Be the seed... |
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”Henry David Thoreau“Life begets life. As ecology narrates… Be the seed, and tend to your garden.”Dr. Glen Barry
Life Begets Life
Miraculous seeds are our future and always have and will be. Programmed in sprouting seeds and animal zygotes, deeply within their DNA, is the perpetual renewal of life. Faith can be found in a seed, as well as the willful knowledge upon which life’s promise rests.
...that begets future ancient oaks |
Out of this whirlwind of billions of years of genetic combinations emerged the hairless ape with the opposable thumbs. While clearly an animal, constant self-improvement has led to self-awareness. And the will to know, be free, and create.
Sadly, the human project while promising, has a dark, self-fulfilling death wish. Human comfort has come at the cost of a separation from, and destruction of, natural ecosystems. Packed tightly together, in weakened collapsing ecosystems, with industrial livestock and threatened wildlife; the future of the cosmic homo-sapien dance with nature is in question.
Nature and her humanity are in a race between ecosystem loss and regeneration, carbon emissions and renewables, vaccines and variants, scientific truths versus anti-science conspiracy theories. Human agency is both the problem and the answer.
At stake is personal and civilization’s well-being and survival. Human liberty for which it is worth living. And the future of a habitable biosphere. Nothing less than continued being or the end of being.
Powerful new seeds are needed to sow the pathway to continued nature and humanity. One might as well be an informed, awoke, and active you.
Looming Collapse
We are really in the shit. Environmental collapse, coronavirus, fascism, and I think I heard something about fire tornadoes. We find ourselves in this position of ecological and social collapse because of abrupt climate change, ecosystem loss, and over-population.
And hubristic and inequitable human material aspirations cumulatively surpassing the biosphere’s carrying capacity.
In a geological blink of an eye there has been enormous change to the ecological systems of the planet of which humans are a part, fully enmeshed, and utterly dependent. Anyone that looks with knowing eyes can see indicators that conditions for the global biosphere’s health are worsening. And that human society has been profoundly negatively impacted by environmental decline, finding itself now perched upon an apocalyptic end.
Deforestation, atmospheric change, water and ocean degradation, soil and wetland loss, clearing of natural ecosystems, and widespread cataclysmic wildfires are completely unprecedented. As wildlife habitats shrink diseases are coming in closer proximity to humans and there are increased inter-species jumps.
The context within which we live is changing. Our shared habitat is being simplified, toxified, and is dying. Socially, economically, and ecologically things are deteriorating fast. The situation has been bad for billions of humans for awhile, but the social implication of environmental decline is now hitting the well-off too.
Social competition and stress for limited resources in increasing. Globally protests are raging and may soon converge into an ecological, demonstration, injustice maelstrom. And we are seeing authoritarian responses including a drift towards fascism.
Those impeding science (and indigenous, justice, equity) based policy responses are on the wrong side of history and will be vilified for however long we have left.
Lazy Thinkers
Nature’s last chance is threatened by conspiracy theories promulgated by lazy thinkers. You know the type. The ones that find meaning in random YouTube videos, obscure podcasts, and millennia old texts. Those with poor critical thinking skills that have not educated themselves, invested time in being well-read, and pondered cosmology amongst old trees peering at the inscrutable stars.
Personally I have been first shocked and then saddened to hear family and friends repeat to me known falsehoods for which there is no truth. Trump won, COVID vaccines change your DNA, and many more. Humanity faces a deficit in critical thinking from which we may never recover.
Yet so many objective, science-buttressed truths exist. Life needs water. Land has a finite carrying-capacity. Earth is alive. Humans are born and meant to remain radically free. No Abrahamic gods sit in judgment. Love is the answer.
Earth and her humanity are faced with looming tragedies for which we don’t have much time. Critical thinking and rejecting conspiracy theories are more important now than ever.
It is OK, indeed admirable, to seek to live a special life in service to higher ideals, that has meaning other than self-stimulating your nerve endings.
Science does not have all the answers and is fallible. But it is method whereby data and observable, repeatable outcomes very often arrive at objective truth.
In these challenging times, little is as fulfilling as taking the time to critically identify truth required for community survival and thriving. Which must be just, equitable, and sustainable. Reading and listening to experts of many sources and types, until becoming one yourself. And making your hard earned and demonstrable truths known to others, implementing with others your action-knowledge on behalf of being.
Here are some of my truths. Community gardens. Tree planting. Birth control. Reducing emissions. Eating locally. Flying and driving less. Race does not matter. Making Love. Feeding the hungry. Absolute radical freedom and responsibility. Teaching the uneducated. Healing the sick. Resisting fascists. Loving Earth. Serving nature.
All from life-long questioning and learning. And subject to revision at any time from new data and repeatable observation.
The deplorable indoctrinated hordes; bent upon self-indulgent consumerism and indoctrinated dogma at the expense of the biosphere, will try to limit, constrain, and tell you that you are not special. Maybe suggesting you are crazy.
Your task is the hard slog of self-education, to arrive at objective truths, to imagine a better society and world, and develop a program of self-expression and action. Despite lesser evolved beings.
Become the seed from which a new world springs that is just, equitable, free, and sustainable. And lasts forever.
Reimagine Everything
We did it! Humanity is once again surrounded by intact nature. We have successfully returned to our natural condition. Energy, water, and nutrient cycles have been restored and once again make for a living biosphere.
After the decade long battle with coronavirus in which hundreds of millions died; we – the human family and kindred species – started over. The entire manner we related to our planet habitat was dramatically changed. When nature once again surrounded human works, we began to undo and reverse other types of collapse.
Many roads and other unnecessary human works were ripped out to reconnect water and woods and wildlife. Greatly reduced violence resulted from ending spending on militarism, and reductions in human population expanded wildlife habitat and opportunities for nature-based righteous livelihoods.
A choice was made to globally demobilize nuclear weapons and dramatically shrink standing armies. The money was plowed into children, and lifelong education, art and sport, job training, and of course the environment and health care.
Reasonable population reductions over time through educating all and on demand birth control were successfully implemented, allowing all basic human needs to be met with a guaranteed basic income. Positive results flowed from restraining capitalism’s excesses with simple long-prescribed notions like pricing environmental externalities, and favoring capital investments in the environment, social good, and governance.
In Closing
This seed seeks to highlight the universality of concerns across protests roiling the Earth, and the inherent ecological nature of many of these grievances.
There will be lasting peace. All humans will be treated equally. All will have enough as some have more. The Earth’s one shared biosphere will be sustained as the murderous suffering of nature will end as ecosystems are fully protected and restored.
Beside an occasional challenging essay, day in and day out EcoInternet’s seed provides an aggregated encyclopedic tracking and archiving of environmental and social events through EcoSearch. We seek to augment ecological knowledge and action using artificial intelligence.
Be the seed, and tend to your garden.
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