By The Way

People are surprised to learn that the environmental movement is older than the sixties. In fact, one could say it had its beginning hundreds of years ago.  The romantic poets, particularly Wordsworth, were environmentalists. Wordsworth himself saved the Lake District from a rail link through to the coast. William Blake railed against the “dark satanic mills”.  Even further back we find significant laws in the Bible that reflect an ecological world view. For example the Jewish dietary laws work to inhibit the destructive consumption of resources. These laws inhibit what you can eat and therefore limit consumption of natural resources.  It’s interesting to reflect that these Biblical laws have the same effect as ancient Aboriginal law in that they inhibit what you can lawfully take from the land and use. Environmentalism then is not an invention of the Hippies and the sixties  but a deeply embedded awareness of our relationship to the earth and each other. We may have lost touch with this awareness, perhaps  during and after the Industrial Revolution only now it’s being rebirthed; hopefully in time.