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Foundations of Sustainability. Class 2: Philosophic Approaches to Sustainability POLI 294 P. Brian Fisher. Agenda. Introductions Stats Thoughts on blog Sustainability Website Readings: End of Nature, etc Questions for the course. Class Bio Stats. Part I: A Step Back Blog.
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Foundations of Sustainability Class 2: Philosophic Approaches to Sustainability POLI 294 P. Brian Fisher
Agenda • Introductions • Stats • Thoughts on blog • Sustainability Website • Readings: End of Nature, etc • Questions for the course
“A Step Back” Blog • Shows that we are all part of a larger “nested” group of systems; systems that create cleavages, inequity and injustice—to people and ecosystems • Experience things within a context. Need to understand the context as much as the experience. What made you “available” or “open” to that experience. • Try to understand how consciousness is formed and under what conditions. What stimulated your transformative thought? What elements existed? What made you RECOGNIZE the experience was transformative? • Putting experiences into perspective is just as important as the experience itself • Growth therefore comes from the experience, but ALSO from how it fits into your value system, AND the conclusions you draw from that experience • ** What does this say for sustaining something? If you want personal growth and consciousness shifts, how do we create a sustainable society? • Want to pull back a bit from drawing narrow conclusions from experiences • Want to avoid terms like democracy, freedom, green, environment, and most of all “sustainability”. Rather, simplify our thinking/terms. Explain. Elucidate. • Our goal in sustainability: Connect. Grow. Create. Build. Sustain. Evolve. However, we cannot do that until we understand and gain perspective. So, first we Step Back. Deconstruct. Disentangle. Observe. Analyze.
Thomas Berry, Dream of the Earth • “What is happening is unthinkable in ages gone by. We now control forces that once controlled us, or, more precisely, the earth process that formerly administered the earth directly is now accomplishing this task in and through the human as its conscious agent.” (p42)
McKibben, “End of Nature” • Main Point: Natural nature has been replaced by an hybrid nature in whose processes human beings now play a part. • Humans have changed the land, forest, air, atmosphere, ice/glaciers, oceans, rivers/lakes—all that composes the “environment” • We cannot escape them by fleeing to the woods. We have progressed beyond removing parts of the earth from the domain of true nature -- through farming, mining, construction -- to actually altering the global processes that define our environment. • Our environment is now in part defined by our actions • ME: Think about what we have built in this process of change • Humans and natural nature are now “tightly bound”…Our cars, our houses, plastics, and pesticides are as much a part of the world we know as are the trees, waters, and hills that we live among. The human race will need to decide between our material world and the natural world. "One world or the other will have to change.” • In this world, McKibben thinks that human beings could take a less dominant relation to nature, and nature might once again establish itself as independent, constant.
