Regenerative farmer Richard Daley recently defined ecological literacy as understanding how living systems work, how they break down and how they can be restored. To get there, Daley suggests learning the names of local plants, tracing the flow of water through a watershed, observing seasonal shifts, knowing where your food comes from and understanding who holds power over land and the Earth’s life-giving systems. He calls ecoliteracy practical, place-based and rooted in observation and responsibility. With it, we focus on material change—compost food waste, protect local wildlife, build mutual aid networks, plant gardens, reimagine governance and work toward a truly regenerative future.
Then, pollinator-gardener Hart Hagan wrote that when we have “a cooperative, supportive relationship with the natural world, we learn how life works and how life supports our climate.”
Daley and Hagan inspired me to spell out ecoliterate thinking and skills—and to realize that in many cases, I am not (yet) literate. Here’s the list. Please add to it!
ECOLITERATE THINKING AND ACTIONS
- Recognize that all life depends on nature. Nature is our teacher.
- Consider that unless you’re aware that you are part of the problem, you cannot be part of the solution.
- Acknowledge that the fossil fuels and ores our technosphere requires took billions of years to form—and they cannot be regenerated.
- Aim to live within your bioregion’s offerings—your watershed’s food, water, energy and ores. (The U.S. has six main watersheds and about 2100 smaller ones.)
- Reduce dependence on international supply chains.
- Ask questions. Welcome not-knowing. Build relationships with people (not screens) who welcome questions.
- Learn how to do daily activities—cooking, drying clothes, communicating with family—with less digital interface and less electricity.
- Recognize the Jevons Paradox: efficiency increases consumption of energy, water and extractions.
FOOD
- Learn what foods keep you healthy—and expect that this list will change. Know how to cook healthy food.
- Know what foods make you unhealthy and how to avoid them.
- Grow even a few culinary herbs or greens—or buy from local farmers.
- Trace the supply chains involved in your favorite meal, including its packaging.
WATER
- Trace your water from precipitation to tap and back to precipitation.
- Know how much rain fell in your region 100, 50 and 10 years ago—and last year.
- Know people who restore healthy cycling—and teach. Name at least three ways to do so.
- Know what minerals are available, mined, refined and discarded or recycled in your bioregion (within your watershed).
SOIL
- Understand that soil’s ability to absorb and hold water is one of the Earth’s primary cooling mechanisms. Paved roads, cement sidewalks, houses, shopping malls, data centers etcetera…block this mechanism.
- Build and protect nutrient-dense soil by covering it with fallen leaves, mulch, plantings and/or compost. Compost kitchen and landscape scraps.
- Study the soil-food web.
HEALTH
- Rest. Rest well.
- Study self-help health care with people you like.
- Avoid toxins (in cleaning materials, nearby industries, pharmaceuticals, medical procedures, etc.); pesticides, herbicides, fungicides (in food, nearby lawns, golf courses, farms); man-made radiation (emitted by mobile devices, cell towers, utility meters, switch-mode power supplies, e-vehicles, gas-powered vehicles, etc.); PFAs (in dental floss, Teflon pans, waterproof raincoats, solar panels, plastics); lead (in paint, cast iron-enamel pans); addictive substances (opioids, alcohol, sugar) or behaviors (screen-time).
- Know people who support sobriety—i.e., 12-step programs. Acquire techniques for making peace between your ears.
- Keep menstrual cycles healthy. Use contraception that does not harm your body or waterways.
- Before conceiving, consider whether or not your community has sufficient ecological health to welcome a baby.
- If you decide to try to conceive, enhance your fertility without harming your body or waterways.
- If you have a child, connect with parents who work to give children smartphone-free childhoods.
- Annually update your will with a health-care directive, a pre-need obituary and an affordable green burial option. (This will save your survivors a lot of energy.)
UTILITIES, INCLUDING TELECOMMUNICATIONS
- Learn a basic understanding of our power grid.
- Trace the cradle-to-grave ecological and public health impacts (from manufacturing, operation and discard) of air conditioners, solar PVs, industrial wind turbines, smartphone or laptop batteries, battery energy storage systems (BESS), natural gas-powered plants, coal-powered plants, nuclear power plants, hydro-electric dams, geo-thermal energy, biomass power plants.
- Know how much electricity and water the data centers near you consume.
- Live where you are not exposed to toxins in your water or air—or to ambient radiation (including chopped current on electric wires).
- Elect legislators committed to local authority over food, forest health and utilities (water, electricity and telecommunications).
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
- Know what we ask of the Earth to send a text, an email, play a video, do an online search, attend an online webinar, ask AI to create a report or an image. (A manufactured computer, an access network, data storage centers, international shipping systems…and the power grid.)
- Trace the cradle-to-grave ecological and public health impacts of one substance in a smartphone—and share your research with classmates and colleagues.
TRANSPORTATION
- Trace cradle-to-grave ecological impacts of a gas-powered car, an e-bicycle, an e-vehicle, EV chargers (including their impact to nearby transformers).
THE RULES THAT FRAME US
- Learn policies for more ecologically-sound technologies, including including Community Rights and Rights-of-Nature.
- Recognize that while the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requires a Full Environmental Impact Statement before permitting any project, corporations can still “take” endangered species…legally. Know your state’s laws, which may require conditional-use permits with strict environmental review before permitting any project.
- Recognize the 1996 Telecommunications Act’s Section 704, which states that no municipality may prohibit cellular facilities (cell towers) based on the environmental effects of exposure to their radiation emissions. The FCC’s newest proposal, Build America: Eliminating Barriers to Wireless Deployments, would require municipalities to approve of cellular facility permits within 120 days of an application’s submission. It would prevent local authority over placement of antennas and over monitoring of cell tower radiation emissions.
- When utility-scale solar facilities, wind facilities or battery-energy storage systems (BESS) stop providing profits, the corporation may file for bankruptcy to avoid taking responsibility for disposal of the project’s hazardous waste. Unless your county requires the corporation to post a bond as a condition for its permit, at the project’s end-of-life, taxpayers could pay to dispose of hundreds of acres of hazardous waste.
- Protect the right to choose a non-digital or digital life.
COMMUNITY
- Recognize that our community’s web of life includes insects, birds, lizards, trees, plants, clouds, oceans, rivers, lakes, fish, whales, sharks, volcanoes, rocks, mountains, goats, chickens, monkeys, giraffes, micro-organisms in soil—and all of this life decomposes to regenerate. (Our electronics do not biodegrade.)
- Ecoliteracy can’t happen alone; it requires community. Build relationships with neighbors to exchange fresh food, health care remedies, home repair, child care, transportation, computer help, etcetera. Over laundry lines or monthly potlucks, discuss ways to reduce overall consumption by three percent per month.
- Build book and tool-lending libraries.
- Walk or bike to your grocery store.
- Elect legislators committed to local authority over utilities, including water, electricity, telecommunications.
- Support the new generation of Luddites.
- Ask the youth in your neighborhood what they need to become ecoliterate.