David Orton (deep ecology)
Encyclopedia
David Keith Orton was a Canadian
writer, thinker and environmental activist who played a leading role in developing "left biocentrism" within the philosophy of deep ecology
. Orton and his collaborators added the word "left
" to biocentrism
to indicate their anti-industrial, anti-capitalist orientation and their concern for social justice
. Their 10-point Left Biocentrism Primer, published in 1998, accepts the idea that the natural world belongs to all living things, but it also calls for the ethical principles of deep ecology to be applied to sensitive political issues such as working for a reduction in the human population
, achieving justice for aboriginal peoples
, struggling for workers' rights and redistributing wealth. Orton, however, frequently asserted that the rights of nature had to come first. "Social justice is only possible in a context of ecological justice," he wrote. "We have to move from a shallow, human-centered ecology to a deeper all-species centered ecology." Elsewhere he added: "There is no justice for people on a dead planet."
In his extensive writings for a variety of magazines, journals, websites and his own "Green Web", Orton warned about what he saw as the disastrous effects of basing a society's economy on mass consumption
, profit and the exploitation of people and other living beings. "An industrial
capitalist
society, that does not recognize ecological limits but only perpetual economic expansion
and has the profit motive as driver, will eventually consume and destroy itself," he wrote in an online commentary. "But we will all be taken down with it." Orton argued that industrialism, not capitalism, was at the root of ecological destruction. "Industrialism can have a capitalist or a socialist face," he said.
Left biocentrism affirms what one writer calls "a 'collective spirituality' based on the ultimate value of the Earth and its life-forms." Orton himself said that left biocentrism views all living things and the Earth itself as sharing a community. "With such a community," he wrote, "there is a sense of Earth spirituality, as in past animistic
indigenous societies, where it acted as a restraint upon human exploitation of nature." Thinkers who influenced Orton and his left-biocentric colleagues included Arne Næss
, Richard Sylvan
, Rudolph Bahro, and John Livingston.
David Orton practised the voluntary simplicity
that is a central tenet of left biocentrism. For 27 years, he lived with his wife and frequent co-author Helga Hoffmann-Orton in a small, 100-year-old farmhouse in Pictou County
, Nova Scotia
. They grew much of their own food and watched as their 130-acre property gradually reverted to forest habitat for a variety of plants, animals and birds. Orton died of pancreatic cancer
in 2011 at age 77. At his own request, he was given a "deep green" burial in the forest near his home.
, England
. He was one of four boys growing up in a working class family. In an online autobiography he published six weeks before his death, Orton wrote of his early interest in nature. "In Portsmouth, near where I lived, we had the mudflats of Langston Harbour and not too far away was Farlington Marshes, with its many ducks and geese. Opposite our house was Baffin’s Pond – a large pond with willow trees, swans, ducks, geese, carp and eels."
After failing the exams which "streamed" students to academic or technical programs, Orton ended up at a technical school he disliked because it prepared students for industrial work. Its only redeeming feature for him was its field club which undertook expeditions into the English countryside.
In 1949 at age 15, Orton began a five-year apprenticeship
as a shipwright at the Portsmouth Dockyard
. His training included building 14-foot sailing dinghies, working on a variety of naval vessels and a stint in the drawing office. Although he graduated 10th out of 44 shipwright apprentices and worked for an additional year in the dockyard, Orton writes that he never felt competent in the trade. In the meantime, he studied evenings at the Portsmouth College of Technology, searching, in his words, for a "'way out' of the industrial life."
To his apparent surprise, Orton passed "Ordinary Level English" in 1954--"most unusual for someone with my educational background at that time." He attributes this unexpected success to his reading of authors such as D. H. Lawrence
and his interest in poetry. The qualifications he had earned at the Portsmouth College of Technology gained him admission to the then, Newcastle-on-Tyne
campus of Durham University
in 1955-56 where he studied for a Bachelor of Science
degree in naval architecture
. However, he found scientific study uninteresting and failed in all subjects in the examinations of June 1956. He did manage to pass chemistry
on a second try in September, but once again, failed mathematics
and physics
. His studies at Durham were over.
. The army considered him qualified to instruct other conscripts based on his education. But after 269 days, the army decided he did not have the skills to succeed as an instructor. Orton writes that he failed because he lacked the necessary education, but also disliked army discipline and the way military lessons were conducted. The commanding officer's letter of reference, however, paints a picture of a serious and responsible young man:
Orton was told after his release from the educational corps, he would be recalled to complete his two years of military service. "As I did not want this, I knew it meant leaving the country," he writes.
arriving in Montreal
in November 1957. His skills as a shipwright qualified him for permanent residency in Canada as a landed immigrant. (He became a Canadian citizen on January 7, 1963.) Orton worked as a railway clerk and brewery tank cleaner until he enrolled, in 1959, as a Bachelor of Arts
student at Montreal's Sir George Williams University, now known as Concordia
. In the meantime, he met and began living with Gunilla Larsson, a woman who worked at the Swedish consulate in Montreal.
Orton received his B.A. degree in 1963 along with a congratulatory letter from the university's vice-principal. It said that although Orton had not won the medal awarded to the highest-ranking B.A. student, "you came very close to it, and your achievement is so fine that I felt that I ought to write to you and congratulate you upon the fine work that you have done here as a student, and to tell you how proud we are of you."
to attend the New School for Social Research, now known as The New School
. He studied in the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science earning his Master of Arts
degree in 1965 and winning a prize as "outstanding student in sociology
". He then passed the qualifying examination for Ph.D
studies and, in 1966, passed the Ph.D oral exam, but did not submit the required thesis. In the meantime, he taught at the then, New York City Community College
and served as a teaching assistant to sociology professor, Carl Mayer.
Gunilla Larsson joined Orton in New York and they were eventually married. Their son Karl (named after Karl Marx) was born in New York. A daughter, named Johanna, was born later in Montreal.
and left-wing politics in general. Off campus, he worked in the offices of Science & Society
, which describes itself as "the longest continuously published journal of Marxist
scholarship, in any language, in the world." On campus, Orton joined other students in demanding that their professors give them more of a say in the content of the courses they were being taught. "It was an uphill battle," Orton writes.
After graduate school, Orton returned to Montreal where he taught as a lecturer in sociology at Sir George Williams from 1967-1969. At first, the university seemed eager to hire a "local boy" who had done well academically. But Orton's brand of socialism and his immersion in the hippie
culture of New York's Greenwich Village
did not endear him to his colleagues in the sociology department. "I had a beard," he writes "and hippy beads around my neck, with the casual clothes to match."
Differences in outlook soon led to a series of clashes. Orton advocated blending socialist theory and practice, but those he termed "academic Marxists," wanted him to stop trying to organize and learn German so that he could read Marx in his original language. Orton's proposed reading lists for his classes and his tentative ideas for allowing students to influence course content led to a full meeting of the department where he was rebuked for not sharing "the consensus of the discipline of sociology." His involvement with the "Movement for Socialist Liberation" displeased university officials especially when the group actively opposed the on-campus recruitment of students by war-related industries.
After the death of the revolutionary communist Che Guevara
in 1967, Orton wrote an article for the student newspaper that he says, landed him in considerable trouble:
In 1969, the university did not renew his teaching contract partly because Orton had not completed his PhD thesis, but also, he writes, because of general hostility toward him from other faculty members. For example, English professor David Sheps wrote an article for the magazine Canadian Dimension
that attacked Orton's scholarly credentials:
Orton writes that the article "helped to create the material conditions such that I would never again obtain a full-time teaching position in Canada."
student group that declared itself a political party in 1970 under the banner of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
. Both Orton and his wife Gunilla served on the party's central committee and Orton himself became vice-chairman. He ran as a Marxist-Leninist political candidate in Montreal in two federal elections.
Orton's party organizing work in Montreal, Regina and Toronto led to clashes with the law. After he helped organize a protest against a visiting American military band in Regina, Orton was arrested, but charges against him were eventually dropped. In 1972, however, he chose to spend 40 days in a Toronto jail rather than pay a $400 fine after participating in a demonstration against a meeting of a white supremacist
group called the Western Guard
.
Although he didn't know it at the time, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
sought evidence so they could charge Orton with sedition
over incidents that occurred in November 1969 during a seminar at the Regina campus of the University of Saskatchewan
. The 1978 book, An Unauthorized History of the RCMP by Lorne and Caroline Brown, reports that during a panel discussion on "Revolt vs. the Status Quo", Orton stated the Marxist-Leninist position that armed revolution was the only way to change the political system. The book adds that during a later session, Orton denounced Harry Magdoff
,a visiting American Marxist as a liberal reformist and attempted unsuccessfully to take over the microphone. Fifteen months later after the invocation of Canada's War Measures Act
, the Mounties tried to gather evidence against Orton, but the university authorities refused to release a tape recording of the panel discussion or co-operate in any other way.
Orton and Gunilla resigned from the Marxist-Leninists in 1975 because they felt the party organization was undemocratic.
After a couple of years working as a shipwright carpenter on the Montreal waterfront, Orton moved with his family in 1977 to the Queen Charlotte Islands
or Haida Gwaii, "Islands of the People," off the northern coast of British Columbia
. The move proved to be a turning point in the evolution of Orton's ideas. A job with a fish-packing outfit brought him into contact with the fishing community. He also became interested in the Haida people's environmental ideas as they pursued their land claims. "I decided to refocus my organizing work on environmental issues and not social justice politics," Orton writes in his autobiography.
Orton made contact with the B.C. Federation of Naturalists and eventually wrote a 30-page report for them on a controversial issue—a proposal that would eventually lead to protected, national park reserve status for part of South Moresby Island
. The report, entitled "The Case against the Southern Moresby Wilderness Proposal," pointed to a number of contradictions in the naturalists' position. In a book outline written in 2005, Orton suggests that during his time in B.C. he started to understand the inherent conservatism of naturalists' organizations and "the limiting assumptions of mainstream environmentalism." He also realized that the logging industry promoted the management of forests primarily for the production of timber and he saw the fallacies of "multiple use" or "integrated resource management." Orton felt these approaches devalued wilderness as a set of resources to be exploited for the benefit of human beings. He later called it "resourcism" or "the world view that the non-human world exists as raw material for the human purpose."
Orton writes that he and Gunilla Larsson decided to separate shortly after arriving in the Queen Charlotte Islands. "It was a difficult, although friendly, parting," he adds. "(She eventually took our children, Karl and Johanna, back to Sweden.)" Orton decided to move in with Helga Hoffmann, a woman he knew from his days as a Marxist-Leninist. Hoffmann, whom he would later marry, lived in Victoria, B.C.
In the fall of 1977, Orton moved to Victoria to live with Helga. While there, he joined the local naturalists club and worked on a number of environmental issues including the defence of the Tsitika Watershed on northern Vancouver Island
. Orton went to meetings where he clashed with loggers and logging company representatives in his attempts to defend the watershed's ecological integrity. He also wrote a long article about the issue for the B.C. Federation of Naturalists newsletter. "I had come to really oppose the land tenure system, exploited by the logging companies in British Columbia, who used their forest land 'crown leases' to demand millions of dollars in compensation when a park or protected area was proposed," he writes. Orton also sent letters to local newspapers on wildlife and forestry issues and he became a regional vice-president of the Federation. "I found the naturalists generally quite conservative on environmental issues," he writes. "They liked observing nature, but did not want to fight in its defence."
In September 1979, Orton, then 45, moved with Helga Hoffmann-Orton to Nova Scotia
. By the mid-1980s, they were living with their one-year-old daughter, Karen, on a 130-acre farm in Pictou County. By then, Orton had also become acquainted with the philosophy of deep ecology
and had begun formulating ideas that would eventually lead him to "left biocentrism" which he defines as "an evolving theoretical tendency within the deep ecology movement." In 1988, he established his website, the Green Web. "By researching and publishing bulletins through the Green Web," he notes, "I eventually began writing from a left biocentric perspective." He also took part in an Internet discussion group called "left bio." The group adopted the deep ecology recognition of the inherent value of all living things but supplemented it with a left biocentric concern for social justice. During his years in Nova Scotia, Orton took part in many environmental campaigns against what he saw as destructive practices including forest clearcutting
and spraying; the killing of seals; the widespread use of all-terrain vehicles; the operation of industrial wind turbines and uranium mining.
Orton's experiences waging environmental campaigns in Nova Scotia may also have led him to adopt the central principles of deep ecology. The province's economy is heavily dependent on the extraction of natural resource
s, and it relies heavily on industrial forestry.
In his article, My Path to Left Biocentrism: Part II-Actual Issues, Orton writes about living 30 kilometres from a big pulp mill
and smelling its hydrogen sulphide emissions when the wind blew in his direction. He could also hear the noises from big forestry machines clearcutting huge areas, many of which were sprayed with biocide
s:
Orton writes that it is these concrete examples of forest and wildlife destruction that form the basis for "mobilizing activists to fight pulp mill forestry and to fight biological and chemical herbicide
spraying programs." He adds that the term "pulp mill forestry" encompasses pulp mills themselves as well as industrial practices such as forest spraying and clearcutting. "The issues are interdependent and need to be fought together."
itself. For Orton, other positions, such as Eco-Feminism
and Eco-Marxism
, put human concerns ahead of the needs of the natural world. "Ecology must be primary," he wrote, and if it is, one can be involved in peace/anti-war and social justice issues. Left biocentrism says that you must be involved in social justice issues as an environmental activist, but ecology is primary."
In 1998, after lengthy discussion among "left bio" adherents, Orton compiled the Left Biocentrism Primer, a 10-point guide outlining the basic tenets of their "left focus" within the deep ecology movement. Among other things, the primer says "left biocentrism believes that deep ecology must be applied to actual environmental issues and struggles, no matter how socially sensitive." It mentions the need for reducing the human population and considering "aboriginal issues" and "workers' struggles" in the context of a philosophy that puts the needs of the natural world ahead of human-centred concerns.
Although Orton saw the eight-point deep ecology platform as the basis for unity, he criticized the movement's ambiguity when it came to taking positions against economic development. He noted, for example, that Arne Næss
, one of the movement's founders, had promoted the concept of sustainable development
while arguing against the economic philosophy of zero growth
.
Orton criticized mainstream environmental organizations such as the Canadian Environmental Network
for accepting government money and working with industrial interests. He saw the network as inhibiting "the emergence of a grass-roots controlled and funded, more radical environmental movement in Canada." He also criticized green parties
for adopting "shallow" ecological positions in their pursuit of electoral success.
In calling for a radical reduction in the impact of industrialism on the natural world, Orton wrote that life can only be protected by mobilizing the species that is destroying it. "Paying attention to social justice and questions of class, corporate power, and entrenched self-interest, is a necessary part of that human mobilization, and the movement to a deep ecology world," he wrote. "The new social order, which will respect the rights of all species and their specific habitats, will be based on spirituality and morality, not the economy."
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
writer, thinker and environmental activist who played a leading role in developing "left biocentrism" within the philosophy of deep ecology
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
. Orton and his collaborators added the word "left
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
" to biocentrism
Biocentrism (ethics)
Biocentrism , in a political and ecological sense, is an ethical point of view which extends inherent value to non-human species, ecosystems, and processes in nature - regardless of their sentience...
to indicate their anti-industrial, anti-capitalist orientation and their concern for social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
. Their 10-point Left Biocentrism Primer, published in 1998, accepts the idea that the natural world belongs to all living things, but it also calls for the ethical principles of deep ecology to be applied to sensitive political issues such as working for a reduction in the human population
Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
, achieving justice for aboriginal peoples
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
, struggling for workers' rights and redistributing wealth. Orton, however, frequently asserted that the rights of nature had to come first. "Social justice is only possible in a context of ecological justice," he wrote. "We have to move from a shallow, human-centered ecology to a deeper all-species centered ecology." Elsewhere he added: "There is no justice for people on a dead planet."
In his extensive writings for a variety of magazines, journals, websites and his own "Green Web", Orton warned about what he saw as the disastrous effects of basing a society's economy on mass consumption
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
, profit and the exploitation of people and other living beings. "An industrial
Industrial society
In sociology, industrial society refers to a society driven by the use of technology to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the west in the period of time following the Industrial Revolution, and replaced...
capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
society, that does not recognize ecological limits but only perpetual economic expansion
Economic growth
In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...
and has the profit motive as driver, will eventually consume and destroy itself," he wrote in an online commentary. "But we will all be taken down with it." Orton argued that industrialism, not capitalism, was at the root of ecological destruction. "Industrialism can have a capitalist or a socialist face," he said.
Left biocentrism affirms what one writer calls "a 'collective spirituality' based on the ultimate value of the Earth and its life-forms." Orton himself said that left biocentrism views all living things and the Earth itself as sharing a community. "With such a community," he wrote, "there is a sense of Earth spirituality, as in past animistic
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
indigenous societies, where it acted as a restraint upon human exploitation of nature." Thinkers who influenced Orton and his left-biocentric colleagues included Arne Næss
Arne Næss
Arne Dekke Eide Næss was a Norwegian philosopher, the founder of deep ecology. He was the youngest person to be appointed full professor at the University of Oslo....
, Richard Sylvan
Richard Sylvan
Richard Sylvan was a philosopher, logician, and environmentalist.- Biography :Sylvan was born Francis Richard Routley in Levin, New Zealand, and his early work is cited with this surname...
, Rudolph Bahro, and John Livingston.
David Orton practised the voluntary simplicity
Simple living
Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want...
that is a central tenet of left biocentrism. For 27 years, he lived with his wife and frequent co-author Helga Hoffmann-Orton in a small, 100-year-old farmhouse in Pictou County
Pictou County, Nova Scotia
Pictou County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. It was established in 1835, and was formerly a part of Halifax County from 1759 to 1835. It had a population of 46,513 people in 2006, which represents a decline of 6.3 percent from 1991. It is the sixth most populous county in Nova...
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
. They grew much of their own food and watched as their 130-acre property gradually reverted to forest habitat for a variety of plants, animals and birds. Orton died of pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...
in 2011 at age 77. At his own request, he was given a "deep green" burial in the forest near his home.
Early life and education
David Orton was born in 1934 in the industrial city of PortsmouthPortsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He was one of four boys growing up in a working class family. In an online autobiography he published six weeks before his death, Orton wrote of his early interest in nature. "In Portsmouth, near where I lived, we had the mudflats of Langston Harbour and not too far away was Farlington Marshes, with its many ducks and geese. Opposite our house was Baffin’s Pond – a large pond with willow trees, swans, ducks, geese, carp and eels."
After failing the exams which "streamed" students to academic or technical programs, Orton ended up at a technical school he disliked because it prepared students for industrial work. Its only redeeming feature for him was its field club which undertook expeditions into the English countryside.
In 1949 at age 15, Orton began a five-year apprenticeship
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
as a shipwright at the Portsmouth Dockyard
HMNB Portsmouth
Her Majesty's Naval Base Portsmouth is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the British Royal Navy...
. His training included building 14-foot sailing dinghies, working on a variety of naval vessels and a stint in the drawing office. Although he graduated 10th out of 44 shipwright apprentices and worked for an additional year in the dockyard, Orton writes that he never felt competent in the trade. In the meantime, he studied evenings at the Portsmouth College of Technology, searching, in his words, for a "'way out' of the industrial life."
To his apparent surprise, Orton passed "Ordinary Level English" in 1954--"most unusual for someone with my educational background at that time." He attributes this unexpected success to his reading of authors such as D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
and his interest in poetry. The qualifications he had earned at the Portsmouth College of Technology gained him admission to the then, Newcastle-on-Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
campus of Durham University
Durham University
The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...
in 1955-56 where he studied for a Bachelor of Science
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
degree in naval architecture
Naval architecture
Naval architecture is an engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction, maintenance and operation of marine vessels and structures. Naval architecture involves basic and applied research, design, development, design evaluation and calculations during all stages of the life of a...
. However, he found scientific study uninteresting and failed in all subjects in the examinations of June 1956. He did manage to pass chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
on a second try in September, but once again, failed mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
. His studies at Durham were over.
Military service
During the 1950s, young men who were medically fit were required to serve for two years in the British military. However, those who qualified could earn extra pay and choose their assignments if they signed up for an extra year. Orton writes that he "stupidly" signed on for a three-year stint with the Royal Army Educational CorpsRoyal Army Educational Corps
The Royal Army Educational Corps was a corps of the British Army tasked with educating and instructing personnel in a diverse range of skills...
. The army considered him qualified to instruct other conscripts based on his education. But after 269 days, the army decided he did not have the skills to succeed as an instructor. Orton writes that he failed because he lacked the necessary education, but also disliked army discipline and the way military lessons were conducted. The commanding officer's letter of reference, however, paints a picture of a serious and responsible young man:
He is intelligent and has a sound academic background. Although quiet and reserved he has sound principles and convictions. His appearance is neat and his manner good. He can be trusted to apply himself well at all times.
Orton was told after his release from the educational corps, he would be recalled to complete his two years of military service. "As I did not want this, I knew it meant leaving the country," he writes.
Emigration to Canada
At age 23, David Orton sailed for CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
arriving in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
in November 1957. His skills as a shipwright qualified him for permanent residency in Canada as a landed immigrant. (He became a Canadian citizen on January 7, 1963.) Orton worked as a railway clerk and brewery tank cleaner until he enrolled, in 1959, as a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
student at Montreal's Sir George Williams University, now known as Concordia
Concordia University
Concordia University is a comprehensive Canadian public university located in Montreal, Quebec, one of the two universities in the city where English is the primary language of instruction...
. In the meantime, he met and began living with Gunilla Larsson, a woman who worked at the Swedish consulate in Montreal.
Orton received his B.A. degree in 1963 along with a congratulatory letter from the university's vice-principal. It said that although Orton had not won the medal awarded to the highest-ranking B.A. student, "you came very close to it, and your achievement is so fine that I felt that I ought to write to you and congratulate you upon the fine work that you have done here as a student, and to tell you how proud we are of you."
Graduate studies
In the fall of 1963, Orton, age 29, moved to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to attend the New School for Social Research, now known as The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
. He studied in the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science earning his Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degree in 1965 and winning a prize as "outstanding student in sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
". He then passed the qualifying examination for Ph.D
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
studies and, in 1966, passed the Ph.D oral exam, but did not submit the required thesis. In the meantime, he taught at the then, New York City Community College
New York City College of Technology
New York City College of Technology , nicknamed City Tech, is the largest four-year public college of technology in the northeastern United States, and a constituent college of the City University of New York...
and served as a teaching assistant to sociology professor, Carl Mayer.
Gunilla Larsson joined Orton in New York and they were eventually married. Their son Karl (named after Karl Marx) was born in New York. A daughter, named Johanna, was born later in Montreal.
Politics and teaching
During his studies in New York, David Orton became engaged in the political struggles that would continue for the rest of his life. He writes that he was influenced by the movement against the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and left-wing politics in general. Off campus, he worked in the offices of Science & Society
Science & Society
Science & Society is the oldest continuously-published journal of Marxist scholarship still extant.It publishes peer-reviewed essays in economics, philosophy of science, historiography, women's studies, literature, the arts, and other social science disciplines...
, which describes itself as "the longest continuously published journal of Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
scholarship, in any language, in the world." On campus, Orton joined other students in demanding that their professors give them more of a say in the content of the courses they were being taught. "It was an uphill battle," Orton writes.
After graduate school, Orton returned to Montreal where he taught as a lecturer in sociology at Sir George Williams from 1967-1969. At first, the university seemed eager to hire a "local boy" who had done well academically. But Orton's brand of socialism and his immersion in the hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
culture of New York's Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
did not endear him to his colleagues in the sociology department. "I had a beard," he writes "and hippy beads around my neck, with the casual clothes to match."
Differences in outlook soon led to a series of clashes. Orton advocated blending socialist theory and practice, but those he termed "academic Marxists," wanted him to stop trying to organize and learn German so that he could read Marx in his original language. Orton's proposed reading lists for his classes and his tentative ideas for allowing students to influence course content led to a full meeting of the department where he was rebuked for not sharing "the consensus of the discipline of sociology." His involvement with the "Movement for Socialist Liberation" displeased university officials especially when the group actively opposed the on-campus recruitment of students by war-related industries.
After the death of the revolutionary communist Che Guevara
Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
in 1967, Orton wrote an article for the student newspaper that he says, landed him in considerable trouble:
“Che Guevara was no coffee-house revolutionary. He could not be classified as an academic Marxist. Many of these gentlemen—who may be spotted on university campuses in America and Canada, well salaried, well fed and well clothed—make absolute distinctions between revolutionary theory and revolutionary action...Che had an interest in revolutionary theory but he also believed in praxis. His message was brutally simple, yet profound: The revolution will be made by those who act, not by those who endlessly talk and contribute to left-wing journals, regarding strategy, tactics, objective versus subjective conditions, etc, etc."
In 1969, the university did not renew his teaching contract partly because Orton had not completed his PhD thesis, but also, he writes, because of general hostility toward him from other faculty members. For example, English professor David Sheps wrote an article for the magazine Canadian Dimension
Canadian Dimension
Canadian Dimension is a Canadian leftist magazine founded in 1963 by Cy Gonick, and published out of Winnipeg, Manitoba 6 times a year, with a circulation of 3,000 copies....
that attacked Orton's scholarly credentials:
"He is a self-proclaimed Marxist Leninist who, as far as anyone can tell, has read practically no MarxKarl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
or LeninVladimir LeninVladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
. Since he also refuses on principle to read ‘bourgeois sociology’ (which he seems to interpret broadly enough to include most left-wing sociologists), many have wondered if he has read anything at all. The Sociology department had chosen not to renew his contract, a decision every left-wing faculty member regarded as eminently sensible."
Orton writes that the article "helped to create the material conditions such that I would never again obtain a full-time teaching position in Canada."
Communist organizing
Sometime during his academic career at Sir George Williams, David Orton became active in the Internationalists, originally a MaoistMaoism
Maoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
student group that declared itself a political party in 1970 under the banner of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
The Communist Party of Canada is a Canadian federal Marxist–Leninist political party.The party is registered with Elections Canada as the Marxist–Leninist Party of Canada...
. Both Orton and his wife Gunilla served on the party's central committee and Orton himself became vice-chairman. He ran as a Marxist-Leninist political candidate in Montreal in two federal elections.
Orton's party organizing work in Montreal, Regina and Toronto led to clashes with the law. After he helped organize a protest against a visiting American military band in Regina, Orton was arrested, but charges against him were eventually dropped. In 1972, however, he chose to spend 40 days in a Toronto jail rather than pay a $400 fine after participating in a demonstration against a meeting of a white supremacist
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
group called the Western Guard
Western Guard Party
The Western Guard Party was a white supremacist group based in Toronto, Canada. It evolved out of the far-right anti-Communist Edmund Burke Society that had been founded in 1967 by Don Andrews, Paul Fromm, Leigh Smith and Al Overfield.Andrews became the dominant figure in the EBS, and relaunched...
.
Although he didn't know it at the time, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
sought evidence so they could charge Orton with sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
over incidents that occurred in November 1969 during a seminar at the Regina campus of the University of Saskatchewan
University of Saskatchewan
The University of Saskatchewan is a Canadian public research university, founded in 1907, and located on the east side of the South Saskatchewan River in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. An "Act to establish and incorporate a University for the Province of Saskatchewan" was passed by the...
. The 1978 book, An Unauthorized History of the RCMP by Lorne and Caroline Brown, reports that during a panel discussion on "Revolt vs. the Status Quo", Orton stated the Marxist-Leninist position that armed revolution was the only way to change the political system. The book adds that during a later session, Orton denounced Harry Magdoff
Harry Magdoff
Henry Samuel Magdoff , was a prominent American socialist commentator. He held several administrative positions in government during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt and later became co-editor of the Marxist publication, Monthly Review.-Early years:A child of poor Russian-Jewish immigrants,...
,a visiting American Marxist as a liberal reformist and attempted unsuccessfully to take over the microphone. Fifteen months later after the invocation of Canada's War Measures Act
War Measures Act
The War Measures Act was a Canadian statute that allowed the government to assume sweeping emergency powers in the event of "war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended"...
, the Mounties tried to gather evidence against Orton, but the university authorities refused to release a tape recording of the panel discussion or co-operate in any other way.
Orton and Gunilla resigned from the Marxist-Leninists in 1975 because they felt the party organization was undemocratic.
Refocus on environment
Queen Charlotte Islands
Haida Gwaii , formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Haida Gwaii consists of two main islands: Graham Island in the north, and Moresby Island in the south, along with approximately 150 smaller islands with a total landmass of...
or Haida Gwaii, "Islands of the People," off the northern coast of British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. The move proved to be a turning point in the evolution of Orton's ideas. A job with a fish-packing outfit brought him into contact with the fishing community. He also became interested in the Haida people's environmental ideas as they pursued their land claims. "I decided to refocus my organizing work on environmental issues and not social justice politics," Orton writes in his autobiography.
Orton made contact with the B.C. Federation of Naturalists and eventually wrote a 30-page report for them on a controversial issue—a proposal that would eventually lead to protected, national park reserve status for part of South Moresby Island
Moresby Island
Moresby Island is a large island that forms part of the Haida Gwaii archipelago in British Columbia, Canada, located at . Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site includes Moresby and other islands...
. The report, entitled "The Case against the Southern Moresby Wilderness Proposal," pointed to a number of contradictions in the naturalists' position. In a book outline written in 2005, Orton suggests that during his time in B.C. he started to understand the inherent conservatism of naturalists' organizations and "the limiting assumptions of mainstream environmentalism." He also realized that the logging industry promoted the management of forests primarily for the production of timber and he saw the fallacies of "multiple use" or "integrated resource management." Orton felt these approaches devalued wilderness as a set of resources to be exploited for the benefit of human beings. He later called it "resourcism" or "the world view that the non-human world exists as raw material for the human purpose."
Orton writes that he and Gunilla Larsson decided to separate shortly after arriving in the Queen Charlotte Islands. "It was a difficult, although friendly, parting," he adds. "(She eventually took our children, Karl and Johanna, back to Sweden.)" Orton decided to move in with Helga Hoffmann, a woman he knew from his days as a Marxist-Leninist. Hoffmann, whom he would later marry, lived in Victoria, B.C.
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
Helga brought a two-person kayak up to the Charlottes and we took it into the Southern Moresby Wilderness Proposal area. We mainly lived off edible plants and the fish we caught from the kayak. It was a pretty unplanned trip, with no life jackets or signalling gear, just a compass and a map. This forced us to confront and adjust to some extreme weather, plus the natural rhythms of the oceans. I believe this trip was important in developing my environmental consciousness.
In the fall of 1977, Orton moved to Victoria to live with Helga. While there, he joined the local naturalists club and worked on a number of environmental issues including the defence of the Tsitika Watershed on northern Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
. Orton went to meetings where he clashed with loggers and logging company representatives in his attempts to defend the watershed's ecological integrity. He also wrote a long article about the issue for the B.C. Federation of Naturalists newsletter. "I had come to really oppose the land tenure system, exploited by the logging companies in British Columbia, who used their forest land 'crown leases' to demand millions of dollars in compensation when a park or protected area was proposed," he writes. Orton also sent letters to local newspapers on wildlife and forestry issues and he became a regional vice-president of the Federation. "I found the naturalists generally quite conservative on environmental issues," he writes. "They liked observing nature, but did not want to fight in its defence."
Path to left biocentrism
We believe the world-wide industrial capitalist system is destroying the Earth. This system, with its human-centered view of nature as a "resource" and its roots in endless economic growth and consumerism, has us all on a death path. |
| – From The Green Web–An Introduction by David Orton. |
In September 1979, Orton, then 45, moved with Helga Hoffmann-Orton to Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
. By the mid-1980s, they were living with their one-year-old daughter, Karen, on a 130-acre farm in Pictou County. By then, Orton had also become acquainted with the philosophy of deep ecology
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a contemporary ecological philosophy that recognizes an inherent worth of all living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The philosophy emphasizes the interdependence of organisms within ecosystems and that of ecosystems with each other within the...
and had begun formulating ideas that would eventually lead him to "left biocentrism" which he defines as "an evolving theoretical tendency within the deep ecology movement." In 1988, he established his website, the Green Web. "By researching and publishing bulletins through the Green Web," he notes, "I eventually began writing from a left biocentric perspective." He also took part in an Internet discussion group called "left bio." The group adopted the deep ecology recognition of the inherent value of all living things but supplemented it with a left biocentric concern for social justice. During his years in Nova Scotia, Orton took part in many environmental campaigns against what he saw as destructive practices including forest clearcutting
Clearcutting
Clearcutting, or clearfelling, is a controversial forestry/logging practice in which most or all trees in an area are uniformly cut down. Clearcutting, along with shelterwood and seed tree harvests, is used by foresters to create certain types of forest ecosystems and to promote select species that...
and spraying; the killing of seals; the widespread use of all-terrain vehicles; the operation of industrial wind turbines and uranium mining.
Deep ecology
Judging by his writings, Orton seems to have been attracted to deep ecology partly because of its anti-industrial, anti-capitalist orientation and its belief that industrialism is to blame for the ecological crisis threatening the Earth. For Orton, the realization that major environmental problems cannot be resolved within an industrial system, distinguishes deep ecology from "shallow ecology."The soul of deep ecology is the belief that there has to be a fundamental change in consciousness for humans, in how they relate to the natural world. This requires a change from a human-centered to an ecocentric perspective, meaning humans as a species have no superior status in Nature. All other species have a right to exist, irrespective of their usefulness to the human species or human societies. Humans cannot presume dominance over all non-human species, and see Nature as a "resource" for human and corporate utilization.
Orton's experiences waging environmental campaigns in Nova Scotia may also have led him to adopt the central principles of deep ecology. The province's economy is heavily dependent on the extraction of natural resource
Natural resource
Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....
s, and it relies heavily on industrial forestry.
In his article, My Path to Left Biocentrism: Part II-Actual Issues, Orton writes about living 30 kilometres from a big pulp mill
Pulp mill
A pulp mill is a manufacturing facility that converts wood chips or other plant fibre source into a thick fibre board which can be shipped to a paper mill for further processing. Pulp can be manufactured using mechanical, semi-chemical or fully chemical methods...
and smelling its hydrogen sulphide emissions when the wind blew in his direction. He could also hear the noises from big forestry machines clearcutting huge areas, many of which were sprayed with biocide
Biocide
A biocide is a chemical substance or microorganism which can deter, render harmless, or exert a controlling effect on any harmful organism by chemical or biological means. Biocides are commonly used in medicine, agriculture, forestry, and industry...
s:
These clearcuts have also meant extensive wildlife habitat destruction, blowdowns in adjacent woodlots, increased human recreational access, and a significant lowering of water levels in the river, the West River, which runs through the valley. Very large areas around here have absolutely no forest canopy remaining. This environmental vandalism, a direct consequence of the softwood, pulp mill forestry orientation in Nova Scotia, has intensified throughout the province. This is the on-ground reality, no matter the increasing use of "eco-rhetoric" by the companies and their government regulatory partners, e.g. proposed "model forests" or "integrated resource management" of crown lands; no matter the increasing awareness of deep ecology by some environmentalists; or the forestry critiques which have come from a number of people, including myself.
Orton writes that it is these concrete examples of forest and wildlife destruction that form the basis for "mobilizing activists to fight pulp mill forestry and to fight biological and chemical herbicide
Herbicide
Herbicides, also commonly known as weedkillers, are pesticides used to kill unwanted plants. Selective herbicides kill specific targets while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often synthetic "imitations" of plant...
spraying programs." He adds that the term "pulp mill forestry" encompasses pulp mills themselves as well as industrial practices such as forest spraying and clearcutting. "The issues are interdependent and need to be fought together."
Left biocentrism
David Orton argued that mainstream deep ecology seems to believe in what he called the "educational fallacy," namely, that ideas are enough to effect fundamental change in the human relationship to the natural world. For him, this approach fails to come to terms with the issues of class and power in industrial, capitalist society. He notes that, at first, he used the term "socialist biocentrism" to signal the importance of fighting for social justice as part of the struggle against the destruction of Nature. However, he abandoned the label partly because he felt it excluded non-socialists and partly because it glossed over what he saw as the anti-ecological characteristics of socialismSocialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
itself. For Orton, other positions, such as Eco-Feminism
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a social and political movement which points to the existence of considerable common ground between environmentalism and feminism, with some currents linking deep ecology and feminism...
and Eco-Marxism
Eco-socialism
Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
, put human concerns ahead of the needs of the natural world. "Ecology must be primary," he wrote, and if it is, one can be involved in peace/anti-war and social justice issues. Left biocentrism says that you must be involved in social justice issues as an environmental activist, but ecology is primary."
The new social order, which will respect the rights of all species and their specific habitats, will be based on spirituality and morality, not the economy. |
| – From My Path to Left Biocentrism by David Orton. |
In 1998, after lengthy discussion among "left bio" adherents, Orton compiled the Left Biocentrism Primer, a 10-point guide outlining the basic tenets of their "left focus" within the deep ecology movement. Among other things, the primer says "left biocentrism believes that deep ecology must be applied to actual environmental issues and struggles, no matter how socially sensitive." It mentions the need for reducing the human population and considering "aboriginal issues" and "workers' struggles" in the context of a philosophy that puts the needs of the natural world ahead of human-centred concerns.
Although Orton saw the eight-point deep ecology platform as the basis for unity, he criticized the movement's ambiguity when it came to taking positions against economic development. He noted, for example, that Arne Næss
Arne Næss
Arne Dekke Eide Næss was a Norwegian philosopher, the founder of deep ecology. He was the youngest person to be appointed full professor at the University of Oslo....
, one of the movement's founders, had promoted the concept of sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...
while arguing against the economic philosophy of zero growth
Zero growth
Zero growth is a theory that all economic activities and policies should be oriented towards achieving a state of equilibrium, a steady state economy....
.
Orton criticized mainstream environmental organizations such as the Canadian Environmental Network
Canadian Environmental Network
The Canadian Environmental Network is an umbrella organization for environmental non-governmental organizations located across Canada. This non-profit organization was mainly funded by Environment Canada and helped to facilitate networking and communication between environmental organizations,...
for accepting government money and working with industrial interests. He saw the network as inhibiting "the emergence of a grass-roots controlled and funded, more radical environmental movement in Canada." He also criticized green parties
Green Party of Canada
The Green Party of Canada is a Canadian federal political party founded in 1983 with 10,000–12,000 registered members as of October 2008. The Greens advance a broad multi-issue political platform that reflects its core values of ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy and...
for adopting "shallow" ecological positions in their pursuit of electoral success.
In calling for a radical reduction in the impact of industrialism on the natural world, Orton wrote that life can only be protected by mobilizing the species that is destroying it. "Paying attention to social justice and questions of class, corporate power, and entrenched self-interest, is a necessary part of that human mobilization, and the movement to a deep ecology world," he wrote. "The new social order, which will respect the rights of all species and their specific habitats, will be based on spirituality and morality, not the economy."
External links
- Green Web. David and Helga Hoffmann-Orton's website.