The Environmental Atheist

There's a good article in Orion Magazine that addresses the idea that environmentalism is fighting to fix an unfixable system. It seems to veer in the direction of dropping out of civilization - or more accurately, that environmental activism within this super-culture may be unbeneficial or even detrimental. The article definitely exposes an environmental movement that works with tools provided by the system it opposes, i.e. the system that destroys the environment.

I can't say that I agree with the author's suggestion that there is a line or wall between the rational and scientific arguments supporting environmental activism and the spiritual/emotional ties we have to nature:

We use our most basic vocabulary, words like "ecosystem," with a complete innocence, as if we couldn't imagine that there might be something perilous in it. What if such language were actually the announcement of the defeat of what we claim to want? That’s the worm at the heart of the rose of the "ecologist." It is something that environmentalism has never come to terms with because the very advocates for environmental health are most comfortable with the logic of science, never mind what else that logic may be doing for the military and industry. Would people and foundations be as willing to send contributions to The Nature Conservancy or the Sierra Club if the leading logic of the organization were not "ecosystems" but "respect for life" or "reverence for creation"? Such notions are, for many of us, compromised by associations with the Catholic Church and evangelicalism, and they don't loosen the purse strings of philanthropy. "Let’s keep a nice, clean scientific edge between us and religion," we protest. In the end, environmental science criticizes not only corporate destructiveness but (as it has always done) more spiritual notions of nature as well.

I think that it's a bit narrow minded to limit the psyche of ecological concern to one or the other realm. As with every philosophical pursuit, except maybe extremism, there is very little homogeny among its proponents (vjack over at Atheist Revolution wrote an interesting article the other day about atheist extremism and touches on the sort of dichotomous thinking this article is guilty of). Of course, I tend to see this sort of spirituality as a compatriot of morality and empathy - see my post about seal hunting for more on this.

Thanks to How to Save the World for the link.

Labels: morality