In a recent opinion piece (“Humans impact climate change,” April 10), former Utah Sen. Dan Liljenquist stated that, "We are part of the environment we live in, and our tremendous capacity to harness and subdue nature is the hallmark of our collective success as human beings."
Mr. Liljenquist’s comment helps explain the prevailing mindset of capitalist ideologues and their profit-driven, anti-nature nihilism. It is precisely because of the fact that we are part of our environment that human beings should take greater steps to ensure its protection and long-term sustainability, not just for ourselves, but for all life on the planet.
In her groundbreaking book “Silent Spring,” Rachel Carson takes the opposite stance from Mr. Liljenquist. “I truly believe that we in this generation must come to terms with nature,” she says, “and I think we are challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”
When politicians like Liljenquist use phrases like "our tremendous capacity to harness and subdue nature," what they really mean is that the natural world is nothing more than an expendable commodity to be consumed, sold, discarded and destroyed in exchange for the benefit of a consumer-based economy that relies on the capricious and conspicuous consumption of superfluous and disposable goods to maintain itself regardless of the social or environmental consequences that inevitably follow.
A healthy economy depends on a healthy planet, not the other way around. Human beings are destroying the planet, primarily via the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, resource depletion, habitat destruction and the discharge of volatile compounds into the soil, water and air. The more of the planet we contaminate or destroy, the more valuable the remaining areas become, until they, too, are sold to corporations to be exploited and consumed.
Rampant energy production is harming air and water quality for millions of Americans and accelerating climate change. “Big Energy” continues its rapacious assault on the planet while consumers continue to slake their thirst for fossil fuels, no matter the cost.
We have witnessed the greed of Utah politicians in their obsessive quest to acquire Utah’s lands, not for preservation or posterity, but for extraction, consumption and the advancement of the capitalist agenda, where being green consists of destroying the planet and its resources in order to make as much money as possible, regardless of the cost to the environment and human health.
Population projections indicate that the Salt Lake Valley will become home to an additional million people before the middle of the century, but the valley cannot possibly double its population without decimating the very resources that make it a desirable place to live, and the same is true of the world at large. Wallace Stegner warned us 50 years ago that the lack of water would make it impossible to sustain large human populations in the arid valleys of the American West, and the drought in California may be only a portent of things to come.
To our great shame, human beings have instigated the sixth great extinction by invading the habitats of other creatures for our exclusive benefit. In so doing, we have eliminated half of the world’s animal populations in the past 40 years, and entire species of plants and animals are slipping into the abyss of extinction daily.
If humans don’t reduce our ravenous consumption, we will eventually out-consume our ability to sustain ourselves. If we don’t learn to live in harmony with our environment, the potential consequences, including drought, famine and coastal flooding, won’t be pleasant.
David Jensen is a freelance writer and environmental advocate.