Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 2005 The Search for a Common Language: Environmental Writing and Education Melody Graulich Paul Crumbley Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the Environmental Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Graulich, M., & Crumbley, P. (2005). The search for a common language: Environmental writing and education. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press Logan. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Search for a Common Language Environmental Writing and Education Edited by Melody Graulich and Paul Crumbley The Search for a Common Language The Search for a Common Language Environmental Writing and Education Edited and with an Introduction by Melody Graulich and Paul Crumbley Utah State University Press Logan, Utah Copyright © 2005 Utah State University Press All rights reserved Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322-7800 www.usu.edu/usupress Poems from “Bestiary” copyright © 2002 by Ken Brewer are printed here with the author’s permission. An earlier version of “What Is the L. A. River?” by Jennifer Price was published in the L. A. Weekly. “The Natural West” by Dan Flores is distilled from The Natural West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001). “Separation Anxiety” copyright © 2002 and “Brain Damage” copyright © 2001 by Ellen Meloy are reprinted with the author’s permission. “The Pleiades,” excerpted from Navigating by the Stars, copyright © 2002 by Susan J. Tweit, is reprinted with the author’s permission. Poems from Bosque Redondo: The Encircled Grove copyright © 1998 by Keith Wilson are reprinted with the author’s permission. Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Graulich, Melody, 1951– The search for a common language : environmental writing and education/ ed- ited and with an introduction by Melody Graulich and Paul Crumbley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-87421-612-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Communication in the environmental sciences. 2. Environmental education. 3. Environ- mental sciences—Poetry. I. Crumbley, Paul, 1952– II. Title. GE25.G73 2005 333.72—dc22 2005011921 Contents Acknowledgments vii Paul Crumbley and Melody Graulich, Introduction 1 Carolyn Tanner Irish, Preliminary Refl ections on Matters Environmental 18 Ken Brewer, Painted Lady 24 Robert Michael Pyle, Who Lost the Limberlost? Education in a Mis-Placed Age 25 Ken Brewer, The Silliest Debate 34 Craig B. Stanford, Cousins: What the Great Apes Tell Us about Human Origins 35 Ken Brewer, Why Dogs Stopped Flying 46 Hartmut Grassl, How Science and the Public Can Lead to Better Decision Making in Earth System Management 47 Ken Brewer, Martha 59 Jennifer Price, What Is the L.A. River? 60 Ken Brewer, The River Blind 68 Ted Kerasote, The Unexpected Environmentalist: Building a Centrist Coalition 69 Ken Brewer, Dermatophagoides 83 Louis Owens, At Cloudy Pass: The Need of Being Versed in Human Things 84 Ken Brewer, Trying Not to Lie 88 Kent C. Ryden, Tuttle Road: Landscape as Environmental Text 89 Ken Brewer, The Tarantula Hawk 102 Annick Smith, Begin with a River 103 Ken Brewer, How to Train a Horse to Burn 114 Dan Flores, The Natural West 115 Ken Brewer, Sheep 128 Ellen Meloy, Separation Anxiety: The Perilous Alienation of Humans from the Wild 129 Ken Brewer, Largest Living Organism on Earth 135 William Kittredge, Going South 136 Ken Brewer, Now the Sun Has Come to Earth 147 Susan J. Tweit, The Pleiades 149 Ken Brewer, Scarlet Penstemon 163 Keith Wilson, Poetry Reading at the Tanner Conference 164 Robert Michael Pyle, Common Cause in Common Voice 192 Notes 197 Acknowledgments Our foremost thanks go to the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Foundation for providing major funding for the 2002 Tanner Symposium which led to this book. We also particularly thank Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish for representing her family at the symposium and for her dedication to the environment. We benefi tted from the support of two deans of the College of Humani- ties, Arts, and Social Sciences at Utah State University, Stan L. Albrecht and Elizabeth Grobsmith. We also received considerable help in planning, organizing, and running the symposium from Angie Hoffman and Monica Stapley in the HASS offi ce. Patrick Hunter, computer guru for HASS, cre- ated a Web site and provided much appreciated technical support. Jeffrey Smitten, head of the English Department, supported our activi- ties from their inception, as did our colleagues in American studies. Ma- rina Hall, director of media and outside relations, provided expert advice and publicity assistance. We thank the Tanner Symposium Advisory Board members at Utah State University for their ideas, guidance, help, and participation in the events: Thad Box, Chris Conte, Richard Krannich, Pat Lambert, Barbara Middleton, Jennifer Peeples, Michael Sweeney, and Tom Wilkerson. Robert Michael Pyle, certainly among the most generous colleagues any of us has ever known, deserves special thanks. In the one semester he spent at USU as a visiting professor of creative writing, he energized us all and contrib- uted immeasurably to the symposium and this book. Many of our colleagues from the College of Natural Resources offered suggestions and counsel, met with symposium participants, and intro- duced speakers. Matt Burkhart, Thomas J. Lyon editorial fellow at Western American Literature, served as contact person for the symposium, keeping track of registration, answering questions, helping with publicity, and handling dif- fi culties and organization at the actual event. He was aided by numerous other American studies graduate students, most notably Matthew Stiffl er, Brandon Schrand, and Michaela Koenig. Matt Lavin, 2004–2006 Thomas J. Lyon editorial fellow, contributed computer expertise and suggestions for the fi nal manuscript preparation. As always, Western American Literature managing editor Sabine Barcatta provided superlative supervisory skills. vii viii The Search for a Common Language Chapter Two Books, a local independent bookstore now driven out of business by corporate booksellers, underwrote a reception and book sign- ing. The Utah Humanities Council provided a grant to help fund the read- ings and discussions by Bill Kittredge and Annick Smith, which were, like all events, free and open to the pulic. Introduction Paul Crumbley and Melody Graulich Because scientists and poets are curious, they ask questions. Early in his work, Einstein asked himself, “What would the world look like if I were riding on the beam of light coming from that clock tower?” That’s a child’s question, but an immensely intriguing one that led to Einstein’s theory of relativity. An entomologist asks: How does a bumble bee manage to lift its heavy weight and fl y? Poet Pablo Neruda asks whimsically: How many bees are there in a day? The work of both scientist and poet begins with curiosity and a question. And like children, poets and scientists possess a fl exibility of thought, a willingness to modify their approach or stance toward a subject or object. Like children, they have an open- ness to surprise, to what experience of the physical world may be telling them that they didn’t expect. —Pattiann Rogers, “Wonder in Science and Poetry” In A Sand County Almanac, fi rst published in 1949, Aldo Leopold defi ned the importance of an “ecological” education. “One of the requisites for an ecological comprehension of land,” he wrote, “is an understanding of ecology.” This understanding, he added, “does not necessarily originate in courses bearing ecological labels; it is quite as likely to be labeled geography, botany, agronomy, history, or economics.”1 His conclusion that “this is as it should be” certainly follows from his exhortation earlier in the book that we must think at “right angles” from accepted knowledge, a process that “calls for a reversal of specialization; instead of learning more and more about less and less, we must learn more and more about the whole biotic landscape.”2 Like the natural processes on which it is based, Leopold’s eco- logical education is systemic, asking us to stand back from our own disci- plines and look at the interrelationships among various modes of inquiry. When he complains that “whatever the label, ecological training is scarce,” he speaks about individual courses but also about the scarcity of fruitful cross-pollination among disciplines.3 As ecological awareness has grown, thanks to Leopold and many oth- ers, over the past fi fty-some years, the specialization he decried has only 1 2 Paul Crumbley and Melody Graulich increased in colleges and universities, fi elds becoming narrower and nar- rower and language more technical. While established disciplines have added courses based on new approaches, such as environmental history, environmental education, and ecocriticism, the departmental structure of universities and the specialized nature of academic conferences too often do not encourage sustained conversation among scholars and researchers in different fi elds—perhaps particularly between humanists and scientists, usually housed in different colleges. And while writing about science and the environment for a general audience has become progressively more popular, very often the technical language of the specialist hampers shar- ing that knowledge with a deeply concerned public. As a land-grant university with strong programs in natural resources in a state with magnifi cent national parks and monuments, Utah State University has a long tradition of nature writing, environmental research, and outreach programming uniting trained academics with members of the regional community to ensure an informed and sensitive approach to environmental appreciation and management. Notably, in 1989, students from the English Department and from the College of Natural Resources united to found Petroglyph: A Journal of Creative Nature Writing.