Plumbing Deep Ecology

Scattered about the world one will find small pockets of those whom most of the rest of us look at with a certain degree of disdain. These people, self-proclaimed "tree-hugging animal-saving dirt-worshippers" (or so, at least, proclaim their bumper stickers), make a much bigger deal out of the rest of the organisms on this planet than most of the rest of us, and seem to enjoy doing it, too. In fact, the area in which I am in tends to have a higher proportion of them than probably most of the rest of the country. But is there really all that much wrong with them? Let's take a look at deep ecology--a philosophy common among such folk.

Deep ecology is what happens when you take conservation and biology and all those lovely natural sciences and apply them to ethics. In short, it holds the preservation of nature (and no, that doesn't just mean because "humans are animals, too") is the ultimate ethical principle, and that all other ethical tactics are far less relevant (if at all). Instead of being centered on humans and their dealings, like most ethical principles, deep ecology takes something more like a science and makes it a philosophy (a reverse of the usual methodology of philosophies becoming sciences as we understand them more entirely). However, if it had no downfalls, hippies would be ruling the planet, no? (Pardon the slur--it simply sounded amusing.) As an ethical standard, it's fairly harsh (just like nature tends to be--survival of the fittest tends to be the goal out in the wild, after all), and takes away all that lovely anthropocentrism that's a natural part of our daily diet. Hard to grasp effectively, really, because it would logically follow that killing off most of the humans on the planet would be ethical due to the freeing up of natural resources that would occur thereafter.
I wish not to delve so...deeply into this topic. Rather, I'd like to address the fervent environmentalism that deep ecologists (and others) hold. (That may mean you. You know who you are.) The species and resources of this planet are here, I hold, for us to be stewards of. We have an obligation to use these things in a proper manner, but the way we should be handling things probably lies somewhere in between the realm of what we're doing now and the radical burning of logging companies--a practice that, thankfully, has diminished notably of late. We humans are here to stay. "Not for long you won't, if you keep up using Mother Earth like you are now!" they say. Quite possibly so. But this whole place is going to be coming apart soon anyway--courtesy of a little thing called entropy. Inevitable, really. What we *should* be doing, though, is trying to enjoy it while still getting as much mileage as we can out of it. Greenhouse gas control should certainly be more strict--there are indications that it's already screwing up the weather something fierce. Smog? We've far too much of it already. I'd love it if we cut down on it. Forests? Sure, they're great. But toilet paper's gotta come from somewhere. Some trees are going to have to come down once and again. Clear-cutting is bad, I agree, but we must be remembering that we are still going to be using these things. We can certainly be more responsible in doing so, but the key is to be moderate. Radically environmentalist bits make people less inclined to believe the whole conservationist message. By trying to make a point, many demonstrators are overdoing it in a way that is causing far more harm to the cause than good.
As one author I once read put it, we need to save the environment--for man. Cutting off our nose to spite our face won't help us, but perhaps if we restricted the intake of our mouths a bit (extending the metaphor, if you will), we might make a difference. Simply be careful to avoid stomping extra hard on people's tootsies with those Birkenstocks.