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12 fundamentals of ecology

 

As intelligent and technologically advanced as humanity appears, we remain animals living from and within a dynamic ecological system. The fundamental error that has led humanity to the brink of ecological collapse is the spurious notion that we exist independently, that we belong to some exclusive club that does not have to follow the laws of ecology, and that nature is here simply to supply us with "resources" for our galloping economies.

 

The ideas below incorporate ideas previously articulated by Arne Naess, Chellis Glendinning, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, David Abram, and other nature-centred ecologists including Greenpeace co-founder Bob Hunter. A summary of the values that we might associate with a non-human-centred, genuine ecological awareness include:

 

1. The inherent value of wildness, nature, diversity, symbiosis, and complexity, independent of humanity’s desires or existence.

 

2. Systems: Everything in nature exists in interlocking systems. No species operates independently. The survival unit of evolution is a “species-in-an-environment,” co-evolving with all other living systems.

 

3. An ecological-self: The human sense of “self” expanded to include these living systems. The popular economic notion that people act as “private” pursuers of “happiness” remains a tragic conceit, destined to fail.

 

4. Biocracy: extending the idea of “rights” to all things, but more importantly to the ecological system itself, and therefore, limiting human interference in nature.

 

5. Nature, not a “resource”: The elements of nature that we call “resources” also (1) provide resources for everything else that lives, and (2) possess value in themselves, in situ. A river is a living part of a system, not simply a “resource” for human purposes.

 

6. Ecological design: Our tools must mimic and work with the habits, laws, and designs of nature: 100% recycling, lowest possible energy use, integrated living systems, low impact, and so forth.

 

7. Addressing human trauma: The destruction of the supporting ecology has traumatized humanity and led not only to poverty and desolation among the poor, but to anxiety, addiction, and violence among the comfortable. Witness the “holiday” to a mountain, seaside, or forest, as self-medication for this trauma. As I write, I’m watching a pair of Wilson’s warblers, who have nested in the thicket behind my house. I cannot quantify how therapeutic this is. Every lost wild place reduces human well-being.

 

8. Social justice, gender equality, and international peace: War, sexism, racism, and injustice not only cause direct suffering, but also contribute to ecological catastrophes.

 

9. Decrease Human population: A human civilization that understands nature will limit its interference by reducing its numbers. A positive step would be a target (perhaps over two centuries) of reducing human population to, say, a billion people, roughly the 1800 population. Global women’s rights and contraception would contribute to achieving this. The population discussion invokes fear for human rights, cultural rights, racism, and immigration. Who has the right to tell other humans not to reproduce? The answer is that the living earth has the right and will impose that right if we don’t. Excessive human population reduces the quality of life for humanity and everything else.

 

10. Simplicity: learning to enhance the quality of life with the simplest means and least interference in nature. This requires a shift in expectations, to rediscover the joy of simplicity and a supportive environment – the joys of nature, peace, community, family, and creativity. Less stuff, more peace of mind.

 

11. Action: We won’t solve our dilemma with philosophy or slogans. The new environmental human society requires action at every level. Primarily, we need a massive protection of wilderness and relocalization of human survival. 

 

12. Worship the miracle: Since the advent of empires, agriculture, and urban living, humanity has searched for paradise in all the wrong places, in wealth, power, money, and invisible realms beyond time and space. Humans appear to possess an innate sense of mystery and the more-than-human sacredness of life, but we have failed to worship – to “ascribe worth” to – the one thing that sustains us, the living earth.

 

If ecologists claim to work for the earth or if presume to negotiate with governments or corporations on nature’s behalf, they owe ultimate allegiance to their client, the earth. We dare not sell her cheaply. If ecologists represent the earth’s voice at the table of human society, we must point out that nature has its own values and purposes. Rivers, trees, and hawks are going about affairs as noble and important as my own affairs feel to me. No matter how powerful and clever we appear, we are not in charge of how nature will evolve on earth.  

 

Ecologists must help prepare human society for the depth and breadth of the authentic shift at hand: Nature possesses values, laws, and limits beyond human purposes. Wise design is essential, but we won’t simply engineer ourselves out of our economic dilemma, without changing our habits of excessive consumption. We won’t consume ourselves to freedom by tacking “green” onto every enterprise like a postscript. Natures own laws will be our primary guidance.

 

Ecology remains the subversive subject as Paul Sears said four decades ago. Humanity may flourish in a long run with nature, but only by revisioning human society as a guest of the earth’s living systems.

 

(Excerpted from my Deep Green column at Greenpeace International)

 

 

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This was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under Ecology . Feel free to respond, or trackback.

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