The New New (Buddhist?) Ecology
Keywords:
ecology, Buddhism, flux-of-nature paradigm, environmental philosophy, LeopoldAbstract
Simultaneous with the emergence of an ‘environmental crisis’ and attendant widespread environmental consciousness and conscience in the1960s, Eugene Odum, then dean of the field, announced the advent of the ‘New Ecology’. Odum’s new ecology was based on the ecosystem concept as its organizing idea and reiterated the classic notion of nature, unperturbed by human disturbance, as in a steady state of dynamic equilibrium. This New Ecology is now old. The classic ‘balance-of-nature’ paradigm has been replaced by the ‘flux-of-nature’ paradigm in which ecosystems are open, human influence has been ubiquitous and long-standing, and natural
disturbance is multifaceted, widespread, and frequent. If not in Buddhism, then certainly in ecology, ‘everything burns’—that is, everything is subject to periodic disturbance, of which fire is so common an instance as to be symbolic. However, most laypersons are unaware of this paradigm shift in ecology, which was consolidated over the last forty years. Any plausible and up-to-date articulation of an ‘ecotheology’ should be informed by the new New Ecology and not the old New Ecology. Among world religions, Buddhism has had the longest association with ecology, and thanks to leaders such as the Dalai Lama, it remains the religious worldview most closely associated with ecology in the environmentalist’s imaginary.
References
Botkin, Daniel. 1990. Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty-first Century (New York: Oxford University Press).
Callicott, J. Baird. 1989. In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press).
———. 1999. Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press).
Callicott, J. Baird, and Michael P. Nelson. 1999. The Great New Wilderness Debate (Athens: University of Georgia Press).
Carson, Rachel. 1962. Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin).
Clements, F.E. 1916. Plant Succession (Publication 242; Washington: Carnegie Institute).
Commoner, Barry. 1971. The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology (New York: Alfred A. Knopf).
Cooper, D., and S. James. 2004. Buddhism, Virtue, and the Environment (Aldershot: Ashgate).
Cronon, William. 1983. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill & Wang).
Crosby, A.W. 1991. ‘Infectious Disease and the Demography of the Atlantic Peoples’, Journal of World History 2: 5-16.
Curtin, D. 1996. ‘A State of Mind Like Water: Ecosophy T and the Buddhist Traditions’, Inquiry 39: 239-53.
Curtis, J.T., and R.P. McIntosh. 1951. ‘An Upland Forest Continuum in the Prairie–Forest Border Region of Wisconsin’, Ecology 32: 476-96. doi:10.2307/1931725.
Davis, M.B. 1969. ‘Palynology and Environmental History during the Quarternary Period’, American Scientist 57: 317-32.
Denevan, W.M. (ed.). 1992. The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press).
Devall, B., and G. Sessions. 1985. Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (Salt Lake City: G.M. Smith).
Dobyns, H.F. 1983. Their Number Became Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press).
Gause, G.F. 1934. The Struggle for Existence (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins).
Gleason, H.A. 1926. ‘The Individualistic Concept of Plant Association’, Bulletin of the Tory Botanic Club 53: 7-26. doi:10.2307/2479933.
Kretch III, Shepard. 1999. The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (New York: W.W. Norton).
Leopold, Aldo. 1949. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (New York: Oxford University Press).
———. 1999. For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays and Other Writings (ed. J. Baird Callicott and Eric T. Freyfogle; Washington: Island Press).
Lindeman, Raymond L. 1942. ‘The Trophic-Dynamic Aspect of Ecology’, Ecology 23: 399-418. doi:10.2307/1930126.
Martin, P.S., and R.G. Klein (eds.). 1984. Quaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution (Tucson: University of Arizona Press).
McIntosh, Robert P. 1985. Background of Ecology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
McKibben, Bill. 1989. The End of Nature (New York: Random House).
Mooney, H.A., and W.V. Reid et al. (eds.). 2003. Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: A Framework for Action (Washington, DC: Island Press).
Odum, E.P. 1953, 1959, 1971. Fundamentals of Ecology (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders).
———. 1964. ‘The New Ecology’, BioScience 14.7: 14-23. doi:10.2307/1293228.
———. 1969. ‘The Strategy of Ecosystem Development’, Science 164: 262-70. doi:10.1126/science.164.3877.262.
Pickett, S.T.A., and P.S. White (eds.). 1985. The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and Patch Dynamics (New York: Academic Press).
Pickett, S.T.A., and R.S. Ostfeld. 1995. ‘The Shifting Paradigm in Ecology’, in R.L. Knight and S. F. Bates (eds.), A New Century for Natural Resources Management (Washington, DC: Island Press): 261-78.
Schumacher, E.F. 1973. Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (London: Bond & Briggs).
Sears, Paul B. 1964. ‘Ecology—A Subversive Subject’, BioScience 14.7: 11-13.
Shepard, Paul, and Daniel McKinley. 1969. The Subversive Science: Essays Toward an Ecology of Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin).
Singer, Peter. 1977. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (New York: Avon).
Suzuki, D.T. 1956. Zen Buddhism, Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki (ed. William Barrett; New York: Doubleday).
Tansley, Arthur. 1935. ‘The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms’, Ecology 16: 284-307. doi:10.2307/1930070.
Taylor, Paul. 1986. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
Tucker, M.E., and D.R. Williams (eds.). 1998. Buddhism and Ecology: The Intersection of Dharma and Deeds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Udall, Stewart. 1963. The Quiet Crisis (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston).
Whitaker, R.H. 1962. ‘Classification of Natural Communities’, Botanical Review 28: 1-239. doi:10.1007/BF02860872.
White, Jr, Lynn. 1967. ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis’, Science 155: 1203-1207. doi:10.1126/science.155.3767.1203.
Wilson, E.O. 1984. Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
Worster, Donald. 1977. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books).
