again, so needed, your point of view, written from the hearts perspective. I just completed a grief retreat last weekend with Ahlay Blakely and Lawrence Cole here in Bellingham, WA. Tahlequahs' name was spoken. We don't grieve to get over our grief, we grieve to unfreeze our frozen hearts. thank you.
Thank you so much, Rob, and especially, for me at least, your very valuable distinction between “climate” and “nature.” When the entirety of the natural world is shoved under the category “climate” it’s like it’s all about the “air” or something insubstantial, abstract, something measurable.. It’s disembodied, as we are becoming, more and more, as we hand our human hearts over to algorithms and ideologies. (I don’t know what to say, it’s like an image of Jesus on the Cross.)
Thank you, Rob. This is a wonderful followup to your last post. I too see the subsuming of everything under "climate". I'm not surprised; it is "climate" that has fostered entirely new industries, from "green" products, to "clean technology" and "clean energy". Thus, corporations can sell us "solutions". We cannot consume our way to habitat protection, so it all gets categorized in a way that serves capitalism, industry, and wealth.
Another poignant post, Rob. The rational mind holds everything at a distance, as if to "see" things more clearly - objectively - to study and ferret out best (scientific) approaches. Terms like 'environment', 'nature', and 'climate' lend themselves to being 'out there'; as though they are separate from living, breathing bodies. On the other hand, your 'waterhearts', (like those of us here with you) want to draw close, to tenderly hold the plight, and the joy, of fellow beings. Your question of how we clear the glass is key! Would love to hear more on that :)
Thanks Val. I agree with you about "environment" and "climate" as being kind of out there, but I still like "nature." Nature is an old word that still seems rooted in the real. Though it can be made senseless too.
Thanks Rob. Not wanting to slice and dice overly much - so easy to get caught in word play. At the very least, 'Nature' could be capitalized, but in my writing I coined the term wider-Nature, to signify the expansive community of beings who comprise the living systems of Earth. They crawl, slither, swim, fly ...and some of them walk on two feet. For me, this is part of "clearing the glass". Love that phrase!
Yeah, I agree about capitalizing Nature. It should be recognized as being special. At the very least, it is better than "the environment," which seems objectifying.
I fully support you when you bemoan our focus on CO2 Climate Change. (I wrote a piece some years back that CO2 Climate Change was only a symptom of the problem, not the root cause. That, I believe, is our throw away society in which, rather than repair something, we simply throw it away. I also believe that, unless we change the way we mistreat our forests, soils and underground water resources (and so damage the hydrological cycle) we will run out of fresh water, long before Climate Change becomes a REAL threat to our future.) For anyone who doubts that Life created our Atmosphere (and so more Life) I recommend the book Oxygen by Nick Lane
Re the dams: . . . . I happen to have trained as an engineer and the country where I was born (Zimbabwe) and the country which I call home (since 1963, Zambia) both rely hugely on Kariba and three other dams on the Kafue river for our hydro-electricity - which is a long way of saying that I tend to be pro-dams! However, I realise some dams are less damaging than other ones, and those "four lousy dams" you mention, might indeed be some of the most damaging. I did read recently that (for some other dam, somewhere I believe in the west of America) it would not be sufficient to fit the dams with fish-ladders, as the water retained in the lake also becomes too warm for the fish (which may or may not have been salmon). Without knowing anything about these lousy dams, I do wonder whether it wouldn't be possible to build a narrow artificial stream along the edge of the dam, just above the shoreline of the dam at full supply level. This artificial stream would connect (at the wall) to the fish ladders. The stream, being a flowing body of water should retain it's cold temperature and so provide the salmon with a bypass route. During high water/floods, the stream would overflow into the lake. Expensive? Undoubtedly, but just possibly a solution that we should explore as a means of both using Nature (to store water for later use or to generate electricity, or both) while at the same time allowing Nature to provide her bounty of Chinook and other salmon.
I also worried (in the case of the dam that I read about earlier) that we could be blaming the dams for something that is actually due to some of our other damage. It may well be that on many of these dammed rivers, removing the dams WON'T restore them to their previous state because we have also deforested their catchments and sucked the water tables dry with our boreholes. Nature is hugely complex, so there is never a single cause to a problem.
I've spontaneously ordered 'Oxygen' on your recommendation - it looks interesting. Thanks!
Your pondering on dams has led me to wonder if the environmentalist fear of our addiction to gas and oil is misplaced: it is actually an addiction to electricity? We are certainly very afraid of imagining a world without it and all the alleged comforts and conveniences it brings. But who does a world run on electricity actually serve? Particularly today when the push to digitalise absolutely everything is so massive. I'm not advocating for us all to switch everything off - but I think there's a lot to think about here!
I totally agree with you. It's not so much the electricity, but how it is used. Is it used judiciously to ensure basic levels of well being for a society committed to living within planetary boundaries, or is it used to fuel any desire in ever expanding economy? It the latter, I don't think it matters that much where we get the power. Were headed toward a cliff regardless. If we are committed to overall reduction in energy use, then we can make decisions about causing least harm. We're kind of in a triage condition right now, trying to protect that which is most immediately threatened.
It's interesting what you propose by means of a channel. I imagine such possibilities have been examined, as this issue has been going on many years. Though, maybe not. And as you say, it is all very complex. There are 22 hydropower dams on the Snake river. The reason for removing the lower four is that above them there is a vast spread of prime spawning grounds, already protected. To me, the question of where we get our energy comes after the question of whether we are willing to live within planetary means. Thanks for your perspective, Bruce.
My channel idea is just the engineer in me - rather than just wringing my hands about the future, I really like to look for solutions. I have just recently launched a website www.radio4pasa.com where I share knowledge with Small Scale Farmers in southern Africa on how to farm more Profitably and Sustainably - the pasa in the name.
As far as living within planetary limits is concerned, I believe we could make a BIG step in the right direction if we made all utilities charge a very low price for the first few units of whatever it is that you are using (water, gas, electricity, internet data, rail and even air travel) but the cost rises pretty steeply according to how much you use per month - the RATE at which you use it. I recently acquired a Starlink which has changed my life as far as Internet access is concerned, but I pay a flat monthly rate, so there is NO incentive to use less data. I would dearly like to develop some software that could turn it into an Internet Cafe for my community and again, I would make the first say 1MB per month almost for free, so that the poorest members of my community could use it for just sending short emails to their distant families. If there is anyone in my community who wants to use it for watching videos or lots of TikTok then they would pay a great deal more. For a utility, receiving well above the cost of supply from any wealthy consumers would allow them to invest in making the service available to the poorer members of the community, or in better, more efficient infrastructure.
I am increasingly optimistic about the future, but ONLY if we change just about every aspect of our lives - which, I believe we will do, as we share more and more good ideas through the Internet.
I wish I could be as optimistic as you, but I like your idea of increasing the cost as use increases. This is the kind of thinking we need. Here in the US, that's almost taboo, so the first change is cultural, which aint easy.
I can understand us being proud of our great feats of engineering but being very interested in ecosystem restoration and nature's capacity to restore the hydrological cycle, I have come across two striking examples of the disasters caused by dams and how returning water to land can create surprising results. One example of this can be seen in the short documentary green gold by John D Liu, witnessing the Loess plateau, a vast area (the size of Belgium) being restored to lush green pasture and forest with the return of streams and water bodies. A project financed by the world Bank due the banks of a dam constantly overflowing causing thousands of deaths in Peking. This was due to it being continually silted up, through dust from the Loess plateau, and them having to continually raise the walls, creating a water body with enormous destructive potential. This must have been the first example of large scale ecosystem restoration.
The other example of damage is the hydroelectric dam in Egypt, which, though a great feat at the time, was highly criticized by the English since in hot countries you loose enormous amounts of water through evaporation and added to this the land is deprived of its natural reserves. Due to its particular geographical location, the nature of its tides and other characteristics the Nile Delta, until then had been blessed by its fertile soil and abundant crops for centuries. It consequently underwent problems of salination. We need to understand and listen to nature's cycles and work with it rather than imposing great projects. Given the current situation where water literally means life for all life on earth. The hydrological cycle can actually be restored remarkably quickly and create resilient ecosystems. See also the work of Bill Zeedyk, Zach Weiss
For energy alternatives it would seem that our waste dumps could actually be considered as enormous resources rather than enormous problems (see a fascinating article by Bin Ali on this) . Sorry to have rambled on a bit
Thank you for this Rob! Thank you for distinguishing between habitat degradation and climate change and reminding us exactly why Tahlequah's calf starved to death. And thank you for your poem at the end. Very moving.
We need to share these things and grieve together and fully understand all the consequences of our current modalities. There is so much absencing. It's clear there is overwhelm on many fronts but this constant absencing seems only to be driving more and more situations to the brink.
It's not Climate Change that will seal her fate - along with countless others - all those dams and other delights are the cause - our abuse of the Natural World. From the very cliffs and rocks to the algae in the oceans, everything is interconnected and interdependent. We live in a maze of wonders which we fail to see. Our blinkered approach to lands, seas and oceans. We chop, dig, burn and blunder over the crust of our planet creating an ugly legacy of crud. Think of our world as an oil painting on a wall and see some prat at it with a knife.....
Thanks for this, Rob. This piece is right up my alley, the very subject of analogy magazine: the convergence of science and poetics. I find your critique spot on. Narratives and the paradigms they engender can detract from a vision with the potential to heal. In the present case, it's the globalist view of the environment, which, though it does have context, tends to over-dominate our discourse and distract from local solutions to larger problems. I've been spreading your Dr Milan series far and wide. Really love what you're doing here.
Thanks, Asa. Yes, the climate orthodoxy is globalist in many ways, from global computer models which wash out everything and every place into global averages, to the masters of finance, using the crisis to promote new technologies and financialize nature. Good to know about Analogy magazine. I've subscribed.
Thanks Rob! You've actually subscribed to my imminent, new Substack, Dovetails, which will be turning to things environmental, permaculture, and landscape design. You are welcome to subscribe to Analogy as well, but it will be phased out as I focus on the new project. That said, if you're into poetry and the philosophical discoveries I've made (and that sparked Analogy), I encourage you to poke around Analogy at your leisure. The Essentials tab is, of course, a great starting point. I'm slowly taking down paywalls to past articles.
My main cultural critique can be boiled down as follows: science has become scientism by betraying the promise to end the age of bad religion which created a dynamic of orthodox vs heretic. This dynamic arises out of an innate instinct to incorporate all peoples under one banner. I call this "the will to incorporation." Those who do not eat of the sacrament (of the one body) are damned and excommunicated. Moreover, our present-day science cum scientism tells untrue myths about itself that come from textbook pedagogy: perhaps the most pernicious of which is the notion that science progresses linearly by accumulation of solid, established, and unquestionable Truths. What's more, the sciences do not teach rigorous research methods insofar as practitioners are discouraged from consulting primary sources. If one reads science historians, however, one discovers a whole other understanding of what's going on. That's it in a nutshell. My intention has been to reclaim the original aims of science and the spirit of inquiry, which is so wonderfully inspiring and has been so marvellously transformative.
Some of the great innovators in science were poets or had a deep appreciation of poetry. Humphry Davy is one of those great innovators no one has heard of for some reason. Not a great poet, but certainly a love of writing. And J. S. Mill turned to poetry to cure himself of a depression brought about from too much analytical training which came at the expense of his analogical, or inner development. It was in particular the poetry of Wordsworth that brought the cure. I think it had everything to do with nature poetry. Recently, I was given the Selected Poems of Edward Thomas, Edited by R. S. Thomas, and I've fallen in love. Check out this short piece of genius: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52315/rain-56d230ad7f92d
again, so needed, your point of view, written from the hearts perspective. I just completed a grief retreat last weekend with Ahlay Blakely and Lawrence Cole here in Bellingham, WA. Tahlequahs' name was spoken. We don't grieve to get over our grief, we grieve to unfreeze our frozen hearts. thank you.
Thank you, Debra.
Thank you so much, Rob, and especially, for me at least, your very valuable distinction between “climate” and “nature.” When the entirety of the natural world is shoved under the category “climate” it’s like it’s all about the “air” or something insubstantial, abstract, something measurable.. It’s disembodied, as we are becoming, more and more, as we hand our human hearts over to algorithms and ideologies. (I don’t know what to say, it’s like an image of Jesus on the Cross.)
You nail it, Sharon, no terrible pun intended.
Wonderful article and poem. Thank you Rob!
Thank you, Adur.
Thank you, Rob. This is a wonderful followup to your last post. I too see the subsuming of everything under "climate". I'm not surprised; it is "climate" that has fostered entirely new industries, from "green" products, to "clean technology" and "clean energy". Thus, corporations can sell us "solutions". We cannot consume our way to habitat protection, so it all gets categorized in a way that serves capitalism, industry, and wealth.
Well put, Elizabeth.
I just now noticed that Lynda's most recent article is titled "How Tahlequah, her dead calf tell the story of climate change". How ironic!
I know.
Tahlequah is haunting my heart. As she should for all of us. Thank you for bearing witness.
Thanks, Leah.
"The first dams/we built inside us." So powerful. Tehlequah looms large (yeah, I know she's a whale...) in my mind and heart too.
Thank you, Judith. Good to hear from you.
Another poignant post, Rob. The rational mind holds everything at a distance, as if to "see" things more clearly - objectively - to study and ferret out best (scientific) approaches. Terms like 'environment', 'nature', and 'climate' lend themselves to being 'out there'; as though they are separate from living, breathing bodies. On the other hand, your 'waterhearts', (like those of us here with you) want to draw close, to tenderly hold the plight, and the joy, of fellow beings. Your question of how we clear the glass is key! Would love to hear more on that :)
Thanks Val. I agree with you about "environment" and "climate" as being kind of out there, but I still like "nature." Nature is an old word that still seems rooted in the real. Though it can be made senseless too.
Thanks Rob. Not wanting to slice and dice overly much - so easy to get caught in word play. At the very least, 'Nature' could be capitalized, but in my writing I coined the term wider-Nature, to signify the expansive community of beings who comprise the living systems of Earth. They crawl, slither, swim, fly ...and some of them walk on two feet. For me, this is part of "clearing the glass". Love that phrase!
Yeah, I agree about capitalizing Nature. It should be recognized as being special. At the very least, it is better than "the environment," which seems objectifying.
Wonderful Rob. There is also offshore fishing and falling Ocean productivity with changed climate.. We too depend on the oceans for our food.
Good points. I focus on the dams because they can be easily (physically at least) breached with a large payoff.
Dear Rob, I loved this post, AND your poem.
I fully support you when you bemoan our focus on CO2 Climate Change. (I wrote a piece some years back that CO2 Climate Change was only a symptom of the problem, not the root cause. That, I believe, is our throw away society in which, rather than repair something, we simply throw it away. I also believe that, unless we change the way we mistreat our forests, soils and underground water resources (and so damage the hydrological cycle) we will run out of fresh water, long before Climate Change becomes a REAL threat to our future.) For anyone who doubts that Life created our Atmosphere (and so more Life) I recommend the book Oxygen by Nick Lane
Re the dams: . . . . I happen to have trained as an engineer and the country where I was born (Zimbabwe) and the country which I call home (since 1963, Zambia) both rely hugely on Kariba and three other dams on the Kafue river for our hydro-electricity - which is a long way of saying that I tend to be pro-dams! However, I realise some dams are less damaging than other ones, and those "four lousy dams" you mention, might indeed be some of the most damaging. I did read recently that (for some other dam, somewhere I believe in the west of America) it would not be sufficient to fit the dams with fish-ladders, as the water retained in the lake also becomes too warm for the fish (which may or may not have been salmon). Without knowing anything about these lousy dams, I do wonder whether it wouldn't be possible to build a narrow artificial stream along the edge of the dam, just above the shoreline of the dam at full supply level. This artificial stream would connect (at the wall) to the fish ladders. The stream, being a flowing body of water should retain it's cold temperature and so provide the salmon with a bypass route. During high water/floods, the stream would overflow into the lake. Expensive? Undoubtedly, but just possibly a solution that we should explore as a means of both using Nature (to store water for later use or to generate electricity, or both) while at the same time allowing Nature to provide her bounty of Chinook and other salmon.
I also worried (in the case of the dam that I read about earlier) that we could be blaming the dams for something that is actually due to some of our other damage. It may well be that on many of these dammed rivers, removing the dams WON'T restore them to their previous state because we have also deforested their catchments and sucked the water tables dry with our boreholes. Nature is hugely complex, so there is never a single cause to a problem.
Bruce Danckwerts, CHOMA, Zambia
I've spontaneously ordered 'Oxygen' on your recommendation - it looks interesting. Thanks!
Your pondering on dams has led me to wonder if the environmentalist fear of our addiction to gas and oil is misplaced: it is actually an addiction to electricity? We are certainly very afraid of imagining a world without it and all the alleged comforts and conveniences it brings. But who does a world run on electricity actually serve? Particularly today when the push to digitalise absolutely everything is so massive. I'm not advocating for us all to switch everything off - but I think there's a lot to think about here!
I totally agree with you. It's not so much the electricity, but how it is used. Is it used judiciously to ensure basic levels of well being for a society committed to living within planetary boundaries, or is it used to fuel any desire in ever expanding economy? It the latter, I don't think it matters that much where we get the power. Were headed toward a cliff regardless. If we are committed to overall reduction in energy use, then we can make decisions about causing least harm. We're kind of in a triage condition right now, trying to protect that which is most immediately threatened.
It's interesting what you propose by means of a channel. I imagine such possibilities have been examined, as this issue has been going on many years. Though, maybe not. And as you say, it is all very complex. There are 22 hydropower dams on the Snake river. The reason for removing the lower four is that above them there is a vast spread of prime spawning grounds, already protected. To me, the question of where we get our energy comes after the question of whether we are willing to live within planetary means. Thanks for your perspective, Bruce.
My channel idea is just the engineer in me - rather than just wringing my hands about the future, I really like to look for solutions. I have just recently launched a website www.radio4pasa.com where I share knowledge with Small Scale Farmers in southern Africa on how to farm more Profitably and Sustainably - the pasa in the name.
As far as living within planetary limits is concerned, I believe we could make a BIG step in the right direction if we made all utilities charge a very low price for the first few units of whatever it is that you are using (water, gas, electricity, internet data, rail and even air travel) but the cost rises pretty steeply according to how much you use per month - the RATE at which you use it. I recently acquired a Starlink which has changed my life as far as Internet access is concerned, but I pay a flat monthly rate, so there is NO incentive to use less data. I would dearly like to develop some software that could turn it into an Internet Cafe for my community and again, I would make the first say 1MB per month almost for free, so that the poorest members of my community could use it for just sending short emails to their distant families. If there is anyone in my community who wants to use it for watching videos or lots of TikTok then they would pay a great deal more. For a utility, receiving well above the cost of supply from any wealthy consumers would allow them to invest in making the service available to the poorer members of the community, or in better, more efficient infrastructure.
I am increasingly optimistic about the future, but ONLY if we change just about every aspect of our lives - which, I believe we will do, as we share more and more good ideas through the Internet.
Bruce Danckwerts, CHOMA, Zambia
I wish I could be as optimistic as you, but I like your idea of increasing the cost as use increases. This is the kind of thinking we need. Here in the US, that's almost taboo, so the first change is cultural, which aint easy.
I can understand us being proud of our great feats of engineering but being very interested in ecosystem restoration and nature's capacity to restore the hydrological cycle, I have come across two striking examples of the disasters caused by dams and how returning water to land can create surprising results. One example of this can be seen in the short documentary green gold by John D Liu, witnessing the Loess plateau, a vast area (the size of Belgium) being restored to lush green pasture and forest with the return of streams and water bodies. A project financed by the world Bank due the banks of a dam constantly overflowing causing thousands of deaths in Peking. This was due to it being continually silted up, through dust from the Loess plateau, and them having to continually raise the walls, creating a water body with enormous destructive potential. This must have been the first example of large scale ecosystem restoration.
The other example of damage is the hydroelectric dam in Egypt, which, though a great feat at the time, was highly criticized by the English since in hot countries you loose enormous amounts of water through evaporation and added to this the land is deprived of its natural reserves. Due to its particular geographical location, the nature of its tides and other characteristics the Nile Delta, until then had been blessed by its fertile soil and abundant crops for centuries. It consequently underwent problems of salination. We need to understand and listen to nature's cycles and work with it rather than imposing great projects. Given the current situation where water literally means life for all life on earth. The hydrological cycle can actually be restored remarkably quickly and create resilient ecosystems. See also the work of Bill Zeedyk, Zach Weiss
For energy alternatives it would seem that our waste dumps could actually be considered as enormous resources rather than enormous problems (see a fascinating article by Bin Ali on this) . Sorry to have rambled on a bit
That wasn't rambling!
Have you got a link to the Bin Ali article, Ingrid?
Thank you for this Rob! Thank you for distinguishing between habitat degradation and climate change and reminding us exactly why Tahlequah's calf starved to death. And thank you for your poem at the end. Very moving.
Thanks for reading, Adelia!
We need to share these things and grieve together and fully understand all the consequences of our current modalities. There is so much absencing. It's clear there is overwhelm on many fronts but this constant absencing seems only to be driving more and more situations to the brink.
I like your word "absencing." Too much of that going around.
Thank you so much for bringing this to light!
“The first dams
we built inside us.”
You’re right, poetry can go places prose cannot. But this entire piece is wrenching and heart opening. Thank you.
Thanks, Julie. Good to hear from you.
It's not Climate Change that will seal her fate - along with countless others - all those dams and other delights are the cause - our abuse of the Natural World. From the very cliffs and rocks to the algae in the oceans, everything is interconnected and interdependent. We live in a maze of wonders which we fail to see. Our blinkered approach to lands, seas and oceans. We chop, dig, burn and blunder over the crust of our planet creating an ugly legacy of crud. Think of our world as an oil painting on a wall and see some prat at it with a knife.....
Thanks for this, Rob. This piece is right up my alley, the very subject of analogy magazine: the convergence of science and poetics. I find your critique spot on. Narratives and the paradigms they engender can detract from a vision with the potential to heal. In the present case, it's the globalist view of the environment, which, though it does have context, tends to over-dominate our discourse and distract from local solutions to larger problems. I've been spreading your Dr Milan series far and wide. Really love what you're doing here.
Thanks, Asa. Yes, the climate orthodoxy is globalist in many ways, from global computer models which wash out everything and every place into global averages, to the masters of finance, using the crisis to promote new technologies and financialize nature. Good to know about Analogy magazine. I've subscribed.
Thanks Rob! You've actually subscribed to my imminent, new Substack, Dovetails, which will be turning to things environmental, permaculture, and landscape design. You are welcome to subscribe to Analogy as well, but it will be phased out as I focus on the new project. That said, if you're into poetry and the philosophical discoveries I've made (and that sparked Analogy), I encourage you to poke around Analogy at your leisure. The Essentials tab is, of course, a great starting point. I'm slowly taking down paywalls to past articles.
My main cultural critique can be boiled down as follows: science has become scientism by betraying the promise to end the age of bad religion which created a dynamic of orthodox vs heretic. This dynamic arises out of an innate instinct to incorporate all peoples under one banner. I call this "the will to incorporation." Those who do not eat of the sacrament (of the one body) are damned and excommunicated. Moreover, our present-day science cum scientism tells untrue myths about itself that come from textbook pedagogy: perhaps the most pernicious of which is the notion that science progresses linearly by accumulation of solid, established, and unquestionable Truths. What's more, the sciences do not teach rigorous research methods insofar as practitioners are discouraged from consulting primary sources. If one reads science historians, however, one discovers a whole other understanding of what's going on. That's it in a nutshell. My intention has been to reclaim the original aims of science and the spirit of inquiry, which is so wonderfully inspiring and has been so marvellously transformative.
I like the way you think. We're on a similar wavelength, and I'm guessing that has to do with looking at science through the lens of poetry.
Some of the great innovators in science were poets or had a deep appreciation of poetry. Humphry Davy is one of those great innovators no one has heard of for some reason. Not a great poet, but certainly a love of writing. And J. S. Mill turned to poetry to cure himself of a depression brought about from too much analytical training which came at the expense of his analogical, or inner development. It was in particular the poetry of Wordsworth that brought the cure. I think it had everything to do with nature poetry. Recently, I was given the Selected Poems of Edward Thomas, Edited by R. S. Thomas, and I've fallen in love. Check out this short piece of genius: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52315/rain-56d230ad7f92d
Interesting. Look forward to following up. And there's always Goethe.
Beautifully expressed. Thank you, Rob.
Which are the 4 dams you mentioned?
Hi Chris, they are the four lower dams, Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Lower Granite.
Thanks, Rob. I was just reading about those dams a few minutes ago.