“God has communicated to us that there is a connection between the physical survival of the planet and whether we follow the command to be good stewards of the planet. We have to stop exploiting the Earth and start treating it as sacred.”
- Rabbi Michael Lerner
Here’s an outstanding and illuminating article from the Religion News Service on what motivates the world’s religious knuckleheads and right-wing wackos to claim natural disasters are God’s punishment for humanity’s sins i.e. Muslim clerics blaming promiscuous women for earthquakes and Russian Orthodox priests blaming gay sex for the volcanic eruption in Iceland. Bottom line: they do it to exploit people’s instinctive fear of Nature, enlist new recruits, and essentially, grow their businesses. They may be wackos- but it works every time.
In the same article are differing perspectives as to why spiritual exploiters and political fundamentalists alike demonize Nature and cite the normal, natural functions of the planet as bizarre and fearsome calamities somehow controlled by a benevolent, omnipotent wizard (if I told you that instead of a minister, you’d say I’m nuts). Mind you: it’s a wizard who loves us all endlessly but will destroy us all whenever He feels like it. The article’s perspectives also include insights into why the wackos do it: to make themselves look like they know something we don’t. Easy to do- when you simply make it up.
Most useful is the perspective that assumes God’s vengeance is for humanity’s environmental sins. I don’t believe it, but if I was a religious nut and had a radio or TV show, that’s the one I’d be screaming. Not Pat Robertson’s racist ravings about how Haiti was smitten by an earthquake for fighting slavery. Who’s the real sinner there, Pat?
Just as humans invented God, we also appointed ourselves in charge of everything including the planet on which we tenuously exist. Certainly, stewardship of Earth is a concept that makes a lot more sense than the previous one of ravaging our island home to exhaustion. But ownership of the Earth, as currently practiced by the human race, is quite a different concept. And as Earth as shown since the day it was formed, you can steward it all you want. But it cannot be owned.
So it is that a comparatively small volcano on a rocky mass in the north Atlantic has brought an entire continent’s air travel industry to a near-standstill. As flights struggle to run out of Europe due to the cloud of ash floating from the eruption under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, we are forced to remember that Earth is a living, breathing, and ever-changing planet. It does what it does and every step, every move we “living things” make on it is at our peril.
Earthquakes great and small- from Tibet’s latest killer to Utah’s jostler yesterday- are also ways the Earth gently or not so reminds us who’s boss. Just read the USGS’ web site of earthquakes TODAY. It’s always been this way and probably always will be. As time has shown, the only thing humans can do to affect the Earth’s natural functions is make them worse. It takes a lot of human effort, ingenuity and self-respect, just to keep it from destroying us.
And the Earth as a living thing, by all evidence, has both the right and capability to do it.
Iceland has so many volcanos, some don’t even have names. One of those is erupting now and it’s forced the evacuation of the town of Vik along the southeastern Icelandic coast. We drove to Vik in 2007 during our visit to Iceland. The island nation is so rocky, lava-strewn, glacier-covered, windy and difficult to get around that most towns are isolated from each other despite their close proximity.
The fishing town of Vik itself is hilly but fairly developed. I didn’t get any video of it while we were there because it was socked in by fog. Like all Icelanders, the people there are spoke better English than most Americans and were extremely friendly. It’s probably strange for them to see Americans who wanted to venture outside Reykjavik to see what Iceland is really like.
Perhaps the video that gives you an idea of what’s going on in Vik right now is one I did from the Westman Islands off the southern coast. In the 1973, the volcano Eldfell erupted there and forced the evacuation of the entire island’s population of 5,000. Through incredible communication and the help of the island’s fishing community, everyone escaped unharmed to the mainland.
Iceland ranks with Tibet as the two most mysterious and fascinating places I’ve visited. But like the rose and all things beautiful, they can be dangerous. They are both proof that you have to respect Nature and get along with your neighbors to survive life on Earth.
Another in a long list of incidents involving killer whales happened in Orlando today. Reading about the incidents in the linked article, you get the impression orcas might not LIKE being held captive for human amusement. One thing about the fans who saw this latest episode: they will never forget that show. Question is what did they learn? Orcas are dangerous. Humans are vulnerable. Amusement is relative. My kid’s afraid of the water now.
How about “stop this stupidity and leave those animals alone?” We know dolphins like us (maybe not the guy in the picture) but they are not good at killing us without a lot of help. You have to pick your captive animals like you pick your friends: carefully.
Having visited Iceland in 2007 and been extremely impressed, I’ve been enthralled by the developments in that country ever since. Unfortunately, the fortunes of Iceland have been even worse that America’s due to the fact that their government, like ours, was led for the past few years by a bunch of crooked, greedy, incompetent right-wing knuckleheads who destroyed their country’s economy and rapidly escorted Iceland’s high times to a new low.
Now, like America, voters in Iceland have escorted out the people responsible for the collapse- right-wing, “conservative” politicians and corporate leaders- and swept in a left-wing, socially and environmentally-friendly new order led by the world’s only admitted lesbian president. In the meantime, Iceland is continuing its parallel American experience: slowly dragging itself back from the crisis, dusting itself off and getting ready to chart themselves a new course- having found that the old one was clearly the wrong one.
While that’s happening, Iceland is still the most environmentally-responsible nation in the world, greatly due to its fantastic geothermal energy system. I produced a six-minute video on that system while I was there. Click on the pic or the link here to watch it. More than 16,000 people have so far on You Tube.
The “swarm” of earthquakes in Yellowstone continues and seismologists at University of Utah say there’s nothing to be alarmed about- yet. For those who are not geophysically inclined, living on Earth can seem pretty predictable. But events like earthquakes, eruptions, avalanches, hurricanes and other large natural phenomena remind us that, try as we might, humans are not in control of the planet- at least not all of it. And that’s why the Yellowstone situation is significant.
The entire area we know of as Yellowstone was formed by a gigantic volcanic eruption a few million years ago or so. The volcano still exists and could go off anytime and basically destroy half of the U.S. This inevitability has been the subject of numerous documentaries, the most recent on Discovery, and even a bad feature film “Supervolcano” which, when you think about it, has more social value than “Marley and Me” but that’s another post.
I live about seven hours southwest of Yellowstone on a fault line. The chances of me being killed by a supervolcanic eruption the size we’re talking about here are probably pretty good. But knowing that doesn’t ruin my life and cause me undue worry. It merely reminds me of what I know already: Earth is alive and does what it will with or without me. My time here is a gift no matter how long or short, difficult or easy it might be. And, like the people of Iceland, Hawaii and other beautiful but dangerous lands know, that makes life in the shadow of a supervolcano worth living.
Visting Iceland in spring of 2007, I’d never guess that this tiny country on the “over” side of the world was going under. The roads in Reykjavik were new as were the numerous buildings, homes and other western features popping up everywhere. Their banks were heavily involved in risky ventures which were paying for all this development and for the last few months, the risks turned against Iceland. Now, they’re on the verge of bankruptcy and thousands of Icelanders and even more investors outside this volcanic island stand to lose everything- not that they have that much to lose.
Iceland is still the most sustainable nation on the planet, due to their geothermal heat/power system, use of hydrogen in vehicles and other bold initiatives. They’ve also led the world in whaling reform by essentially converting their whale-hunting fleet of boats into whale watching vessals, now drawing tourists from all over the world.
So as a salute to the Iceland I’ll always remember, even if it’s broke and desperate, I’ve posted a video from my visit to Husavik near the Arctic Circle and my voyage into Iceland’s whale country. If times keep getting harder, they’ll probably need to start hunting whales again- just to keep the lamps lit.
Every time I see one of these stories I wonder “Why isn’t Utah getting any of this?” Google is dropping $10.25 million on a “breakthrough” geothermal technology which will be spent in Texas, California and other places that don’t have nearly the abundance of geothermal activity that Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada do.
It’s clear that AS LONG AS THE SAME PEOPLE RUN UTAH, WE WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE BILLIONS TO COMPETITORS INVESTING IN AND DEVELOPING RENEWABLE ENERGY while we dish our money to the same old, wealthy fossil fuel companies who are going NOWHERE.
What do we have? Pie-in-the-sky oil shale, unproven gasification and a bunch of other maybe technologies that won’t do anything to bring the price of energy down or fight environmental degradation. What are our so-called leaders thinking- assuming thinking is, indeed, going on?
Raser Technologies of Provo, Utah is one of America’s leading geothermal energy companies. They’re about to make a big splash: providing clean, renewable energy to Anaheim, California nearly three years ahead of schedule. If you want to know more about how geothermal energy works, click on my video about Iceland and its system that I shot in 2007.
The Bush Regime’s belligerence and outright hostility toward Nature and the planet’s environment is well-documented. But it’s not always so purposeless and arbitrary as it is in the case of their latest campaign to block a rule to protect endangered whales. It’s not like whaling is a viable industry in America or anywhere else except Japan (not even Iceland anymore as I found out while shooting there last year) and the shipping lanes in the North Atlantic don’t move fast enough. It’s probably about preventing any kind of restriction on OIL TANKERS though the White House hasn’t said that’s their motivation.
All indications are it’s become just standard operating procedure in this utterly worthless and dangerous organization of miscreants and losers known as the Bush Administration. Block all environmental progress at whatever cost so our almighty oil companies can make even more record profits while the people who put these idiots in power can’t afford to drive to work anymore.
But in this latest anti-everything campaign, there is one shred of truth that emerges: Bush and his people never cared about you or me or anyone except their campaign contributors and the powerful elite who keep us mired in useless, costly wars and now high energy, food and housing prices. After all the lies, propaganda and spin, their ugly pattern of arrogance and ignorance is well-drawn. Could any one group be more blatantly careless about who they’re protecting and why? Hard to imagine.
