Barry Commoner felt the main cause of the environmental crisis was the economic and political systems that weren't distributing the wealth and resources sufficiently, which was basically technology and the growth of civilization. He called it a "counterecological pattern of growth". Closing the circle means to return to nature the wealth we derive from it. Basically, sustainable living. I didn't expect to agree with Commoner, since I do believe overpopulation is an important issue that shouldn't be dismissed lightly, but I found I did agree with a lot of his ideas. He encapsulates my idea of sustainability in a neat little phrase "closing the circle". Whatever we take out we must put back in.
Related to this line of thought is the Gaia hypothesis, which states that the planet Earth is basically a living being that creates circumstances suitable for life. The problem is that it traditionally it adapts at a biological pace, but humans are causing change at a social pace, one that is much faster than biological change. I like the idea of thinking of the Earth as one complex being with complicated systems for life because it reiterates my idea, and the ideas of Commoner, that humans can't just continue on a path of destruction or the entire system for life may stall. Sure, it may fix itself in the end and life may return or continue on, but there is no guarantee that humans will be apart of that picture. Scary thought.
Just one correction about the Gaia hypothesis - the developers of the hypothesis, and the climate scientists who believe in it, made it clear that they did want us to thing of the planet as a "living being", which conjures up an image that they did not feel was appropriate. Nonetheless, that's how the hypothesis often gets interpreted, which makes it easy for the critics to poke holes in it. I find it compelling, too, and I like the way you tied it to Commoner's idea of closing the circle. The Gaia hypothesis says just that -- that the entire planet is a circle - a system of interconnected systems -- mess with one and you mess with all of them. The is not unlike the Native American view of the sacredness of the circle of life. Funny how all these things hang together - in both scientific and spiritual ways.
ReplyDeletePS- those who espouse the "natural capital" idea note that if we are going to borrow from that capital (much as we borrow money from a bank), we will need to repay it - another way to close the circle, another way to explain what reciprocity means. Commoner was a visionary.