Deep ecology perspectives.

• Author: Orton, David
• Position: Biodevastation

My background is that of a leftist, but since the late 70's environmental work has become my major focus in life. I worked first on forestry and wildlife issues in British Columbia but later moved across the country to Nova Scotia. I came to define myself as a "green" in 1983. For the last 20 years I have been living with my family as simply as possible on an old hill farm which has gone back to forest. From my values perspective, it seems to me to be a paradise, but we are surrounded by the ravages of industrial capitalist forestry.

By 1985 I had accepted the philosophy of Deep Ecology and seen the importance of moving beyond the human-centered values of the social democratic, anarchist, communist, and socialist traditions, in order to express solidarity with all life, not just human life.

I began applying this philosophy in environmental and theoretical work: trying to understand what it means to "think like a mountain," that is, to extend one's sense of self-identity so that it comes to include the well-being of the Earth. I believe Deep Ecology has captured what should be our relationship to the Natural world. Deep ecology is part of the larger green movement, the first social movement in history to advocate a lower material standard of living, from the perspective of industrial consumerism. Any honest presentation of this fundamental point means that green electoralism is a nonstarter.

Left biocentrism

My existential anguish on deep ecology comes not only from the real ambiguities and contradictions to be found within Deep Ecology but also from the fact that since the mid 80s I have been part of a theoretical tendency within Deep Ecology called "left biocentrism" or "left ecocentrism." Left biocentrism functions as a de facto "left wing" of the Deep Ecology movement, upholding its subversive potential and opposing any "accommodation" to industrial capitalist society. (See on our web site, the ten-point Left Biocentrism Primer, the end result of a protracted collective discussion in 1998, among a number of those who support left biocentrism and Deep Ecology.)

There are others who have been on a similar left wing deep ecology path, under different names, for example: the "Deep Green Theory" of the late Richard Sylvan, the "Revolutionary Ecology" of the late Judi Bari, the "Radical Ecocentrism" of Andrew McLaughlin and the "Green Fundamentalism" of the late Rudolf Bahro.

"Left," as used by left biocentrists (left bios), means anti-industrial...