Whole Earth Thinking and Planetary Coexistence

This timely interdisciplinary study presents 'whole Earth thinking' as a way of ecological wisdom and a response to the challenges of planetary coexistence, apparent not only with species extinction and multiple environmental crises, but also in political and economic flux. The word crisis derives from the Greek 'krinein', meaning to separate, and implying a fork in the road. This is well represented by a good distinction between what the author calls globalists and planetarians. The first approach stresses control, manipulation and consumption, while the second represents people who view themselves from within the biosphere and who therefore cultivate biological and cultural diversity and seek life-affirming responses to our situation. One could also speak contrast between globalisation and 'glocalisation', the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum, between transhumanism and posthumanism. Both these processes are going on simultaneously, but only the second is truly sustainable since the first affirms the primacy of power and the second the primacy of love.

After an introductory chapter on the history of ecology, a word dating back to Ernest Haeckel in 1866, the author provides an overview of different disciplines engaged - the spiritual and religious, including indigenous perspectives, scientific approaches based on complexity and systems theory, then more specifically environmental and social views - all this implies opening up to multiple ways of knowing. The next chapter compares and contrasts the approaches of the 'geologian' Thomas Berry and the French geophilosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who will be less well-known to most readers. I regard Berry's work is essential reading, since it goes to the heart of our human agenda of creating what he called an ecozoic era where humans become a mutually beneficial presence on the earth - moving beyond a mechanistic collection of objects to a communion of subjects. This is what he described as the Great Work. The French philosophers are much more sceptical about the value of religion, and it is interesting to reflect on the contrasts between the American and French revolutions. However, both agree on the destructive capacity of individualism and the need for different ways of knowing. The book also draws considerably on the work of Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim at the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Harvard.

One of the strengths of the book is its connection across disciplines, as already mentioned, and this includes the political and economic as well as biology and other sciences. Mickey also calls for the reclaiming of subjectivity in a world obsessed with mechanisms and objects. There are many roots of ecological wisdom intertwining in our times: indigenous traditions, classical and philosophical traditions, ways of knowing embedded in feminist perspectives and the experiences of women, and contemporary sciences. Each has a slightly different take on planetary interconnectedness, and the overall process is seen as a creative unfolding, moving beyond anthropocentrism to what the author calls an anthropocosmic view where the self is seen as relational and connected. It is here that he could have referred to the pioneering work of Henryk Skolimowski, whose books are not mentioned but who credit provided a valuable extra series of insights.

There is an important emphasis on community and self-organisation in creating potential networks of care as a counterbalance to the globally dominant extractive economy that turns everything into an object of consumption. Given that we exist in what the author calls a 'chaosmos', this process requires our active participation, I liked his comparison and use of Chinese terms with yi as change, tao as the way a structure or pattern (li) unfolds in a self-organising fashion and the overarching concept of shen as 'the relationality and affective mutuality whereby things fold into a communion of subjects' (p. 117) - we are all enfolded or implicated.

As Berry, Brian Swimme and others have argued, we need a new narrative and story to make sense of where we need to go. This is a dream of peace, justice and mutuality rather than the New World Order vision of fear, control, domination and manipulation. This latter is the default position unless a sufficient number of people decide otherwise. The pressure is certainly rising, as is the opportunity to take a stand for a culture of love and compassion - how many of us will gather together the energy to participate in this necessary process? This is what the work of Avaaz, Care2Causes, Thrive and others is about, and we have unprecedented capacity to self-organise through the Internet. The integrative vision of this book provides a good philosophical starting point for a vision of a mutually enhancing planetary coexistence.