Eco-literacy as Foundation for Sustainability and the Protection of our Oceans

In order to solve these problems, we have to understand a key principle of ecology: everything is connected to and dependent upon everything else. Nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities. We can’t live and thrive by ourselves. No individual organism can exist alone (no human, no other animal, no plant). Animals depend upon the photosynthesis of plants for their energy needs; plants depend on the carbon dioxide exhaled by animals and the nitrogen fixed by bacteria in their roots; and through a delicate web of life, plants, animals and microorganisms regulate conditions in the entire biosphere – symbiotically co-creating life on planet Earth.

For four billion years, Earth’s ecosystems have evolved the capacity to sustain a healthy functioning web of life. For most of this time, Earth’s ecosystems have self-regulated and self-sustained themselves in a natural and balanced way. Over the past couple of thousand years, however, one species has evolved the capacity to alter the health and sustainability of its local environment, and for the past several hundred years, the entire planet. Human engendered problems such as climate change, overpopulation, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution, and over-extraction of resources are destroying the very life-sustaining systems on which all life on Earth depends.

We must wake up and alter course if we, and other life forms with which we share this planet, are going to survive. And ecological literacy, a knowledge of how we are interconnected with an intricate web of life, a love for and sense of wonder about the natural world, and a commitment to live in harmony with nature, is essential if we are going to thrive. Indeed, if we are to survive, we must understand that we are a part of nature, not separate from it. We must design human systems patterned after nature as architect.

Our ability to thrive depends on our understanding and respect of the fundamental ecological principles that empower life on Planet Earth:

• The energy that drives all ecological cycles flows from the sun. Solar energy warms the earth and spurs the process of photosynthesis where green plants produce food for themselves, us and most other animals.
• Diversity = Resilience. The astounding variety of organisms and ecosystems in which they live, provide countless ways for life to adapt to changing environmental conditions. The greater diversity of life in an ecosystem, the more resiliency exists within it. As we lose diversity of life, we lose the capacity of global ecosystems to adapt and survive.
• Waste = Food. Nature is constantly recycling nutrients that plants and animals need to stay alive and reproduce. There is little to no waste in this process. We need to learn from nature and design zero-waste human systems where “waste = food.”
• Population control – competition for limited resources among different species places a limit on how much populations can grow. Humans have disrupted most natural predator – prey population controls in most wild places of the world. Additionally, our own exponential population growth is stressing the global resources needed to sustain our growing population. Without healthy population control, species and the ecosystems in which they live, collapse.

To live sustainably we need to value and employ these ecological principles – principles that have enabled the natural evolution of life on Earth. We need to mimic nature’s wisdom in our human design: from zero-carbon buildings to sustainable agriculture, from renewable transportation to sustainable communities. And there is a side benefit: sustainable communities are also healthy, happy, generous, and satisfying places to live. Below is a comparison of unsustainable vs sustainable choices.

Sustainable Solutions

Adapted from Principles of Ecology by Miller and Spoolman