The Eye of the Dragon: Ecological Thinking in Delicious in Dungeon

Internationally significant Australian work in ecological philosophy can be traced to at least as early as 1973 with Val and Richard Routley’s (later Val Plumwood and Richard Sylvan) Fight for the Forests. By the 1990s, Australian ecological and ecological feminist philosophy was at the forefront of international work in this area. As the 1990s came to a close, this was joined by the first major international research in ecological hermeneutics in biblical studies, the Earth Bible Project, situated in Adelaide, South Australia, under the chief editorship of Norman Habel. The Project was in conversation with feminists, ecologists, and a number of indigenous peoples from Australia and overseas, as the team developed first their six ecojustice principles and then three further ecological hermeneutics. Building on her early work in feminist biblical interpretation, a contributor to the project, biblical scholar Elaine Wainwright, developed a multidimensional hermeneutic, bringing together feminist, ecological, and postcolonial concerns, most recently around the notion of habitat. This chapter first charts a recent history of feminist interpretation of biblical religion and an evolving, but uneven, relationship between feminist and ecological thinking in biblical studies and then explores Wainwright’s writings as indicative of how the postcolonial contexts in Australia and New Zealand have evolved some complex intersections of religion, race, and ecological thought.

Taking into account the modern ecological problems accumulated by mankind since the times of antiquity, the article draws attention to the peculiarities of the worldview, and its change, and defines the peculiarities of the philosophy of ecology in the society of sustainable development. In the process of research, the essence and significance of the philosophy of ecology as a direction of philosophical research that forms the basis of worldview orientations was clarified, and by resorting to praxeology, it was possible to reveal the potential opportunities of education in the ecological thinking of the future self. The features of the socio-anthropological awareness of the need for the concept of sustainable development are considered and the philosophy of ecology is in the process of environmentalization of public consciousness. For a better understanding of the need for environmental awareness in society, an important role was played by international concepts and regulatory legal acts, which are the basis of the research and writing of the article itself. They became one of the reasons for the rethinking of the self-based on the ecological tasks in the society of sustainable development. In this context, special attention is paid to education, a social institution, one of the main tasks of which is the formation of the future self by instilling value orientations and the awareness that a person is a part of nature, which at the same time is his home. However, any changes cannot occur without a change in the consciousness of the Self, and in this case, the leading role is given to the philosophy of ecology as a part of philosophical knowledge whose task is to form an ecological worldview.

Rick Bass’s nature stories are the stories of people adventuring in the wilderness. It is different from the traditional nature works mainly focusing on nature or animals to show the de-anthropocentric thoughts straightforward. In Bass’s nature works, ill people exist in most of his stories. The narrative tactics of ill people and their diseases play an important role in expressing Rick Bass’s ecological thoughts. In some stories, the description of ill people is long and complicated, but the narrative of animals is short; and in some other stories, the narrative of ill people is simple, but the narrative of animals is long and detailed. With such imbalanced narrative, Rick Bass shows the imbalanced situation between human beings and non-human beings in his stories to reflect and respond to the imbalanced situation between human beings and non-human beings in reality directly, and convey his ecological philosophy: On one side, in the short and simple narrative of ill people, he let readers understand the helpless situation of non-humans at the moment by empathy, which conveys his de-anthropocentric thoughts; and on the other hand, in the long and complicated description of ill people, he has revealed the therapy function of illness narrative, and the way to improve the relationship between human beings.

Wide conception of «zero» eco-buildings and of «zero» ecocities with ecological infrastructure is based on three principles: «zero» interference in the nature, «zero» consumption of consumable resources from state networks, «zero» emission of pollution. «Zero» interference in the nature is the «zero» built-up area of buildings; it includes the minimal interference to natural circulation of matter, to migrations of animals; it signifies the sensory likeness to nature (use of sensory ecology – visual, odor and sound ecology); gardening of buildings, etc. «Zero» consumption of consumable resources includes: energy economy; renewable electric and thermal energy generation; natural ventilation and air-conditioning without energy consumption; decrease of expenses for internal illumination; reduction of water consumption, etc. «Zero» emission of pollution includes «zero» life cycle of buildings, recycling of waste products, use of ecological and recycled materials, the «zero» water drain, etc. The basis of «zero» eco-buildings and ecocities creation is architectural-building ecology with ecological infrastructure (it is complex of natural resources, constructions and systems, providing support of environment of human life at all levels - from the whole country up to cities and to separate buildings). Environment of life and environments of «zero» buildings and cities must be subject to all-embracing ecologization. All-embracing ecologization is system of upbringing of ecological thinking for respective activity and for use of ecological decisions based on ecological postulates, ecological philosophy and ethics, principles of sustainable building, adoption into account ethnical and geographical traits, social-psychological and social-economical features of inhabitants in city. This ecologization is the hierarchical system (from global up to local).

Margaret Atwood's 2003 speculative novel, Oryx and Crake, incorporates into a futuristic tale disparate elements taken from current ecological concerns. Her clever intermingling of utopian science with its dystopian effects makes this novel a particularly rewarding text through which to engage with current ecological philosophies, particularly those developed by Val Plumwood and other thinkers interested in how ecological thinking can suggest an ethic of respect for the Other. This paper analyses how Atwood constantly shifts our perceptions between that which appears utopian and that which seems dystopian in the novel's setting. This allows for an examination of the fragile nature of an ecological ethic of care in the kind of post-modern world Atwood envisages. Furthermore, by calling into question the utopian dreams of the scientist Crake in the novel, Atwood engages with two significant areas in the ecocritical debate – instrumentalism and the opposition of ‘human culture’ with ‘nature’. This paper, therefore, argues that Oryx and Crake challenges us to re-evaluate our understanding of how, and if, it is possible to create an ecologically ethical society without becoming instrumentalist or destroying that which makes us human.

The eco-environmental problems have become a hot topic of global concern today. Many scholars seek intellectual resources from traditional cultures to solve these problems. This article tries to extract the rich ecological thoughts from the text of Laozi. According to Laozi, Tao is ‘the mother of all beneath Heaven’, that is, the whole universe, including man and nature, evolve from Tao. This indicates the primary harmony of man and nature. However, man mistakenly regards himself as the lord of nature, and uses his force and methods of science and technology to enslave nature, causing the current ecological crisis. The way to resolve the crisis is pointed out in the following statement: ‘Man should imitate Earth, Earth should imitate Heaven, Heaven should imitate Tao, and Tao is being what it is’. Laozi advocates man to imitate nature, leading a life of ‘having no self’, ‘wu wei’ or ‘desiring no-desire’. This is the Tao-centred way of living, which brings about a transformation in human existence.Contribution: This article argues that the current ecological crisis is caused by mankind’s mistaken belief that they are the masters of nature. The philosophical ideas of Laozi provide a way to resolve the crisis, advocating that humans should imitate nature and adopt a Tao-centred way of living. This way of living brings about a transformation in human existence. The article provides a philosophical perspective on how to solve contemporary environmental problems.

Nikolai Alekseevich Umov (1846-1915), a professor at Moscow (1893-1911) and New Russian (Odessa) (1875-1893) universities, Russia's first theoretical physicist and a mathematical philosopher, according to N. E. Zhukovskii's definition, developed a genuinely ecological philosophy, which is usually included in the philosophy of Russian cosmism. He made the first global forecast1 that took into account the finiteness of resources on earth, population growth, and food reserves.

Functional language is ubiquitous in ecology, mainly in the researches about biodiversity and ecosystem function. However, it has not been adequately investigated by ecologists or philosophers of ecology. In the contemporary philosophy of ecology we can recognize a kind of implicit consensus about this issue: while the etiological approaches cannot offer a good concept of function in ecology, Cummins’ systemic approach can. Here we propose to go beyond this implicit consensus, because we think these approaches are not adequate for ecology. We argue that a sound epistemological framework to function in ecology is to be found in organizational approaches. In this line, we define function in ecology as a precise effect of a given constraint on the ecosystem flow of matter and energy performed by a given item of biodiversity, within a closure of constraints. We elaborate on this definition by developing a case study of a bromeliad ecosystem.