camp:
Baker National Forest, Baker County, Oregon
Today,
we cut willows to plant by the creek tomorrow. Willows remind me of biotic
potential. They’re the natural source of salicylic acid; they’re the reason
humans discovered aspirin. I’ve always been a bit wary of drugs. I’ll take
hardcore things for serious problems—horse pills of ciprofloxacin when I got
sick in Ghana—but I’m not a fan of NSAIDs (aka non-steroidal anti-inflammatory
drugs) in general. I feel irrational, because I’d gladly take a tincture of
willow bark to relieve pain. Chemically, there’s no difference. So why the
hesitancy? Part of me just wants to be a hippie, and part of me is a
competitive masochist who wants to push through the pain and let it wash over
me. I had to re-evaluate this philosophy over the summer, when my cramps got so
bad I couldn’t stand up and was on the verge of passing out at work. I took two
tiny pink pills and magically felt better. I felt good, amazing, but it seemed
like I was letting the pain win and forgoing the humility I was supposed to learn.
It’s healthy to know we’re human. It’s healthy to feel out of control
sometimes. To feel weak.
But
humans don’t like to feel weak. We always want to be in control, both as
individuals and as a culture, a civilization. The most common reason I hear for
preventing species extinction goes back to that same willow. If we lost another
plant, frog, insect or fungi, we lost their unique DNA. We lose the opportunity
to study them, to reproduce and mass produce their compounds, We lose the cure
for cancer, the keys to medical progress, the fountain of youth. All this and
more, lurking unsuspectingly in the Amazon or the great trenches of the Pacific
Ocean. How many lives could we save, if only we brought back the habitat?
This
defense reeks of arrogance and pragmatism. We have a long and bloody history of
assuming we’re the only species that matters on this planet. Even those who’ve
gotten past that idea act as though we have a right, a responsibility, to
manipulate nature as we see fit.
I
want to cry foul. The rainforests aren’t here to cure our diseases. I think
most of us know that. But to expect people to care about things for their own
sake—how far can we get with that? We care about things almost perfectly based
on how much we will be affected. Even Ed Abbey spoke of wilderness as a place
for men to retreat from civilization, a place to wage guerilla warfare against
a fascist government. People cry over our disappearing rainforests, so
charismatic and colorful. People care about polar bears, pandas, tigers, wolves.
Who loses sleep over endangered snails or spiders? Who cries for the lichen?
And
should we care? It’s easier to say that a polar bear has an intrinsic right to
exist. Does a tree have that same right? How far are we willing to extend it?
Until it interferes with a human life? A human’s ability to make money? Or
merely dislike and distaste? If the planet we make is one we can support
ourselves on, does anything else matter for its own sake?
I
want to say yes. I believe in those rights, at least until they interfere with
human safety. But it’s so hard to see the world from the perspective of another
species. I hope we can get there. Because we need to wake up, and I don’t want
to live on a world of only us and the things we immediately need.
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