Towards an Ecology of Mind, Society, and Biosystems
Blog post for Blog Action Day
Ecology (from the greek oikos for house) is the study of living organisms in their environment and it’s all about dynamic balance. Nature survives and evolves because living systems can be stable and in continuous motion at the same time. It’s the dynamic balance between predators and preys, for example, that keeps each population in check and prevents the extinction of species.
Homo Sapiens broke away from the ecological balance a very long time ago. We have messed up with ecosystems as long as we can remember. We have been suffering from what Gregory Bateson, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, calls “hubris” (in Greek tragedies, hubris was the excessive pride and defiance that led characters to the inevitable defeat and ruin).
It pleases us to picture ourselves as the masters of Nature. It reassure us to believe that we are independent, unconstrained, and we can expand infinitely, even if we are stuck on a sphere of less than 4,000 miles in diameter. We feel omnipotent like little children. Yet we have not defeated death, or illness, or fear, or violence. We have transposed them: now it’s more likely that we will suffer by the hand of other humans than by the forces of Nature.
It’s not only the relationship with our environment that is unbalanced. We also have a hard time maintain balance in our own lives and societies. Those of us who can, work too much, eat too much, produce too much waste, consume too much energy. One would think that having so much would make us happy, but it doesn’t.
The ecological crisis is not just about breaking our biosphere’s stability beyond repair. It’s about the pervasive tendency towards imbalance that we bring to our lives and our societies. Global warming is just one of the symptoms of human societies’ inability to maintain harmony and equilibrium within and without.
Environmental activism is hard because it’s about changing our habits and life style. Anybody who has tried to quit smoking or lose wait can attest how hard changing habits and getting rid of our addiction is, even when our life is at stake.
We need a global ecological movement. We need a powerful, strong, interconnected grass-root movement that works at regaining balance in our environment, in our societies, and in ourselves. And, to paraphrase Al Gore, we need to act quickly and we need to act together.
Two more days to Blog Action Day
The people on Earth had been sleeping for a long time, trapped in a nightmare. In the nightmare, the richest and most powerful of Earth’s inhabitant were possessed by greed and egoism. Their vision was blurred by arrogance and hubris. The Earth languished in misery and neglect but very few noticed it. Too many people were dying of hunger, illnesses, and violence, but very few noticed it. A restless and happyless illness was possessing the souls and bodies of those who had enough to be happy. The planet was on the verge of collapse.
Then some people started waking up and saw the world around them. They realized that their beautiful planet was dying and the future of their children was at risk. They realized they could do something to make Earth a better place and they decided to act. They got together to find another way of living their lives, because the way of waste and exploitation didn’t make them happy.
They started to spend more time with their friends and with their family and less in their cars and air conditioned offices. They found other ways to feel satisfied that didn’t involve polluting and wasting scarce resources. They chose generosity and sharing to possession and accumulation. Others saw them and woke up. They tuned off their lights, sold their cars, discovered they could walk to places or ride their bicicles. They slowed down. They stopped running and started paying attention to flowers and sunsets and they realized that they felt much happier. For the first time in years, the Earth smiled.
Our Earth is generous and tolerant, but it’s not immortal. The balance that keeps Earth able to sustain life is strong, but we are stronger and more powerful. We can do great good and we can do a lot of damage. The choice is up to us.
Monday is Blog Action Day. Speak up on the environment. Look at the list of environmental issues on Wikipedia. Browse the page on environmental resources on Blog Action Day.
Congratulations to Al and to the Environment
Today, Al Gore and a United Nations panel shared the Nobel prize for Peace for their work on global warming. Thank you, Al.
Blog Action Day on October 15
Eight thousand bloggers have pledged to write about the environment on Monday, October 15. (8000 to date, but the counter is ticking up as I write. The page that shows who signed up when it’s a great example of viral spread.)
Blog action day is organizing, Wire Magazine has written about it, LifeHacker and a lot of my friends are participating.
You should participate too.
Watch the video, visit the site, write a post, and let’s meet on October 15 in blog space.
Update on 2006 Google Earth Census: Unusual sightings
Time for an update on living creatures sightings on Google Earth:
- From Germany, Tom sends the first people sighting I am aware of in which people can be identified:
If you zoom to about 250 ft, you’ll see a trampoline (rectangular blue-ish frame, with black center), with 2 boys on it. The one standing is most likely my son Paul, and lying on the trampoline is his best friend Marvin.
- Sam finds two motorcycle riders in Greece, just north-east of Athens. A little bit hard to see, but they are there: the first one is in the left lane and looks like a white dot in the right lower corner of the picture. On the opposite lane, center upper area of the image, the dark gray dot is the second motorcycle.
- Rosi finds killer whales at Sea World in Orlando, Florida
- And finally, a particularly unusual Google Earth sighting in Area 51.
Tags: Google Earth, 2006 Google Earth Census, sighting, people, people sighting
2006 Google Earth Census: Find people on the virtual planet
ยป Visit the 2006 Google Census Page [Updated on 3/13/06].
In January, I wrote a post on Google Earth in which I complained about the eerie lack of people on the virtual planet. Since then I have been alerted of human sightings on Google Earth. Derek first noticed people in Saint Peter’s Square and around Nelson’s Column. Then Rosi left a comment saying that she saw a guy playing tennis, but she didn’t remember where.
In light of these sightings, I decided to open the 2006 Google Earth Census. If you find people on Google Earth, leave a comment on my blog or send me a note with the number (or approximate number) of people and the location and any other detail you can collect. Make sure to send the Lat/Lon coordinates, so I will be able to find the exact location of the sighting.
In the next few months, I want to know how many people inhabit Google Earth, where they live, what they wear, and any other detail you learn when exploring the planet.
Update 2-17-06: Thank you for all the sightings! This is great! And thank you for the link love, too (hi, Derek!): Jeneane Sessum at Blogher, Inside Google, Manuel at MitchPeru, and Metafilter.
Update 2-18-06: I have created the 2006 Google Census Page. Continue to send sighting!
Update 4-1-06: Look at the latest unusual Google Earth Sightings.
Google Earth
I learned from Derek at PenMachine that Google finally released the Mac version of Google Earth, so I downloaded it and played with it for a while last night.
OMG! I visited Katy in California (I could even see her old red car parked outside the garage), the Google Campus in Mountain View, looked at my house (of course), went to see my sister and my mom in Rome, visited Barcelona, Spain, the Republican Palace in Bagdad and the Red Square in Moscow. I spent hours traveling the world.
Earth looks so small, so beautiful, and so one. You can hold the world on the palm of your hand and look at it in wonder. At the same time, there is something unsettling in these beautiful images. There are no people on Google Earth.
Where the resolution is higher–for example, the Google Campus–you can see cars, and even tables and chairs. But no people. It feels like the post-nuclear San Francisco portrayed in On the Beach.
So, Google Earth made me feel existential and strongly environmentalist. Please, let’s keep Earth alive. Let’s keep it full of people, animals, and plants. Let’s take good care of her and us.
In a land far far away…
On September 4, scientists observed the most distant explosion in the universe. The gamma-ray burst (a really bright and powerful explosion that happens when a huge star dies and collapses in a black hole) happened 12.6 billion light-years from Earth, which means 12.6 billion years ago, just 900 million years after the birth of our universe.
If you think of it, being able to detect something that happened 12.6 billion light-years from Earth is quite something. In an article published on Scientific American, Gehrels, Piro, and Leonard describe the effect of another gamma-ray burst that was detected in January 1999:
Though just barely visible through binoculars, it turned out to be the most brilliant explosion ever witnessed by humanity. We could see it nine billion light-years away, more than halfway across the observable universe. If the event had instead taken place a few thousand light-years away, it would have been as bright as the midday sun, and it would have dosed Earth with enough radiation to kill off nearly every living thing.
A few thousand light-years away, hu? Why do I suddenly feel so small?
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