Publisher : Counterpoint (February 16, 2021)
Hardcover : 272 pages
The daughter of a biologist, the wife of a biologist, and the mother of a biologist, it’s safe to say that Kathleen Dean Moore has an affinity for biology, environmentalism specifically, and comes across as a staunch activist concerning the deleterious effects of climate change in her most recent collection of essays entitled: Earth’s Wild Music. Awarded the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy status at Oregon State University in 2006, Moore developed a field course entitled Philosophy of Nature which she conducts in the lake country of the Pacific Cascades. This is an outdoors woman who has spent the bulk of her life postulating the theory that humankind has a moral responsibility to care about the welfare and survival of the other species that occupy our planet with us.
Viewing the sounds of the natural world, especially those emanating from the songbirds, as the grand symphony of life, Moore laments that these voices are falling silent at the onslaught of Earth’s sixth great extinction, which is already well underway. Species populations are in rapid decline well beyond fifty percent of where they were a mere decade ago. The author takes dead aim at the awesome lobbying power of the global fossil fuel industry, the extraction mentality of insatiably profit-driven corporations, and the staggering loss of habitat due to wildfires and flooding as the earth continues to warm at an alarming rate.
States the author in her emotional final plea to humanity to save itself from itself:
Any culture that prides itself on accumulating wealth instead of sharing it, any culture that gobbles up the fecundity of the planet instead of nurturing it, any economy that eats its own feet, any economy of infinite extraction, will kill off the sources of its material and spiritual sustenance-the growing things, plants and animals – and ultimately itself (p. 240).
Moore is now 74 years old and still fighting the good fight, although it must be exhausting, but as she so eloquently states, when all that appears to be left is hope, then hope is what you cling to. Environmentalists and a select few American politicians, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of note, are now sounding the warning alarm with an increased sense of urgency. All state that the Earth only has ten years, one decade, if that, before it will be irrevocably too late to back away from the brink of environmental collapse, and yet climate deniers, corporate bullies. and religious zealots all seem to not take the threat too seriously, or to welcome the end as their culminating blaze of glory that will allow them to achieve their concept of nirvana. For the rest of us, those who care deeply about their children and grandchildren and what kind of a world they will inherit, the sounds of the natural world are now a blaring S.O.S. being heard loud and clear.
Written with an orchestra conductor’s ear and the lyricism of sensitive poet, Earth’s Wild Music is an important contribution to the cause of environmental activism on a global scale.
And just why would this review be of specific interest to anyone in India? Consider this statement quoted from The Guardian and provided by the author:
By 2100, 36 percent of the glaciers in the Himalayan mountains and the Hind Kush will have melted, even if the world warms by “only” 1.5 degrees centigrade. The melting will critically affect the water supplies of 2 billion people, including the 250 million that live in the mountains, and 1.65 billion more who rely on rivers flowing from the Himalayan glaciers into India, Pakistan, and China (p. 203).
If the worldwide Corona virus pandemic has taught the family of man anything, it has taught us that we are all in this together.
It’s my considered opinion, as an environmental writer, as a landscape architect, and as a caring human being with innocent grandchildren living here in my home, that this is the most important environmental book written thus far in the new millennium.
