Just my personal observations, ways of analysing, of questioning things in normal society and maybe bringing up issues and problems for discussion. Often I don’t have answers but that isn’t a reason not to question.
Sometimes I will have ideas to explore, maybe different ways of looking at things. Hopefully when I learn enough about building websites I’ll have a sign in system and open up to comments. In the meantime its rather one sided, sorry.
So a personal interests blog, website
I just want to toss out ideas. Ideas over probably too wide an area and to many subjects but ones which somehow interest me.
I personally often go back to the root of issues in trying to understand them instead of just looking at the immediate or superficial aspects. Its what causes something as much as what that something is which is of interest.
Now a disclaimer, I don’t have a team by me which can go through doing all the fact checking, I don’t have the funding to endlessly investigate or analyse all the nuances of details and thoughts.
So, Yes I am going to be wrong at times, will change my stance, will make corrections, or may doggedly stick to something against the odds. To make a living I still have a job working about 60 per week so not as much time on this as their might be.
I’m also brand new to designing and building a website so this isn’t going to be perfect but will give it a try.
Another disclaimer, English is my first language, my only language, I just was never very good at it. My early school years were poor then it was realized I needed glasses as could never see the blackboard. Just had this fuzzy idea that a teacher was standing up in front. In hindsight also realized I’m dyslexic. There are going to be grammar and spelling errors, apologies in advance.
Why EcoEco
I started with two underlying themes behind this. Eco – Ecology and Eco – Economics both taken with rather broad definitions and with a bit of philosophy thrown in.
They are two area which can have very interdependent links. Links which often seem ignored or only seen going in one direction. Both can bring up controversy while at the same time are critically important to the world and to modern society.
When I was first thinking of this site back in 2018-19 Eco– wasn’t a common term, now it often seems toxic as political green washing. Hopefully this site isn’t going to be that. Of course Ecology includes Environment as that’s what what its about.
Some explanation of thinking – easily skipped as its simplistic
- Ecology the study or way of understanding the relationship between living organisms and the environment. The ecosystem connections between plants and animals, animals and animals, and all these to the physical world around.
- Economics considering the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. How this comes about and how societies, individuals, businesses and governments make the choices which allocate resources. It’s looking at choices and alternatives.
With ecology studying how an organism survives and adapts in an environment we get to humans and part of that environment is an economic one which is why I link the two together.
Example of classic ecology
One of the classic examples of this ecology is soot covered buildings and how a light coloured moth was at a disadvantage – too obvious to predictors. The occasional mutant was dark coloured and had better survival chances and became dominant.
Right at the moment with the world pandemic and covid viruses we are hearing, and learning, that mutations occur and some may allow the virus to spread faster. We put a new environmental constraint in the system, namely a vaccine, and start to worry that some mutation down the line will give it better survivability against the vaccine.
We see a mutation that makes one strain able to spread just a tiny bit quicker than another and it become dominant. This is all classic ecology.
Our high streets are going through changes as the ecology, the environment, has been changing. Property, i.e. space, availability becomes constrained so property prices go up so rents go up. City councils need money so property taxes are increased. Cities become more congested with more people so councils put parking charges up. Shopping moves online as lower overheads, no parking charges and local high streets decline and die.
These are examples, though simplistic ones, of economic environmental change. The ecology will give some hints that high streets might suffer. OK, then put in online shopping and the pressure might be not that dissimilar to that of the light coloured moth under survival stress on dark soot covered building (the odd mutant dark ones survived, become dominant, the buildings were cleaned and the process reversed) .
Awareness
As individuals and as the larger society become aware of changes happening we might be able first understand then maybe modify the pressures or changes to influence the outcome. Cleaning the soot off buildings, economics, the darker moth lost its advantage to be replaced by the lighter one. When it comes to people and society the issues of course are much more complex and also what we want as outcomes has many driving forces.
Do we want the high street to disappear? Some would be very happy with that and others not. We noticed that lack of social interactions during various covid lockdowns seemed to cause mental health issues in some. Some whole classes of businesses were put under stress, like the moth.
Analysing the social and economic ecology of society isn’t rocket science, its much more difficult.
Decisions
Making decisions on outcomes or conflicts between two or more outcomes is very difficult. Conflicts arise at every level. So the simplistic example of the high street, but more complex might be the Net Zero CO2, or having the Chinese firm Huawei developing 5G networks, the UK selling off its utilities to overseas buyers, becoming energy independent or importing.
The ecology of economics brings in morals as well as philosophy. How are desired end results determined along with the methods to reach these.
Voting for political parties with their manifestos is simply not fine grained enough to offer real choices even if manifestos were followed. Some elite group always seems too biased ultimately leading to conflict or feelings of repression. I don’t have the answers, but I don’t seem to be alone in this.
Health Environment and all
I started this during the time everyone was worried, frightened or sceptical about Covid-19. Lots of talk and articles about Covid some of which I thought were missing some aspects so started with something on health.
One of the other big ongoing discussions is Climate Change. Nearly everyone has some view on this including me. I seem to have ideas that don’t fit into most camps. Economics comes into nearly everything and all part of our environment.
The environment affects health but also interacts with what is deemed Climate Change (evolved from the older terms of global warming as not always worm). The Environment is a huge subject but also incredibly political with equally big economic parameters. I ask more questions than have answers for on the social side of this but come down to some critical aspects.