Non-lethal insecticide?

On the subject of man's plundering of nature, did anyone here hear Samuel West interviewed on Radio 4 this morning, the birdwatching programme? He quoted from Uncle Vanya (which he's preparing to perform at the moment) and afterwards I had to dig the text off my shelves - I'd forgotten how powerfully accurate it is, and couldn't believe it was written in 1896. Everything West quoted was depressingly but incredibly appropriate.

 

I have no idea who Uncle Vanya is, but with a name like Uncle Vanya, he already has my respect

 

Ha ha, true. But he does address man's plundering of nature, use of animals, deforestation and many other things in a much angrier way than many of today's ecologists. I have been impressed by the ecological writings of authors such as Richard Mabey, but have lost a lot of contact with the environmental movement precisely because they cease to talk about things like pesticides and the stuff we've been discussing in a forthright way. They bore us all to death with jargon. For instance, I recently got involved with an eco housing project, but there was so much jargon I literally couldn't understand what was supposed to be going on. No-one really seemed to care about the environment as such, just offsetting this, sustainable that...Chekhov may not have been an ecologist but he certainly pre-empted the crises of the present time, and not only in that play.

 

If you're not already familiar with it, I bet you would be interested in this:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna

In the early 1990s, as happens at least once in every generation, there was another big push to 'sort the world out'. I don't say that in a condescending way. People were genuine about it (even if half of them did need chemical and/or herbal assistance to make them realise it).

If you listen to the 'song' in the Youtube link, I suggest you do so without distraction, as its much more profound than cheesy 'ambient techno'

 

Wow thanks - 20 years since I heard this!

 

Simon - I would agree with you about the devastating effect man is having on the environment. However, I think that the devastation is mainly cause by the sheer quantity of humans, rather than by individual humans per se.

And why do we have such quantities? Its because there is nothing to control the growth in the population of man, unlike the factors that control the size of all other species. So perhaps we need more control - not less.