Bill Tuthill wrote:
Larry C wrote:

I'm not sure that I buy the arguement that the Native Americans
were
all that environmentally conscious. For example, the Iroquois
Confederation was formed to expand the tribes territory for the Fur
Trade and as a response to the encroachment of the Northern Tribes
supported by the French. They needed more territory because they
had
decimated the furbearing populations in their original tribal
areas.
Hardly a conservation ethic.

I'm not saying that Native Americans were environmentalists, just
that
modern Environmentalism had its roots in indigenous religion. In the
Torah and classical Greco-Roman literature, you seldom or never
encounter
wonder of the natural world. Virgil's Bucolic (Eclogues) are mostly
about farming. In European literature, nature worship reached its
peak
with German Romanticism, and even there, nature is largely tamed by
man.

Whereas in (many tribes') Native American religion, places are sacred
in and of themselves. There might be a rock (present-day Devil's
Tower),
or a place on a river (Ishi Pishi Fall on the Klamath) considered
sacred.

It could be this respect for natural features that inspired Thoreau,
Leopold Aldo, John Muir, Edward Abbey (etc.) to formulate the seminal
ideas of Environmentalism. Unless you have a different theory.

If one considers earlier Native cultures, there seem to have been
several that suffered from environmental collapses, maybe due to
climate change. The Adena in the East and the Cliff Dwellers in the
west for an example.

I don't know about the Adena, but the Anasazi cliff dwellers were
either
escaping severe drought, or pushed out by invading Navajo, or both.

If I would compare Environmentalism to a religion, I would have to
compare it to pre-christian Celtic religions (commonly referred to as
Druids), which would qualify as nature worship.

Larry C wrote:


If I would compare Environmentalism to a religion, I would have to
compare it to pre-christian Celtic religions (commonly referred to as
Druids), which would qualify as nature worship.


Actually, the development of true environmental ethics is very recent.
Holmes Rolston was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward
Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities in 2003; See:
http://www.templetonprize.org/bios_recent.html

Professor Rolston uses natural history examples to illustrate
principles of environmental ethics that are intrinsic and independent
from human value judgment.

Most recently, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to
Wangari Maathai; See:
http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/2004/press.html

Mrs. Maathai is best known for helping to establish sustainable
environmental practices in Africa, and her organizing poor communities
and women by using an environmental impetus.





--
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

- From "Ballad of Serenity" by Joss Whedon