Systems theory and skeptical humanism in French ecological thought

In systems theory, nature appears as an intricate interweaving of homeostatic processes - processes that mankind disrupts at its own peril. For many non-French ecologists, only respecting nature's 'intrinsic value' will avert catastrophe. Such reasoning is rare in France. In its place, theorists like Edgar Morin and Michel Serres promote a systems-inspired ecologism that skirts the problematic dualism of nature and humanity by questioning skeptically how we understand both the world and ourselves.
'The age of a finite earth has begun,' declares one of France's leading green theorists, Alain Lipietz (1989, p. 61). For the physicist-historian Jean-Paul Deleage (1992, p. 2), this means [...]