Carlos Vignolo | Professor of Industrial Engineering | University of Chile
The topic of environment protection, in general, and recycling, in particular, has been a reason for conflict with my wife since she ‘went eco-friendly’ (it hasn’t been the main topic for conflict, though, but it’s the one that helps me give it a more personal, colloquial and provocative dimension to this short article). It happens that I ‘went eco-friendly’ much earlier than her, 50 years ago, when I started as a university researcher, looking for a systemic interpretation for the phenomenon of integral development in countries and people.
For me, ecology ‘always started at home’, just like charity. This means, environment protection must start from the integral care of the most important environment we live in: the human community we belong to.
Ethymologically, ecology is “the science in charge of the study of living beings as inhabitants of an environment, the relations they keep between themselves, and the ones they keep with the environment they live in.”
That thing of “(…) study of living things as inhabitants of an environment, the relations they keep between themselves (…)” is frequently ignored, especially among the most radical ecologists. It comes from this that the main focus for ecology is concentrated on the care of the physical environment, and leaving the care and protection of human beings living together that physical environment, as well as the relations they establish between themselves, in the background – or making it completely disappear.
Without any doubt, a large part of humankind – the disaffected, the ignored, the vulnerable, the powerless; they urgently require higher care and protection from the rest of humans, those who have the power to do it.
Losing human and social dimesnions or ecology also means to stop worrying and seriously studying the core reasons why ‘mankind’ has reached this point that, if not mediated by deep and quick corrective actions, puts the entire planet into risk of collapse. In case we do it, if we sharpen our gaze on the latest causes of this environmental deterioration, we will find ourselves with the question of the type of ‘homo’ we are and, in particular, ‘powerful homos’, those who have lead the evolution of ‘mankind’ in the direction we have been following for so long.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens is the homo who knows, and knows that it knows, this means, it’s aware that it knows. The facts of evolution, for a very long time, have clearly rejected the thesis that we are that species. If we were Sapiens Sapiens, we could have not made the attrocities we’ve committed in the last centuries, in parallel with an accelerated development of science, technology, and the material component of development in human communities. If we were Sapiens Sapiens, we wouldn’t be destroying the planet we live in.
We clearly have a deficit in conscience. If we don’t make a substancial and quick increase in conscience levels among human beings, the care of the environment will not happen and humankind will dehumanise much more. The first and basic dimension of conscience we’re urgently required to expand is self conscience, being especially valid for those who lead ecological movements on the planet.