This reminds me of WP3 and the economic aspect of the environmental sustainability issue. It is true that we must change the economic aspect, but I do question how we are able to do so, as we've seen with many of the issues that we researched that viable solutions often don't play out in favor of conservation due to the pursuit for profit.

Once again the author brings up the idea that we must challenge what we know and are comfortable with, because the truth that we need to acknowledge before trying to think on a ecological scale is often something that goes against what we want to believe because it uncovers facts that we hope to suppress through oblivion or denial. He makes a valid point that we must adopt the scientific attitude in allowing our theories to be tested against facts, and to accept negativity in order to work towards a solution.

The author suggests that in order to explore a larger scope of ecological thought, we must 1. expand our own knowledge through exposure to more works, 2. expand the scope of the work from those that are inherently about nature, to those that speak of Earth in a large scope, and 3. allow ourselves to feel disoriented with the knowledge we possess. This is interesting because it bring to attention the idea that we should explore the unknown and leave our comfort zones in challenging what we know as well as accepting what is discomforting, such as the impact humans have on nature (which is often ignored as a way to ignore the overall issue).

This makes me think of the Fisher Gallery set up that we saw earlier this week and how the artist was able to bring attention to an issue with both the materials that physically constructed his pieces, and the photographs and the issues he captured in the image. It makes me wonder the effectiveness of employing art and how to utilize it going forward to raise ecological awareness.

This sounds like a call to action in that we must begin to see how nature isn't whole and pure like we envision it but rather something that is crumbling to pieces under the influence of man. Similar to the idea of educating the public, bring awareness to the imperfections is what we need to do in order to look for solutions in the future.

I think this hits on a larger theme of our desires to stay oblivious about some of the negative impacts that we have on the environment. This is something that we commonly see in politics and in our daily lives, and I think it is primarily because of the idea that if we aren't aware of it, we don't have to deal with it. Staying in the dark or avoiding these conversations is not only something that dampens our ecological thought, but it is also something that encourages people to limit their scope of understanding, which leads to a larger issue of lack of education.

This extends the idea of ecological thought beyond the environmental aspect and touches on the idea that being able to think ecologically involves understanding the equal opportunities presented in a democratic world between all organisms and life on Earth. This creates a "universal ideal" of a world that is fully intertwined, which I do agree with to a certain aspect. While I do see how the democratic world is ideal when thinking of nature, the truth is that there are many other factors such as economic and social factors that drive ecological thought away from the sense of equality, and I think the main issue here is not how the thoughts are presented in the world now, but rather the way we should shift them to create a more sustainable picture of what we hope to see in the ecological future, which is something that the author doe touch on in his argument that it is a way of thinking about how humans are part of the world.

The author uses a very powerful image in depicting the man-made attempts to remedy the harm they have done to nature as a broken machine, and pushing it to restart.

The author paints the picture of Nature being a "thing" of the past that is no longer around, yet its presence is withholding us from pursuing ecological thought and industrialization. This makes me question whether or not the author addresses ecological thought as our awareness of the ecological harm we have caused, since only after the natural world is no longer existing, can we reach our full potential of ecological thought. Is it a fragment of the past and what nature once was?

The idea that the ecological thought is built into our being and our existence is an interesting point. It brings up the idea of ecological awareness in our daily lives and how the very essence of ecology is built into what we do and how we think, which creates a sense that we are all intertwined with the natural world and the impacts that we have on it.