www.ecologicalcitizen.net LONG ARTICLE

Ecological civilization: A premise, a promise and perhaps a prospect

Two broad approaches to ecological civilization are here distinguished: the reformational Freya Mathews and the transformational. The reformational approach seeks to limit the ecological impact of modern industrial civilization without changing its underlying human/nature dualism. About the author The transformational approach seeks to change that premise by instituting entirely new Freya is an environmental modes of praxis that integrate economic production with ecological functionality: forms of philosopher who lives in economic production are proposed which do not merely limit the impact of production on Australia. the biosphere but contribute positively to its ecological health and functionality. Biomimicry, understood as a principle of design, is considered as an operating principle for such an Citation economy but is rejected in favour of biosynergy, understood as a protocol for engagement. Mathews F (2020) Ecological Defined in terms of the twin principles of conativity and accommodation and least resistance, civilization: A premise, a promise and perhaps a biosynergy is proposed as a fundamental protocol of living systems. Modes of production prospect. The Ecological Citizen guided by biosynergy would not seek to create artificial systems modelled on the design 3(Suppl C): 47–54. features of living systems; rather, they would engage collaboratively with living systems in ways that encouraged them to provide for human needs while simultaneously enhancing Keywords the functionality of those systems. Crucially, this would require us as humans to adapt our Visions ends to those of such systems; in a word, to desire what our ecological-others need us to desire.

hat is civilization? By civilization of society but to industrialism, and it is I mean those expansive cultural in this industrial form that civilization W formations established by the dominates the world today.1 sedentary, stratified, usually literate, Members of pre-agrarian societies, by administratively centralized societies that contrast, depended on the affordances originated in the northern hemisphere in of local ecologies for provender, shelter Neolithic times and predominate in the and other requisites. Whether they were world today. Such societies were based true foragers or what I have elsewhere on labour-intensive, agrarian forms called custodials, practising sophisticated of production. Whereas pre-agrarian forms of ecological management, their societies had looked to natural ecologies to cultures reflected a sense of enmeshment furnish their livelihoods, civilised societies in, and responsibility for, an intricate carved out spaces of their own within their set of ecological interdependencies environments, dedicating those spaces (Mathews, 2019). Intimate knowledge of exclusively to human use. They achieved these interdependencies enabled people this, at the cost of great effort, through land to ensure, by way of relatively small clearing, cultivation and domestication – interventions, that ecosystems themselves often of exotic species – and through the would do the work of providing for them. So, construction of permanent settlements. in pre-colonial Australia, for example, just Such cultivated and, eventually, engineered by walking through country with a firestick, scenarios gradually began to replace practising highly selective burning of natural landscapes. Recourse to human plant communities, people could promote effort and artifice rather than reliance on grasslands and so ensure an ongoing nature ultimately gave rise not merely to abundance of game (Gammage, 2011); or, agrarian economies and the urbanization by selectively digging out wild yams, they

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could ensure increased propagation of yam to replace them with new parameters daisies in subsequent years (Pascoe, 2014). enabling economies to be re-integrated into Such practices, or forms of praxis, relied ecosystems in such a way that economic not so much on effort as on a sophisticated functionality becomes interdependent understanding of ecological systems, and with ecological functionality – a state on how to tweak them. of affairs that would in turn reconfigure For agrarian peoples, sweating in the inner ideologies of civilization. Since their fields, a knowledge of planting and this latter approach would require a husbandry was of course indispensible, complete overhaul of currently prevailing but otherwise the environment, as a socioeconomic arrangements, we might realm of natural ecologies, was relatively call it a transformational approach to discounted, as outside the sphere of the ecological civilization. praxical and hence ultimately as outside the sphere of the cultural. ‘Nature’ in other The reformational approach words tended to become progressively Examples of the kind of strategies used backgrounded to the sphere of human under the first, reformational approach agency – ignored and little understood, it include the following. was expected to take care of itself. A deep n Current capitalist modes of techno- human–nature dualism thus lies at the industrial and economic organization core of traditional forms of civilization – a are maintained but drastic reductions tendency to construct culture as set apart are effected in either levels of production from nature and as the exclusive focus of and consumption, or levels of human interest and value. population, or both. In the contemporary world, civilization n Current capitalist modes of techno- under its industrial aspect has largely industrial and economic organization overtaken the natural environment. In its are maintained, but areas of land and ignorance and discounting of the processes sea reserved for conservation are vastly “As long as the and principles underpinning the integrity expanded, where this affords space dominant techno- of natural systems, this form of civilization for the recovery and regeneration of has, often with little awareness of what it biosphere processes. industrial modes of is doing, ransacked and ravaged nature, production prevail, with the consequence that the health and An influential example of the latter holding the dualistic integrity of the entire biosphere is now approach can be found in the Ecomodernist ideological core of under grave threat. Manifesto, which seeks further to intensify and centralize industrialism – fully civilization in place, What is ecological civilization? ‘decoupling’ it from nature by restructuring the biosphere will Ecological civilization, a term of great it along circular economy lines – with a continue to be seen significance in contemporary China, is here view to thereby freeing up land currently as subordinate to defined by its aim of rendering civilization, under industrial and urban usage for human interests. as a social formation, consistent with the conservation instead (Asafu-Adjaye et al., ” repair and ongoing renewal of Earth’s life 2015; cf. Wilson, 2016). in all its abundance, beauty and ecological Arguably, however, as long as the diversity. dominant techno-industrial modes of Approaches to ecological civilization production prevail, holding the dualistic have thus far taken two broad forms. The ideological core of civilization in place, first seeks not to overturn the existing the biosphere will continue to be seen as parameters of industrial civilization, nor subordinate to human interests, and the the dualist ideologies that reinforce those biological resources of the planet will parameters from within, but merely to limit continue to be regarded as the rightful their impact on the biosphere. We might call property of humanity, ever available for this the reformational approach. The second new forms of exploitation. The end-point does challenge those parameters, seeking to which such an attitude leads in the long

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run is total exploitation: a biosphere that The first pathway is the approach known retains only those ecological components as bioregionalism. It calls for devolution of with demonstrated utility for human the present global, high-impact, hungrily purposes. Currently such components extractive economy into a multitude of cannot be definitively identified: no one small, local, adaptive and low-impact can determine which of the myriad existing economies. Societies built on this model species, planetary cycles and systems would substitute simpler, decentralized, are truly necessary as underpinnings for ecologically informed, place-identified, human civilization. However, it is already value-rich but technically minimal and clear that many species are dispensable scale-appropriate forms of cultural and, with the development of ever-more- and material life for current regimes elaborate geo-engineering systems that of centralized, de-regionalized, high- may replace natural systems with artificial tech mass production and global ones, it may turn out that most ecosystem distribution and consumption. We might processes will prove dispensable or call this the bioregional version of the substitutable by artificial processes in the transformational approach (Sale, 1985; “No one can future. Snyder, 1995; McGinnis, 1999; Crist, 2019). determine which of Logically then, failure to replace the Although bioregionalism undoubtedly the myriad existing kinds of praxis which give rise to dualist represents in many ways an optimal species, planetary attitudes with forms of praxis conducive to contemporary pathway to an authentic a more integrative view of the relationship non-dualist – ecological – consciousness, cycles and systems between humanity and nature seems likely and hence to a genuinely ecological are truly necessary to undermine any attempt to establish a civilization, its disadvantage is that it as underpinnings for new – ecological – form of civilization seems, in the context of today’s geopolitical human civilization. truly consistent with the repair, integrity realities, a utopian one. A transition ” and ongoing flourishing of the biosphere. towards bioregionalism would require not merely a reconfiguration but a reversal The transformational approach of our prevailing political and economic It might seem then that a transformational arrangements. In a world in which net approach is required – that it is not demographic trends are, for a multitude enough merely to clean up the impacts of economic and techno-cultural reasons, of an economic system fundamentally strongly towards urbanization and ever at odds with the biosphere, but that our greater concentrations of production and economic praxis needs to be intimately of high-density living, conditions for the tailored to the needs of the biosphere from kind of decentralization and industrial the start. Of course, this is not to say that downscaling required by bioregionalism we might not want to incorporate into appear unfavourable – unfavourable our transformational approach strategies enough, at any rate, for us to consider identified under the reformational a second, less idyllic but perhaps more approach, such as population control and realistic, transitional version of the the reservation of large tracts of land and transformational approach. sea for conservation. But it is to say that This second pathway to transformation I such strategies may prove ineffective term biosynergy. From this viewpoint, it is unless we also transform our fundamental not necessary to reverse the demographic modes of production in ways calculated to tendency of modern civilization. What generate new, more integrative, attitudes is required is rather a design revolution. to nature in place of our traditional dualist Neither capitalism nor techno-indus- ones. trialism per se would need to be given up, In prefiguring the transformative but productive practices, as they pertain to approach, we need again to distinguish the whole manufacturing, agricultural and at least two different pathways to architectural fabric of our material culture, transformation. would need to be reconfigured so as to

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render these practices productive not only accordingly proposed as the guidelines for us but also for biological systems. for biomimetic design. Were our industrial Such an approach would involve designing and urban systems modelled along these human production systems with reference lines, those systems would, according to biological systems, rendering society to advocates of biomimicry, become as materially integral with biosphere processes productive for the larger community of rather than antagonistic to them. If all life on Earth as are the industries and built production systems, together with our ways structures of ants. of organizing and administering them, were As a key to designing an ecological reconfigured so that these systems afforded civilization, however, the philosophy of ongoing sustenance for the biosphere as well biomimicry is problematic. In itself, such a as for us, then there would be less need to curb philosophy can as easily lead to ecologically As a key to industrialism per se or reduce population in dystopian as to utopian outcomes – to a “ the interests of sustainability (though upper form of ostensible ‘sustainability’ that designing an ecological limits on human population would would replace actual biotic communities ecological civilization necessarily still apply). Like the activities of with artificial systems designed for the the philosophy the legendarily industrious ant, the total exclusive benefit of humanity. Following of biomimicry is biomass of whose many species on Earth is the lines of an autonomous, organic archi- greater than the total biomass of humanity, tecture that self-constellates and self- problematic. ” our own industriousness could nourish and regulates in adaptation to the environment, replenish the life-community, rather than exemplified in solar cities that photo- obliterating it (McDonough and Braungart, synthesize and industrial aggregates 2002). that cycle water and carbon and morph One name that has been proposed for such in accordance with variable conditions, a design approach to ecological civilization such ‘genetic architecture’ could be built is biomimicry. This design philosophy was from the inside out in accordance with originally popularized by biologist, Janine the morphogenetic principles of life itself Benyus, economists, Amory and Hunter (Chu, 2004). This would pre-eminently Lovins, and architect William McDonough. qualify as biomimetic, but at its limit, it Benyus (2002: front matter; emphasis in could dispense with nature altogether, original) writes that: securing a state of ‘sustainability-without- nature’ – that is, a state of sustainability Biomimicry is a new science that studies for humanity that spelled death for other- nature’s models and then imitates or than-human nature (Mathews, 2011). takes inspiration from these designs and In other words, it is not enough to imitate processes to solve human problems, e.g., a nature in our production systems. While solar cell inspired by a leaf […] Biomimicry is imitating another does imply a certain a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It respect for their qualities – or in this case introduces an era based not on what we can for their operating principles – it by no extract from the natural world, but on what means entails actual consideration for their we can learn from it. interests. Consider the Romans’ imitation of the Etruscans: what the Romans learned Benyus identifies various principles she from the Etruscans helped them not only considers as characteristic of life processes to overpower and displace the Etruscans generally, and hence as underlying nature’s but eventually to erase most independent designs. Nature, she proposes, runs on traces of Etruscan existence. Imitation is, sunlight, uses only the energy it needs, in other words, consistent with a brutal fits form to function, recycles everything, plagiarism that results in appropriation rewards cooperation, banks on diversity, and displacement. demands local expertise, curbs excesses If imitation or mimicry, then, is not the from within, and taps the power of limits appropriate category on which to found (Benyus, 2002: 7). Such principles are an ecological civilization, what category

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might serve? I think it is true that we do against them, and (ii) desiring what others, need to ‘follow nature’ in the design of our following their own conativity, are already production systems if we are functionally to incidentally providing, thereby saving integrate these systems with the biosphere. oneself the effort of providing it (Mathews, However, ‘following nature’ in this 2011). connection may be not so much a matter of In the biosphere, the conativity of most imitating specific mechanisms observable species is broadly shaped by biosynergy in natural systems but rather of adopting because this is the strategy that, being the behavioural protocols underlying those energy-conserving, tends to result from systems. In other words, to reconfigure natural selection. Conflict, competition and our modes of production may be a matter predation do of course still occur in nature. not merely of “remaking the way we make In the case of predator–prey relationships, things,” as McDonough and Braungart put synergy may occur at the level of the it in the subtitle of their 2002 book, but species rather than that of the individual: of emending the way we engage with our predation is often a necessary condition environment. for prey population stability. Where the The root-protocol observable in nature interests of particular parties cannot find a has twin, co-defining aspects: conativity synergistic fit, outright conflict may result. and accommodation and least resistance. But such conflict will always entail an Conativity denotes the impulse of all living energy-cost for the parties in question. In things to preserve and increase their order that this cost be minimized, modes of own existence. It is only by virtue of this conflict themselves will in turn be shaped drive towards self-existence that living by the principle of accommodation and things count as living at all. But in nature least resistance. At the end of the day, the “In the biosphere, this drive is qualified by the principle imperative to internalize the conativity the conativity of of accommodation and least resistance: of others by desiring what they need one most species is organisms which conserve their energy to desire will be what ensures that every broadly shaped by by adapting their ends as far as possible living thing, in seeking its own self- to the ends of the organisms with which existence, at the same time perpetuates the biosynergy because they are in systemic interaction will larger system. this is the strategy be naturally selected over organisms Biosynergy in this sense is clearly a that, being energy- which needlessly provoke resistance and fundamental ecosystem dynamic, well conserving, tends to competition. We might describe such an illustrated by the activity of those species result from natural evolutionary tendency towards the cross- described as ecosystem engineers. Beavers, referencing of conativities as synergistic. for example, desire quiet shelters, safe from selection.” Synergy is here understood as the adaptive turbulence and predators. They accordingly process whereby the ends, indeed the very dam waterways to create still ponds in conativities, of two or more parties are which stick lodges may be conveniently continually mutually refracted via their built. Beaver dams modify and redirect collaboration. I use the term biosynergy to stream flows, in the process hydrating denote the way in which this protocol plays the landscape, mitigating floods, filtering out in the natural world. runoff and creating wetlands that provide Biosynergy has affinities with the habitat for myriads of other plant and Daoist principle of wu wei – a term which animal species – where these biodiverse translates literally as non-action, where and healthy wetlands afford necessary this may understood not as passivity but as conditions for healthy waterways and hence a process of accommodation and adaptation for healthy beavers. Healthy ecosystems are to the ends of others. Wu wei enables one held together and continually regenerated to conserve one’s own energy, and thereby by countless such synergies. increase one’s own existence, by (i) desiring As humans, we have the capacity to depart what simultaneously complements the from the evolutionary logic of biosynergy. desires of others, rather than pitting oneself Throughout the history of civilization,

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we have substituted external sources of contours of other-than-human inner life, power, such as domestic animals, slaves will draw us into social and communicative and, more recently, fossil fuels, for the relationship with our prospective ecological energy available to us from our own bodies. partners and allies, where this means these This has enabled us – unlike other species actors will inevitably enter our culture via which seek to pit themselves against their stories that pull us into social and affective biotic fellows but suffer exhaustion and relationship with them. Biosynergy will selective disadvantage as a result – to in this sense become enshrined as a root- impose ourselves on our environment with norm in our culture as much by story as by impunity. Moreover, through our highly science. developed reflexivity – our capacity to reflect on and hence change our behaviour Biosynergy as a guide to – we can also substitute arbitrary, culturally ecological civilization mediated ends for the ends imprinted in us How then might biosynergy as a protocol or through evolution. In our modern societies normative principle apply in practice in the we have entirely forgotten about desiring circumstances of our 21st century global only what Earth-others need us to desire – civilization? and, so far, we have gotten away with this. To begin with, there is, on the largest It is this break from the evolutionary scale, the question of how efficaciously logic of biosynergy that first gave rise to to tackle the problem of climate change. and has since perpetuated our dualistic To adopt a biosynergy approach in this sense of separation from and superiority to connection would involve not the heroic, the rest of the natural world. And perhaps impose-and-control methods of the we can continue to get away with flouting dualistic mind-set, such as pumping evolutionary logic in this way, replacing sulphate particles into the atmosphere, the life-world with techno-engineered erecting giant mirrors in space or systems designed to serve human interests artificially whitening clouds, but, first, exclusively. But if we wish to restore a rich acknowledging the conativity of the Earth- and flourishing biosphere, we shall have to system, then considering how that system, Vegetation is the recover this logic. Thanks to our capacity left to itself, would correct the problem. “ for reflexivity, it is not impossible for us Left to its own devices, the biosphere would basis of Earth-life, still to do so, and thereafter to review and undoubtedly simply re-vegetate itself. and maintaining and revise our desires in order to re-align them Vegetation is the basis of Earth-life, and increasing vegetation with what Earth-life needs us to want. maintaining and increasing vegetation is is the conative Biosynergy, understood as a proto-moral the conative imperative of the biosphere. principle of adaptative accommodation to Re-vegetation would, of course, draw imperative of the the needs of the rest of Earth-life, broadly down carbon dioxide and hence in due biosphere.” equates not only to wu wei, in ancient Daoist course re-balance the composition of the tradition, but to the normative principle, or atmosphere. A biosynergy, wu wei–type Law, that is core to Australian Aboriginal approach to climate change would thus cultures and that Aboriginal people read simply be to let the biosphere get on with from land itself (Mathews, 2020). Just its own business, at most assisting it to do as negotiating their environment in so. In addition to obvious strategies such as accordance with Law requires of Aboriginal re-afforestation, assistance might take the peoples intimate attunement to the multiple form of providing opportunities for plants conativities intricately at play in local such as the fast-growing freshwater fern, ecologies, so we too will need to decipher Azolla, to repeat the remarkable feat of at least the contours of the conativities global cooling it achieved 50 million years surrounding us before we can begin to ago – the so-called Arctic Azolla event, reframe our desires and hence our praxis when the spread of Azolla across a land- along biosynergy lines. Discovering these locked arctic sea sequestered so much contours, which are none other than the carbon that it converted a greenhouse

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climate to an icehouse one (Brinkhuis and and other naturally occurring aquatic life. Schouten, 2006). Optimum habitat health is maintained by An ecological analogue to Azolla in large populations of waterfowl, numbering present-day circumstances might be giant up to 600,000 at times, and comprised of up kelp: with the aid of artificial tethers, to 250 species. Instead of regarding birds marine afforestation with kelp (and other as competitors for fish, Veta La Palma sees seaweeds) could be conducted in the open them, in classic biosynergy, wu wei style, ocean. These (unenclosed) kelp forests as allies – as assistant farmers helping to would not only draw down carbon at a do the hard work of maintaining conditions rate and scale comparable to ancient conducive to fish flourishing. Human input Azolla, but would de-acidify surrounding into the farm is minimal. Staff do regulate seawater, affording rich habitat for many the hydrology of the marshlands by way of marine species, particularly shellfish – to a network of fish ponds that are artificially the extent that, with a very minor set of flooded to ensure the physical and interventions on our part, such marine microbiological quality of the water. More forests could support sustainable fisheries than 100 islands have also been created apparently capable of providing 200 kg of for the nesting of waterfowl and 93 miles seafood per year, per person, for 10 billion of banks have been revegetated. Twelve people (Flannery, 2017). thousand acres of the estate have been A deeper A biosynergistic approach to climate set aside as a marshlands habitat reserve. “ understanding of the change would thus consist in our assisting The end result of this edifying exercise the biosphere to get on with its own business in intentional biosynergy is provision of ecology of climate of revegetating itself, but ideally in ways seafood of exceptional quality and the dynamics would that could at the same time incidentally creation of the largest waterfowl sanctuary reveal innumerable provide for our human needs. For this to in Europe. other ways in which work, however, we humans would have to Numerous other examples of an be prepared to adapt our desires to what ecological approach to food provision could restoring ecological the biosphere needs us to desire – which, be cited here. Making full use of ecosystem functionality would in the case of the kelp scenario, would be services and taking advantage of, yet at ameliorate current seafood as our staple, rather than, say, the same time regenerating, ecological climate distress. beef or pork. A deeper understanding of the relationships, has long been central to ” ecology of climate dynamics would reveal alternative farming and horticultural innumerable other ways in which restoring philosophies, from the “one straw ecological functionality would ameliorate revolution” of Fukuoka, to companion current climate distress, with possibly planting of organics, to permacultural other incidental benefits for us. synergies between selected plant and For a further case study pertaining to animal species that deliver outcomes food provision, we might look to the Veta farmers themselves would otherwise have La Palma aquaculture farm in Spain (see to labour to achieve. www.vetalapalma.es). The 8000-acre fish All such strategies exemplify the farm is part of a larger estate on a marshy biosynergy approach: by accommodating island in the Guadalquivir River. Degraded stakeholder-species, by inviting them by inappropriate livestock farming in the into synergy with us via the creation of first half of the 20th century, the marshy conditions conducive to their flourishing, parts of the estate were restored in the 1970s we can enlist them as allies in the provision and an ‘extensive’ (as opposed to intensive) of our livelihood, allocating to them the form of fish farming begun. Extensive major burden of effort required for such farming relies mainly on the natural provision. For them, such effort is not an ecology of farmland to provide for the imposition because it is made with, rather species farmed. In the case of Veta La Palma, than against, the grain of their conativity. this means that a variety of fish species Biosynergy-driven alternatives to are sustained by abundant crustaceans traditional agriculture are then readily

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conceivable. I do not have space here to Benyus J (2002) Biomimicry: Innovation inspired by nature. explore the more challenging question of Harper Perennial, New York, NY, USA. how manufacturing as well as agriculture Brinkhuis H and Schouten S (2006) Episodic fresh surface could be revisioned along biosynergy waters in the Eocene Arctic Ocean. Nature 441: 606–9. “For the moment lines. For the moment it may be enough Chu K (2004) Metaphysics of genetic architecture and to show how, even in our contemporary computation. Perspecta 35: 74–97. it may be enough to mass societies, we could in principle Crist E (2019) Abundant Earth: Toward an ecological civilization. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, show how, even in return to ways of feeding ourselves that USA. our contemporary retain continuity with pre-agrarian Flannery T (2017) Sunlight And Seaweed. Text, Melbourne, modalities. In doing so, we would perhaps mass societies, we VIC, Australia. lay down ideological foundations for a more could in principle Gammage B (2011) The Biggest Estate on Earth: How ecologically adaptive and collaborative return to ways of Aborigines made Australia. Allen and Unwin, Crow’s Nest, relationship with the biosphere that NSW, Australia. feeding ourselves would in time articulate itself through all Mathews F (2011) Towards a deeper philosophy of that retain continuity our systems of production, emanating at biomimicry. Organization and Environment 24: 364–87. with pre-agrarian last in a new blossoming of planet-wide Mathews F (2019) Biomimicry and the problem of praxis. mutualism properly describable as an Environmental Values 28: 573–99. modalities. ” ecological civilization. n Mathews F (2020) From wilderness preservation to the fight for lawlands. In: Bartel R, ed.Rethinking Wilderness Notes and the Wild: Conflict, conservation and co-existence. 1 This thumbnail definition ofcivilization of course Routledge, London, UK: in press. misses many intermediate forms of society, such McDonough W and Braungart M (2002) Cradle to Cradle: as pastoralism, village horticulture combined Remaking the way we make things. North Point Press, with periods of herding or supplemented by New York, NY, USA. hunting or forest gathering, maritime societies McGinnis M, ed (1999) Bioregionalism. Routledge, London, reliant on trade with agrarian societies, and so UK. on. For present purposes, however, the simplified contrast between agrarian and pre-agrarian will Pascoe B (2014) Dark Emu Black Seeds: Agriculture or suffice. accident? Magabala, Broome, WA, Australia. Sale K (1985) Dwellers in the Land: The bioregional vision. References Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA, USA. Asafu-Adjaye J, Blomqvist L, Brand S et al. (2015) An Snyder G (1995) A Place in Space: Ethics, aesthetics, and Ecomodernist Manifesto. Breakthrough Institute. watersheds. Counterpoint, Washington, DC, USA. Available at https://is.gd/P6IYP6 (accessed November Wilson EO (2016) Half Earth: Our planet’s fight for life. 2019). Liveright, New York, NY, USA.

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