Fwd: Addressing climate change thru the lens of Deep Ecology

[Tobias Fox]

Peace Ellen,

Thanks for sharing this with me. I felt it was relevant enough to share with this science conscious community :-)

Tobias

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ellen Rosner <rashe...@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 9:56 AM
Subject: Addressing climate change thru the lens of Deep Ecology

"Radical" - "going to the root"

 

The end to life on the planet will not be prevented by a new law or a new technology or another petition.

 

What is needed is a fundamental change in consciousness.

 

Our current time is the first time in the history of the species that people do not assume that generations will continue unabated into some long-distant future. But this rush to oblivion did not start in our lifetime. It started thousands of years ago when humans decided that the earth and everything on it, was theirs to use. That nothing has any intrinsic worth, only as it serves humans. Environmentalists who want to save the forests so that humans can enjoy them, or so that we can obtain new cancer drugs from the Amazon, share this view.

 

Scientists place jellyfish genes in a monkey so it glows in the dark, in hopes of advancing medicine to save human life. There is no notion that each plant and animal has intrinsic worth, to be as millions of years of evolution allowed it to develop.

 

The human-centered ideology has no regard for the natural order: if it benefits humans, it must be done, and it may be done. No matter the suffering caused to billions of non-human animals and to the earth.

 

How does this relate to climate change and the end of life on Earth?

We are in the situation we're in because centuries ago humans decided that they are "at the top of the pyramid", and therefore no atrocity - whether cutting up live animals, or destroying the rain forest - needs to be justified. Its justification is - it is good for humans.

 

The reality is that humans are of the Earth, same as trees, rivers, the air, the water...

For 95% of human history we stood in relation to earth, to the seasons, to the sun, to the other living beings.

We had to know how to read the weather, the ocean, the tide..

 

The root cause of our ecological crisis, as well as all the other crises, is the human illusion of separation from the natural world.

Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, who coined the deep "deep ecology", says that facts and logic alone cannot answer ethical questions about how we should live. For this we need ecological wisdom. Ecological wisdom means recognizing that we are not separate from the natural world, that all living things have intrinsic value.

 

We need to change the perspective of human-centered to one that sees the value of all living things.

　

Deep ecology calls for a major paradigm shift: "a shift in perception, values, and lifestyles - as a basis for redirecting the ecologically destructive path of modern industrial growth societies. Since the dominant paradigm is proving itself to be self-destructive—by threatening the extinction of our species along with much of life on Earth, not to mention the collapse of civilization along the way—the urgent task is to change the paradigm within and among ourselves in order to co-create a life-affirming, sustainable way of life."

 

Only 10,000 years ago [just a few minutes in the geological time of anatomically modern human], the development of agriculture began the journey of humans being highly alienated from and contemptuous of all non-human life. It is no wonder that as a species we are dysfunctional, self-destructive and filled with self-loathing: we have torn ourselves from our moorings. We experience anger, guilt, sorrow and denial due to the suffering we inflict on all life and on the planet.

 

We try to suppres these feelings by various addictions, shopping, war, entertainment, the cultural illiteracy that Chris Hedges speaks of, etc..

Yet...

 

 "Allowing ourselves to feel for our world opens us to a source of energy and aliveness, and a strength that comes from connection to something more than just our narrow selves."

　

A short video about deep ecology:

youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6jCpChUxOw

 

 

ellen

[Lily Naha]

Wow, Ellen, did you write this? The video's beautiful.
Thanks for forwarding it, Tobias.
I just recently read Judi Bari's essay "Revolutionary Ecology" for the first time- I have a few disagreements but overall I found it really compelling and am still thinking through it- there's a lot to unpack for such a short piece.
(It's online here if others want to read it: http://www.judibari.org/revolutionary-ecology.html)

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[ellen]

thanks for posting Tobias.

Lily, I borrowed freely from others' writing, but it captures ideas I've had for years, before I knew the term deep ecology. It's a little taste of a much longer work I will write one day if I ever have a peaceful place to lay my head.  :-)

[monica]

also, i was "hired" to edit the Earth! First magazine, but I declined when another offer came up.