Identifying the Principles of an Ecological Civilization

The idea of an Ecological Civilization envisages a beneficial potential future of human flourishing on a regenerated Earth. It would require a transformation of our current economy, politics, and mainstream culture, leading to a fundamentally different civilization based of different values, goals, and collective behavior.
In this webinar, author Jeremy Lent explores the concept of an ecological civilization: why we need it, its underlying principles, and a glimpse of what it might look like in practice.
Beginning with fundamental principles of life, expanding to general principles of ecosystems, and then identifying specific principles of human flourishing, Lent shows how it’s possible to envisage a robust foundation on which a coherent civilizational framework could be established to set the conditions for all human beings to thrive on a healthy, vibrant planet.
This talk is part of the Prosocial Commons Seminar Series, hosted by David Sloan Wilson. More information: thisviewoflife...
Explore these topics further at the Deep Transformation Network: deeptransforma...

[@thes-media]

Useful and inspiring webinar! Thank you Jeremy and you all.

[@eameece]

I agree with the visions and values presented. Our inner work, our living ecologically, and our ability to love and respect those we may disagree with, is hard, and needed, and at the same time some political progress needs to be made. This progress is powered by social movements and by small and large organizations, but also by voting because of the need to move in the right direction soon, as well as (perhaps more gradually) transform human consciousness and willingness, even in businesses, to voluntarily move toward the greater transformation we need. And right now, it means voting blue now and to support blue candidates, even if Democrats are inadequate, and I say that as a former member of the Green Party. But we face a strong, deliberate, well-financed and systemically-advantaged reactionary movement determined to keep the old ways in power over us and to stoke the old worldviews and ideologies, and if it is allowed to triumph and impose itself through the power of the current Republican Party, we won't get to move further forward as we wish. So we need to act on all these levels in all these ways, respectful and cooperative as we can be with others we know, difficult as that might be, without being naive about how easy this change is going to be, and how powerful and deaf-blind to reality the opposition still is. Individual actions and changes alone are drops in the bucket, so I don't feel that is enough to make the change we need fast enough.

[@NEMESIScreator]

32mins in: There is a name for what you are talking about: "Communism" and I am up for it 🙂

[@eameece]

not quite..... the individual and the whole together is the holographic ecological view we need; communism is submission of the individual beneath the collective, imposed upon all from outside.

[@NEMESIScreator]

@@eameece Sorry, but I will disagree with you here. Marx said: We have to thrive on an individual level FIRST to fonction on a collective level. And it will not be imposed from the outside because the system will work with true democratic structures at every stages. I am talking about Eco-communism. Where The environment, the individual, and the "ecological thinking" would be at the center of the decision making. "We can’t resolve the problems made by capitalism with Capitalism: aka The Capitalocene. Maybe I am not answer correctly but I found your comment a bit "vague". Sorry. Thank you for taking the time.

[@eameece]

@@NEMESIScreator I imagine your view of communism might be useful but I don't think it is what most people mean by communism. And Marx was a materialist modernist and so I would tend to think we can't go beyond modern mechanistic materialism with modern mechanistic materialism.

[@NEMESIScreator]

@@eameece That is what a lot of people think in Europe right now. Communism and ecology / social justice/ classless societies and climate change compatibility. Marx understood the need of progress for better material conditions and his later work always included ideas about man and his relation with nature. (Kohei Saito or John Bellamy analysis and books) Communism is a scary word but for the wrong reasons. Cheers,

[@eameece]

@@NEMESIScreator It is what people will always think when hearing the word communism. Collectivist, materialist, totalitarian. Of course, I speak from the USA, not Europe.