Wherever did we get the idea that we are no kin to the earth's other inhabitants, and that we can therefore deal with them as we please? Several strains of thought converged to produce this way of thinking, which must now be unlearned.

A previous speaker has compared man's earth with communal quarters. The comparison makes its point but is probably not quite exact. If one were to look for a more accurate simile of the same nature, one might say that mankind is now living in a bus following an exponential highway. In front of it looms either an insurmountable hill or a chasm, and the passengers on the bus see the future through the prism of their emotional mood. Some insist that (...) it stop and that they move into caves, while others urge ascent into outer space or placing hopes on the "perhaps" of self-regulation. These extreme points of view have in common the fact that they are based on a feeling of hopeless helplessness. Terrestrial caves are not much better than those in outer space, while existence on other cosmic bodies requires not only the creation of an earthly environment in the ordinary meaning of the word but of artificial gravitation as well, or else the weakened muscles would be unable to support the mortal bodies of the "lunatics" and "martians." To stop dead or slow things down with a yellow light is also impossible. To stop is the equivalent of death or vegetating anabiotically, since natural systems cannot function under conditions approximating idling speed. (shrink)

The biosphere coevolves with the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere to maintain a habitable space on Earth. Over billions of years – and despite periodic setbacks – it has evolved increasing complexity, from its microbial beginnings to the complex interactions between animals, plants, fungi and unicellular microscopic life that sustain its present state. Recently, the biosphere has been profoundly changed by humans. In part, this includes increased rates of extinction that are reminiscent of past fundamental perturbations to life. But (...) the change is even more profound, resulting from a combination of marked translocations of species beyond their indigenous ranges, overt concentration of biomass in humans and their farm animals, reconfiguration of landscape habitats and over-utilisation of ocean life, excessive appropriation of energy from the biosphere (including its fossilised component), and increasing interconnectivity between technology and life. (shrink)

Humans have arguably become a geological force that is changing the planet in profound and catastrophic ways. But what are the human practices that have such force? In this paper, we argue that work is exactly such a practice and that it is as workers that many of us are agents of global environmental change. When carbon dioxide is emitted or forests are cut down, someone is working. Yet we lack adequate descriptive and normative theories of work to understand how (...) we are a geological force. In this paper, we suggest possible beginnings for an environmental philosophy of work. (shrink)

“The world of life which is comprised of the lithosphere, the hydrosphere and the atmosphere”: this definition of the biosphere is not complete since it does not express the determining influence of living organisms on its composition, on its structure and on the processes of its continuing evolution. The part of living matter in the biosphere is relatively small (about 0.25%), but this part has a considerable influence on its structure.The biosphere should be considered as the universal (...) source of all food products without exception. Mankind's ability to feed itself depends on the productivity of this biosphere in the first place. Moreover, its condition determines not only the quantity but also the quality of nourishment. The problem is a critical one today because of the increasing pollution of the biosphere by products poured into it by various human activities. (shrink)

Ecology shows that living beings, with all their diversity, make up a homogenous system on the earth's surface, with rules that are no less exacting than those applicable to gravitational astronomy (celestial mechanics). The physical energy coming from the sun in the form of radiation is attracted by green plant-life, be it vegetation growing on the land or microscopic algae floating on the surface of the ocean; this energy is then transformed into chemical energy, with, incidentally, a modest yield, due (...) to the process of chlorophyllian synthesis. This stage is the only one to include a productive process—an anabolism. Other sorts of living beings derive their energy and the elements necessary for their sustenance and multiplication from organic matter devised in this way. Some vegetarian animals feed on them and are in their turn prey to predators which are themselves devoured by other predators. Food chains, grouped in bunches or network systems, are thus established on the principle of a complex pyramid. Each consumer occupies a place at a trophic level, which is clearly defined, where he guarantees the conveyance of matter and energy which are degraded in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics. These biological mechanisms entail numerous species, ranging from the most elementary forms of life to birds and mammals. Decomposition agents then recycle the mineral elements and make them available to plants. In any given area, the inert chemical elements and the community of living beings (embracing all species) together constitute a biological entity or ecosystem, this is a kind of supraspecific organism which functions with a certain flexibility, and yet is ordered down to the last detail. Just as a man consists of a heart, lungs, a liver, so a natural community consists of “organs” which are each made up of one of the various constituent species. These ecosystems are the fundamental units of the living world and they are relatively independent of one another, although exchanges do occur between them. They all come together to form a balanced system which encompasses the whole complex of living beings. This is the biosphere, a gigantic mechanism with innumerable cogs and gears which have evolved in harmony with each other throughout the whole of history, going as far back as the first trace of life on earth. (shrink)

In the evolving field of advanced biopreservation technologies, the development of suspended animation (SA) is inspired by real-world challenges. In the context of space exploration, SA is seen as a solution to enable humans to undertake missions far beyond low Earth orbit, including routine travel to other planets in our solar system and beyond. While work on the socio-ethical and legal implications (ELSI) of space exploration continues to evolve, NASA has committed to make ethics a priority issue, making this a (...) fruitful field for further examination. (shrink)

Apparent clashes of interest between 'deep ecologists' and 'animal liberationists' can be understood as differences in emphasis rather than conflicts of principle, although it is only too easy for campaigners to regard as rivals good causes other than their own. Moral principles are part of a larger whole, within which they can be related, rather than absolute all-purpose rules of right conduct. This is illustrated using the practical dilemma which often occurs in conservation management, of whether or not to cull (...) animals that are damaging their habitat by overgrazing. Here, and in general, when we are faced with a choice between two evils, the need for scrupulous discrimination and honesty cannot be overstated; but it is not a worthy option to retreat behind moral principles of limited application. (shrink)

I present Georges Bataille’s general economy and trace to what extent it draws on Vladimir Vernadsky’s work The Biosphere and Friedrich Nietzsche’s power ‘ontology.’ I also situate Bataille’s thoughts within contemporary planetary thinking, such as Gaia theory, and highlight some of the potential in thinking global ecology in the light of a Dionysian understanding of the biosphere.

This book attempts to answer the questions, posed by T.J. Demos (in Against the Anthropocene, 2107): how do we find a way address the planetary harm and the issues it raises within the field of Film Studies? How do we construct a theoretical model that allows us to visualize the ecological transgressions brought about by the growth-model of capitalism which is heavily endorsed by mainstream narrative cinema? By turning to the Regenerative model set out in Kate Raworth's book Doughnut Economics (...) (2017) and adapting its fundamental principles to a study of narrative cinema, Film Ecology proposes to show how, by using this model, we can usefully plot and investigate films according to criteria that are not genre/star/auteur-led, nor indeed embedded in anthropocentric theoretical models, but principles which are ecologically based. The hope is that this approach will inspire film practitioners, film theorists, critics and analysts, film students and film lovers alike to consider how they might integrate this Doughnut model into their thinking or work as part of their process. (shrink)

This essay uses the thought of Luce Irigaray as a very powerful way to imagine what ecological beings such as meadows and whales are like. For reasons given yet implicit in Irigaray's work, it is possible to extend what she argues about woman to include any being whatsoever. In particular, it is shown that to exist is to defy the so-called law of noncontradiction. Various paradoxes demonstrate that in order to care for beings that we consider to be ecological, such (...) as meadows, we had better relax our adherence to this “law.” Ecological beings are, like Irigaray's woman, not one and not two. They cannot be thought as constantly, presently themselves, or as decomposable into other beings – not without violence. A side effect of the argument is that we can now use Irigaray to think a multiplicity of sexualities and gender identities. (shrink)

This article applies some conceptual tools from semiotics to better understand the disastrous impacts of the world economy on global ecology. It traces the accelerating production of material disorder and waste to the logic of the money sign, as economic production processes simultaneously increase exchange-values and entropy. The exchange of indexical and iconic signs is essential to the dynamics of ecological systems and the proliferation of biological diversity. The human species has added a third kind of sign, the symbol, and (...) more recently a fourth: all-purpose money. Money does not refer to any referent either through contiguity, similarity, or convention. It is an empty sign, capable of assuming any significance that its owner attributes to it. The article argues that the concept of symbolic reference should be restricted to cultural and linguistic phenomena. Money qualifies as a new species of sign based on its exceedingly open mode of reference. It does not refer to any object by social convention but owes its specific properties precisely to the absence of such conventions. The logic of money pivots on decontextualisation: it presupposes and encourages the detachment of exchange values, people, and concepts from the particular and the local. Selective advantage is no longer primarily about calibration within local contexts, but increasingly a matter of transcending or emancipating oneself from the specific. This drift toward decontextualisation reverses the evolution of complexity and diversity throughout the planetary biosphere. (shrink)

This study explores the ecocidal ramifications of the ecological "world war" pitting humanity against the remainder of the biosphere outlined by Michel Serres and Jacques Derrida. Clearly influenced by Serres's environmentally engaged essays beginning with Le Contrat Naturel, Derrida decries the "war without mercy" epitomizing our current unsustainable relationship with the universe in his late philosophy. In The Animal That Therefore I am and The Beast and the Sovereign series, Derrida reinforces Serres's bold philosophical claim that our mistreatment of (...) the planet is emblematic of an overt declaration of war against all other life forms. Despite the fact that several passages of Derrida's... (shrink)

Accurate, balanced AND imaginative.Jesse H. Anusubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University.

Zygon®, Volume 57, Issue 2, Page 393-417, June 2022.

(2009). A Review of “Geochemistry and the Biosphere: Essays by Vladimir I. Vernadsky”. World Futures: Vol. 65, Sustainable Development in Practice, pp. 436-441.

Advances in analytical understanding of the biosphere’s biogeochemical cycles have spawned concepts of Gaia and noosphere. Earlier in this century, in concert with the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the natural scientist Vladimir Vernadsky developed the notion of noosphere-an evolving collective human consciousness on Earth exerting an ever increasing intluence on biogeochemical processes. More recently, the chemist James Lovelock postulated the Earth to be a self-regulating system made up of biota and their environment with the capacity to maintain (...) a planetary steady state favorable to life. This is the Gaia hypothesis. To many, Gaia and noosphere represent contradictory interpretations of humanity’s relation to planetary ecology. Noosphere emphasizes a free will and obligation to shape the destiny of humanity on Earth through technology and new kinds of social relations. In contrast, Gaia invokes mysterious mechanisms of planetary evolution that lie beyond human control and understanding. I argue that if brought together, noosphere and Gaia can provide a useful symbol for guiding human interventions in global ecology because the contradictions of a nature-centered view of Gaia and a human-centered view of noosphere are coming to be irrelevant with the emergence of an analytical science of the biosphere. (shrink)

Biological evolution is a complex blend of ever changing structural stability, variability and emergence of new phe- notypes, niches, ecosystems. We wish to argue that the evo- lution of life marks the end of a physics world view of law entailed dynamics. Our considerations depend upon dis- cussing the variability of the very ”contexts of life”: the in- teractions between organisms, biological niches and ecosys- tems. These are ever changing, intrinsically indeterminate and even unprestatable: we do not know ahead of (...) time the ”niches” which constitute the boundary conditions on selec- tion. More generally, by the mathematical unprestatability of the ”phase space”, no laws of mo- tion can be formulated for evolution. We call this radical emergence, from life to life. The purpose of this paper is the integration of variation and diversity in a sound concep- tual frame and situate unpredictability at a novel theoretical level, that of the very phase space. Our argument will be carried on in close comparisons with physics and the mathematical constructions of phase spaces in that discipline. The role of symmetries as invariant preserving transformations will allow us to under- stand the nature of physical phase spaces and to stress the differences required for a sound biological theoretizing. In this frame, we discuss the novel notion of ”enablement”. Life lives in a web of enablement and radical emergence. This will restrict causal analyses to differential cases. Mutations or other causal differ- ences will allow us to stress that ”non conservation princi- ples” are at the core of evolution, in contrast to physical dynamics, largely based on conservation principles as sym- metries. Critical transitions, the main locus of symmetry changes in physics, will be discussed, and lead to ”extended criticality” as a conceptual frame for a better understanding of the living state of matter. (shrink)

All life on Earth shares the same ancestor, the most primitive form of life that arose, in still unknown circumstances, more than 3.5 billion years ago. At least this is what is commonly assumed. Astrobiologists have revisited this assumption and advanced the hypothesis of the existence of a “shadow biosphere” on Earth: a parallel tree of life whose instances, being different at the molecular level to the kind of life we are used to, would remain hidden from view. In (...) this paper, I take the emergence of the so-called shadow biosphere hypothesis and the controversial discovery of GFAJ-1, a microbe thriving in the arsenic-rich waters of Mono Lake, as an entry point to look into the strategic role of non-knowledge claims. I juxtapose the Latourian black-box, that is, those undiscussed technoscientific artifacts that are taken for granted in scientific practice, with the shadowy nature of non-knowledge claims in order to pay closer attention to the contingent, active, performative, and always social nature of the making of what is unknown. I conclude this paper by claiming that in the negotiation of what is unknown, emerging disciplines position themselves within the larger scientific community. (shrink)

Using the social-psychological literature on the antecedents of environmental behaviour and comparative data from Germany, India, Israel and South Korea, we test four value types that correspond with environmental behaviour. Our cross-national context represents varying social, economic, cultural and environmental configurations, giving credence to the effects of values. The authors collected survey data among students on a variety of environmental behaviours and on questions that comprise Schwartz's value scale. The results show similarities between the countries in the effect of biospheric (...) values and differences in the effects of the other values tested. We also find that biospheric value is the most important value type for explaining environmental behaviour, and that biospheric values, universalism and benevolence – three key values that we analyse – have different effects on environmental behaviour, and therefore should be treated separately rather than in a unified self-transcendence value orientation. We finally demonstrate the importance of conformity in the analysis of environmental behaviour. Our conclusions point to the importance of further exploring the mechanism that links values and environmental behaviour while contextualising it in different national and cultural settings. (shrink)

The microbiome has become one of the most recognizable research subjects and presences in the headlines of news and scientific articles published in almost every biological science area in the last few years. The steady decline in the price of DNA sequencing has enabled metagenomics, community analysis and genome sequencing to enter routine research in microbiology and biotechnology laboratories all around the world. The already open access to national and international databases that include nucleotide (including full genomes) and protein sequences (...) such as GenBank or EMBL-Bank and a multitude of free bioinformatic software resources accessible online, along with the international efforts towards open science publication and open data, allow the possibility of the microbiome and microbiota to be envisaged as a potential data and material resource for new media art projects especially for artists interested in biological processes. Recent results on the creation of synthetic life that are already testing the boundaries of life could be another approach for the creative exploration of microbiology and microbial processes from the artistic point of view. This article will attempt to uncover and reflect on the potential for further exploration of this resource. (shrink)

Solar energy powered autopoietic (self-creating and regenerative) natural and cultural biosphere landscapes fulfill vital multiple functions for the sustainable future of organic life and its biological evolution and for human physical and mental health. At the present crucial Macroshift from the industrial to the post- industrial information age, their future and therefore also that of our Total Human Ecosystem, integrating humans and their total environment, is endangered by the exponential growth and waste products of urban-industrial technosphere landscapes and agro-industrial (...) bio-technosphere landscapes. This danger can be prevented only by the creation of new symbiotic relations between human society and nature with the help of mutual supportive, restorative cultural and economic cross-catalytic networks in our Total human Ecosystem. This should be part of an all - embracing sustainability revolution, driven by human consciousness and its responsibility to act as stewards rather than exploiters of the complex and harmonious web of life on this planet. (shrink)

The Gaia hypothesis emerged from two interpenetrating traditions, the mechanist and the organicist, with the former tending to reductionism and the latter to holism. While mechanist James Lovelock is the acknowledged father, he collaborated with the organicist Lynn Margulis in the early 1970s when the first papers appeared in the scientific literature. Both continued to be active in Gaia-related conferences until Margulis’s premature death in late 2011. In a very readable exposition, Michael Ruse succeeds brilliantly in tracing the philosophical roots (...) of this concept continuing in the histories of modern geology and biology to its formulation in the late twentieth century.This is Lovelock and Margulis’s definition of the Gaia hypothesis quoted in this book: “We conclude from the fact that the temperature and certain other environmental conditions on the earth have not altered very much from what is an optimum for life on surface, that life must actively maintain these conditions”. (shrink)

Understanding terrestrial carbon metabolism is critical because terrestrial ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon cycle. Furthermore, humans have severely disrupted the carbon cycle in ways that will alter the climate system and directly affect terrestrial metabolism. Changes in terrestrial metabolism may well be as important an indicator of global change as the changing temperature signal. Improving our understanding of the carbon cycle at various spatial and temporal scales will require the integration of multiple, complementary and independent methods (...) that are used by different research communities. Tools such as air sampling networks, inverse numerical methods, and satellite data allow us to study the strength and location of the global- and continental-scale carbon sources and sinks. Bottom-up studies provide estimates of carbon fluxes at finer spatial scales and examine the mechanisms that control fluxes at the ecosystem, landscape, and regional scales. Bottom-up approaches include comparative and process studies that provide the necessary mechanistic information to develop and validate terrestrial biospheric models. An iteration and reiteration of top-down and bottom-up approaches will be necessary to help constrain measurements at various scales. We propose a major international effort to coordinate and lead research programs of global scope of the carbon cycle. (shrink)

Three theories about evolution are presently under discussion: the genocentric theory, the organismocentric theory, and the biospherocentric theory. A brief discussion of the three theories is presented. These theories have different implications for theology. The genocentric theory is related to the Darwinian interpretation and, for theology, means the end of an apologetic vision of natural science and for this reason the end of natural theology. The organismo‐centric theory is mainly related to events of autoorganization and follows the path of the (...) geometrical harmony of nature. But it is far different from the apologetic interpretation of natural theology which cannot be restored. The biospherocentric theory, on the contrary, contains many fruitful perspectives. This theory, which counts Teilhard de Chardin among its founders, allows the development of a new approach to the theology of nature. In this approach, it is actually the biosphere herself that is doing theology thanks to her thinking sphere: the noosphere. (shrink)

The assumption that all life on Earth today shares the same basic molecular architecture and biochemistry is part of the paradigm of modern biology. This paper argues that there is little theoretical or empirical support for this widely held assumption. Scientists know that life could have been at least modestly different at the molecular level and it is clear that alternative molecular building blocks for life were available on the early Earth. If the emergence of life is, like other natural (...) phenomena, highly probable given the right chemical and physical conditions then it seems likely that the early Earth hosted multiple origins of life, some of which produced chemical variations on life as we know it. While these points are often conceded, it is nevertheless maintained that any primitive alternatives to familiar life would have been eliminated long ago, either amalgamated into a single form of life through lateral gene transfer (LGT) or alternatively out-competed by our putatively more evolutionarily robust form of life. Besides, the argument continues, if such life forms still existed, we surely would have encountered telling signs of them by now. These arguments do not hold up well under close scrutiny. They reflect a host of assumptions that are grounded in our experience with large multicellular organisms and, most importantly, do not apply to microbial forms of life, which cannot be easily studied without the aid of sophisticated technologies. Significantly, the most powerful molecular biology techniques available—polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of rRNA genes augmented by metagenomic analysis—could not detect such microbes if they existed. Given the profound philosophical and scientific importance that such a discovery would represent, a dedicated search for ‘shadow microbes’ (heretofore unrecognized ‘alien’ forms of terran microbial life) seems in order. The best place to start such a search is with puzzling (anomalous) phenomena, such as desert varnish, that resist classification as ‘biological’ or ‘nonbiological’. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd.. (shrink)

This chapter examines planetary engineering and human-made biospheres from the perspective of the concept of (un)naturalness using terraformed Mars as a case study. It has been suggested that in the future it may be possible to make Mars habitable for life from Earth. This hypothetical process is known as terraforming or planetary ecosynthesis. The possibility of establishing a biosphere on Mars, or some other celestial body, opens up an interesting case of a biosphere that is unnatural. Furthermore, the (...) concept of natural is central to many arguments in environmental ethics. For example, it has been suggested that the value of an ecosystem is dependent upon its history – it being natural of origin. Naturalness and unnaturalness discussions have centered around two questions. First, is naturalness morally relevant or should it otherwise affect decision-making? Second, how can naturalness be understood in different cases? This chapter addresses both questions in relation to terraforming Mars. First, it analyzes in what sense terraformed Mars and its biosphere would be unnatural. Second, it examines whether its unnaturalness undermines the value of the biosphere, and thus gives an important criterion for deciding whether humans should aim to terraform extraterrestrial environments or not. (shrink)

The biosphere represents the global sum of all ecosystems. According to a prominent view in environmental ethics, ecocentrism, these ecosystems matter for their own sake, and not only because they contribute to human ends. As such, some ecocentrists are critical of the modern industrial civilization, and a few even argue that an irreversible collapse of the modern industrial civilization would be a good thing. However, taking a longer view and considering the eventual destruction of the biosphere by astronomical (...) processes, we argue that humans, a species with considerable technological know-how and industrial capacity could intervene to extend the lifespan of Earth’s biosphere, perhaps by several billion years. We argue that human civilization, despite its flaws and harmful impacts on many ecosystems, is the biosphere’s best hope of avoiding premature destruction. We argue that proponents of ecocentrism, even those who wholly disregard anthropocentric values, have a strong moral reason preserve the modern industrial civilization, for as long as needed to ensure biosphere survival. (shrink)

Arne Naess and Paul Taylor are two of the most forceful proponents of the principle of species equality. Problematically, both, when adjudicating conflict of interest cases, resort to employing explicit or implicit species-ranking arguments. I examine how Lawrence Johnson’s critical, species-ranking approach helpfully avoids the normative inconsistencies of “biospherical egalitarianism.” Many assume species-ranking schemes are rooted in arrogant, ontological claims about human, primate, or mammalian superiority. Species-ranking, I believe, is best viewed as a justified articulation of moral priorities in response (...) to individuals’ or entities’ relative ranges of vulnerability and need, rooted in their relative ranges of capacities and interests. (shrink)

One of the critical challenges of our contemporary world is rethinking temporality to face the global catastrophe of the Anthropocene. Recent theories in social sciences and philosophy envision a new conceptualization of our biosphere in which human and non-human life forms, inert objects, and technological devices are entangled. However, these approaches present two major problems: a) they affirm that organic and inorganic processes are ontologically symmetrical and have the same type of agency; and b) they consider that technicity on (...) planet Earth emerges in the hominization process. In this work, we will develop a genealogy of our biosphere that proposes an ecological and untimely alternative: life, from its earliest beginning, is a technical phenomenon that changes the face of the universe. (shrink)

This paper uses the case of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve to illustrate how ecotourism can be a vehicle for environmental justice. I use discourse analysis and the politics of scale to argue that an expanded notion of environmental justice does account for the myriad movements for resource rights occurring all over the world. In this case, framing the struggle through ecotourism with a focus on social justice provided local people a way to engage the mainstream environmental movement and (...) address the injustices of its exclusionary and biocentric practices while providing for themselves a viable livelihood option. (shrink)