Modern environmental writing

An editorial from the late January 2014 North Woods Call

     In his introduction to the book, “American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau,” editor Bill McKibben cautions that the world is in a race between physics and metaphysics.
     Environmentalism, he says, can no longer confine itself to the narrow sphere it has long inhabited.  “If it isn’t as much about economics, sociology and pop culture as it about trees, mountains and animals,” McKibben says, “it won’t in the end matter.”
     Today’s environmental writing, he says, is concerned with the collision between people and the rest of the world, and asks questions about that collision.  Is it necessary?  What are its effects?  Might there be a better way?
     Unlike traditional nature writing, McKibben says, environmental writing seeks answers, as well as consolation—embracing controversy and sometimes sounding an alarm.
     Such discussions can sometimes make people—even dedicated conservationists—uncomfortable, especially if they don’t like the voices they hear, or don’t subscribe to the particular ideas being shared.  We sometimes see this even in the pages of The North Woods Call, which, as many of you know, has a rich variety of passionate and opinionated readers.
     That is a good thing.
     Even former U.S. Vice President Al Gore—who himself has at various times been vocally intolerant of divergent viewpoints—acknowledges our national tradition of free speech and the important need to debate the rights and responsibilities of each individual and of society as a whole.
     “Just as [19th Century author Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond]  could not shut out his neighbors, Americans cannot shut out one another—or the rest of the world—if we are to restore the balance between the natural and the man-made,” Gore said in the foreword he penned for “American Earth.”
     Let’s hope he means it.
    Such debates are regularly held in coffee shops, classrooms, gas stations, offices and on street corners—anywhere that passions surface and ideas collide .  And, yes, they are also found on talk radio, television networks, cable channels, and in the pages of books, magazines and newspapers.
     Those who would try to silence these discussions are doing a great disservice to the very idea of self-government.  Many great movements that made positive changes to our world began as an individual idea, or as a single essay or editorial in a book or newspaper.  And many real and would-be tyrants—not to mention ill-conceived laws—have been brought down by information shared freely in the light of public discourse.
      That’s why we need to embrace diversity of thought in all matters and see what we might learn from it.
    In the words of 18th century French writer, historian and philosopher Voltaire, “Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so, too.”