Ecological Time

In environmental rhetoric, activists often refer to a natural system’s rareness or long history. This has both pragmatic and political origins. First, the rarity or temporal durability of a natural ecosystem indicates its importance to a constantly changing earth. If the ecosystem is rare, it would be hard to make up for its role if it were to be destroyed, making an overall, global ecological catastrophe more likely.

The idea of an ecological history, or ecological rarity has rhetorical impacts also. The first concerns the historical/personal notion that the earth is an infinite resource that will absorb any stress humans put on it. If ecological systems can be explained in terms of niches and specific places, the impact of any individual action looks less absorbable. It contextualizes the real impact of human actions in a personal way: rather than seeing the ecological question as one person versus an entire world, the frame makes the question more of one person versus much smaller systems.

These rhetorical tools also inspire a sense of ecological humility. The historical question literally transcends any human experience, and contextualizes human use of ecological resources within history, something much greater than any individual use. This has the effect of dethroning humanity as the master of the environment, and supporting the notion that a force greater than any person or group of people animates our world, as well as our reasons for existing.


Duncan