• Executive Summary
• What is ecology?
• Ecosystems & political systems
• Watersheds
• Ecological vs. technological sustainability
• Resources

Executive Summary

Ecologists report that our present rates of resource extraction and waste production are exceeding the earth's ability to regenerate life and treat wastes. We are currently using the 'interest' generated by earth's biological systems, as well as consuming the ecological 'capital.' Future generations will have less to start with. While the planet will take care of itself in the long run, it may not be able to take care of us for too much longer. The question of sustainability is not one of protecting the planet, but of protecting the planet as a place fit for human habitation.

The breakdown of ecological systems is also linked to the breakdown of social systems. In both cases the destruction and simplification of communities threatens the continued viability and long-term health of human nature. Human communities are suffering from an increased rate of change and disturbance. In turn, humans are inflicting ever more damage on their communities, both near and far. As the health of social and ecological communities deteriorates, their resilience and ability to deal with change and disturbance is lessened.

What is ecology?

The science of ecology is about a century old. The German biologist Ernst Haeckel coined the term and defined it as the 'investigation of the total relations of the animal, both to its inorganic and to its organic environment.' The word ecology is derived from the Greek oikos, which means house or home, and logos, which means logical study or reason. Thus ecology is the study of houses, or more broadly systems of houses and their inhabitants. Ecology includes the study of a community's energy flows, water and nutrient cycles, plants and animals, and how all components relate to each other and their surroundings.

Ecology is not the same as environment. By definition, environment means what surrounds us, what is apart from us. Environmentalism tends to separate nature from human culture. Ecology can reconnect nature and culture. While understanding ecology is crucial to our survival and future prosperity, our understanding is developing slower than our willingness and power to alter our ecosystems.

Ecosystems & political systems

Ecological systems (ecosystems) are 'natural' communities. We all live in and depend on ecosystems, from our local community to planetary systems. However, our culture encourages us to primarily identify with a series of political systems, from the neighborhood up to the nation. While political systems do indeed influence our lives, our sustenance comes from ecosystems. Our food, energy, water, air, and the stuff of our own bodies are the products of ecological cycles processed over the eons.

Our political system ignores the significance of ecosystems, and their corresponding energy flows and material cycles. We have organized our communities according to political boundaries, and developed economies that are organized around linear flows and throughputs instead of cycles of reusing and recycling. We import resources into our communities, consume them, and export wastes back out.

When we reorganize our economies and cultures around ecosystems and watersheds, we could find ways to bring our actions back into the cycles of nature.

Watersheds

Watersheds are regions which drain into a particular watercourse or body of water. They are important organizing structures for landscapes and ecosystems, and can help give identity to human settlements as well.

The watersheds of the Northwest are visibly shaped, defined and nurtured by great flows and cascades of water. Understanding Northwest watersheds is a good place to begin working toward sustainability. Where does our drinking water, food, and energy come from? Where do our wastes flow?

Historically, almost every major watershed in the Northwest was inhabited by a distinct Native American community. Each community identified closely with its watershed. Unfortunately, vast amounts of local knowledge have been lost over the last century as immigrants pushed native peoples and their ways aside to make room for new customs, languages and technologies.

Life in all places is greatly determined by water, by its availability and its quality. It has been said that our planet should have been called water instead of earth, as water is not only a dominant characteristic but also a primary life force. Water circulates nutrients for us and all other living things.

Ecological vs. technological sustainability

Ecologist David Orr compares "technological sustainability" and "ecological sustainability," and suggests that the technological perspective generally supports technical and managerial strategies as solutions to our problems, whereas the ecological view requires changes in politics and values, as well as in technological systems.

Orr believes advocates of technological sustainability are often looking at the world through an economic lens, viewing our relationships with each other and with nature as economic transactions. Embracing technological solutions to sustainability problems often includes the beliefs that economic growth is necessary and desirable, and that science and technology will solve our problems, find substitute resources and feed the growing populations.

Orr says that proponents of ecological sustainability more often recognize limits, in terms of physical resources on the planet, and also in terms of our ability as humans to manage and control the earth with technology. A belief in ecological sustainability also includes solutions that are initiated and driven from the grass roots rather than imposed from the top down.

Orr emphasizes that both technological and ecological views are necessary: we need technology for the short-term to help stabilize the trauma that planetary systems are now in, and an ecological perspective for the long-term to modify our values and behavior.

Resources

Andruss, V. and C. Plant, eds. 1990. Home! a bioregional reader. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers.

Botkin, Daniel. 1990. Discordant harmonies: a new ecology for the twenty-first century. New York: Oxford University Press.

Carson, Rachel. 1962. Silent spring. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett.

Leopold, Aldo. 1949. A Sand County almanac. New York: Oxford University Press.

McKibben, Bill. 1989. The end of nature. New York: Random House.

Odum, Eugene. 1983. Basic ecology. Philadelphia: Saunders.

Orr, David. 1994. Earth in mind. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Ryan, John. 1994. State of the Northwest. Seattle: Northwest Environment Watch.

Wilson, E.O. 1984. Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.