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 Meaning:Towards 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