The art of the false crisis

An editorial from the Late July 2014 North Woods Call

     People have asked us why we’re so skeptical about man-made climate change and certain other issues that many conservationists embrace wholeheartedly—particularly when scientific research, they say, overwhelmingly supports the doomsday prognostications.

     Maybe it’s because such skepticism is at the heart of good journalism—or should be—although few reporters these days seem to display any parallel suspicion. or even a healthy curiosity. Some ecological claims just don’t ring true to us when the claimants appear to so completely disregard the truth in many of the statements they make.

       A good share of these modern-day prophets—especially Democrat politicians and left-leaning environmentalists—seem to be masters at creating false crises that are aimed primarily at increasing their own power, or enriching themselves and their allies.  They routinely whip their fellow citizens into an irrational frenzy, then insist we adopt dubious schemes that allow them to squander public and private resources on programs that never quite solve the problems at hand.

     Given this, why should anyone believe what they say about anything?

     Our skepticism might well be traced to one of Aesop’s Fables—”The Boy Who Cried Wolf”—which we first encountered as children.  In this fable, a shepherd boy repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock.  When a wolf actually does appear, however, and the boy calls for help, the villagers do not come.  They think it’s just another false alarm, so the sheep get eaten.

      Fear mongering—whether justified or not—can create a sense of paralysis and actually block social action.

     We’ve long recognized the dangers of groupthink, where collections of like-minded people believe they are correct just because they agree on something and have become blind to all other ideas.

     And don’t forget that just over 14 years ago the experts were telling us that the turn of the new century was sure to bring calamity on us all—due to a supposed glitch in computer system designs that would cause chip-driven machines to malfunction after midnight on December 31, 1999.  We were warned that our cars would not start, the nation’s electric grid would shut down, financial records would be in jeopardy, businesses would be unable to operate and all manner of other problems would occur.

     None of this happened.  Yet the science and technology wizards weren’t prescient—or honest—enough to figure that out and let us know that life as we knew it would continue apace.  Instead, an apparently unnecessary industry sprang up to “protect” us from the inevitable and billions of dollars were needlessly spent the world over in preparation of what was known as Y2K.

     We could be wrong in our cynicism, of course.  We freely admit that the absolute truth—if it exists—escapes us in many areas.       But we need to call these things as we see them.  Anything less would be a shirking of our duty.

     We apologize if this offends the true believers out there.  But we’d probably all be better off if there were more skeptics and fewer people willing to blindly follow the latest Pied Pipers down the road to perdition—at least until we know whether they’re telling the truth.

What color is God, anyway?

By Mike VanBuren

From the Late July 2014 North Woods Call

     I’ve been reading a book called “God is Red” by Native American scholar Vine Deloria Jr., which ostensibly contrasts Native American religious traditions with other faiths—particularly Christianity.

     The author talks a lot about land, wildlife, plants and place—central characters in the belief system of American Indians and other indigenous people around the world.

     Mostly, however, he lambasts western thought and culture, zeroing in on Christianity as the root cause of the “great weakness” of the United States—the alleged inability to respect or tolerate those who are different.

     “The future of humankind,” he says, “lies waiting in those who will come to understand their lives and take up their responsibilities to all living things.”

     On the surface, I think Deloria is unduly harsh on Christian beliefs and traditions.  He often seems blind to the true nature of Christianity, or what its adherents are actually called to do and be.  But who can blame him—given the violent disobedience, contempt for other living things and general hypocrisy of many who have called themselves Christian over the years?  There are important lessons to be learned by facing these inconsistencies and thinking about the consequences. 

   Thousands of years of occupancy on their lands taught tribal peoples the sacred landscapes for which they were responsible, according to Deloria.  It was not what people believed to be true that was important, but what they experienced to be true.

      As a result, the vast majority of Indian tribal religions have a sacred center at a particular place—be it a river, a mountain, a plateau, a valley, or other natural features.  This center enables them to “look out among the four dimensions and locate their lands, to  relate all historical events within the confines of this particular land and to accept responsibility for it.”

     Thus, tribal religions are actually complex collections of attitudes, beliefs and practices fine-tuned to harmonize with the lands on which the people live.

    Western European people, by contrast, “have never learned to consider the nature of the world discerned from a spatial point of view,” Deloria says.  Christianity, instead, has tended toward dominance,  control and defeat of the natural world, which is largely viewed in economic terms as something to be exploited.

   As a result, we move from place-to-place with no concern for the sacredness of land, or important spiritual aspects of the places from which we come.  We even select our churches and religious affiliations based on social status, Deloria says, moving from denomination-to-denomination as our economic and employment situations change.

    “The question that emerges,” he says, “is whether land is a ‘thing’ to be used to generate income, or a homeland on which people are supposed to live in a sacred manner.”

     Sacred places, according to Deloria, are the foundation of all other beliefs and practices, because they represent the presence of the sacred in our lives.  “They properly inform us,” he says, “that we are not larger than nature and that we have responsibilities to the rest of the natural world that transcend our own personal desires and wishes.”

    Although I happily identify myself as a Christian, I have long been a believer in sacred places rooted in the history of our ancestors.  And—like our Native American brethren—I experience spiritual renewal when I visit those places.

    That is not to say that we should worship creation over the creator—as some do—but simply that we should recognize some things as sacred and others as profane.

      The relentless advance of civilization always seems to overrun the holier, more natural  things of life.  We see that even with much of today’s technology, which in many cases is enslaving us to the profane and destroying everything that gets in its way—including common sense.

   Unfortunately for us and the planet, every human being—Christian, Native American, or whatever—is filled with contradictions.  That’s why none of us can redeem ourselves so that we are acceptable to the Great Spirit.  But that truth does not give any of us a free pass.  We are still accountable for our choices.

     In the religious world of most native tribes, birds, animals and plants compose the “other peoples” of creation, according to Deloria.  If Jews and Christians see the actions of a deity at sacred places in the Holy Land and in churches and synagogues, he says, traditional Indian people experience spiritual activity as all of creation becomes active participants in ceremonial life.

     Regardless whether one perceives God as red, white, black, or some other hue, the earth cries out for redemption and renewal.

     And, as Deloria says,  every society needs sacred places, “because they help instill a sense of social cohesion in the people and remind them of the passage of generations that have brought them to the present.  A society that cannot remember and honor its past is in peril of losing its soul.”

      

 

Call reader survey

An editorial from the Early June 2014 The North Woods Call

     Response to the 2014 North Woods Call reader survey has been somewhat anemic.  We take that to mean you are either satisfied, or too polite to complain.

     Of the seven responses we received so far, comments have included “It’s great,” “now the Call is fair and balanced” and “I like the diversity and timeliness of natural resources-related news.”

     One reader added that he appreciates our focus on the “ethical,” even if it isn’t popular.  “This should be our highest calling,” he said.  “More of us sportsmen need it.  [John] Gunnell gets it.”

     On the critical side, we were told that we don’t need so many editorials and columns on things not related to current natural resources-related news, especially from individuals other than the editor.  “They’re nice to read now and then,” one person said, “but I’d rather have the space taken up with news we can use.”

     Another respondent said that most of the news covered is about things he already knows.  “How can you get ahead of issues and happenings?” he asked, while another individual suggested more information about “pending legislation” and what readers can do to help.

     We suppose the answer to that last question lies in resources and staffing.  When The Call has a greater abundance of both, there will naturally be more enterprise in our reporting and additional ability to get ahead of things that need to be covered.

     Unfortunately, there is only so much a small mom-and-pop operation can do with a relatively small number of subscribers.

     “I fully realize the value of a paper that focuses on conservation issues,” said one reader.  “I wish more did the same.”

     So do we.

     We look forward to the day when The Call can grow beyond these current constraints and better serve the conservation community.  In the meantime, we very much appreciate the enthusiasm and support we do have, as well as this input from readers.

Don't feed the animals

By Mike VanBuren

From the Late June 2014 North Woods Call

     I’ve always enjoyed wild animals—especially those that wander past my windows and liven the landscape.

   We see many of them outside our home in Michigan.  White-tailed deer, wild turkeys, pheasants, owls, hawks and songbirds are common.  So are herons, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, snakes and turtles. Sometimes I even hear the yip of a coyote, but seldom see one in the flesh.

    Most of these animals are pleasing to the eyes and ears, and require very little maintenance.  Of course, we’re awakened sometimes at night by some rather hideous screams and struggles, but that’s part and parcel of the natural world.

     More troubling, I think, are the raccoons, skunks, woodchucks, and possums that seem to think they’re entitled to move into our house whenever they want.  So far, they’ve only been able to get as far as the attached garage—although we’ve had more than one ring-tailed marauder peer fearlessly through our back door into the kitchen.

     They’re attracted, I suppose, by the food and water they find in bird feeders and cat dishes.  For the most part, we’ve been able to stop them from getting at these.  But they always seem to find something new to sniff and chew on.

     The worst was probably the fat raccoon that climbed the garage wall and holed up in the eave of the house.  Despite our efforts, he refused to come out until he could break through the aluminum soffit over our front porch, causing considerable damage.

     It has been estimated that as many as three in five metropolitan U.S. households battle wildlife, sustaining as much as $3.8 billion in property damage in a single year.  This figure doesn’t include the deaths and injuries suffered in collisions between cars and wandering animals.

     The simple matter is that wild animals are running out of space.  Conflicts between wildlife and suburbia are increasing.  And much of it is our own fault.

     Wanting open space and fresh air, we’re building homes farther from the nation’s urban centers.  Yesterday’s farms and forests have become today’s subdivisions and strip malls.  Driveways and roads cross game trails, tree lines, and creek beds, where animals travel and hunt.

     What’s more, animals that find themselves leap-frogged by development have little motivation to move to greater open spaces.  They’ve learned that food abounds in the suburbs.  There are compost heaps, garbage cans and ornamental shrubs to feast on – along with pet foods and bird feed.

     Discouraging these animals requires specific precautions.  First and foremost, don’t feed them.  They can become particularly aggressive when they lose their fear of man.  Make sure garbage cans have tight-fitting lids.  Don’t leave pet food and water outside.  Pick up fallen fruit.

    And cap your chimney.  Raccoons often use open, uncapped chimneys as nests, and can steal into your house when you’re away.  You can also clear your yard, keeping it free of brush and low branches that create good hiding spots.

    Avoiding Darwinian confrontations may be easier than you think.  But it requires some effort to make our homes and neighborhoods less alluring to wild animals.

     And that’s a good thing to remember the next time a furry, would-be bandit appears at your back door.

Man & climate change: Seeing is believing?

By Mike VanBuren
From the Early June 2014 North Woods Call

    Some folks tell me that man-made climate change is the most important issue facing humanity.
    Others claim that this is a bunch of bunk.
  Personally, I have no reliable way of knowing for sure, but—as readers of The North Woods Call have already seen—I’m a bit skeptical when it comes to the current doomsday scenarios.
    It’s  not  that  I  don’t  respect sound science, and I’ve long been suspicious of the Faustian bargains we’ve made with fossil fuels, nuclear energy and a host of other technologies.  Like most everyone else, I’d love to see greener, cleaner and more affordable forms of energy developed.
    But I tend to form opinions based on my own experiences, personal knowledge (as limited as that may be) and critical thinking.  And I haven’t seen anything concrete that convinces me that human activity is significantly altering our weather and climate.
    Does that make me a climate change “denier” worthy of name-calling and scorn, or should all sides of this debate be equally aired in the civic arena?
     I suppose I could have my dunderhead submerged in a vat of mulligan stew, but I don’t think so.  If I do, I stand waiting to be extracted from my ignorance.  But that is going to take reason and logic—not the yammerings of corrupt politicians, or the self-interested measurements of academic grant seekers who rely on funding from government agencies and private foundations to produce  research studies that are all too often subservient to slanted ideological agendas.
    In my six-plus decades on  earth, I have spent a considerable amount of time out-of-doors.  Through the years, I’ve  seen both hot and cold summers, warm and sub-zero winters, wet and dry seasons, high and low Great Lakes water levels, tornadoes, hurricanes and numerous other natural disasters.
     I’ve heard the older folks talk about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and read about it in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” (one of my all-time favorite books).  But my father has also described to me the harsh winter of 1936—at the height of the Great Depression—when he and his mother waded in waste-deep snow to deliver groceries to his stranded grandfather on a rural farm.
   I’ve read about droughts, famines, floods and other environmental calamities occurring way back in biblical times—long before the Wright Brothers tested their first airplane at Kitty Hawk and Henry Ford pushed the first Model A off the assembly line in Detroit.
     Heck, I even live on a sand and gravel hill deposited during the last Ice Age when glaciers receded across Michigan.  Two summers ago it was so hot and dry that my lawn was scorched, and has never recovered.  Yet, this spring, we are still reeling from one of the coldest, snowiest winters on record.
     For 20 years, my family and I spent a week each August camping in one of Michigan’s fine state parks.  The first several years, it was so hot and humid that we sweated and suffered whenever we pitched camp, or sat around the evening campfires (back when climate change was typically referred to as “global warming”).  The last five or six years that we camped, however, it was decidedly cooler at the same location and we sometimes had to wear sweatshirts during the evening.
     All of these things can be attributed to climate change, I suppose—or at least evolving weather patterns.  But how many of them were actually caused by human activity that would suggest we’re in imminent danger of mass chaos and death if we don’t clean up our ecological acts?
     None of this, of course, means that air, water and land pollution doesn’t occur at various levels, or that human beings are not capable of fouling the earth.  Such homo sapien missteps certainly have manifested themselves at places like Love Canal, Three Mile Island and Donora, Pennsylvania—among other locations.
     And if something as serious as man-made climate change is actually occurring on a level that threatens our very survival, we  need to sound a clarion alarm.  But we should also be encouraged to challenge such assertions.
     It’s not unreasonable to expect that clear and convincing arguments be made—free from political gamesmanship, and the demonization of anyone who questions the veracity of these “facts.”
     Who has ever known a trained meteorologist who could predict next week’s weather with 100 percent accuracy?  Why, then, would we accept without question the prognostications of what the worldwide climate will be like decades, or even centuries from now?  And why, for Heaven’s sake, would we base costly carbon tax schemes and excessive liberty squelching regulations on political and scientific guesswork—however educated it may seem to be—that may well be proven false and, in some cases, already has.
     Back when I studied weather and climate as part of my conservation minor at Central Michigan University, nothing was said about global warming, or climate change.  Instead, we learned about the natural forces that shaped our physical environment and how, at best, we could count on the weather changing from day-to-day.  Anybody who thought they could unequivocally tell us what the weather would be like a month, or year, from now would  have been ostracized as something akin to Elmer Gantry.  These days, old Elmer is embraced.
     I’m not omniscient enough to say without hesitation who is most correct on this issue.  But then, few people—if any—are.
    The best we can do is rely on our own intuition, personal experiences and powers of reason to sort through the various theories.  Unfortunately, normal public discourse is notoriously unreliable—especially when those making the most noise appear to have stealth motivations that have nothing to do with saving Mother Earth.
     Nevertheless, we ought to be able to speak like adults about such subjects and seek the truth wherever it may be found.
      As it is, we seem to be collectively living the words of Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by “trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.”
     And the fruit of anger we are harvesting stems more from selfish ambition and human-generated antipathy toward one another, rather than unquestionable empirical evidence that shows our often confused species is destroying the planet.
     Which, by the way, actually belongs to God, not us.

Sweet deception: Bait & shoot

An editorial from the Late May 2014 North Woods Call

     We recently saw a professionally produced video that featured the killing of a black bear that was tempted by assorted goodies placed in a woodland bait barrel.

     From what we could tell, the barrel contained such things as donuts, sweet rolls and honey—all aimed at attracting the unwary animal into range, where a camouflaged hunter armed with a sighted crossbow could release an arrow into the unwary prey and bag a trophy mount for the taxidermist.

     It was pretty disturbing, to say the least, and seemed quite unfair to the foraging bear.

    In our estimation, hunting should involve more than cynical deception and the high-tech advantage of people over animals.  It should be more about woodland skill, tracking ability and the battle of wits, rather than simply finding any means necessary to collect another impressive display for the hunter’s den.

     Some hunters obviously don’t see it that way, but we are much more aligned with those who do.

Living well with less

By Mike VanBuren
From the Late May 2014 North Woods Call

     Once upon a time, I went to a local electronics store to make a simple purchase
     A friend had given me an old outdoor television antenna. I needed a hundred feet of wire and a rotor kit to hook it up.
     I had never previously owned an outdoor antenna.  For years, I'd been content with fuzzy-looking broadcast channels.  I'd grown used to unfocused double images of network news anchors. But now I had a chance to bring a little clarity to my life.  And I was determined to do so.
    At the electronics store, the twenty-something clerk looked at me like, "You can't be serious." He couldn't grasp the fact that I didn't have cable TV.  He offered to fill this void by selling me a satellite dish system. For a few dollars a month, he said, I could get hundreds of channels.
     But I didn't want hundreds of channels. I was quite satisfied knowing that I'd be getting better TV reception than ever before—and almost for free.  But the clerk didn't see it that way.  In his eyes, my lack of passion for personal improvement was a serious problem.
     That's the trouble with "consumer" cultures.  Most of us have more than we need and don't even realize it.  We're constantly foraging for the latest gadgets, newest cars and biggest homes.  Never mind that such desires usually bring more headaches than they're worth.
      Even after foreign terrorists flew commercial airliners into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in rural Pennsylvania—when we probably should have been called to sacrifice and to conserve resources for a larger war effort—President George W. Bush told us to go shopping.
      What was that all about?
      I think Henry David Thoreau had it right when he called upon us to "simplify, simplify."  After all, the essence of our lives is not found in material things and technology—no matter how revolutionary they are. True spiritual growth and contentment rise from uncluttered lives.
      I've been reading lately about a movement known as "voluntary simplicity."  This involves living —and actually having more—with less.  More time, joy, peace, satisfaction and meaning with less money, stress, possessions, competition and isolation.
     It has nothing to do with depriving ourselves, or living in poverty.  It has everything to do with being content with what we have, finding joy in less and reconnecting with other people and the natural world that sustains us.
      Now I'm as guilty as the next person when it comes to ignoring this advice.  I struggle each day against the impulse to buy things that I think will add happiness and value to my life.  They seldom do.
     It's usually the simple things that can't be purchased in any store which mean the most. Things like more time for family and community.  Less worry about possessions. And greater freedom—to live and grow and love without constraint.
     It has been said that there are two ways to get enough—accumulate more, or desire less.  Less, it seems, is truly more.
      And that's probably the clearest signal I'll ever get from the battered old television antenna that still towers over my house.