On a mid afternoon in January we watched a bobcat stroll nonchalantly across the headlands of the North American continent. Its belly apparently satisfied, it soon sat down and began grooming itself on a bluff overlooking the rocky Pacific shore. Oystercatchers, godwits and curlews fed on a reef a hundred feet below, among dozens of harbor seals that were sprawled on the exposed shale during low tide. Nearby, burrowing owls perched outside underground digs, highly attuned, I suspect, to the cat’s proximity. A white tailed kite soared overhead, western bluebirds flitted over open pastures, brush rabbits moved from the cover of coyote brush to nibble succulent greens. Within a square kilometer was life in abundance, wild and relatively unchanged over hundreds of years. And from our vantage point we could see the city of San Francisco and pick out its downtown, its culturally distinct districts, Golden Gate Park. The city known for tech superstars, master artisans, and eclectic spirits lay a mere 15 miles distant but seemed a world away.
Life in the city and on the headlands and in every nook and cranny is linked by a thread, and it moves beyond the living and winds its way through rock and water and branches into the atmosphere so everything is connected. The Gaia principle, first proposed by English scientist James Lovelock and named for the Greek goddess of earth, says the living interacts with the nonliving to form a self-regulating system that maintains life. It’s a perspective that views the entire planet as a living organism, having the tendencies of a nurturing mother. Indigenous societies recognized the principle long before science.
Stephan Harding, a former student of James Lovelock and a deep ecology research fellow at Schumacher College in England says, “It’s our natural humanity to feel the earth as alive and as a mother… (But we) don’t relate to Gaia with our aboriginality; we relate to her through our greed and our desire for more stuff and more money and more prestige…We’ve pushed nature back, evoking feedbacks… (and if) we don’t do anything about greenhouse gasses and the destruction of biodiversity, which helps us control greenhouse gasses amongst other things, we haven’t got much hope, really, not in the long term. That’s the science.”
Such dire warnings might raise an eyebrow but convictions and behaviors are slow to follow. The majority of us don’t take environmental threats seriously enough to modify our actions or spending habits. We have friends whose wealthy neighbors express heartfelt concern for the environment even as they shop for bigger sailboats and plan yet another European excursion, and when given a choice between a rooftop solar array and an updated bath, a new jacuzzi is the sure winner. This isn’t to say we deny ourselves nonessential travel or reasonable home improvements, but the true costs of our activities should be weighed against personal efforts to lessen our environmental impact. It’s a matter of respect and gratitude, where carbon neutral or carbon negative living is the goal and extraneous indulgences are earned.
The predicament where we find ourselves— questioning the earth’s ability to continue its support of human life— is not helped by an economy and GDP formula in serious need of updating. Canadian scientist David Suzuki points out that essential services such as those provided by soil-building mycorrhiza, pollinating insects, and aquifer-replenishing wetlands are viewed as “externalities” in our quest for wealth and given no monetary value at all, yet without these we’re subscribing to an economy better suited for Mars.
Home and building valuations are also behind the times, at least in some states. Not long ago I met a home appraiser and asked what price he put on insulation or improved energy efficiencies. “None at all,” he said. “Banks and lenders are only interested in general building conditions, number of beds and baths and total square footage. Besides, 75 percent of owners don’t even know if their homes are insulated and there’s no easy way for me to measure it.”
Aldo Leopold warned of two spiritual dangers: one is supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery and the other that heat comes from the furnace. Both are pleas to understand our deep connection to the earth and the need for a land ethic rooted in sustainability. Today there’s a third danger: supposing that humanity’s greatest environmental threat is for someone else to fix.
The bobcat stood up and yawned and stretched and began a meander southward. The kite stopped mid flight and hovered, scanning the grasslands for errant gophers. Small bits of fractured rock broke free from the bluff and rained onto the reef below. A coyote appeared on a rise to our east, an exceptionally handsome specimen unconcerned by our presence. We looked south towards the great City on the Bay, thought about its long and colorful history, the talent and spirit of its people, the risks it faces from rising seas and storms that grow ever stronger.
And standing by was a watchful and responsive mother, prepared for any outcome.
