This shouldn’t even be political

Posted by Ken Campbell August 21, 2011 0 Comment 845 views


“Sooner or later in every talk, Brower describes the creation of the world. He invites his listeners to consider the six days of Genesis as a figure of speech for what has in fact been four billion years. On this scale, a day equals something like six hundred and sixty-six million years, and thus ‘all day Monday and until Tuesday noon, creation was busy getting the earth going.’ Life began Tuesday noon, and ‘the beautiful, organic wholeness of it’ developed over the next four days. ‘At 4 P.M. Saturday, the big reptiles came on. Five hours later, when the redwoods appeared, there were no more big reptiles. At three minutes before midnight, Christ arrived. At one-fortieth of a second before midnight, the Industrial Revolution began. We are surrounded with people who think that what we have been doing for that one-fortieth of a second can go on indefinitely. They are considered normal, but they are stark, raving mad.'”
That’s John McPhee, in a passage from the seminal book, Encounters with the Archdruid, published back in the misty past of 1971, mostly quoting David Brower. As pertinent today as it was then… perhaps even more so.

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