Recently in Environment Category

I don't see many eco-feminist topics much on this site, so maybe this will even make the front page. My idea is concerning a cultural link between patriarchy and an ecological concept called the keystone species. For those who aren't as involved in the ecology field (I'm a bio/e-science major and botanist by training) a keystone species is one in which if removed from an environment it would cause upheavals in the food web of the system and cause die off's of other species down the line, basically the ecosystem would fall apart. It's termed from the keystone in architecture of the center stone in an arch.

The problem is not only is the referred idea garbage, you remove any piece from an arch the whole thing will collapse, but the keystone species is questionable. For any given area let's say there are fifty species. If any one of them is removed the entire system will change and adjust, not necessarily in predictable ways. This is added to the fact that no set definition for keystone species exists. There's no percent threshold of environmental change that would occur if species x were no longer present, thereby defining species x as a keystone.

What might you ask does this have to do with feminism or patriarchy? The current patriarchy culture defines the male as the keystone to society. This group of people is more important than other groups, and if removed all the normality of society would fall apart and civilization could end. That poem by Kipling, what was its name?
So why is this a problem in ecology, placing added value in other beings is good.

Let's go back to the ecosystem with fifty species. Let's say keystone species do exist, and there are four in this area. Well if I configure my hotel to fit on the land in this way, only non-keystone species will be adversely affected. So the keystones stay in place, environmental harm be damned. Can't build a better shampoo from Otay Mesa Mint.
If my social program is configured so only non-keystone peoples and cultures are adversely affected, I mean what did the Apache ever invent that's important, then the harm it causes is irrelevant correct?

My definition of feminism in a broad sense is increasing the concept that all groups of people have inherit value and something to contribute.

My definition of environmentalism is one who views all of nature having inherit value contributing to the whole.

Seems to fit to me.

The Prada Pope sez: Insatiable consumption scarring planet

It would be far more beneficial for the Catholic Church to reverse its stance on birth control.

Looking around the world today, there is a lot that needs improvement, especially here in the States.  My dream comprises a liberal president and congress willing to swing the pendulum wildly in the other direction to set our country to rights again.

First of all, the experts say that we are headed for a depression.  I have seen more and more people with signs saying they will work for food, as well as more hitchhikers who looked like an updated version of the Depression-era hoboes.  These are ill omens.  In order to work, most of us have to drive.  I’m as sick of hearing about the rising gas prices as the next person, but as I spend $40 to fill my tank I am even more sick of the lack of alternatives.

Don’t despair, I have a solution.  We need a new New Deal.  People are unemployed and yearn for work, while much of our work is outsourced.  We spend billions a week on a fruitless and geopolitically damaging war most of us never wanted in the first place.  Meanwhile, prices continue to rise, and people continue to have little in the way of choices.  You know – you live here.