This Is Hope: Green Vegans and the New Human Ecology - Softcover

Anderson, Will

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780998902 ISBN 13: 9781780998909

Publisher: Earth Books, 2013

Synopsis

Though categorized as Ecology/Environment, "This Is Hope" is a crossover book for self-identified environmentalists, species rights advocates, vegans and vegetarians, those dedicated to true sustainability, fish and wildlife "management" professionals, students of deep ecology, and those who want to know the biocentric story behind our dietary, consumer, and reproductive choices.

The issues most important to us converge at our human ecology. Our human ecology consists of our relationships with and between other people, other species, our institutions, and the physical environment -- between us and our external environment. Because of its comprehensive consideration of these relationships to all else, an examination of our human ecology reveals how multiple issues are connected--issues that advocates from diverse causes care about deeply.

In "This is Hope", I compare the outcomes of two human ecologies; one is tragic, the other is full of promise. I describe in depth our current human ecology to illustrate how we are living inappropriately, cruelly, and unsustainably. It is obsolete and has been for a long time. Our current human ecology is the cause of our overpopulation, our overconsumption of resources, the poverty of ecosystems and people, and our disregard for the rights of individuals from other species. I propose the new human ecology to replace it.

The new human ecology is characterized by Seven Results that we create the moment we change our personal behaviors. The Results include reduced human populations, increased possibilities for social and economic justice, and a vegan human ecology. Building on deep ecology, the topics I consider include our impacts on ecosystems; species rights as a concept that is essential to environmental advocates; fish and wildlife management and how it cannot stop the loss of biodiversity in the presence of our current human ecology; carnism; human overpopulation; the poverty found in social and economic injustice; and the environmental communities' misguided reliance on the omnivore movement.

I examine Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma among other works and popular media's distorted portrayal of veganism. I critique his misuse of biological terms, describe how he misleads readers in his accounting of philosophers associated with animal rights, and describe the flaws in his methodology that led him to dismiss vegans as misguided urbanites.

Over a span of three decades, I managed campaigns for species rights and environmental organizations. We operated without the overarching context we needed to make the connections between those and other issues that pulled at my heart. Environmentalists seemed unaware that there is immense suffering in ecosystem destruction. Animal rightists ignored the innate value of all species and too often chose sentience as the ultimate test for responding to issues. They failed to acknowledge the dependence of the sentient upon the nonsentient and their ecosystems. During and since then I wrote "This Is Hope: Green Vegans and The New Human Ecology / How We Will Find Our Way to a Humane and Environmentally Sane Future."

For the first time, advocates from many fields will see that our human ecology is the context they have been seeking to further their successes. Above all, I explain why all of these issues are connected by a common thread--our human ecology. Because of the depth and breadth of the subject matter, I substantiate my work with several hundred citations from the scientific and reliable popular literature.

About this title

From the Author:

While sitting in a Seattle pizza restaurant in 1968, I took off my leather belt, woven leather ring, and my cherished leather sandals. After I put them on the table, I sat there, pondering the story behind their making. In this raw reality, I suddenly understood who had owned the skin before I paid a stranger to turn him or her into leather. In my mind's eye, I finally saw an expressive individual from another species in full color with a face, a body, and a life. What had I done to the original owner? This was an easy decision.

I resolved to stop wearing body parts taken from others. The more I acknowledged their nonhuman identities, the more my own identity was transformed. It was a strong mental and emotional event that later unfolded to become a life-altering process.

A year before this, I had realized that I was presenting myself consciously as a vegetarian. I was not proselytizing to anyone; I just felt "vegetarian." I quietly told individuals from other species, more in thought and "vibe" than spoken word, that I was not a meat-eater. I would consciously act like an herbivore at peace and move more slowly and deliberately in the world as one should do when in the presence of wildlife. This evolved into a growing awareness and appreciation for the beauty of trees, flowers, insects, and eventually, ecosystems. It felt good.

Unexpectedly, I was a person with a new identity. I loved being in the presence of other sentient beings and feeling happy because they reminded me that I was no longer a threat to them. I felt lighter within. And more at peace.

Many of us have gone through this awakening. We understand this is important not because it is about us, but because it is about others. We work to inoculate our communities with this experience because we understand that this dietary and lifestyle transformation of relationships with sentient species, non-sentient species, and ecosystems must be our new ecological identity, our species' place in the world. We are working and hoping against the odds that enough people will realize this. Perhaps we are unsure of what empathy and compassion can accomplish. But we shouldn't be.

Change is a process, not often an event. I have learned that this single transformation, from omnivore to vegetarian and later vegan, was just a beginning. There was much more to understand about the other life-and-death consequences of my actions. And I started asking different questions.

How can we live intimately with our domestic animal companions in our homes and then deny they share similar experiences and states of being as we do? We understand, and appreciate their rich experience of living a life. How is it then that we refuse to see individuals of farmed and hunted species in the same light? Why do we think it is logical and appropriate that we have loving, humane relationships with some, and brutal, murderous relationships with others who have the same capacities to experience happiness and suffering as do our companions?

As we feel the presence of our companion cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, horses, and others, we are given this great chance to remain steadily conscious of the wildlife and ecosystems around us, near and far--the coyotes in the city and the wolves in the forest--and be reminded of the presence and condition of biodiversity.

What do spiders, snakes, and plants experience that would direct my behavior to their special needs? And what of plants that send chemical signals when they are under physical attack, signals that create measurable responses in other plants? Why do we think we have the right to ignore precaution and caring as we run road graders over Earth's skin? The most adaptive, and ethical response for our species is to assume everyone, everywhere can suffer and that all have a right not to suffer at our hands. Earth does not have to prove her innocence to be protected. That is all I personally need to know. Will it be enough for you?

I have witnessed the near tripling of Earth's population since I was born, the loss of ecosystems and species, the unspeakable malice we inflict on others, and the searing reality of human poverty in many places on our planet. While working on campaigns to stop our cruelty toward wild and domestic species and the decline of ecosystems, I found that these issues are connected. Our responses to them are woefully inadequate because we are failing to challenge our beliefs and behaviors that cause this harm.

If we are to succeed in our own survival and protect the ecosystems that give us life, our response has to be comprehensive, not piecemeal. The name I have given to that response is the new human ecology.

About the Author:

Will is an environmentalist/species rights professional who for 30-plus years has conducted campaigns while employed for regional and national organizations. He most recently founded Green Vegans (www dot greenvegans dot org). He lives in Seattle.

About this edition

• Publisher: Earth Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1780998902
• ISBN 13: 9781780998909
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 478