How do Marxists respond to deep ecology?

[Unclebananahead]

Deep ecology is defined as, "a movement or a body of concepts that considers humans no more important than other species and that advocates a corresponding radical readjustment of the relationships between humans."

So deep ecology folks think the earth's ecosystem is a value unto itself, without regard to whether it benefits humans or not.

[blake 3:17]

Most Marxists would automatically trash deep ecology but I don't think many Marxists have really grappled with ecology in very meaningful ways.

[Skyhilist]

Bookchin had some good analysis of deep ecology. It's biocentric, which should be somewhat preferable to even anthropocentrists because humans are so reliant on other animals and everything is interconnected. On the other hand, biocentrism tends to focus way too much attention of the biotic factors of an ecosystem themselves, rather than the abiotic factors that they're dependent on. So for that reason, it's not really looking at things as holistically as ecocentrism is. So we've got the fact that deep ecologists tend to be biocentrists rather than ecocentrists. You've also got the fact the deep ecology tends to take the attitude that humans are inherently bad force on the earth, which acts as if we can't at the very least be a neutral force on the rest of the planet (which I believe we can under responsible eco-socialism). This has led some deep ecologists to even suggest that kids starving to death is "natural" and shouldn't be stopped... which is pretty abhorrent. The main problem leading to that is that they fail to realize that environmental problems are rooted in exploitative social interactions within society, and instead tend to think that it's human nature. So there are definitely some problems with deep ecology. I would personally say that social ecology is more rational because it recognizes social relationships as the cause of environmental problems.
That said, their hearts tend to be in the right place at the very least (although they might come up with some pretty ridiculous stuff sometimes). They want a sustainable and egalitarian world suitable for all beings. That said, I think that while their general objectives for this are good, they tend to go about doing things the wrong way to achieve it.

Here's a good polemic on deep ecology you might find useful written by Murray Bookchin: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/socecovdeepeco.html

I also agree with blake 3:17; with so many environmental challenges already hitting us, Marxists are going to need to think about ecology a bit more deeply than they've done previously.