Ecology, Development and Global Policy

Ecology is concerned with all life in the universe, its origins and evolution, its interactions, and its future. It emerges as the natural location for the unifying theory within biology, and between the biological and physical sciences. It is interesting that very soon after Haeckel first used the term, two strands were apparent: one "an anti-mechanistic, holistic approach to biology", and the other "a new approach to economics called energy economics". The science of ecology, which this Society was founded to advance, split off at an early stage from what became political and social processes, but we should not forget those other strands, for in the past two decades there has been a new convergence which provides the context for this lecture. Let me, therefore, at least turn a flashlamp on a few signposts on the political road, even though I do not propose to walk all the way along it.