My Green Manifesto
To celebrate Earth Week, ecotonejournal.com is publishing an exclusive essay by Editor-in-Chief, David Gessner. In the essay, Gessner tells us how to save the world, one small fight at a time. While he's at it, he tells us how to save ourselves (hint: it has to do with birds). In Sick of Nature, Gessner tore down what he saw as wrong with nature writing. Now he tries to build it back up, both describing and demonstrating the role that language can play in the green fights ahead.
Parts of the following essay have been re-printed or published electronically by Beacon Broadsides, Orion, ONEarth, NPR's This I Believe, and Sick of Nature. Please select one of the above links to read more about a specific section of the manifesto, or choose to read the entire .pdf manuscript below.
Excerpt:
"Now dressed in full nature writing regalia--spear in hand and animal pelts on--I am finally ready to do battle. I am ready to leave behind the effete fear that politics will somehow taint my work, to understand that this exclusion is mere fashion, and that fashions change. I am also ready to leave behind the nature writer's sense of impotence. What I want to carry into the fight is humor, irony and the personal essayist's recourse to the testing ground of self. What I want to leave behind is "Oh, how lovely!" while what I want to carry into the fight are the moments—often lovely moments, yes—when I am briefly outside of myself, moments that remind me of how multifarious and delightful this world still is and that speak to my own animal wildness. What I want to leave behind is false romanticism. What I want to carry into the fight is the original romantic urge for the specific, the local, the real. What I want to leave behind is quoting Thoreau; what I want instead is to follow more deeply the complex spirit of the man. What I want to leave behind are pages of facts. What I want to carry forward are facts marshaled for purpose, facts enlivened because they follow an idea. What I want to leave behind is the sanctimony of quietude and order and "being in the present." What I want to embrace is loud and wild disorder, growing this way and that, lush and overdone. What I want to leave behind is the virtuous and the good, and move toward the inspiring and great. And while we're at it I want to leave behind anything false, false to me that is, false to what I feel is my experience on this earth. What I want instead is to wade through the mess of life without ever reaching for a life ring called The Answer.
My dream is to fight and to rally others to my fight. And here is my cry:
Nature writers of the world unite: You have nothing to lose but your daisy chains."
Read the Complete Essay "My Green Manifesto" in .pdf Format