Deep Ecology

Time is emergent and infinite — it is the deep ecological time of evolutionary processes, geological change, and the slow rhythms of living systems. Time is continuous, linear, and uni-directional at the human scale, but ecological and geological timescales dwarf human temporality. The deep ecologist cultivates awareness of deep time to relativize the anthropocentric urgency of industrial civilization.

Space is emergent and finite — it is the interconnected web of ecosystems, bioregions, and habitats in which all life is embedded. Space is flat, local, and three-dimensional as experienced, but ecological relationships extend across the entire biosphere. No spatial location is ecologically isolated; the deep ecologist insists on thinking in terms of interconnected wholes.

Matter is emergent and finite — it circulates through biogeochemical cycles, never created or destroyed but continuously transformed through living and geological processes. Matter is conserved: atoms cycle through organisms, soil, water, and atmosphere in closed loops. It is local in the sense that material organisms are always situated in particular habitats, but ecological matter-cycles connect the local to the planetary.

Finite and emergent — energy arises from and circulates through ecological relationships rather than existing as an independent substance. Conservation: Conserved — energy cycles through ecosystems in biogeochemical loops; nothing is created or destroyed, only transformed. Dispersibility: Irreversible — entropy governs the direction of energy flow through trophic levels; usable energy diminishes as it moves through the web of life, grounding the ecological imperative to respect natural limits.

Information is distributed across the entire ecosystem — ecological information is relational and holistic. No species or individual holds information in isolation; it flows through the interconnected web of life. Information is relational because ecological relationships constitute it. It is conserved because ecosystems recycle and preserve information across generations. It is continuous because ecological processes are fluid and interconnected.