ABSTRACT
The interstate highway system and environmental are seldom discussed conjointly in works on climate and sustainability programs. In this essay I employ a metaphor, likening the interstate system to environments, to illustrate a cognitive shortcoming, a failure of imagination, by the organisms found in both. I argue that several failures of the imagination combine to constitute a failure to be aware of the limitations of our situations and the parameters set by climatological considerations. However, by re-engaging with our environment through the use of imaginative exercises, we can become aware of our surrounding in terms of both geographic and organismic limitations of our environment. Furthermore, to develop these sustainable policies, we can employ Kantian ethical deliberations that engage our sense of imagination to become ‘situationally aware’ of our place in the climates we inhabit and of others members of our environment.
Carazan's Dream: In proportion as his riches increased, this wealthy miser had closed of his heart from compassion and love toward all others. Meantime, as the love of man grew cold in him, the diligence of his prayer and his religious observances increased. After this confession he goes on to recount the following: ‘One evening, as by my lamp I drew up my accounts and calculated my profits, sleep over-powered me. In this state I saw the Angel of Death come over me like a whirlwind. He struck me before I could plead to be spared his terrible stroke. I was petrified, as I perceived that my destiny throughout eternity was cast, and that to all the good I had done nothing could be added, and from all the evil I had committed, not a thing could be taken away. I was led before the throne of him who dwells in the third heaven. The glory that flamed before me spoke to me thus: “Carazan, your service of God is rejected. You have closed your heart to the love of man and have clutched your treasures with an iron grip. You have lived only for yourself, and therefore you shall also live the future in eternity alone and removed from all communion with the whole of Creation”. At this instant I was swept away by an unseen power, and driven through the shining edifice of Creation. I soon left countless worlds behind me. As I neared the outermost end of nature, I saw the shadows of the boundless void sink down into the abyss before me. A fearful kingdom of eternal silence, loneliness and darkness! Unutterable horror overtook me at this sight. I gradually lost sight of the last star, and finally the last glimmering ray of light was extinguished in outer darkness! The mortal terrors of despair increased with every moment, just as every moment increased my distance from the last inhabited world. I reflected with unbearable anguish that if ten thousand times a thousand years more should have carried me along beyond the bounds of the universe I would still always be looking ahead into the infinite abyss of darkness, without help or hope of any return—. In this bewilderment I thrust out my hands with such force toward the objects of reality that I awoke. And now I have been taught to esteem mankind; for in that terrifying solitude I would have preferred even the least of those whom in the pride of my fortune I had turned from my door to all the treasure of Galconda—’. 1
