Coherence
Navigating the site:
ecological integrity
Ecological
integrity
So what is it?
An ecological imagination apprehends and understands the integrity of forms, functions and participants inhabiting an area or coexisting in any place, in order to protect the natural systems on which life and human society together depend.
- forms–meaning landscape features (forests, ridges, creeks, marshes), topography, sun angle, hydrology & geography,
- functions–such as food webs: producers, consumers and decomposers, and
- participants–bacteria, plants, fungus, animals, communities etc.
- being whole & undivided in its form and functionally unimpaired.
Developing an ecological imagination means we learn to see reality coherently in what can be described as a place's ecological integrity because the structure and function of the assembled living organisms are understood as working together to form a functional unit.
The effective functioning of the whole nourishes each member according to an elaborate system of interdependent services or feeding relations among all of the participants.
Ecological integrity is understood as a series of interdependent ways of thinking and describing the consistent qualities in the world we observe.
Thus, an imaginative faculty is used for conceptualizing the functionally necessary interplay of physical elements and biological processes that are co-dependent factors contributing to the nourishing conditions of existence.
Recognizing the unwritten agreement among living, dying, & dead.
In this way material reality is viewed
as:
1, a process
3, where mind is connected with nature
4, in a coevolving coexistence
5, that has symbiotic advantages.
6, Where cybernetic processes are both positive, "+" & negative ,"-" and both types of responsiveness are necessary!
7, Existing in multiple levels or multiple scales of organization from: molecular to regional scales!
8, In multidimensional (at least five) ways Space-time & Mass-energy are exchanged in an emergent patterns of coexistence.
9, Where the assimilative capacity is composed of the timing, distribution, quantity, & quality of re-shared and reused resources.
10, And that survival of the fortunate prevails since chance or risk plays a critical role in reproduction, fitness, and survival.
Scientifically speaking, ecological
integrity rests on empirical
observation, optimality theory and the inherent
reciprocity of relationships on earth between inorganic
and organic features of the ecosystem.
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This Pontederia marsh, a fresh water form of vegetation is an example, below the surface is also a collection of chemical nutrients captured by the plant's organs and made available in the form of sugar and carbohydrates to animals that feed on these flowers, or take refuge among the plant's dense stalks. |
A diagram
of the above tidal marsh and the elements that it traps would reveal both
the sensory form and the underlying molecular or atomic structure as a
functionally interdependent web of relations between the small and large
scale.
Laws of ecology | Ten rules of ecology and their relation to humans
| Building from the molecular to the organism levels of integration every place on Earth represents an ecologically dynamic fabric comprised of geological, biological and chemical strands in a resilient web. Chemical elements that make up compounds are the natural accounting system we use to determine the degree of ecological functionality possessed by all places in differing degrees. |
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Glacier National Park, valley on the Idaho and Montana boundary:
An Idaho mountain valley's geographical and vegetational relationships are based, in part, on complex links among water, wildlife, fisheries and human recreation.
Complex relations that contribute to ecological integrity: functional and structural necessity of water, sunlight, temperature, climate, chemical nutrient cycles, moderate acidity and alkalinity (or pH), and the geographical access of living creatures to and from adjacent ecosystems. Each link in the chain of being ties each and every creature to the functional necessity of water, energy, air and landscape. This chain of being is no stronger than its weakest links.
Explanation
| Science | Image
| Ten facets of
| integrity | endocrine
disruption | mutagenicity
Nature is a problem for humans because we, in our ignorance, avarice, and insecurity, believe we can have something for nothing; cheat the system and get away with biocide.
The integrity of ecosystems depends on:quantity
quality
timing
distributionof water, nutrients, trace elements and minerals.
Rubric’s cube of integrated facets:
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W |
E
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A
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L
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water |
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energy |
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air |
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land |
Explanation | Science | Image | Ten facets of | integrity | endocrine
disruption | mutagenicity
Animals are indicators of ecological conditions
Canaries in
the coal mine analogy.
Bats, moths, mites,
mosquitoes -- a simple systemic relationship, pollinators
Birds, 11% face extinction 70% in decline, tied to insects who are pollinators
of food crops
Women’s breast cancer
Carson, “Obligation
to Endure”
Murray Bookchin & Rachel Carson 1962
warned of
chemical & radioactive wastes contaminating our very bodies, genes and fatty tissues.
People born in 1950s & 1960s have:
strontium - in our bones
DDT - in our fat tissues
dioxin - in our tissues
Explanation | Science | Image | Ten facets of | integrity | endocrine disruption | mutagenicity
Sandra Steingraber, Living Downstream:
An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment (1997)
Enzymes | endocrine disruption | mutagenicity
Nuclear tracers can help us understand nature, or they can kill us have
we the wisdom to choose between the two alternatives?
EDSTAC Endocrine Disrupting Screening and Testing Advisory
Committee, 1998 report (summer: 1998),
public response is essential.
Explanation | Science | Image | Ten facets of | integrity | endocrine
disruption | mutagenicity
Environmental factors in cancer
genetic factors in cancer
transcription (RNA from DNA)
duplication (DNA replicates)
in enzyme manufacture (shut down cell division, repair DNA sequences, triggers)
oncogenes -- cancer causing viruses, P-53 gene, src or “sark” gene when expressed
retroviruses (RNA takes over nuclear DNA)
Genes adapt us to a range of conditions to which we may readily respond.
Receptors in the body, cells & tissues alert glands & trigger responses in hormonal secretion.
Levels trigger
certain other related responses in glands, organs & metabolism.
Endocrine disrupters are estrogen, androgen and thyroxin mimics (femaleness, maleness, metabolism)
Environmental factors in cancer
“Epidemiological studies .... Comparison of the incidence of various cancers among Japanese citizens, American citizens and Japanese who have emigrated to the United States shows quite convincingly that most cancers are attributable to environmental factors.”
stomach, colon, pancreas, lung, leukemia
1: “most cancers are environmentally caused.”2: “most cancers are preventable”
Gordon
Edlin, Human Heredity, (Boston: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 1990),
p.188.
p. 189
Leukemia deaths among children in southern Utah was two to three times
higher than children not exposed to above ground fallout from nuclear
bomb tests.
endonuclease breaks the sugar phosphate backbone of DNA
exonuclease removes damage nitrogen bases (thymine dimers from UV exposure)
polymerase I repairs gaps in the DNA sequence from the opposite strand
DNA ligase rebuilds the sugar-phosphate bonds
“loss of any one of the repair enzymes can be lethal... repair of radiation damage is essential to the survival of cells.”
191
smoking * 20-25% of all deaths in the US attributed to smoking
flame retarding tris-BP
hair dyes (150/169)
burning, incineration
Occupational health risks carcinogen
LOCATION OF CANCER
Chemical workers Benzidine, bladder
Napthylamine, bladder
glue & varnish Benzene, leukemia (Bone marrow cancer)
PVC manufacture polyvinyl chloride, Liver
Chromate manufacture chrome ores, Bronchus*
“Recent experiments have shown that a chemical in cigarette smoke is converted in cells into a chemical that is able to activate certain oncogenes.”
(199)
“Somatic-cell mutations trigger the onset of most cancerous diseases. These mutations are caused by environmental agents and, because the affected cells are somatic, the defective genes can not be inherited, However, some rare heritable human disorders may predispose their victims to the development of cancer.”
(202)
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Explanation | Science | Image | Ten facets of | integrity | endocrine disruption | mutagenicity
