AGENDA
- Debate preview
- Recap
- Native American views of nature
Debate preview--what should be done about disappearing wilderness?
- Rewild - Georges Monbiot (11/6)
- Restore - Discussed by Robert Eliot (11/3)
- Refocus - William Cronon (10/25)
- Relinquish - David Treuer, for example
Getting ready--
- This week: how we think about, feel about, and value wilderness
- Next week: Monday, Tuesday, is wilderness disappearing because there are too many people?
- After that: discuss rewilding and restoration
- Debate
Recap
- E O. Wilson--wild places are inherently valuable, important to preserve, provider of resources but also source of strong emotions, feelings of peace, and sense of wonder
- William Cronon--wilderness is a "human creation"--literally made -- ways of valuing diverse and cultural
Wilderness as .... terrifying, sacred in a frightening way, comfortable like a church, frontier, tourist destination, place for being authentic
All western ideas, all drawn from European and American artists, poets, naturalists, authors
The Indians removed from Yosemite ... did they have their own way of thinking about and valuing nature?
Ken Burns, The American Buffalo (11:50 - 23)
- kinship with nature--a buffalo can consent, "give itself to the people"
- reverence for nature
- nature as resource
- conservation?
Joseph Marshall, The Lakota Way (p. 210-211)
Kelsey Leonard -- water conservation -- TED talk (0 - 11)
- kinship with nature--other natural entities, like water, moon, a mountain
- waterways as persons with legal standing
- natural entities that have been declared legal persons: Klamath river (also here), other countries
What are the limits of what can be kin? What should have legal standing?
- some other water issues
- Groundwater depletion (NYT)--Should groundwater get legal standing?
- Kelsey Leonard resources
Non-native supporters of same idea
Christopher Stone, "Should Trees Have Standing?" (non-native law professor)
Suppose a factory is polluting the stream and there are people being harmed downstream.
Now: The people have rights and can sue.
Stream has rights would mean:
- Suit can be brought against factory owner in the name of the stream (through a guardian or trustee); i.e. stream has "standing" to sue.
- Factory owner is liable for damage to the stream, independent of impact on humans.
- Judgment will benefit stream, making it "whole" again.
- With many EPA regulations about water, why would any environmentalist want legal standing for natural entities? Article