Utopian Shire

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

This discussion between Laurinquë and Lalwendë brings in an important aspect of Tolkien's evironmental stance. It wasn't green he was after so much as beauty....

....This is a very different kind of beauty, one not associated with human sub-creation. It is a kind of landscape which often, in my reading of the historical expansion of North America, developes an adversarial relationship between humans and nature--and it is this very adversarial aspect which stimulates such tourist and sports development as heli-skiing and mountain climbing and championship snowmobiling races.

I have long been dismayed by the poor stewardship we Americans have of our land. I can still remember watching on TV in the '70's the Cuyahoga River in Ceveland burning (yes, the actual river was on fire from petroleum and chemical run-off!). Here in Michigan, the original pine, oak and beech forests were stripped by copper mining before the advent of the 20th century, and our current forests (which we still have many) now have a totally different make-up than the original.

Some time ago I wrote a parody of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land is your Land' for a protest of some sort or other (I think it was regarding building a monstrous incinerator in Detroit). So, with apologies to Woody's ghost, here it is:

This land was your land, this land was my land.
But the once great forests are now self-serve islands,
Or tacky strip malls on concrete highways --
This land was paved for you and me.

I look and shivered at the ghastly rivers,
Where the half-dead fish swam with cancerous livers.
Dead ducks and otters in oily waters --
This land betrayed by you and me.

This land was your land, this land was my land,
From the smog in L.A. out to Three-Mile Island,
From Gulf refineries to eerie Erie --
This land a grave for you and me.

Et cetera, et cetera...

*Sniffs*

Where have all the protest songs gone?