Deep Ecology

It still sounds anthropocentric because the whole point is to look at nature as something that we need to take care of so that we can survive. It's just a move from "raping the Earth" to "the Earth consenting". I don't see anything wrong with giving people a new attitude about taking care of nature but we must still keep an anthropocentric world view because if we look at all of nature as being equally valuable then we may start convicting people of murder for just cutting down trees.

Schizophretard wrote:

It still sounds anthropocentric because the whole point is to look at nature as something that we need to take care of so that we can survive. It's just a move from "raping the Earth" to "the Earth consenting". I don't see anything wrong with giving people a new attitude about taking care of nature but we must still keep an anthropocentric world view because if we look at all of nature as being equally valuable then we may start convicting people of murder for just cutting down trees.

Good point and I get what you're saying. I do think that we can take a broader viewpoint than an anthropocentric one and still recognize the significance and importance of the human animal and it's place at the top of the interconnected holarchy of life. I think we lose some perspective on this interconnectedness if our view stays too anthropocentric.

Not only can (we can take a broader viewpoint than an anthropocentric one and still recognize the significance and importance of the human animal and it's place at the top of the interconnected holarchy of life.), but if we are to survive we must.

PA said ...

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What we are more likely to fail at is getting factual information about our impact on the environment. The "people-are-bad-the-Earth-is-good" crowd seems to be winning lately. They've managed to (mis)interpret a lot of data to show us that we are destroying our planet's climate.

I think we've had this argument before my friend. You think the earth is so big and we are so little that what could we possibly do to Mother Nature?

It's actually kinda like that old children's hymn I used to sing in my old Canadian United Church ...

"you in your small corner and I in mine."

But you are wrong.

And Libertarians are wrong, at least those that haven't smelled the pollution and understood the devastatin of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even Bhopal, and gotten on the bandwagon.

Mankind's footprint on mother nature is irrevocable, unprecedented and potentially calamatous.

As I have mentioned before, we have the ability to cause the sixth extinction.

Gosh I think even the likes of Paineful and AVerroes have come to even begrudgingly recognize the intellect and power that we wield

Listen not to LIbertarians who suggest we have no responsibility in how we weild that power, my friend.

Let us not cause the sixth extinction.

Let us instead be known to our progeny who would study us, or aliens who would study us, as gardeners who made the earth flower into a golden age of productivity.

Well, Helium, if you carefully scrutinize the data published by the reputable international environmentalist organizations (not the NGOs such as Green Peace) you'd realize that much of this talk of "extinction" is just hype and scare tactics.

Let's regulate the environment where it really makes a difference: On the city, county, and Vermont size state level. That is, let's clean up the smog in air we breath, the pollutents in the water we drink etc. etc. And more importantly, lets start making the ordinary consumer pay for the actual price of water consumption along with tradeable emmissions quotas and perhaps even higher standards for vehicles emissions on statewide level (now that is a big concession from me).

But what you don't seem to appreciate is that universal/international formulas for the environmental problems are neither necessary (as we are not heading towards a mass extinction--instead, according to the Skeptical Environmentalist, almost all indicators are positive) nor are they going to be successfull everwhere, since every region in the world, and across such vast continental countries such as Canada, Russia, and United States, have different economic and techonological dependencies and thus ought not be strapped in a one size fit all straitjacket (I'm getting tired of using this term, but it seems to best characterize the environmentalsit populist solution: lets impose a global treaty and criteria on everyone).

That would destroy our local economies while do nothing for the betterment of environment, which is not all that bad in on a global scale, albeit the local effects of pollution are blatantly obvious.

Ultimately, I don't think any non-anarchist libertarian denies gov't perogative to regulate the commons; what we've been saying all this time is: show us the evidence that such massive "extinction" or collapse of the ecosystem making the the world unsustaninable to life is:
a. actually happening (in such dire measures as opposed to the modest rise in temperature or sea levels etc.)
b. permanently reversable (otherwise, if it's going to happen sooner or later anyways, then we need to focus on new technologies and prepare contingencies inadvance for populations most likely to be affected and not try to reverse the clock on industrialization and globalization).
Does it not strke you a bit odd that all those European commies ended up joining the Green Peace after the collapse of Soviet Union?

Unlike Paul, I happen to agree with you, based purely on a rational possiblity, that it is very likely that in the past 300 hundred years, and especially since the 1950, and now that Asia is rapidly growing, it is very likely that human imprint on the environment has been very significant and that there are consequences that follow.

However, unlike you, I also believe that this imprint is not reversable, and neither is it necessarily catastrophic. That is, I believe that if nature were to take it's own course, we already would've entered an ice age--but thanks to human agrarian activity for the last 4000 yrs, we've thwarted the encroachment of ice sheets over much of Europe and North America.
Secondly, the effects of global warming are actually going to be good for a lot of places in the world; and for places like Bangladesh or sub Saharan Africa, the only real long term solution is rapid techonological and economic advancement of their societies.
Thirdly, instead of bemoaning the change of climate and its potentially hazardous impact on certain places, why don't we actually plan for contigencies and encourage the inland flow of populations.
This brings me to my last point. The only real global solution to environmental problems is the End of Borders. A true system of internatinal free trade, whereby not only goods and capital, but labor is allowe to freely move across borders. The problem again is political, not economic or environmental, in that most of us (both on the left and right) are still stuck in the old mercantile and socialist nationalist mindset and cannot appreciate that in a world of globalized economy border are porous and ought to become more so. That does not mean the end of state, but the end of the idea of a nation state and the rise of the actual contractual state, as argued for by the classical liberals back in 17th and 18th centuries.
We've already seen the rise of United States, and that of European Union infront of our very eyes. Let's work on more free trade, and local regulation of environment; and the world would just keep getting better.

Yeah, lots of good points and ideas in there Averroes. There seems to be much common ground.

Helium wrote:

I think we've had this argument before my friend. You think the earth is so big and we are so little that what could we possibly do to Mother Nature?

Yes, and we'll keep having it until you get it right.

Helium wrote:

Mankind's footprint on mother nature is irrevocable, unprecedented and potentially calamatous.

Irrevocable, yes. Unprecedented, obviously. Potentially calamitous? Well, two out of three ain't bad. See, we agree (sort of).

Helium wrote:

As I have mentioned before, we have the ability to cause the sixth extinction.

Yes, we have had that ability since Hiroshima. Global Warming (sorry, the new catch-phrase is "Climate Change") has nothing to do with it.

Why do environmentalists forget that plants thrive on carbon dioxide - and produce oxygen? An increase in CO2 isn't going to destroy the planet, but it might increase our ability to produce food for an ever-increasing population.

It could also provide the planet with more drinkable water, if we made a serious effort to capture the melting ice instead of wailing about how it's going to raise the level of the oceans.

Ironically, it might also make it more economically feasible to extract oil from regions that are currently frozen.

The planet has experienced many cycles of warming and cooling. We actually thrived in the warmer periods, and died of starvation and disease in the cold ones. It doesn't matter what is causing the latest climate change. What matters is that, as Averroes said, we prepare for it better than our ancestors did.

During the "Little Ice Age", people blamed the ice on the devil and prayed for God to make it stop. We're smarter than that now. Europeans were completely dependent on cereal crops, which died in the cold. They refused to change their ways and grow potatoes which grow underground and thrived in the new climate. We might want to be a little more flexible this time.

The Vikings had established settlements in Greenland (which was actually green at the time) in preparation for a major invasion of Europe. When it turned cold and their livestock died, they stubbornly stayed put until they died. We are a much more mobile culture now. We should stop rebuilding cities like New Orleans (which is below sea level) and consider relocating to higher ground. Come to think of it, maybe we're not smarter now.

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Yes, and we'll keep having it until you get it right.

The problem PA, is I'm not sure you'll know when I'm right.

Aaron wrote:

Good point and I get what you're saying. I do think that we can take a broader viewpoint than an anthropocentric one and still recognize the significance and importance of the human animal and it's place at the top of the interconnected holarchy of life. I think we lose some perspective on this interconnectedness if our view stays too anthropocentric.

Anthropocentric ecology is indeed a broader and more universal view of mankind that incorporates environmental sustainability as an integral value. However, the difference between that and deep ecology or biocentricism is that the former recognizes that the all things valuable are valuable only because humans value them. That is why the Animal Planet places so much emphases on big cats, big apes, and larger land and sea animals, because humans can easily associate with them and thus through transference the concern for these animals leads towards initiatives to conserve the entire habitat--including the bugs and flowers of the region.

But I'm not arguing mere practicality; the conservationist movements are well aware of this behavior and successfully exploit it (to their credit). What I object to is the metaphysical views of the deep ecologists and their universal communism that places man at par with the rest of nature.

We are not; we rational, conscious, and moral beings are superior to the rest of the life forms because we are different from it, and superior. We are superior because we are rational, we are self conscious, and we have a sense of morality. No other living creature on this earth (as of yet) has achieved this self identity; they do not live through their minds, but through their hearts.

Anthropocentric environmentalism recognizes that ecological preservation is worth an effort because it is worth while for humanity. We ought to save the world because it is good for humanity; we ought to respect life because without life consciousness cannot survive. And it is our consciousness of our self, our actions, the awarness of of the consequences and our ability to generalize experience that makes us superior. And the preservation of all else flows from it with respect to its importance to the preservation and esthetic value for the sentient and conscious lifeforms on this planet--in the entire universe.

Yes, I pretty much agree Averroes. Although I still think that an ecocentric viewpoint is broader and therefore more inclusive than an anthropocentric or homocentric one.

That is, provided one acknowledges hierarchy within the ecology, which is something that many deep ecologists fail to do.

Aaron wrote:

That is, provided one acknowledges hierarchy within the ecology, which is something that many deep ecologists fail to do.

It is the concept that matters. If you and I are in agreement than I don't mind calling it ecocentrism.