Ökologisch sein

Despite all the panic, we live in the comfortable illusion that global warming and mass extinction are still ahead of us. Therefore, we collect data and produce facts as if we could save the world with them. We believe we can only take action when we know enough. We long for the bird's-eye view that gives us the feeling of being above it all. Yet, to behave ecologically, we do not need to learn more about ecology. We are ecological by breathing, cultivating fields, eating animals and plants, and swimming in lakes. Only when our thinking abandons the bird's-eye perspective, in which we ourselves are the blind spot, will we understand that we are inextricably intertwined with our non-human environment. We may not know how the biosphere works, but we can attune ourselves to it. As individuals, we will be insignificant in a thousand years. What we have done will not be. The problem with ecological awareness is not that it is terribly difficult. It is so simple. You breathe air, your bacterial microbiome hums along, evolution unfolds silently in the background. You have finished reading this book and look around. You do not need to become ecological. Because you are ecological. Morton is the prophetic philosopher of our time. His ideas may sound bizarre, but they are the appropriate response to the shocking insight we must confront in the 21st century: that we have entered a new geological phase of our planet.