85CHAPTER FOUR
Stories from Ecological
Philosophy
Today we pass through haze and snow dust
Blown along the 45th parallel, halfway
Between the north pole and the equator
It is eight degrees in this high desert stretched
Between Idaho and Oregon
Outside, in the cold sun, cows and crows
Paint sumi ink streaks against Earth and sky
Their fleeting calligraphy, a call
To claim the brushstroke of our brief lives
Melia SnyderThe publication of conservationist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
(2002 [1962]) exposed environmental problems caused by synthetic
pesticides. Her book inspired a paradigm shift, a turn of thinking,
reflected in science and philosophy, questioning the singular authority
of science and the benevolence of corporations. Recognition of
the increasing severity of social, personal and environmental
destruction has prompted ecologically oriented thinkers to offer
new epistemologies, that is new theories of knowledge and ways of
knowing, that inform nature-based expressive arts. In this chapter we
examine the thinking of several ecological philosophers who offer
insights into Western perspectives and suggest other ways of thinking