Advantages of Ecological Socialism

Image courtesy of Clariant. 
Today, companies like the speciality chemicals company
Clariant say that they are working to reposition
themselves as sustainable solutions providers

Posted by Andrew Porter*

Today, there is much greater awareness of the threat of Climate Change. Yet species loss, disruption of planetary systems, and widespread environmental degradation are allowed to continue. Over millennia, we have been very good at developing ways to respond to the environment; now the imperative is to develop the sharpness and capacity to respond to ourselves.

Surely it is apparent now that modern industrial overreach needs to be scaled back significantly. A number of systems might be devised for remedy, but the only ones that have any real chance of success revolve around human ecology and sustainability. Can large swathes of society rally around a call to protect ecologies and promote sustainability? Because underlining such a solution is the question ‘What's in it for us?’ I think that this question itself must be transformed by a new ecological attitude, what we might call an 'inner ecology.'

One ‘system’ that might guide a large set of cultural and societal factors toward a much better relationship between humankind and the Earth is what I call ‘ecological socialism’. It would require a re-orientation of society towards an integration of human needs and what is necessary to afford the natural world its sustainability. The ‘socialism’ of the idea means equal possession of the opportunities and limitations inherent in living within the governance of natural principles. It is both ethical and ecological to distribute limitations and opportunities equally: who could argue otherwise?

An integration of the planet’s health (preservation of biodiversity and habitat, clean water and air, soil conservation, and respect for the earth's climate mechanisms) and people’s lives maximises care of one for the other. Nature has its goals and man has his; unless they are integrated, sustainability will remain out of reach. Two primary principles that we might work into to guide and animate environmental preservation are:

1) Streams, trees, bays, animals, mountains, oceans, and so on, should have standing as holders of legal rights because they have moral rights in our mind. We are in this together, nature and man, and if we are a lame and destructive partner, this joint venture remains unviable.

2) Natural systems maintain health and balance as a core feature, and should become a core feature of our lives. This involves development and implementation of human ecology models. The process as well as the result is – rather than a frittering away of human capacity – a kind of wholeness.

Surely the present is the crucial time to address this. George Monbiot makes the point well in a March 15, 2019 article in The Guardian newspaper entitled ‘Capitalism is Destroying the Earth. We Need a New Human Right for Future Generations’.

‘At the heart of capitalism is a vast and scarcely examined assumption: you are entitled to as great a share of the world’s resources as your money can buy. You can purchase as much land, as much atmospheric space, as many minerals, as much meat and fish as you can afford, regardless of who might be deprived. If you can pay for them, you can own entire mountain ranges and fertile plains. You can burn as much fuel as you like. Every pound or dollar secures a certain right over the world’s natural wealth.’

Ecological socialism—moving away from current assumptions and forms of exploitation—seeks the sustainability of the natural world and also aims to sustain man, in some form, within this. A principal standard of ecological socialism is that human burdens on the planet are kept well below the Earth's carrying capacity for them.

Ecological socialism attempts to genuinely represent all life forms and natural systems as equals in its sphere of obligation, caring, and set of rights. Ecological socialism models human governance and society on the appreciation of ecological balance and advantages. It seeks to make organic goodness human as well as natural. Ecological socialism recognises that humans must be integral with natural ways for both humans and the Earth to thrive.

Some specific choices are clear. Industrial society must be phased out. Strategies must be found to bring human numbers down and encourage small-scale simplicity. I believe that ecology-centred education, with good assistance from the humanities, helps pave the way. The belief that the individual and society are supported best by harmony with and not antagonism with nature is the vital one.

The exploitive way of life, denying costs, is over. Ecological socialism integrates man and ecologies, making the human path forward one of integrity itself. This is a value worth crafting human life around. Currently, culture and societies seem not to mind demise. But ecological socialism aims to help people understand that a citizen is not a citizen unless responsible to oneself and to the Earth.

Citizenship is best defined as this dual responsibility—to help oneself and one’s circle thrive, and also to bolster the optimal flourishing of the ecosystems and planetary systems of Earth through non-interference. Ecological socialism is the best way to ensure this.

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Andrew Porter is a philosopher and educator who lives near Boston in the United States

Picture Post #45: Undesired and Eliminated

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

Posted by Tessa den Uyl

Paris - France 2018

The more imagination you put into the display of products for a shop window, the more people will remember it. Here the dead rats are eye catching indeed, aside from the large golden letters announcing: Disinfestation of Harmful Animals.

We remove the unwanted, to justify our own characteristics? 

No animal knows about our bounds, nor do we know about theirs. Living along together, this very often human being simply cannot. Though all those unwanted creatures need an earth to live on. 

Perhaps when these undesired beings are there, we might have something they need? And we need them, whether we like to see them or not. It’s a fair contract, made by nature.

The problem does not originate in nature, but it is a problem how nature will survive with us, and this is one of the most outstanding contradictions in the nature of humankind.

Plastic, Pachyderms and Profit

The critically endangered Hawksbill turtle
(Source: Aquaimages, Wikimedia Commons)

Plastic, Pachyderms* and Profit 
In Search of Solutions for a Sustainable Future


Posted by Matthew Edward Scarborough and Lina Scarborough

Before the advent of rifle-armed hunters, the African continent was home to tens of millions of elephants. By 1920 however, there are estimated to have been less than two hundred of them left in all of South Africa. Fast-forward to today, when there are once more thriving (though increasingly poached) populations of thousands of elephants. What saved elephants from extinction? A growing concern for the environment? The creation of national parks? Yes … but not only. There is also a more unexpected reason for elephants doing much better today: Materials Science.

A century ago, ivory was used in all manner of household objects: piano keys, combs, chess-pieces, bracelets, buttons and billiard-balls. Billiard-balls in particular were one of the main causes and largest culprits for the decline in elephant populations: in Sri Lanka in particular, elephant populations were decimated in order to produce the much sought-after billiard-balls. Fashionable as ivory was, it soon became apparent that demand well exceeded supply. In 1907 however, a scientist developed a substance named Bakelite: a hard, durable, ivory-like plastic which can now be found in many everyday objects. But since then plastics have also become ubiquitous -- we use them daily to the point that escaping plastic feels impossible.

This is where you fit into the challenge.

Today no one would dream of shooting an elephant to make a piano keyboard -- and it was ironically plastic that helped save the elephant. It is now high time we changed our behaviour once again, as plastic itself becomes a threat to the environment and its flora and fauna.

But is plastic really so bad?

Speak to our friend Talitha Noble, who works at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town. She is a marine biologist who spends most days rehabilitating turtles stranded on our South African beaches -- loggerhead and leatherback, green, the petite olive ridley and hawksbill turtles, all of which wash up on our shores in a poor state. It is not uncommon to find plastics (especially micro-plastics) being passed from their digestive systems.

Although Talitha is a dispassionate scientist, it’s hard not to develop an attachment to individual turtles. One turtle in particular – called Bob, arrived at the aquarium in a poor condition. He wasn’t eating or diving, tragically developed meningitis, brain damage, and even went partially blind. After being in rehabilitation for several months he passed a lot of plastic, including the remains of bags and a balloon. When he passed the plastic, it was a turning-point in his recovery. Bob is now a poster-child for plastic awareness, but there are countless other turtles: a large loggerhead called Noci even had a piece of plastic in his tummy which had travelled all the way from China.

The convenience of plastic, unfortunately, often trumps values. Those tools of convenience bear the flip-side of potentially being tools of mass destruction, fuelled by brand and consumer apathy. We can’t wait for the eventual launch of the next big materials invention. Act now by using the available alternatives.

For example, re-usable and handy mesh bags are easily bought online, or from modern eco-friendly shops. It doesn’t take much effort to purchase and keep one’s own re-usable cloth bags in the car, in comparison to the process it takes to make plastic, and then deal with its catastrophic consequences.

Plastics are derived from either crude oil or natural gasses which, geologically-speaking, took millions of years of form. We consumers in contrast typically use said plastic for the relatively short time taken from the grocery shop to our homes, before throwing the plastic packets and styrofoam boxes away for good.

But being thrown out is far from the end of your plastic. Plastic on the tops of landfills are often carried far away by the wind. If it doesn’t end up wafting up and down your street or in the stomach of an animal, it’ll evntually go into the ground, even if it is recycled (recycling can only be done so many times before the recycled plastic too needs to be discarded). Trillions of tiny pieces of plastic (so-called micro-plastics) now fill our oceans and have infiltrated our food-chains, causing massive (if largely unseen) ecological damage. So the best way to curb single-use plastic pollution is therefore to reduce your personal plastic consumption in the first place.

Yet all the research in the world might not be powerful enough to change our collective consumer psyche. It’s up to us individuals to put pressure on shops to adapt to the modern reality of wasted resources. It’s up to the shops to do their role to respond and offer initiatives and awareness. Together this mess was created, and together it must be fixed.

Consumers -- we must take the initiative and buy or make our own grocery bags for fruit and nuts, and cut the styrofoam out once and for all. I try to encourage the shopper next to me in line to do the same. Brand owners and supermarkets -- why not put up placards creating awareness so that consumers start bringing their own re-usable bags for loose fruits and nuts? Add a small surcharge on offering single-use plastics – as much as 50 cents often sways consumers, as it registers with them that there is a cost involved. If the costs are out of sight (such as the dead or injured marine animals somewhere out there), then it’s also out of mind.

All the knowledge in the world might not be powerful enough to change the consumer psyche. When all has been said, art and poetry may help to convey a sense of the bigger picture. In the poem A World Without Plastic, Stephen Katona writes:

It would be fantastic,
If we stopped using plastic,
And eased the world's pain,
With a healthy food chain.
Turtles would no longer gag,
On a supermarket's bag.

We can choose change from today with things wrapped the right way:


Rethink the bag – ban the balloon – and bring your own bakkie#. Together we can have a sustainable future with much less plastic (and happy turtles!).

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Notes

*Pronounced patchi-derms: A large mammal with thick skin, especially an elephant, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus. 

#A South Africanism for an ice-cream box or similar re-usable container. 

And a bit about the authors:  

Matthew is a Zoology PhD student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, where he researches the evolution of extinct elephants and mammoths. Lina Scarborough (formerly Ufimtseva) is a project manager at a German language agency in Cape Town with an interest in linguistics and ecology (Lina and Matthew got married in June this year).

The Earth is Our Prison

A (Semi-scientific) Theory States that We Come from Another Planet and that the Earth Is Our Prison

Reposted from Pi-Alpha

 A subversive and highly imaginative theory developed by the American Professor of Ecology, Ellis Silver, ponders that human beings seem to have too many misfitting characteristics to be truly a native of Planet Earth. As examples, Silver offers that Man has problems with his back and often suffers from pain because our species descended from a planet with less gravity than on Earth. [The conventional explanation is we pay the price of back pain is the evolutionary one about having opted to wander around on two feet.] However, according to Silver, we also face problems when we are exposed to direct sunlight for a relatively short time because we were not designed to come in so close contact with such a sun.

An additional argument offered by the Professor concerns parturition difficulties and especially those resulting from the fact that the size of the head of a newborn child is disproportionately large. We are the only species on the planet with such high rates of complications and mortality during pregnancy and childbirth, emphasises the scientist. Finally, he notes the fact that humans seem poorly equipped to deal with the natural environment, for example, such basic things as cold or heat.

The theory also considers the paradox that human shows strong dislike for many types of foods that nature provides. Silver says that humans often become ill because, amongst other things, our biological clock is tailored for a day of 25 hours, not the solar day we live under! Silver says that this has been confirmed by certain studies.

So, his conclusion is that, anatomically, modern human is a hybrid resulting from the crossing of the Neanderthals with another kind of humans who came to Earth from 60,000 to 200,000 years ago from a planet in Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to us.

Silver's explanation for our arrival on Earth is that the aliens we once lived with could not stand our indiscipline and aggression and sent us here as a punishment, i.e. we were ‘imprisoned’ here to become… human, and that one day (who knows?) maybe we will be allowed to return to our real celestial home…

The theory is bizarre and requires the suspension of many normal scientific assumptions and principles, but ecologically it has one thing in favour of it: why otherwise would nature have created a species quite as destructive to the rest of the natural world as Man?

A Philosophy of the Environment

Posted by Thomas Scarborough

In spite of its crucial importance today, in practice we have little operational guidance for defining policies, strategies, and outcome targets with respect to the natural environment. Above all, there are no agreed philosophical grounds for its preservation. Reactions to its destruction are fragmentary.

In times past, it was possible for every individual, or every family group, to be self-sustaining through all the cycles of nature. Today, we have advanced beyond all possibility of such a lifestyle, although pockets of our planet retain such ways of life. Today, the whole of nature needs to sustain the whole of humankind. This requires more than a parochial approach to the environment. It requires a global environmental ethics, and global environmental principles.

There is a pressing need today for a rational basis for a healthy, balanced relationship with the natural environment – for 'a broadly-based philosophy', in the words of the Scottish theologian and philosopher John MacQuarrie. While one cannot underestimate the effectiveness of reactive measures to protect or to heal the environment – on all levels, individual, organisational, and governmental – the philosophical underpinnings are sorely missed. Any substantial philosophy today should be able to present definitive criteria for dealing with the environment.

Various 'base principles' have been suggested:

• that nature enjoys a sacred status,
• that every life form has a special goal,
• that the natural environment is vital to our human flourishing,
• that it is essential for our economic progress.

Yet beyond all such considerations, it may be the very complexity of nature which promises a solution.

There is something which sets the environment apart, which requires a different treatment to all other ethical issues. There is no system (insofar as we may speak of a system at all) which is more complex than our natural environment. The environment presents us with an infinity of relations. We would need a mind (or a computer) larger than nature itself to understand it. We may say therefore that it is 'beyond the condition of things'. It is beyond reducing, controlling, or bringing into the condition of things. It is unconditional.

The natural environment is the ultimate zone, in which a vast tissue of influences cannot be reduced. It is so much more than a sphere which merely should be 'protected'. It is sacred. It is tabu. A reductionistic approach to nature does not apply.

Not only this. For want of a concept as to how nature ought to be – since we cannot possibly possess such knowledge – we cannot say that it should be this way or that. 'Is' and 'ought' vanish here. It is in a sacred space even beyond the realm of ethics. With respect to nature, we cannot give and we cannot take, we can only receive. In fact nature stands as a vast and all-encompassing symbol to teach us the limitations of human reason.

On the basis of a belief in a sacred environment there is a principled way forward. The environment – both animate and inanimate – is not merely an object of wonder and awe, nor is it sentimentally sacred. Its sacredness is of biblical proportions: a sacredness which means that it stands under 'the ban'. Whatever the value of nature may be – whatever its stores, whatever its appeal – it must not be touched. The only way forward is to treat it on the basis that it is both off-limits and hands-off, and this is unconditional. It is non-negotiable.

Our own simple, built environment is of course ensconced in the natural environment. Of necessity, we disturb the environment, because we are a part of it. How then should it be possible for nature to be off-limits today, in our (post) modern world?

The notion of such separation is not merely a wistful one. There are large areas today which we do keep off-limits: contaminated areas, for instance, military zones, and diamond areas. These are as good as sacrosanct – and yet the environment seems by comparison to be treated with ambivalence. In fact in times past, the natural environment was indeed thought to be sacred – in some cases more valuable than the life of one who desecrated it.

Just a hundred years ago, nature did not need any assistance from humanity. That is, in our very recent past, we knew a world in which nature was allowed to be nature, and did not need human cosseting or monitoring. The deliberate, nation-wide, even global protection of the natural environment through human custodians is a comparatively recent development.

In short, a separation between the natural and the built environments should be – and has to be – a realistic goal. This goal will be achieved when the equilibrium of the environment is maintained in every part without human intervention – or rather, its dynamic equilibrium is maintained over all its various cycles. Since, however, nature is beyond the condition of things, this must be a self-sustaining dynamic equilibrium, without the influence of human custodians.

'Our immediate environment is not nature as formerly, but organisation. But this immunity from nature produces a new crop of dangers, which is the very organisation.' —Dietrich Bonhoeffer.