Anti-Intellectual Voters in America’s Heartland Ensure Abrupt Climate Collapse

Dissent Against Fascism is Patriotic and Cool. Anti-Intellectualism is Not.

The poorly educated electing a climate change denier (however justified their rage at elitist opulence) is sheer utter madness. That abrupt climate change is well underway is self-evident as the Arctic has shockingly recently been 36° F above normal and above freezing, and 98%+ of temperature extremes are record highs. It is unconscionable that America’s House Science Committee tweets climate science disinformation, as Creepy Donald appoints climate change deniers to key environmental positions, and turns his jack booted thugs upon governmental climate scientists. Festering rural American anti-intellectualism may well kill us all. Being smart is cool. I very much hope this essay offends no one, other than the ones it was intended to.

Trump isn’t just a sexual predator, authoritarian demagogue, or proponent of ill-informed and self-serving policy; he is evil incarnate. Donald Trump is a festering pile of shit that conned the uneducated – who often through their own failures have fewer opportunities – to vote for him. Creepy Donald and his anti-intellectual base’s denial of established climate science truths threaten our very existence. — Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders, Deep Ecology essays by Dr. Glen Barry

Growing up in rural Wisconsin, I experienced firsthand anti-intellectualism. I vividly remember being bullied for my academic achievements (straight A’s except for, ironically, one B+ in of all things creative writing): being thrown against lockers, having my head hit hard, and even human snot being thrown at me because I was smart, valued learning, and did well in school. Thus a free-thinker was born.

Nonetheless, I fought back and liked High School very much – particularly opportunities for creative self-expression such as band and theatre – and I went on to earn numerous college degrees and have embraced life-time learning. I have worked very hard to get ahead and have lived a life committed to the search for truth and in service to important ideas. Others are not so lucky, as my gay brother was too effeminate to defend himself, and had to flee our rural school system and find other dubious manners to advance.

I continue to own my childhood home in the area, and some of these bullies over subsequent years have become close friends as we matured. And my wife and I deeply appreciate the area’s values based upon family, faith, hard-work, and community. As I shall reveal here I FAR prefer the company of rural Wisconsin to the self-entitled elitism of the cities.

Lack of education and outright anti-intellectual hostility has been a problem in American politics for a long time. This persistent anti-intellectualism, exhibited as anti-science hate by some, and present in so much of America’s rural heartland, must end; or we are going to destroy ourselves.

Everyone, however poorly educated, is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
And the facts are that the basic science of climate change has been known for a century, proven conclusively, and is unfolding precisely as predicted by scientists decades ago. Current scientific findings, including my own – Terrestrial ecosystem loss and biosphere collapse – show clearly that humanity has through environmental destruction inherent in industrial growth overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. For those unfamiliar with the state of global ecological science, this means humanity’s destruction of natural climate and ecosystems threatens to collapse the biosphere and end being.

Recently nearly the entire world came together under the
Paris Climate Treaty to globally address climate change for
the first time with all nations cutting emissions, a
global consensus Donald Trump recklessly threatens to destroy

Anti-science hater Donald Trump came to power inflaming rural prejudice, demagoguing lack of opportunity for the poorly educated, and promoting extreme climate change disinformation. Creepy Donald has already begun his reign of terror upon climate and the natural world, as he hands over the reins of government to the scientifically illiterate and ethically compromised oil oligarchy, and compiles lists of those in the government that worked on climate policy.

Creepy Donald’s ascendancy commits the full might of big government and corporatist interests to the destruction of the atmosphere and every last bit of life-giving natural ecosystems; in order that the rich may access and burn every last drop of oil and chunk of coal. Government and corporations are merged – a key aspect of classic fascism – in order to maximally enrich the billionaire class, living in exclusive, opulent compounds as the rest of us suffer, starve, and die amidst apocalyptic ruin.

Trump isn’t just a sexual predator, authoritarian demagogue, or proponent of ill-informed, unscientific, and self-serving policy; he is evil incarnate. Most everything he promotes, and certainly his environmental agenda, are diametrically opposed to truth. Donald Trump is a festering pile of shit that conned the uneducated – who often through their own failures have fewer opportunities – to vote for him.

Creepy Donald and his anti-intellectual base’s denial of established climate science truths threaten our very existence.

Humanity’s inequitable growth in population and consumption is systematically dismantling the natural ecosystems that make Earth habitable. Whether the human family has evolved enough to survive and equitably thrive – through the acquisition of knowledge, ethics, and just governance – is being decided.

We are all poised together upon the precipice of abrupt climate change and total and complete ecological collapse as the biosphere collapses.

And much of America’s heartland is too fucking stupid to know or care. They have fallen victim to a deliberate misinformation campaign and don’t have the cognitive skills to resist. Often times you get what you deserve.

I also blame the media who treated Trump’s ascent as reality show entertainment. How surreal during US Presidential election debates that not a single question about climate or environment was asked, and now how ironic is the panic as the extremism of Trump’s anti-science agenda becomes apparent.
And the liberal elite who gorge upon delicacies in their fancy salon’s as so many people are suffering for lack of basic needs being met and a few creature comforts has to be held accountable. It is my devout wish that the apocalyptic times to come hold special horrors for those that held power and spoke with forked tongues as they enabled industrial ecocide, and enriched themselves, rather than help others and nature.

Recently it was 36° F hotter in the Arctic than it should be, shockingly above freezing for a long period of time. Earth’s last ancient naturally evolved ecosystems continue to be liquidated for toilet paper and lawn furniture. Native peoples protecting all of our water – our last best chance for leadership to save being – are brutalized by the fascist oil oligarchy.

It is unconscionable that as climate and nature are literally collapsing around us, and as one people we fall together into nothingness, that a denier of basic scientific facts required to inform solutions is elected.

I like the real people of Wisconsin far more than the elite, but they shouldn’t be anti-science and anti-truth, or be jealous of others who have worked their mind muscles very hard with education.
I have some advice for the Trump rural electorate, who are not necessarily bad people, but place faith in invisible ghosts over knowledge and truth (nothing wrong with personal faith as long as it doesn’t conflict with self-evident reality). Please stop being so envious of the success of others and work to improve yourself and your children’s prospects. The opportunities available to you and your children are largely determined by how hard you work to educate yourself. If you choose not to prioritize education in your life, and don’t work hard in school, you will have less of everything.

Being uneducated doesn’t make you bad or even dumb, but it makes you less able to think critically and identify and respond to truth. And finally, demand and vote for people who will deliver a fair share of the economic pie to all without polluting and destroying our environment which makes Earth habitable for everyone.

Seek out truth through critical thought and embrace liberty, equity, and ecology.

And frankly, I would expect talented outdoors-men that claim to love the woods and waters to have noticed the ecological decline all around them. But as long as they get their buck, some don’t really care that ecosystems are collapsing. I expect more from you, share your knowledge of nature with us, and work to let forests age and regenerate even if it means less deer.

Many classmates of mine from High School who did not have the opportunity to attend college for whatever reason, are now working overtime to put their own kids through college. Demographics are on our side as millennials embrace tolerance and education. The only question is whether abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse have reached a tipping point and it becomes too late, leaving us to squabble for the crumbs falling from a dying global ecological system.

Frankly, if rural Wisconsinites would jettison their anti-science hate, I far prefer their conservative ethics (conservation is deeply conservative, hence sharing the same root) to the flatulent and thoroughly rotten liberal elites in Madison. Another high school classmate who was once a good friend has done well for himself in the fetid corrupt political cultural there, getting ahead by enabling child sexual abusers. America’s tainted political elite from both parties speak of helping others as they gorge upon the trough of big government and big corporations, and live tawdry lives preying upon others.

After purging climate scientists from government, who
will Creepy Donald's jack booked thugs come for next?

It is no wonder that the heartland of America – the home of patriots and great good at times – cries out for change, but Trump’s anti-science totalitarianism will not make America great again, it will destroy America and Earth. You get what you deserve.

Being smart and looking out for long-term environmental needs are cool. Being an uneducated voter that votes for charlatans because of class envy, dooming the Earth to destruction is not. Taking more than your fair share as your over-consumption destroys nature and workers suffer is foul elitism and must be banished.

Despite being terrorized by the poorly educated with limited prospects in my youth, I am willing to move on and fight for their fair share of Earth’s bounty, and for life-long opportunities for self-improvement.

But first we need to defeat the fascist monster the anti-intellectual rural voters have foisted upon us. Donald Trump is a filthy, vile man – best described as Creepy Donald – who willfully ignores knowledge and preys upon others for personal gain.

Just this week he came for the climate scientists in government, making lists in preparation for their purge. Who will creepy Donald come for next? Gays, blacks, the poor, the handicapped, non-Christians? How long until those that dissent are imprisoned and murdered? Anti-intellectualism has placed the button to destroy the Earth in the hands of a mad man, though he may prefer to do so through his climate and environmental policy.

This American Nazi is not my President. He will have to be defeated, particularly his misogynist, racist, anti-environmental agenda, using all just means necessary.

Donald Trump’s defeat will start with billions of acts of non-cooperation. An Earth revolution is coming and it is our last chance to survive. We have neglected the needs of democracy, the less fortunate, and our one shared environment for too long. It is time to get back to the land.

The coming transition to an equitable, just, and ecologically sustainable world may well come from Wall Street or from Main Street, from the farms, from urban activists, or some combination of the above; but it will come. And I hope it results from all of us coming together to embrace knowledge, truth, and wisdom as we resist Creepy Donald’s fascist untruths, and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect and restore natural ecosystems, and learn to share again. Only then will America truly be great again.

The Death of Gaia

Miraculous nature is being murdered. Everywhere we look inequitable over-consumption is devastating the natural ecosystems that sustain a living Earth. Together we yield to ecological truth – personally embracing a global ecology ethic, and demanding others do so as well – or we all needlessly die at each others’ throats as the global ecological system collapses and being ends.

Gaia’s ecosystem organs – old-growth forests, natural waterways, bountiful oceans, vibrant soils – will be restored and maintained at all costs as global ecological reserves to power the biosphere and maintain a living and livable Earth. — Dr. Glen Barry

Earth is Dying

The Signs

Everywhere you look humans are destroying nature. We are eating the ecosystems that sustain us, crapping in our own habitat, calling it development as we destroy our one shared biosphere.

Look outside your window. Chances are that the “nature” you see – some degraded secondary forests, power lines and roadways, with disturbed soil and degraded waterways – was a million year old natural ecosystem only a few generations ago. Never have naturally evolved ancient ecosystems been so swiftly destroyed to produce throw away consumer junk.

We are witnessing the age of ecocidal, conspicuous, and inequitable over-consumption. 90% of old growth forests have been mowed and large ocean fish harvested. Half of both natural soil and vegetation have been destroyed. Oceans are dying from bottom trawling, acidification, and over-harvest.

Abrupt and runaway climate change is well underway as humanity continues to treat our atmosphere as a waste dump. We piss and worse into our natural waterways as billions lack clean drinking water. Plants and animals as well as people are fleeing collapsing ecosystems.

And most people are too fucking dumb to realize what is occurring, little more than microbes being pickled in their own waste as their and all being ends.

The Outlook

China is going to ecologically collapse first, as industrial filth on behalf of all nations has proliferated, and it will be soon. Collapse of this ecocidal tyranny may well by itself pull down the biosphere. Similarly India and Europe are most at risk – where millennia of ecological simplification, along with tremendous over-population, will ensure mass migration and conflict until these population bases are brought into balance once again with natural ecosystems.

The United States may persist longer as the ecocide has not occurred for as long. But here nationalistic militarism along with an unparalleled sense of entitlement, and a lack of understanding of community and the natural world, is perhaps most dangerous. If every American is not allowed to realize their exceptional birthright to wantonly overconsume, they damn well will destroy everybody and everything in fits of infantile rage.

Finish reading at EcoInternet...

Declaring Climate Peace in an Age of Ecological Restoration

Make peace with the climate, ecology, and
each other

The global ecological system collapses and dies as human growth overruns natural ecosystems and climate. Our best hope is to declare peace with the natural world – starting with climate and old-growth forests – coming together as peace-makers of the rainbow for truth, love, justice, equity, and ecology.

Only a declaration of climate peace based upon protecting and restoring natural ecosystems including the atmosphere can save us now… Making peace with ecology will allow our descendants to live forever, rather than suffer and die miserably in ecologically apocalyptic wastelands. — Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders deep ecology essays by Dr. Glen Barry


Ending Ecocide and Genocide

Humanity has waged war against the natural world for millennia, intensifying with the industrial revolution, culminating with 9/11 terror and resulting perma-war, and threatening now to collapse the biosphere. Centuries ago an epic wave of ecological terror swept from Northern Europe as the industrial revolution and colonialism put a price on everything, liquidating natural ecosystems for illusory consumption by some, based upon false claims of advancement. Fleeting creature comforts for a few generations for some have come at the expense of apocalyptic war waged upon our ecological habitats and all that is different than ourselves.

In the name of god and country, indigenous cultures ensconced within the loving embrace of natural ecosystems, living materially simple but ecologically rich lives, were labeled savages and brutally murdered in waves of ecocide and genocide. Millions of year old natural ecosystems were systematically dismantled, and their vibrant life forms mercilessly slaughtered, to be used as resources to fuel the fires of industry. Anything that could burn, including timeless carbon stores of ancestral life meant to remain sequestered, were set ablaze to fuel our insatiable urges.

Indigenous people will lead the way to
climate peace

Multi-pronged wars upon nature proclaimed as god’s will, and thus destined to be waged by exceptional nations, have utterly devastated naturally evolved ecosystems, the current climate equilibrium, non-Western cultures, and the sum total of life known as the biosphere. A constant state of conflict with nature and all people with heritages other than that of European settlers has left the world in an overpopulated, biologically tawdry and diminished condition, poised upon utter and complete ecological ruin. The end of being is nigh, yet hope inherent in ecology and peace remains.

Declaring Climate Peace

It is time to declare and make a lasting peace with the natural world – starting with climate and intact ecosystems such as old-growth forests, and encompassing all Earth’s life, including other peoples. Each of us must seek to minimize biological, ecological, and cultural conflict in order to allow Earth to rest, recuperate, and recover.

Only a declaration of climate peace based upon protecting and restoring natural ecosystems including the atmosphere can save us now.

[Finish reading essay at EcoInternet]

Bill McKibben’s Ecology-Free Declaration of War on Climate is Dangerous and Wrong

Old-growth forests must be protected and restored
to limit abrupt climate change

Why does Bill McKibben’s recent sensationalist appeal for a “War on Climate” make no mention, not even one, of ecology or ecosystems? While understanding Mr. McKibben is trying to call for a rapid societal response at a massive scale to an urgent existential threat, perhaps a better analogy would be demobilizing to make climate peace by cutting emissions and reforesting, as declarations of war often only make things worse.

It is irresponsible and contrary to established ecological science for Mr. McKibben to promote a war on climate focused solely upon techno-optimist industrial solutions. First and foremost, climate change is an ecological issue… I, for one, am much less perturbed that Bill occasionally uses plastic bags for his groceries, than that he apparently has little understanding of the ecological systems that maintain a livable Earth. — Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders, Deep ecology essays by Dr. Glen Barry

Climate policies matter. We have very few chances to get it right before abrupt climate change and related environmental and social issues collapse the biosphere. Yet the solutions being put forth by the leading climate activists—including Bill McKibben, Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Klein, and Michael Brune—are woefully inadequate. In fact, their lack of ecological focus is dangerous and wrong, and virtually ensures failure in limiting global warming to an acceptable level.

In a recent New Republic essay entitled “A World at War”, Mr. McKibben states “We’re under attack from climate change—and our only hope is to mobilize like we did in WWII.” The colorful essay correctly notes the urgency of a dramatic, urgent, and large-scale response to the threats posed by climate change. Yet we are led to falsely believe that a war-like industrial retooling to produce massively more solar panels and wind turbines more quickly will prove adequate to solve climate change. At best this is meaningless jingoism, at its worst it dangerously misdiagnoses climate change’s causes,  and does not propose ecologically sufficient climate change solutions.

NOT EVEN ONCE does Bill’s essay calling for a war on climate mention the biological and ecological aspects of our climate change conundrum. In fact, the words ecology, ecosystem, and even environment are not used. How is it that the climate movement’s perceived Martin Luther King type transformational figure has the science and policy behind climate change so dangerously wrong?
Natural ecosystem loss as a cause, and positive-feedback fed result, of abrupt climate change is once again given short shrift, and protecting and enhancing the natural environment is amazingly completely ignored once again by Mr. McKibben as an element of climate solutions. Instead we are left with war metaphors and further industrial development as a dangerously incomplete climate policy prescription.

What the hell Bill? Where is your understanding of ecology, and your embrace of widespread and connected natural ecosystems as a crucial element of any climate change solution?
Mr. McKibben, climate change is not Hitler, and waging war will not solve it. Climate change results not only from billions of pistons burning fossil fuels, it is also caused by billions of conscious decisions to destroy the naturally evolved world – one tree, or patch of ground, at a time – which through vegetation’s cycling of water, energy, and carbon have sustained a habitable Earth for eons. Of course at some level Bill you must realize this, but why not speak, write, and advocate for protecting and restoring natural ecosystems as a keystone climate change response?

Permaculture forest gardens intermixed with
regenerating old-growth key to stabilizing
carbon cycle

Maintaining natural stores of carbon and the natural carbon cycle between these repositories is of primary importance in limiting abrupt climate change and ensuring it doesn’t become run-away. Mr. McKibben’s vision of a war-like industrial mobilization is myopic and entirely ignores the re-greening of land and waters that must occur. We could end fossil fuel emissions rapidly, and still drown in historical emissions, if there are not ways to remove what has already been emitted from the atmosphere (we are at over 400 parts per million of carbon and Bill’s group’s name 350.org acknowledges we have surpassed the safe limit). How else but through natural processes associated with plant growth will global ecological balance be restored?

The simple ecological truth is that natural vegetation holds and cycles carbon in a manner that removes carbon from the atmosphere. We know much carbon is released when natural vegetation is cleared or reduced. And that there is tremendous potential to re-vegetate the vast areas of land that have been cleared of natural ecosystems, as nearly 90% of primary forests have been cleared or dramatically diminished through fragmentation. All remaining old-growth forests must be protected not only as carbon stores, but also for sources of seed and genetic variability for the coming era of ecosystem restoration and climate adaptation, and aided to expand and reconnect. Along with secondary forests undergoing succession into old-growth status, inter-mixed with organic permaculture and forest gardens, expanded natural forest ecosystems have dramatic potential to store carbon and perhaps more importantly keep it cycling.

Given how many natural terrestrial ecosystems have been lost, it is vital to avoiding willful ecocide that we stop logging ancient old-growth forests, allowing them to recover and expand.

I assert with absolute certainty as a trained ecologist after a lifetime of study and nurturing of ecological intuition that there is no possible solution to climate change that does not include large natural forests covering the majority of Earth’s land mass.

So why is Mr. McKibben and 350.org not calling for an immediate end to old-growth logging and massive program to restore native forest ecosystems along with all those solar and wind factories? In what can only be called willful negligence, essentially the entire climate change glitterati including Mr. McKibben refuses to publicly support in a major way protecting and restoring old-growth forests as part of the climate change solution, despite being called upon to do so by myself and others for over a decade.

Why could this possibly be? Is it ignorance? Is the climate movement’s leadership out of their element? Does a Journalism degree from Harvard qualify someone to craft planetary ecological solutions? Why is it that the largest, most well-funded voices on climate are not only a journalist by training; but the others are an accountant, a philosopher, a politician, and an actor. Why are none of the leading climate spokespersons who are espousing climate policies trained in ecological science?

Is it possible that, however well intentioned, a climate change movement led by those without ecological training are missing the crucial link between functioning natural ecosystems and a functioning climate and biosphere? And that possibly their sense of hubris and self-importance leads them to miss this crucial universal truth that natural vegetation and an operational climate are tightly coupled and intricately dependent upon each other? 

Could the Earth System be a living organism dependent upon natural ecosystems to cycle carbon and Bill, Leo, Mike, Naomi and Al wouldn’t know it?

It is possible that the climate change leadership’s funding sources have an interest in continued destruction of natural ecosystems. 350.org is primarily funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, also a long-time funder of “sustainable old-growth forest logging”, the same pile of ill-gotten fossil fuel money that has long funded the lie put forth by the Forest Stewardship Council and other logging apologists that old-growth forests can and should be logged sustainably. Two decades ago it looked like primary forest logging was waning and would end, then along came a false solution based upon bad science, and we now have questionably sustainable old-growth forest toilet paper and lawn furniture. We know it is good because the Rockefeller funded stamp of approval says so.

We have known for over 100 years, since John Muir’s prescient preservationist warnings, reinforced by modern science, that logging old-growth forests can never be done sustainably. Contemporary planetary boundary science makes clear more natural forest ecosystems have been lost than the biosphere can bear. My own research indicates that at 66% loss of natural ecosystems, the global biosphere percolates and loses critical connectivity required to sustain terrestrial ecosystems and thus the biosphere.

Climate change could be solved tomorrow and soil erosion, ecosystem loss, nitrogen and phosphorous deposition, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, emergent disease, toxic synergies, mass extinction, ocean decline, water scarcity, over-population, inequity, perma-war, and any number of other of social environmental issues could still decimate and perhaps end humanity. Climate change is a symptom of deeper maladies which will not be addressed in isolation. 

There are many elements of sufficient climate policy other than natural ecosystems given short thrift by a techno-optimist vision overly focused upon industrial production of renewable energy. Some can happen right away with the same urgency as ramping up renewable energy. What of energy conservation? Reduced meat diets based upon local organic production? Foregoing personal automobiles and flying less? Others are more long-term but must start immediately and be maintained if there is any hope for global ecological sustainability. What of reducing inequity to ensure all of humanity’s basic needs are met? Having fewer children? And perhaps most importantly, working to demobilize standing armies as has occurred throughout history except in the last 100 years.

A focus upon vilifying the fossil fuel industry, a product that virtually every global citizen depends, even the climate glitterati, will only get you so far. At some point, only calls for sacrifice, equity, and justice will get the job done. Yet climate leaders such as Leo DiCaprio won’t even give up their profligate emissions for leisure on private jets and yachts. On an over-populated, inequitable world that has already overshot ecological limits, it is wrong and dangerous to suggest we can continue conspicuously overconsuming electricity generated through industrial scale renewable energy. It is irresponsible to suggest a war on climate focused solely upon techno-optimist industrial solutions.

The gross inadequacy of calling for a declaration of war on climate goes further. People are murdered in war, Bill, in large numbers, ruthlessly and wantonly. The jettisoning of moral and ethical standards implicit in war jargon enables a war on drugs to target the poor and minorities, as the war on terror justifies remote control murder, including of American citizens without due process. And we know drugs have won, and militant nationalism breeds terror. “Wars” declared on behalf of policies have seldom if ever been effective.

A much richer vision of urgent resolve would be to call for climate change demobilization and waging of climate peace. History is replete with examples of ending war and the beating of guns into plowshares as an opportunity to redirect societal resources. How many solar panels and windmills could be crafted from nearly $2 trillion in global military spending a year, if the world returned to its pre-911 course of establishing international laws and reducing military expenditures?

Let me make it clear. Bill McKibben is a hero who has done much for the climate change movement. But he and 350.org are not the only, most qualified, or longest serving players. And sometimes, such as with their abject resistance to addressing natural ecosystem loss as a keystone response to climate change, they are simply plain wrong. 

Tragically, both 350.org and other foundation-fed climate bureaucracies like the Sierra Club make little effort to engage with their critics. This is not the first time they have been challenged to address natural ecosystem destruction as root cause of climate change, and embrace policies of protecting and restoring terrestrial ecosystems including old-growth forests as a keystone policy response. Despite being asked numerous times to clarify 350.org’s position on old-growth forest logging, they choose to remain silent. 

Bill and company, from their position of power, privilege, and prestige, have chosen to stonewall and directed their surrogates to vilify critics. When challenged, those feeding themselves from the trough of public money meant to solve climate change have refused to engage in a healthy debate, or even respond to critics, which could lead to a more diverse and sufficient climate change movement. Many of their supporters, and funders, portray asking questions regarding 350.org’s ecology-free climate pronouncements as somehow betraying the movement, rather than ensuring correct and sufficient science-based climate actions are identified and implemented in all haste. 

Is this the type of climate change movement we want and need?

Recently Bill wrote in the New York Times of the outrage that right-wing fossil fuel representatives were following him, observing his lifestyle. It is time for Bill to man up, and recognize as a public figure, scrutiny of his public and private actions are justified. He has been tasked with crafting personal and societal climate change responses that are sufficient to avoid global ecological collapse. I, for one, am much less perturbed that Bill occasionally uses plastic bags for his groceries, than that he apparently has little understanding of the ecological systems that maintain a livable Earth. 

In closing, I call upon Bill, Leo, Al, Naomi, and Mike to immediately come out against old-growth forest logging and for natural forest ecosystem restoration; and if not, to explicitly and specifically say why. Otherwise each is a legitimate target for protest as they are little more than charlatan demagogues hocking inadequate climate solutions. And I implore the vast climate movement and donors, in crafting sufficient polices to limit abrupt climate change, and the myriad of related environmental crises threatening biosphere collapse, it is time for more ecologically inspired voices to be heard and supported. That is if the big boys (and girl) have left any space or funding in the climate movement for deep ecology.

How Much Is Enough

Live more simply so that others may simply live

To sustain a livable environment, all basic human needs must be met as sufficient steady state stocks of natural capital are maintained. Guaranteeing a basic income as the greed of the billionaire class is tamed are keys to avoiding biosphere collapse and the end of being.

Conspicuous over-consumption by some as others fester in abject poverty is killing us all as we liquidate our shared biological inheritance for throw-away consumer crap... This perilous state of global inequity begs the question how much is enough? - Dr. Glen Barry

Despite being more aware than many of the perilous ecological condition of the planet, like most I am drawn by the siren call of affluenza. The variety of consumer goods and their marketing are so pervasive that it is hard to not succumb to the illusion that material items equate with happiness and well-being.

And while I try hard to weigh the impacts of personal expenditures on the planet and its life, and whether the purchase of a particular item is necessary, it is just so damn difficult to resist the desire to meet everyday whims and consume more, and not feel somehow disadvantaged if more stuff cannot be had.

My unmet desires for electronics, a new wardrobe, and travel of course pale in importance to the billions who struggle to meet basic needs. The fact that one billion people live in abject poverty on less than $1.50 a day continues to stun me. Given the networked nature of the world it is very unlikely that a just, sustainable and livable Earth can long persist with such imbalances.

Being married to a Papua New Guinean, and having lived in this Pacific Island’s villages for many years, I understand that exclusion from the money economy does not mean that existence cannot be rich in community, experience, leisure and the wealth found in a well tilled garden. It is important to differentiate between self-sufficiency and dispossession in those that are materially poor.

But the truth remains that billions of people’s basic needs for medicine, food, comfort, and a few select luxuries continue to go unmet; as others slovenly conspicuously over-consume. Jet set celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio warn us climate is real as they gallivant around the world with pals in private yachts and jets spewing emissions for leisure, setting a bad example. Many of us in the developed world’s middle class live lives of consumption beyond the kings and queens of yesteryear, yet rarely is our desire for more satiated.

Earth is a finite place. There are only so many resources to be derived from the harvest of natural ecosystems. As natural capital has and continues to be drawn down by exponentially growing populations all wanting to consume more; a state of ecological overshoot has resulted whereby consumption is occurring at a rate beyond Earth’s ability to regenerate. We have gone from one to seven billion super-consumers in 130 years and we are liquidating Earth’s natural ecosystems to make consumer products that mostly end up in the landfill.

Regional scale ecological depletion is becoming the norm as arable land, fresh water, and clear skies have become scarce. Throughout the world suffering from emergent diseases, hunger, and a state of resource driven perma-war escalates as ecosystems collapse. Soon our one shared biosphere will collapse too if the status quo of inequity, war, and ecocide continue.

This environmental decline often impacts the poor more deeply who depend upon local resources for livelihoods. Yet middle-class opportunities for employment and consumption are also in decline. As I have noted on many occasion, natural ecosystem loss and abrupt climate change threaten to collapse our one shared biosphere in what can only be described as the end of being. Then even the rich will feel the pain of consumption of Earth’s life-support systems.

This perilous state of global inequity begs the question how much is enough?

A few hundred people have half the Earth’s wealth. Historically a CEO of a business would make a few dozen times as much as their workers. Now it is often several hundred times.

In a world that is collapsing into a state of perma-war and abject poverty, can we not pursue any limits at all upon personal wealth? No one is speaking of communism or even socialism here – those that work hard and are smarter deserve to have more. But at what point is it enough? And when do societal requirements for meeting basic human needs, while maintaining a habitable planet for all species, take precedence? We engage with these questions of inequity or we die.

One of the more interesting ideas gaining support across the political spectrum is the idea of replacing virtually all government programs with a guaranteed basic income sufficient to cover basic sustenance to every human being simply for being alive. Thus every human being’s basic human needs for shelter, food, clothing, and medicine would be realized. 

Those living on just such a basic income would not live a luxurious life, but abject human suffering would be banished. Huge government bureaucracies could be dismantled. Some could choose to live simple lives as students, artists, and musicians; while other work for extra consumption – but not without limit. And those working harder would have more, but not endless amounts that threaten the environment and others’ ability to persist.

So how much is enough? How about top executives making 40 times the amount of their average employee instead of 400 times, like they used to – if workers make $50,000 this still provides the boss with $2,000,000, more than enough to reward hard work. And every human being could have their average needs met with a basic income. This would be a start.

We have been conditioned since birth to consume at all costs, often haphazardly at the expense of the natural capital that sustains us. It will be very difficult to overcome the lure of mammon yet try we must. If the population can be stabilized and begin to be reduced, there is enough natural wealth for all to live decent lives with basic needs met and a variety of some, but not all, luxuries to match every taste.

Imagine a world where community, experience, regional travel, knowledge, and a life well lived are desired as much as ever more wealth at the expense of others and the Earth. The political will must be found to strongly tax the wealth of the billionaire class to meet the needs of the poor and our shared environment. 

There are other ways to live than a hell-bent rush to ecocide.

Until such time as we all in the middle and upper classes learn to live with a bit less, and to share with others, there is virtually no chance of a peaceful, sustainable, and just Earth continuing forever, or even much longer.

Environmental Collapse Fuels Resurgent Fascism of the #CreepyDonald Ilk

The biosphere is collapsing and dying as natural ecosystem loss, abrupt climate change, and grotesque inequity have so diminished natural capital that we find our well-being threatened by reduced material expectations, a state of perma-war, and escalating authoritarian fascism. Charlatan madman Donald Trump – aka #CreepyDonald – is a deranged, authoritarian wannabe-tyrant seeking to demagogue environmental collapse; and whose racist xenophobia, militant violence, and anti-science hate threaten America’s and the world’s final demise. It is the duty of every fair, decent, tolerant, freedom loving American to resist the rise of GOP authoritarian fascism and commit to peaceful, equitable, and ecologically sustainable advancement for all. 

It’s really quite simple: diminished economic prospects and social cohesion are the direct result of environmental decline. -- Dr. Glen Barry 

Earth Meanders, Deep Ecology Essay

By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecointernet

July 23, 2016

Donald Trump is creepy

Human industrial growth has dismantled the ecological systems upon which healthy economies and societies are based.  Planetary ecological boundaries required for a habitable Earth have been surpassed as the human family finds itself in a state of ecological overshoot. Loss of natural ecosystems and a stable climate are already causing much conflict, suffering, and reduced opportunity for material advancement. Worsening environmental conditions threaten our liberty too as demagoguery flourishes.

Over the past 130 years the human population has grown from one to seven billion people, many of whom are living highly consumptive lifestyles, as others are mired in numbing abject poverty. This growth has come at the expense of destroying natural ecosystems. Massive economic expansion was easy when based upon liquidating ancient old-growth forests, bottom trawling bountiful oceans, and intensively over-exploiting soil. Now many of these natural resources are nearly exhausted.

Natural capital has perilously declined to such an extent that further widespread growth in material consumption is no longer possible. At least 90% of old growth forests and stocks of large ocean fish have already been harvested, and 50% of topsoil has eroded; as natural ecosystems that sustain life are destroyed for short-term profit. Abrupt climate change already routinely causes severe deprivation and dislocation.

CONVERGING GLOBAL CRISES THREATEN BIOSPHERE COLLAPSE

A number of other threats are converging, greatly diminishing the global condition, and imperiling progress on environmental sustainability. Grotesque inequity – whereby one billion people live on under $1.50 a day as similar numbers live opulent lifestyles – is the norm and worsening. As is often the case during hard times, many are returning to millennia old religious myths that teach that those who believe differently are bad and should be killed. Remote-control christian militarism and radical islamic terrorism are rife, as murder in the name of god is again in vogue.

A state of perma-war has arisen. Eternal tribal conflicts have been exacerbated by a scramble to exploit the last bits of natural capital; which incidentally power the biosphere, providing the ecosystem habitats which make Earth livable. Rather than thinking freely and coming together for global ecological sustainability and lasting human advancement, we seek to murder each other in the name of god and country, as in reality we pursue natural resources at advantageous terms.

These converging global mega-crises are compounded by outright ignorance and anti-intellectualism by those that should know better, but rather seek to enrich themselves based upon the suffering of others.

It’s really quite simple: diminished economic prospects and social cohesion are the direct result of environmental decline. The expectation in much of the world that each generation will be materially better off can no longer be sustained by plundering remaining resource-rich ecosystems. Sadly, such simple and unquestionable truths are opaque to the many people who have lost their ecology ethic, and live vacuous lives in pursuit of more stuff, or scramble daily just to survive.

Our one shared biosphere is threatened with imminent collapse and death, as together we are all faced with nothing less than the end of being. 

THE RISE AND FALL OF #CREEPYDONALD

Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist

Against such a backdrop of ecological, social, and economic decline; innumerable charlatan demagogues are rising, as is often the case when times are hard. Selling various brands of snake oil, they promise to make us safe, rich, and great again; if only they are given absolute power. While tyrannical forms of government are nothing new, and despite immeasurable human suffering during previous bouts of authoritarianism, our present condition of environmental scarcity has created the conditions for fascism’s resurgence.

Madman Donald Trump is the most obvious example of a deranged authoritarian, demagoguing reduced expectations brought about by environmental decline. Trump's scapegoating of the less fortunate, overt nationalism, racism and misogyny, and continuous threats of violence are classic fascism. Trump’s denial of incontrovertible climate change is ignorant and simply unforgivable charlatanism. His entire demeanor and agenda for America will worsen environmental decline and social discord. Mocking the disabled, saying he would date his own daughter, demeaning women and minorities, and Trump's supporters' Nazi salutes are downright creepy. Given Trump’s affection for derisive monikers, I have taken to calling him #CreepyDonald.

#CreepyDonald’s complete cluelessness regarding the root causes of decline indicate that he is really interested in absolute power, which once given, may never be able to be revoked. While concerns over security, jobs, and the deleterious impacts of uncontrolled mass migration are not without merit, the solutions are highly suspect. Trump’s agenda wastes time and diverts resources necessary to protect and restore nature to avoid biosphere collapse. Further division, conflict, and over-development are not the answer.

Mocking those with disabilities is creepy

In the rise of #CreepyDonald we are witnessing the fall of America as a free and great nation (albeit imperfect and always striving for self-improvement). #CreepyDonald’s authoritarian tyranny is neo-fascism and if he seizes power will result in the fall of tolerant and decent liberal democracy in America. Nothing less than centuries of social progress – such as mostly ending slavery and achieving racial and sexual equality – are threatened by fascism’s return.

No matter the threat; dark, violent authoritarian fascism of the sort espoused by #CreepyDonald and the GOP in America, and countless other neo-fascists globally, is never the answer. #CreepyDonald is unfit, unstable, and unacceptable; and his anti-science, anti-intellectualism ensures global unsustainability.  At this critical juncture in history, Donald Trump must not be allowed to seize power.

GREEN LIBERTY IS THE ANSWER

Continuous expectations that each generation will be better off materially are no longer possible unless we replenish natural capital through a sustained program of ecological protection and restoration. Equitable economic advancement depends upon achieving a steady state economy, as we remain free by firmly rejecting authoritarian fascism.

Ecologically sustainable economic advancement requires skill and knowledge, and profound empathy and sharing with the less fortunate. Building a just, verdant, and equitable world depends upon returning to the land to grow products and services of lasting benefit that meet basic needs from creative self-expression with our minds and bodies.

Humanity finds itself hurtling through space on a 3.5 billion year old organism – called Earth by some, Gaia by others – which is collapsing and dying. We will only survive and thrive by coming together in common purpose to sustain natural ecosystems, remain free, and more equitably share nature’s bounty. To start we must #DumpTrump and firmly destroy all other threats to our liberty and ecology.

The Sheer Terror of Looming Biosphere Collapse

Ecosystem loss is biosphere collapse

The global ecological system is collapsing and dying as humanity overruns natural ecosystems and the climate. We are entering an age of unrelenting violence and suffering, prior to biosphere collapse and the end of being, unless dramatic social change based upon a global ecology ethic arises quickly.


Humans evolved within a lush and vibrant Eden teaming with life, which until just a few generations ago provided for natural abundance and the prospect of perpetual human existence. We are one of many species utterly dependent upon natural ecosystems for all needs including air, water, food, and shelter.

The rise of ecological colonialism and the industrial revolution changed all that, as million year old naturally evolved ecosystems became fodder to be liquidated and consumed for accumulation of paper wealth. The disambiguation of buying our needs with money has led us to deny our ecological nature.

For two centuries humanity has waged an unrelenting war upon nature. Ecological habitats and their wildlife residents have been slaughtered incessantly. Entire species have been wiped out, as their members have been burnt, shot, tortured, and left to starve. Whole ecosystems have been dismantled to create consumer crap that is quickly thrown away.

Concurrently Western science has learned what indigenous peoples have long known, that we are but one species in a web of life. That all is one, intertwined in a miraculous system whereby life creates the conditions for life. And that as goes nature befalls us. Those in touch with nature realize ecology is the meaning of life. And that without ecology there can be no economy.

It has become increasingly obvious to experts and astute lay persons that the ecological fabric of being is fraying. We now know that ecological boundaries exist, and that the human endeavor has overshot them. Old-growth forests remain as tawdry remnants, soil has become lifeless and sterile, oceans are dying, and water and food are scarce for humanity and kindred species.

Ever expanding human numbers have lost sight of our place within ecology, and have little knowledge of the natural world. Instead well-being is defined by mobile apps and expensive play-things that soon grow old and are discarded. For many life is a vacuous search for status and stuff, utterly detached from the condition of natural capital that makes their and all life possible. And for the rest – the large percentage of people living in abject poverty – life is a squalid struggle to meet basic needs amidst Disneyfied conspicuous over-consumption by celebrities and bankers.

Long a war-prone species, humans have concurrent with ecocide nonetheless undergone remarkable social evolution whereby slavery’s prohibition, women’s rights, freedom of thought, and representative democracy – with some progress on racial equality – has largely been achieved. Nonetheless attempts last century to eliminate war have failed miserably. Over-populated inequity in an age of resource scarcity – stoked by grotesquely wasteful over-consumption by the few – fuels a rise of authoritarian fascism and conflict between the haves, have-lesses, and have-nots.

Few diagnose the state of perma-war waged by lone terrorists and drones as the result of environmental decline. Yet the coming anarchy can be seen all around us, by those who wish to see.

Streams of refugees flee collapsing ecosystems and abrupt climate change. Traditional food stocks from the oceans and forests are virtually exhausted. The act of saving seeds has become a radical act of resistance as all that is natural is commodified, homogenized, and toxified.

All around are well-meaning peoples pursuing pieces of the solution. Organic permaculture, ending fossil fuels, protecting and restoring natural ecosystems, consuming less, and more are occurring. But it is too little too late by orders of magnitude as the sheer inertia of ecocide found in mass conspicuous over-population and consumption prepares its final assault upon the natural world.

Already societies and economies are collapsing, from Syria to Haiti, and including the downturn in economic aspirations for the petty-bourgeoisie. The Earth’s capacity to provide for human well-being is collapsing. Every last natural ecosystem is to be mopped up for chopsticks and the last drop of oil. Not only will your children not have more than you have, they may die in an unimaginably horrendous ecological apocalypse.

Every month without the rise of ecologism, we fall deeper into nothingness, as the signs of sick ecosystems and dysfunctional climate are written off by the ecologically challenged. Soon as the pillages of war and ecocide come to your neighborhood you can expect to know hunger, disease, and the bad kind of anarchy.

Expect to face firsthand the terror of biosphere collapse – where your mothers and daughters are raped, along with your sons sold into the military and other forms of slavery, before they and you die like famished stray dogs on a dead Earth.

The global ecological system is collapsing and dying.

We are a clever species, with opposable thumbs and relatively large brains. Perhaps the Internet community and the sense of the human family it engenders can help us realize there is no god but Earth, that we are one people, and that we are one species of animals amongst many. And that we can choose to return to nature’s fold.

All that is green and natural must be protected in earnest and urgency with all our might or the biological foundation of being ends. Start with growing your food and restoring the land, reject personal cars and large families, and work outward to reconnect your community to its peaceful and healthy bioregion.

Otherwise the hairless ape show all intentions of pulling down the biosphere as we frantically seek more not understanding there is no more to be had. The sky is falling. The end of being looms.

The Pernicious Myth of Perpetual Economic Growth

Nothing grows forever. The myth the economy can is destroying the biosphere.

By Dr. Glen Barry

The present human condition is predicated on one of the biggest lies ever – that the economy can grow indefinitely. In a self-serving logical contortion, economists in service to the oligarchy measure the well-being of a society by how fast the economy grows, with little regard to the state of natural capital, human inequity, the welfare of ecosystems and other species, or the extent to which people and society are happy. Natural capital is defined as Earth's stocks of natural assets including ecosystem services which make all life possible, which is unmeasured and thus undervalued by indices of economic growth.

Measures such as Gross Domestic Product utterly fail to tie increases in economic output to human and natural well-being. Spending on militaristic drone attacks and the rich's conspicuous over-consumption are equated with social expenditures to meet basic human needs. Clearcutting old-growth forests for toilet paper is of equal worth as providing homes and food for the poor. Ravaging Earth's last natural ecosystems for every last drop of oil is deemed economically beneficial (despite being terribly inefficient as externalities remain unpriced), while we are told restoring natural ecosystems is unprofitable because of large discounting of future benefits.

Living as if Earth's nature has no worth other than to be liquidated for consumption degrades ourselves and ecosystems, and can only end in utter ruin as first society, then the economy, and finally the biosphere collapses. It is blatantly obvious that infinite growth on a finite Earth is impossible. Yet we run our economy with this goal.

Earth is everything. Without ecology there can be no economy.

Economic growth is worshiped as if it were holy and divine, rather than acknowledging that growth can come at enormous economic, social, and environmental costs. There is little understanding of ecological overshoot and the limits to growth, as we seek ever more material possessions at the expense of all else, systematically degrading not only our habitat, but also our future resource base and potential for broad-based community advancement.

Growth appears to be benign and pleasant, iPhones and foreign travel are intoxicating, yet perpetual economic expansion comes at an unknown price whose deleterious impacts sneak up upon you. Such is the nature of exponential growth. The exorbitant costs of an exponentially growing economy are best illustrated by imagining a pond whereby the extent of lily-pad coverage doubles in extent every day, on the 30^th day fully covering the water. On which day is the pond half covered? When is it a 10% covered? We shall return to this question.

By falsely equating exponential growth with societal well-being, capitalism may well be irredeemable. Its foundational idea of people coming together in markets to exchange their surplus has been bastardized to suggest that creating something of worth and selling it is the same as every manner of speculative financial trickery. Yet for markets to serve human's and nature's well-being, there are some basic out-right lies that need to be addressed now.

Firstly, growth cannot fully measure economic well-being; we need a richer measure that determines the extent to which economic activity is sustainable and widely beneficial. A much richer measure is the rate of economic growth per unit of natural capital (drawn down or replenished), and by the extent to which economic advancement is equitably shared. Such a truly green economy is said to be at a steady state, whereby both population and consumption are stable at a sustainable level. How dense are we to not understand that Earth is everything, and that without ecology there can be no economy?

Given the current state of ecological overshoot – as terrestrial ecosystems, climate, water, oceans and biodiversity are collapsing – achieving a steady state economy would require decades of degrowth and redistribution of wealth. Urgent measures would have to be taken to provide incentives that cap both population and disparities in consumption, even as aggregate draws upon natural capital are reduced to below replacement levels to allow for decades of ecological renewal.

[Finish reading essay by Dr. Glen Barry at EcoInternet]

On Ecology and Going Back to the Land

Life begets life, making Earth livable. — Dr. Glen Barry

Grow your own food as you restore ecology

Not much new land is being made, yet land’s well-being is central to the well-being of human and all life. On land, in a miraculous act of biological emergence, plants and animals have naturally evolved and self-organized to form ecosystems and ultimately the biosphere. Yet existing land and its ecology have has been treated incautiously and with great malice for centuries.

Land ensconced in natural vegetation is the living membrane that encompasses Earth and mediates energy and material flows between air and water. Naturally evolved terrestrial ecosystems are a majestic miracle, provider of life, and humanity’s habitat home. Over countless eons pulsing lifeforms emerge and radiate creating the panoply of a living Earth.

Life begets life, making Earth livable.

The history of natural land destruction is largely synonymous with human settlements and agriculture. The disease of ecological colonialism radiated from Europe, utterly decimating land and its productive capacity globally. As the myth of a perpetual growth economy has been universally embraced; about 90% of Earth’s original old-growth forests have been pillaged, 50% of top soil has been lost, and about half of global land cover no longer remains in a natural condition.

The global ecological system has percolated from a state of human settlements enmeshed within a sea of life-giving natural ecosystems, to a sea of unnatural human endeavors surrounding islands of nature. Such ecological overshoot is not sustainable and this terrestrial ecosystem loss is collapsing our one shared biosphere.

Rarely has a species gone so rogue and utterly lost their place within the natural world.

Read more at EcoInternet