Respect Your Mother
“Nature teaches more than she preaches. There are no sermons in stones. It is easier to get a spark out of a stone than a moral.” —John Burroughs
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Forty-three years ago today, on May 18, 1980, Mother Nature put her full power on display as Mt. St. Helens erupted in Washington, causing millions of dollars in damage, claiming 57 lives, and becoming the deadliest volcanic eruption in American history. Those of us who lived through it can vividly remember TV coverage of the event, featuring images of black encrusted lava racing down the side of the mountain, massive landslides that caused immense physical damage, and an ash cloud that wreaked havoc on surrounding areas, affecting cities as far away as Denver and Oklahoma City.
As scary as that time was, a far more terrifying volcanic eruption occurred in May of 1815, an event often glossed over in history classes, and one that few people have ever even heard of. However, the eruption of Mt. Tambora, located in present-day Indonesia, changed the course of human history in many ways, causing a global volcanic winter and culminating in the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816. As a result of the enormous volume of ash blanketing the earth, global temperatures were lowered by about 3 degrees Celsius, resulting in famine and widespread disease. Between the immediate effects of the eruption and the lingering environmental impact, somewhere between 70, 000 and 100, 000 people died. More than Krakatoa and Vesuvius, Mt. Tambora’s more famous counterparts.
During the summer of 1816, 18-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who had been swept off her feet by a charming, older (and very married) Percy Bysshe Shelley, found herself in Villa Diodati, the summer home of George Gordon, Lord Byron. Ensconced within their Swiss retreat on the shores of Lake Geneva, the British expatriates found themselves captivated by books and completely engrossed in scientific and philosophic conversations. The precocious daughter of radical authors and philosophers, Mary found herself a devout “but nearly silent” listener in the conversations between Percy and Lord Byron’s scientific conversations on the rudimentary ideas of electricity.
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In order to pass the time in a season of rain and gloom when thunderstorms provided the only shards of natural light, Lord Byron’s house guest John Polidori (maybe, or perhaps it was Lord Byron himself) proposed a “ghost story” telling contest. Mary Godwin went to bed that very night with images of frogs and vermicelli being reanimated through galvanism and electric currents. She had a nightmarish vision in which she saw the “hideous phantasm of a man, stretched out” who “showed signs of life.”
The result of her dream was the iconic novel, Frankenstein, published in 1818, a book I teach every year to my juniors. They are surprised to learn that the story is a result of the eruption of Mt. Tambora (okay, that may be a stretch, but it did have at least an indirect effect on its creation). They’re often disappointed that the story isn’t scary enough, that it’s not a true “horror” story, but, I tell them, the real terror comes from Victor Frankenstein himself, the narcissistic protagonist who dares to defy nature. His expertise in science and technology propel him to push the boundaries of morality, religion, and ethics by tampering with the natural world.
Creating life? Cheating death? Messing with Mother Nature? God complex, anyone? Just who is the real monster here?
In an era where we are constantly bombarded with scientific advancements, we must pose the question, “Just because we can do something, should we?” Just because we can manipulate genes or allow AI to replace human tasks or carve up the natural landscape for comfort and profit, do we have the right to? Have we considered the consequences of our actions?
Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Tambora, and Frankenstein all serve as stark reminders of the power and unpredictability of nature. The message from these three events is clear: respect your Mother. She is strong, mercurial, and bigger than all of us. As Victor learned in a tragic manner, she is not to be trifled with.
