How Do We Live in an Anti-Ecological Environment … Four Differences and One Answer

 

How Do We Live in an Anti-Ecological Environment … Four Differences and One Answer  

Sooner or later, wittingly or unwittingly, we must pay for every intrusion on the natural environment.  Barry Commoner

 

If Ecology rules in a certain environment, where does Anti-Ecology rule? 

On one hand, the broad rule of Ecology oversees the integration of variable ecosystems to exist and survive together by maintaining discourse among all of them including human interactions. The guiding ecological principles are manifested to help every organism at whatever level to function better through diversity, make connections, manage feedback loops to improve, adapt to changes and promote co-operation and self-governance, without ego.

The general laws of Ecology imply that everything is connected to everything else, everything has a place and purpose, there is no final waste, where matter and energy are preserved and there is no free lunch…what goes up must come down...what goes round, keeps cycling.   

On the other hand, what does it mean to be in a place that can be called anti-ecological with counter-ecological behavior. 

The most obvious and critical difference would be found in a capitalist environment.

Capitalism can be defined as an “ economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit (rather than state). Private property and the recognition of property rights, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets are all features. Wikipedia

In other words, MONEY becomes the most meaningful connection between things whether social relationships and/or nature. It’s all about the marketplace and consumer communications that know best and want more not less. 

There are four basic differences between commercial capitalism 

and ecological partnerships.  

One:  All Nature’s integrated processes are disconnected and reduced to one common denominator … 

...a revenue process to make profits on the kind of products the marketplace demands via culture and media. Do we want organic coffee, farm-raised mink furs, genetically modified wheat, more plastic doo-dads or finding more finite sources of fossil fuels?

For example,  "In today’s parlance we call this new kind of agroecosystem a monoculture, meaning a part of nature that has been reconstituted to the point that it yields a single species, which is growing on the land only because somewhere there is a strong market demand for it.” Donald Worster

Two: Nature’s encoded programs run on circular systems or cycles 

...but economic production runs on  a linear assembly line where waste is common as long as capital is the main key to protect. Utilize a resource with “no deposit and no return.”

In fact, if pollution happens, treat it as an external side effect that is not part of the production quota. Just consider air pollution caused by a factory is not an internal cost of production but rather an external cost to be borne by nature and society. Its OK if other people or communities or nature itself bear the cost.

To try and recycle can become difficult because of the degree of division of nature.  For example, animals raised in feedlots have natural waste that becomes a serious form of pollution rather than normal fertilizer. Think about plastics that have replaced wood, steel and other products but are not biodegradable for centuries.  

Three: Nature organizes every community for each other’s benefits 

...food, shelter and protection. Businesses are only concerned about manipulating market shares for themselves rather than equity or quality for everyone.  

For example, food becomes more valuable if it  can earn more profits through bulk production with increased nitrogen fertilizers. It doesn’t matter if the mineral compositions of the soil are unbalanced which in turn affects the mineral content of the vegetable grown on it.  Why not use more pesticides to protect the appearance of the produce? Why not use GMO seeds that work in the laboratory composition but may have unknown long-term human side effects? 

In the end, the quality of food is debased, birds and other species are killed, and food chains even for humans are contaminated. What affects one, affects us all.

 Four: the real value of natural wealth is grounded on generating profits 

....with high energy technologies and less labor inputs if possible. Larger corporations, ever-merging, seem to make the major decisions about the technology based on their profitability with the inherent drive to continue to grow on an ever-increasing scale.  Motive is about “mini-cars make mini-profits… we make more money on big cars.”  Non-renewable resources are more quickly depleted, and more wastes dumped into the environment.

My ANSWER

Do we need to continue to believe these statements?

"Nature only exists  because there is a market?

               “Nature’s bounty is a free gift to the property owner to use to make money.”

Part of the answer, I believe, is making an individual choice to adapt to a radically different environment. Commercial capitalism is a closed loop between business and consumer. Only the consumer can manage some of those links, modify social media hype, and adapt to a simpler lifestyle and economy. 

When human contact can become infectious in a global community of 7.5 billion people because of an organic element that may be from nature, then we must become more environmentally conscious citizens and respect ecology’s principles and succession.  

 "We can’t have healthy people on an unhealthy planet. The COVID crisis has shown us that nature, health, inequality and the economy are all interrelated and people are at the center."

 Nature’s bounty and conservation are everyone’s business and we must stand side by side with Nature that it cannot be bought or abused. There must be a bigger call for collective action to reverse nature loss and prevent an array of ecological problems. There must be greater awareness that ecology connects us all as a Big Picture that tries to unify and  broaden participation for everyone and everything. 

Perhaps, in the manner of Nature's ecological succession, we can also learn more about facilitating our own social succession in such changing unprecedented times.

What is your favorite part of nature that has no commercial value?

Comments are always appreciated: 833 471 4661 (leave the best time to chat). 

Annemarie

amarie10@gmail.com

https://helpfulmindstreamforchanges.com

..my pussy willows at the creek on the farm

Debate Time: Does a Teenager Waste Time on Social Media Without this Important Mindset?

Debate Time: Does a Teenager Waste Time on Social 

Media Without this Important Mindset? 

“In truth a family is what you make it. It is made strong, not by number of heads counted at the dinner table, but by the rituals you help family members create, by the memories you share, by the commitment of time, caring, and love you show to one another, and by the hopes for the future you have as individuals and as a unit.” 

Marge Kennedy...he Single Parent Family

Recently, a group of us parents had a debate:

How many hours does my teen daughter use her cell phone?

Is she wasting or spending time on social media?

One parent did not like the idea that her daughter was wasting time on the internet and preferred to call it spending time. “It’s a kinder way of putting it to avoid bad feelings,” she said.

I’ve always believed in the Big Picture scenario and divided a piece of paper into two columns for brainstorming. One heading said Wasting Time; the second heading said Spending Time. The implication with spending anything was that there was some kind of return on investment.

There was considerable debate where to put some ideas. See if you would agree.

Wasting Time

Scrolling Instagram, texting, posting Snapchat pictures, checking celebrity gossip, playing
video games, message Facebook friends, tweets, dressing up and make-up, dating sites, webcam shows, Netflix  

Spending Time

Write a story or poem, learn to dance, play an instrument, homework, help neighbors, physical sports, try a new recipe, prepare supper, have dinner with family, visit old relatives, animal rescue shelter, relax in the park, talk on the phone, knit a gift

      

The point I wanted to make is that teenagers might not feel there is a difference with how time is managed without a stronger mindset to value time itself. They may not realize that time is their most precious commodity, always moving forward, never backward and once spent it cannot be replayed.

"It's a strange paradox of time, it can only be managed in a very small time frame 

called today, and today can sometimes be sparked by a tinier matter of choice."

Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand.

In my opinion, some of the most important lessons for every teen girl should be about time management, how to make good choices and respect her one and only timeline.  

Two main reasons:

ONE: It will help parents to encourage their teen daughters to monitor their own daily and weekly time schedules with an inbuilt importance versus nagging. See blog Parents’ Solutions to Wasting Time by Teenagers on Social Media and More about Mindset

TWO: It will help teen girls on a personal, internal basis to appreciate more this amazing overture of time from overarching infinity to precise moment of making a choice.

Perhaps, it’s rather sad to say that as an elder, time can finally be appreciated after a long lifeline when remaining time is shorter and even more precious. However, from a reverse engineering viewpoint, it’s also why it is so important to make sure that teen girls don’t waste their time but learn to use it competently to actualize their abilities and interests.

Therefore, to become competent in any subject matter requires an educated mindset with a set of lessons that move from point A to point B from What I Don’t Know about Time to What I Understand More about Time.  Most importantly, this new mindset is a personal realization to start replacing the conditioned drive to stay plugged into the cellphone for hours at a time.  

This is the reason why at the end of this story, there are several lesson plans for teen girls to practice different components of time: 

Show some Love for your Brain

Real Time Connections to my True Self

My Timeline and Rites of Passage

My Calendar of Time Experience

Practice making Smart Choices  

Practice difference of Choice, Decision and Habit

Compare Screen Time vs Real Time

Design personal Time Mantra - artistic

At this point, developing a strong positive mindset may be an interesting theory but what if it works because there is no other common denominator that applies to all teenagers?

 What if, teen girls may discover that time is as valuable, if not, more valuable than social media? It would be a mind-breaking revelation and transformation.

It’s your turn to join the debate: What do you think?

Do teen girls waste time or spend time on their cellphones?  

Can a stronger mindset about value of Time help to make smarter choices?

Questions and comments are important and always appreciated.

Annemarie Berukoff
amarie10@gmail.com
833 471 4661

"In fact, let me take a step back. People have a limit of 24 hours a day. We assume that the noise in our head is in the head of other people like us. But there has never been a society which is so overloaded with noises, sights, and egos through the use of Smart phones and the internet.

So, we think what others want us to think; make quick choices others want us to make, which turn into habits at the end controlled by others. And habits, like well used runways, in the brain, are the hardest chains to break once built. Like I read once, we become carbon copies of present culture. The younger ones are the most vulnerable trying to copy in the wink of an eye.

Remember a choice is not a decision. It is only the spark that begins a decision through multiple steps which may result in forming habits, but that is another discussion."

Ebook Excerpt: Teen Girl Faces Time in the Sand