If you’re looking for the roots of the word “Ecology”, it comes from the greek οικολογία which means “study of living relations“. In other words, it is the study of the interactions between life and its physical environment. But there are many forms of ecology. For example, population ecology is the study of processes that affect distribution and abundance of animal and plant populations. Ecology is not considered as a discipline, but more as a sub-discipline of biology that focuses more on the study of life, whether it’s human life of bacterias and microscopic organisms, and how they all interact in their own environment, but also, how would they affect other species.
It is interesting to know how some species can affect another. As a matter of fact, let’s talk about humans, and their impact of all species on earth. It is overwhelming. It is certainly one of the reasons why ecology has become so popular for the last few years. Ecology is everywhere : health, food, transportation, energy and consumption… It seems like the human race is realizing that the consumption extracted from natural resources represents way more that earth’s natural ability to replenish its ecosystem with those energy and resources.
A lot of ecologic associations exist, but one of the most popular is the World Wide Fund for Nature. Also many books have been published since the turn of 20th century, and show that some researchers were already concerned about the impact of our society on our planet. There are many researchers reports that show that human civilization has exceeded the bio-regenerative capacity of the planet. That’s when it becomes interesting to take a look at what has been done to preserve our ecosystem, but also how “silly” and commercial this can become.
Who can tell that they’ve never felt guilty to drive a polluting, or should I say “not hybrid”, car ; or to eat a “non organic” fruit or vegetable ; or to take chemical medications when natural remedies exist ; or drinking in a plastic bottle made with oil and that would take tens or hundreds of year to brea