Suchergebnisse

Within today's debate on the relationship between economics and ecology we often resort to the ancient models and 'world ideas' generated within Asian religious traditions. Works and authors from the past become part of the contemporary disputes among stakeholders of the economic systems and militants of the various sectors of contemporary environmentalism. In this work I intend to show myopia, risks and dangers underlying certain ways of dividing, justifying and governing the relationships that the human animal has with the ecosystem of which it is a part.

The dissertation aims to demonstrate how the most significant utopias of the 1970s anticipate some of the key themes of philosophical posthumanism through a radical revision of the idea of human subjectivity implicit in the neoliberal culture of the United States. The investigation was conducted on five texts: Ecotopia (1975) by Ernest Callenbach; The Word for World is Forest (1972) and The Dispossessed (1974) by Ursula Le Guin; The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975) and Women on the Edge of Time (1976) by Marge Piercy. The focus of the research is the challenge that each text poses to the vision of the human being implicit in the ideology of neoliberalism, culturally dominant at the time. In Western thought, the human has historically been inscribed in a hierarchical scale with respect to the non-human realm. This symbolic structure has not only supported the primacy of humans over animals and the domination of the natural environment, but has also shaped the human sphere itself with sexist, racist, classist, homophobic, and ethnocentric assumptions. Drawing on ideas from post-structuralism, deconstructionism, ecology, and feminism, these texts overturn these assumptions, or some of them, by blurring the traditional boundaries between humanity and environment, culture and nature, human and non-human (animal and machine), man and woman. My goal is, on the one hand, to examine the antagonistic conception of human nature exhibited by each text and, on the other, to test the varying effectiveness of the literary strategies implemented by each text in conveying the implications - political, social, and psychological - of an alternative view of humanity. Through this journey, I have shown that a proper posthuman perspective is best conveyed by the crucial mediation of feminist writers who have radically transformed the narrative conventions of both traditional literary utopia and science fiction. The authors, in particular, use conventional SF tropes such as parallel worlds, alternative futures, and planetary colonization to open up utopia and place it in dynamic interaction with other alternative societies. Utopia is thus presented as a process in constant flux. Both these narrative strategies and the meditation on the potential of technology to radically transform even human biology support a conception of the human subject no longer as an autonomous entity but as a node in a network of relationships with other subjects, human and non-human.

Le diverse specie di microrganismi presenti nel suolo hanno ruoli prioritari nelle trasformazioni dell'energia e nei processi biogeochimici, intervenendo nella decomposizione del materiale organico attraverso processi biodegradativi e nel riciclo di elementi essenziali quali carbonio, fosforo, azoto ed altri; in tal modo portano a termine specifiche reazioni di ossido-riduzione che permettono agli elementi di rendersi così disponibili in forme utilizzabili soprattutto dalle piante (Alexander, 1977); ai microrganismi del suolo è deputata infatti la conservazione dei numerosi servizi ecosistemici che si svolgono nel suolo (Bunning e Jiménez, 2003). La Convenzione Internazionale sulla Biodiversità (CBD) descrive la biodiversità agricola come "le componenti della diversità biologica relative al cibo e all'agricoltura e tutte le componenti della diversità biologica che costituiscono gli ecosistemi agricoli, anche chiamati agroecosistemi. Le varietà e la variabilità degli animali, delle piante e dei microrganismi a livello genetico, di specie e di ecosistema, necessari a mantenere le funzioni chiave degli agroecosistemi, la loro struttura ed i loro processi". La Strategia nazionale per la biodiversità (7 ottobre 2010, www.minambiente.it) pone tre obiettivi principali per la conservazione della biodiversità il primo dei quali è quello di massimizzare la salvaguardia e il recupero della biodiversità e dei servizi ecosistemici al fine di garantire il ruolo chiave per la vita sulla Terra e il benessere umano. Il secondo vuole favorire l'adattamento delle specie e degli ecosistemi naturali e semi-naturali ai cambiamenti climatici e adottare le opportune misure di mitigazione, mentre il terzo integrare la conservazione della biodiversità nelle politiche economiche e di settore. La conservazione dei microrganismi ex situ permette il mantenimento delle risorse genetiche microbiche del suolo sottoforma di ceppi distinti in coltura pura. Anche se la biodiversità dei microrganismi coltivabili rappresenta solo una piccolissima parte della realtà ambientale, essa risulta essere estremamente utile ed interessante per conservare e studiare ex situ organismi riconosciuti artefici di un determinato processo o azione. La conservazione in situ prevede lo studio e la conseguente valutazione della biodiversità microbica associata ad una determinata coltura o specie vegetale. È noto dalla letteratura che ogni specie vegetale rilascia nel suolo, in funzione anche delle caratteristiche pedoclimatiche ed ambientali, essudati radicali, che selezioneranno una determinata popolazione microbica (Pinton et al., 2001). Questo comporta che una conservazione del solo germoplasma vegetale ex situ, potrebbe non garantire il desiderato risultato di conservazione. Pertanto, nel caso della conservazione della biodiversità in funzione della fertilità del suolo e delle sue funzioni legate ai servizi ecosistemici da esso garantiti, questa va tutelata e garantita attraverso un approccio di ecosistemico pianta-suolomicrorganismo e l'attivazione di collezioni in situ. Sarà il monitoraggio in situ spazio temporale a garantire la salvaguardia della biodiversità microbica (Cardinali e Benedetti, in press). ; Scientists now know that the complex processes carried out by the soil biota (including plant roots) have significant effects on the health of ecosystems, the quality of soils, the incidence of soilborne plant and animal pests and diseases and, consequently, on the quality and yields of crops. The ecosystem services provided by soil organisms that may influence agricultural productivity include the decomposition and cycling of organic matter, the regulation of nutrients availability and uptake, the suppression of pests and diseases, the maintenance of soil structure and the regulation of soil hydrological processes, gas exchanges and carbon sequestration, soil detoxification, plant growth control, and pollination of horticultural crops (Bunning and Jimenez, 2003). Biological diversity is defined by the Convention on International Biodiversity (CBD) as "the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems". The national strategy for biodiversity (7th October 2010, www.minambiente.it) sets three main objectives for biodiversity conservation, the first one deals with protecting and recovering biodiversity and ecosystem services in order to provide life on Earth and human health. The second one aims to promote species and natural and semi-natural ecosystem adaptability to climate change, whereas the third one deals with including biodiversity conservation in current policies. Ex-situ conservation means the conservation of microbial genetic resources outside their natural habitats in pure cultures. Although culturable microbial diversity represents only a small fraction of total microbial diversity (Lynch et al., 2004), it's extremely important for studying microrganisms responsible of certain processes and functions. In-situ conservation means the conservation of ecosystems and natural habitats and the maintenance and recovery of viable populations of microbial species in their natural surroundings associated with domesticated or cultivated species. Each specie releases in soil different plant root exudates depending on pedoclimatic and environmental conditions, resulting in the selection of certain microbial taxa (Pinton et al., 2001). This means that ex situ conservation alone could not always guarantee biodiversity conservation. Therefore, microbial biodiversity associated with soil biological fertility and ecosystem services provided by the soil biota should be preserved through an ecosystem plant-soil-microrganism-based approach.