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

Embrace the Coming Ecological Inflection Point and Great Transition

Environmental awareness must soon reach a critical mass, whereby massive societal resources are re-allocated to scale up solutions in a great ecological transition; before biosphere, social, and economic collapse become unavoidable. An approaching ecological inflection point reflects a narrow band of opportunity to repair fragmented, quivering nature, clearly at its breaking point, before it is too late.

By Dr. Glen Barry

After 25 years of ecological advocacy, I can say with certainty that I have never seen as much genuine environmental concern as I do now. This has generally not led en masse to required action such as personal dramatic emission cuts and refusal to buy all products from old-growth forests. But for the first time ecological decline including climate change is visibly apparent to a degree that it is readily known by the educated and it can't be denied by anyone of good faith and character.

Concurrently trend lines for atmospheric and ecosystem decline are more perilous than ever. Humanity is putting the biosphere at great risk, as rampant industrial pollution and clearing of natural vegetation results in abrupt climate change occurring far faster than envisioned, and natural ecosystems are failing to provide the surrounding matrix of natural services which makes life possible. The natural family's only hope is that an ecological inflection point occurs, whereby the impacts of biosphere collapse become so evident – perhaps as millions die from extreme storms and other depredations – while there is still time to implement sufficient solutions. At that point the human family will howl for the necessary measures to be taken to protect and restore natural ecosystems, and end fossil fuels, on an accelerated emergency basis.

The only questions are whether as ecosystem collapse becoming apparent, will we squabble for what remains as we deny ecologism, or will we remain free as we begin in earnest a great transition to green liberty? And will we have identified and prototyped, and be ready with sufficient ecological solutions, to meet human needs while maintaining a living Earth? The ecological inflection point is a narrow band of opportunity to repair fragmented, quivering nature before it is too late. We must be ready with templates for ecological sustainability, which can employ billions, as a program of ecological restoration and energy conservation are rapidly scaled.

What hope remains for humanity and her habitat as ecological awareness and collapse converge in such a manner, is whether we are able to ramp up fast enough the plethora of ecological solutions we all know about but don't support enough. These efforts may be abetted by deep wells of global ecological resilience of which we are unaware, as the Earth is a living organism that has self-regulated for 3.5 billion year, yet whose workings remain largely unknown to her peoples.

Clearly we are already in ecological overshoot, as planetary boundaries regarding species loss, terrestrial ecosystem destruction, and industrial emissions of carbon, phosphorous, and nitrogen have already been breached; and thresholds for safe levels of human population, ozone, ocean acidity, aerosols, freshwater, and chemicals draw near.

Yet as mayhem looms, if we all came together to harness all the resources at our disposal – including from conspicuous over-consumption by the rich, and the military-industrial complex’s lucrative war making – surely we could marshal a response that allows the land, air, water, and oceans to rest, recover, and flourish thereby ensuring global ecological sustainability.

Reaching the ecological inflection point that triggers the great ecological transition before it is too late is going to require an end to greenwashing, which means accepting the gravity of our situation and necessary personal and societal changes, and confronting those that continue to greenwash for personal benefit. Celebrity climate activists jetting around to tell us to cut emissions, and large foundation fed bureaucratic environmental groups enriching themselves from old-growth forest logging, will have to be rebuked and shamed until their behavior changes.

And the voices must be amplified of those personally creating lifestyles without cars, traveling less, eating little or no meat, having one child, and limiting their consumption; and coming together to remake a society that is peaceful, just, and equitable. Ecological leadership must walk the walk.

The poor and dispossessed, as well as those that opulently overconsume, can together learn the meaning of enough. Equity does not mean everyone is equal, but everyone’s basic needs must be met as hard workers have more, but not ridiculously so to the detriment of others and the Earth. As livelihoods of the rich and the poor converge to reasonable levels of disparity, the talents of each can be harnessed to power enterprise without fossil fuels, to scale up alternative energy, even as we conserve negawatts.

Vast resources can be put into reclaiming non-productive, depauperate land with the expansion of historically accurate natural ecosystems, built upon restoring and reconnecting ecologically neglected fragments, wherever remaining natural vegetation occurs; intermingled with organic permaculture, to once again ensconce the human species within nature’s nurturing embrace.

Only by leaving fossil fuels in the ground and returning humanity to a sea of nature can biosphere collapse be avoided, and a sustainable future for human and all life assured.

As ecosystems collapse, horrendous suffering is going to become apparent. When we as a collective consciousness understand the magnitude of the situation – basically as mass human and wildlife death can no longer be ignored – we must be ready to scale proven ecological solutions swiftly and prudently. The sooner the ecological inflection point is reached, the greater likelihood we will avert complete and total biosphere collapse, and the end of being. A few extremophiles, and dandelions and cockroaches, may hang on; but complex life may end, and there is no assurance it will reemerge.

We must maximize the probability that enough nature will remain to sustain Gaia, a living Earth, which can essentially go on forever.

It is vitally important that each and every one of us commit to the great ecological transition by continuing to build awareness. That each of us becomes a leader in living well but consuming simply and with great care. And that we engage with the global growth machine to alter the means of enterprise in our image. We must work for ecological change within society and its engine of production, as only by converting business and the rich to our cause of self and ecological survival can we all prevail.

Sadly, I believe the possibility of an ecological inflection point is fading. And that the mass migration, state of perma-war, and resurgence of authoritarian fascism which we are witnessing are the result of environmental decline and resource scarcity. The sooner this can be widely recognized, the sooner we can get on with a massive program to save Earth, all her life, and thus ourselves.

Stop Being Afraid, Work Together to Make Things Better

Things could be so much better

Things could be so much better, if we want them to be. There are tremendous benefits to be realized by coming together to make peace, promote equity and justice, protect natural ecosystems, and end fossil fuels. But it requires us to reject religious fanaticism, think freely and generously, help the poor to live upon the land, demobilize standing armies, stop spewing filth into the air and waters; and go back to the land to create worth from nurturing soil and vegetation, earning a righteous livelihood from the strength of our minds and bodies. A green and free future of sustainability and abundance – based upon living within an encompassing matrix of organic permaculture, and natural and regenerating ecosystems – awaits us. For the present outrageous state of the Earth and the murdering of its inhabitants to end, mostly we just need to start loving each other and nature, and to share.

“Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism.” – Paul-Henri baron d’Holbach

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets”. – Voltaire

“Some day the earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you too will die.” – John Hollow Horn, Oglala Lakota

“I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down on the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I aint a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns.” – Woody Guthrie

“War is murder. I would rather be blown to pieces is a low-probability terrorist attack than forever give up my liberties and nature to oppressive big government and corporate exploitation.” – Dr. Glen Barry

I am absolutely appalled at humanity’s and nature’s condition over the last several years. I am filled with infernal rage and nausea, and particularly irked, that in the 21st century we witness in the Middle East the continuing waging of holy war in the name of various absent gods; as a plethora of social inequities and ecological crises threaten our very existence. Things could be so different if we embraced ecology, truth, justice, and equity as life’s meaning.

The world is ending as the biosphere collapses, preceded by the human family’s descent into a neo-dark age.

In this short essay I intend to identify the threats posed by religious extremism, corporate ecocide, stifling government, and nationalistic power-mongering. Existing solutions will be highlighted to humanity’s global problems, integrating many themes developed in more depth in my earlier writings.

Rather than fully embrace the last century of hard fought social, technological, and ecological knowledge, we continue to allow big government to wage religious perma-war for a small rich oligarchy at the expense of the poor and Earth. For a mortgaged house, a shiny car, and a cell phone the vast majority of the middle class turn a blind eye to the suffering their way of life causes to their human family and environmental habitat. Modern industrial livelihoods kill nature for illusory comforts for some for awhile.

As climate and ecosystems collapse, neo-fascist imperialism and local insurgencies arise to control dwindling resources. As I watch Muslim terrorists slaughter innocents, and Christian terrorists bomb innocents, over and over again; I am reminded of the danger of religious fanaticism and why I am an atheist and free-thinker. There is no god and religious fanaticism is god pollution that is destroying the Earth.

Ecology is the meaning of life. Renewable energy, a carbon tax, and energy conservation – along with an end to destruction of natural ecosystems and old-growth forest restoration – will solve climate change and avoid biosphere collapse. More natural ecosystems have already been lost than the biosphere can bear, and there is much work to be done regenerating ecosystems, creating sustainable permaculture agro-forests, and most people growing and locally exchanging their own organic food. Humanity must remain within the nurturing embrace of functional ecosystems.

[Read more at EcoInternet]

For Paris, Make Love Not War, Remain Free and Be Green

Make Love Not War

Be strong and reflect. Islamo-Fascism will not be defeated by Christo-Fascism or a state of perma-war. In the 21st century it is time to reject endless military escalation of the Middle East crisis and understand and respond to the root causes of conflict. Even as we commit to bringing all perpetrators of mass murder to justice, we must be brave and not give up our liberties or commit further war crimes. The West must respond to the rage of societies we have senselessly bombed for decades, yet not committed to truly liberating from Islamo-Fascism. Ecological restoration, sustainable agriculture, birth control, greater equity, and justice – along with international policing, rejecting religious extremism of all types, and a Paris climate treaty – are the only means to heal the Middle East’s and West’s wounds.

“War is murder. Together we must resist all religious, military, and nationalist indoctrination that teaches killing others is just… Oil is a drug and it is utterly destroying both the sellers and users. The current state of oil inflamed perma-war must draw to an end.” – Dr. Glen Barry

Personal essay by Dr. Glen Barry of EcoInternet
November 14, 2015

My sorrow goes out to those murdered and traumatized in Paris, and to the people and societies that feel such sorrow that they carry out these atrocities. First and foremost breathe and reflect: it is absolutely vital that we don’t panic and hastily and reflexively retaliate. Secondly, think of how we as a human family have gotten to the point where suicide bombers feel justified going on a murder spree through Central Paris, or the rich anonymously wage drone based terrorism on the poor causing such a worldview to fester. And lastly, seek to understand how abrupt climate change, ecological decline, and over-population have exacerbated ancient divides, escalating lethal militancy on all sides that threatens to tear down our one shared biosphere.

Liberal democracies must not let Western liberties be further sacrificed because of the madness of murderous thugs. While devastating, keep things in perspective, understanding far more children needlessly die from bad water a day – at least 3,000 – than were killed in the recent attack.

The cycle of escalation in the Middle East must be broken by responding firmly and resolutely with love and compassion, as both the murderous Daesh apostasy and Western imperialist neo-colonialism are eliminated from the Earth. The direct perpetuators and supporters of all murderous acts must be resolutely brought to justice under international law, the West must commit to basic human rights and needs for all (while not committing further war crimes), and ISIS must be liquidated as peaceful political structures are fostered in the Middle East.

War is murder. Together we must resist all religious, military, and nationalist indoctrination that teaches killing others is just. War murders are in service only to evil.

Seek to understand how we got to this point. The Middle East has been wracked by religious conflict for millennia. This volatile situation has been greatly exacerbated by profound inequity and injustice enforced by a medieval theocracy, funded by the West’s addiction to oil, and maintained through decades of aerial bombardment. The end result is that globally the very ecosystems and climate that we all depend upon for sustenance are collapsing. For many there are no homes or habitable ecosystems to return to post conflict.

Has America gotten revenge for 9/11 yet? Fifteen years after 9/11 over a million people have been murdered, the majority of them innocents. At some point we must recognize terrorism as blowback for Western over-consumption and the presumption that we are entitled to a disproportionate share of the world’s resources, including oil, which we are free to pillage to the detriment of all others. Daesh is a creation of failed foreign policy that came to a head with the botched invasion of Iraq by President George W. Bush, and continues with President Barack Obama’s murderous and ineffective drone strikes and persistent bombings.

Oil is a drug and it is utterly destroying both the sellers and users. The current state of oil inflamed perma-war must draw to an end.

Read more at EcoInternet...

Open Letter: Post Keystone Win, Time to End Natural Forest Logging

More old-growth forests have been lost
than the climate and biosphere can bear

An open letter/essay addressed to climate change luminaries Bill McKibben of 350.org and Michael Brune of the Sierra Club: After yesterday’s significant yet symbolic Keystone pipeline victory, not only must the climate movement demand an end to old-growth forest logging; it is time to speak of ending all natural forest logging to limit climate change and sustain the biosphere. Together with leaving fossil fuels in the ground, working for an end to industrial logging of natural forests will protect vital old-growth and allow dwindling natural ecosystems to age, recover, spread, reconnect, and sequester carbon in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change while avoiding global ecosystem collapse.

Again, loss and diminishment of terrestrial ecosystems are a critical component of abrupt climate change and is collapsing the biosphere. You both are well placed like few others to do something about it. – Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders essays by Dr. Glen Barry, EcoInternet, Honolulu, Hawaii

Dear Bill and Michael,

Congratulations to the climate change movement, 350.org and the Sierra Club, and yourselves for stopping the Keystone tar sands pipeline for now. Our own tiny EcoInternet was pleased to play a bit part with affinity actions since the beginning. I am writing once again to raise the issue of old-growth forests – and natural forest ecosystems in general – with you in regard to climate change.

Post Keystone, as the movement gears up to make sufficient demands to limit abrupt climate change and avoid ecosystem collapse, now is the time to address large amounts of emissions from natural forest logging – particularly of old-growth. While producing tar sands results in more carbon than conventional fossil fuel extraction, tar sands still account for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, various estimates place loss and diminishment of terrestrial ecosystems at 20% of global emissions.

This does not mean that tar sands should get a pass, as their emissions may yet grow considerably. But it does mean that at some point the climate change movement – to be successful – will have to consistently and vocally address the loss and diminishment of terrestrial ecosystems. Given their rapid loss and diminishment, efforts to protect naturally evolved ecosystems must ramp up with all haste.

I am writing this letter to plead with you to get the Sierra Club and 350.org’s vast resources committed to working for an end globally to industrial scale old-growth forest logging while allowing managed natural forests to regenerate and age. There is no path to global ecological sustainability, which includes limiting climate change, that does not include such a course of action.

Read full essay at EcoInternet...

California Wildfires Are Abrupt Climate Change, Ecological Collapse

California is collapsing ecologically

It’s OK America, pop pills and watch TV. Don’t worry about abrupt climate change, environmental collapse, or perma-war blowback from your oil addiction.

“California is a nice place to visit, but soon no one may be able to live there.” – Dr. Glen Barry

Only a couple centuries ago California was mostly covered in lush naturally evolving ecosystems that surrounded and provided ecological habitat for relatively small settlements of Native Americans. Grizzly bears roamed and redwood forests towered. Now the heavily industrialized state is an over-populated ecologically collapsing mess. Remaining tawdry natural ecosystems are surrounded by an endless sprawl of human filth, and the very climate is abruptly changing.

California’s recent drought and wildfire outbreak is an exemplar of what surpassing a bioregion’s carrying capacity and resultant ecological collapse looks like. For decades naturally evolved ecosystems which make California habitable have been treated as resources to be devoured for industrial development. California’s fragmented and no longer connected natural ecosystems have been further destabilized by abrupt climate change and are no longer able to stably provide human habitat.

Everywhere one looks in California one sees over-populated over-consumption, over-development’s destruction of natural ecosystems, and resultant ecological collapse further worsened by industrial emissions. For four years California has been ravaged by a climate change intensified epic drought. In the worst impacted communities, hundreds of households have no access to running water.
California’s drought, a state of emergency since January 2014, has reached unprecedented levels, the worst in recorded history. The state’s mountain snowpack – which provides 30% of California’s water – is at the lowest level in at least 500 years, 5% of its usual water content. Parts of the state have a four-year precipitation deficit of more than 70 inches. 2015 is expected to be the warmest ever recorded.

Ecologists strongly agree that climate change is linked to California’s wildfires. Human-caused warming is clearly contributing to drier conditions, which make forests more susceptible to burning. One estimate is that 20% of the California’s forest trees are sick or have died from the drought. Record heat has increased evaporation and dried out the soil and tinder dry vegetation has become literally explosive. This has caused harsh wildfires as fragmented and sick forest ecosystems are ablaze.

Continue reading at EcoInternet

Europe’s Refugee Crisis: Mass Migration is Biosphere Collapse

Mass migration is biosphere collapse

Refugees flowing into Europe and elsewhere globally are the direct result of over-population, ecosystem collapse, climate change, militarism and inequity. Mass migration has the potential to overrun entire societies and human civilization, and even threatens to collapse the biosphere. Migration must be controlled; and refugees and economic migrants assisted to return to productive, sustainable uses of land as close as possible to their place of origin.


First and foremost the mass exodus of refugees and migrants from Africa and the Middle East into Europe is an ecological disaster. Entire regions have overshot the carrying capacity of their land and water; which has been exacerbated by abrupt climate change, and rising human populations with unlimited aspirations for consumption.

An estimated 60 million refugees were forced from their homes by conflict last year. Nearly one billion people live on less than $1.50 a day, and many if not most would migrate in search of economic opportunity if given the chance. Today alone 12,000 migrants arrived in Munich, Germany.
It is a physical impossibility for Europe and America to house all of Africa, Middle East, and South America’s true refugees as well as hundreds of millions of poor people that want to migrate to a better life. Trying will lead to global ecological, social, and economic collapse.

For all intents and purposes Earth is fully occupied. Thus the nature of mass migration has changed since Europeans colonized the world. There no longer exist large intact ecosystems for refugees to flee to, murder the locals, and cut down natural ecosystems to produce illusory economic progress for a while before moving on repeatedly. We live in a different world that is threatened with global biosphere collapse and we need to adjust our expectations on migration accordingly.

Ecological science knows we have already exceeded numerous planetary boundaries in regard to sustaining a habitable Earth, one of which – as identified by myself in recently published peer reviewed science – is the need to maintain natural and agro-ecological ecosystems across 2/3 of the land, though 1/2 has already been lost. Natural and semi-natural ecosystems that remain are crucial to sustaining local and regional environmental sustainability, as well as the overall well-being of our one living biosphere that makes all life possible.

Earth’s remaining natural capital and thus a livable Earth are profoundly threatened by mass flows of migrants in so many ways. Newly arrived migrants quickly embrace Western style over-consumption (which dramatically reduces remaining natural ecosystems), refugee pathways are strewn with rubbish and nature trampled, and protected ecosystems are routinely violated. Ecosystem loss is thus both cause and effect of ecocidal mass migration.

In the flows of refugees to Europe we are witnessing the bioregional scale ecosystem collapse occurring in Africa and the Middle East as it expands its scope to become a global level ecological disturbance. There is no way the biosphere will be sustained with such large, poverty stricken populations on the move.

Continue reading...