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Ecological Wisdom
By Lansing Scott
Since the word "Green" is often used synonymously with "environmentalist," many people mistakenly assume the Green Party is primarily for environmentalists. Yet environmental protection is just one aspect of the Green mission, alongside social justice, grassroots democracy, nonviolence, and other essential values.
Why then does "ecological wisdom" come first in the Ten Key Values of the Greens? Perhaps because, in addition to protecting the environment, ecological wisdom means something more. It is also a way of understanding our world, "a new paradigm," as some like to say. Ecology offers a holistic perspective that enables Greens to find the connections among seemingly disparate social problems. This "whole-systems" view is what makes the Green vision more than a simple collection of single-issue causes - "more than the sum of its parts," so to speak. Many of our most serious problems today stem directly from the way our political and economic systems are structured; Greens therefore advocate systemic changes that address multiple problems simultaneously.
Ecological wisdom is a recognition that human society is enmeshed in the web of nature, and that attempts at dominating nature for narrow human purpose lead to very destructive consequences. This insight of ecology can also be extended to see the folly in other forms of domination; man over woman, whites over people of color, the owning class over the working class, the United States over other nations, and so on. Systems of domination are harmful to the ecology of nature and the ecology of society alike. Consequently, Greens opt for participatory, non-hierarchical structures as much as possible, such as consensus decision making and cooperative, community-based economics.
Ecology can help us understand the relationships among different parts of a system, whether an old-growth forest or our own society. When we view the many problems facing our society today through an ecological lens, we can see that many of them are related. Like branches of a tree, they have common roots. For example, the global concentration of wealth and power in today's transnational corporations is a primary source of numerous problems, from wars to environmental destruction to loss of democracy to social injustice. Greens aim to uncover the roots of our current ills and to transform society at a deep level.
Of course, recognizing that ecological thinking can apply to all aspects of society in no way diminishes the importance of environmental issues per se for Greens. There can be no doubt about the importance of environmental issues in a world where the ozone layer is disappearing, global climate is being altered, hundreds of species are going extinct each year, forests and other crucial ecosystems are being destroyed, human health is endangered by toxics, and on and on. Each of these problems and more are important to Greens. But the essence of ecological wisdom is recognizing that these problems cannot be solved singly and superficially - we must transform our society, reconstructing our political, economic, and cultural institutions in ways that are more sustainable, just, and participatory. The principles of ecology are essential in guiding our way.