A2 - Wednesday, February 16, 1983 - North Shore News

the word language.

“ecology”

In retrospect, that was quite a turning point. No when we use words like conservation or resource management or

- wildlife, we are expressing a rough understanding of the science of ecology.

Nearly all of us-are aware that we exist as part of a

- Piclogical system that has-to- be preserved if we are to reserve ourselves. Nature

entered our

_ and

strictly personal

by Bob Hunter

IT SEEMS to me it has been about 15 years since

common

previously almost com- pletely unknown im the

western world. Nobody on -

Texada Island, for instance, was fooled for a moment by assurances their paradise wouldn't be lost when the garbage scows arrived. Lhave seen for myself how the application of money

the tides of pollution. In Tokyo, the sulphur dioxide

.-will- -can--turn. --

whales during the Falklands war.

about how our attitudes

toward nature are based on deep-seated religious conditioning. As these at-

titudes change, it is

inevitable that our religious beliefs should undergo some kind of shift as well.

Murray Bookchin, author of mumerous essays on ecology, argues that a true ecological consciousness

-invelves--nothing--less than

the “ ‘respiritualization of the natural world.” In other

isn't seen any more as being utterly separate from human activity.

We all know now that if the oxygen balance of the world changes, we'll run out of breath.

That might seem awfully obvious today. But it wasn’t so obvious just a short time ago. There has been a revolution in people's

i of nature and our relationship to the physical world.

We all know the ozone layer is in danger. We all know that acid rain is caused somehow by smoke stacks. We know what oil spills do. We have a pretty good idea of the effects of radioactive poisoning. We’ve seen what happens when ditches are sprayed with DDT.

All this accumulated experience gives us a level of ecological awareness

CANADA'S LARGEST

levels have been brought under control. It cost $24 billion, but the Japanese have brought back the clean skies of their ancestors.

In England you can swim in the Thames. The Killer Smogs have been driven from London. Even in Los Angeles, where a major air inversion disaster was predicted by the 1980s, the smog season has been growing shorter since 1974, due to such innovations as vapor-recovery nozzles at gas stations.

This is not to say that the ecological crisis is over. With tropical forests being felted at the rate of 50 acres a minute, it may be that the crisis has scarcely begun. |

Ecological awareness has become -- however dimly — a part of the political thought of our time. Witness the

concern “over penguins and

SELECTION OF REBOUNDERS AND TRAMPOLINES

words, nature must be seen again as being sacred. And treated accordingly.

Christianity has frequently been accused of having fostered a mood of in- difference towards nature which permitted unfettered industrial exploitation.

Yet a belief-system is in the head of the believer. Check out the second chapter of Genesis, where “the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Sounds like an ecological manifesto.

Perhaps as long ago as 30,000 years, native North American people “had devised a belief that God and Nature were the same. When they walked, they walked gently.

It may well be, in one of the those amazing cyclical strokes of history, that we

1388 Main St. North Van 980-4118

are coming back in the 20th Century to an identical under- standing! God and Nature are one. Certainly,

-this is the

STORE ALT

implication of ecology. Systems flow into systems, and between the ultimate system and the smallest system, there is: actually no

division. Therefore, we are a

part of nature as much as

nature is a part of us, and

everything is divine. Hallelujah!

het / FABRIC

C S-ENTRES

ERATION SPECIAL

ASSORTED GROUP OF PRINTED POLYESTER.

Reg. $8-$20 m.

115 cm. SALE

$3.99-$9.99 m

PRINTED VIYELLA — SHORT LENGTHS.

Reg. $18 m.

115cm.

SALE $7.99 m

ASSORTED GROUP OF SILK.

Reg. $10 m.

90-115cm.

SALE $4.99-$10.00 m

‘“EXTRA SPECIAL VALUES’’

GATHERED UNDER ONE ROOF FROM OUR BRANCH STORES — LININGS, COTTONS,

POLYESTERS, PRINTS & PLAINS. _90-115 cm. Values up to. $10. m

FREE SAMPLES OF TUFFY’S DOG FOOD

(while supplies last)

KAL KAN CAT FOOD 13 0z %14.99/case 63%ea MISS MEW 6 oz $8. 78/case 2/73¢ PAMPER 60z ‘8 89/case 2/75*

_ NINE-LIVES 60z 8 99/case 3B *ea CAT CHOW 4 kg *5.99 ca DR. BALLARD BEEF CHUNKS 240. '23 76/case 99*ea MOUNT SEYMOUR 48 07 *15 39/case *1.29 ea K-9 KIBBLE 20 kg *14.86 ca

prices in effect till Sat. Feb. 19th

STATION WAGON BARRIERS HEAVY DUTY DOMESTIC OR IMPORT CARS

$49.95

AIVERSTONE PET BURT OU) Weal ba tree

NEW CASY AOUTE FROM WEST VANCOUVER

RIVERSTONE

PET SUPPLY CO. LTD.

993 West 3rd St. N.V. (behind Capilano Mall)

986-1596