If a well nurtured and protected citizen of the East Coast
of the United States of America experiences an earthquake and a hurricane in
one week, it is time to ponder some bigger questions, such as the relationship
of “man” and nature.
·
The universe is supposedly 13.75 billion years
old
·
The earth is only about 4.5 billion years old.
·
Humans are 2.5 million years around and in their
current edition only 200,000 years
Only in the last 50 years or so are we talking about nature
being threatened by humans. Before it was always humans threatened by nature.
So when we consider our relationship to nature and our desire to conquer rather
than nurture, we better keep in mind how deeply ingrained our instinct is to
see nature as a threat. Of course, one might object that different cultures had
quite different approaches to nature and that the conquest notion is occidental
and Christian in particular. True, but this western view unfortunately holds
sway over most of the world now.
So when nature comes through and rattles your burg, your
nerves get rattled quite a bit. The whole place shaking? Didn’t I just hear a
rumbling. Too? Everybody is out of their seats in an instant, staring at each
other in disbelief the brain quickly scanning through all available and
plausible options that might have caused everything to rattle like this. The thoughts
were still tumbling through the frontal lobe when the senses picked up on that
rumbling noise and more and stronger shaking. Now the brain shifted and
activated flight response: Sequences of nerve cell firings and release of chemicals
like adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol into our bloodstream. Our bodies
underwent a series of very dramatic changes. We breathed faster, our blood was shunted
away from our digestive tracts and directed into our muscles and limbs for
running. Our pupils dilated. Our awareness intensified. Our sight sharpened. My
employees saw the fire escape I saw the interior stairway as the best
flightpath. When we met out in the street and all was calm, we felt stupid.
Within seconds we green people who want to protect nature
from human damage turned into fleeing mammals who were terrified by nature. And
then, not quite as fast, we calmed down and checked out humanities greatest
accomplishment, the internet to find out what happened. Alarmingly, the quickest
and most comprehensive confirmation that, indeed, we had just experienced a 5.8
Richter scale earthquake came from the good old office radio and not from the
computer.
Very few would say that an earthquake is the result of human
action (except some Christian fundamentalists who see it as god’s penalty for
specific sins). For the immediately following calamity, the hurricane
deceivingly peacefully named Irene, this could not be said. Many speculated
about how these type storms get more frequent, stronger and larger because of
global warming. Yet, when the rain pours like from buckets and the winds blow
over longstanding trees, the sense of powerlessness is here yet again. Nature
out there, still a threat. While the tremors underfoot challenge deeply
ingrained notions of the terra firma and stir up quite deep seated fears, the
darkness from power outage and the floods following the rains still threaten
our sense of security and our expectation of control and predictability. A week later the last power lines got reconnected and our sense of “can do” is heightened again while we cut up the remaining fallen trees. Left is a tangle of feelings about nature, the 21st century confusion between awe, condescendence and impotence. From it, one might hope, eventually arises an adequate response that combines both the urgency for prot
