(This article was originally published in November 2000)

All organisms have built-in survival mechanism. In humans we often refer to it as the fight or flight reaction, among many other instincts and reflexes that we manifest from time to time. All species of organisms from animal to bacteria have developed elaborate and highly complex methods of saving themselves from death or physical harm.

Animals have the benefit of motility, which is a very successful means of avoiding danger, while plants are often resigned to sticking their ground and bearing the brunt of any threat to their well being. Many plants, therefore, respond to some perceived danger by diverting all of their resources to reproduction. Animals exhibit this reaction as well, but in a slightly different way. While a plant will begin to produce massive amounts of seeds in order to ensure the survival of its genetic code, animals will divert resources to protecting offspring and sometimes the female members of the species. On a human level, we have a phrase for it. We call it "Women and children first!"

This is not, as one might think, because males are nobler or more willing to die; and it is not because males are more capable of fighting. It is because at a basic level, women and children are the means by which we carry on out genetic lineage.

As previously mentioned, certain plant species will respond to threatening environmental stimuli by producing copious amounts of seeds—far more than in normal reproductive cycles. The reasoning seems to be that if the tree itself will not survive, at least it progeny may—its genetic line. Save the children! The children are not valued so much because of their potential in an ethical sense, but because they represent the survival of a species—the propagation of our genes.

To grossly paraphrase Richard Dawkins' famous book, The Selfish Gene, organisms may simply be vehicles for the propagation of genetic material (DNA and RNA.) That includes Homo sapiens. The survival of the individual is always second to the survival of the genetic code, and it will go to great and elaborate means in order to ensure its survival (I am giving genes anthropomorphic characteristics for the purpose of description.) This is an extremely reductionistic and mechanistic view of life that I am sure not even Richard Dawkins would wholly endorse. However, it is a valid theory that is becoming more and more popular, and deserves to be considered.

The basic point I am making here is that species have developed ingenious means in order to ensure their survival, or rather, their genetic survival. It is an inherent trait, hardwired into every living thing. Women and children first!

Now please follow me on a wild tangent that I cannot qualify nor quantify…

Nature also works as an organism to ensure its own survival. In this sense an ecosystem can be viewed as an organism itself, and the collection of ecosystems—the ecosphere—is seen in the same light. Ecosystems are made up of interdependent organisms and matter that function together in complex cycles in order to maintain some form of sustainable living or homeostasis. It occurs at a cellular level within organisms, at an organism level as an entity in an ecosystem, and at the ecosystem level between organisms, and finally at an ecospheric level between ecosystems. Mother Nature is itself a grand organism of which we are a part—everything is a part. And just as organisms fight for their personal genetic survival on an individual basis, so Mother Nature, the entire ecosphere, also fights for its survival. There is a grand homeostatic mechanism that regulates the entire planet, of which all things play a part. (i.e. The Butterfly Effect of Chaos Theory fame.)

Still following?

All I have done thus far is taken homeostasis and survival mechanisms from an organism level and extrapolated that up to an ecosphere level. It is Ecology 101 in a nutshell. I am implying that as an organism will react to its surroundings and exhibit survival mechanisms, so the entire world also exhibits such survival mechanisms in an attempt to maintain homeostasis—the balance of all things.

So in what ways would the ecosphere react if it were threatened? Well natural disasters are one way the earth might react to disturbances, man-made and otherwise. I am not suggesting that earthquakes are a response to air pollution or anything like that, but only that if balance is to be achieved; the pendulum must swing both ways. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction—it is basic physics.

Let's take this one metaphysical step further…some religious and spiritual systems and teachers, as well as philosophic systems and basic common sense, suggest that we are part of the universe. Not just that we are in the universe, but that are part of the universe—that we are part of the ebb and flow, that we interact with it. At a physical level we are made of matter, as all things are. We are made of the matter of the universe—matter that has existed for all time (since matter cannot be created nor destroyed.) So on a physical level, at least, we are part of universe in that we are made up of its 'stuff.'

On a spiritual level many would suggest we are also connected to the universe. Either we participate in a universal consciousness; we have access to the divine, or a personal relationship with God or Sapientia etc. Most people would agree at some point that we as humans are as connected to the universe as all things are. We are part of the system.

So, if we are part of the system and we interact with the universe and it interacts with us—if we are made up of its 'stuff'-can we ever so hesitantly suggest that the universe influences us? Now I do not have faith in horoscopes or tarot cards, runes or reading tea leaves, but I do think that the universe influences us and out actions to some extent. There is no such thing as a truly autonomous being that stands outside the grand system.

Now for the big leap (or rather, the last big leap in a series of big leaps), if the world/universe can fight for its own survival by homeostatic and survival mechanisms, and the world/universe influences us and we are part of it, then could it be possible that some of us are actually part of the universe's homeostatic mechanism?

I am referring to the rise of the environmental mindset or 'green' worldview. Of course there have always been people who felt connected to the earth and would now be called 'environmentally minded,' (especially people from aboriginal cultures who truly viewed themselves as part of the earth) but the green view as we know it has only really existed since the 1960's. My suggestion is that this growth of the environmental mindset in human consciousness is not just a paradigm shift brought about be viewing images of the earth from space, but is part of the universe's homeostatic survival mechanism—that it in fact is directing its own survival by influencing the development of a mindset that is concerned with natural processes and the viability of the planet.

This idea of course has vast implications for the free will debate that I do not really want to get into. I am not a hard determinist no matter what the reader might think at this point. These are just loose and poorly connected thoughts spawned by the observation of a Douglas maple (Acer glabrum) producing vast amounts of seeds due to an environmental disturbance nearby. If a tree can direct its own survival, then why not the universe of which it is a part? If I can do it, then why not Mother Nature herself?

The earth is being threatened by our actions within it—this is obvious. We are just now noticing the consequences of 200 years of industrialization, and the earth itself is reacting to ensure its survival by directing the formation of "seeds"—or environmentalists—to fight back and help maintain homeostasis.

Copyright © 2000 Darren C. Anderson. All Rights Reserved.

Darren C. Anderson is an environmental technician and amateur philosopher who never took Logic 101, which is why his arguments will never stand up to inspection. They are, he hopes, at least interesting to ponder. He is a founding member of *spark-online.com.