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

Nature's World Cries Out for More Eco-Fiction Writers to Save Our Planet

 

Nature's World Cries Out for More Eco-Fiction Writers to Save Our Planet

"To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known…On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." Carl Sagan

Ecology entered a broader cultural attitude in the 1960's and 1970's when people became more interested in natural environmental issues and species within human connections.

A variety of eco-fiction literature developed many branches and styles to be found in many genres such as mainstream, westerns, mystery, romance, realism, science fiction and fantasy.

This collaborative genre could be any fictional landscape that was based on ecological principles which became the setting, the plot and the theme of the story. The nebulae of Nature from the smallest cells to the largest lifeforms became alive as talking, feeling characters with human attributes and emotions. Their message was to set the right standards of respecting natural order, conservation and sustainability.

So what kind of ecological principles can be embedded into eco-fiction story? 

You can talk about Nature in terms of redundancy without ego, diversity with connections, and adaptations for survival. You can express amazement at nature’s master plan of organization from the nematodes to the nimbus clouds. Without this two-hydrogen-one-oxygen molecule, any Earth life process wouldn’t exist.  You can talk about responsibility to common goals, a democratic pattern of individualism and cooperation played out in ecological terms. What about the human factors of intervention, exploration or exploitation?   

In fact, you can become more specific and talk about the reality of 4 levels in an ecosystem with plants and animals you see; but you must also involve nonliving elements (air and water) and microorganisms. Microorganisms include the bacteria, algae, fungi, and protozoa that are usually seen only with a microscope, but they must not be ignored because of their vital roles in decomposition, oxygen production and symbiotic relationships with plants so they can grow to serve as food for animals and humans.

For example, nitrogen gas (N2) makes up 80% of the Earth’s atmosphere and is one of the primary nutrients critical for the survival of all living organisms. It is required for DNA, proteins and chlorophyll. But nitrogen gas is largely inaccessible to most organisms, and must be converted into ammonia (NH3) and nitrates (NH4) before it can be used by plants as food.

Enter the nitrifying bacteria which transform nitrogen into an oxidative state for plant roots  to absorb...the essential nitrification cycle.

Now, on one hand, you can read a complex scientific treatise about this transformation or you can meet a nitrifying bacteria who explains his actions and his roles in the ecosystem. Fiction, yes, but science based as well with far reaching implications.

Or, you can read a scientific volume or two about the carbon cycle and how carbon compounds can make a series of conversions in the environment, from incorporating carbon dioxide gas into living plant cells by photosynthesis, and returning as a gas through respiration, or decaying dead organisms, and the burning of fossil fuels. 

Or, your story line can introduce a hydrocarbon molecule composed from the elements carbon and hydrogen who can explain his role from coal and crude oil to making natural gas, plastics, pesticides, even cosmetics and medicines.  His experience shows how the burning of hydrocarbons produces greenhouse gases which in turn depletes the ozone layer and cause climate change. Fictional character simplified, yes, but with a huge convoluted impact on the environment and ecosystems.

In summary, we need more eco-fiction stories that can talk about the relationship between natural settings and human communities.

 Their characters need to inhabit an ecosystem based on ecological principles that call attention to act responsibly to be good ethical stewards of the Earth. 

They need to share the reality of microorganisms, photosynthesis, food webs, carbon dominance, pollution, and changing weather patterns as first-person experiences. 

We must hear their joys, fears and hopes. We must pay heed to their warnings of dangers and not ignore their messages.

Also, most importantly, we need stories that show what happens when anti-ecological principles are followed; such as, believing the only bond to nature is based on cash exchanges or using nature’s bounty as individual gifts, not for common purpose. There are ecological threats everywhere from tropical forest to coral reefs to extinction of animals, once gone, forever.

People need more first-hand stories about global warming, culture diaspora, survival of the weakest links, advocacy to protect our unique natural world and create a mythology we are all connected…what happens to one of us, happens to all of us.

It’s strange to say that the term eco-fiction has never been a media sensation and therefore has not become “com-modified or capitalizable, lending to its wildness.” 

Maybe its time to change that to help save our planet.

What kind of nature story would you like to hear or write? What are your fears about our planet?

Comments and questions are always appreciated. Please leave a message for a time to chat...1 833 471 4661

Annemarie

amarie10@gmail.com

https://helpfulmindstreamforchanges.com

PS: Interested in writing a paper about eco-fiction, or even teaching it? Check resources here. 

Note this blog about Disney making a movie based on an eco-fiction character and story line ... in fact, the most important superhero essential to our planet's survival.

 

 

When Creative Writing Mixes with Science to Express Facts and Feelings about Earth's Ecology

When Creative Writing Mixes with Science to Express Facts and Feelings about Earth’s Ecology

“We are at a unique stage in our history. Never before have we had such an awareness of what we are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about that. Surely we all have a responsibility to care for our Blue Planet. The future of humanity and indeed, all life on earth, now depends on us...

I know of no pleasure deeper than that which comes from contemplating the natural world and trying to understand it.”

― David Attenborough

Welcome to the world of this unique water sprite with roots on his mission to find Cyclical Truths in the Earth's ecology.

His story combines imagination and fantasy with scientific reality.  Because he shares an affinity with any organic life form derived from carbon and hydrogen, he can communicate with other beings and express their stories from their realities. Most importantly, his experiences help explain the cyclical truths that are very real and essential to the Earth's ecology as he embodies the words ‘sustainable development’ and ‘ethical consumerism.’ 

At the end, we care deeply for his manners, fears and hopes. What an amazing friend especially for children to get to know.

I must admit there was an undeniable joy in writing many of these passages because I could write creatively to express some very serious thoughts and feelings. The narration is first person to give more credibility and vitality.

There is a unique power in figurative language known as personification when you can give human characteristics to non-living things or ideas. Associations help to better relate to the object or idea and have a sense of empathy that it matters. What more precious bonding can there be than to consider water as a valuable friend, as a person and necessity for survival? You wouldn't hurt or bully a good friend, right?

Here are a  few situations where I feel personification helps to focus on water as a real entity in its own right for sustainability and protection:

How else can you describe evaporation from the ocean as frolicking with friendly air molecules, rising higher into snowstorms and freezing unto a glacier?

How else can you describe the joy of a plant bathed in sunlight and drinking nutrients though it roots, feeling its body structure becoming stronger cell by cell?

How else can you describe the value of chloroplast cells and their connection to photosynthesis for plants to create food from the sun's energy as primary producers for secondary consumers like animals and humans?

How else can you describe the importance of the decomposition of organic matter by bacteria in an endless carbon cycle mixed in with nitrogen air molecules?  

How else can you show the family and community life of microorganisms like rotifers and their special bonding to fresh water except by developing mutual feelings of respect for each other?

Who can better describe the microscopic food chain than a microorganism called Stentor as part of the great ecological cycle? “This is one of the great Cyclical Truths … if one part lives, then the other part lives; if one part is destroyed then the other part will be destroyed in time? Isn't co-operation wonderful, a true democracy through diversity?"

What better way to show the importance of water in a human digestive system than to describe the process of being chewed alive and final eliminated through perspiration?

How else can you meet a carbon molecule with his ancient heritage, trials and transformations into plastic?

What better way to personify people as a block called humankinds which contains their inquiry, progress and power; however, the onus is left to the individual person to be responsible to make a difference outside the block?

How else can the horror of pollution be experienced except at a personal level and loss of a personal community with a forewarning of larger systems?

How else can you contain a journey over centuries into a glass of water in your hand today that is even more crucial for survival in a man-made industrialized environment?  

 Whose truth is more real than a water sprite saying at the end, "When you drink fresh water, do you see the earth inside the glass? Well, you should.     

               

In the end, science and imagination weave a fascinating story that only a water sprite with roots can tell; that in order to survive, we need to balance our Earth’s ‘Cyclical Truths’  and protect its ecological ecosystems. Most importantly, I hope children can accompany him and respect our natural environment even more around every chapter.

Introducing:  The Incredible Journey of a Water Sprite with Roots 

                      ...on his mission to discover Cyclical Truths

              ...a story for children of all ages

Download ebook here.

               

Questions and comments are welcome and appreciated...

 Annemarie

amarie10@gmail.com

Excerpts:

"I relax and feel the chloroplast cells swelling as the air-control center sensitizes my body to receive carbon dioxide to combine with my present water molecules in my system to form a simple sugar compound.  Before long I can feel the sweetness seeping through my cells' membranes, bathing them in self-sustaining juices..."

"Well, as I move gradually through the waters, what I see is both marvelous and astounding beyond any perceptions I have ever seen before. I could never even imagine that so many life-forms could exist of such great variety. Most seem to be only single cells, but they move and pulsate enough to give signals of life. Some are obviously one-celled plants like the diatoms that hang suspended like ornate jewels; some are algae cells, green multi-forms, some single, some linked in long wavering chains. But they are living organisms, requiring light and carbon dioxide, without which they would die like any land plant."