Deep Green Earth
The personal website of Joe Gray
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“ None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild. ” — John Muir
Recent highlights
► 'Little by little: Rewilding the microcosmos' – a post on the Global Rewilding Alliance blog [11-minute read | READ ARTICLE]
► 'Natural history as defiance of the technological takeover' – an editorial in The Ecological Citizen [5-minute read | READ ARTICLE]
► 'Making a case for compassionate entomology' – a post on the Earth Tongues blog [13-minute read | READ ARTICLE]
► 'Being careful with words: Towards a language that respects and reverences nature' – another post on the Global Rewilding Alliance blog [9-minute read | READ ARTICLE]
Newly published
"Cohabiting Earth is a courageous book, both in the blunt assessment of the multiple cascading ecological/social crises we face and in the refusal to give up on efforts to make a better future. This eclectic collection of writers provides a roadmap of how we got here and where we need to go." — Robert Jensen, School of Journalism and Media, University of Texas at Austin
In this who-did-it of sorts, which unfolds in the English village of Mayham, the foibles and indulgences of the settlement's diverse residents – from robot lawnmowers to composting loos – are unmasked by a uniquely motivated narrator.
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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Red net-winged beetle, Scotland
Pieces published on this website
► Preservation [READ NOW]
► A coincidence of giant proportions [READ NOW]
► An impossible story [READ NOW]
