We Live in Two Worlds

The Birth of EcoPhilosophy

We Live in Two Worlds

We stand now where two roads diverge. 

Painting and Text by Dr Abe V Rotor

We Live in Two Worlds in acrylic (12"x30") by the author 2025

  

Details: A flock of black birds in a spoiled world; 

a flock of white birds in a pristine world

In Rachel Carson's Silent Spring* the birds did not come.  The sky is clear and there is no sign of migrating birds.  It is eerie and mysterious when silence is deepening, not a stir of wildlife around.  And it's spring time.  Poison from farm chemicals to pollutants of our so-called Good Life are killing them and endangering their species. 

In Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and EcoSpasm the inevitable future is here.  We are living in a postmodern world.  "We live tomorrow today," so to speak. We are living in the future disguised in the name of progress.  Affluence strips down natural resources to the point of irreversible consequences like desertification and global warming.

Didn't Henry David Thoreau in Walden Pond set our understanding of society and nature on the level of philosophy? Only then can we appreciate our role as protector  of humanity and environment in the true spirit of being good citizens and guardians of creation. Only then can one find the true meaning of life.

David Attenborough's Life on Earth brought the natural world into the living rooms and classrooms in TV programs, documentaries, books and journals, opening global consciousness towards the danger of environmental degradation, climate change, pollution and species extinction, above the level of entertainment, Attenborough's lifetime dedication.

Wangari Maathai, an African woman and Nobel Prize Awardee initiated worldwide planting of trees, she alone planted a million, rousing consciousness on the perils of losing our forests and woodlands.  She founded The Green Belt to restore nature's  green landscape, and provide alternative sources of food and energy, other than restoring the health of our planet..

EO Wilson's concept of socio-biology and biodiversity  is that all plants, animals, and microorganisms on earth are interconnected on all levels of life - the gene, species, and ecosystem. The food we eat, water we drink, and medicine we take are dependent on this concept, which our world often takes for granted or indifferently. 

Aldo Leopold, considered godfather of wilderness conservation and modern ecologists, author of A Sand County Almanac, which appeals for the preservation of wilderness. He wrote, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Small is Beautiful by EF Schumacher, warns of too ambitious goals that may lead to the fatal dinosaur syndrome of big businesses and luxurious living. His philosophy focuses on small, simple and sustainable economics - "economics as if people mattered" versus contemporary unsustainable economic systems controlled by a few.

Philippine national hero Jose Rizal in exile at Dapitan put up a clinic, school, farm, botanical garden, ecological sanctuary in his personal initiative and meager resources, building a model community in an otherwise deprived place, thus linking the urban and rural concepts of development, and proving that "heroism is for, of, and with the people." 

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* “We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost‘s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” - Rachel Carson, Silent Spring