Thinking about an ecocentric worldview
This aims to share ideas about ecocide and extractivism by drawing out some contributions to a journal called The Ecological Citizen, which promotes a shift to an ecocentric worldview. All references to ‘everyday ecocide’ are related to our Climate Museum UK enquiry into eco-blindness, erasure and denial in media, society and culture.
Journal editor Patrick Curry explains that ‘ecocentric’ means “centred on the Earth as a living ecosystemic whole, including all the life it supports.” He introduces the journal by talking about his frustration at the ‘everyday ecocide’ in this Response for Nature report that was compiled by 33 conservation organisations. This report concluded that “The natural world, its biodiversity and its constituent ecosystems are critically important to our well-being and economic prosperity” and that conservation should be led by its “‘benefits for health and well-being’, adding that ‘natural capital’ and ‘smarter financial instruments of nature’ should figure prominently.” Curry took issue with this conclusion and invited all the conservation organisations to respond, and was disappointed that none came back with a truly ecocentric view of stewardship. He says that “using the economy to frame the natural world, upon which economies are completely dependent, is allowing the tail to wag the dog, and the end is the death of the whole animal.”
And the reality is that this is not just a ‘whole animal’ dying but a whole diverse living Earth system. But, because of our “propensity for denial and wishful thinking in the service of perceived self-interest, very few people are facing up to reality.”
This said, he rejects a position of despair and wants to invite new visions and strategies for living that are both complex but discernible or real: “Ecocentrism values not Self but relationships. By the same token, it emphasizes alliances and solidarity across differences rather than a metaphysical unity”. In an ecocentric worldview, metaphysics transcend us but also enmeshes us in an embodied way: “The more-than-human world, to borrow David Abram’s (1997) term for the natural world which includes, but also vastly exceeds, humanity.”
So, moving on to summarise some of the other articles:
Ian Whyte writes that “Life, as well as life’s diversity, is conclusively losing the battle for Earth. One might even say, given the momentum of the situation, that its defeat is imminent. It is time — way past time actually — that those who wish to defend life on Earth became effective.”
John Davis explains why this journal is needed, and how he hopes that articles should “point to specific ways we can help rewild lands and waters, reconnect protected areas, become plain citizens of the biotic community…scale back the industrial enterprise, actively give back to nature, restore degraded areas, reintegrate ourselves into the natural world, convert a global economy based on exploiting nature to local economies based on restoring nature, and generally preserve and restore life on Earth.
Joe Gray in ‘Reasons for a reduction of humans’ impact on the ecosphere’ responds to Pearson who presented a (2016) framework for conservation that attempts to do justice to both the intrinsic and the instrumental value of non-human nature. Gray suggests eco-democracy as an alternative framework, involving “discursive processes; human proxies for other species with voting rights; citizen juries; and statutory enforcement of strong laws preserving the right of other species to continued existence”.
Michelle Mahoney in ‘The Harmony with Nature initiative: Why it matters and what it might achieve’, explores this UN project www.harmonywithnatureun.org which “speaks to the need to move away from a human-centered worldview — or anthropocentrism — and establish a non-anthropocentric, or Earth-centered, relationship with the planet. Under this new paradigm, Nature is recognized as an equal partner with humankind and is no longer treated as merely the source of raw materials to produce ever more commodities and feed the indefinite private accumulation of capital.” The purpose of the initiative’s dialogues is to inspire citizens to implement the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but as Maloney points out, these “are fundamentally human-centred, rather than Earth-centred”.
Alan Watson Featherstone, founder of Trees for Life, writes about A positive future for beavers in Scotland. This gives a practical example of how a non-human species can provide ‘ecological services’ of mutual benefit to humans and many wildlife species. Beavers “play a crucial role in the regulation of water flow in rivers and streams”. These benefits could be seen as ‘natural capital’ but evidence how limited this concept can be when they make a unique contribution to flourishing eco-systems, not to mention the intrinsic value in letting beavers themselves have a home. He refers to the EU’s Habitats Directive, whereby member states are obliged to investigate the feasibility and desirability of reintroducing extirpated species. Although he doesn’t mention the impact of Brexit in undermining this, he does note that the Scottish government hasn’t yet referred to further licensed reintroductions of beavers.
Rachel Waters in ‘Rethinking the United Nations’ concept of sustainability’ writes: “Therein lies the greatest contradiction within the SDGs: In a world whose economies thrive almost exclusively on industries which drill, deforest and pollute, how can the SDGs simultaneously hold nations to the goal of poverty eradication while requesting they do so ‘sustainably’, when there’s nothing sustainable about the engines of growth? They can’t.” She identifies the root problem with the use of the term Sustainability, that it is used as a ‘flimsy bridge’ between nature and mankind, and that this “artificial disconnect lies at the core of UN thinking”. The UN contributes to the culture of ‘everyday ecocide’ because “it possesses the power of normative ideas, which are conveyed through the language of documents”
A long piece by multiple authors: Washington H, Taylor B, Kopnina H, Cryer P and Piccolo JJ examines ‘Why ecocentrism is the key pathway to sustainability’. Reinforcing the key arguments of the editorial position of the journal, they examine the roots of ecocentrism and discuss its mixed history of international recognition. Then they summarise four key examples from the academic literature in which anthropocentrism fails to provide an ethic adequate for respecting and protecting planet Earth and its inhabitants.
Samuel Alexander and Peter Burdon in ‘Wild democracy: A biodiversity of resistance and renewal’ call for a ‘biodiversity of resistance and renewal’, an “eco-egalitarian politics that privileges grassroots participation over parliamentary representation”, with the aim of transcending capitalism and initiating a degrowth process of planned economic contraction. Drawing on Marxism and anarchism as resources, they show how it is possible for people following those modes of thought to turn towards a ‘wild democracy’. The task is to reimagine social structures in line with environmental goals, and to overcome assumptions such as this: “Today it is widely assumed that it would be ‘illiberal’ to govern in such a way that would curtail ecocide.”
In ‘Enacting the wisdom of Chief Seattle today in Latin America’, Coyote Alberto Ruz Buenfil reviews recent and ongoing initiatives in Latin America (Bolivia, Ecuador and Mexico) that are aimed at promoting the ecocentric worldview and developing the necessary supporting legislation. The article concludes with a rallying call for local endorsements of a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, a continuing of national and global actions to stop destructive projects wherever they are happening, and the mobilization of a global ecocentric alliance.
The most interesting article in the journal is by Eileen Crist, ‘The Affliction of Human Supremacy’. She opens with a great example of ‘everyday ecocide’, a tech solution of killer robots to turn gluts of jellyfish to mush. She identifies the fixed idea of human superiority, the “notion that the impact of humanity stems from our nature — from our species’ essence.” Framed negatively and fatalistically, this implies humans are essentially destroyers of nature. Interpreted positively, it suggests that we need to “get better at being all-powerful” and that the domination of nature is our manifold destiny. Instead she asks us to look at socio-cultural conditioning. Underlying our culture of ‘everyday ecocide’ are “three invisible, widespread beliefs: that the Earth belongs to humanity; that the planet consists in resources for the betterment of people; and that human beings are ‘obviously’ superior to all other species.” This leads to both ideational and physical displacements of indigenous people and wild species. It also leads to alienation from that over which we exert superiority. And she explains that “a phenomenon profoundly indicative of this alienation is what is known as the shifting ecological baseline. Ecological impoverishment has generally increased with each generation, yet each generation takes the impoverished condition they find as ‘normal’.” Another indicator of alienation is the “ongoing invisibility of the mass extinction episode underway [which remains] publicly largely unknown, little understood and rarely talked about.” She is right that despite widespread scientific knowledge of the unfolding crisis “No mainstream politician, media or non-governmental organization has called out the anthropocentric worldview.”
Curry highlights Crist in his introduction: “The alternative vision — the ‘new narrative’ that we really need — is, as Eileen Crist (2014) has shown, an abundant planet, overflowing with life. All that it requires is for we humans, collectively and individually, to learn to limit our numbers, economies, habitations and, to a large extent at least, insatiable desires. Even the last is not as impossible as it sounds; it is quite possible to imagine a culture which encourages ‘the wisdom of limitations’ (in Crist’s phrase), rather than fanning the flames as does commodity consumerism.”
A more technically challenging, but still useful, article is by Sian Sullivan ‘Noting some effects of fabricating ‘nature’ as ‘natural capital’. It considers three connected aspects of the fabrication of ‘natural capital’: 1) commensuration — making different natures interchangeable; 2) aggregation — focusing on total quantities over differences and particularities; and 3) capitalisation — leveraging conserved ‘standing natures’ as capital assets.
John Michael Greer is the Past Grand Archdruid of America, and he offers a longish, illustrated and literary piece on The Twilight of Anthropocentrism. Focusing on the outlooks of horror–fantasy writer HP Lovecraft and poet Robinson Jeffers he considers how indifferentism, inhumanism and nihilism have been presented as alternatives to religious or secular anthropocentrism. He charts a course in grand narratives from ethnocentrism to anthropocentrism, suggesting the possibility of the next step being ecocentrism.
Margarita Carretero-González reports on a meeting in Spain of a research project: ‘Environmental Humanities: Strategies for ecological empathy and the transition towards sustainable societies’. This project included enquiry into, amongst others, visual art “which could function as vectors of change and empathy in the transition towards more sustainable societies”. For example, artist Jelena Micic made an installation with food packaging nets (see illustration above) saying “These nets are a potential ecological danger. The usual act following the consumption process would be to simply throw them away and pretend they never existed. Instead, I use them as building blocks, making them more visible.” This suggests ways that artists can highlight ‘everyday ecocide’ by making visible what we waste, neglect and forget.
Ito Munta in ‘Towards a new paradigm for nature in the EU’, reports on a meeting in Belgium of the group Nature’s Rights. She explains how our legal system is inherently anti-ecological, enabling ecocide by its framing: “In our current system of law, ecosystems and living species are treated as objects, property and resources — whilst corporations are made subjects of the law with legal personality and rights. This enables an economic system based on unlimited growth that is coupled with the destruction of nature. Our current system of environmental law simply manages the externalities of business as usual without addressing root causes. It can only slow the rate of degradation — it cannot stop or reverse it.”
There is (amongst some further content, including a poetry section) also a report by journal editor Patrick Curry on an environmental humanities symposium convened by Professor Kate Rigby in Bath. Curry offers constructive criticism of this event, in which too many speakers were too concerned with how to study than what we might learn, that “an over-emphasis on methodology is already prejudicial to an environmental humanities that is genuinely ecological and not merely environmental, that is, confined to nature as an external setting and set of resources, whether material or cultural, for us.” This distinction between ‘ecological’ and ‘environmental’ is helpful.
He hints at setting the tone for this new journal by preferring presentations that are “engaged with the world rather than engaging in sophisticated meta-level acrobatics”. This is encouraging, as it suggests openness to contributions from people outside academia, including people living more ecocentrically.
If you want to write a longer article, exploring extractivism and ecocidal framing in media, culture and Cultural organisations (or the opposite, Regenerative Culture) we can add you as a writer to this Stories of Extraction publication. Email us on climatemuseumuk@gmail.com
