From the time I was very young, I felt a connection with the natural world. Most children do, until their instincts and natural curiosity are blunted by perhaps well-meaning civilizing forces.
In the seventies, I was interested in the environmental movement, yet I never took much action. Yet I have managed to become increasingly conscious that my actions matter; and so I reuse and recycle, choose CSA vegetables, and take small steps in favor of the environment wherever possible.
Sometimes, the actions I take run counter to the prevailing wisdom. For example, we (my family and I) have a garden. For us, it is a tiny paradise of green in the middle of the city. It offers shade and a significantly cooler micro-environment on sweltering urban days. While it is hardly wilderness, it gives living space to city creatures. To developers it is valuable in another way; it is the size of a city lot.
All around us, smaller, older houses and cottages with personality and history are being destroyed and carted to landfill to make room for larger houses or stacked condos. Many of these older homes had yards or gardens. One even had a giant lilac tree, now gone. Lot line to lot line, construction is going up in its place.
Issues of biodiversity tie into those of cultural diversity, as well. In my neighborhood, local cultures are being razed in the pursuit of profit. Globally, other local cultures are displaced and ultimately, liquidated, (as are the forests), thanks to the value placed on unbridled economic growth and a global economy. Econo-centrism, and the globalizaton that follows in its wake, are creating a monoculture — both of human cultures and species.
Like my garden and the buildings that nearly overwhelm it, global initiatives represent values — values that have consequences to other living beings. And it is only by examining our values and their consequences that we can bring together our beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, actions, and results to support a commitment to the natural world. For anyone who feels that diversity is important, deep ecology is the place to start exploring, questioning, and getting the energy to take action before it’s too late.
Deep Ecology for the 21st Century
Listening recently to a profound radio program series, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, produced by New Dimensions Radio with host Michael Toms, I realize how much more there is to know and do. There is power in tapping into all the initiatives and activities put into motion by dedicated activists and scholars. "The series is about hope," says Toms. "We are focusing on the possibilities for addressing and facing the problems."
According to Toms, "Every day in the media we hear about the destruction of the planetary life support system. There is a greater understanding of the ecological crisis, yet there appears to be a chasm between our understanding and our actions." The series attempts to bridge that gap — to where our perceptions, thoughts, and actions about the natural world are brought back into balance and harmony.
Over the twenty-five years he covered ecological issues for New Dimensions programming, Toms began to learn more and more about deep ecology. "In producing the series," he says, "we have come to realize that solving the ecological challenge is the most important issue that humanity faces today. No planet; no business. No planet; no people. No planet; no nothing! Ecology is the shadow side of our global culture. In dealing with it, we can transform it."
Starting in February 1998, Toms interviewed three dozen of the leading thinkers and activists involved in the deep ecology movement. After many months and many interviews, he found that no easy definition of deep ecology came out of the discussions. "What we’ve found is a new set of urgent questions.... Deep ecology writers articulate our interdependence with all life in unique and wonderful ways.‘Deep questioning’ is also a principle of deep ecology. It comes from philosophical traditions that challenge us to explore further — not to accept the obvious or shallow, but to dig deep in the search for right action, identity and purpose."
According to Fritjof Capra, theoretical physicist, philosopher and ecologist, "Deep ecology is where science, philosophy, and spirituality meet."
George Sessions, former chair of the philosophy department at Sierra College, is the editor of the book, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, which inspired the radio series of the same name, and for which Sessions served as series advisor. He spoke with Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, considered the father of the deep ecology movement, and they reviewed the Eight Point Platform of Deep Ecology, which supporters worldwide, from all traditions, can agree on. Naess and Sessions outline the platform as follows:
• Every living thing has intrinsic value. If you can see something as alive, you treat it in a special way.
• Say yes to richness and diversity of life on this planet.
• Humans do not have the right to decrease the richness and diversity of life on this planet. Humans have the right to satisfy vital needs, while recognizing that the vital needs of other species "trump" our non-vital needs.
• It would be better for humans if there were fewer [of us], and it would be much better for nonhumans if there were fewer of us.
• The present human impact on the Earth is excessive and destructive.
• In order to satisfy the foregoing points, every aspect of society must be significantly changed.
• The main change will be to value "quality of life" higher than "standard of living" (i.e., economic consumption).
• Those who accept the foregoing points have obligations to try to contribute to the changes which are necessary.
Commented Sessions, "When Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess gave his lecture "The Shallow and the Deep: Long-Range Ecology Movements in 1972" (in which he coined the term "deep ecology"), he was describing the ecocentric approach to nature taken by many ecologists in the 1960s . . . in which Nature and wild species should be protected because they have value in and for themselves (intrinsic value). This was the deep religious/philosophical/spiritual basis of what became known as the ecological revolution."
Adds David Suzuki, award-winning scientist and broadcast journalist, "There are some things that maintain life on Earth that are beyond any kind of economic assessment, and surely those are the things that ought to be protected at all costs, because they are sacred."
The Statistics Can Be Overwhelming
It seems sometimes as if environmental news is almost always bad:
• Acres of rain forests are being cut down each day to graze cattle that feed a proportionately small percentage of the wealthiest human population.
• Forty-eight percent of hardwood lumber is cut down to make shipping pallets, 54 percent of which are used once and then sent to landfill.
• On average, 40 percent of urban areas are devoted to the automobile—for streets, garages, parking lots, service and gas stations. (In downtown Los Angeles, it’s 80 percent.)
• Only 4 percent of old growth forests still survive in North America.
• Over one hundred species are being lost to extinction every day.
Says Toms, "In our heart of hearts we know there is something crazy about what we are doing to our environment." According to David Suzuki, "We in the industrialized world — in Europe, Japan, Australia, and North America — are the major predators on the planet. There are about 1.2 billion of us. Although we’re only 20 percent of the global population, we consume over 80 percent of the planet’s resources, and we produce far more than 80 percent of the planet’s toxic products."
Yet, dwelling on the negative can be overwhelming and paralyzing, thus inhibiting change and constructive action. Many people are getting beyond the point of being able to hear this litany of destruction without themselves feeling blamed, shamed, and demonized. According to historian and eco-psychologist, Theodore Roszak, "We in the environmental movement have relied too much on guilt trips, scare tactics, and the panic button. . . .It’s time for the [environmental] movement to take this under deep consideration; to ask where we are, where our audience is, how we motivate them, what makes people tick, and what do we have to draw upon in demanding great changes of people. Are there more positive motivations than guilt and fear?"
Roszak acknowledges, "It will take nothing less than psychological transformation to change our destructive habits." He sees in the growing discipline of eco-psychology the hope for accessing this deeper and positive motivation. "It’s not just a matter of economics, but a matter of mental health. This would give us a new perception of what sanity and mental health demands. It demands a healthy relationship to the environment."
A More Thoughtful Approach
Naess recommends use of the adage, "simple in means, rich in ends," adding, "What is to be done is secondary to the main trend — namely to identify with every living thing, and to have a kind of society where that is more important than everything else."
According to noted ecologist Peter Berg, some of the most important work to be done must happen in the cities. Berg himself is deeply involved in the San Francisco area through the Planet Drum Foundation, an organization for bioregional networking. "The greatest ecological challenge today is urban sustainability. The way we live in cities has to change in profound ways, to where we think of the city as harmonious with the resources available to support its residents. . . .Urban sustainability will soon be at the center of urban policy."
"The challenge," Berg acknowledges, "is to find something to say yes to. The proactive approach is to restore and maintain the bioregion in general and find sustainable ways for people to live."
According to Toms, "Philosophers of deep ecology ask us to go to the depths, to define our most fundamental beliefs — and then to align our actions with those beliefs. Through this kind of deep questioning, we can rediscover abundant living in harmony with the natural world."
Local Action in the Urban Landscape
Pulitzer prize-winning poet and sustainable living pioneer Gary Snyder also recommends that people get to know and get involved in their local bioregion or watershed council. To my own delight, that’s not so hard to do. We can all take a number of actions immediately — and they’re actions that are fun as well as fulfilling.
The recent National Public Lands Day, held on Saturday, September 25, featured events throughout the nation. Locally, an umbrella organization, Chicago Wilderness, spearheaded activities in the diversity of endangered ecosystems located in the metropolitan area, including forest preserves, parks, prairies, marshes, oak savannas, and more. To spend a day volunteering in Chicago’s natural world or for information about other events, contact Chicagoland Environmental Network, 708-485-0263, ext. 396, or visit www.chiwild.org.
Another way you can begin is by supporting the New Dimensions deep ecology thirteen-part series, which is available free to public radio stations. It is important that stations hear grassroots support for airing this. That means your local station should hear from you. Request that they run this series, which features dialogues with leading ecological writers, scholars, artists, and activists. It reminds us all of the critical ecological challenges we continue to face despite the near silence of the mainstream media on the topic. The tape set, including a copy of the Deep Ecology Resource Guide, may also be ordered in its entirety through New Dimensions Radio by calling 800-935-8273. (Tapes are also available individually.)
And then do what you can. Begin as I am beginning, by reusing, recycling, and taking a look at the origins of your food. Then branch out as you see fit — by creating a garden, protecting the riverfront, or joining any one of the vital and vigorous ecology groups working right here at home.
Bobbye Middendorf is an independent writer and artist who lives in the Great Lakes bioregion.