Dianne Dumanoski: From The Land Ethic to Global Humanity

Dianne Dumanoski has a new book coming out, The End of the Long Summer, and so i have been reflecting on this talk of hers from 1999.

My presentation today is based on a work in progress, an enterprise I've called "Rethinking the Environmental Crisis." ...

The heart of the crisis that is upon us is not about pandas or tropical rainforests or about saving the Earth. This is a crisis first and foremost about humans and our ability to adapt our now global culture to the radically changed world we now inhabit. ... Perhaps we would begin to understand the meaning of this crisis if we called it a "humanity crisis" rather than an environmental crisis and gave Earth Day a new name--the Festival of Human Continuity. ...

As we move into this uncharted territory of global humanity, many obstacles stand in the way of this new understanding including the dominant thrust of the western philosophical tradition. Western thought has been preoccuppied with themes of emancipation and delusions autonomy (See Glendon, Bellah, Midgley, Mill, Taylor, Ferry, Noble, Prigogine.) How can a civilization hell bent on unfettered freedom and autonomy suddenly confront the challenge of limits and mutual obligation within a single global humanity?