Blog 6- Deep and Shallow Ecology

After reading the last reading section of The Green Halo, and listening to our discussion, I agree with Naess distinctions between Deep and Shallow Ecology. And that by practicing Deep Ecology, its the only way to make a difference and correct the environmental problems in the world. Shallow ecology is the idea of developing preventive things such as hybrid cars and technologies to help solve environmental problems. These solutions are only superficial such as planting a tree and cleaning the environment such as a pond. Whereas Deep Ecology is the idea of looking into the roots of the ecological crisis which are human attitudes toward nature. That consumerism is the source of our alienation from nature.

Though hybrid cars and new forms of energy such as solar do help prevent the problem from escalating, I agree with Naess in that we shouldn't waste billions of dollars on developing technologies that only cover up the environmental problems. That we should be attempting to change the attitudes of humans, especially the executives of large corporations, towards nature. Without these major changes in attitudes, humans will continue to only mask the real problems and continue to neglect and mistreat nature. This is leading to our ultimate destruction of civilization.

Once these attitudes have been changed, we can then focus on trying to rebuild what has been destroyed in nature by humans and use technology to help expedite this process of reversing what has been done to nature. Because cleaning a pond and planting trees is great, but if trees elsewhere continue to be cut down and nuclear plants continue to dump their waste into ponds and rivers, then all these efforts would be a waste of our time. This is why Deep Ecology is a good approach to the environmental problems present today.