The Idea Of "Ecomasculism" - Part One

I received a feature submission from Claude Saint-Jarre, a Canadian environmentalist and father, who wrote an in-depth essay on the idea of "ecomasculism." Since his paper is quite long, I've divided it up into two sections. Click "Read More" below to read part one, and I hope to post part two on this site in a few weeks. Claude has a tremendous wealth of knowledge about ecology and I'm sure would welcome any questions or feedback from readers. He's also been working to create fatherhood groups based on ecoliteracy, and so if this idea interests you, please drop him a line.

The Idea of Ecomasculism

Following my reply to the Mensactivism.org article Standing While Urinating Represents Contempt For Women, Scott Garman asked me if I would like to write an essay on ecomasculism. Using urinals is ecologically correct; it does not use much water, which is important in these times of clean water scarcity. Thus it would be consistent for ecomasculists (as a counterpart to "ecofeminists") to argue that the use of urinals is best from a standpoint of ecology.

I have many things to say. Here they are in a nutshell:

• Ecomasculism is not a currently widespread concept.
• Many men are in favor of a cultural transformation which would effect the ecology in positive ways.
• Many men are ecologists.
• Very few men are masculists and ecologists.
• And even for those who are both masculists and ecologists, they do not tend to identify themselves as ecomasculists.
• Also, the Earth has no rights in the Constitution, says Thomas Berry, who thinks we are autistics toward the environment.

My present writing is, of course, a subjective point of view in this virgin territory. My native language is French, and Scott and I worked to translate this essay into readable English. There may be still be a few rough spots here and there, but please feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions about the essay or my views: stjc@info-internet.net.

First of all, why I am an ecologist?

Both of my parents were raised on a farm. My mother enjoys observing trees and recycles. My father lives in awe before nature; he likes spring water, cows, crows, music. Without forests, there would be no clean air, no natural music, etc.

I was raised in Abitibi, north of Montréal, which is an area as big as France, colonized only a hundred years ago. It was then only forest and lakes. Today, there are almost no forests left. Minamata disease, a form of methyl mercury poisoning in humans caused by eating large quantities of fish from polluted waters, occurs here as in Japan, and gold mines have caused deterioratation to the surroundings. There were even atomic bombs hidden in our local military/civilian airport that I was aware of when I was young, and I had always feared what kind of accidents could occur with this kind of weaponry.

In my youth, I studied social work, but in the turbulent 70's, during the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, I quit before finishing my bachelor's degree following a student strike in order to obtain democracy at my University. We did a strike for four months - which we named le departement parallele de service social - to pressure the University to use democratic forms of collective management and self or co-evaluation of exams. The University became impatient and said that if we did not want to use the old systems, then we would not get our bachelor's degrees. Twenty-four of us quit in protest, choosing to remain true to the teachings of Carl Rogers, Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich, and Henri Laboritt.

Then, I traveled. Traveling is a good way to open the mind. I did yoga and meditation, changed my eating habits, quit smoking, reduced the use of white sugar, and studied forestry. But I was deceived because this kind of forestry was far removed from what we think of today as "ecoforestry." I was then living in a small cottage, near a lake, a forest, electric lines, and a railroad. It was a place between the old and the new. Again I left forestry, sad to only be cutting down trees. During this time, I read a book by the French Alain Bombard, who described his crossing of the Atlantic, alone in a small rowboat. He said he was surprised by the amount of pollution he saw. I knew that seaweeds create oxygen as the forest does. And I thought that if the water is polluted, seaweeds probably have difficulty creating oxygen. I wrote to him and he answered that according to NASA, there is a deficit in oxygen creation by the plankton and forests. I was surprised that my intuition was right and that gave me confidence to study ecology further.

Later I studied cooking organic foods and finally, twelve years later, got my masters degree in social work. My thesis was: Ecological and Systemic Social Work for Sustainable Development During The Communications Era, and then I discovered I could find no paying job in the field! Social work is often done on a volunteer basis in these post-Reagan days. I am now working as a clerk in a municipality office, and FATHERING!

So that is my background, and how I became interested in ecology...

Ecofeminism

Let's begin first with ecofeminism. This movement was started in 1978 by Françoise d'Eaubonne with her book Eco-Feminisme. Some say that modern ecology began with the great work of Rachel Carson with her book The Silent Spring, which documented the harmful effects of DDT (an insecticide) on animal life and humans.

Ecofeminists often link the domination of women and of nature to patriarchy. We will see that Andrew Kimbrell has a different view in his book The Masculine Mystique.

The medical doctor Helen Caldicott is certainly a sort of ecofeminist with her critique of nuclear armaments, which she names "macrobes," contributing to the "omnicid" suicide of humanity.

Theodora Colborn has written a very important book: Our Stolen Future, where she documents the effects of small quantities of toxic chemicals - endocrine disruptive - elements, that are responsible, among others, of lowering sperm counts in men. ( http://www.canoe.ca/JamBooksReviewsO/ourstolen_colborn.html and http://www.mojones.com/mother_jones/MA98/snell.html )

By the way, "ecological design" is the alternative to this trend. We will see that many men are contributing to this science.

Another very important author is Rosalie Bertell, who won the Alternative Nobel Prize, for her book, No Immediate Danger? where she explains the dangers of low-level radiation. There are at least 20 million victims who have been harmed by the nuclear age, she says.

I must also mention the fantastic work of the scientist Mae-Wan Ho who is criticizing with lucidity and courage the practice of genetic engineering by a cartel of corporations and governments: http://www.i-sis.org

Ecomasculinism

And now, onto the men, or those who have an explicitly supportive outlook on men.

To me, Buckminster Fuller is the grandfather of the future. He saw that science and technology could be used in positive ways for the benefit of all. He cultivated a well rounded, comprehensive mind and conscience. He showed that we can go beyond the Malthusian paradigm and concomitant social darwinism. Thomas Malthus, in 1800, was a professor of Political Economics at the East India Company College. He observed that the population was expanding at a geometrical rate but that the food supply was only available at a linear rate. He then concluded that there will never be enough food for everyone.

In fact, today, there is more than enough food for everyone; it is just not well distributed, people do not have enough money to buy it and a percentage is lost due to lack of refrigeration or electricity in some parts of the world. Malthus did not foresee progress in our capacity to do more with less materials and energy, as Fuller has demonstrated 100 years later.

Meanwhile, Darwin did the same in the Malthusian scarcity context, saying that only the strongest survive. Present day global economic trends exclude a good half of humanity from living a decent life by believing in scarcity and the struggle for life. This is called social darwinism.

Fuller rejected social darwinism, and said that we can create a "success of humanity" by implementing a ten year plan during which we could convert the military industry to civilian use, ecologically and peacefully, and offer a good quality of life to everyone. He is the first person to have theoretically demonstrated this. I felt good and relieved from a kind of sadness by reading his books. But we still have to change.

Fuller criticized our science. He preferred the geometry of triangles and tetraheadrons to squares and cubes. That lead him to investigate geodesic domes. He designed domes that could house poor people, were energy efficient, and could grow food and recycle wastes. He was inspired by the atomic structure, in which he said there is no true parallel or perpendicular, but only geodesic curves. This is explained in his book Synergetics, Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking.

Fuller got often angry to see that the plumbing on the land is 5000 years behind of the plumbing on ships and air ships. He did not agree with, in a round world, perpendiculars, parallels, squares and cubes. That's why he studied synergy. He thought we are not being honest when we say "up" or "down," because we have known for 500 years that the sun does not rise and sleep.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute: http://www.bfi.org

One student of Buckminster Fuller recommends this site: http://www.cyberus.ca/choose.sustain

Fuller's spiritual sons are "ecological designers." I know Amory Lovins, author of The Soft Energy Path and Natural Capitalism, which can be read free on-line at http://www.rmi.org. James Baldwin wrote On Buckminster Fuller. There is also John Todd. He wrote From Ecocities to Living Machines. He also says that it is possible to create a post-industrial society without violating fundamental ecological integrity. His Living Machines are examples of living solutions proven as multi-functional, non-chemical waste treatment technologies. They are whole systems to treat wastewater. They are solar powered, accelerated versions of the water treatment facilities found in mature natural systems, incorporating helpful microbes, plants, snails and fish in diverse, self-organizing and responsive communities.

Here are some site specific biological solutions that transform waste streams into resources: http://www.oceanarks.org

I recently read a very interesting article by Ty Cashman on converting our economy to a hydrogen economy. Cashman offers a vision to the youth who knows what it is against but not what it is "for."

Cashman , past coordinator for wind energy for Governor Jerry Brown, writes: "Currently, the biggest stumbling block to switching to a hydrogen economy (which would prevent 80% of the pollution), is the fact that the general public doesn't know what it is.... We do not have to crash and burn. Having bootstrapped this extraordinary civilization with fossil fuels, we can now instead ease ourselves back into the mainstream of nature with our new understanding and abilities intact. The hydrogen economy will allow us to come home again."

The article has only been published in the Annals of the Earth journal and is not on the web. If you want to read it, please e-mail me at stjc@info-internet.net and I can send you a copy.

The oncologist Karl-Henrik Robert has also innovated tremendously. He was tired of conceptual fights about the environment and looked for common ground. He prepared a scientific text which he proposed to fifty scientists in Sweden and rewrote it 21 times until they were all satisfied. This consensus was named The Natural Step. It consists of four basic scientific principles and four conditions to satisfy in order to do define sustainable development. The paper is in this sense, a compass. The fourth condition he wrote of pleases me, as a social worker:

"There must be fair and efficient use of resources with respect to meeting human needs."



http://www.naturalstep.org

The "green architect" William McDounough also stands apart with his dedication and ingenuity with regard to sustainability. He designed a textile industry that has zero waste. To succeed in doing this, he and a chemist friend analyzed the 8,000 materials used in this industry to find the non-toxic ones. They found only 37 that were safe. Sweaters are now made with these materials and, as a surprising result, the water coming out of the plant is cleaner than the water coming in! So a formerly dangerous production process is now itself a cleaning process!

http://www.radicalmiddle.com/x_hawk_lovins.htm

Suren Erkman is a journalist who has written a good book on industrial ecology. The aim of industrial ecology is to contribute to create a good quality of life, with 90% less materials and energy. Here are some interesting links on the topic:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/JIE

http://www.indecology.org

http://www.smu.ntnu.no

http://www.indigodev.com

Her e-mail address is: suren.erkman@icast.org

Other Important Men Involved In Ecology

1. Fritjof Capra: he is a physicist who wrote three outstanding books that articulate the ecological philosophy: The Turning Point, The Web of Life, and The Tao of Physics. He also wrote a more political one on "green politics" where he gave considerable space to feminist philosophy. But here is a good article by Capra: http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0195/et0195s1.html.

2. David Orr: Orr is involved with Capra in ecoliteracy. They articulate it around the "theory of living systems," which presents these core concepts: networks, nested systems, cycles, flow, development, dynamic balance. Some links are:

   http://environmental.jrn.msu.edu/Orr.htm
   
   
   http://www.ecoliteracy.org

3. Linus Pauling: this man won two Nobel Prizes: one in Peace, and one in Medicine. For Peace, he succeeded to almost completely stop nuclear testings, with a group of international scientists he formed. In Medicine, for his work on vitamin C. He also developed new fields in medicine: orthomolecular medicine and orthomolecular psychiatry. These have led the way to the development of clinical ecology. Pauling has shown the importance of proper nutrition. Improper nutrition can lead to mental illness, including violence. So he suggests in a way that violence is not a gender issue.

4. Seymour Melman: Melman is an industrial engineer who is a leader in the conversion of the military industry to civilian use. I read and enjoyed his book Pentagon Capitalism. Gorbachev said the military pollute a great deal and founded the Green Cross to combat this problem. Fritjof Capra said of Gorbachev in a lecture near Montreal in 1986 that he is the first politician to apply the ecological paradigm.

5. David Shank is not an ecologist per se, but his critique of the way economic powers use computers and shows that it is often anti-ecological. He also advocates a reactionary return to nature.

6. In 1992, 160 Nobel Prize laureates (mostly men, but thanks also to the women who signed it), published a Warning to Humanity, about the dangerous level of destruction of the environment and what we should do about it. (1,700 scientists signed)

   http://www.deoxy.org/sciwarn.htm

7. John Hamaker stands out and is not listened to. In his book The Survival of Civilization, he hypothesizes that instead of global warming, we could enter another ice age, due to our excess petrol use and deforestation which prevents forests from absorbing excess carbon dioxide. To correct this, he proposes a massive remineralization program of forests and agricultural soils with fine rock dust in addition to reforestation and a rapid transition to a solar-powered age. I believe his ideas have not entered the mainstream media because they are owned by the petrol/nuclear/agro/pharmaco conglomerates that would suffer financially (at least in the short term, but not in the long term!). Buckminster Fuller endorsed this book.

8. The physicist Sid Liebes has worked on a volunteer basis for 12 years to create an exhibit that would depict the Story of Universe. Finally, he was helped by his employer, Hewlett-Packard, to realize it. Its purpose is twofold: to convey a sense of wonder about the creation of life on Earth, and give us a sense of responsibility in taking care of our environment. There have been five massive extinctions of life on earth so far and each took 30 million years to replenish biodiversity, and we as a species are creating a sixth one. See the book A Walk Through Time or this web site: http://www.globalcommunity.org

9. In the same endeavor, a cosmologist, Brian Swimme, and a theologian, Thomas Berry, have written a beautiful Story of Universe, which ends with their advice that it is time now to create a new era: the ecozoic era that would be biocentric instead of anthropocentric, that would use biocentric technologies inspired by nature. To them, ecology is applied cosmology.

10. Matthew Fox is never far from Thomas Berry. He invented Creation Spirituality, which dwells on ancient spiritual saints such as Hildegarde de Bingen or Master Eckard. His book Original Blessing is indeed very de-culpabilizing. And that's good for men! To him, the creation of the universe is always continuing and we need to reawaken our spirits to our sacred role. In his book The Reinvention of Work, Fox explains the new ecological paradigm (the Universe as an organism, not a machine), and shows how to become less materialistic and adopt an organic world view which springs from the inner hidden seed of mystery and creativity. We must become truly critical of the systems that keep so many of us out of touch with justice and economic fairness. If more people listened to him, it would help support spiritual and meaningful roles for men. See http://www.universalmind.com/matfox.htm for more info on this.

11. Edgar Mitchell is an ancient astronaut who attained "instant enlightenment" by looking at the Earth from space, as he was stupefied by its beauty. He founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences to study consciousness, and you can look at Online Noetic Network. In an interview he said this:

    "I think the next evolutionary step is learning to use the brain mass in a much more holistic way - to achieve greater coherence between the right and the left hemispheres. Now, meditation does that. I mean that's one of the ancient techniques for achieving greater coherence. We also understand that when we learn to utilize the logical, rational functions of the left brain, and the intuitive, creative functions of the right brain in a more coherent fashion, that the rate of learning and the rate of capability goes up an order of magnitude."

    And he was asked: what is our more distant potential?

    "The further we get out into the future, the less our predictions are valid. I think the immediate hurdle here is to become sufficiently aware of ourselves and our impact on the environment to create a sustainable civilization. It's not apparent that we're quite ready to do that yet. We're simply so ego concerned and we have our socio-political, economic structures based upon our Cartesian and Newtonian ideas. And it is falling apart. The infrastructure of that world view is not valid, and we're running out of its limits of validity, much to our peril - unless we shift our thinking and our understanding of what's happening. We're likely to have some rather difficult times ahead of us."

12. James Hillman continues: "I think we are on the Titanic - we are in a system that is itself
    pathological and dysfunctional. The effect of psychotherapy's underlying assumptions is to help
    the individual cope by focusing his energies inward and, in effect, anesthetizing the passions and discontent which could otherwise be directed at the problems of the world. We must develop a therapy of the soul itself." This comes from his book: We've had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy - And the World's Getting Worse.

    Concerning men and especially fathering, Hillman, the "archetypal psychologist" has this to add and I don't want you to miss it: "Even if the father puts everything he has into the child, the child is still left facing a world which will not receive the soul. That's the big job. So fathers have a very important job in addition to keeping a roof over the heads of their sons. They also have to correct the culture. And that's a very hard one. But that's the calling, I think that every man has."

    More at: http://www.vix.com/menmag/hillmaiv.htm

The next part of this document will delve in detail into the works and philosophies of some of these great ecological thinkers and others including Andrew Kimbrell and Warren Farrell. Please check this site in a few weeks for the next installment!

Claude Saint-Jarre, stjc@info-internet.net

NOTICE: This story was migrated from the old software that used to run Mensactivism.org. Unfortunately, user comments did not get included in the migration. However, you may view a copy of the original story, with comments, at the following link:

http://news.mensactivism.org/articles/01/01/22/034208.shtml