"Governor 'Moonbeam' Takes on His Critics at Greenbuild", The Dirt (American Society of Landscape Architects, 11/26/2012:
California Governor Jerry Brown, aka Governor “Moonbeam,” took on his many critics at the 2012 Greenbuild in San Francisco, saying the people who originally called him that are “no longer around, while I still am.” To huge laughs, he said “apparently, moonbeams have more durability than other beings.” In a rousing speech designed to rally the green building community, Brown walked the crowd through his profound “eco” philosophy, while also laying out a path for attacking climate change in California and across the U.S.
In Latin, Brown said “eco” means house. As an example, “economy” means “rules of the house.” “Logos” means “lord, god, or the deep principles or patterns of nature.” So “ecology is more fundamental than economics. Economics sits within ecology. Not the other way around. This means through our economy, we can’t repeal the laws of nature.” Furthermore, humanity “can’t mock the laws of nature or thumb our noses at the climatic system. We have to learn to work with nature.”
This reminds me, not for the first time, of the old Soviet-era Radio Yerevan jokes:
Question to Radio Yerevan: Is it correct that Grigori Grigorievich Grigoriev won a luxury car at the All-Union Championship in Moscow?
Answer: In principle, yes. But first of all it was not Grigori Grigorievich Grigoriev, but Vassili Vassilievich Vassiliev; second, it was not at the All-Union Championship in Moscow, but at a Collective Farm Sports Festival in Smolensk; third, it was not a car, but a bicycle; and fourth he didn't win it, but rather it was stolen from him.
So is it correct that in Latin, economy means "rules of the house"? Well, in principle, yes. But in the first place it's not Latin but rather Greek; and in Greek, οἰκονομία meant "management of a household", from οἶκος "house, not only of built houses, but of any dwelling-place" + νομία "lawfulness".
And is it correct that ecology combines eco- with Logos meaning “lord, god, or the deep principles or patterns of nature” ? Well, the first part of ecology is also from οἶκος, though here the sense seems to be the "dwellings" or environment of all the plants and animals in a region. The second part is the common combining form -logy, which the OED describes as
earlier written -logie, an ending occurring originally in words adapted from Greek words in –λογία (the earliest examples, e.g. theology, having come through French -logie, medieval Latin -logia). These Greek words for the most part are parasynthetic derivatives; in some instances the terminal element is λόγος word, discourse (e.g. in τετραλογία tetralogy, τριλογία trilogy); more commonly it is the root λογ- (ablaut-variant of λεγ-, λέγειν to speak: cf. Logos n.). In the latter case, the ns. in -λογία usually denote the character, action, or department of knowledge proper to the person who is described by an adj. or n. in -λόγος, meaning either ‘(one) who speaks (in a certain way)’, or ‘(one) who treats of (a certain subject)’. Hence the derivatives in -λογία are of two classes, (1) those which have the sense of ‘saying or speaking’, examples of which are the words anglicized as battology, brachylogy, cacology, dittology, eulogy, palillogy, tautology; and (2) names of sciences or departments of study.
So the original meaning of economy is "household management", and the original meaning of ecology is "study of the dwelling (of living things, i.e. their environment and interactions)".
How does "“lord, god, or the deep principles or patterns of nature" come into it? I suppose that it must be a reference to the Hellenistic metaphysics of John 1:1
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
…though the connection of the human and mundane λογ- in -logy to John's divine λόγος is rather like the relationship of κάννα "reed" and κανών "straight rod, bar" to cannon and canon law.