Introducing Ecologizing Society: Method
An ongoing, ecological series
This essay is part of an ongoing series, which I’ve called Ecologizing Society. This project is based on the premise that we already have all the knowledge and technology we need to create an ecological society. You can find links to previous essays in the series here, and the full collection of previous essays is available in book format here:
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Ecologizing Society is an ongoing series in which I bring together various branches of ecological and political knowledge that we can use right now to create a more ecological society. The premise of the project is that, as a society, we already have all the information we needs to do so. We know what the causes of ecological destruction are. We know what conditions allow ecosystems to flourish productively. We know how to integrate energy and food production into ecosystems without overburdening them. In short, we know how to manage ecosystems sustainably to meet our current needs. The obstacles to doing so are political and economic, not ecological or scientific.
The first collection of essays in this series, Ecologizing Society: Theory, focused on the political theories that recognize the inseparability of nature and society. A sound theoretical framework is necessary to guide any political and economic re-structuring of society, but theory is irrelevant in the absence of action and action requires tools. This is what the second collection of Ecologizing Society essays will provide: the already existing methods and tools that can be put to use toward making society ecological.
Some of the existing methods I will cover are within in the science of ecology. Society has produced a large and growing body of ecological knowledge about how our natural environments work and how to manage them responsibly. But our application of this knowledge falls far short of its full potential. What prevents us from realizing the potential is a capitalist economy that prioritizes resource extraction for the accumulation of wealth above all else. Thus, some of the methods that I will cover will also be political and economic in nature.
To fully understand how to apply ecological knowledge requires examining the basics of structure and function in the natural environment. Community ecology is the science of ecological structure. This subfield of ecology focuses on how biodiversity is organized, from individuals, populations, species, ecological communities (multiple species), meta-communities (multiple communities), and on up to the entire ecosphere. We may, for example, compare the number of small mammal species found in a forest in eastern North America to the the number found in the deserts of the southwest and Central America.
Ecosystem ecology is the science of how the natural environment functions. The ecosystem concept breaks ecological dynamics down into the flows of matter and energy through ecological systems. How vegetation impacts streamflow in Appalachia, how much carbon is stored in B.C. forests, and how nutrients cycle through marine environments are all examples of ecosystem ecology.
Urban ecology applies both community and ecosystem ecology to urban settings while also incorporating the way the built environment impacts ecological dynamics. Historically, ecological disciplines tried to remove the human element from our understanding of ecology. In recent decades, ecologists have realized that this is essentially impossible, and urban ecology explicitly includes the social, socioeconomic, and political elements of the landscape to examine ecological patterns.
Two other subfields in the domain of ecology are important to highlight. Integrated land management is an framework that applies ecological knowledge and planning to a multi-use approach for agricultural and silvicultural production. The framework is an example of applied ecology which seeks to harness our ecological knowledge in ways that benefit both human society and the non-human world. Dialectical ecology provides an analytical framework for identifying the ways in which our land use, whether for ecological or economic purposes, is inherently political. That is to say that dialectical ecology recognizes the politics of ecology.
Accordingly, applying our ecological knowledge in ways that actually benefit society requires not just an acknowledgment of the political and economic structures that stand in the way, but a direct confrontation with those structures. Society must, first and foremost, overcome the exploitative quest for infinite capitalist growth. To that end, I will discuss several political and economic methods that I believe have much to contribute to an ecological society.
The most fundamental component of the capitalist economy is economic production. The way that we produce the goods and services society needs is overwhelmingly privately owned and organized for the purpose of accumulating private wealth. Communal forms of production, however, can be democratically owned and organized so that economic activity is structured around benefiting society as a whole. I will examine several forms of communal production that I think have potential.
The consumption of goods and services is also a worthwhile aspect of economic activity to consider. This is not to say that individual, consumer choices of different capitalist brands will ever be a solution, but a radically anti-consumerist outlook can and should play a role in the transition away from capitalism. We need new ways to think about consumption, and thus Ecologizing Society: Method will explore various anti-consumerist tools and approaches.
Lastly, any serious attempt to make society more ecological must recognize the complexity of the capitalist system. We don’t simply need new ways of producing and consuming goods, but also new ways of bringing these two economic components together. Library socialism, economic planning, public-common partnerships, and mutual aid all have a role to play in a post-capitalist, ecological society, and the following essays will explore each (and more) in detail.
Ecologizing Society: Method is not a standalone project. In covering each of the topics mentioned here, the methods will be placed in direct conversation with the theoretical foundations of Ecologizing Society: Theory. As in that earlier project, my goal is to link together the various, and often divergent, lines of ecological and political thought. Nature and society cannot be separated into separate and distinct entities. Neither can our tools and methods for bringing society into greater harmony with nature.