Positions

Abstract

   The paper considers the position of “inexhaustibility” as shared by many economists and businessmen. This view assumes that, in the long term, shortages in natural resources will be compensated by economic growth and the development of technology. The “shallow” environmentalism that is set against this position is concerned with the problems of global warming and pollution and defends the conservation of natural resources solely for utilitarian purposes. It also implies no severe reduction in standards of living and does not welcome radical social change. Of the four radical forms of environmentalism, the most influential outside of academic circles is deep ecology where the well-being and prosperity of human and non-human life on Earth has an independent value and can be achieved once the population is significantly reduced. The second trend, ecofeminism, blames the destruction of the environment on androcentric dualism. Man is associated with culture as immaterial, rational and abstract; woman is associated with nature as material, emotional, and individual. The third movement, social ecology and ecomarxism, share the key principles of the supporters of inexhaustibility, but radically disagree with their politics. They believe that changing the political structure of society will result in creating new forms of production that do not exist merely for the accumulation of wealth. The fourth direction is based on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger with its criticism of industrial modernity. This view combines poetic reverence for the existence of the Earth with a complete deconstruction of the program of world domination that has as its end the denial of death, a program which we are accustomed to calling “progress”.