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www.ecologicalcitizen.net EDITORIAL

The Ecological Citizen: An impulse of life, for life

elcome to the first issue of reverence. (See Haydn Washington and Patrick Curry The Ecological Citizen! I would colleagues’ article in this issue and the W like briefly to outline our first associated Statement of Commitment to About the author principles and the facts to which they are a , which we are proud to host on Patrick is a writer and response, in addition to some other essential the Journal’s website.) The most important scholar based in London, markers. You may also want to consult our thing, therefore, is the and quality UK. His works include Mission Statement (https://is.gd/umjXSP) of our relationships with the Earth and Ecological Ethics: An Introduction (Polity Press, and read John Davis’s generous endorsement our fellow-Earthlings. This means that far 2011). He is Editor-in-Chief in this issue. from being an optional add-on, questions of of The Ecological Citizen. The fundamental fact was summed up in ecocentric ethics are present from the start the WWF’s 2016: by (Curry, 2011). Citation 2020, activity will have destroyed We believe – or perceive – that nothing Curry P (2017) The Ecological two-thirds of the world’s vertebrate less will suffice to counter the destructive Citizen: An impulse of life, for relative to 1970, a mere 50 years impact of humanity so far. Certainly its life. The Ecological Citizen 1: 5–9. ago (W W F, 2016). The result of our relentless converse, anthropocentrism – or what assault on forests, , rivers, air and the Eileen Crist, in this issue, calls ‘human Keywords world’s remaining wild places and animals supremacy’ – will not. According to this Anthropocentrism; is ; and given that a healthy planet is modern de facto religion (albeit one with ; the prerequisite for everything we and our old roots), all value and meaning inheres fellow-creatures are and do, there is no more in one uniquely special : humanity. important issue. It is as important as climate The rest of the Earth, including all its change, for example, and more immediately places and creatures, is entitled to respect urgent. only instrumentally, insofar as it is needed Nor can there be any doubt concerning for to ‘progress’. An auxiliary the primary interlinked causes: too much assumption is that we know what we do human economic activity, too much human and do not need (Ehrenfeld, 1981). (See John consumption and, far from least, too many Michael Greer’s article in this issue for some humans. Yet in this era of truthiness and pertinent reflections.) alternative facts, building on our species’ A closely related term, often used already well-established propensity for synonymously with ecocentrism, is denial and wishful thinking in the service of ‘biocentrism’. Technically, the former is perceived self-interest, very few people are preferable, since it explicitly includes the facing up to reality. essential abiotic dimension of life. But This is the context for The Ecological Citizen. although we are passionately committed It will offer a platform for the ecocentric to ecocentrism, we are not concerned values, views and voices that are rarely heard with ideological or linguistic purity, and in mainstream and even alternative media, The Ecological Citizen will welcome non- yet have never been more important. By anthropocentric contributions of any ‘ecocentric’ I mean centred on the Earth as appropriate kind. By the same token, although a living ecosystemic whole, including all the it is not a requirement, we particularly seek life it supports. For ecocentrics, this is the contributions that include strategic advice ultimate source of value, locus of meaning, and practical steps for developing ways and appropriate recipient of respect and forward, and encouraging action.

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Within that ambit there is room for bankrupt, it is a recipe for failure even in widely differing subjects, from rewilding its own terms. By making conservation and to greening solely about us instead of the natural cities, from political strategy and green world as a whole (including us as one citizenship to green spirituality and tiny if self-important part), to be treated cultural expressions of nature. The well for its own sake and its intrinsic sciences, humanities and arts all have value, ensures its own something vital to contribute, and none failure, as Neil Evernden (1985: 10) says, has the final say. (None is immune from “whenever self-interest can be perceived “Using the corruption, for that matter.) as lying elsewhere.” And led by developers, to frame the Our Journal’s title is a nod to Aldo planners, economists and politicians, it Leopold’s epically incisive comment that “A will be. natural world, upon land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens Indeed, using the economy to frame the which from conqueror of the land-community to natural world, upon which economies are are completely plain member and citizen of it” (Leopold, completely dependent, is allowing the tail 1 dependent, is 1987: 204). Perhaps our most important to wag the dog, and the end is the death single touchstone, however, is the work of of the whole animal. Logging – jobs and, allowing the tail to the ecologist Stan Rowe,2 some of it written for some, prosperity – will mean the end wag the dog, and the together with one of our Consulting of the woodland caribou. Oil pipelines and end is the death of Editors, Ted Mosquin (e.g. Mosquin and tankers – ditto – will probably finish the the whole animal.” Rowe, 2004). Of course, we have also been Salish Sea orcas; and so on. Framing these influenced by (as was Rowe, conflicts economically is already a death- to some extent) and honour that ancestry. sentence for life, whatever ‘conclusion’ That said, there are a couple of significant is reached.3 It is our duty to contest such differences. As befits ecology, ecocentrism ways of thinking, not encourage them. (For values not Self but relationships. By the more on this, see Sian Sullivan’s article in same token, it emphasizes alliances and this issue.) solidarity across differences rather than a The Chief Executive of the Wildfowl metaphysical unity (Curry, 2011: 101-11). and Wetlands Trust, Martin Spray (2017), issued a subsequent editorial in which The need he acknowledged that “The use of terms To give you another perspective on why an such as ‘ services’, ‘natural ecocentric platform is needed, I recently capital’ and ‘millennium goals’ may be wrote to several conservation organizations fine for some audiences, but they simply in the UK concerning two things: their don’t work for most people. They don’t silence on human overpopulation and their touch hearts.” However, in the very endorsement of a recent report entitled next paragraph he asserted that “Our Response for Nature (https://is.gd/8sh3Hs) relationship with businesses is, in my which concluded that “The natural view, an increasingly important factor in world, its and its constituent achieving environmental improvement.” are critically important to Then, after admitting that “Promoting our well-being and economic prosperity” the need to conserve biodiversity for the and that conservation should be led by sake of the planet is, without a doubt, its “benefits for and well-being”, absolutely right,” he advocated “a more adding that “natural capital” and “smarter realistic appreciation of the environment financial instruments of nature” should for a sustainable and successful future.” figure prominently. Another more direct response to my Our well-being, human health and enquiries was equally self-contradictory. humans’ economic prosperity; no mention, Beccy Speight, Chief Executive of the even, of the well-being or health or Woodland Trust (pers comm: 2016), prospering of the millions of other admitted that “Basic ecological theory Earthlings. This is not only ethically tells us that the human

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globally is fast approaching and has The editor for the popular TED perhaps already exceeded the planet’s Talks, David Biello (2016), asks “How . The UK is particularly do we make a good human epoch?” densely populated. […] However, it is not Having already framed the issues in within our remit to campaign for human anthropocentric terms, his answers are population control of any kind. Our characteristic of the denial and wishful charitable objectives are around trees and thinking that dominates such discussions. woods.” It takes wilful blindness not to One is ‘’, understood as the see the connection between the two. high end of techno-managerialism – as Speight also agreed that “Of course we if humanity knows enough to ‘manage’ want to see nature conserved for its own the natural world successfully, or (who intrinsic value. […] but the conservation knows?) one day might, and has a sector has held this line for more than a wonderful record of past interventions century with little success.” This is surely to give us confidence.4 He also favours false; environmentalists have mostly social justice. So do we, but without the “We should be emphasized a human services model. A illusion that it would automatically bring wary of any demand really serious case for valuing the natural about ecological justice. The two do not from official sources world for its own sake – educational, necessarily harmonize, and when they do cultural, social: across the board – is not, given what a dead planet would mean, (including non- something we still await. it should be clear which must take priority. governmental Speight concluded by reassuring me that (This is a point that will receive a fuller organizations) to be “the Trust has no intention of abandoning discussion in these pages.) ‘realistic’. It is too its core conservation principles, but we Even the excellent campaigning journalist must move with .” But valuing George Monbiot (2016) can write an entire often a call to adopt nature for its financial and economic article extolling the idea of the common a model of fantasy, value means it’s already happened. For a good – rightly, as far as that goes – without denial and wish- better sense of what that entails, imagine once mentioning the rest of the natural fulfilment. if the Western racial and sexual equality world except, and I quote, as ‘resources’: as ” movements had abandoned their initial if the rest of nature, the very basis of any convictions in favour of stating that we sustainable human polity, had no stake or need to ease up on protecting the rights even role in the matter. of minority races and women because Let me remind you that these are not they can then be of more benefit (as cold-blooded poachers or hunters, ruthless human capital) to white people’s and corporate racketeers or unscrupulous men’s needs (pers comm: Gray J, 2016). politicians. They are (if you’ll pardon the Humanity occupies just that privileged expression) the good guys. This is deeply place in relation to the rest of suffering worrying, and captures why there is a nature. need for The Ecological Citizen and other Meanwhile, the Canadian Prime Minister such projects. Justin Trudeau, while claiming to be In particular, we should be wary of any tackling emissions, joins demand from official sources (including hands with Donald Trump resurrecting non-governmental organizations) to be the TransCanada Keystone XL crude ‘realistic’. It is too often a call to adopt oil pipeline and has approved a couple a model of fantasy, denial and wish- more on his own account, adding nearly fulfilment. In Kenneth Anderson’s words, a million barrels a day to the capacity of “It is not hard to see how [such] arguments the ecologically devastating Alberta oil seek in the end to draw radical ecology sands. “When people finally realize it’s a into the ‘conversation’ of bureaucracy and tremendous business opportunity to lead managerialism, from which, once drawn on climate change,” he crows, “Canada in, it will go nowhere that ‘progress’ does will already have a head start” (Kassam not approve that it should go” (Anderson, and Mathieu-Léger, 2016). 1995). A runaway population, supposedly

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endless and unlimited is paralysing, and thus self-fulfilling. And consumption are not things which we the fact is, in the words of someone in the should accept. They need urgent countering same plight in a similar story, “Despair is and stopping, not a mere desideratum but for those who see the future beyond any as an imperative. doubt. We do not.”5 So the virtue we most The alternative vision – the ‘new need is courage: the courage to resist and narrative’ that we really need – is, as to act, whatever the odds. Eileen Crist (2014) has shown, an abundant The second mistake is misanthropy. planet, overflowing with life. All that it Again, it’s understandable; why not hate requires is for we humans, collectively and the agent of such destruction? Nonetheless, individually, to learn to limit our numbers, it’s wrong. First, it is grossly inconsistent; economies, habitations and, to a large indeed, speciesist. We too are natural beings extent at least, insatiable desires. Even the sprung from the Earth, so why should this “The mainstream last is not as impossible as it sounds; it is one species be excluded from the care and prefers to follow quite possible to imagine a culture which concern we try to extend to all the others? the siren voices, encourages ‘the wisdom of limitations’ (in Second, misanthropy merely inverts a leading us into a Crist’s phrase), rather than fanning the linchpin of ecocide: the assumption that flames as does commodity consumerism. we are uniquely important. Becoming a planet of managed Indeed, the model already exists in plain member and citizen, so desperately dearth and death, traditional ecological knowledge. But the needed, once again drops out of sight. And that proclaim we are mainstream prefers to follow the siren third, it is far from true that all humans are radical exceptions, voices, leading us into a planet of managed equally destructive. So damning them all is dearth and death, that proclaim we are not only unfair, it drives away those whom universal beings. So radical exceptions, universal beings. So the we need on our – that is, the Earth’s – side. the real abundance real abundance that could be ours to share The poet Robinson Jeffers is instructive that could be ours turns into the destructive lie of limitless here. The poetry is unmistakably, resonantly to share turns into freedom. ecocentric, hymning “Organic wholeness, If anthropocentrism – always putting the wholeness of life and things, the divine the destructive lie of human interests first, and never less than beauty / of the universe. Love that, not limitless freedom.” equal to the rest of nature – supplies man / Apart from that…” (This is from The the entire context for the debates that Answer, carried in this issue.) As such, it has determine what actually happens, then been rightly influential; again, see Greer in the outlook is dire. So The Ecological Citizen this issue.6 But Jeffers called his philosophy will try to provide the missing ecocentric – not his poetry – ‘Inhumanism’, and in position, at the other end of the spectrum his life and letters, it frequently slid into from all-too-common narrow human self- an ugly misanthropy (Karman, 2016). We interest. Our intention is not to crush our have no interest in being either inhuman or foes (however nice that might be once in a inhumane; on the contrary, our concern is while) but to pull the centre of gravity of with the entire more-than-human world, such debates, and therefore their outcomes, to borrow David Abram’s (1997) term for in an ecocentric direction. the natural world which includes, but also vastly exceeds, humanity. The dangers Of course, I am not banning expressions There are two modes we will try to avoid. of despair or misanthropy. Who has never They are sins, or errors, to which Earth- felt that way? But they will find no advocacy lovers and defenders are particularly in these pages. prone. One is despair. What could be more Finally, on a more personal note, it has understandable? The power of what Lewis already been a pleasure to work alongside Mumford called the ‘megamachine’ is very my fellow editors, and I am grateful for the great, and the outlook is indeed very dark; fine support from Stephanie Moran (Art arguably even hopeless. But in that case, we Editor) and Victor Postnikov (Poetry Editor), must do without hope (Curry, 2014). Despair as well as that of our Consulting Editors

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and Advisory Board. From the beginning, Curry P (2004) Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth The Ecological Citizen has felt like something and Modernity (2nd edition). Houghton Mifflin, that wants to happen – an impulse not Boston, MA, USA. only for life but of it. We would be grateful Curry P (2011) Ecological Ethics: An Introduction (2nd edition). Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. if you would read it, share it with others, “From the beginning, Curry P (2014) May 12. In: MacLean T, ed. Global Hope: and send us your ideas, articles, poems and The Ecological Citizen 365 Voices on the Future of the Planet. RMB Books, artwork. Please spread the word! Victoria, BC, Canada: 151. Available at https://is.gd/ has felt like something Thank you. n zPxWE4 (accessed February 2017). that wants to happen Ehrenfeld DW (1976) The conservation of non- Notes resources: Conservation cannot rely solely on – an impulse not only 1 See also: Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature economic and ecological justifications. There is a for life but of it.” and Culture 2011 5(4) Special Issue, “Aldo Leopold: more reliable criterion of the value of species and Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions”; and Holdrege communities. American Scientist 64: 648–56. (2016). Ehrenfeld D (1981) The Arrogance of Humanism (2nd 2 A number of Stan Rowe’s pieces can be found edition). , New York, NY, USA. at the website www.ecospherics.net, which is an Evernden N (1985) The Natural Alien: Humankind and the anthology of ecological, philosophical, spiritual, Environment. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, economic and cultural articles, editorials and ON, Canada. reviews exploring the values of the ecosphere. Greer JM (2010) The Falling Years: An Inhumanist Vision. 3 In addition to the pioneering work of John Available at https://is.gd/JGvMYp (accessed February Livingston and Neil Evernden, see Ehrenfeld 2017). (1976). Holdrege C (2016) Meeting nature as a presence: Aldo 4 Although it falls short of ecocentrism, ecological Leopold and the deeper nature of nature. In Context stewardship with its roots in religion, and Issue 36: 14–17. informed by the humility as well as knowledge of genuine science, has much to contribute to Karman J (2016) Robinson Jeffers: Poet and Prophet. the kind of outcomes we seek. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, USA. 5 Gandalf, in The Lord of the Rings, quoting almost Kassam A and Mathieu-Léger L (2016). Justin Trudeau: directly from Goethe’s Faust. For a discussion of ‘Globalisation isn’t working for ordinary people’. The the ecological dimension of Tolkien’s narrative, Guardian. Available at https://is.gd/qXHlz7 (accessed see Curry (2004). February 2017). 6 In addition to his article in this issue, see the Kingsnorth P and Hine D (2009) Uncivilisation: The Dark excellent discussion in Greer (2010) and, for a Mountain Manifesto. Available at https://is.gd/0JwDjj document and project strongly influenced by (accessed February 2017). Jeffers, Kingsnorth and Hine (2009). Leopold A (1987) A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. References Monbiot G (2016) The case for despair is made. Now let’s Abram D (1997) The Spell of the Sensuous. Vintage start to get out of the mess we’re in. . Books, New York, NY, USA. Available at https://is.gd/GWTd3J (accessed February Anderson K (1995) Our natural selves. Times Literary 2017). Supplement 8 September: 10–11. Mosquin T and Rowe S (2004) A Manifesto for Earth. Biello D (2016) The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Biodiversity 5: 3-9. in Earth’s Newest Age. Scribner, New York, Spray M (2017) A shift in thinking. Waterlife Issue 199: 5. NY, USA. WWF (2016) Living Planet Report 2016: Risk and resilience Crist E (2014) Choosing a planet of life. In: Butler T, in a new era. WWF International, Gland, Switzerland. ed. Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, . G o ff Available at https://is.gd/rcbOx9 (accessed February Books, Novato, CA, USA: afterword. 2017).

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