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184Cairns: Eco-Ethics and Sustainability Ethicscan be replaced now with practices available now! Thus, there is no excuse for not making peacewith natural systems and the 30+ million species that inhabit them, including Homo sapiens.SECURITY AND SUSTAINABILITYAdams (2003) comments about the failure of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) toconvince the US Congress not to approve the most far-reaching rollback of marine mammal protectionin the last 30 years. The rollback exempts the US military from obeying core provisions ofthe Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. This change permits injuringand killing whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals with high intensity sonar and underwaterexplosives. It also permits the military to exempt itself entirely from all environmental review underthe Marine Mammal Protection Act. In addition, the military can destroy the habitat of endangeredbirds and mammals that live on the 25 million acres of land under the military’s jurisdiction.These drastic steps were considered necessary because environmental laws were compromisingcombat readiness for the war on terror. Adams (2003) notes that even the administration incharge of the military cannot name a single training session anywhere in the country that had to bedelayed or cancelled because of environmental restrictions.These actions will clearly endanger Earth’s ecological life support system, which is essential tosustainable use of the planet. This major threat to both national and global security will impair securityfar more than any act of terrorism. These unsustainable practices cannot continue indefinitely.CONCLUSIONSNurturing complex systems for sustainable use of the planet requires a different perspective ofhumankind’s identity, both as individuals and as nation-states. Since humans are dependent onEarth’s ecological life support system, it is essential to ensure that the technological/economic lifesupport system does not impair the health and integrity of the ecological life support system. Furthermore,the cumulative impact of individual decisions must also not damage natural systems.Unsustainable practices will be stopped either by changes in human behavior or, more brutally, bynature. Harsh penalties will be exacted by nature for disregarding nature’s laws, such as exceedingthe global or regional carrying capacity for humans.Some older cultures regarded natural systems, such as water, as sacred, including the manner ofuse and the waste of water. In the 13th century, Sinran, a Buddhist priest, wrote, “Nature was notmade by any outer forces but was made of its own accord. Buddha or all religious absolutes aremeans of understanding the state of nature. After real understanding is reached of nature and Buddha,it should not be open to discussion. If it becomes, then nature would not be made naturally andby its own accord. This understanding is the miracle of Buddhism” (as quoted by Kawanabe 2003).The view of nature at present is nearly a polar opposite of the 13th century one. Nature is sacrificedto keep the economy growing or as a means of disposing of anthropogenic wastes. Respectfulobservation of nature still appears to be desired by many humans, but political leaders, bothelected and appointed, fail to design projects in harmony with natural systems. Under the guise ofprogress and economic growth, humans destroy, bit by bit, the biospheric life support system forshort-term benefits. The technological/economic life support, which supposedly benefits fromunrestrained economic growth, is indeed a complex system, but it is merely a subsystem primarilydesigned for only one species — Homo sapiens. However, Homo sapiens and its complex technological/economicsubsystem are embedded in a much more complex system of millions of speciesupon which, in the long term, its survival depends. As a consequence, it should be abundantly clear