The notion of reparation in ethical, political and legal discourse has become popular in recent years. Reparation refers to a category of actions for which there are morally compelling reasons to perform due to wrongful action in the past. ‘Reparation’ is often, but not merely, used in the context of collective responsibility. The debate around the concept has mainly focussed on humans, but the wrongs done to humans can be indirect, such as contaminating the soil or polluting the air, in (...) cases of which the quality of human life has been significantly deteriorated. In the paper, it will be examined whether the concept of reparation is applicable to characterise our responsibilities to the rest of nature? And can ecological restoration be understood as an exemplification of reparation? In restoration,ecological system or natural landscape returned to some historically existed condition. In the context of reparations, the scope of concern would be limited to those changes that involve human presence or activity. Reparation is to be understood as corrective action when one has done something wrong. Ecological restoration aims to restore a situation that has prevailed at some point earlier. To say that ecological restoration is also moral reparation, we must assumethat nature or non-human entities and processes be wronged in the morally relevant sense. There are, of course, reasons for being sceptical over this assumption and its practical implications. (shrink)

"Wisdom in the Open Air" traces the Norwegian roots of the strain of thinking called "deep ecology" - the search for the solutions to environmental problems by examining the fundamental tenets of our culture. Although Arne Naess coined the term in the 1970s, the insights of deep ecology actually reflect a whole tradition of thought that can be seen in the history of Norwegian culture, from ancient mountain myths to the radical ecoactivism of today. Beginning with an introduction to Norway's (...) emphasis on nature and the wild, Reed and Rothenberg explore the birth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. What follows is a collection of writings by prominent Norwegian thinkers on humanity and nature, most never before published in English. From Peter Wessel Zapffe, a twentieth-century Kierkegaardian figure, the list goes on to include Arne Naess, activist/critic/artist Sigmund Kvaloy, wilderness educator Nils Faarlund, novelist Finn Alnaes, sociologist Johan Galtung, and social reformer Erik Dammann. Their points of view offer thoughts on the significance of modern life and what it means to be human in the face of deteriorating environmental global trends of the 20th century. "Wisdom in the Open Air" asks and answers a fundamental question concerning the ecomovement: what is the role of deep, often abstract, thinking in the attempt to avert a very real ecological crisis? (shrink)

Since their emergence in the 1980s, environmental virtue ethics (EVEs) have aimed to provide an alternative to deontological and consequentialist approaches for guiding ecological actions in the context of the global environmental crisis. The deterioration of the ecological situation and the challenges in addressing collective action problems caused by global changes have heightened interest in these ethics. They offer a framework for meaningful individual actions independently of the commitment of other actors. However, by shifting the focus onto (...) individuals, EVEs appear to grapple with the tension between anthropocentrism and respect for nature, as well as between self-flourishing and concern for other living beings. This article argues that this difficulty is rooted in the neglect within EVEs of the communitarian aspect of ancient virtue ethics. Drawing from Baird Callicott’s ecocentric approach and Val Plumwood’s works, this paper explores the possibility of conceiving ecological communities as collective frameworks in which both public and private virtues are defined and practiced. (shrink)

In this article we expand upon the conceptual framework of Félix Guattari’s 1989 essay, The Three Ecologies. Here Guattari examines changes in subjectivity that have come about due to scientific and technological advances which, as he sees it, brought about an “ecological disequilibrium” ([1989]2000, 27) and deteriorated individual and collective modes of being. In response to this Guattari proposes a kind of holistic therapy or ‘ecosophy’ between three ecological registers: “the environment, social relations and human subjectivity” (ibid., 28). (...) Guattari cautions that we not only take note of these macro determinations, but also heed the libidinal impulses of desire – what captures it, what directs it, and what shuts it down. Since the publication of The Three Ecologies, the rise of digital technologies has dramatically influenced the ways in which people think, live and communicate. Technological infrastructures, for instance, are used to spread disinformation at a vast speed and scale, and because social networks are often homophile many people infrequently encounter critical disagreement and debate. The increase in media and digital communications usage has also led to new forms of social inclusion and exclusion, the most exacerbated form of which is probably the phenomenon known as hikikomori – acute, prolonged social withdrawal. Taking hikikomori as our focus, we describe what we see as a general set of symptoms of society and trace its myriad intersections with an ever-increasing algorithmic ubiquity, which we posit as the new form of hyper-modulation following from Foucault’s disciplinary societies and Deleuze’s control societies. (shrink)

Shifting the focus from fear, guilt, and indignation related to deteriorating environmental quality, the authors hypothesized that people who see greater potential for restorative experiences in natural environments also do more to protect them by behaving ecologically, as with recycling or reduced driving. University students rated a familiar freshwater marsh in terms of being away, fascination, coherence, and compatibility, qualities of restorative person-environment transactions described in attention restoration theory. They also reported on their performance of various ecological behaviors. The (...) authors tested a structural equation model with data from a randomly drawn subset of participants and then confirmed it with the data from a second subset. For the combined subsets, perceptions of the restorative qualities predicted 23% of the variance in general ecological behavior. As the only direct predictor, fascination mediated the influences of coherence, being away, and compatibility. (shrink)

The coastal zone of Bangladesh is endowed with dynamic ‘Terrestrial’ and ‘Coastal and Marine ecosystem’. The zone confronts with declined environmental quality owing to unethical anthropogenic interventions. Few studies regarding ethical attitudes of local communities to conserve the coast were conducted earlier. Two objectives, such as (i) heavy metal concentration, and (ii) physio-chemical quality of sample soil and water were selected to reveal the environmental state of study area. Five heavy metals like- Cadmium, Copper, Iron, Lead, and Zinc; and four (...) physio-chemical parameters such as, the pH, Electrical Conductivity, Temperature, and Turbidity of sample soil and water were measured. The average concentration of Pb in soil is 10 times higher than world average (0.03 mg/g), while Cd concentration in soil is two times more than world average (0.11 mg/L). The concentration of Fe at Inani beach water is 1.54 mg/g more than world average (3.4 mg/g). The physio-chemical parameters are within standard range. Unethical discharge of toxic effluents from shrimp hatcheries, and municipal garbage are main sources of pollution, which ensue into environmental degradations. Concentration of five heavy metals and Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) in sample mollusk shells exhibit biodiversity deterioration. The mollusk shells from Inani beach contains 0.04 mg/L Cd,0.08 mg/L Cu, 0.42 mg/L Fe, 0.38 mg/L Pb, and 0.07 mg/L Zn. The CaCO3 content in mollusk shells at Inani beach is 49.5%, which indicates the degradation of the mollusks, as shells normally are made with 95% - 97% Calcium Carbonate. Hence, the Department of Environment (DOE), Bangladesh (GoB) declared the area as an ‘Ecologically Critical Area’ (ECA). The concerned stakeholders, like- CPP volunteers and officials, Forest Division, Fisheries Research Institute, Bangladesh Water Development Board, Union Chairman and Journalists of Cox’s Bazar recommended insertion of moral values among local stakeholders through trainings, motivational lectures, demonstrations and dramas, as well as, incorporation of lessons about consequences of unethical activities upon geo-environment into text books. Though least practice has been found regarding moral values during survey, the present research advocates in developing ‘Knowledge pool’ about coastal environment, creating awareness, and developing moral ethics among the local, regional and national stakeholders. (shrink)

There is a growing understanding that addressing the global crisis facing humanity will require new methods for knowing, understanding, and valuing the world. Narrow, disciplinary, and reductionist perceptions of reality are proving inadequate for addressing the complex, interconnected problems of the current age. The pervasive Cartesian worldview, which is based on the metaphor of the universe as a machine, promotes fragmentation in our thinking and our perception of the cosmos. This divisive, compartmentalized thinking fosters alienation and self-focused behavior. I aim (...) to show in this essay that healing the fragmentation that is at the root of the current world crises requires an integrated epistemology that embraces both the rational knowledge of scientific empiricism and the inner knowledge of spiritual experience. This “deep science‘ transcends the illusion of separateness to discern the unity, the unbroken wholeness, that underlies the diverse forms of the universe. Our perception of connectedness, of our integral place in the web of life, emerges as an attribute of our connection with the eternal, beatific source of all existence. This awakened spiritual vision “widens our circle of understanding and compassion, to embrace all living creatures in the whole of nature‘ (Einstein, quoted in Goldstein [1976] 1987). Our behavior, as it emerges naturally out of our perception of the sacredness of the natural world, will naturally embody love and respect for all life forms. This vision promotes the healing of our long-standing alienation from the natural world and offers hope for renewal in the midst of widespread cultural deterioration and environmental destruction. (shrink)

Many researchers believe the tremendous industrial development over the past two centuries is unsustainable because it has led to unintended ecological deterioration. Despite the ever-growing attention sustainable supply-chain management has received, most SSCM research and models look at the consequences, rather than the antecedents or motives of such responsible practices. The few studies that explore corporate motives have remained largely qualitative, and large-scale empirical analyses are scarce. Drawing on multiple theories and combining supply-chain and business ethics literature, we (...) purport that instrumental, relational, and moral motives are behind a firm’s engagement in SSCM practices. Specifically, we examine the links between corporate motives, SSCM practices, and firm performance. Using a sample of 259 supply-chain firms in Germany, we empirically test five hypothesized relationships. Our results reveal that relational and moral motives are key drivers, and that firms exhibiting high levels of moral obligations tend to outperform those primarily driven by amoral considerations. Findings of this study contribute to multiple literatures espousing sustainability management and can help policy makers, stakeholder groups, and scholars develop more robust strategies for encouraging firms to practice SSCM. (shrink)

This paper examines Chinese imagery of smokestacks both as a concrete object and an abstract concept emerging from early futurist eulogy to modernist allergy, and from Maoist propaganda to post-Fifth Generation environmental reflections. In the Republican era, writers from the Creation Society eulogize the smokes of steamboat smokestacks as beautified symbols of modern civilization. Yet members from the Beijing School convey their concerns about the Janus face of industrialization and environmental impairments. After 1949, smokestacks are eulogized as an icon of (...) socialist industrialization and pervade cinematic productions, literary imaginations, and artistic exhibitions. Since the 1980s, smokestacks have been gradually understood as vestiges of problematic socialist practice. The growing ecological deterioration in the 21st century propels public intellectuals and film directors to expose industrial pollution and to invoke environmental protection. Yet another type of representation arises in the post-Fifth Generation films, where smokestacks are visualized as a token of the “insulted and injured” working class, individual discovery, and collective sentiment worn out by the post Mao-Deng global developmentalism and social injustice. The metamorphoses of smokestacks in literary, cinematic, and artistic imaginations envision and exhibit the structural transformation of modern Chinese environmental and ecological consciousness. (shrink)

Whereas religions around the world are being challenged to reexamine both their tenets and practice in the ominous wake of ecological deterioration, one particular challenge they face is cosmological. As a global consumer society becomes more prominent, religious ecological thinkers such as “geologian” Thomas Berry assert that a cosmology of commodification is supplanting not only individual religious cosmologies but also the human appreciation of and relationship to the universe itself.

Possible futures can, for simplicity, be reduced to three broad options: “Business-as-usual economic growth”, “Green economic growth”, and “Ecological sustainability”. We critically discuss the feasibility and sustainability of each. We find that the Nightmare option will eventually be undermined by ecological deterioration and rising resource scarcity, while the Diversion option, we argue, is doomed to failure. The Vision option is for us the only viable future, but requires unprecedented socioeconomic changes. Regardless of path, either Earth biophysical changes, (...) or socioeconomic changes—or possibly both—will be unprecedented. Hence, predicting the future, never easy, will become much harder. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Defense of Frugality:Insights from “Green Contemplatives” across TraditionsWioleta PolinskaIn 1995, James Nash, a Christian ethicist, wrote a seminal article discussing the decline of the virtue of frugality. Not only is frugality demoted by our society, but it is also met with ridicule and depicted as “unfashionable, unpalatable, and even unpatriotic.”1 In contrast, argued Nash, frugality needs to be defined as an “earth affirming and enriching norm that delights (...) in the non- and less-consumptive joys of the mind and flesh, especially the enhanced lives for human communities and other creatures that only constrained consumption and production can make possible on a finite planet.”2 Seen as such, frugality becomes a subversive norm revolting against the norms prevalent in our consumerist society. Today, frugality continues to be a radical virtue, yet a virtue that receives a growing attention from the religious and secular alike. This is due to the spreading ecological deterioration, the increasing gap between the poor and the wealthy, and the mounting dissatisfaction with life among the well-to-do. Psychologists, sociologists, economists, and environmentalists call for a life that rejects overconsumption, a life that is satisfied with what is enough.3 Scholarly voices from diverse disciplines point out that restraint in our lifestyle choices is necessary to ensure sustainability for all life forms and the planet itself. This is so because the health of the environment is endangered largely due to human consumption aimed at increasing one’s well-being. Furthermore, the research on happiness suggests that the prosperous in our society might be happier when practicing some restraint in consumer spending.4 Thus, it appears that frugality can bring health to the planet and its various inhabitants and make human beings happy.Based on an interdisciplinary assessment of the consumerist lifestyle, I will argue that contemplative Christian and Buddhist traditions offer one way of restoring the subversive virtue of frugality. By examining contemplative resources present in their respective theologies, practices of meditation, and environmentally friendly lifestyles, I will suggest the relevancy of these for secular as well as religious communities and the well-being of the planet. Given our growing social, environmental, and psychological costs driven by consumerism, it is important to revisit strategies present in living frugally.5 [End Page 147]Zygmunt Bauman, a sociologist and philosopher, defines consumerist society in the following manner:Consumer society manages to render non-satisfaction permanent. One way of achieving such an effect is to denigrate and devalue consumer products shortly after they have been hyped into the universe of the consumer’s desires. But another way, yet more effective, hides from the limelight: the method of satisfying every need/desire/want in such a fashion that it cannot but give birth to new needs/desires/wants. What starts as a need must end up as a compulsion or an addiction.6Of course, there is nothing wrong with consumption as such. Our very survival depends on it. What is problematic is the kind of consumption that turns into an end in itself so that other concerns, be they social, economic, or psychological, are dismissed. In a society that often measures personal achievement by economic success, the nonsatisfaction with one’s current status is rendered permanent. This is particularly noticeable whenever the updated versions of popular products appear on the market, whether iPods, iPhones, or computers. Purchases of such products are rarely motivated by “needs,” since the older versions of the products are still functional, but by hyped-up desire created by a multibillion-dollar advertising industry. We want what we are told we should want because we are caught in a cycle of compulsion that aims at satisfying every desire. In such a cycle, wants become identified as needs. More than 70 percent of the electronic products end up in our landfills, and they contribute 70 percent of the heavy metals found in US landfills.7Wendell Berry, a Catholic contemplative, characterizes this consumerist approach to life as consistent with the culture of the one night stand. We are after pleasure rather than lasting commitments; we do not probe into the practices of various businesses; we choose not to know true names of our... (shrink)

The unprecedented economic growth in recent decades has cultivated the exploitation of natural resources and over-consumption, leading to ecological deterioration and sustainability. The ever-increasing consumption in developing countries is creating a significant environmental strain. Thus, the industry and consumers’ environmental issues and their harmful effects on human health have led to concerns among researchers, scientists, academic communities, and policymakers. The present work examines the impact of different consumption value factors on sustainable consumption behavior concerning consumer choice in Pakistan (...) and China. A cross-sectional study is conducted, and data are collected through a primary source questionnaire. A sample of 431 respondents is chosen from different cities in Pakistan, and a sample of 342 respondents is selected from China. Estimation techniques like descriptive statistics, frequency distribution, multicollinearity, R square, independent sample t-test, the coefficient of correlation, and regression analysis are used for the data analysis. The comparative results show that knowledge values and emotional values significantly influence the choice behavior of respondents toward environmentally friendly products both in Pakistan and China. In contrast, social values and conditional values show insignificant influence. Furthermore, functional values are significant in Pakistan while insignificant in the context of China, and environmental values are significant in China although insignificant in Pakistan with regard to sustainable consumption behavior. (shrink)

Although the chinampa agriculture in Mexico City is considered an historical sustainable farming system,there have been few studies on its current status. This paper assesses the relationship between agroecological factors and socioeconomic strategies by analyzing urban forces, regional employment, and environmental concerns. Despite ecological deterioration caused by the urban expansion of Mexico City, the economic viability of this agricultural system is still based on the efficient use of farming technologies and resources management strategies that tend to maintain levels (...) of productivity in horticulture and floriculture. The chinampa agriculture generates high income and employment for families and other local residents. This agroecosystem depends on the relationship between the economic priorities and agricultural criteria of farmers. We suggest that urban development, economic growth, and resource management in the chinampa region of Mexico City coincide with ecosystem processes, biological human needs, agronomic productivity, economic viability, and sociocultural values. By evaluating these factors, we provide some useful insights on the importance of this traditional agriculture within a sustainable development context. (shrink)

La hipótesis principal es que el crecimiento conduce inexorablemente a un rendimiento económico continuamente menguante, lo que nos coloca en una situación paradójica: siendo la economía un «juego de suma cero», sostener y acrecentar la riqueza monetaria de las poblaciones ya ricas requiere cada vez más esfuerzo, es cada vez más difícil, requiriendo mayores poblaciones que explotar a la vez que mayor transporte a fin de ampliar mercados, extraer recursos a mayores distancia, etc. Y puesto que la jerarquía mundial de (...) conurbaciones, desde las denominadas ciudades globales hasta las megalópolis del Tercer Mundo, forman la máquina clave que sustenta el crecimiento; las conurbaciones se han ido transformando en los nodos fundamentales de la red de flujos y en el espacio del conflicto. Y nada, salvo el decrecimiento, puede modificar esa transformación. (shrink)

Climate change continues to have recognizable impacts across the globe, as weather patterns shift and impacts accumulate and intensify. In this wider context, urban areas face significant challenges as they attempt to mitigate dynamic changes at the local level — changes such as those caused by intensifying weather events, the disruption of critical supplies, and the deterioration of local ecosystems. One field that could help urban areas address these challenges is conservation biology. However, this paper presents the argument that (...) work in urban contexts may be especially difficult for conservation biologists. In light of current climate change predictions, conservation biology may need to abandon some of its core values in favor of commitments guiding urban ecology. More broadly, this essay aims to reconcile the goals of restoration and conservation, by reconceptualizing what an ecosystem is, in the context of a world threatened by global climate change. (shrink)

In this paper, we criticize the current focus of the bio-based economy (BBE) on efficiency and control and demonstrate the contradictions that this causes. We elucidate these tensions by comparing the BBE to alternative conceptions of economy that emphasise the relevance of both the human condition and unfathomable nature in the macro ecological transition project. From Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy, we take and extrapolate two major concepts—il y a and enjoyment—that help to re-evaluate the status of both nature and the (...) human subject involved in environmental instability. From this analysis, we evaluate current economic practice in close relation to the deteriorating environment to contribute to a conception of an economy that is truly based on principles of the biosphere. We conclude that humankind and nature are notions that must be always considered in this encompassing and topical effort and explain how they have been fundamentally overlooked in current thought on the bio-based and circular economy. (shrink)

Ecosemiotics represents a theoretical approach to human ecology that can be applied across several disciplines. lts primary justification lies inthe ambition to transcend "Cartesian", conceptual dichotomies such as culture/nature. society/nature, mental/material. etc. It argues that ecosystems areconstituted no less by flows of signs than by flows of matter and energy. This paper discusses the roles of different kinds of hmnan sign systems in the ecologyof Amazonia, ranging from the phenomenology of unconscious sensations. through linguistic signs such as metaphors and ethnobiological (...) taxonomies, to money and the political economy of environmental destruction. Human-environmental relations mediated by direct, sensory and (oral) linguistic communication have tended to enhance biological diversity, suggesting modes of calibrating the long-term co-evolution of human and non-human populations. Economic sign systems, on the other hand, have rapidly and drastically transfonned human-environmental relations in Amazonia to the point where the entire rainforest ecosystem is illlder threat. In detaching themselves from the direct, "face-to-face" communication between humans and their natural environments, flows of money and commodities - and the decontextualized knowledge systems that they engender - have no means of staying geared to the long-term negotiation of local, ecological co-existence. It is argued that the ongoing deterioration of the biosphere can be viewed as a problem of communication, deserving semiotic analysis. (shrink)

This paper aims to demonstrate how museum collection sustainability is grounded in a range of concrete care practices that are social and material. It explores the unstable nature of heritage materials, drawing on the ecological approach of infrastructure and maintenance studies in the field of art and museums. To do this, I analyse the role of mundane operations in the daily functioning of an exhibition area, presenting data from fieldwork I conducted from 2015–2016 at the Musée du quai Branly (...) in Paris, which preserves collections of art and ethnology from outside Europe. I observed the museum's preventive conservation practices, which work to minimise the risks of material deterioration of heritage objects, focusing attention on stabilising the relationship between objects and their environments. These practices contribute to the construction of the temporalities of museum objects. In exploring the means and devices of preserving these heritage objects, the very assumption of perpetuation is destabilised. Environments continually unfold with the silent material metamorphosis of objects. The exhibition becomes a place of flows, where a multitude of entities circulate and cohabit at different scales, such as insects, dust, and powdery fragments. The daily human work of vacuuming, cleaning, trapping, and measuring provide a set of actions united with other entities engaged in the material life of the exhibited object. As we zoom in on the exhibition space, different timelines emerge that are inextricably linked to the different lives of the museum. (shrink)

Possible environmental and related impacts of human activity are shown to include the extinction of humanity and other sentient species, excessive human numbers, and a deteriorating quality of life (I). I proceed to argue that neither future rights, nor Kantian respect for future people's autonomy, nor a contract between the generations supplies a plausible basis of obligations with regard to future generations. Obligations concern rather promoting the well-being of the members of future generations, whoever they may be, as well as (...) of current generations. Future benefits and costs should only be discounted where there are special reasons for doing do so (e.g. relevant opportunity costs) (II). A sustainable economy is held to be necessary for intergenerational equity. This granted, principles of equity are introduced concerning: compensation for long-term risks and for resource depletion; conserving the stock of resources, resource diversity, and assimilative capacity; equal options and opportunities for each generation; and remedying past failures to conserve environmental quality. Rules and policies considered include: an efficient, diversified, and ecologically sustainable economy; no increase of risk of irreversible environmental change; and action despite uncertainty to avert serious future outcomes (the Precautionary Principle). These policies are argued to require rectification of current injustices within and between current generations (III). Finally, the recently resuscitated metaphysical model of society as a partnership between generations is held to imply the view of each generation as trustees rather than owners of the planet. This trusteeship view is independently credible, and supportive of the principles and policies earlier introduced; and its adoption by successive generations could turn the partnership model into a reality (IV). (shrink)

This paper analyses how agricultural policy and science deal with the problem of increasing exploitation of low quality irrigation water and consequent deterioration of water quality in the States of Punjab and Haryana in India. In these cereal growing tracts the policy objective of food security is translated into production technologies, price protection and subsidies. Deterioration of water quality is countered with technocentric solutions. The paper argues that the response of science to the complexities involved in natural resource (...) problems or in the scientific understanding of farmers partial response to technological solutions recommended to improve degraded resources, is due to the existing “administrative rationalism” of natural resource bureaucracies. This administrative rationalism, “the problem-solving discourse which emphasizes the role of the expert rather than the citizen” allows policy and science to maintain their hierarchy in determining policy goals and technological solutions with scant ecological or democratic concerns. Sustainable use of water demands institutional reform in agricultural policy and the agricultural sciences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 23-42 [Access article in PDF] Overcoming the Grip of Consumerism Stephanie KazaUniversity of VermontFor fifteen years the Worldwatch Institute of Washington, D. C. has been publishing a review of the declining condition of the global environment (Brown et al. 1998). For the most part, the picture is not good. Much of the deterioration can be traced directly to human activities--urban expansion equates to species (...) loss, industrial manufacturing to air pollution, factory farming to water pollution, chemical agriculture to poisoned soil. Accelerating these environmental impacts are rapidly rising population numbers, increasingly efficient technologies, and consumption rates beyond the planet's capacity. These three have been linked by the equation I=PAT, or environmental impact=population size multiplied by affluence (or degree of consumption) multiplied by technology. Reduce any one of these and the impact drops; increase one or all three, and the impact rises, in some cases dramatically.Much of the conversation among scientists and technologists has focused on the P (population) and T (technology) parts of the equation, with grave concerns that rising population numbers are swamping earth systems, yet often with buoyant optimism that technological breakthroughs will solve everything. These two perspectives dominated political discussion for much of the 1960s and 1970s (Ehrlich et al. 1977 and Lovins 1977, among others). But by the 1980s the facts were incontrovertible: high rates of consumption were driving environmental destruction just as fast if not faster than rising population. At the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil, representatives of southern countries demanded that high-consuming northern countries examine their own contribution to the environmental crisis rather than placing blame elsewhere. It is our obligation in the North to respond to these serious requests.How much do people in northern industrialized countries consume? Here are some indicator figures: Americans consume their average body weight (120 pounds) every day in materials extracted and processed from farms, mines, range lands, and forests (Ryan and Durning 1997, 5). In the United States, the number of shopping malls (close to 35,000) eclipsed the number of high schools in 1987 (Dunning 1992, 130). Since 1950 the per capita consumption of energy, meat, and lumber has doubled, use of plastic has increased five times, use of aluminum seven times, and average airplane miles per person has soared 33-fold (Durning 1992, 29). As products have proliferated, we see the swelling ecological footprint behind each new thing: clear-cut forests replacing paper plantations in Thailand, toxic oil polluting native lands of Ecuador, women earning poverty wages assembling computer chips in [End Page 23] Malaysia--the stories are not as pretty as the products. Materials extraction, production, distribution, use, and waste disposal--all of these have ecological costs, many of which are life threatening.Why should Buddhists and Christians address consumption? For starters, it is a nonsectarian issue; responsibility cuts across denominations and religious belief systems. Collaboration of all kinds is needed to take apart this juggernaut of complex causes and conditions. I believe the Buddhist tradition has powerful analytical tools and spiritual practices which may be helpful in this undertaking. These may aid or inspire similar efforts explored through the Christian heritage. A survey of the landscape and the literature shows it is shockingly clear: the challenge here is enormous. It will require all the spiritual insight, dedication, and sheer stamina we can bring to it. This work cannot be done alone; we need each other's help to keep going through the many obstacles.To date, Buddhist initiatives in this conversation have been modest. Several popular books have brought Buddhist perspectives to bear on consumption issues, most notably E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful (1975) and Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild (1990). Both works popularize practices of simplicity and restraint, flavored by the exotic Western fascination with Eastern thought. Several Buddhist teachers in the U.S. have taken up particular sub-themes addressing over-consumption. Philip Kapleau has sounded an ethical call for vegetarianism based on the first precept, "no killing" (1982). Robert Aitken has taken a stand for reducing wants and needs to simplify... (shrink)

The dissertation is conceived as a major study of the controversial philosopher of world history, Oswald Spengler, as the exponent of a distinctive variety of political realism. The relationship of his ideas to German historicism and international theory is probed. The question of the historical inevitability of the eclipse of Europe by the ascendant superpowers and the epochal significance of the emergence of the American Century is considered in light of his philosophy. Spengler's many lectures and treatises on politics are (...) carefully examined in order to aid in harvesting his enduring wisdom on the art of statecraft, his insights into its ethical dilemma, and his reflections on the crisis of international politics in the twentieth century. The key thesis that Spengler transformed the cyclical philosophy he originally elaborated in his major work, The Decline of the West, summoning forth an arresting vision of world history as a soaring spiral culminating in the destruction of modern civilization, is buttressed through extensive quotation from posthumously published archival material. The actuality of his profoundly tragic thought, which illuminates the apocalyptic specter which haunts contemporary world affairs--the global ecological crisis, the cessation of economic growth in the overpopulated periphery and the danger of the collapse of the American-sponsored post-World War II international economic order, and the unending peril of a global war waged with thermonuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons is explored. A provocative neo-Spenglerian scenario of the rapid deterioration of American economic power and the disintegration of the pax Americana, based on the classic analogy between Rome and America is adumbrated as an especially pessimistic contribution to the stormy debate about American "relative" decline. Finally, the significance of his philosophy to international political thought, particularly the utility of his pessimism in guiding statesmen in retarding the inevitable decline of the pax Americana as well as its value in exposing the guarded optimism at the core of "pessimistic" modern realist thought and in raising the question of its ultimate exhaustion in the face of the insurmountable crisis of modernity, is summarized. (shrink)

In his final writings Guattari designed a four-functor meta-model with which to map subjective resingularisation against the backdrop of what he saw as the late-modern admixture of ecological collapse, social deterioration and subjective decomposition. I examine here Guattari’s fourfold in neo-structuralist terms and then engage in a discussion on the difference between worlding and deterritorialisation, reassessing in this sense Guattari’s concept of machinic indices in conversation with the works of anthropologists. Further, I show that Guattari’s fourfold is reminiscent (...) of Heidegger’s Geviert, which I place at the very core of Heidegger’s project of overcoming the modern Ge-stell. Lastly, from the fact that Guattari’s fourfold opens onto the question of worlding and that Heidegger points to our incapability to tune in and sing back to the earth’s song, I draw the conclusion that they put forward an eco-cosmo-poetics that points beyond the flat ontology of today’s new materialism and the subtractive logic of speculative realism. (shrink)

Drawing on the texts of Martin Heidegger, at times interpreted against the grain, I tackle the relation between ecology and economy in our era of rampant economism. I begin by outlining the ecological and economic variations on ethics and politics, with the view to the logos and nomos of dwelling (oikos). Thereafter, I consider the rise of a worldless, homeless world from the undue emphasis placed on nomos, which is but the active (actively gathering) dimension of logos. This lopsidedness, (...) I argue, coincides with and is reinforced by the deterioration of ontological rank to valuation and, ultimately, to numeric orderability. Further, I focus on the excesses of a purely economist comportment that, emboldened by the inflation of nomos, devastates “economy” itself from within by converting the elemental fold for dwelling first into a manageable territory and finally into an empire. I conclude with the thesis that things, sharply contrasted to objects, maintain the possibility of an ecological existence, recalling us to the lost dwelling. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 23-42 [Access article in PDF] Overcoming the Grip of Consumerism Stephanie KazaUniversity of VermontFor fifteen years the Worldwatch Institute of Washington, D. C. has been publishing a review of the declining condition of the global environment (Brown et al. 1998). For the most part, the picture is not good. Much of the deterioration can be traced directly to human activities--urban expansion equates to species (...) loss, industrial manufacturing to air pollution, factory farming to water pollution, chemical agriculture to poisoned soil. Accelerating these environmental impacts are rapidly rising population numbers, increasingly efficient technologies, and consumption rates beyond the planet's capacity. These three have been linked by the equation I=PAT, or environmental impact=population size multiplied by affluence (or degree of consumption) multiplied by technology. Reduce any one of these and the impact drops; increase one or all three, and the impact rises, in some cases dramatically.Much of the conversation among scientists and technologists has focused on the P (population) and T (technology) parts of the equation, with grave concerns that rising population numbers are swamping earth systems, yet often with buoyant optimism that technological breakthroughs will solve everything. These two perspectives dominated political discussion for much of the 1960s and 1970s (Ehrlich et al. 1977 and Lovins 1977, among others). But by the 1980s the facts were incontrovertible: high rates of consumption were driving environmental destruction just as fast if not faster than rising population. At the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil, representatives of southern countries demanded that high-consuming northern countries examine their own contribution to the environmental crisis rather than placing blame elsewhere. It is our obligation in the North to respond to these serious requests.How much do people in northern industrialized countries consume? Here are some indicator figures: Americans consume their average body weight (120 pounds) every day in materials extracted and processed from farms, mines, range lands, and forests (Ryan and Durning 1997, 5). In the United States, the number of shopping malls (close to 35,000) eclipsed the number of high schools in 1987 (Dunning 1992, 130). Since 1950 the per capita consumption of energy, meat, and lumber has doubled, use of plastic has increased five times, use of aluminum seven times, and average airplane miles per person has soared 33-fold (Durning 1992, 29). As products have proliferated, we see the swelling ecological footprint behind each new thing: clear-cut forests replacing paper plantations in Thailand, toxic oil polluting native lands of Ecuador, women earning poverty wages assembling computer chips in [End Page 23] Malaysia--the stories are not as pretty as the products. Materials extraction, production, distribution, use, and waste disposal--all of these have ecological costs, many of which are life threatening.Why should Buddhists and Christians address consumption? For starters, it is a nonsectarian issue; responsibility cuts across denominations and religious belief systems. Collaboration of all kinds is needed to take apart this juggernaut of complex causes and conditions. I believe the Buddhist tradition has powerful analytical tools and spiritual practices which may be helpful in this undertaking. These may aid or inspire similar efforts explored through the Christian heritage. A survey of the landscape and the literature shows it is shockingly clear: the challenge here is enormous. It will require all the spiritual insight, dedication, and sheer stamina we can bring to it. This work cannot be done alone; we need each other's help to keep going through the many obstacles.To date, Buddhist initiatives in this conversation have been modest. Several popular books have brought Buddhist perspectives to bear on consumption issues, most notably E. F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful (1975) and Gary Snyder's The Practice of the Wild (1990). Both works popularize practices of simplicity and restraint, flavored by the exotic Western fascination with Eastern thought. Several Buddhist teachers in the U.S. have taken up particular sub-themes addressing over-consumption. Philip Kapleau has sounded an ethical call for vegetarianism based on the first precept, "no killing" (1982). Robert Aitken has taken a stand for reducing wants and needs to simplify... (shrink)

Storm surges, flooding, heatwaves, and prolonged drought, as ever more regular features of life under deteriorating climate conditions, are unmistakably violent. Their effects on the lives of vulnerable human populations and ecosystems across the world are widely known to be devastating. Yet a legal order that denies the victims of such ecological persecution safe haven, no matter how great its use of force (e.g., detention, arrest, forced return) cannot, by definition, be violent. The power of law, used to protect (...) states’ rights to exclude from their jurisdictions growing numbers displaced involuntarily by global climate harms, in being a source of ‘legitimate right’, is never the same as violence. This article challenges the ongoing validity of this assumption. It points to some of the ways in which legal instruments are used today to deny those displaced by climatic conditions sufficient normative status to guarantee their safety. What is needed instead is a new critical normative understanding of the evolving relationship between climate change, violence, justice, and law, one that re-assesses the democratic justificatory grounds for the current positions of non-responsibility for the climate displaced whilst re-affirming such people’s legal and political status as equal co-members of the politically constituted international community of humanity. (shrink)

A new academic discipline, Survival Research, is proposed to investigate how the survival of the human species and its civilizations can be assured. Today nuclear weapons, overpopulation, and the deteriorating environment threaten our future. These phenomena are interconnected, and must be considered together in their complexity in an interdisciplinary manner. Some major obstacles to a wider awareness of the problems and solutions are described. Survival issues, primarily ecological ones, have lately lost ground, especially in the United States. It is (...) essential that those still concerned, especially teachers and journalists, be informed about the problems and the urgency for finding solutions. (shrink)

Recent advances in mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) systems, featuring non-prep dry electrodes and wireless telemetry, have urged the needs of mobile brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for applications in our daily life. Since the brain may behave differently while people are actively situated in ecologically-valid environments versus highly-controlled laboratory environments, it remains unclear how well the current laboratory-oriented BCI demonstrations can be translated into operational BCIs for users with naturalistic movements. Understanding inherent links between natural human behaviors and brain activities is the key (...) to ensuring the applicability and stability of mobile BCIs. This study aims to assess the quality of steady-state visual-evoked potentials (SSVEPs), which is one of promising channels for functioning BCI systems, recorded using a mobile EEG system under challenging recording conditions, e.g., walking. To systemati-cally explore the effects of walking locomotion on the SSVEPs, this study instructed subjects to stand or walk on a treadmill running at speeds of 1, 2, and 3 mile (s) per hour (MPH) while con-currently perceiving visual flickers (11 and 12 Hz). Empirical results of this study showed that the SSVEP amplitude tended to deteriorate when subjects switched from standing to walking. Such SSVEP suppression could be attributed to the walking locomotion, leading to distinctly deteriorated SSVEP detectability from standing (84.87±13.55%) to walking (1 MPH: 83.03±13.24%, 2 MPH: 79.47±13.53%, and 3 MPH: 75.26±17.89%). These findings not only demonstrated the applicability and limitations of SSVEPs recorded from freely behaving humans in realistic environments, but also provide useful methods and techniques for boosting the translation of the BCI technology from laboratory demonstrations to practical applications. (shrink)

In the course of modernization, the technical rationality still was the leading part of mainstream rational view in China. Modern technology brings us not only the acceleration of the modernization, but also increasingly serious condition, including of ecological crisis, environment deterioration, resource shortage, polarization of the rich and the poor, morality degradation and labor alienation. The potential phenomenon in the course of western modernization also appears in china. Maybe we can’t charged the whole fault to modern technology, but (...) it as the essential phenomenon and leading power of our Times, avoidance plays that blaming part in the result of development. Nowadays western developed countries have realized modernization and begin to step into the Time which we call as post-industrial, post-informatization, and post-knowledgeable society. In starting from the theory paradigm of postmodernism philosophy, searching for essential survey of technology’s philosophical meanings, discussing a Postmodernism view on Technology which re-unscramble transformation relationship between in human and nature, This paper presents a pattern of interpretation and construction of technology which has the meanings of sustainable development. Postmodernism View of Technology, which is the total attitude and ultimate standpoint about the essence of technology, the constitutes oftechnology, the drive of technology, the development of technology, the function of technology, the value of technology and the relation between technology and society in the postmodern context. This paper introduces and analyzes the postmodern theory system on philosophy of technology. This system is based on a kind of postmodernism worldview, through distinguishing pre-modern, modern and postmodern, the author deeply criticizes the alienation of modern technology, and tries to build up a postmodern Society which “needs take good care of and waits for being harvested” by “returning value to technology” and “transcendingmodernity”. It has the important academic value for theory innovation of technology philosophy, and important directive significance for building a harmonious society on the basis of human. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ENVIRONMENTAL THEOLOGYA REVIEW DISCUSSION* KEVIN W. IRWIN The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. l UST OVER a decade ago the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess coined the term deep ecology to encapsulate his challenge that while others have dealt with short-term views of ure and ways of dealing with the ecological crisis,1 he urged a deeper probing of "why, how and where" educational systems, religious bodies, and societies themselves (...) can deal with environ- * The books under discussion are: Leonardo Boff, Ecologia, Mundializacao, Espiritualidade (Sao Paolo: Editora Atica, 1993), English translation by John Cuming, Ecology and Liberation: A New Paradigm (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995); Denis Edwards, Jesus the Wisdom ofGod: An Ecological Theology (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1995); Catharina J. M. Halkes, New Creation: Christian Feminism and the Renewal ofthe Earth, trans. C. Romanik (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991); Michael J. Himes and Kenneth R. Himes, Fullness of Faith: The Public Significance of Theology (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1993), especially chapter 5, "Creation and an Environmental Ethic"; Tony Kelly, An Expanding Theology: Faith in a World of Connections (Newtowne: E. J. Dwyer, 1993); Richard N. Fragomeni and John T. Pawlikowski, eds., The Ecological Challenge: Ethical, Liturgical and Spiritual Responses (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1994); Albert J. LaChance and John E. Carroll, eds., Embracing Earth: Catholi.c Approaches to Ecology (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1994); Sean McDonagh, The Greening ofthe Church (London: G. Chapman; Maryknoll: Orbis, 1990); and Passion for the Earth: The Christian Vocation to Promote Justice, Peace and the Integrity ofCreation (London: G. Chapman; Maryknoll: Orbis, 1994). 1 From the outset it is important to clarify terminology and to indicate the meaning of some terms used in this review. In accord with common usage we understand that the term "ecology" (from the Greek oikos, "home") refers to our being at home on the earth, and "ecological crisis" refers to the destruction that has been worked to make the earth/home less inhabitable for a variety of species. "Creation" refers to the whole created world and all living beings as gifts from God the creator. "Environment" refers to the life context in which we live, our habitat as given to us by God and for which we are responsible. 301 302 KEVIN W. IRWIN mental deterioration and devastation.2 That Roman Catholicism has an important contribution to make to this issue3 is clear from recent magisterial statements as well as from the theological literature under review here. For example, in 1990 John Paul II articulated a number of avenues from within the Catholic tradition that relate to the ecological crisis and the Church's corporate responsibility to face it theologically, spiritually, and practically.4 In 1991 the U.S. bishops issued a more focused document, Renewing the Earth, which was drawn largely from the Church's social teaching tradition.5 The purpose of this article is to review some recent Roman Catholic theological literature in English (originally or recently translated) on environmental theology and ethics that can be understood as deep ecology from within mainstream Catholic thought. The contention of these authors is that the ecological crisis is a matter of theology, ethics, and values. Not surprisingly, given the comparative infancy of Catholicism's theological contribution to this issue, these works include collections of essays with a variety of approaches of varying quality, monographs that deal with the issue with greater methodological pre2 "Intuition, Intrinsic Value, and Deep Ecology," The Ecologist 14 (Sept./Oct., 1984): 56 ; also see Devall Bill and George Sessions, Deep Ecology (Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 1985). 3 It is important to note that other Christian faith traditions have offered pertinent and challenging statements on this issue, especially the Orthodox. See, for example, the statement by Patriarch Dimitrios, Orthodoxy and the Ecological Crisis (Geneva: Ecumenical Patriarchate, 1990). 4 See "Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation," Origins 19 (Dec. 14, 1989): 465-68. This is but one example of John Paul's voice on this issue, which is not univocal. Among other statements, his 1993 Lenten Message is particularly interesting in the way it addresses the devastation caused by "uncontrolled industrial development and the use of technologies which disrupt the balance of nature [that] have caused... (shrink)

Amartya Sen’s comparative approach to justice makes clear that notions of justice are shaped by human agency and experience, and both his focus on the ‘internal view’ of well-being that emphasizes suffering as a central feature of illness and his recognition that social and cultural factors shape perceived injustice are critical to this approach. However, Sen questionably depicts the contributions of anthropological research to this project as limited to ‘the sensory dimension of ill-health.’ Focusing on mental health in the context (...) of global justice, I argue that Sen’s treatise on justice can be refined through an ethnographic method that synchronizes attention to (1) cultural knowledge and social relations in ecological settings; (2) fundamental human needs; and (3) levels of analytic specificity involving situations, categories, and events. This method integrates analysis of internal phenomenology and external constraints of political economy and ideology. To demonstrate I discuss three cases involving students and violence in Rio de Janeiro, women and witchcraft in Ghana, and historical migration and war trauma among Vietnamese immigrants in which external conditions of insecurity and inequality contributed to deteriorating mental health conditions including depression, trauma, and debilitating anxiety. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nature and Altering It, and: Keeping God’s Earth: The Global Environment in Biblical PerspectiveJohn SniegockiNature and Altering It Allen Verhey Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010. 150 pp. $15.00.Keeping God’s Earth: The Global Environment in Biblical Perspective Edited by Noah Toly and Daniel Block Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2010. 300 pp. $25.00.Both of the books under review focus on how Christians should relate to the rest of God’s (...) creation. The first book, Nature and Altering It, is based on Allen Verhey’s 2008 Jellema Lectures at Calvin College. It is a rather brief book, which retains much of the lecture style. The purpose of the book is to explore how Christians should relate to the natural world. In the opening chapter, Verhey provides sixteen different definitions of “nature,” opting himself for a definition of nature as “everything but God” (12). Verhey further contends that any definition of nature is necessarily embedded in a broader vision or myth. In the second chapter he explores and critiques some of the dominant myths of our time, such as the “Baconian myth,” the “myth of the project of liberal society,” and the “myth of the project of capitalism.” These myths, he argues, together contribute to an instrumental view of nature, the priority of short-term economic interests, and a rather blind faith in science-technology and unlimited economic growth.In contrast to these and other myths and their harmful social and ecological consequences, Verhey stresses the importance of the “myth of the Christian Scriptures” (12). Among the central biblical themes he highlights are the distinction between God and creation and the prohibition of all forms of idolatry, including idolatry of science and technology, of economic growth, or of nature itself. Verhey also emphasizes the goodness of creation, creation’s promised future eschatological perfection, God’s deep concern for the poor and marginalized, and the vocation of humans to image God’s care for the world. “We image God,” Verhey states, “in self-giving, in practices of caring for and affirming the existence of the other, including the non-human other” (86–87).While focusing especially on the importance of narrative and storytelling, arguing that “the biggest danger for the Christian community is forgetfulness” [End Page 220] (120), Verhey also stresses the need for prophecy, wisdom, analysis, and policy work. Each should be shaped by the Christian narrative and give rise to actions that “already give some little token” of the fullness of shalom that is God’s promised future for humanity and creation (121). Among the specific ecological actions that Verhey recommends are planting a garden, living simply, prioritizing energy efficiency, and working for policy changes that will foster ecological sustainability.The volume Keeping God’s Earth, edited by Noah Toly and Daniel Block, explores from an evangelical Christian perspective the same basic question of how humans are to properly relate to God’s creation. The book begins with a chapter titled “Eschatology and Environmental Ethics,” followed by four paired sets of chapters exploring the topics of cities, biodiversity, water, and climate change. The first essay of each pair provides a factual overview of the topic. The second explores biblical theology relevant to the topic. The book concludes with an essay on environmental ethics and an afterword exploring the theme of Christ as “Gardener-King.”The four chapters that present factual overviews of ecological problems are very helpful, providing important background information upon which informed theological and ethical reflection depends. The chapter by renowned climatologist Sir John Houghton on global climate change is especially useful, highlighting the urgency of rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and explaining why taking a “wait and see” attitude should be understood as morally irresponsible. “The truth is,” asserts Houghton, “that our global environment is deteriorating at an alarming rate, and unless we admit our destructive behaviors and seek more sustainable responses... our children’s children will have very little hope for a future” (189). Acknowledging such dire realities, David Gushee, in the book’s concluding chapter on ecological ethics, stresses that attention to ecology can be properly seen as the most pressing moral challenge that humanity faces. Ecological... (shrink)

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries has fostered economic growth recently but in the process has encountered a number of serious problems regarding environmental destruction, such as the air and water pollution. In addition, due to rapid population growth and urbanization, there are emerging concerns about decline of the environment in those countries in the near future. One of the surveys that tries to measure the attitudes of ASEAN citizens on environmental issues is the ASEAN Barometer survey (...) conducted in 2009. This paper aims to unfold how ASEAN citizens evaluate environmental problems and what underlie their evaluations using the aforementioned ASEAN Barometer survey. The results of analysis will mainly reveal the next three points: (1) Filipinos showed higher environmental consciousness; (2) people in a less developed country were more likely to worry about environment deterioration and showed more commitment to the environmental movement, but, at the same time, they were more reticent about their immediate ecological activities; (3) those who thought that central governments needed to commit more to environmental problems and should take greater responsibility for environmental deterioration. Those who expected regional international organizations to take more measures were more inclined to engage in environmental activities. (shrink)

Topicality of the research topic. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an increase in the instability of the structure of ecosocial systems. Technological innovations have led to a sharp deterioration in natural social ecodynamics. The aim of the research is the conceptual modeling of the proliferation of biopolitics from the social sphere to the field of international relations with the subsequent transformation into a systemic factor of the global evolutionary process. Research methods and results. The model (...) is based on our previously proposed concept of a three-module stable evolutionary strategy of technogenic civilization. In relation to the triple spiral of anthropo-socio-technogenesis, i.e., the historical development of the cultural-ecological niche of Homo sapiens, constructed by him, this means the following. Periods of stable progressive growth of evolutionary and civilizational success are replaced by periods of various scales crisis, up to civilizational or even biological-evolutionary singularity. During the crisis, the importance of the political factor increases sharply, and over the past 50 years, this primarily relates to the field of biopolitics. The regional differentiation of the biopolitical sphere reconstruction during the fight against the pandemic will inevitably complicate international relations not only between regions that belong to different cultural and civilizational types. Probably less so, the same problems will affect the reconciliation of differences caused by geopolitical, interethnic, religious and even economic (competition) reasons. The first phase of the adaptive civilizational response is to reduce the degree of connection between the individual socio-cultural elements of modern civilization, i.e., slowing down the globalization process and intensifying interregional conflicts of various contents. In particular, such contradictions will be most acute in the post-Soviet geopolitical space, where the conditions of the civilizational rift are imposed on the conflicts of the transition period. Due to the specifics of modern high technologies, the process will enter the phase of global socio-techno-ecological self-developing systems reconstruction, which includes man as its element. And the obvious conclusion will be the transition of the development of biopolitical issues to a new, no longer international, but global-evolutionary level. In our understanding, transbiopolitics is a political issue related to the rationalization of the global evolutionary process. The latter will become a bearing element of the global process of evolution of the noosphere with the subsequent complication and increase of cohesion between separate sociocultural types which are a part of system of the modern globalizing civilization. (shrink)

Mainstream environmental groups have long been criticized by more radical activists as being too willing to compromise with industry and development interests. Radical groups such as Earth First! and Earth Liberation Front were formed as a reaction explicitly against perceived failures of mainstream groups. Although the radical activism employed varied from direct action in the form of aggressive civil disobedience coupled with eco sabotage, the tactics of the radical groups suggest two strands of movement. For example, the actions and demands (...) of Earth First! seemingly fit their conviction that compromise is a betrayal of their moral convictions and results only in further deterioration of environmental protection, and the radical activism of this group can be seen to fit well within historically accepted norms of protest movements within constitutional democracies. In contrast, Earth Liberation Front does engage in what might be called ecoterrorism, a form of political violence. This article addresses the following emerging questions: Is an uncompromising approach an effective strategy for radical environmental activism in fostering positive environmental change? What is required of constructive democratic action? Can radical environmental activism be a resource for cooperative practices and coalition building? These questions relate to ecological justice, which is growing in importance as a paradigm that combines social concerns about the environment with issues of nature protection, thereby underlying the need for coordination of strategies and cooperation in order to bring about a positive change In this paper, we examine the positions and arguments of some radical environmental activists and their detractors, and analyse their moral beliefs and political attitudes. We claim that “No Compromise” is not an acceptable strategy for environmental activism. In the analysis that follows, we are not suggesting naively that only warm fellow-feelings, congeniality, and an overt willingness to compromise are reasonable responses to powerful contravening force. We argue instead that when used, strong - and even perhaps sometimes illegal - direct action can be conceptualized and carried out in a way that does not hinder all opportunities for effective compromise, coalition building, and the like, that are ultimately essential elements of most successful protest movements. We build on Martin Benjamin’s claim that compromise need not always involve moral capitulation or failure, but can be integrity-preserving. It can, we believe, be an effective means of moving a pro-environmental agenda forward. Key to our argument are the distinctions between moral and political compromise, and the interrelations between moral and political community. Seeing oneself as a part of a larger community in which decisions must be made, and recognizing responsibility towards the members of a moral community is essential to a full appreciation and effective use of compromise. These considerations are anchored in an approach that constructively links participatory democracy and radical activism. (shrink)

The ancient one-to-one relationship with the biological life cycle has gradually deteriorated due to the world undergoing a metamorphic process. Such a metamorphosis has affected ecological harmony, in terms of it being both an approach to studying the relationships between living beings and the environment, and a branch of knowledge protecting and promoting ecological balance. One of the crucial aspects of this phenomenon is the need to rethink and redefine the concept of life in an era that has (...) been described as the “Anthropocene”. In introducing this special issue of the Journal, the paper aims to investigate the environmental question, which plays a crucial role in contemporary political thought, due to the survival of both nature and mankind being threatened. Since the 1950s, such a complex situation has resulted in two lines of thought whose views follow two opposed ideologies – anthropocentrism and anti-anthropocentrism. (shrink)

The question of whether there are laws in ecology is important for a number of reasons. If, as some have suggested, there are no ecological laws, this would seem to distinguish ecology from other branches of science, such as physics. It could also make a difference to the methodology of ecology. If there are no laws to be discovered, ecologists would seem to be in the business of merely supplying a suite of useful models. These models would need to (...) be assessed for their empirical adequacy but not for their ability to capture fundamental truths, or the like. If, on the other hand, ecology does have laws, this prompts further questions about what these laws are and why even the best candidates for ecological laws fall short of what might be expected of laws. (shrink)

We have become estranged from the cosmic movements, according to Bataille. We are confined by the error linked to the representation of ‘the stationary earth’. We have negated the immersive immanence of the whole and made nature into a fixed world of tools and things. How then do we recognise ourselves as part of the ‘rapture of the heavens’? Bataille urges us to consider life as a solar phenomenon, the free play of solar energy on the earth. This paper argues (...) how Bataille’s cosmic vision anticipates both planetary and ecological thinking. This entails a base materialism of difference based on a radical Nietzschean and Heraclitean theory of becoming and flux. This thought is developed along Bataillean concepts such as the movement of the whole, the labyrinthine, and compound beings, ipseity, as well as the concept of a communifying movement. This materialism paired with Vladimir Vernadsky’s biosphere lays the foundation for the laws of the general economy, which also constitutes an economy inclusive of a general ecology: a tragic vision of Gaia and Dionysos. Finally, poetry is considered, as a way we might reconnect with the universe and stimulate ecological imagination. (shrink)

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a psychopathological condition characterized by persistent deficits in social interaction and communication, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. To build an ecological-enactive account of autism, I propose we should endorse the affordance-based approach of the skilled intentionality framework (SIF). In SIF, embodied cognition is understood as skilled engagement with affordances in the sociomaterial environment of the ecological niche by which an individual tends toward the optimal grip. The human econiche offers a (...) whole landscape of affordances, and situated individuals respond to a field of relevant affordances. An important part of SIF is an ecological-enactive interpretation of the free energy principle and predictive processing. Predictive processing accounts indicate that in ASD too much precision is assigned to prediction errors. Autistic persons depend heavily on current sensory information and less on prior beliefs and cannot attune to stable regularities. To reduce uncertainty, they over-rely on routines, strict habits, and a familiar environment—a predictable ecological niche they construct. I argue that skilled intentionality gives us the framework from which to analyze the autistic field of affordances. Autistic patterns of affordance-related bodily states of action readiness are only sensitive to very specific solicitations in the environment and achieve optimal grip in well-known situations. Autism is to be understood as a disorder of bodily normativity. Taking this approach helps us figure out what neurotypical people can do to attune their environment in order to scaffold the needs of autistic individuals by redesigning the landscape of affordances. (shrink)

There is growing philosophical interest in “affective injustice”: injustice faced by individuals specifically in their capacity as affective beings. Current debates tend to focus on affective injustice at the psychological level. In this paper, I argue that the built environment can be a vehicle for affective injustice — specifically, what Wildman et al. (2022) term “affective powerlessness”. I use resources from ecological psychology to develop this claim. I consider two cases where certain kinds of bodies are, either intentionally or (...) unintentionally, deprived of access to goods affording the development and maintenance of their subjective well-being: hostile architecture and masking practices in autism. This deprivation, I argue further, leads to a significant weakening and diminishment of their spatial agency, hinders their well-being, and in so doing gives rise to a pervasive experience of affective powerlessness. By drawing attention to these themes, I show that an ecological approach helpfully supplements existing approaches. It highlights how affective injustice can emerge via the way bodies are positioned in space, and the central role that built environments play in determining this positioning. (shrink)

Chinese environmentalists have called for an ecological civilization. To promote this, ecology is defended as the core science embodying process metaphysics, and it is argued that as such ecology can serve as the foundation of such a civilization. Integrating hierarchy theory and Peircian semiotics into this science, it is shown how “community” and “communities of communities,” in which communities are defined by their organization to promote the common good of their components, have to be recognized as central concepts not (...) only of ecology, but of life itself. This perspective is used to defend Lovelock’s “Gaia” hypothesis and the call of Prugh, Costanza, and Daly for strong democracy. An ethics and political philosophy is sketched based on “eco-poiesis” or “home-making,” which is equated with augmenting the life of communities, both human and non-human. (shrink)

This paper presents a systematic discussion, mainly for non-economists, on economic approaches to the concept of sustainable development. As a first step, the concept of sustainability is extensively discussed. As a second step, the argument that it is not possible to consider sustainability only from an economic or ecological point of view is defended; issues such as economic-ecological integration, inter-generational and intra-generational equity are considered of fundamental importance. Two different economic approaches to environmental issues, i.e. neo-classical environmental economics (...) and ecological economics, are compared. Some key differences such as weak versus strong sustainability, commensurability versus incommensurability and ethical neutrality versus different values acceptance are pointed out. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce an ecological account of communication according to which acts of communication are active inferences achieved by affecting the behavior of a target organism via the modification of its field of affordances. Constraining a target organism’s behavior constitutes a mechanism of socially extended active inference, allowing organisms to proactively regulate their inner states through the behavior of other organisms. In this general conception of communication, the type of cooperative communication characteristic of human communicative interaction is (...) a way of constraining interaction dynamics toward the goals of a given joint action by constructing and altering shared fields of affordances. This account embraces a pragmatist view according to which communication is a form of action aiming to influence the behavior of a target, and stands against the traditional transmission view according to which communication fundamentally serves to convey information. Understanding acts of communication as active inference under an ecological interpretation allows us to link communicative and ultimately linguistic behavior to the biological imperative of minimizing free energy and to emphasize the action-oriented nature of communicative interaction. (shrink)