An Unsustainable Paradigm

The Buffalo Hunt

Before White Man (BWM) 75 million buffalo ranged prairie BWM. Migrate over 100 sq. miles for water and food in herds of 1,000 under alpha bull Herds stampede ex, Coronado 1541 saw them fill an entire ravine Natural threats wolves, coyote, bear and lion, grass fire and freeze

Human Ecology---Plains Indian Nomads in search of Buffalo –Commanche see which way horned toad hop Hunt by running down herd or infiltrating in hide Women skinned and tanned with brains Buffalo provided food, hide, teepee, tools, toys and ornaments. Use everything. Pemican. Animism. Tongue eaten in post-hunt feast; smoke blown in 6 directions Happy Hunting Ground---heaven + buffalo Not imagine world without buffalo

Enter the Whites Buffalo main food on plains. Thirst/warmth. – “A stake cooked on chips needs no pepper.” Whites join hunt in 1830s, reduce to 40 m. Threaten Indians---Buffalo wars 1860s –1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge trade reservation life for saving Buffalo Buffalo became commercially valuable; by 1883 nearly all destroyed.

Factors Trade in Buffalo Robes with hair Trains---sports hunting excursions Ham and tongue became delicacy in US New arsenic tanning technique 1870s made hides valuable. End of Civil War---unemployment. Hunt drew hundreds. Sharps 50 cal rifle kill from stand at 600 yards. U.S. wanted Indians confined to reservations Ranchers wanted prairie cleared.

First Conservation Movement Commander Richard Dodge, Fort Dodge: –“I have counted 112 carcasses of buffalo inside a semicircle of 200 yards radius, all of which were killed by one man from one spot in less than ¾ hour.” By 1873, hunters left for Texas, then Dakotas. Movement to stop slaughter, SPCA, soldiers –Territorial legislation---too late except Nebraska hunt uneconomical By 1883 less than 1,000 Buffalo remained Bones then used for fertilizer and sugar, once picked up, only wallows remained

DISTORTED VALUES Frontier Society vs. Sustainable Society –Colonization versus maturity Engineering Fallacy: Use of technology to extend control beyond natural limits Economic fallacy: Utilitarian values of economic system applied to all relationships, ignoring externalities Confusion of Capital and Nature –“Natural resource” –Commodification of nature

Distorted Values 2 Man Over Nature vs Part of It –Ambient vs environemnt Homocentric vs biocentric shift –Replace Buffalo in ecosystem with controlled and owned cattle as resource

Human Ecology Frederick Clements The North American Grasslands biome was a climax stage of an arid region exposed to dry winds and shallow rainfall. Plains Indian and Buffalo were partners in a stable ecological association there White men destroyed the stabile climax ecosystem

A Lost Harmony and Unity 1800s---building on notion of limits (Lloyd and Malthus)—organic movement Industrial Revolution –Dickens “Rivers Running red….” Oikos Greek for Home---economy and ecology “Nature is a great economist” Gilbert White –“The recreation of one animal is the support of another.” The Natural History of Selbourne 1789 Arcadian harmony with nature needed for peace and contentment

HOW DO HUMANS CHANGE BALANCE? Henry David Thoreau--Walden Pond 1852 –later daily observations of same 7 mile area Local Env. History---New England BWM? –Concord settled 1638: dense pine, oak and maple forests; 10 s.m.: 5 black bear, 2-3 puma, 2-3 grey wolf, 200 turkeys, 400 deer and 20,000 grey squirrel –Puritans tamed wilderness cleared ½ million + acres for farming; 1800 Primordial forest gone –Learn from nature: succession, service of squirrels Transcendentalism. Gods in nature. –“All nature is alive with pulsing energy.” –Offset overspecialization of science loses of reality. –Emerson “Nature” :“Nature is more than a resource to exploit, but a resource for human imagination.”

The Gospel of Progress Malthus---“God has created a world in which the power of the eater to reproduce himself is of a superior order than that of the earth to produce food.” Therefore: –fear of starvation stimulates man to be industrious (thus civilizing wilderness to accommodate growing population) –Misery is inevitable

Science Fits Social Thought God created man to be happy and comfortable Man’s is the top of natural hierarchy (i.e. the food web). Man’s work is to utilize nature to his advantage --- to exploit not preserve –Adam Smith: “Nature is the storehouse of natural materials.” Nature’s economy designed to maximize productivity and efficiency Science is attempt to understand the design and will of the creator. Lineaus---Nature’s Oeconomy. –taxonomy of plants and animals “rational ordering of all material resources in an interacting whole.” Construct the “Environment” by “reducing plants and animals to insensate matter”

Ecological Imperialism 1800s Period of Discovery---conquer living world through ecology Civilize savages s Anthropology –theory of ascent of man---Inevitable transformation reflected by trapper, hunter, pioneer, homesteader and urbanite. White settler was civilizing influence Darwin’s voyage on HMS Beagle –New anomalies demanded new theory –Origin of Species 1859: Natural selection explains the evolution of organisms better equipped to deal with environmental conditions who drive out competition under conditions of scarce food

Social Darwinism Law Of Progress: –Civilization is a declaration of independence from nature by subdue, control and exploit –Domination through science and technology –Native inferiority shown by failure to achieve Law of Competition: –Might makes right; conflict is inevitable –Competitive struggle makes poor inevitable –Competition is means to advance

Lester Ward, 1893, the Psychic Factors of Civilization Experts must plan (no laissez faire) Organize nature where it is inefficient (ex. winding rivers) Engineer a paradise on earth This is our moral imperative (we are over the primitive and ape). We can pacify nature by expanding the Garden of Eden through a moral equivalent of war. Later Technocrats Movement in U.S.

In sum… “nature’s economy is a world of self-seeking aggression; such a system has produced remarkable evolutionary progress; it must work for the human economy too, since man is part of nature; man’s increasing technological domination over nature is proof that survival of the fittest and the reality of progress is part of the scheme of things” (D. Worster)

James Steinbeck-Grapes of Wrath “The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droaning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snout into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses….

James Steinbeck-Grapes of Wrath “The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not control it---straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the car, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him---goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest….

James Steinbeck-Grapes of Wrath “He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stomp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth. He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron petals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If a seed dropped did nto germinate, it was nothing. If the young thrusting plant withered in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the tractor....

James Steinbeck-Grapes of Wrath “He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the tractor…he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod between his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Mean ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.” 49

The Dust Bowl The 1930s brought the Great Depression and with it the end of Laissez Faire. Beginning April 14, 1934 black bowl of dust covered M.W. The dust covered Washington D.C. and blew onto ships in the Atlantic Presage the dust bowls of today

Dominant Social Paradigm Man is above nature Nature is a resource at man’s disposal Growth and Progress are perpetual Technology solves all problems Individual Interests over Community Rich and Poor get what they deserve Na Na Na Na Na Na Live for today