Com canvien els marcs temporals cíclics i localitzats, com el «tots-els-temps» aborigen, els enfocaments moderns de la conservació ecològica intergeneracional en comparació amb els models de progrés occidentals lineals?

Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime everywhen cyclical temporality indigenous land management conservation ecology

### Australian Aboriginal Temporality and Relational Ecology #### Ontological Position and the "Everywhen" In Australian Aboriginal cosmologies, reality is structured not by linear chronology, but by an ongoing, multi-temporal continuum commonly rendered in English as the **Dreaming** (e.g., *Jukurrpa* in Warlpiri, *Altyerr* in Arrernte). Anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner famously characterized this ontology as the **"everywhen"** in his foundational 1956 essay *The Dreaming*: “One cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time: it was, and is, everywhen”. Ancestral creator beings did not simply initiate the cosmos in a distant past; their generative power and consciousness remain permanently immanent within topographical features, watercourses, and living species. Within this framework, **Country** is not passive property or natural resource, but a sentient, kin-centric entity requiring active communion. As environmental philosopher Deborah Bird Rose detailed in *Nourishing Terrains* (1996) and *Dingo Makes Us Human* (1992), Country is a living reciprocal partner: humans hold inherited obligations of **"Caring for Country,"** where singing, ceremonies, and seasonal stewardship sustain the life-world. #### Empirical Application: Cultural Burning This cyclical ontology directly dictates Indigenous land management, particularly cultural fire practice ("right-way fire"). Rather than treating landscapes as wilderness to be quarantined from human intervention, unmanaged land is perceived as becoming "wild" or "sick". Practitioners apply cool, patchy, low-intensity burns early in the dry season to regenerate flora, clear combustible fuel loads, and protect animal habitats. Modern scientific consensus robustly substantiates the efficacy of this practice. Landmark empirical research documenting the Western Arnhem Land Fire Abatement (WALFA) framework (Russell-Smith et al., 2009, 2015; Edwards et al., 2021) demonstrated that reinstating traditional mosaic burning regimes reduced destructive late-season wildfires, curbed greenhouse gas emissions, and boosted endemic biodiversity across millions of hectares. #### Internal Tensions and Epistemic Distinctions A central tension exists between Western state conservation paradigms and Indigenous governance. Western scientific forestry frequently attempts to extract traditional techniques (e.g., prescribed burning schedules) into technocratic carbon-offset or hazard-reduction mechanisms. Indigenous elders and scholars (such as Victor Steffensen, *Fire Country*, 2020) emphasize that cultural burning cannot be divorced from kinship law, seasonal reading, and sacred ceremonial obligation. While empirical ecology validates the *functional outcomes* of cultural burning, it operates within an external, non-metaphysical framework distinct from the holistic spiritual ontology of *Jukurrpa*.

• aboriginal-art-australia.com
• commonground.org.au
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• japingkaaboriginalart.com
• teak.fi
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• ecoevorxiv.org
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• pdx.edu
• connectsci.au
• plos.org

linear progress Western environmentalism vs indigenous temporalities intergenerational justice ecology peer reviewed

In environmental anthropology, political ecology, and Indigenous philosophy, debates surrounding ecological collapse and intergenerational justice reveal a fundamental clash of temporalities. Mainstream Western environmentalism largely operates within Enlightenment-derived models of **linear progress** and teleological urgency. Here, time is treated as a neutral, forward-moving vector characterized by discount rates, carbon budgets, and looming apocalyptic thresholds. Within this liberal framework, intergenerational justice is framed primarily as an abstract distributive transaction: calculating what present resource consumers owe to hypothetical, unborn future individuals. In contrast, critical anthropologists and Indigenous scholars demonstrate that Indigenous temporalities understand justice through **relationality** and **cyclical or spiraling time**. Potawatomi philosopher Kyle Powys Whyte (*Indigenous science (fiction) for the Anthropocene*, 2018) conceptualizes **"spiraling time"** as an ontological framework where communities experience themselves *"as participants within living narratives involving our ancestors and descendants... in which it makes sense to consider ourselves as living alongside future and past relatives simultaneously"*. Under this lens, the climate crisis is not an unprecedented future shock, but a continuation of ecological disruptions already inflicted by settler colonialism—making the present *"our ancestors' dystopia"*. Practitioners and communities "live" this temporality through reciprocal stewardship practices (such as cultural burning, seasonal migration, and river governance) that maintain ongoing pacts with human and more-than-human kin. Similarly, Māori scholar Christine J. Winter (*Subjects of Intergenerational Justice*, 2022) critiques Western intergenerational justice for its individualist and anthropocentric assumptions. Drawing on Indigenous ontologies (e.g., Māori *whakapapa*), Winter argues that intergenerational obligation is not an inter-temporal contract across linear distance, but an embedded web of kinship tying living people simultaneously to their ancestors, their descendants, and geographic features like rivers and lands. A central tension identified in political ecology is how the Western rhetoric of "climate emergency" frequently bypasses Indigenous sovereignty. By prioritizing fast-tracked, technocratic decarbonization over restorative justice, linear environmentalism risks enacting what Whyte terms **"relational tipping points"**—sacrificing Indigenous land rights and kinship networks in the rush toward a Western-defined green horizon.

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• ethics.org.au
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• cambridge.org
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• knowledgecircles.ca
• tandfonline.com

Christian eschatology linear time stewardship creation care intergenerational ecological ethics

In mainstream Catholic and Protestant theology, time is fundamentally historical, linear, and teleological—moving from creation through redemption toward the consummation of a “new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). Rather than anticipating the destruction of the material universe (a view often associated with popular dispensationalist escapism), historic orthodoxy and contemporary theological consensus frame eschatology as **cosmic redemption**. Drawing on Romans 8:19–22—where the non-human creation “groans in labor pains” awaiting liberation alongside humanity—the physical cosmos is understood not as a disposable backdrop, but as an object of divine restoration. This eschatological hope directly informs the Christian concept of **creation care** and stewardship. While historic interpretations of Genesis 1:28 sometimes legitimized exploitative dominion (*radah*), modern Catholic and Protestant exegetes re-anchor human vocation in Genesis 2:15, where humanity is commissioned to “till and keep” (*‘abad* and *šamar*, literally meaning to serve and preserve). Humans act not as sovereign proprietors, but as covenantal stewards (*oikonomoi*) managing a household that belongs solely to God (Psalm 24:1). Because linear time carries moral accountability across history, Christian stewardship translates into a binding intergenerational ecological ethic: * **Catholic Integral Ecology:** In his landmark encyclical *Laudato si’* (2015), Pope Francis formalized this inside Catholic Social Teaching, establishing that the ecological crisis and social inequality are inextricably linked. Francis argues that intergenerational equity is a structural imperative: *“Intergenerational solidarity is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we have received also belongs to those who will follow us”* (§159). * **Protestant Theology of Hope:** Reformed theologian Jürgen Moltmann (*God in Creation*, 1985; *Ethics of Hope*, 2012) similarly argues that authentic Christian hope is not otherworldly withdrawal, but anticipatory action in history. Because the triune God commits to an enduring future for earthly life, current generations bear an ethical obligation to defend the biosphere's regenerative capacities. **Internal Tensions:** A persistent fault line remains between this transformative theology and certain Protestant fundamentalist or dispensationalist groups who view global crises through an apocalyptic lens (citing 2 Peter 3:10), concluding that earthly stewardship is futile if the planet is doomed to burn. Nevertheless, authoritative global bodies—including the World Council of Churches, the Vatican, and the evangelical Lausanne Movement (*Cape Town Commitment*, 2010)—overwhelmingly reject escapism, maintaining that preserving a habitable planet for future generations is an indispensable requirement of Christian discipleship.

• jppssuniuyo.com
• archive.org
• substack.com
• laudatosimovement.org
• yale.edu
• vatican.va

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Buddhist cyclical time samsara interdependent origination ecological conservation intergenerational ethics

### Traditional Stance and Lived Practice In Buddhist cosmology, temporal existence is cyclical, spanning endless eons (*kalpas*) of cosmic expansion, stability, degeneration, and destruction. Because sentient beings cycle through repeated rebirths (*saṃsāra*), intergenerational ethics are radically personal: every being encountered across time has previously been one’s mother, child, or kin (*Mātā Sutta*, SN 15.4). Modern practitioners translate this into environmental activism through **Engaged Buddhism** (popularized by Thich Nhat Hanh and Joanna Macy). In Southeast Asia, Theravada "ecology monks" (*phra dong*) ordain ancient trees with sacred saffron robes to halt deforestation, grounding forest conservation in the monastic code (*Vinaya*). In Mahāyāna practice, ecological stewardship is framed as an extension of the **bodhisattva vow**—a commitment to defer final entry into *nirvāṇa* to liberate all suffering beings across endless cosmic time. --- ### Foundational Texts and Distinctive Concepts 1. **Interdependent Origination (*Paṭiccasamuppāda* / *Pratītyasamutpāda*):** The causal matrix of existence, classically stated: > *"When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases."* (*Bahudhātuka Sutta*, MN 115) Thich Nhat Hanh coined the term **“interbeing”** to communicate this mutual reliance in human terms: individual identity cannot exist in isolation from the biosphere. 2. **Eco-Cosmogenesis and Karma:** In the early canonical *Aggañña Sutta* (*Dīgha Nikāya* 27), the Buddha describes physical environments co-evolving with the moral state of beings. As primordial beings succumb to attachment and greed, their luminous bodies solidify, ecosystems degrade, and natural abundance collapses into scarcity, illustrating how environmental balance is structurally entangled with moral conduct. 3. **Indra’s Net (*Indrajāla*):** Prominent in the Mahāyāna *Avataṃsaka Sūtra*, reality is depicted as a vast cosmic web with a multi-faceted jewel at each node, every jewel reflecting all others. This serves as an archetype of total interconnectedness, where harm to any ecological component ripples across the whole. --- ### Hermeneutic and Scholarly Tensions Leading Buddhologists (notably Lambert Schmithausen and Ian Harris) caution against conflating modern ecological conservation directly with classical soteriology. Ancient canonical texts generally treat *saṃsāra* as inherently unsatisfactory (*dukkha*)—a realm to be transcended via liberation (*nibbāna*), rather than an ecosystem to be preserved indefinitely. While Theravada emphasizes personal restraint and non-harming (*ahiṃsā*), and Mahāyāna emphasizes the sacredness of the phenomenal realm through Buddha-nature (*tathāgatagarbha*), the systematic use of Buddhist metaphysics for environmental policy is primarily a normative, twentieth-century hermeneutic development rather than an ancient doctrinal mandate.

• oxfordreference.com
• dharmawheel.net
• medium.com
• ecoaxes.com
• buddhistdoor.net
• tci-thaijo.org
• yale.edu
• bhavanasociety.org
• scribd.com
• buddhistuniversity.net
• suttacentral.net
• veterinaria.org

Daoist natural cycles wu wei Confucian ancestral continuity intergenerational ecological governance

Classical East Asian philosophy offers an “anthropocosmic” framework—a concept highlighted by contemporary scholars Tu Weiming and Mary Evelyn Tucker—viewing humanity, society, and the cosmos as an interconnected, vitalistic continuum animated by *qi* (vital energy). Rather than treating the biosphere as an inert resource, both traditions frame governance around cyclical stewardship, albeit through distinct strategies. ### Confucianism: Ancestral Continuity and Stewardship Confucianism embeds ecological care within *xiao* (filial piety) and transgenerational responsibility. Honoring ancestors necessitates preserving the natural resources required to nourish both living elders and unborn descendants. Early Confucian statecraft grounded the moral legitimacy of rule (*wangdao*, the "Way of the True King") in synchronizing human activity with ecological replenishment. In the *Mengzi* (Mencius 1A:3), Mencius instructs King Hui of Liang: > *“If close nets are not allowed to enter the pools and ponds, the fishes and turtles will be more than can be consumed. If the axes and bills enter the hills and forests only at the proper time, the wood will be more than can be used.”* Song dynasty Neo-Confucians broadened this filial ethos into a cosmic fraternity; Zhang Zai’s foundational *Western Inscription* (*Ximing*) proclaims: *“Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother… All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions.”* ### Daoism: Natural Cycles and *Wu Wei* Daoism grounds governance in *ziran* (spontaneity, or "self-so-ness") and *wu wei* (effortless, non-coercive action). Daoist practitioners seek alignment with cosmic rhythms, de-centering anthropocentric control. In the *Daodejing* (ch. 25), Laozi articulates the cosmological hierarchy: > *“Humanity models itself on Earth, Earth on Heaven, Heaven on the Dao, and the Dao models itself on ziran.”* Governance is understood not as the technical subjugation of nature, but as non-interference with organic processes (*Daodejing* ch. 64: assisting the natural development of all things without presuming to force outcomes). ### Tensions and Scholarly Context The internal tension between the traditions centers on agency: Confucianism promotes proactive, ritualized social intervention and conservation mandates, whereas Daoism critiques bureaucratic planning as self-defeating hubris. Modern scholarly consensus—exemplified by Harvard’s *Religions of the World and Ecology* project—recognizes these traditions as foundational resources for biocentric and intergenerational ethics. However, environmental historians (such as Mark Elvin) caution against romanticizing classical texts, demonstrating that in historical practice, imperial state expansion often precipitated widespread deforestation and habitat loss despite these conservationist ideals.

• encyclopedia.com
• yale.edu
• wikisource.org
• reddit.com
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• researchgate.net
• medium.com
• yale.edu
• caixin.com

intergenerational environmental ethics discount rates linear time vs temporal relationalism philosophy

### Position and Internal Tensions Within analytic philosophy and philosophical naturalism, obligations to future generations center on social discounting and the temporal dimension of welfare. The normative framework relies on the **Ramsey formula** for the consumption discount rate ($r = \delta + \eta g$), which isolates the **pure rate of time preference** ($\delta$) from consumption growth ($g$) and the elasticity of the marginal utility of consumption ($\eta$). Naturalistic ethicists treat temporal coordinates as morally arbitrary: an agent’s welfare does not change in intrinsic moral significance merely because of their temporal location. This stance sparks two primary debates: 1. **Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism**: Prescriptive philosophers argue that intergenerational justice requires $\delta \approx 0$ (discounting only for exogenous existential risk). Conversely, descriptive economists (such as William Nordhaus) align discount rates with observed market interest rates ($\approx 3\text{--}6\%$), arguing that a zero pure discount rate imposes excessive savings burdens on the present generation. 2. **Linear Metric Time vs. Temporal Relationalism**: Standard analytic ethics operates on a substantival, linear metric (often allied with a four-dimensionalist/eternalist block universe), where all temporal points exist on an equal footing, requiring impartial aggregation. By contrast, proponents of **temporal relationalism** and agent-relative ethics argue that time should be understood as a web of causal interactions and overlapping generational ties. From this view, our obligations weaken not due to bare chronological distance, but because relational connection and reciprocity attenuate across generations. --- ### Key Figures and Texts * **Frank Ramsey** (*“A Mathematical Theory of Saving,”* 1928, p. 543): Established the baseline critique of temporal partiality, writing that discounting future utility is *“ethically indefensible and arises merely from the weakness of the imagination.”* * **Derek Parfit** (*Reasons and Persons*, 1984, Appendix F): Systematically dismantled the moral rationale for a positive social discount rate, arguing that *“remoteness in time has, in itself, no moral importance”* and demonstrating that exponential discounting inevitably reduces catastrophic distant harms to ethical insignificance. * **John Broome** (*Counting the Cost of Global Warming*, 1992; *Climate Matters*, 2012): Applied this critique to climate change policy, observing that pure intergenerational time preference is regarded by moral philosophers as *“a reprehensible practice.”* --- ### Epistemic Status A strong consensus exists among analytic moral philosophers that pure time preference ($\delta$) must be zero in intergenerational cost-benefit analysis. Relational justifications for positive time preference (such as Andreas Mogensen’s kinship discounting) and metaphysical reconciliations using non-linear temporal ontologies represent active, minority exploratory programs in contemporary population ethics.

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• organisationalprompts.ai
• warwick.ac.uk
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• aalto.fi
• miraheze.org
• philpeople.org
• colorado.edu
• globalprioritiesinstitute.org

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arrow of time thermodynamics ecological sustainability entropy linear vs non-equilibrium steady state models

### Mainstream Physics and Cosmology: Arrow of Time, Entropy, and Open Systems In mainstream physics, the **Second Law of Thermodynamics** establishes the **thermodynamic arrow of time**—the unidirectional forward flow of macroscopic time determined by the monotonic increase of entropy ($\Delta S \ge 0$) in isolated systems. Cosmologically, this arrow relies on the consensus **Past Hypothesis** (formalized by David Albert and rooted in Ludwig Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics): the universe began in an extraordinarily low-entropy macrostate, providing an ongoing free-energy gradient driving cosmic and terrestrial evolution. ``` Incoming low-entropy solar flux (visible light) ↓ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Earth / Biosphere as an Open Dissipative System │ │ • Internal entropy production: diS > 0 │ │ • Exports entropy to surroundings: deS < 0 │ │ • Maintains order: dS = diS + deS ≈ 0 (NESS) │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ↓ Outgoing high-entropy thermal radiation (infrared) ``` Living organisms and planetary ecosystems do not violate this arrow because they are **open systems**, exchanging both matter and energy with their surroundings. In *What Is Life?* (1944), Erwin Schrödinger resolved the apparent paradox of biological organization, stating that an organism delays its decay into thermodynamic equilibrium by drawing in low entropy from the environment: > *“Thus the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness... really consists in continually sucking in orderliness from its environment.”* Thermodynamicist Ilya Prigogine (*Self-Organization in Nonequilibrium Systems*, 1977) formalized this through non-equilibrium thermodynamics, demarcating two regimes: 1. **Linear irreversible regime (near-equilibrium):** Governed by Onsager reciprocal relations, systems conform to the *minimum entropy production principle*, relaxing stably toward steady states. 2. **Far-from-equilibrium regime (non-linear):** Systems driven across critical thermodynamic thresholds can self-organize into **dissipative structures**—ordered configurations (such as metabolic networks, convection currents, and biomes) stabilized entirely by continuous entropy export into the larger environment. In a **Non-Equilibrium Steady State (NESS)**, internal order is held constant ($dS = d_iS + d_eS = 0$) because internal entropy production ($d_iS > 0$) is balanced by net entropy outflow ($d_eS < 0$). ### Ecological Sustainability and Disciplinary Demarcations Applied to sustainability, mainstream physics conceptualizes the biosphere as an open heat engine powered by an influx of low-entropy solar photons and the rejection of degraded, high-entropy infrared radiation into the cosmic heat sink. Human enterprise accelerates terrestrial entropy generation by dispersing mineral reserves and burning fossil fuels, degrading accessible free-energy gradients. However, physics strictly demarcates established laws from speculative extensions: - **Consensus:** The Second Law applies strictly to total entropy across system and surroundings; local steady states can persist only so long as external energy gradients and environmental dissipation capacity endure. - **Speculative / Rejected:** Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s formulation in ecological economics (*The Entropy Law and the Economic Process*, 1971) positing a "Fourth Law of Thermodynamics" (that closed systems cannot completely recycle matter) is not recognized as a fundamental law by physicists, since matter can theoretically be recycled given sufficient energy input. Similarly, the **Maximum Entropy Production Principle (MEPP)**—which posits that non-equilibrium systems naturally evolve to maximize the rate of entropy production—remains an active, contested hypothesis rather than established physical dogma.

• bactra.org
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