Being Ecological: It’s All How You Look At It

being ecologicalTimothy Morton’s new book Being Ecological (MIT Press) distinguishes itself from other environmental books by focusing on the philosophy of what it means to be an ecological person and why we should care about the stewardship of life on the planet on a personal level.

Whether discussing the connection between humans and animals or how we can take ways of looking at the world pioneered by philosophers like Kant and Heidegger and apply those concepts to our current environmental and climate crises.

Morton teaches readers that they can be ecological in their own way, and that once a person figures out a personal framework for thinking about environmental problems, they will be able to help move toward solutions more quickly.

“Caught up in the us-versus-them (or you-versus-everything else) urgency of ecological crisis, it’s easy to forget that you are a symbiotic being entangled with other symbiotic beings,” writes Morton. “Isn’t that being ecological?”