The harvest ethic distinguishes renewably given energy from extracted fossil fuel.

Evidence

The Honorable Harvest does not ask us to photosynthesize. It does not say don’t take, but offers inspiration and a model for what we should take. It’s not so much a list of “do not’s” as a list of “do’s.” Do eat food that is honorably harvested, and celebrate every mouthful. Do use technologies that minimize harm; do take what is given. This philosophy guides not only our taking of food, but also any taking of the gifts of Mother Earth—air, water, and the literal body of the earth: the rocks and soil and fossil fuels. … Taking coal buried deep in the earth, for which we must inflict irreparable damage, violates every precept of the code. By no stretch of the imagination is coal “given” to us. We have to wound the land and water to gouge it from Mother Earth. What if a coal company planning mountaintop removal in the ancient folds of the Appalachians were compelled by law to take only that which is given? Don’t you long to hand them the laminated card and announce that the rules have changed? … It doesn’t mean that we can’t consume the energy we need, but it does mean that we honorably take only what is given. The wind blows every day, every day the sun shines, every day the waves roll against the shore, and the earth is warm below us. We can understand these renewable sources of energy as given to us, since they are the sources that have powered life on the planet for as long as there has been a planet. We need not destroy the earth to make use of them. Solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy—the so-called “clean energy” harvests— when they are wisely used seem to me to be consistent with the ancient rules of the Honorable Harvest. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 675

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Extends the trees-as-infrastructure article’s concern with how we take from land/carbon systems — coal as an ungiven wound versus renewable flows as given gifts parallels carbon-cycling reciprocity themes.
• XREF: Feeds the Legal Systems land-rights course: proposes that ‘given-ness’ could be a legal test distinguishing legitimate harvest from theft/extraction.
• SEED: Strong essay angle: applying the Honorable Harvest’s ‘given-ness’ test to energy policy as a justice framework rather than a conservation one.