Earth Beat:

Tracing the environment movement

from global to local, from bush to city

JOUR-UA 9503

Journalism and Society:

Tracing the Movement:

Before Thoreau

Hunter-gatherers to farmers

Ancient Rome: Civilisation = sewerage 800 BC

Medieval Europe - city edicts on waste, forestry, „poaching‟

Mauritius: extinction of the Dodo – 1690

India: Tree huggers of Jodhpur – 1731

England: Malthus – Population - 1798

US: Franklin, Bartram

Thoreau contemporaries: John Ruskin, Samuel Bowles,

John Muir

Thoreau - Walden

1854 – escaping from the hectic pace of modern life (!!)

Themes of Walden: noble savage .. futility of civilisation

„The false society of men‟ – finding a simpler life in nature

Questioning the status quo

Walden was Thoreau‟s whimsical,

journalistic report on how he spent

his time in „the wild‟

More influential to environment

movement: „Walking‟ speech

Effects of Thoreau: Call to arms; rejection of status quo

Carson: Silent Spring

Carson: 1940s-50s biologist turned „nature writer‟

Bestseller „The Sea Around Us‟ –filmed at Great Barrier Reef

„Silent Spring‟ 1962 – serialised in „New Yorker‟

Argued chemical pesticides poisoning ecology – lyrical scene-setting of a mythical US town, silent due to death of birds, fish, children – ch „A Fable for Tomorrow‟

Book outlined in detail the consequences of pesticide misuse: accumulation in animal fatty tissue, leading to tainted food chain, rising cancers, genetic damage and species extinction.

Contested: chemical industry argued malaria threats

Hugely influential – led to US govt regulations on chemicals

Blainey: The Long Drought

1980 – written by respected & controversial historian

Accessible writing style – storytelling, characters, „news‟

Comments on immigration & „black armband‟ vs „three cheers‟ view of history have made him darling of conservatives

Australia‟s extremes: Fire, flood and drought

In „The Long Drought‟ Blainey points to overstocking, unfounded optimism & misinterpreting 40 years of unusually mild climate

By 1900s „A people who had often floated in the blue sky of fantasy had come down to earth.‟

Blainey‟s arguments sometimes used by climate change deniers

Rolls: Timbergetters

Eric Rolls: Historian who focused on „nature writing‟

Bestsellers „A Million Wild Acres‟ (1981) and „They all ran Wild‟

In „Timbergetters‟ – romantic notions / hard life documented

wood cutting offered „life without a boss‟ for men of no capital

scrub-dwellers – a shanty-town version of Walden

Extensive details – the work, the people

Colourful characters – Alf of Baradine „Whiskers‟ & long-lasting handles – told no-one what timber

Brought „the bush‟ into sharp focus

Effects of Rolls: history of destructionof the Australian wilderness,localised environment issues

Early ‘journalism’: Letters to Editor

Early ‘journalism’: Letters to Editor

THE LYRE BIRD. / TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD.

Sir, yesterday (thursday), in strolling through the George-Street markets, I was attracted to one of the poul- terer's stalls by seeing no less than four male lyrebirds (Menura superba) hanging up amidst rabbits, wild ducks &c , and all besmeared with blood and dirt. The tails of the birds draped gracefully down, and at time quite a crowd collected in front of them in admiration. I cannot express to you my feelings as I gazed on these beautiful birds. To naturalist, the lyre bird is endeared by very many pleasant memories and associations, and all who, like myself, have traversed the dense and luxuriantly- foliaged scrubs of the colony, and while in camp, at the peep of day, and as the sun sets, listened to the lyre bird's native note, and wonderful powers of mockery and mimicry, can only appreciate my feelings as I looked on the lyre birdsbrought down to the common level of a poulterer's shop.

The celebrated naturalist Gould, whose work on the birds of Australia won for him such world-wide fame, says:- "Were I required to suggest an emblem for Australia amidst its fauna, I should, without the slightest hesitation, select the lyre bird as the most appro- priate, it being not only peculiar to this country, but one which will always be regarded with the highest interest both by the people of Australia and by ornithologists in Europe, from whom it has received the specific appellations of superba, paradisea, and mirabilis. "

My letters in your journal during 1876 and 1877, calling attention to the then fact that in the Game Protection Act

then before Parliament, the satin regent, dragoon and rifle birds of this colony were not mentioned, had the desired effect, the result being that they were, together with the lyre bird, protected all the year round.

That was as it should be. But some year or so after the passing of this Act, the bill was amended by Parliament, and the lyre bird was only protected during one portion of the year - and so it still remains. And hear it! The Act actually allows the bird to be shot down during the season in which it builds the nest, lays the eggs and brings forth and rears its young. Is it not scandalous that such a state of things exist ?

Hundreds annually of the menura are shot down, for no other purpose than to get possession of the tail ; and it is only a matter of time when the lyre bird will be extinct, if a stop is not put to what is going on. The lyre bird is well known, but there is much yet to learn of its habits, etc - as yet a secret. This one thing I have, by my researches for a number of years past, learned, that the lyre bird lays but one egg every year, and that its nest is one of the most beautiful and artfully constructed habitations that can be conceived. The menurais unfit for food.

Pretentious, like unto the Fisheries Act, is the Game Pro- tection Act. Both are costly farces, and the Game Act a dead letter. I am, &c.,

JAMES BRAY / Sydney, June 1 1883

Ridley: ‘Apocolypse Not’ 2012

Wired – US / global technology mag

Examples of environmental catastrophes –over-hyped:

Ehrlich (1968): “the world will undergo famines,”hundreds of millions of people to starve to death

Limits to Growth (1972) – computer model of population growth v ability for planet to feed us [note Turner 2008 CSIRO support]

Carter (1977) Peak oil – all proven oil reserves gone in a decade

[context: 80s = Cold War / Space Race propaganda dying down]

DDT=cancer; air pollution; acid rain; Ozone layer; overpopulation; resource scarcity;

Climate change over-hyped? Technology will overcome? Arrogant?!

Summing up

Walden – „wilderness = ideal‟ – raising debate about material overconsumption that continue today

Carson – danger of chemicals – caused more stringent examination of pesticides. Was her DDT link flawed? Does it matter?

Blainey – drought (“catastrophe”) a cyclical event. Australians ill-prepared to farm. Used in climate change denial

Rolls – bringing the romantic bush myth into stark focus; beautiful detail about characters and situations

Early Australian journalism – Letter to Editor re lyrebird –advocate for changed government policy

Ridley: “rational optimist” - Apocolyptic stories negated