Oldal 9 [9]
Introduction
Does Eco-Politics Exist and
Does it Have Need of a Philosophy?
1. Why do we fail to notice the great changes?
I read somewhere that when Captain Cook’s ship first approached the
shores of Australia in 1770, his passengers were wondering with great
curiosity how the natives living in Stone Age conditions would react to
their appearance. To their great surprise they did not react at all; they
stared straight through the three-masted barque. It was too big to be
real. They scattered in headlong flight only when the rowboats were
lowered and armed sailors started to row ashore. Of this they could
guess the meaning.
We fail to notice the great changes, because they are too great to be
comprehended. We experience them from within and change together
with them. Thus, we do not perceive the rotation of the Earth. At the
same time, they are too small and slow to be noticed. ‘The level of the
warming of the Earth’s surface from year to year can barely be measured.
The destruction or drying out of the topsoil and the pollution of the
waters takes decades and by the time this process has been brought to
completion, the generation into whose life it brought change has died
out. Its descendants are already born into the changed circumstances and
find those natural. The changes of planetary significance cannot be linked
to notable dates or significant events. They lack immediate relevance and
therefore cannot expect the attention of the public, especially in the age
of sensation-driven mass media on the hunt for daily sensational stories.
‘The stir caused by the “accidents” of Chernobyl or Fukushima merely
reminds us of the unmanageable and immeasurable risk represented by
spent radioactive fuel, nuclear experiments and outmoded nuclear
submarines peacefully rusting at the bottom of the ocean — not at some
point in the distant future but already for quite a while now.