Writer, philosopher and longtime “deep green” environmental activist, David Orton died at his home in Watervale, Pictou County, New Brunswick on May 12th, 2011. He was 77. Orton, who founded the Left-bio movement, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March.

Continuing our Visions of Ecotopia series, left-biocentrist David Orton describes his rustic lifestyle that many urban ecocentrics might envy. Here’s his description of his life with wife Helga Hoffman-Orton on their wooded acreage in picturesque Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada.

This is the right time for poets and artists to engage in economics, says Ukrainian poet-translator Victor Postnikov. More than anyone else, artists inject aesthetic satisfaction into their work and are able to prevent systemic collapse by dismantling the Mega-Machine and creating a genuinely sustainable economy.

How can humans become ecocentric, a part of and symbiotic with the ecosphere or even our own watershed, our own local ecosystem? And how might our future humankind have gained those ways of perceiving themselves within our world’s living systems? Eco-centric poet Penny Novak describes her vision of ecotopia.

Today’s environmentalism is as much a victim of the contemporary cult of utility as every other aspect of our lives, from science to education, writes UK environmental writer Paul Kingsnorth. It does not mean defending the non-human world from the ever-expanding empire of homo sapiens, but sustaining human civilisation at the comfort level which the world’s rich feel is their right, without destroying the “natural capital” or the “resource base” that is needed to do so. It is not genuine environmentalism.

Like the word “green,” “sustainable” or “sustainability” has become the buzzword of the millennia. Corporations and governments of the left or right feel compelled to dress up the most ecologically invasive development proposal or economic activity with assurances that it is “sustainable.” Employed as an adjective it coats the unpalatable with the sweet syrup of delectability rendering the bitter pill of upheaval and damage neutral in flavour. British Columbia ecocentrist Tim Murray debunks the myth.

Wind turbines are sprouting up like industrial mushrooms in many rural regions. Nina Pierpont, a rural physician living in upstate New York, writes about health impacts suffered by people living close to wind turbines. Although it covers an important topic, the book is essentially about human health and does not discuss the deeper aspects of ecosystem health, write Nova Scotia deep ecologists David Orton and Helga Hoffman-Orton.

The failure of capitalism as an economic system is becoming obvious, write leading European eco-socialists Saral Sarkar and Bruno Kern. Mass unemployment is becoming commonplace in almost all countries, and where the economy is growing, mostly it is jobless growth. Welfare states are being dismantled , and almost everywhere one hears of crises of one or the other kind. In large parts of the world abject poverty prevails, and even establishment economists are at a loss. These two authors outline the core of their analysis and vision of eco-socialism.

Nova Scotia deep ecologist and writer David Orton believes that the work of deceased Canadian deep ecologist John Livingston (1923-2006) deserves to be better known in the activist community. Orton suggests that Livingston’s writing forces the reader to face up to what is required for the Earth’s survival and is thus extremely important for today’s rapidly disintegrating ecological and social world. (This article first appeared in Green Web Bulletin #79 )