A Symbionmentalist or perhaps, a symbionist?

A person who supports the idea of the Symbionment (the organic and symbiotic interconnections of life that we are active participants in), through active engagement with others and creative acts that promote sumbiosity in the form of ecoculture, ecoagriculture, ecotechnologies and ecodesign in all aspects of our lives. Through sumbiosic development, we maintain our connections within the symbionment and help create The Symbiocene.

We have now got rid of some very difficult concepts that are part of the reason why we have failed to achieve the end state we have historically called sustainability.

An environmentalist = no wonder it is a word that generates disagreement in people. There is no such thing as 'the environment' (see below) so there cannot be an environmentalist!

The environment = if it is defined as all that is outside us, then the fact that the environment is also inside us and that we are inside the environment invalidates its common use as a concept.

Sustainability = has always implied a degree of stability, even rigidity in the human-nature relationship. Sumbiosity by contrast implies process and creative change ... just as we see in natural systems governed by the rules of entropy, evolution and ecology.

Sustainable Development = yes, it was always a dangerous oxymoron. Sumbiosic Development, by contrast, only permits those forms of development that promote endlessly creative sumbiosity.

The Anthropocene = time for this era to end before we do ourselves and the rest of the Earth's biota in.

Sumbiosity and Sumbiosic Development

Sumbiosity and Sumbiosic Development
(to be used mainly in the human social context)

Glenn Albrecht PhD.

Professor of Sumbiosity,

Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia.

11^th April 2013.

Sumbiosity: An emergent state actively created by humans in all domains that conserves and/or achieves an ongoing balance and permanent interdependence between humans, all other life forms and the life support systems of the earth (biogeochemical cycles).

{Greek sumbiosis, companionship, Greek sumbios = living together, Greek bios = life, Pronounciation: ‘soom-bi-os-ity’}

Sumbiosity is a state of living which achieves ongoing ecological balance with other life forms on earth (a state formerly called sustainability). ‘Sustainability’ is inadequate as a concept because it does not specify what is to be sustained and over what time frame it is to be sustained and as such has been abused and devalued as a term.

Sumbiosity solves the problem of what it is that must be ‘sustained’ and over what time frame … what must be sustained are sumbiosic actions and attributes on the part of humans that create sumbiosity for all humans and all other life forms indefinitely into the future.

Sumbiosic: Those cumulative types of active and purposive relationships and attributes created by humans that enhance mutual interdependence and mutual benefit for all living beings so as to conserve and maximise a state of sumbiosity.

{Greek sumbiosis, companionship, Greek sumbios = living together, Greek bios = life, Greek suffix ic = adjective form of sumbiosity, Pronunciation: ‘soom-bi-o-sic’}

Use, for example: “By actively growing and nurturing native species of plants in his garden, Glenn developed a sumbiosic relationship with the birds of his region.”

Sumbiosic Development: A process of active invention and creation on the part of humans to achieve and conserve a state of sumbiosity where humans and other life forms can live together indefinitely in mutually supporting relationships. A form of development that has sumbiosity as its goal or end state.

‘Sustainable development’ as a term is inadequate because it also fails to define what it is to be sustained. Hence we have tortured issues like ‘sustainable growth’ or ‘sustainable mining’.

Use, for example: “The commencement of sumbiosic development has seen the exponential increase in the use of biomimicry in technological design.” 

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Cognate Concepts

Symbiosis, Symbionment, Symbiocene (used mainly in the biological and biophysical contexts)

Symbiosis: Interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both. Also, a relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.

[Greek sumbiosis, companionship, Greek sumbioun, to live together, Greek sumbios, living together. Greek bios, life.]

Symbionment = the combination of natural and built environments as created by evolution and sumbiosic development… what we live in (formerly called ‘the environment’)

Symbiocene = the era or epoch that we will live in if we have sumbiosic development creating sumbiosity.