Science Journal Says Glaciers Are ‘More Than Human Beings,’ Have ‘Agency’
“For various Indigenous communities, glaciers are living ancestors, sacred beings, and integral parts of a relational world”
This is why so many people think climate change is basically a religion at this point.
The College Fix reports:
Glaciers are ‘more than human beings,’ have ‘agency,’ science journal says
Glaciers have “agency” and are “more than human beings,” according to a recent science journal article.
“The living glacier: Cultural memory, emotional impact, and the right to exist in the Andes,” explores how glaciers are “sacred entities.”
“Building on interdisciplinary perspectives and Rights of Nature frameworks, [the article] argues that glaciers should be recognized not only for their ecological functions but also as more-than-human beings with rights to exist, regenerate, and be protected,” the author argues in PLOS Climate.
Society must “honor glaciers while they are still alive, and to reshape human relations with nature through humility, reciprocity, and caring practices,” according to Ecuadorian professor Emilie Dupuits.
The international relations professor argues:
In the context of accelerating climate change and widespread ecological degradation, there is growing academic and legal interest in reframing natural entities—such as glaciers—as more-than-human beings. This conceptual turn challenges anthropocentric ontologies by recognizing that ecosystems possess intrinsic value and agency beyond their utility to human interests. Glaciers, in particular, are increasingly positioned not merely as passive indicators of climate change but as relational entities that demand ethical and legal consideration. The agency of glaciers means that their material transformation and possible death produce impacts on human beings’ practices and feelings.
She also argues that Indigenous religions recognize that glaciers are alive.
“For various Indigenous communities, glaciers are living ancestors, sacred beings, and integral parts of a relational world,” she writes. “For many Andean communities, the disappearance of the glacier also means the progressive loss of cultural memory and traditions associated with it.”
But a bioethical expert disagrees with these assertions, including that glaciers should be exalted above humans.
“Glaciers are made up of snow that over millennia compacted into ice,” Wesley Smith wrote at National Review. “They grow or shrink based on climate. They are geological features.”
While he called the argument “nonsensical,” he also said it cannot be ignored.
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Comments
First rule of mountaineering: The Mountain is in Charge. That includes the glaciers.
People are allowed to have beliefs, no matter how unscientific their basis. Go to Hawaii. They believe that volcanic glass strands are some chick’s hair. As a courtesy, volcanologists refer to it as Pele’s hair, but it is volcanic glass non the less, basically obsidian in different packaging.
A woman wrote this, Of course.
She’s a :”Professor of International Relations.”
Perhaps she has a glacier fetish.
Never just assume a glacier’s gender.
“What is a glacier?”
“I don’t know, I’m not a geologist.”
They might want to contact Baen Books. Baen publishes a lot of science fiction…
Nothing has any intrinsic value. The only source of value is the human brain. Therefore things can’t be valuable in themselves; they can only be valuable to people. And therefore things are valuable only for their utility to human interests. If something is no good to anyone, then it’s literally valueless and there is no reason not to destroy it.
I’m sure that’s true. And I don’t care. I don’t see why anyone outside those communities should care. They can believe whatever they like, but that doesn’t affect reality.
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