Blavatsky Blogger
Taking Theosophical
ideas
into the 21st
century
H
P Blavatsky in the Vanguard of Environmentalism
In
an 1891 article, H P Blavatsky expresses
concern
about the destruction of the rain forests
and
warns of global climate change
Posted
In her
article “Civilization, The Death of Art and Beauty”,
published in 1891, H P Blavatsky makes and extensive attack on the moral and
cultural decline of European Civilization and how its influence is pervading
the rest of the world dragging other often superior cultures down with it. She
also makes some far seeing observations on the effects of technological
progress on the environment.
Although
her precise predicted outcomes for man’s interventions such as the effects of
the Panama Canal on the Gulf Stream are subject to discussion, H P Blavatsky’s
concern for the environment seems surprisingly modern and she certainly
understands the principle of Ecosystems.
An extract
from Civilization, The Death of Art and Beauty.
Published 1891.
“Owing to
the triumphant march and the invasion of civilization, Nature, as well as man
and ethics, is sacrificed, and is fast becoming artificial. Climates are
changing, and the face of the whole world will soon be altered. Under the
murderous hand of the pioneers of civilization, the destruction of whole
primeval forests is leading to the drying up of rivers, and the opening of the
Canal of Suez has changed the climate of Egypt as that of Panama will divert
the course of the Gulf Stream. Almost tropical countries are now becoming cold
and rainy, and fertile lands threaten to be soon transformed into sandy
deserts.
A few
years more and there will not remain within a radius of fifty miles around our
large cities one single rural spot inviolate-from vulgar speculation. In scenery,
the picturesque and the natural is daily replaced by the grotesque and the
artificial. Scarce a landscape in England but the fair body of nature is
desecrated by the advertisements of "Pears' Soap" and "Beecham's
Pills." The pure air of the country is polluted with smoke, the smells of
greasy railway-engines, and the sickening odours of gin, whiskey, and beer. And
once that every natural spot in the surrounding scenery is gone, and the eye of
the painter finds but the artificial and hideous products of modern speculation
to rest upon, artistic taste will have to follow suit and disappear along with
them.”
Civilization, The Death of Art and Beauty.
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