148 The Environmental Debate
“That’s right, honey,” he said. “And that’s why.”
“You can’t.
“There’s a way.”
Source: Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang
(Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975), pp. 36-37.$750 million and the lives of sixteen (16) work-
men. Four years in the making, prime contrac-
tor Morrison-Knudsen, Inc., sponsored by U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation, courtesy U.S. taxpayers.
It’s too big,” she said.
DOCUMENT 123: Greenpeace’s Declaration of
Interdependence (1976)Greenpeace’s “Declaration of Interdependence” explains why Greenpeace—which has employed innovative
but always nonviolent tactics to effect environmental change—believed radical activism was necessary. Today,
Greenpeace, like many other onceradical groups, maintains an office in Washington, D.C., and works closely
with the Washington establishment.in the scheme of life. Each has a role, however
obscure that role may be.
Ecology has taught us that the entire earth
is part of our “body” and that we must learn to
respect it as much as we respect ourselves. As we
love ourselves, we must also love all forms of life
in the planetary system—the whales, the seals, the
forests and the seas. The tremendous beauty of
ecological thought is that it shows us a pathway
back to an understanding of the natural world—
an understanding that is imperative if we are to
avoid a total collapse of the global ecosystem.
Ecology has provided us with many insights.
These may be grouped into three basic “Laws of
Ecology” which hold true for all forms of life—
fish, plants, insects, plankton, whales, and man.
These laws may be stated as follows:
The First Law of Ecology states that all
forms of life are interdependent. The prey is as
dependent on the predator for the control of its
population as the predator is on the prey for a
supply of food....
The Second Law of Ecology states that the
stability (unity, security, harmony, togetherness)
of ecosystems is dependent on their diversity
(complexity). An ecosystem that contains 100
different species is more stable than an ecosys-
tem that has only three species. Thus the com-
plex tropical rain-forest is more stable than the
fragile arctic tundra....We have arrived at a place in history where
decisive action must be taken to avoid a general
environmental disaster. With nuclear reactors
proliferating and over 900 species on the endan-
gered list, there can be no further delay or our
children will be denied their future.
The Greenpeace Foundation hopes to stimu-
late practical, intelligent actions to stem the tide of
planetary destruction. We are “rainbow people”
representing every race, every nation, every living
creature. We are patriots, not of any one nation,
state or military alliance, but of the entire earth.
It must be understood that the innocent
word “ecology” contains a concept that is as
revolutionary as anything since the Coperni-
can breakthrough, when it was discovered that
the earth was not the center of the entire uni-
verse. Through ecology, science has embarked
on a quest for the great systems of order that
underlie the complex flow of life on our planet.
This quest has taken us far beyond the realm of
traditional scientific thought. Like religion, ecol-
ogy seeks to answer the infinite mysteries of life
itself. Harnessing the tools of logic, deduction,
analysis, and empiricism, ecology may prove to
be the first true science-religion.
As suddenly as Copernicus taught us that
the earth was not the center of the universe, ecol-
ogy teaches us that mankind is not the center of
life on this planet. Each species has its function