Gaian Politics

1
Gaian Politics

• A time whose idea has come

2
Gaian Politics Self to World

• Gaia theory (James Lovelock, 1970)
• The presence of life on a planet alters the
  planet's geochemistry to favor the continuation
  of life.
• Falsifiable scientific theory
• More radically, Earth can be seen as a complex,
  bounded, self-organizing, adaptive organism.
• Revival of ancient mythic image of Earth Mother
• Gaia theory comes just as globalization and
  environmental destruction call us to a planetary
  perspective.

3
Gaia and Systems Theory

• Holism, self-generativity, networks
• Living systems self-generative entities
  composed of dynamic symbiotic networks
• Human systems, like other living systems, are
  embedded in the Earth system.
• Contrary to liberal notions of independence
• Global climate change as the great teacher of
  interdependence

4
Human systems Gaia

• For the first time in history, humanity is a
  geophysical force operating on a planetary scale.
• Global climate change
• Mass extinction of species
• Unsustainable resource depletion
• Exponential population growth
• Human time vs. Gaian time scales
• The big Q
• Can we harmonize our human systems with Gaia?

5
Human systems Gaia

• Human purpose in the Gaian system
• What is the purpose of current global human
  systems?
• Growth (?)
• Cyclical processes in Gaia
• Gaia knows nothing of waste
• Industrial society the toilet assumption
• Environmentalism the rise of virtuous cycles

6
Learning from Gaia The Gift of Photosynthesis

• Earth's first 'environmental crisis' 3.8 billion
  years ago
• Bacteria consumed CO2, the greenhouse blanket
• Photosynthesis production of oxygen opened way
  for more complex organisms
• which replenished the most important GHGs
• and led to creation of ozone layer
• People inducing a new kind of planetary crisis
• Can we trust the intelligence of the system?
• Can we find it within ourselves?
• Climate change as the greatest of teachers

7
Gaian Ethics Politics

• Precautionary principle
• End of anthropocentrism
• Sidestepping global justice?
• No North-South equity as geo-ecological
  realism
• Beyond sovereignty to symbiotic networks
• Gaia political imagination
• Humans not a blight upon the planet, but the
  means by which Gaia is growing into
  self-awareness.
• What might be the purpose of human systems if
  they were to be compatible with Gaia?

8
Person/Planet Politics Global Ecology and the
Widening Circle of Care

• Does consumption entail responsibility?
• Does distance mitigate responsibility
• Ex drowning child
• Do global ecological problems call us to a
  greater maturity?
• Self-realization as capacity to seek wider wholes
• Global ecology expresses human desire/need for
  expanded conception of self

9
Culture as Story

• Global ecological crisis as a crisis of meaning
• As we see, so shall we act
• Foregrounding consciousness
• Every culture has a cosmology
• What is ours?
• Secularism, the story of modernity
• Results anthropocentric world, consumerism,
  North/South divide, divorce of science religion

10
Addressing the Crisis of MeaningTowards a
Sustainable Story

• Cosmology of interdependence
• Embedding ourselves in a participatory universe
• Revisioning our material relations
• with distant peoples
• with future generations
• with the other-than-human
• Embracing nature as gift, not resource
• Solar generosity
• Redefining progress, success, ourselves
• Ecological self
• Ecological citizenship