Comments on: Back to nature #2: Deep Ecology- Nostalgia for Eden

By: Hugh Stokes

Hugh Stokes — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:58:33 +0000

I think that the Council of All Beings only represent one take on Deep Ecology. Anyone interested in finding out about it ought to go to Devall’ and Session’s book, or even just look it up on Wikipedia.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:47:13 +0000

I'd never heard of Deep Ecology before this article so thanks for bringing it to my attention. I don't think medicine walks and badger masks are going to be helpful but I suppose you have to try everything. Perhaps the kids will like it. People need to be re-connected with the real world but something more practical and relevant is going to be needed to get through to Mr Wilson's globe trotting bananna eater. Tell them climate change will put their mortgage payments up and they might listen.

I suspect that people who yearn for the idyllic Garden Of Eden have never tried living in it. Agriculture is full time hard work, it used to be a lot harder and it will be again. I really do shudder to think what it is going to be like with just animal power for cultivation. Yes there is satisfaction but there is also depression when crows flatten the corn, rats and mice eat the stored corn, a fox kills the chickens, blight gets the spuds or a badger kills an injured sheep.

I'm just not sure how relevant this Deep Ecology navel gazing is when you are trying to survive? If I need a bit of extra money on market day I'm sorry but I'm going to trap Earth Brother Bunny and sell his dead body.

By: Andy Wilson

Andy Wilson — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:41:59 +0000

Yes very interesting point Eoin. Homo sapiens certainly has the potential to be one of those dead ends you speak of!!

When one considers the failure of the developed nations to agree to anything significant at Bali [ lets meet in another 2 years chaps and talk another load of shite...], one wonders whether Lovelock might be right after all ( humanity reduced to 'a few breeding pairs' at the Arctic by 2100).

But my interpretation of 'separated' from nature' is from a purely human perspective, in that possibly we alone have this consciousness/self awareness... and the ability to lose the run of ourselves. Dinosaurs didn't become extinct as a result of anything they specifically did; the world moved on and they didn't adapt ( at least I think that is the case). With our species, we are actually hastening our own extinction, in spite of the growing evidence that we are doing just that!!!

I did a talk on global warming in Castlebar this week. One of the members of the audience expressed concerns she might be restricted from flying all over the planet to go on holiday or visit her relatives - or that she might not be able to buy bananas any more - because of carbon taxes. Sort of sums up the problem really.

By: Eoin O'Callaghan

Eoin O'Callaghan — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:14:30 +0000

Enjoying your back to nature series Graham… I’ve often wondered about the position of man in nature also and the idea that we have become separated from it somehow. Sometimes I feel that there isn’t any real separation – just an imagined one and it’s comforting to think we may yet find salvation if only we can rediscover that lost bond. We have evolved a high degree of intelligence and self-awareness, while other species have evolved other traits for whatever reasons. However, evolution is an ongoing process that does not have any particular end point which it aims for, nor does it operate in any particular direction. We like to think of ourselves as “highly evolved” but rarely consider what this means. For the most part, it would seem to me, we have been massively irresponsible with the traits and gifts that evolution has endowed us with as a species, given our ability to appreciate them. Natural scientists often describe sharks as “primitive” as they have been around before the time of the dinosaurs and have changed very little from the time when they swam in prehistoric oceans. This is simply a reflection of the fact that, as a taxonomic group, they are highly well-adapted to their environment. The evolutionary tree of life is full of dead ends, however, and the number of species on the planet today is only a tiny proportion of the total number of species that ever existed. The vast, vast majority are long extinct now despite whatever amazing traits they had come to possess during their evolution. In the final analysis, a high level of intelligence and self-awareness may not be the “supreme traits” that we make them out to be – they may simply be just another trait, ultimately no better or worse than say, a chameleon’s ability to change the colour of its skin. Our separation is perhaps only a perceived separation and we are really no different from any other species. Billions of species have become “separated from nature” in the past and when that happened it generally meant that they had begun the ever-shortening walk to our natural history museums.

Eoin (sending the a second time with spelling corrections!)

By: Andy Wilson

Andy Wilson — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:32:01 +0000

Looking forward to the third piece in the trilogy.

One point: historically, the separation of 'culture from nature' began thousands of years before the age of machines, and almost certainly pre-dates the classical civilizations of the Indus, Euphrates and Nile valleys and of the Mayans. I'm sure the slaves who toiled in the gold silver and copper mines, on the building of massive stone edifices and long distance highways. and in the agricultural gulags of those times didn't feel too connected to nature either while they were being literally being worked to their deaths.

This separation would appear to be a consequence of the move towards more specialised societies. Whether this is inevitable or not is another matter.

By: George Peattie

George Peattie — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 20:03:23 +0000

Thanks again Graham for another thought provoking piece.