Stewardship is a human issue, not political (great OpEd)

[GuvWurld]

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=21216

Stewardship is a human issue, not political
by Susan E. Morton, McKinleyville, 3/3/2007

In 1804, Lewis and Clark left Camp Dubois for a wilderness so vast it seemed beyond comprehension, so unknown that they feared they may encounter the woolly mammoth and giant sloth on their way. That year, there were less than 1 billion of us on the planet.

(snip)

We’ve tamed our West. We have colonized our world. We have drawn a line around every resource, every probable resource and every future resource. We have sucked the force from the Earth, taken what we fancy and spewed the residuals into the skies. As a civilization founded on the dissipation of resources, we live magnificently, in style that Meriwether Lewis could not have imagined. We’re on top of our game, masters of this time and place.

We just don’t know how to keep it up.

It is not a Green Party issue. Sustainability is not Republican or Democratic issue. It is the issue of our time.

[monarch]

1. Terrific!

I loved the use of Lewis and Clark. Do we know anything about the author?

[GuvWurld]

3. For more about the author

This is an article from the North Coast Journal, another of our local papers here in Humboldt County, CA. It was published last summer and describes what Morton does for a living.

http://www.northcoastjournal.com/072706/cover0727.html

Here are two letters to the editor she had published in the Eureka Reporter, the publication in the OP.

http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=20693
http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=18469

I do not know her personally and found these links through simple searches.

[monarch]

5. Thanks for the info.

I got no place Googling her. Sounds like a very interesting person. I wish her well in her cancer fight.

[greyl]

2. Mmm, I don't know. It's too culture-centric.

What definition of "we" is being used? I don't think it means fellow humans, I think it means people of our culture.

[GuvWurld]

4. You're probably right about her intended use of "we"

This is a small town paper that has published other OpEds and letters from people denying global warming. My guess is that the author understands the audience she is writing for and is trying to give everyone in our community a sense of connectedness to the problem and responsibility for being a part of the solution. So, I think you're probably right about her use of "we" being culture-centric, but I think it is even more localized than you might have imagined. I like this piece and posted it because I think it has an interesting angle on building this bridge to connect the other part of the "we" that "we" are too often separated from.

[Shallah Kali]

6. yes and it is the people of her culture she is trying to reach

All those USs and WEs were to encourage the reader to realize that The Enivoroment is not some foreign place. It is the here and now they live in. I read an interesting piece some where recently where the author pointed out that for many the word environment means something outside of themselves and instead suggested using the world creation as it is more inclusive.

[depakid]

7. Considering Clinton's regulatory behavior

alongside the other corporatist Dems, it certainly doesn't seem to be a very important Democratic issue.