Canadian Store (CAD)
You are currently shopping in our Canadian store. For orders outside of Canada, please switch to our international store. International and US orders are billed in US dollars.
In A Canadian Climate of Mind: Passages from Fur to Energy and Beyond, author Timothy B. Leduc looks at climate change not only as a feature of the physical world but also as a state of the human spirit. Weaving together voices from numerous backgrounds and time periods with Indigenous views on present and past environmental challenges, the book illuminates a world that is being shaken to its core while we hesitate to act.
Expanding on these ideas, Leduc responds to the question of whether fracking violates human rights in a new essay published by the Center for Humans and Nature. Entitled “Living in the Shadow of a Black Snake”, the piece focuses on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines in the context of the Black Snake Prophecy.
In the following excerpt, Leduc presents the mythology of the hydra as an apt representation of the dangers faced by continued investment in fossil fuel processing and development.
Each time a head is seemingly cut off, others grow elsewhere. This is no normal black snake slithering across land and water. In the words of Anishinaabe scholar-activist Winona LaDuke: “The hydra of pipeline proposals across North America should give us cause to pause – and say… what are we doing?” The immediate worry is about spills on land and into the Missouri River where the Dakota pipeline is to traverse under. There is a gritty and acidic nature to the diluted bitumen that increases the rate of corrosion, thus increasing the likelihood of pipeline spills. Recognizing this situation, on September 23, 2016 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples called upon the United States to halt its construction “in recognition of dire and direct threats to the drinking water, burial grounds and sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux people.” We are quickly approaching what LaDuke describes as a crossroads where modern infrastructure crumbles in the face of “oil spills, climate change, and a lost opportunity to become energy efficient and self-sufficient with renewables and post petroleum choices.” The multi-headed pipeline is writhing to stay alive in the face of all the signs that indicate we are moving toward a downturn.
How do we kill a multi-headed Black Hydra? This mythic question draws me back to memories of sitting around a kitchen table with friends playing Dungeons and Dragons. As a teenager, this game introduced me to the lore of hydras that had five heads which gave it many advantages in any fight. It was difficult to blind, charm, deafen, frighten, or knock unconscious. More than that, it was always wakeful both in its defence and in its search for opportunistic attack. When it came to the fallout of actual combat, all around the table knew that if all the heads were not slain in a single turn it would grow two more for any that were loss. Its formidable power was drawn from ancient myths of a chthonic water animal that lived in the swamps where it guarded the entrance to the Underworld and its treasure, a dark ghostly world that its failed conquerors also came to inhabit.
There is much symbolism carried by such a mythic presence that can teach us something about our present challenge. When a hydra appeared in Europe’s ancient past, the myths cycled toward stories of civilizations whose fate hung in the balance. Its immensity and regenerative capacity signified an epoch was coming into a time of significant change. A responsive world was bringing society against its limits and capacity to respond. In fact, the hydra often appeared because its underground treasure had been taken by people without a sense of responsibility and duty. Our time is not that different as we come upon a crossroad of our own making. What are we doing? The question posed by LaDuke arises from the dissonance of investing billions on oil infrastructure that not only has the potential to devastate land and water, but will spill greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It is in times like this that a hydra makes its presence known.
Timothy B. Leduc is assistant professor of social work at Wilfrid Laurier University.
The Center for Humans and Nature partners with some of the brightest minds to explore human responsibilities to each other and the more-than-human world.
No comments yet.