Andrew Wetzler's Blog
Noah's Law
December 24, 2007
Posted by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
Yesterday, Thomas Friedman published a column in the New York Times inspired by a recent article about the last two giant Yangtze soft-shell turtles. "It struck me as I read about that story" Friedman writes "that our generation has entered a phase that no previous generation has ever experience: the Noah phase. . . .We may have to be the first generation in human history that literally has to act like Noah--to save the last pairs of a wide range of species."
Friedman is right, of course. Today, humanity is relentlessly driving animal and plant species across the globe towards oblivion. But ours is hardly the first generation to confront the moral obligation created by humanity's unique combination of self-awareness, awareness of other life, and power.
Thirty-five years ago, the United States passed the Endangered Species Act, which, interestingly enough, has come to be known as "Noah's law" (even by its critics) for its hard-edged commitment to save all plants and animals faced with extinction. The Endangered Species Act, in turn, was only brought about because of the work of earlier generations that confronted the terrible legacy wrought by the indiscriminate killing of plants and animals. From Aldo Leopold's famous essay On a Monument to the Pigeon to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring; conservationists in the United States have a long history of fighting for plants and wildlife. And it's not just conservationists in United States, as Friedman's column makes clear.
That's why Friedman's appeal to Noah is so appropriate. Not only because in the story of Noah, which is deeply ingrained in the western tradition, God commands Noah to save "every living thing" and "keep them alive," as Friedman notes. But also because of the way the story ends. After the flood, God says to Noah:
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. (Genesis 9:2)
Without that last phrase, God could be seen as merely making a prediction; but by the addition of that one, single phrase, God also gives to humanity a profound obligation. The fate of birds and fishes and animals is not foreordained: it is placed in our hand.
At the end of Noah's journey, God also makes a "covenant" with him, and all living things, and promises never to destroy the world again. As the Jewish tradition recognizes, a covenant, like a contract, often imposes mutual obligation s on both God and humanity. I believe that one way to read the Noah story is that one of the obligations imposed on us by Noah's covenant with God is to the obligation to use our power and dominion over the earth to safeguard all of the varieties of life that Noah, himself, saved..
Nor is the western religious tradition the only one with profound things to say about the ethnical duty owed to other forms of life. The great eastern religions, Hinduism and Buddhism most prominently, contain similar insights.
That's why Friedman's central point is particularly worth dwelling on here at Switchboard, where we so often (and appropriately) post about global warming and energy:
The world is rightly focused on climate change. But if we don't have a strategy of reducing global carbon emissions and preserving biodiversity, we could end up in a very bad place....
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Comments
danny bloom — Dec 25 2007 09:08 PM
Andrew
Good blog post. I read the Friedman piece the other day, too, somebody at Dot Earth blog steered me there in the comments section. I am working on some similiar ideas, yet different, revovling around what i call Arktopisa, sustainable ark retreats scattered around the world where survivors of global warming might live in the year 2500 or so, if, IF, our current fixes do not work in the next 100 years or so. I am also tied in the the idea of "polar cities" and they are part of Arktopia. Google the terms and you will see or email me at danbloom GMAIL for more info. I am in Taiwan, Tufts 1971, Jewish dreamer, without a vision the people perish, remember that one? SMILE
also see for Arktopia
http://gwas101.blogspot.com
p[ls take me seriously, at least email me and ask what i doing, okay/.
shalom
danny bloom — Dec 25 2007 09:10 PM
For example, see here:
Arktopia, "ark cities" located in various locations around the world, built into mountainsides where cavernous rooms and housing facilities will allow humans to survive terrible climate change events that destroy civilization as we know it around year 2498.
danny bloom — Dec 25 2007 09:17 PM
Andrew,
i hope you don't delete these posts, they are on target, although a bit off the radar i know. What i am driving at is this: why might need arks for animals and wildlife, true, we do, for sure. But we also MIGHT need arks, ark cities, for survivors of global warming's most terrible impacts in 500 years if all our fixes now do not work or do not get implemented due to political squabbling North vs South, rich and poor. left and right. So I am zooming ahead to year 2500 just to imagine, just a non threatening thought experiment, the need for polar cities and arktopia ark cities to house survivors, humans, of glo war. It's not an idea who time has come, and i hope it's time never comes, but just to think about such a horrible end game might make people reflect and take action NOW. we cannot wait for the right and left to make friends and be nice to each other. we are in deep doo doo now, this Planet Earth. So polar cities are a vision of what the future might be, and Arktopia is a vision of what might come. Maybe, just maybe, we should toy wioth these ideas now, all the while working on fixes now. Do you agree yes or no? curious to hear your POV?
and i hope your editors don't delte my posts. many editors do. what are they afraid of? new ideas call for new focus. I am not an end of the worlder, I am for the survival of the human species and it might take ark cities to get us over the hump, in 500 years or so. we are entering dangerous waters, as you know....