Deep Ecology

The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of human existence. The concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as Why are we here?, What’s life all about? and What is the meaning of it all? It has been the subject of much philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation throughout history and there have been a large number of answers from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds. Albert Camus observed, we humans are creatures who spend our lives trying to convince ourselves that our existence is not absurd. What is the meaning of life and why are we here? That’s a question that has been asked for many years. The meaning of life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, consciousness, and happiness, and touches on many other issues, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, conceptions of God, the existence of God, the soul and the afterlife. Scientific contributions are more indirect; by describing the empirical facts about the universe, science provides some context and sets parameters for conversations on related topics. An alternative, human-centric, and not a cosmic/religious approach is the question “What is the meaning of my life?” The value of the question pertaining to the purpose of life may be considered to be coincidal with the achievement of ultimate reality, if that is believed by one …

Stacy Alaimo explains the complicated relationship between gender and environmentalism and how she began incorporating the two into her studies.

‘Eco-Centric’, a story by reporter Tim Lee from the 2004 ABC program ‘Landline’ about permaculture co-originator David Holmgren, whose “pivotal role in developing permaculture has scarcely been recognised” www.holmgren.com.au

‘Eco-Centric’, a story by reporter Tim Lee from the 2004 ABC program ‘Landline’ about permaculture co-originator David Holmgren, whose “pivotal role in developing permaculture has scarcely been recognised” www.holmgren.com.au

The crisis deepens. Everyday life is plundered as much as the physical environment. Our predicament points us toward a solution. The voluntary abandonment of the industrial mode of existence is not self-renunciation, but a healing return. ~John Zerzan Twilight of the Machines We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. ~ Aldo Leopold The statement that people are propelled by their self-interest or their greed applies primarily to industrial society. It may also apply to those who have been deprived of community by the effects of industrial society, where a formerly integrated, cooperative, reciprocal mode of being in nature has been destroyed. But since the beginning of recorded history, there have been many communities that have existed alongside the so-called Western historical civilizations, and which exhibit to this day a mode of experience and living in the world that is cooperative, community-based, consensual–and not primarily in terms of self-interest. ~Jerry Mander I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among the latter, under pretense of governing, they have …