflective society. Lauren wrote:

Because most of us don’t see polar bears, the ice caps, the Amazon and many other environmental jewels on this planet, they lose relevance to the average person when he goes to the grocery store and is trying to decide between buying traditional or buying organic.

That’s why I think we environmentalists need to rethink how we approach people and spread the message about saving the planet. Not everyone is going to care about polar bears or biodiversity loss, but they are going to care about themselves, their communities and future generations.

She’s right there; most people don’t really extend their ethic to include the planet. She’s also right that seducing people with economics would be an efficient way to change things for the better.\

But I vehemently disagree with this position because I think it does nothing to solve the deeper problems inherent in our social structure, the deeper problems that are truly causing environmental degradation. Generally, this sort of thinking is labeled “deep ecology,” a term coined by the philosopher Arne Naess. After she more fully explained herself in another comment, I wrote in my response:

Environmentalism is, at its core, a path that asks humans to extend their notions of being towards other organisms other than themselves. Polar bears and glaciers and mountains, valleys and streams and bald eagles, wheat and cows and fishes, all of these interact with us. All of them leave a distinct, important mark on our very being. We participate in the objects of our perception, as they say.

And once we begin to realize our individuality is not inherent, but rather, the result of relationships (thus, ultimately, something not our own), I think we’ll be much the better. Saying that we need to help the environment to help ourselves is not going to bring us farther down that path.

I think it’s pretty easy to see the polarity, now: some environmentalists focus on the “issues,” while others focus on the “problems.” That language is credited to Neil Evernden, a famous deep ecologist, who suggested that things such as pollution or climate change are the “issues” that result from deeper misconceptions of self and place, which are called “problems.” Evernden (I think I may have mentioned him in another blog, but I can’t remember) maintains that environmentalism is becoming weaker because it is starting to become mainstreamed. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not so idealistic that I can’t accept anything but a perfect victory. I understand compromises need be made. But I don’t think those compromises should come from the core of environmental philosophy; they should be political concessions, legal concessions, technological concessions. In other words, concede some of the “issues,” but never lose ground on the “problems.”

Lauren responded to my post by stating:

How long did it take you to make the connections between humans and their impact on the environment and the realization of the importance of nature? It’s taken me three years, and I don’t think I’m full-fledged yet.

So how can we expect people who don’t care about the environment to suddenly wake up and reduce their ecological footprints, stop reproducing (as much), stop consuming, etc.?

That’s where we need to rethink the connections that we are drawing and whether we’ve even done a good job drawing them. I can tell my friends all about Kansas bees dying or how much the aquifer has been drained, but until I make it relevant to them (explaining how there will be less food if there are no bees and no water), then they will finally be engaged in the conversation and start to relate to nature.

Environmentalists should stop driving on the greener-than-thou road. It’s no wonder people aren’t following us. We need to meet people where they are and take them on the same journey that we’ve already taken.

Again, we differ here. The paths we’ve gone down, to use Lauren’s language, are not just ones of lifestyle choice, of choosing to ride the bus instead of drive, of recycling and composting instead of simply throwing our stuff in the landfill. The paths environmentalists should be going down are paths that fundamentally restructure our notions of being, place, and ethics in order to conform them with a more sustainable way of being. In other words, environmentalists should not be preaching the gospel of commerce and economics as the solutions to our “problems,” but criticizing the attitudes that result from these forces, the attitudes that are directly responsible for the “issues” at hand.

Creating price incentives will help solve “issues,” but will not solve “problems;” demanding that people run around in a Prius instead of a Hummer will help solve “issues,” but will not solve “problems;” appealing to people’s sense of greed and ambition will help solve “issues,” but will not solve problems. Is it valuable that we do these things? Yes, insofar as we solve the issues, they are valuable.

But if they come at the cost of solving a “problem,” they simply are not. Encouraging greed, using greed, will ultimately do nothing for this planet, and that’s what it really comes down to.

Another courtroom battle pitting environmentalists against some government entity is about to start.

This time, it’s our friends over at EarthJustice filing a suit on behalf of a couple of conservation organizations, including the Sierra Club and the Defenders of Wildlife (two organizations who themselves are filing suit against the Department of Homeland Security, as I mentioned in a different post), to challenge the removal of the northern Rockies gray wolf from the list of protected endangered species.

The species was removed from the list exactly a month ago today (March 28), and the impacts have been drastic. The population of wolves in the northern Rockies is estimated at about 1,500. That’s an awesome improvement over what it was previous to the wolves’ listing as an endangered species, but it’s still not quite enough. Different wolf populations must be able to interbreed with other populations, or the genetic pool of the wolves begins to get muddy because of inbreeding. But because of various modern, human impediments, the wolves are having a hard time interbreeding. For instance, the famous Yellowstone wolves have been isolated for over a decade, and scientists are troubled over the lack of genetic diversity.

If that’s not enough, in Idaho, it is now legal to kill a wolf without a permit!

(c) Control of Depredation of Wolves. Wolves may be disposed of by livestock or domestic animal owners, their employees, agents and animal damage control personnel when the same are molesting or attacking livestock or domestic animals and it shall not be necessary to obtain any permit from the department.

Pretty interesting. I think that this law is especially bad because it circumvents any need to go through an environmental impact statement process (which I’m pretty sure would be required under any normal circumstances). This means that there is literally no environmental regulation on wolf killing, other than the need to report a kill to the FWS.

Unfortunately, I can’t find the brief online (I’m emailing EJ after I post this), so I’m not exactly positive what the exact cause of action is. Anyway, I know I often promise an update after I post something then don’t actually have an update, but this time, I hopefully will. I mean it.

Any people out there who actually have experience with the law that would like to comment are more than welcome.

EDIT: The bill, if you were curious, is Idaho Senate Bill No. 1374.