Vandalising Home

Somewhere in the oeuvre of Hans Blumenberg's Metaphorology he stated that humans are vandalising God's creation having usurped the power of sole owners of the world and the rest of the universe.

In more popular circles the same has finally been mentioned by a Pope: "If we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us."

"We are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on." BBC

The lust to eradicate life from our only common home is a self destructive suicidal mental condition.

 
For some time we have been working hard at making the sixth mass extinction possible at ever greater speed:

Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction

"The oft-repeated claim that Earth’s biota is entering a sixth “mass extinction” depends on clearly demonstrating that current extinction rates are far above the “background” rates prevailing in the five previous mass extinctions. Earlier estimates of extinction rates have been criticized for using assumptions that might overestimate the severity of the extinction crisis. We assess, using extremely conservative assumptions, whether human activities are causing a mass extinction. First, we use a recent estimate of a background rate of 2 mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per 100 years (that is, 2 E/MSY), which is twice as high as widely used previous estimates. We then compare this rate with the current rate of mammal and vertebrate extinctions. The latter is conservatively low because listing a species as extinct requires meeting stringent criteria. Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 114 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way. Averting a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent loss of ecosystem services is still possible through intensified conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly closing."

Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle and Todd M. Palmer. Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances, 2015 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1400253



Stanford researcher declares that the sixth mass extinction is here, Stanford Report, June 19, 2015

Pope Francis’ encyclical: On care for our common home,  Guardian excerpt, (for the impatient) 18.06.2015

Karl Heinrich Leopold Deschner, A Criminal History of Christianity.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

Videos:
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford researcher warns sixth mass extinction is here, video

Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Climate change: state of play, Director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). video

Update:
Extinction of more threatened Australian species is not inevitable, 08.07.2015
James Trezise is a policy coordinator for the Australian Conservation Foundation

We need to tighten the law to protect wildlife homes, 13.07.2015 Don Anton , The Conversation


IMAGES:
Adel Abdessemed, Habibi Sculpture, Berlin

The Bush: Travels in the Mind of Australia, inspired by Don Watson

Some thoughts inspired by Don Watson, interviewed by The World Today at @SydWriters'Fest on soundcloud. His latest book: The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia, Penguin Australia. (2014)

First there is the outstanding and unbelievable voracious appetite for destruction of all things Australian by European colonialisation. To 'wipe it all away' in this newly established British colony, also known as the 'blank slate' of Terra nullius. Proceeding with the 'business as usual' expansionist progress paradigm, all endemic flora and fauna had to disappear. The indigenous owners of the land "felt the full force of Australian colonial brutality" (source). The inflexible aliens found themselves in an alien land and strained to recreate their place of origin that they were habituated to.

The amazing point is not only 'the scale of destruction', but its perpetual continuation right into 21st century contemporary society and landscape. 'The Great Australian Silence' permeates and it is coupled with an inability to confront reality. The mental state is one of oscillating between learning disability and ‘intentional ignorance’, commonly known as denial.

The long list of inconvenient truths about climate disruption, massacres of indigenous people, land degradation and biodiversity impoverishment are overwhelming.

The mind manufactures defense mechanisms for a required state of permanent 'feel good' existence. A delusional unwillingness to face reality is coupled with a melancholy across generations. Like a social transgenerational epigenentics the uncleared deeds of the past linger in the minds of the present. Existence in rural and sub-urban isolation, bereft of meaning, populates the minds with roaming packs of 'black dogs': mental illness, depression and suicide. The others busy themselves with Anglo pragmatism to get things done by recreating the status quo.

A bit of bush lore, Aussie 'nature' (45,000 years of Aboriginal land stewardship) or #wildoz add to the pride and puffs up the chest. Most of the time one is propelled by fossil fuel machines, racing through the paved bush at 100 km/h.

Isolation also molded the psyche of national insecurity, stuck on an island in the Asian Pacific region. Sliding from a democracy without a bill of rights into an oligopoly of vested interests. A withering sovereign state replaced by (semi-) private instrumentalities.



'The bush' is still clear felled in the country, native vegetation is bulldozed and residents of the major cities seem to hunger for tree free cities (10/50) to go with the diy heatwaves. The majority of Australians huddle in cities, mostly along the coast. The bush is still unknown to most. It is a place to dump the weedy garden clippings, fly-tipping or empty the dogs.

The mind is caged by fence posts.


Images:
Henri Rousseau,  La Femme en rouge dans le forêt, (detail),1886
Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea, 1808


Listen:
After a lot of laughter and giggling, the audience demands 'something positive'! at the end of the interview...

Korora - The Solitary Islands Marine Park Coastal Walk

One stop along the Solitary Islands Marine Park coastal walk (map) is Korora. It is a small ocean-side suburb to the north of Coffs Harbour. Approaching from Charlesworth Bay the walk follows a steep littoral rainforest track. One knows when one is near dwellings as the weeds multiply and the sound of yapping dogs can be heard. All over NSW it seems a tradition to chuck the 'garden clippings' over the fence, into the 'bush'. They strain to distinguish themselves from this amorphous  'bush' of bio-diversity to grow a mono-culture of lawn and pretty weeds. The only welcomed animals are dogs, stuffed with native marsupial meat. The barking cacophony is not the only extension beyond their fence posts, but the diverse bush is also simply annexed as a tip. The chuck and grab formula applies all over coastal Australia - it is a frame of mind.


When the McMansions are 'just in your face' on the cliff top, there are only dead trees and stumps providing ocean 'views'. The bush reserve is simply disposed over by private interests. Coal- powered air conditioners hum along to the barking audio pollution. No solar ever in sight. The thick line of weeds emanating from these non-places get a regular dousing of pesticide. A sign reads 'These trees have been poisoned'.  Juvenile brush boxes hug the edge of the cliff site,  retaining the soil close to the walk way. This endemic coastal rain forest tree has a colourful bark and white flowers.

Leading down steep stairs to the lagoon more tree stumps grace the walk and indicate that it is a culture scape. Till in the 70s this water body has been described as 'a pristine water hole'. Now it stinks and appears to be a health hazard. "A decade on and the lagoon is choked with silt, weeds, pollution and rubbish." It is still fringed by a bit of native vegetation, if not annexed by the properties hugging the stream. A shy yellow-billed spoonbill (Platalea flavipes) is wading in the foul slime-covered waters searching for food. What option has it got but this human sewer?


More houses are directly ON the beach sprouting stumps and green lawn. Unusual white quartz, pumice accumulates here on the sand. Native Pandanus and Crinum pedunculatum scent the air in a positive way - but the stench wins.

At the beach packs of dogs are let loose. Wildlife like plovers and goannas flee to make way for these feces and urine depositing machines. Most of the poo remains. Even as a human being one does not feel that one's safety is guaranteed. The hyper abundance of canines without effective enforcement makes this a 'backgarden of pet enthusiasts' only. Australian wildlife and walkers/ visitors find themselves in a stinking, noisy and threatening place.



The ocean/surf also smells off-putting which makes one wonder about the sewage arrangements of concrete coastal sprawl. Looking back to the cliff one has spectacular views of the human-made erosion from eradicating the cliff vegetation. Landslides are just there where trees have been poisoned and killed. The beach also seems to erode rapidly in this coal-fuelled climate.

Australia stock-taking

 

Gumbayngirr country, today called Coffs Harbour. Where the original inhabitants were pushed into fringe camps. A detailed account of this time can be found here.

Expansion seems to be hard wired to the European project, or even 'man'. Grabbing the neighbour's stuff, walking into other people's places and behaving like 'vandals'. The new 'living space' is always gotten by military aggression. The world is a playground to extract and enlarge the pursuit of more and more. A planet becomes tabula rasa to subdue and treat as a quarry in the metabolism (pdf) of rapidly multiplying flag-waving chest-pounding nationalists in a post-nationalist world. The 'blank slate' to project the pathologically insatiable hunger for more is actually a bio-diverse array of life and culture which is eradicated to convert all into a machinery of fossil fuels, stuff, meat and profit. "Nothing but bush" thinks the Australian mindset and bulldozes bio-diversity and replaces it with a dull and impoverished mono-culture. Land, water, ocean and air degradation follows. The unique Australian flora and fauna is replaced with poodles, ponies, meat, and pink weeds.

Pandanus

The project of 'civilisation' comes to a grinding halt as it becomes obvious that the 'stuff' is running out, the bills are piling up for the heritage damage and pollution. The planet itself has been brought to the tipping point of becoming uninhabitable ( for life as we know it).  A culture of mean stewardship and dysfunctional oikos management is a bankrupt 'lifestyle'. As we drive our only home against the wall with eyes wide open, we are already eying the next habitable planets for evasion and expansion.

So much could have been learnt from the way of life of indigenous peoples, living in small populations and valuing human culture and law...


More viewings:
I am Aboriginal, film by John Pilger
Australia Day,  Ken Oathcarn, Rap News Video
"Nothing but bush" cartoon


More readings:
Aboriginal history of the Coffs Harbour region, PDF
Australia Day is a time for mourning, not celebration, Guardian,  260115
Henry Reynolds: If We Are To Re-Think Australia Day, Where Should We Begin, New Matilda, 220115
Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Tradition, Truth & Tomorrow, The Monthly


Audio:
Padraic Gibson / Paddy Gibson, 1788: War for Eora Country - Genocide and resistance in early colonial Sydney


There could be 50 C days in Sydney and Melbourne... Guardian / CSIRO


Images
via Old Camp at Coffs Creek, Tony Hart