Deep Ecology Platform

YES!

We must "express solidarity with all life, not just human life"

I would agree with that...

“Think like a mountain!”

"Extend one’s sense of self-identity so that it comes to include the well-being of the Earth"

Nature is not seen as a “resource” for human use.

We should share the planet on a basis of equality with other life forms. Our everyday language is taken-for-granted human-centered. For example, trees, fish, etc. are “resources” for human use. Industrial forestry considers insects as “pests.” Trees are described as “decadent” and “overmature” when they are considered past their prime from a human-use perspective. Morality just concerns “humans” in a human-centered universe.

Left biocentrism

Left biocentrism functions as a de facto “left wing” of the Deep Ecology movement, upholding its subversive potential and opposing any “accommodation” to industrial capitalist society. (See on our web site, the ten-point Left Biocentrism Primer, the end result of a protracted collective discussion in 1998, among a number of those who support left biocentrism and Deep Ecology.)

All left bios support the eight-point Deep Ecology Platform drawn up by Arne Naess and George Sessions and see their work as endeavouring to strengthen the deep ecology movement. The “leftism” of left biocentrism is seen as a necessary concern with class issues and social justice, but this is subordinate to its biocentrism/ecocentrism

Left biocentrists oppose those who elevate social justice above the concerns of the Earth and all its many creatures. Animals and plants and the general ecosystem have to be treated on the same moral plane as humans. The labor theory of value implies that Nature has no value or worth, unless humans transform it through their labor. But for left bios, Nature has value in itself. Nature is the principal source of human wealth, not labor power. The positive ideas from the Left, which are still relevant, e.g. the concern for social justice, have to be part of the left biocentric synthesis of ideas.