ecological imagination and integrity

An ecological imagination apprehends the complex interdependency of living creatures. That means one understands the integrity of forms, functions and inhabitants competing with and sustaining one another in an area or existing in any place.

forms-- meaning landscape features (forests, ridges, creeks, marshes), topography, sun angle, hydrology & geography,
functions-- such as food webs: producers, consumers and decomposers, and
participants-- bacteria, plants, fungus, animals, communities etc.

laws of ecology

Developing an ecological imagination means we learn to see reality coherently in what can be described as a place's ecological integrity because the structure and function of the assembled living organisms are understood as working together to form a functional unit.

The effective functioning of the whole nourishes each member according to an elaborate system of interdependent services or feeding relations among all of the participants.

Ecological integrity is understood as a series of interdependent ways of thinking about and describing the functioning of the world we observe. The means of seeing related support structures in natural conditions among ecosystem services, predator and prey populations and carrying capacity.

Thus an imaginative faculty is used for conceptualizing the physical and biological conditions of existence.

In this way material reality is viewed as:

1, a process

2, a participatory practice

3, where mind is connected with nature

4, in a coevolving coexistence

5, that has symbiotic advantages

6, cybernetic processes are both positive, "+" & negative ,"-" and both types of responsiveness are necessary!

7, multiple levels or multiple scales of organization are involved: molecular to regional scales!

8, multidimensional (at least five) Space-time & Mass-energy

9, assimilative capacity is composed of timing, distribution, quantity & quality

10, survival of the fortunate: Chance or risk plays a critical role in fitness and survival.

Scientifically speaking, ecological integrity rests on empirical observation, optimality theory and the inherent reciprocity of relationships on earth between inorganic and organic features of the ecosystem.

This Pontederia marsh, a fresh water form of vegetation is an example, below the surface is also a collection of chemical nutrients captured by the plant's organs and made available in the form of sugar and carbohydrates to animals that feed on these flowers, or take refuge among the plant's dense stalks.

A diagram of the above tidal marsh and the elements that it traps would reveal both the sensory form and the underlying molecular or atomic structure as a functionally interdependent web of relations between the small and large scale.

Laws of ecology | Ten rules of ecology and their relation to humans

Building from the molecular to the organism levels of integration every place on Earth represents an ecologically dynamic fabric comprised of geological, biological and chemical strands in a resilient web.

Chemical elements that make up compounds are the natural accounting system we use to determine the degree of ecological functionality possessed by all places in differing degrees.

Explanation | Science | Image | Ten facets of

Glacier National Park, valley on the Idaho and Montana boundary:

An Idaho mountain valley's geographical and vegetational relationships are based, in part, on complex links among water, wildlife, fisheries and human recreation.

Complex relations that contribute to ecological integrity: functional and structural necessity of water, sunlight, temperature, climate, chemical nutrient cycles, moderate acidity and alkalinity (or pH), and the geographical access of living creatures to and from adjacent ecosystems. Each link in the chain of being ties each and every creature to the functional necessity of water, energy, air and landscape. This chain of being is no stronger than its weakest links.

We are one entity with the inhabited world.

Integrity, strictly speaking may be defined as the state of being whole and undivided:

• the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction : the structural integrity of a foundation, archway or design.
• internal consistency or lack of corruption in transmission of essential nutrients that create a deficiency in performance.

That is, extremely well constructed to last for some time.

Etiology, or ORIGIN is from the late Middle English: from French intégrité or Latin integritas, from integer ‘intact’ - together. Compare with entirety, integral, one with, and integrate.

Biological processes to facilitate life must be "intact" and operating together to promote health milieus.

Integrity of material reality

Nature is a problem for humans because we, in our ignorance, avarice, and insecurity, believe we can have something for nothing, or cheat the system, and get away with biocide, because we are not one with the surrounding world.

The integrity of ecosystems depends on:

quantity
quality
timing
distribution

of water, nutrients, trace elements and minerals.

Rubric’s cube of integrated facets:

	W	E	A	L
water
energy
air
land

Animals are indicators of ecological conditions

Genetic factors in cancer | Environmental factors in cancer

Canaries in the coal mine analogy
- versus
A seeing eye dog analogy.

Bats, moths, mites, mosquitoes -- a simple systemic relationship, pollinators
Birds, 11% face extinction 70% in decline, tied to insects who are pollinators of food crops
Women’s breast cancer

Carson, “Obligation to Endure”
Murray Bookchin & Rachel Carson 1962
warned of

chemical & radioactive wastes contaminating our very bodies, genes and fatty tissues.

People born in 1950s & 1960s have:

strontium - in our bones
DDT - in our fat tissues
dioxin - in our tissues

Sandra Steingraber, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment (1997)

Enzymes | endocrine disruption | mutagenicity

Nuclear tracers can help us understand nature, or they can kill us have we the wisdom to choose between the two alternatives?

EDSTAC Endocrine Disrupting Screening and Testing Advisory Committee, 1998 report (summer: 1998), public response is essential.

Environmental factors in cancer

Genetic factors in cancer

transcription (RNA from DNA)
duplication (DNA replicates)
in enzyme manufacture (shut down cell division, repair DNA sequences, triggers)
oncogenes -- cancer causing viruses, P-53 gene, src or “sark” gene when expressed
retroviruses (RNA takes over nuclear DNA)
Genes adapt us to a range of conditions to which we may readily respond.

Receptors in the body, cells & tissues alert glands & trigger responses in hormonal secretion.

Levels trigger certain other related responses in glands, organs & metabolism.

Endocrine disrupters are estrogen, androgen and thyroxin mimics (femaleness, maleness, metabolism)

Environmental factors in cancer

“Epidemiological studies .... Comparison of the incidence of various cancers among Japanese citizens, American citizens and Japanese who have emigrated to the United States shows quite convincingly that most cancers are attributable to environmental factors.”

stomach, colon, pancreas, lung, leukemia

1: “most cancers are environmentally caused.”

2: “most cancers are preventable”

Gordon Edlin, Human Heredity, (Boston: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 1990), p.188.
p. 189

Leukemia deaths among children in southern Utah was two to three times higher than children not exposed to above ground fallout from nuclear bomb tests.

Enzymes are critical:

endonuclease breaks the sugar phosphate backbone of DNA
exonuclease removes damage nitrogen bases (thymine dimers from UV exposure)
polymerase I repairs gaps in the DNA sequence from the opposite strand
DNA ligase rebuilds the sugar-phosphate bonds
“loss of any one of the repair enzymes can be lethal... repair of radiation damage is essential to the survival of cells.”

191

Sources of mutagenic agents:

smoking * 20-25% of all deaths in the US attributed to smoking
flame retarding tris-BP
hair dyes (150/169)
burning, incineration
Occupational health risks carcinogen

LOCATION OF CANCER

Chemical workers Benzidine bladder
Napthylamine bladder
glue & varnish Benzene leukemia (Bone marrow cancer)
PVC manufacture polyvinyl chloride Liver
Chromate manufacture chrome ores Bronchus*

“Recent experiments have shown that a chemical in cigarette smoke is converted in cells into a chemical that is able to activate certain oncogenes.”

(199)

“Somatic-cell mutations trigger the onset of most cancerous diseases. These mutations are caused by environmental agents and, because the affected cells are somatic, the defective genes can not be inherited, However, some rare heritable human disorders may predispose their victims to the development of cancer.”

(202)