Deep Green Earth
The personal website of Joe Gray
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“ A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. ” — Aldo Leopold
Recent highlights
► 'Love, existence, and the nature of picture postcards' – a post on the Earth Tongues blog [12-minute read | READ ARTICLE]
► 'On algorithms and assassin bugs: Challenging the uncritical promotion of nature identification apps' – an article in The Ecological Citizen [7-minute read | READ ARTICLE]
► 'Sentience in invertebrates: A report on a two-part webinar' – another article in The Ecological Citizen [13-minute read | READ ARTICLE]
The deep green worldview
The deep green worldview sees hawks, hawthorns, and all the other beings that make up the more-than-human world as having value and meaning in their own right, not just as a result of any benefits that humans might derive from their existence. In this worldview, when an ancient hedge is destroyed, for instance, it is ethically wrong not simply because it deprives humans of anything they might have gained – materially, aesthetically, or spiritually – from its continuing existence. It has also caused an immeasurably greater wrong to the living system that is the hedge, as well as to the populations of species that used this as part of their life cycle.
This ethical extension from considering only 'instrumental' (human-benefiting) value to also recognizing 'intrinsic' (independent) value is neither trivial nor merely academic. Rather, its far-reaching practical implications represent an unparalleled opportunity: the chance to save much of the radiation of life with which we share the ecosphere from the cresting wave of extinction. Nothing else, I believe, gives this same hope.
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An assassin bug, France
Pieces published on this website
► A coincidence of giant proportions [READ NOW]
► An impossible story [READ NOW]
