The Trumpeter - Journal of Ecosophy (Athabasca University)

Rees, William E.

Trumpeter (1997)
ISSN: 0832-6193
The Footprints of Consumption: Tracking Ecospheric
Decline
William E. Rees
University of British Columbia
The Footprints of Consumption: Tracking Ecospheric Decline 2
WILLIAM E. REES is at the University of British Columbia
School of Community and Regional Planning, 6333 Memorial Rd,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2. (Tel: [604] 822-2937; Fax:
[604] 822-3787; E-mail: wrees@unixg.ubc.ca) He is the co-author
of Our Ecological Footprint published by New Society Publishers.
Focus: Assessing Progress Toward Sustainability
This essay revisits the limits-to-growth debate using ecological footprint (E-
F) analysis, a novel approach to assessing human carrying capacity. Eco-
footprinting reveals that contrary to conventional wisdom, carrying capacity
considerations are central to achieving sustainable development. Indeed, EF
analysis suggests that material consumption by the human enterprise already
exceeds the long-term productive capacity of the planet. This conclusion is
consistent with empirical evidence of accelerating global change.
Concepts and Methods
Carrying capacity is traditionally defined as the maximum population of a given
species that can be supported indefinitely by a defined habitat without perma-
nently damaging that habitat. However, development economists have long
rejected this concept as irrelevant to human beings on grounds that trade can
relieve most local constraints on population and economic growth, and that tech-
nology will overcome any others. In fact, imports can alleviate local shortages
and industrial humans do have a considerable history of success in substituting
technology or manufactured capital for natural capital stocks that run out (see
Box 1 for definitions pertaining to ”natural capital”). By this logic, it might
seem there are virtually no real limits to the growth of the human enterprise.
Unfortunately, any such conclusion would be premature. Simply by inverting
the standard c.c. ratio, EF analysis literally overturns the economists’ objection
to carrying capacity. Rather than asking how many people can be supported
in a given area, the relevant question becomes: How much area is needed to
support a given population wherever that land may be located? Thus, ecological
footprinting formally recognizes, first, that trade does not actually relieve or
increase carrying capacity but merely shuﬄes it around and, second, that all
technologies have some material impact on the Earth.
EF analysis is derived from trophic ecology (food-web and energy-flow analy-
sis) and approaches humans much the same way as we would any other large
consumer organism. However, in addition to accounting for peoples’ physiolog-
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
The Footprints of Consumption: Tracking Ecospheric Decline 3
ical demands, we also factor in the metabolic demand of the economy (i.e., the
material and energy flows required to build, maintain, and operate our manu-
factured capital, urban and industrial infrastructure, consumer goods – all the
material artifacts of industrial civilization).
From this perspective, the impact or ”load” imposed by any defined human pop-
ulation on the Earth can be summarized as the product of population size times
mean per capita energy/material consumption, where ”consumption” includes
use of the waste assimilation services of nature. EF analysis is further based on
the fact that many forms of material and energy consumption can be convert-
ed to a land/water (ecosystem) area equivalent. Summing the ecosystem areas
required by a given population for each major resource and waste flow provides
an estimate of the total area ”appropriated” by that population to maintain
its current lifestyle. Thus, the true ecological footprint of a defined population
is the total area of land/water required on a continuous basis to provide the
resources consumed and to assimilate the wastes produced by that population,
wherever on Earth that land is located.
A Range of Applications
Eco-footprinting can address many questions relevant to society’s quest for long-
term sustainability. For example, a population’s de facto ecological footprint
can be compared to the area and productivity of its home region to determine
the extent to which that population has overshot its local carrying capacity
(i.e., the extent to which it is dependent on imports of surplus carrying capacity
from elsewhere). This particular application provides a powerful heuristic and
analytic tool to the bioregional movement. A central issue in bioregionalism is
the extent to which life-styles and consumption patterns must be adjusted if we
are to become more locally self-reliant and better adapted to living ”in place.”
EF analysis can also be used to estimate the total ”natural capital” require-
ments of the anticipated global population at any assumed material standard;
to monitor progress toward sustainability at any spatial scale, and; to assess the
ecological efficiency of alternative technologies, development projects, lifestyles,
settlement patterns, etc.
Real-World Results and Policy Implications
The average per capita ecological footprint of residents of typical high-income
countries is three to five hectares
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
Summary and Conclusions
Ecological footprint analysis shows, that contrary to conventional wisdom, trade
and technology have not freed humanity from real ecological constraints. Main-
stream economic analyses are simply blind to the physical flows (the appropri-
ated ”natural income”) associated with rising money incomes. In fact, the high
levels of consumption and waste generation made possible by modern technolo-
gy and international trade have made individuals and nations more dependent
than ever on the products and processes of nature. EF analysis also suggests
that to close the sustainability gap, a minimum five-fold decrease in energy and
material consumption by the rich will be necessary over the next 40 years. Little
progress is being made toward this goal as the consumer ethic spreads around
the world.
Notes.
*Revised from the extended abstract of a paper presented to the special sympo-
sium on Population and Consumption at the Annual Meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Baltimore, MD, February
1996. (Original published in: Bioline 14:2:15-16 [Fall/Winter, 1996]).
**These published estimates are relatively conservative. More recent extended
analyses suggest the ratio may be as high as 1000:1.
Additional Sources
Rees, W. E. 1992. Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity:
What urban economics leaves out. Environment and Urbanization 4:2: 121-
130.
Rees, W.E. 1996. Revisiting carrying capacity: area-based indicators of sus-
tainability. Population and Environment 17:195-215.
Rees, W.E. and Wackernagel, M. 1994. Ecological footprints and appropriated
carrying capacity: measuring the natural capital requirements of the human
economy. In Investing in Natural Capital: The Ecological Economics Approach
to Sustainability (A-M. Jansson, M. Hammer,
C. Folke, and R. Costanza, eds.) pp. 362-390. Island Press, Washington.
Wackernagel, M. and Rees, W.E. 1995. Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing
Human Impact on the Earth. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC and
Philadelphia, PA.
The Footprints of Consumption: Tracking Ecospheric Decline 5
Citation Format
Rees, William E. (1997) The Footprints of Consumption: Tracking Ecospheric Decline
Trumpeter: 14, 1. http://www.icaap.org/iuicode?6.14.1.1
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The Footprints of Consumption: Tracking Ecospheric Decline

Boston, Tim

Trumpeter (1997)
ISSN: 0832-6193
Book Review: The Deep Ecology Movement: An Intro-
ductory Anthology
Tim Boston
University of Waterloo
Book Review: The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology 2
TIM BOSTON is a graduate student in the Department of Envi-
ronment and Resource Studies, Faculty of Environmental Studies
at the University of Waterloo.
The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology
Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue (eds.)
North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 1995.
The Deep Ecology Movement edited by Alan Drengson and Yuichi Inoue is a
definitive collection of previously published essays on the deep ecology move-
ment. This anthology contains a number of classic deep works including Arne
Naess’s 1973 paper on ”The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Move-
ment: A Summary,” Alan Drengson’s 1980 article entitled ”Shifting Paradigms:
From the Technocrat to the Planetary Person,” John Rodman’s ”Four Forms of
Ecological Consciousness Reconsidered” and various essays from the 1985 book
Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered edited by Bill Devall and George
Sessions. It also includes interesting work by Gary Snyder, Freya Mathews,
Warwick Fox, David Rothenberg and Dolores LaChapelle. In his essay entitled
”Re-Inhabitation”, Gary Snyder discusses the connections and disconnections
that exist within and between various human and natural realms. He argues
that industrial societies have become alienated from the land, and that they
need to reestablish their relationship to the Earth. Essentially, they need to
develop a sense of place and a strong commitment to a particular ecoregion.
On a different note, Mathews provides a rather interesting interpretation of
Naess’ notion of self-identification. She ”constructs an analysis to solve the
seeming incompatibility between identification with the ‘ecocosm’ (identifica-
tion with the widest possible whole - the cosmic self) and conservation of indi-
vidual life-forms, local ecosystems, and biosphere, thereby introducing a deeper
dimension to conservation by means of the identification thesis.” Warwick Fox
also focuses on this form of self-identification. However, Fox expresses his vision
of self-identification in the context of the strengths and weaknesses of what he
terms transpersonal ecology. This brand of ecology is based on three wide iden-
tification processes: the personal, the ontological and the cosmological. Out of
all the authors mentioned, David Rothenberg appears to be the deep ecology
daredevil. He proposes his own version of deep ecology’s platform principles
which differ in some respects from those offered by Naess. Rothenberg is to be
commended for providing an alternative platform, and for indirectly opening up
the discussion on the platform principles of the deep ecology movement.
On a more spiritual note, Dolores LaChapelle provides some rather unique in-
sights on deep ecological rituals. She examines the meanings of rituals, and
argues that they can serve as activities to help foster a sacredness between
humanity and the natural world.
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
Clearly, the authors have significantly different deep orientations. For exam-
ple, Andrew McLaughlin has been influenced by social progressive thought.
Gary Snyder, Bill Devall and Alan Drengson lean towards Eastern and Montane
philosophical ecocophies. Pat Fleming, Joanna Macy and Dolores LaChapelle
have woven spiritual ecology into their work. Michael Zimmerman’s and Patsy
Hallen’s knowledge of ecofeminism has shaped their respective deep viewpoints.
However, while the authors’ orientations differ, they are first and foremost sup-
porters of the deep ecology movement. They all strongly express their concern
for the well-being of the Earth’s interrelated natural systems. They all feel for
the Earth and its many beings, explore the possibilities of an expanded human
consciousness, and argue for stronger ecosophic bonds between humanity and
the natural world. But most importantly, the authors share a sense of urgen-
cy over the fate of the Earth. They believe that in order to avoid ecocide and
achieve ecospheric egalitarianism, there needs to be fundamental social, cultural
and political change within technocratic, expansionist and industrial societies.
This is a wonderful book. Anyone who is not familiar with the deep ecology
movement, and wishes to gain a better understanding of the subject, will find
this book of great interest. This anthology provides a fairly complete package of
readings on the movement, and it therefore would also appeal to those who would
otherwise have to obtain an entire library of publications. Finally, for those who
are interested in reading some other intriguing deep ecology material, I strongly
recommend the 1994 publication entitled An Ecophilosopher’s Dictionary: Basic
Concepts for Ecocentric Exploration (Lightstar Press)by Alan Drengson. It is
an invaluable dictionary for deep ecology supporters.
Citation Format
Boston, Tim (1997) Book Review: The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory
Anthology Trumpeter: 14, 1. http://www.icaap.org/iuicode?6.14.1.14
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The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology

Frisk, Trudy

Paganism, Magic, and the Control Of Nature

Parenteau, Patrick

Trumpeter (1997)
ISSN: 0832-6193
She Runs With Wolves: In Memory of Mollie Beattie
Patrick Parenteau
Vermont School of Law
She Runs With Wolves: In Memory of Mollie Beattie 2
PATRICK PARENTEAU is an attorney in South Royalton, Ver-
mont and Director of the Environmental Law Center at the Ver-
mont School of Law.
Deep within the labyrinth of the Department of Interior, down one of the side
canyons that radiate off the main hallway, is the Office of the Director of the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Thirteen people have occupied this
Office; their portraits hang in the entryway. Twelve are men in suits with
serious expressions. The thirteenth is a woman wearing waders, standing in an
icy Alaskan river, holding a pair of binoculars. Looming in the background, not
more than a hundred yard dash away, is a Kodiak brown bear, largest ursine in
the world, top carnivore in the local food chain, looking annoyed. The woman,
on the other hand, is smiling broadly, savoring at once the beauty and danger
of the moment. Her expression seems to say, ”Is this a great job or what?” The
woman is Mollie Beattie.
Mollie was a mold breaker. First woman to head the male-dominated ”hook and
bullet” culture of the ”FWS”. One of the first to crack the gender barrier of
the forestry profession. Outward bound instructor. Hardy homesteader: with
husband Rick she cut a road, cleared a patch of land, built a solar-heated house
on a south-facing slope, and set up housekeeping amidst beech and maple, black
bear and fishercat, hard by the state forest that now bears her name in Grafton,
Vermont. Instead of a TV, she hung a painting of a woman standing with her
hand on an oak tree, leaves spilling out of her mouth, titled ”A Woman Who
Speaks Trees.” Could have been a self portrait.
I met Mollie in 1987, when Governor Madeleine Kunin appointed me Commis-
sioner of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. Mollie was
then Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation, having pried open yet an-
other male bastion. We started out as colleagues, sharing the frustrations of
fellow public servants, frequent targets of outrageous slings and arrows - some
from behind. We discovered a real kinship: we both preferred being out in the
woods to sitting in legislative committee rooms; we both had a passion for sav-
ing things, especially the ”little things that run the world”, as E.O. Wilson puts
it; we both took our jobs, but not ourselves, seriously. But we differed in one
fundamental respect: politics. Nothing of any consequence can be accomplished
without politics, of course. We both knew that. But I could never quite get the
hang of it - a fatal case of foot-in-mouth disease, I’m afraid - whereas Mollie,
though just as put off by the sometimes shabby nature of it all, nevertheless was
able to stick with it, improve her game, and in time come to relish it - not for
what it did for her but for what she could do with it. That probably explains
why she went on to become Director of the largest wildlife conservation agency
in the world and I wound up in academia. But we stayed friends.
As FWS Director, Mollie took on the thankless task of defending the Endangered
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
She Runs With Wolves: In Memory of Mollie Beattie 3
Species Act, my favorite statute, against a furious political attack from the
”Contract With America” crowd, busy spreading disinformation (see, there I go
again) into every corner of America. Mollie got her first taste of what this fight
was going to be like when she testified before the House Resources (formerly
”Natural Resources”) Committee, chaired by that estimable gentleman from
Alaska, Don Young. Brandishing a baculum - that’s the penis bone of a walrus,
in case you didn’t know - the Chair wanted to know just what Director Beattie
was going to do about the ”eco-Nazis” who were running her agency. Mollie
wasn’t intimidated; this wasn’t the first strong-willed person she had run into in
the world of politics. So Mollie calmly informed Congressman Young that the
ESA was basically a good law, and that she intended to uphold and improve it.
Did the Chair have any constructive suggestions?
Mollie got her schooling in how to handle raging testosterone while still in
Vermont. The most powerful person in the Vermont Legislature in those days
was the Speaker of the House, Ralph Wright. Now Ralph is basically a good
guy and he pushed a lot of strong environmental laws through the legislature,
but he did have a well-deserved reputation as someone to fear. You didn’t cross
Ralph, period. But that didn’t scare Mollie. Once, when the Speaker wanted
what amounted to a political favor, something having to do with use of state
lands for commercial activity, Mollie balked. This is the people’s land, she said.
Yes, yes, but it’s just a little favor, Ralph said. No, Mollie said. After turning
purple and ranting for a while, Ralph threw in the towel: ”Mollie just didn’t
take any crap from me. She stood up to me when I tried to push her around.
She gave it right back. I didn’t mess with Mollie anymore.”
With that same characteristic zest, Mollie went to bat for the ESA, putting her
whole heart and soul into it, not to mention her political future. Yet although
she was a passionate defender of the ESA, Mollie was not an ideologue, and
she was not stupid. She knew that a stubborn adherence to the status quo
was not going to work. The Act’s substantive standards had to be preserved,
of course, but there also had to be a credible set of ”reforms” to blunt the
thrust of the critics’ arguments that the Act was inflexible, destructive of private
property and a drag on the economy. None of this was true, of course, but that
really wasn’t the point. In politics, illusion is reality, spin is fact, and polls
are gospel. So, Mollie hit the road with her own campaign to educate the
public and the press about the Act’s many successes (recovery of the bald eagle,
peregrine falcon, American alligator, brown pelican, etc.), and to debunk all
the myths and distortions about how awful the Act was. At the same time,
recognizing the grave danger the Act was in, she helped design a tactical retreat
in the best tradition of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, which Interior Secretary
Babbitt announced as a ten point plan to fix the process without damaging the
substance. Included in the plan were some hard pills to swallow - ”safe harbors”
and ”no surprises” incentives for developers, look-the-other-way enforcement,
more hoops for listings to jump through. Mollie may not have liked having
to do this, but she was playing a weak hand and had to make the best of
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
She Runs With Wolves: In Memory of Mollie Beattie 4
it. And when some in the environmental community turned on her she took
it in stride. The strategy did seem to work, breaking the momentum of the
”Contract” forces, and giving the environmental community time to get its own
act together and start mobilizing the strong public support that has always
existed for endangered species protection.
During this critical period, Mollie was a one person truth squad, criss-crossing
the country, exploding myths right and left, exposing lies, and speaking elo-
quently of the act as our ”early warning system”, our ”weather vane”, and, my
favorite, ”Mother nature’s 911”. She went to California, hotbed of anti-ESA
sentiment, and was met with headlines screaming that federal rules protecting
the habitat of some ”‘endangered rat” (the Stephens kangaroo rat) prevented
homeowners from building dikes to protect their houses from the wildfires that
swept through L.A.’s exurbia in the summer of 1993. Mollie calmly pointed out
that an independent study by the General Accounting Office concluded that
dikes wouldn’t have made any difference, the fires had jumped 12 lane freeways
and massive concrete canals; and that shifting winds and bad planning had more
to do with the destruction than kangaroo rats.
She went to Texas, a place not known for its hospitality to government officials,
especially green ones, to answer charges that the Fish and Wildlife Service had a
secret plan to declare 20 million acres in 33 counties ”critical habitat” for ”some
songbird.” No truth to that rumor, said Mollie. In fact, FWS was cooperating
with city and county officials outside Austin to develop an ”HCP” (habitat
conservation plan) for the golden-cheeked warbler (the songbird in question)
that would provide for conservation of about 30,000 acres - not 20 million -
for the benefit of not one but eight threatened or endangered species. Might
want to take a look at why so many species were headed for extinction in that
particular county, Mollie suggested. Might have something to do with urban
sprawl, gobbling up habitat, exceeding the carrying capacity of the land, that
sort of thing. Just a thought.
In Virginia, the story was that an ”endangered bird’s nest” had stopped a
highway. Turned out it was a squirrel’s nest, the highway wasn’t stopped, and
the ESA didn’t have anything to do with it.
Everywhere Mollie went she was confronted with stories of the ESA stopping
development, taking people’s land and livelihood, killing jobs, bringing the e-
conomy to its knees. Well, let’s look at the record, Mollie suggested. Out of
97,000 activities reviewed under the ESA between 1987 and 1992, 54 resulted
in projects being withdrawn or abandoned. In case you don’t have a calculator
handy, that works out to .005 - five one hundredths of one percent. How could
any rational person, given this statistic, believe that the ESA was having any
measurable impact on economic activity? Answer: no rational person could.
OK, but what about the jobs - all those loggers, farmers, miners, ranchers, real
estate developers? Well, let’s take another look at the facts. Fact: log exports
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
She Runs With Wolves: In Memory of Mollie Beattie 5
and mill modernization have eliminated more jobs in the forestry industry than
all 800 endangered species combined , spotted owl included. Fact: ”boom and
bust” economies associated with extractive industries in oil, mineral, and forest
products - the same industries that have the biggest impact on endangered
species - lay more people off than the ESA.
As for confiscating property, the fact is that no court has ever found that the
ESA has taken anybody’s land. And if the concern is people’s pocketbooks,
more good would come of cracking down on junk bond scams and S&L frauds,
or eliminating corporate welfare payments (eg the sugar subsidies that have
ruined the Everglades), than picking on the ESA.
But truth didn’t interest those who were out to gut the ESA. Paraphrasing Mark
Twain: A lie will be around the globe twice before the truth gets out of bed. Like
the false statement made by Richard Pombo, Chair of the Environment Sub-
committee of the House Resource Committee, Don Young prot&#233;g&#233;
, and a virulent opponent of the ESA. According to Mr. Pombo’s sob story, told
to the Senate Environment Committee, his ranch - the ranch that had been in
the family ”since the Gold Rush” - had just been declared critical habitat for
the San Joaquin kit fox, rendering it ”worthless”. Great story; real tear-jerker.
Only one problem: it wasn’t true. Mr. Pombo’s ranch had not been declared
critical habitat for the kit fox, or anything else. When confronted by the me-
dia with this fact, Mr. Pombo said, well, maybe it was one of his neighbor’s.
Wrong again. In fact, no critical habitat had been designated for the kit fox.
No matter, said the Congressman, the ESA still needed to be ”fixed.” Others
might speculate on who needed fixing, but not Mollie. She stayed focused on
the objective: get the facts out and let the process take care of the rest.
I always admired how Mollie could engage these mud slingers and never get any
on her. She was tough but never mean; determined but never rigid; principled
but never self-righteous. Maybe it was her Outward Bound training that gave
her such stamina, patience and boundless optimism. Talk about optimistic, she
even paid a call on Newt Gingrich to enlist his support for the ESA. Know
what? The Speaker obliged, showing up unannounced at one of Mr. Pom-
bo’s ”kangaroo-court” (pun intended) hearings, talking about the importance
of ”lichens and fungi” to the functioning of life on Earth (where do you suppose
he got that idea?) and warning his Republican colleague not to report out a
bill gutting the ESA.
More than anything, however, it was Mollie’s eloquence in defence of the de-
fenceless that I will most remember. With simple logic, an appeal to common
sense, and unquestioned honesty - solid Vermont values - she made the case for
stewardship of our natural heritage, for ”saving all the pieces” as Aldo Leopold
urged many years before. No matter how trivial another life form might ap-
pear to homo sapiens, our fates are intertwined. ”When we see the snails and
the mussels and the lichen in trouble it is a signal that the ecosystems upon
which we, too, depend are unravelling,” Mollie said. ”I believe there is only
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
She Runs With Wolves: In Memory of Mollie Beattie 6
one conflict and that is between the short term and the long term thinking. In
the long term, the economy and the environment are the same thing. If it’s
unenvironmental it’s uneconomical. That is a rule of nature.”
Mollie was right. The proof is all around us. Take pesticides for example. Thirty
five years ago, Rachel Carson showed us that DDT was not just a pest killer, it
was an eagle killer, an osprey killer, a peregrine falcon killer, an indiscriminate
killer. Then we found strange compounds in our water supplies - things with
names like dioxin, poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, organo-chlorines - the toxic off-
spring of those same pesticides and herbicides. Right up to today, three and
one half decades after Silent Spring, pesticides are still killing songbirds, at an
estimated rate of 60 million a year, and still contaminating groundwater, the
primary source of drinking water in many parts of the country.
Or take forestry practices. After clear-cutting its way from New England to the
Pacific Northwest the timber industry was poised to ”liquidate” the last of the
great, publicly owned Douglas-fir forests in Oregon and Washington. The only
thing that stood in its way was Strix occidentalis, the northern spotted owl,
and the ESA. Of course it wasn’t just the owl; the owl is simply an indicator
for a complex web of life that comprises the old growth ecosystem, a system
that provides many things useful to humans, such as taxol, the cancer-fighting
chemical found in the bark of the Pacific yew, and commercially valuable fish like
salmon that spawn in old growth watersheds, not to mention all the potentially
useful things that are disappearing before we even have the chance to discover
them, or the things that the market can’t quite figure out how to price - spiritual
stuff like the feeling you get hiking through a cathedral grove of 200’ trees draped
in emerald moss, sunlight spilling through small openings in the sylvan canopy,
and realizing you are standing in a forest that was there before the Roman
Empire existed. Mollie understood this sort of thing and could articulate it for
those who didn’t know or think they cared about it. She could also talk jobs, as
in the jobs that depended on the salmon runs that were declining, precipitously,
across the Northwest as the spawning streams filled with the silt and debris
oozing off scabrous clearcuts. Or the jobs of the loggers and mill workers, which
were headed for extinction, just like the owl, as soon as the last old tree fell,
the last lumber truck rumbled through town, and the timber companies packed
up and left for the next harvest - in Georgia, or Maine, or Malaysia, wherever
there were trees to cut. Some would stay, of course, to plant tree farms of
Doug-fir saplings in neat tidy rows, to be harvested in 60 year rotations, or
less, depending on market conditions. Biological deserts compared to the rich
ecosystem they replaced.
Meanwhile, the residents of Oregon and Washington get to watch in horror as
the denuded mountainsides melt into an ugly chocolate mousse of murderous
landslides.
Mollie sincerely believed it did not have to be this way. After all, we’re the ones
with the big brains, right? Asked what kind of legacy she wished to leave, Mollie
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
once said, ”I would like to have stopped the ridicule about the conservation of
snails, lichens, and fungi, and instead move the debate to which ecosystems are
the most recoverable and how we can save them, making room for them and for
ourselves.”
Mollie left us that and more. She gave us Hope, just like the name she gave
to the rehabilitated eagle she released to commemorate the removal of the bald
eagle from the list of endangered species. She believed in what she was doing
and she lived a life that reflected the values she espoused. She also believed in
the basic goodness, if sometimes waywardness of people. Maybe she was right.
It was Don Young, after all, her opponent, who introduced the bill naming 8
million acres of spectacular alpine wilderness on the summit of the Brooks Range
in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in her honor. As fitting a tribute as this
is, one that I think would please Mollie even more would be the reauthorization
of a stronger and better ESA in the 105th Congress. You can’t love Mollie and
hate the ESA.
One day I hope to take my daughter Elizabeth on a trip to Yellowstone. We’ll
strap on the packs and head up the trail, as far into the backcountry as possible.
We’ll find a nice spot to camp, close to a mountain brook so we can hear the
sound of rushing water and maybe catch a cutthroat for breakfast. We’ll have
a little trail stew, tell a few stories, and let the darkness and the quiet of the
night envelop us. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll hear the haunting voices of
Canis lupus, the gray wolf, engaged in nightly conversation with Mother Earth.
Then we’ll smile and remember that it was Mollie who restored the wolf to its
rightful place in Yellowstone, and put a little bit of magic back into our hearts.
Thanks, Mollie!
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Parenteau, Patrick (1997) She Runs With Wolves: In Memory of Mollie Beattie Trumpeter:
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She Runs With Wolves: In Memory of Mollie Beattie

Slavik, Steve

Trumpeter (1997)
ISSN: 0832-6193
Jonah, On Time
Steve Slavik
Trumpeter
Jonah, On Time 2
STEVE SLAVICK is a personal and relationship counsellor who
lives and works in Port Alberni, B.C.
People say, ”time flies!” I’ve never seen it go by overhead. People talk about
time, or, rather, assume time in their talk. Things happened yesterday. Tomor-
row is planned. I don’t get it. When I read Erskine Caldwell, I’m talking with
the man now. When I recall my first true love, I talk with her now and I pray
for her now. When I recall my aged Latin teacher who interrupted an exam to
say, in English, that he had just swallowed a fly, I admire him and am amused
now.
Some might say that, in fact, I have a continuity of my life from ”then” to
”now.” But I don’t experience it. I experience not a river, stream, nor even a
trail of consciousness but a rosary, a string of beads at which and with which
to pray. I don’t leave a trail, like a comet.
I’m a sky of stars. I have a ”now,” a ”specious present” as the pragmatist C. I.
Lewis calls it; I prefer a ”spacious present.”
Time doesn’t exist. Certainly clocks exist - I have one at home, one in my
office. On these, the hands go round; they are at different positions marked by
numbers. When I look up now, it says 2:04:30. When I look up now, it says
2:04:45. Fifteen seconds have passed. But I’m writing a sentence, not moving
in time.
Sometimes I worry myself; I think I should find a way to talk about this. And
I say, ”OK, I don’t see time passing, but I see different places. OK, so I can
move in space.” I know about the continuity of space. That makes sense. I can
walk from one place to another.
But I can’t get anywhere with this analogy. I can’t fit myself into time as if it
were a kind of space. I don’t have a door into it - it doesn’t seem pertinent or
useful to have one.
”Well, aren’t you older now than you used to be?”
Maybe. I get tired more easily ”these days,” I think. I don’t have as smooth a
skin as ”I used to.” I like peace and quiet more than ”I once did.” But no, I don’t
seem to be ”older.” I have no perception or feeling of a process called ”aging”
or ”getting older.” I’m just always right here, more than less as I ”always have
been.”
Moravia opens a story with these thoughts:
Every middle-aged man has, inside his head, another head; his outer
head has wrinkles, grey hair, decayed teeth, lustreless eyes; his inner
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
Jonah, On Time 3
head, on the other hand, has remained just the same as when he was
young, with thick black hair, a smooth face, white teeth, and bright
eyes.
This difference in perception, a so-thought misperception in his story, is how
those who would grow old dismiss what I say: you’re just not noticing the
reality of the situation. And I wonder, are these the signs by which I am to
define myself?
These realists continue: ”You’ll die, you know.”
Well, so they say. But, in fact, if it matters, more people are alive now than
have ever died. So you won’t prove it to me through numbers. But anyway,
I’m not so sure. My father and mother died. But I talk with them better now
and more often than when they were alive. My point? Simply that how can I
say they’ve died when I’m closer than ever. What I love and what loves me is
”outside” of time. Better said: ”inside” the world. Where’s ”time” inside the
world?
Everyone is still here if you have the door to go through.
Maybe a contrast would be helpful here. I’m not sure if I have it right, but some
people say they live ”in time.” This seems to mean they pay more than passing
attention to the clock on the wall. At 11:00 they do this - at 12:00 they do that.
(So do I, by the way. If I want to catch the 11:00 ferry to Vancouver, I pay
attention to the clock.) But there’s more. Somehow this clock thing intrudes
more deeply. There’s ”a time” to eat, ”a time” to go to bed so you get enough
sleep, ”a time” for other things. It seems to wind its way into one so that ”the
schedule” becomes important. One regulates oneself for the schedule. One can
take holidays to be less scheduled, one can take a ”time out,” but it’s ready
when one gets back. But this clock time is not ”inside” the world. I do all this,
but it’s only on the surface of my life, it’s nowhere ”inside” except (of course)
that it’s inside just as much as the telephone is, or the automobile. But it’s not
one of those things I have much regret over.
Then I notice the ”benchmarks” in life I have passed, or which I am approaching.
The marriage, the children, the divorce, the remarriage, the promotion, the job
loss(es), the success, the loss of success, of hopes, the death of parents, the
movement of children, retirement. ”Time marches on,” and ”Time conquers
all” are the mottos of benchmark time. These are insinuated even more deeply,
they mean more to some of us, are part of our basic plans for life. They are
markers of this tempus fugit thing - at least in the sense of permanent loss.
That’s the convention with tempus fugit - that nothing stays the same, but it
never gets better, only worse. I look at my regrets, losses, mistakes, I could have
done better, if only. . . . It’s hard, indeed, for me, to stay out of this kind of
thing. It’s very easy for me to do, ”if only. . . .” I go into the melancholy and
the weltschmertz of life easily. Then I know I am making time, but then it’s
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
Jonah, On Time 4
what I am doing. I recall an old saying: ”If you live by the benchmark, you die
by the benchmark.” That’s the benchmark theory: if you are those benchmarks,
you die when they do.
A sense of regret and loss can pervade one’s perception of daily life as well. Paul
Bowles has put his finger right on it in The Sheltering Sky:
Because we don’t know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible
well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a
very small number, really. How many more times will you remem-
ber a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so
deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life
without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps
twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.
This is not ”inside” the world either, no matter how much one cultivates and
nourishes one’s regrets and losses. This is the philosophy of one who does not
love. Like believers in clock time and benchmarks, it is the philosophy of one
who believes in limits, who does not notice that time never runs out. It is
another ”surface” philosophy. The world has no limit.
My parents used to tease, ”Are you making time with anyone?” not mean-
ing sexual intercourse, nor ”making out” either, but ”getting somewhere” with
another, stepping out with another in a serious way. Is this the first step of
”stepping into the stream of history” with another, making time by making
love? When I am making time I am always making it with others, in relation-
ship with others, either building time or destroying time. In this making time
lies, for me at least, despair, perpetual tiredness, living in the grey twilight of
the ending day, recognition of loss as the preeminent character of life, hopeless-
ness and helplessness. Making time looks like spending time and killing time
just as it does for Moravia’s character.
It’s true, I think, that in the timeless world I sometimes inhabit, little petting,
little intercourse, little adherence to the usual methods of making interpersonal
history which I ”used to” think were important, even vital, occur.
Where is this ”time,” this orientation to future and past, to things not here?
Well, damned if I know. I can’t find it. It doesn’t seem to have much to do
with the way the sun changes daily, or the way the winter seems to arrive after
summer. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with an intimate kinship (if one
has it) with Baba Yaga. One has a heart connection with places, people, ideas,
events. Whatever that means, it isn’t in time. What I love, and what loves me
- we are all inside it.
Living on the inside, no time passes. I don’t mean, as Moravia might, that I
don’t notice its passage and ravages. It’s not a matter of misperception. I mean,
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
Jonah, On Time 5
time isn’t. Inside the world is like inside the forest. It’s all now. Taking a walk
in the forest, making love in the forest, one is surrounded by the whole forest.
Just so, the world. All the souls inhabit the world.
I can tell you a story about this, a whale story. Imagine yourself as a whale for
a moment. At dawn, with an easy flick of your tail, you come to the surface to
leap and look for the particles.
What particles come my way, I can eat. I breach into a misty pool that breathes
up and breathes down. I float - another speckle in the misty world. I taste the
love of the water. At night I ride in the boundary between the warm and the
cool as it undulates up and down. I balance at the boundary and gently rise up
and descend with the undulations of the wave. I move with the boundary and
dream of the world the way it was and dream of the world the way it will be.
Nothing is lost. I travel with the boundary and I feel the cold currents on my
belly and the warmer waters on my back. I let myself be, I stay out of my way.
We live in a pod, my friends and I. When we lie on the surface, I see them
spread out around me even though it is dark. I see them spread out around
me, I hear them nudging and squealing and squeaking their way in and out of
the cold water below the boundary and up and down. I hear them collecting
and dispersing, coming up, going down, sometimes I am a part and sometimes
I balance here and listen. Sometimes I can see them - we are a pack. We are
the same pack as those in the sky who move and collect, disperse, go up and go
down. We are a part of that pack, they are a part of us.
I do this every night. I turn my eye and I wonder at the deeps where even I do
not go, I wonder at the cold depths and what might live down there. I see the
lights, I see lights, I see lights everywhere in the night, the lights swarm and
the lights come and go, slow and fast, they come up in a swarm and they go
down in a throng, they come up, separate and disperse, they collect and they
go down. I see the lights in the sea everywhere. Around me constantly there
are lights.
And I live fully in the belly of God. I live quickly in the belly of God. I live
directly in the dream of God’s mind, I am a speckled particle in God’s mind,
just as the lights below me are luminous particles in the sea that come and go
in the great dream of the sea, the great, the breathing dream of the sea.
Sometimes at night I lie on the surface of the swarming sea and I wonder what
are the lights in the sky: the lights that resolutely turn across the whole sky
or streak in an instant the same distance. And I know I live completely in the
belly of God, in the dream of God, in the sea of God, in the breath of God,
I live quickly here and I am taken care of. I balance on the surface or on the
boundary and what comes, comes and what does not come, does not come.
Betimes at night I will sink to the surface and there I see the infinity of lights
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
on either side of me, the lights below, the lights above. Who knows which is
below and which is above? In the middle of the ocean at night with no moon
I float on the surface and see the same thing that I see if I were afloat on the
boundary. I float on the surface of the sky and see the sea above me full of
lights. The lights fall and rise, and streak across - the . . . the darkness. And
what are they? What are those lights above, below, around, in any direction
surrounding, what are those lights?
Quite simply, those are the lights of those who are there. Those lights shine
from the beings who sink and fall, who swarm, disperse, and collect - those
lights spangle from the beings with whom I live, with whom I have concourse.
Those lights spring from the others who live in God’s mind and God’s belly, in
God’s breath, in God’s sea. Those are the lights of everyone who lives.
Just as at night I lie upon the luminescent surface of the sky and feel God
breathe, up and down, up and down, in and out, in and out, I breathe with
God, I become one with God - just as I do, others share this sea with me, this
vast ocean of living, the beings above, the beings below, they are not different,
they are everywhere. We are everywhere. We, the shining being of God, we
are God’s being. We, who think God: without us there is no God, without the
lights, without the breathing, without the resting in God’s belly, there is no
God. We make God. We live in God. We are God.
The sea is teeming. Imagine it! - full. Of us, of those smaller, of those larger.
Imagine the sea, full. Imagine the sea around us, full, full of lights, full of lights,
full of lights, imagine the lights go on forever, and on forever. Imagine yourself
one of those lights, just one, one of the small ones, imagine resting here in the
middle of the sea with me, swarming, collecting, and dispersing - breathing with
the ocean, breathing in the ocean, breathing the ocean in to you, imagine living
here with me, breathing. Imagine yourself here with the others, one of the lights
that you see everywhere above and below, one of the sparkles that never end,
the sparkles that fall to the depths, the sparkles that fall from the heights into
the depths, from the top of the sea to the top of the sky, the sparkles that
are everywhere, that come up and go down, that collect and disperse, imagine
yourself here tonight with the moon, with the pack, with the lights, with all of
us, one of us. Who are just like you, who are you. Imagine joining us. Come,
can you imagine? Come. Come be part of us, belong with us, who live in the
midst of God.
The moral?
Who would notice death? Rather, where is any death? God would not, could
not, excommunicate us. Where is God? Right now. Always.
Who am ”I”? ”I” am not in time. There is no time ”in” which to be. But there
is the world to be in - a vast, present presence that breathes us all in and out.
The same birds fly overhead in augury.
Jonah, On Time 7
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Copyright 1999 Trumpeter


English

Jonah, On Time

Cutherbertson, Brent

Scott, Harvey

Trumpeter (1997)
ISSN: 0832-6193
Imagine
Brent Cutherbertson
Trumpeter
Harvey Scott
University of Alberta
Imagine 2
HARVEY SCOTT is a Professor Emeritus with the Department
of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alber-
ta where he taught Outdoor Education within the socio-cultural
realm of inquiry and co-ordinated Explorations for 15 years. Har-
vey can now be found arguing for ecological sustainability over
the pulp and paper industries interest from his farm in Athabas-
ca, Alberta. There he is often seen at the manure pile with Jake
the dog as his thou debating the merits of the existential quest to
realize one’s identity with the nonhuman other.
It is the winter of 1994, more than two years before the first trip will actually
depart for the mountains in a program that will come to take its place among
the experiences and faces of Explorations history.2 The living and learning of
what will become Explorations ‘96 is not yet, cannot yet, be known.
During the next 24 months we will work as we have never worked before. Merely
raising the funds needed - $16,000 plus - would be a daunting task, but it would
never seriously be questioned whether we would do it, only how it was to be
done. We would have some huge successes; grant proposals, Thursday bake
sales and Adopt-an-Explorer would bring in more than $9,000. And we would
have smaller successes: selling hot dogs and frozen cans of Coke in a November
snowstorm outside Revy [hardware store] will net us $1.25.
Explorations would come to test us. Of course, it would test us physically - that
is always a given in these experiences for some reason. But it would also come
to test us mentally, emotionally, socially and, at times, spiritually.
We would have to organize gear, learn skills in map reading and emergency first
aid, as well as become competent in the techniques of back country skiing and
sea kayaking. We would plan menus, dry food, pack food, get physically fit,
research area history, geography, and geology, environmental issues, political
issues, social issues, arrange logistical support, plan routes, sew clothes, read
tide charts, and so on. In the midst of this we would have to learn and re-learn
what it takes to create a rewarding, educational experience within a consensus-
based social structure, a culture of our own making. We would try to make
decisions that were acceptable to all in a process that eats time and in which
frustration and satisfaction can become synonymous. We would have to develop
an ethic of caring that seeks a balance between our personal goals and group
needs. We would find virtually every aspect of every task infused with the
meanings and implications of our adopted social process.
We would come to learn of maps and getting lost and getting found again. Of
cold: cold feet, cold hands, cold face, cold legs, cold, cold arms, cold head ...
numb mind. Of the attraction between ice and hair, and between cold ski poles
and wet tongues. But partly from these things we will learn of the beauty and
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
Imagine 3
stillness of a frozen world, and will come to a truer understanding of the value
of things hot and things chocolate. We would glimpse proud cultures of the
west coast, peering through the ancientness as though through untold fathoms
of clear, but constantly shifting waters. We would find ourselves trying to piece
together the meaning of the story of a people and a land, just as others will try
to feel the meaning of our experience when we tell it ages hence.
We would come to learn of cooperation and conflict among, between, and in us.
We would come to learn of death, of sudden loss, of grief, and of the crawling
pace of healing.3 We would also discover the power of shared laughter and
senseless, but profound joy. We would come to know the comfort and serenity
of special places and special people, human and otherwise.
But it is still 1994 and all that is yet to come.4 There are more immediate
concerns. Where will we go? What kind of trip will it be? I know these people
I am to share my dreams with, but do not know them. And the wisdom of
lived time has not yet decided to reveal to me that the greatest exploration I
will accomplish in the next two years will be of myself.5
Notes
1. This article was originally a speech written and delivered by Explorations
member Brent Cuthbertson to a public gathering meant as a celebration and
closure to the Exploration Program in 1996.
2. Explorations is an interdisciplinary curricular senior undergraduate option
within the Department of Physical Education at the University of Alberta, Ed-
monton. The program began in 1981 as an early model in expeditionary inter-
disciplinary field learning in higher education. At its core is the belief in the
potential for a deep ecological education. Such an education can be accessible
with time apart from conventional schooling and one’s urban context through
a fully functional group living experience with wild places well explored. The
exploration is one of self, others and place. Exploration creator and advisor
Harvey Scott wrote of Explorations in the mid 1980’s:
Julian Smith’s definition of outdoor education as education in and
for the out-of-doors has served us well for many years. Given the im-
minent need to dramatically revise our environmental worldview and
to turn around our treatment of our planet’s biosphere, all aspects of
our education need critical review and revision. All education and
outdoor education in particular need to become a deep ecological
education both in terms of goals and in process. Such an education
would use active, learner-directed, explorations as direct educational
experience in, for, and most importantly with the outdoors. This
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
Imagine 4
deep ecological approach to learning would result in an environmen-
tally activist citizen who sees self as an equal partner with nature.
A deep ecological ethic and world view suggests a radically different
model for education.
Students plan and carry out one or more travel experiences as a focus to aca-
demic inquiry, self-directed learning projects and group living. Explorations in
1994 through to 1996 developed course content, organized and travelled in 1996
by cross country skis from Jasper (Maligne Lake) to the Banff townsite over one
month and seven mountain passes. Later that year they spent six weeks travel-
ling by sea kayak along the shoreline of the Queen Charlotte Islands exploring
the rich cultural heritage of the area. Previous exploration travels have included
a canoe trip from Rocky Mountain House on the North Saskatchewan to his-
toric Fort William near Lake Superior following the old voyageur fur trade route,
dog sledding in the Northwest Territories, a historical retracing of the Methye
Portage/Clearwater River route by snowshoe, and canoeing the Wabasca River
to the Peace River.
Related inquiry, depending on the particular area of travel and individual inter-
ests, have focussed on the historical, natural history and socio-political issues.
All Explorations programs have involved healthy degrees of group process fa-
cilitation, experiential learning methodologies, outdoor travel and living skills,
physical fitness training, journal writing and a major aspiration towards increas-
ing one’s understanding of being part of one’s natural community.
3. Tragically, one group member was killed in a car accident during the planning
phase of Explorations 94/96.
4. Program supervisor Dr. Harvey Scott referred to the 1994/96 Explorations
crew in a recent letter (November 1996): ”I wanted to let you know how proud
I have been to be associated with your brave and happy band of existential
voyageurs. If, as it seems, this is to be the penultimate Exploration, you are a
most fitting finale to a unique and radical experiment in libratory self education.
Each crew has seized the Explorations opportunity in their own right and paint-
ed their own unique vision on the Western Canadian landscape. Yours has been
remarkable in a number of ways - most obviously in the scope and grandeur of
the adventures and wild places you explored ... I guess for me your greatness
has been in your remarkable development as a fully functioning family willing
and able to see each other through the good times and bad. Your team motto
could easily have been, ”From each according to your ability, to each according
to your need.”
5. Harvey Scott, in a January 1997 letter to the Editors: ”My main concern for
Explorations has always been that I have trouble deciding whether Explorations
groups ever get beyond the human self - human other phase of self realization.
Again, although I seem to see people moving to more ”deep ecological conscious-
Copyright 1999 Trumpeter
ness” in different and unique ways, there does seem to be more of a maturation
of a civic engagement evolution. This can be characterized as an ethical ex-
pansion from obsession with survival, to self as bones and marrow, to self as
human/group/ family/community member and then to self as being amongst
the diversity of plant and animal creatures’ community of being.”
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