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Rewilding the Self

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Re: Rewilding the Self

#41

Post by cle »

wat10000 wrote: post #38
PaulRobinson wrote: post #6

We are nature. The separation between humanity and nature is a false one, that works against conservation efforts. I like the idea of rewilding because it forces us to see ourselves as part of a large natural system - which is what we are - and helps grow appreciation for that system. But until there is a way for recognition of that system to become more profitable than "othering" nature - polluting the environment,…

I see the appeal of this framing, but it seems wrong. We came from nature but we’re qualitatively different. No other species could spread across the world in the virtual blink of an eye. No other species could dig up and burn gigatons of coal or eradicate thousands of species just for convenience, food, or sheer indifference. I don’t see it helping conservation efforts either. If we’re part of nature, if we’re funda…

The answer is that it's not binary, despite everyone's insistence on framing it as such. We are a part of nature, but we do have some degree of power and responsibility over it that other species don't. It's not absolute, it's murky and messy, defined by the relative magnitude of power and our estimates of it. I think this framing addresses both our relationship within our ecosystems, above our ecosystems, and in the distant future, beneath some larger cosmic ecosystem that may exist that we don't know about yet.

Re: Rewilding the Self

#42

Post by ANewFormation »

kmmlng wrote: post #26
spiderfarmer wrote: post #21

My problem with the term “ecological balance” is that it doesn’t exist. It’s a mythical term that seems invented by Disney. Nature is brutal. Populations will get wiped out, species will disappear. That’s exactly why having a lot of species is important. But it’s hardly balanced.

It does seem that there are periods and places where things are in equilibrium, or stable. At some point, something typically comes along and disturbs that balance. This can be seen in the fossil record, where you have lots of species going extinct during fairly short periods of time, while there are other times when not much happens. What people are concerned about is that we, as humans, are the thing that is distur…

Things are not stable between the mass extinctions - the mass extinction events are just extreme events of high relevance.

The thing is that Earth is constantly shifting in unpredictable ways. There was an interesting paper recently published working to reconstruct the temperature record of the last 500 million years. [1]

The paper concluded that global mean temperatures varied (over time) in a range from 11c to 36c. We're currently around 15. And temperature is but one of countless variables, most all of which are constantly changing.

This makes longterm equilibriums basically impossible because each time things change, it disrupts the existing balance and there will be new winners and new losers.

[1] - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3705

Re: Rewilding the Self

#43

Post by bokoharambe »

card_zero wrote: post #40
bokoharambe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans both are a part of nature and are distinct from it at the same time. It is wrong to dissolve humanity into its natural constituents just as it is wrong to turn humanity into something totally Other or supernatural standing above nature. Both can be true. Reject the law of noncontradiction.

But at the same time, accept it.

That's the spirit!

Re: Rewilding the Self

#44

Post by picafrost »

wat10000 wrote: post #38
PaulRobinson wrote: post #6

We are nature. The separation between humanity and nature is a false one, that works against conservation efforts. I like the idea of rewilding because it forces us to see ourselves as part of a large natural system - which is what we are - and helps grow appreciation for that system. But until there is a way for recognition of that system to become more profitable than "othering" nature - polluting the environment,…

I see the appeal of this framing, but it seems wrong. We came from nature but we’re qualitatively different. No other species could spread across the world in the virtual blink of an eye. No other species could dig up and burn gigatons of coal or eradicate thousands of species just for convenience, food, or sheer indifference. I don’t see it helping conservation efforts either. If we’re part of nature, if we’re funda…

Other lifeforms have dramatically altered the planet in the (geologic) past. The Great Oxidation Event, when plants colonized land, etc. These events were far more catastrophic to the status quo of their time. Timelines, means, and modes differ, sure. If anything makes us qualitatively different it's that we have a choice.

Or do we? Does a plant have a choice jumping from sea to land? Do we have a choice in greedily using the resources of the planet to "progress"? From the perspective of a pessimist it's beginning to seem, at least to me, that we do not.

I frame it to myself this way:

- We are one animal among many

- We are uniquely capable of large-scale destruction

- Technology must be carefully additive tools

- Designing tools is designing behavior

- Civilization is complication, nature is complexity

- Nature, undominated, is our home

Re: Rewilding the Self

#45

Post by sriacha »

arn3n wrote: post #11
PaulRobinson wrote: post #6

We are nature. The separation between humanity and nature is a false one, that works against conservation efforts. I like the idea of rewilding because it forces us to see ourselves as part of a large natural system - which is what we are - and helps grow appreciation for that system. But until there is a way for recognition of that system to become more profitable than "othering" nature - polluting the environment,…

This is a take on environmental communication I’ve heard more and more of recently. Out of curiosity, do you know of other literature or people trying to reframe the human/nature relationship?

Kimmerer: The Serviceberry and Braiding Sweetgrass

Re: Rewilding the Self

#46

Post by jt2190 »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #21

My problem with the term “ecological balance” is that it doesn’t exist. It’s a mythical term that seems invented by Disney. Nature is brutal. Populations will get wiped out, species will disappear. That’s exactly why having a lot of species is important. But it’s hardly balanced.

Since nature is brutal and natural balance does not exist, should we humans try to enforce an “unnatural balance” in order to preserve ourselves, or is that folly?

Re: Rewilding the Self

#47

Post by research_pie »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #6

We are nature. The separation between humanity and nature is a false one, that works against conservation efforts. I like the idea of rewilding because it forces us to see ourselves as part of a large natural system - which is what we are - and helps grow appreciation for that system. But until there is a way for recognition of that system to become more profitable than "othering" nature - polluting the environment,…

If we are nature and there is no separation then whatever we do is nature.

Including polluting and destroying part of the system.

Re: Rewilding the Self

#48

Post by sriacha »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #21

My problem with the term “ecological balance” is that it doesn’t exist. It’s a mythical term that seems invented by Disney. Nature is brutal. Populations will get wiped out, species will disappear. That’s exactly why having a lot of species is important. But it’s hardly balanced.

I worry this view is both pedantic and harmful.

Of course over geologic scales extinctions are quite normal, and nothing is static.

That doesn't mean ecosystems aren't normally resilient to perturbations on a smaller timescales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_stability

>Populations will get wiped out, species will disappear.

There is plenty of evidence that extinction rates are extremely high right now, and that humans are culpable. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12816

Re: Rewilding the Self

#49

Post by sriacha »

monktastic1 wrote: post #18

I am reminded of a passage from Charles Eisenstein's "Climate, A New Story": Explorers and naturalists of previous centuries give staggering testimony to the incredible natural wealth of North America and other places before colonization. Here are some images from another book, Steve Nicholls’s Paradise Found: > Atlantic salmon runs so abundant no one is able to sleep for their noise. Islands “as full of birds as a m…

Along these veins I recommend the book "The Once and Future World" by Mackinnon.

Re: Rewilding the Self

#50

Post by 93po »

ANewFormation wrote: post #35
SteveVeilStream wrote: post #34

With the world's population now exceeding 8 billion, we need to be thoughtful about the best way to rewild ourselves. We can live in dense cities with concrete high-rises but animals can't. Many animals at the top of the food chain need significant ranges for themselves. So the challenge is finding a way that we can minimize our footprint while also providing more opportunities for legitimate connection with nature.…

The world is far bigger than most realize. Split completely equally there's enough room for more than 200,000 square feet per person. [1] Thats about 4 football fields of area for every single man, woman, and child alive today. Factor in that some people enjoy living in urban areas, most won't leave in any case, and so on - and we're realistically talking about tens to hundreds of football fields per person. It's a b…

only about 71% of all land is habitable, and there would be a lot of other restrictions in terms of access to resources, and we need land dedicated to stuff like manufacturing and shared common spaces, so that per-person number quickly gets much smaller
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