“Ecos [Greek] is home, ecology is the study of home, economics is its management. But we elevate economy above ecology . . .” Thanks to theecologyofeverything.
Here are a few notes, from his talk on November 4, 2011.
I am an elder, long past the seduction of fame, or money or power. I speak to you as a grandfather. . . My generation and the boomers that followed have lived like kings and queens and thoughtlessly thought that there was no tomorrow. We forgot that we needed to share, to help our neighbors, to clean up our mess, to start thinking about our grandchildren.
Biology dictates our absolute need for clean air, soil, water and healthy diversity if we mean to survive. We have to live within their boundaries. We draw lines around our property, around cities and nations, and we will go to war and kill and die to protect those borders. Nature doesn’t care about human boundaries, pay no attention to our ideas of territory. Currencies, markets, corporations — these are not forces of nature, they are human-made, and if they don’t work, we must change them.
For me, the Occupy movement is about ecos, the greek word for household or domain. It’s about finding ourself in community, in the state, in the nation, and in the biosphere. What is our home, and how do we live in it sustainably, with opportunity, and meaning, and happiness as highest aspirations. Ecos is home, ecology is the study of home, economics is its management. But we elevate economy above ecology.
0 thoughts on “David Suzuki at Occupy Vancouver: “Let’s put the ‘eco’ back in economics””
I’m an economist, and there’s a long tradition of environmental economics, with many of the concepts used in the environmental movement coming straight from economics. It always saddens me that leaders of the environmental movement are so quick to use our concepts and tools while dismissing and vilifying the entire field of enquiry.