Nearly eight years ago I reported to Madison state, local
and federal authorities that then Congressional candidate Mark Pocan had made
statements in my presence recounting his travel to Costa Rica to sexually assault
young boys. Let me be clear. My account as communicated in an essay was 100% accurate and I stand by it
completely. It is the truth exactly how it happened, and there is more to tell.
I reiterate my willingness to take a polygraph test on the matter when Mr.
Pocan agrees to do so as well.
Since then Congressman Pocan has waged a harassment campaign
against me. He has had capitol police call my employers. An associate of his followed
and threatened me outside of my New York City home. He has repeatedly lobbied
to have my Twitter accounts shutdown. And he has coordinated a misinformation
campaign trying to destroy my reputation with lies.
Madison Wisconsin’s response to a longtime resident coming
forward to detail such troubling behavior has been particularly disappointing.
It has shown the truthfulness of Madison’s reputation as a smug, elitist
bastion that holds few core values other than posing as being socially
concerned. And a thirst for power.
Like in 2012, my request now is that my reported allegations be fully investigated, with the same legitimacy as other reports of
sexual abuse over recent years. There are half a dozen other individuals that were present
as Mr. Pocan went on at length detailing his illegal conduct. One boasted
repeatedly to me he “knew where the bodies were buried” and recounted other
episodes of sexual abuse of boys by Mr. Pocan. This was relayed to half a dozen Madison investigative bodies and the FBI. Have Mr. Pocan and these witnesses been questioned? What were the findings?
Coming forward was the right thing to
do. Someday there will be justice. My conscience is clear.
Yet it saddens me greatly that the capitol of the great
state of Wisconsin is represented in Washington D.C. by a child rapist, with
the full acquiescence of state political institutions and politicians. And that other children may be at risk. Not one
media or political figure expressed a concern or asked for more information. That is on them. I have
done what I can do.
I affirm the above and original account are fully truthful. And I remain unbowed.
Key
bio-geochemical patterns and processes that sustain the biosphere, and
thus societies and wildlife populations, are failing. Only love,
science, and nature can keep us safe. Or disease, ecological collapse,
and despair rage until being ends. That is the truth, like it or not.
“What is all your studying worth,
all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn’t lead to wisdom? And
what’s wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to
do?” – Iain Banks
“Science informed and strengthened
by love is our best bet to remain healthy and prosperous in these
troubled times… Looming global ecological collapse including abrupt
climate change is going to make the coronavirus pandemic look like a
picnic in the park.” – Dr. Glen Barry
Love and Science
Anti-science sentiment and hateful rhetoric are in vogue in certain
quarters. In a disturbingly relativistic age, we have lost track of
profound truths upon which our shared well-being intimately depends.
Many people live their lives as if scientific truths, the natural world,
and empathy for those other than themselves and close loved ones, have
no importance.
Much of humanity enjoys the material comforts of products and other
advances derived through scientific processes. Ironically their
inventors, who are experts in their fields, and have spent a lifetime
mastering and contributing to all that is known about a topic, are
disregarded and even vilified.
Response to the COVID-19 pandemic roiling America and the world has
been profoundly disappointing. All of the above strands of thought come
to mind. Yet in particular, I am horrified by the lack of focus upon the
one hundred thousand Americans that have died and over a million
sickened. This is more than thirty times the tragic horrific losses of
911.
Where is the empathy and outpouring of support for these equally
innocent victims? America has become a hardened, soulless place where we
don’t mourn our dead but instead focus upon how continuing mass death
impacts our own conveniences. Even as the coronavirus is not yet
contained.
It makes one wonder whether looming potentially catastrophic
ecological crises can be responded to while maintaining our humanity.
Casual neglect of traditional wisdom, emerging knowledge, and
traditional norms of civility threatens our very existence. We are
constantly conditioned to hate all that is different or natural.
Let me share some objective, observable truths with you, that we disregard and fail to acknowledge at our own risk.
Biological life requires maintaining a narrow range of conditions.
All living things require water. Economies are utterly dependent upon
ecology.
Encroachment upon and destruction of natural ecosystems and wildlife
result in emergent disease vectors. Stopping a pandemic requires
reducing and eliminating pathways for disease transmission.
Earth is warmed as heat is trapped by atmospheric gases, an increase
of which results in further warming. A given piece of land has a finite
carrying capacity. Given their role in powering ecosystems, naturally evolved old-growth rainforests are worth more standing than logged.
Science Truth: Naturally evolved old-growth rainforests are worth more standing than logged
Chemistry and physics are sufficient to fully understand and explain
biological processes and the cosmos (even if we do not yet know
everything). Evolution explains the diversity of life. Exponential
growth leads to feedback that tears apart systems.
There is no scientific evidence that an invisible Abrahamic god sits in judgment of our actions, or that we are destined for any life other than in the here and now.
And the penultimate truths of our times: Earth is alive and dying.
Even as true love continues to have transformative powers to motivate
you to do what is right, including making you more selfless.
Science is but one, albeit important, pathway to a love of observable
truth. The scientific method of posing hypotheses and seeking
repeatable methods to gather evidence for their testing has proven
remarkably effective.
Other routes to know and serve truth may include carefully and
reflectively listening to tribal leaders, trained naturalists, sage
women, and philosophers. All who have honed their skills of observation.
And seeking through reading, pedagogy, and reflection to become a
student and teacher of truth yourself.
Nothing overcomes ignorance like a life-long commitment to
self-education. Until such time as you become an expert yourself, act in
service to the truth by critically listening to the advice of experts
on important matters of life and death. And by not repeating every
junky, titillating, yet unproven meme.
Science and education have allowed much of humanity to overcome
superstitions that impede societal progress. Yet reactionary,
revisionist ignorance continues to pose a risk of collapse back into
medieval illness, servitude, and perma-war. Religious self-fulfilling
prophecies of a rapture like end of the world continue to foul our
thinking of what is possible with love and science.
Love and Science in the Time of Coronavirus
Now Earth and her humanity find ourselves in a time of pandemic. Scientific experts have long known that the world was vulnerable to new infectious disease.
It has been firmly established and documented that microbes can evolve
and emerge from animals and habitats, particularly when encroached upon.
It is truthfully self-evident that in recent decades there has been a reduction in public health expenditures. That China has a pattern of suppressing information about new disease outbreaks.
And that deeply divided democratic societies are ill-equipped to
mobilize quickly to organize the necessary social distancing and other
requirements to stop a plague.
I remain stunned and saddened by the amount of anti-science
conspiracy theories circulating that are undermining the science-based
medical response to a global pandemic. One can honestly differ in
opinion regarding how to balance health and economic aspects of
pandemic. The required steps to stop the coronavirus pandemic are
unnecessarily made so much more difficult by anti-science, hate-filled
sentiment by ignorant people amplified through social networks.
Don’t let your perhaps well-intentioned but poorly informed political
beliefs become a death wish for yourself and others. If you are sharing
kooky conspiracy memes on the Internet you are part of the anti-science
dumbing down of America that has allowed the virus to kill almost one
hundred thousands Americans and a third of a million globally.
Science doesn’t care what you believe. There is nothing conservative
(or liberal) about being untruthful, belligerent, and loud. Science and
her truths are apolitical. If you refuse to social distance and wear a
mask, and spread unfounded misinformation on Facebook during these
tragic times, you may well be killing your neighbors, loved ones, or
even your own parents. Do not let your beliefs make you a member of a
conspiracy death cult.
Shame on you, stop it now. Or this coronavirus pandemic – which is far from done – can and will get much worse.
Loving Ecological Science
There exists a plethora of other unpleasant scientific truths that
threaten mass human suffering, a rise of authoritarian fascism in
response, and ultimately societal and biological collapse. And the death
of billions of humans, and possibly biosphere collapse.
In past centuries, a wave of ecological imperialism spilt forth from
Europe that has globally decimated indigenous cultures and ecosystems.
The apocryphal worldview proliferated that natural ecosystems only
existed to be destroyed for growth in economies and population. The
massive illusory increase in material consumption has been inequitably
distributed and is not sustainable.
Key bio-geochemical patterns and processes that sustain the
biosphere, and thus societies and wildlife populations, are failing.
The list of ecological scientific risks is long and expanding, but
includes: 1) soil loss and infertility, 2) ocean dead zones, 3) water
scarcity, 4) abrupt climate weirding, 5) nitrogen and phosphorous
inundation, 6) declines in biodiversity, particularly keystone wildlife
and plant species 7) and loss and fragmentation of naturally evolved ecosystems including critical old-growth forests and wetlands.
There are science based policy prescriptions which will solve each of
these ecological crises. But it requires wisdom to know and trust in
the right course of action, and sacrifice and empathy based upon
understanding and commitment to the scientific imperative. Yet if we
don’t try, any one of these ecology truths left without a response could
cause mass disruption and death. Together they may well collapse the
biosphere and end being.
Looming global ecological collapse is going to make the coronavirus pandemic look like a picnic in the park.
Climate change and ecosystem collapse are the response expected by
science to inequitable overpopulation that consumes nature, it could not
be otherwise. These observations and others have led me to hypothesize
that Ecology is the meaning of life.
The test of this hypothesis is ongoing as humanity systematically
murders species, dismantles ecological systems, and fouls the climate.
Love Science Truth
Scientific truths matter, willful ignorance kills. Believe in love and science as transformative forces for good.
We will only protect and change for what we love and have empathy.
Shared survival depends upon each of us listening to and supporting
science and other ways of knowing, or we willfully choose to lose our
and our loved ones’ lives as being ends. Global ecological
sustainability requires expanding the scope of your love to include
others that are different than you (including both other cultures and
species), natural ecosystems, and Earth as a whole. Revel in
self-expression of your truths making sure they are defensible.
Though science has not always been channeled for social good, in sum
it has provided amazing levels of social benefit as we better understand
and adapt to observable reality. Yet even science must work to improve
itself by committing to its appropriate application. We are beyond the
point where we can return to a pre-science era.
Science informed and strengthened by love is our best bet to remain healthy and prosperous in these troubled times.
Reducing risk to you and your family’s well-being means, out of love
for others and Earth, staying home and wearing masks when you go out. At
the same time work on reducing your ecological footprint, while working
to be able to meet as many of your subsistence needs as possible. Be
open to and critically review information that comes your way, with a
commitment to truth and self-improvement.
Only from the transformative nature of love of science and truth can
we avoid a massive second wave of coronavirus in the short-term, and the
next pandemic and impending ecological collapse in the mid-term.
Only love, science, and nature can keep us safe. Or disease,
ecological collapse, and despair rage until being ends. That is the
truth, like it or not.
The Amazon rainforest must remain standing for global ecological sustainability, and Amazon company is the best source of finance given their expropriation of the Amazon name. It should be possible to pay to fully protect the Amazon rainforest while meeting local people’s needs. The best place to start is for online Amazon Inc. to pay on a sustained basis for its long overdue unpaid use of the Amazon name. Transforming Amazon Inc. into a purpose driven venture will make it stronger and more appealing, while providing a long-term source of finance to keep Amazon Standing.
EARTH MEANDERS By Dr. Glen Barry
“There’s nothing about our model
that can’t be copied over time… A lot of it comes down to the brand
name. Brand names are more important online than they are in the
physical world.” – Jeff Bezos
“The bill is due for Amazon company’s unpaid use of the mighty Amazon rainforest’s name.” – Dr. Glen Barry
The First Amazon
The Amazon
rainforest is a global ecological treasure of unparalleled importance for Earth
and all inhabitants. Over at least 55 million years vast evolutionary radiance
has created a brilliant super-organism that powers the planet’s biosphere
through the sum of the interactions of its parts.
The Amazon is rich in ecological diversity with a dizzying array of
life across scales — from landscapes, downward to ecosystems, to plant
communities and animal populations, including indigenous peoples, down
to species and individual plants and wildlife, composed of their genetic
sequences. From such complex yet decadent disorder emerges the primary
bioregional ecosystem that powers the biosphere.
Though the Amazon as an ecosystem is more than the sum of these
parts, all parts are required for it to remain fully intact and thus
operational. The Amazon basin drains the slopes of the Andes through
biodiverse mountain slopes into the vast lowland swamp forests. This
vast plethora of micro-habitats contains stores of medicinal plants,
cycles water and nutrients, and drives global climate.
Besides large-scale farming and logging, many Amazonian rainforests are being slowly fragmented for rural electrification and other activities
Loss of the Amazon as an intact whole will result in a major
diminishment in climate buffering, disappearance of an unknown amount of
genetic wealth potentially valuable for diseases such as coronavirus,
deprive millions of indigenous peoples and settlers of their
livelihoods, and may in itself crash the biosphere. Yet a variety of
threats continues the European legacy of ecocide upon native nature and
peoples, cruelly propagating the myth that destroying millions of year
old ecosystems and their inhabitants is “development”.
Recently I wrote On Amazon fires: It’s the ecology stupid.
Therein it is noted that Global Ecological Sustainability depends
critically upon ending the logging and burning of old forests such as
the Amazon and letting them recover, expand and reconnect. Earlier I
have published peer reviewed science that is worth reading, identifying a
threshold for how many ecosystems can be lost before the biosphere
collapses: Barry, G. (2014), “Terrestrial ecosystem loss and biosphere collapse”, Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 542-563.
I have had the privilege to spend the month of February in Brazil,
mostly in the Amazonia region. There I trekked into lowland tropical
rainforests and was overjoyed to see big ancient trees and wildlife
including spider monkeys, pink river dolphins, and anacondas. The river
boat ride down a portion of the Amazon was an adventure. By the time I
reached The Amazon river’s point of entry into the Atlantic Oceans, I
was struck again and again by the generosity and kindness of the
region’s peoples.
Dr. Glen Barry, Amazonia, 2020
Mostly I silently rejoiced in my long-felt ecological intuition that
these Amazon rainforests are the global habitat that makes my and all
life possible. Often I just sat in the jungle listening for long hours,
fully feeling a bond with the diverse and dependent life therein. And I
also saw firsthand the senseless devastation being wrought by
agri-business and rural electrification.
And I became
further resolved that it must be possible to meet development needs of
Amazonians while keeping Amazon Standing.
This essay represents the beginning of efforts to develop a campaign
to find and implement a way to finance sufficient socio-economic
activities to ensure the Amazon remains standing. This must be done in a
creative, sustained manner that protects native livelihoods and means
meeting all basic needs and then some. Yet forgoes all commercial
exploitation that destroys or diminishes standing primary forests.
The greatest challenge of our generation is to find a viable way to fully protect the Amazon.
Time for the
Other Amazon to Step Up
Imagine if you can that there was a large organization that has
benefited from the unreimbursed use of the Amazon name, and could help
fund keeping the Amazon rainforest standing. Surely, in such a case,
there would be tremendous potential to harness sustainable funding for
Amazon rainforest protection, and there would be a huge public outcry
that the company pay a significant portion of their revenue for the
right to use the Amazon name.
Wait, what of Jeff Bezos’ Amazon online store? He reportedly named it
Amazon because it was “exotic and different”, and the Amazon River was
the largest in the world, and he planned for Amazon company to be so as
well. Given the tremendous corporate and personal success realized by
Amazon and Jeff Bezos, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that the
company pay to protect the threatened Amazon rainforest after which it
is named.
Mr. Bezos himself has expressed how critical branding is to online
success, and he has certainly benefited richly from the sentiments
evoked by his use of the Amazon name.
Indeed, given Mr. Bezo’s hundreds of millions of dollars spent on new
homes in recent months, isn’t financing by Amazon company to protect
the Amazon rainforest long overdue? It’s a justice, equity, and
ecological sustainability thing Mr. Bezos. How can you have so much,
benefiting from the globally recognized name of an impoverished region,
for which you have never paid?
Some would say that Amazon having made so much money without paying
anything to Brazil and neighboring countries is the very exemplar of
white and billionaire privilege.
Don’t get me
wrong, Jeff Bezos has built Amazon (the company referred to as Amazon Inc.)
into an amazing company. I spend considerable amounts of money with Amazon
Inc., making purchases almost daily given the convenience, selection, and speed
of delivery. And EcoInterent’s services are hosted on the Amazon cloud, which
is truly amazing in its own right.
But come on, at some point growth becomes greed. Already there is a
backlash against the richest man in the world, and how it has come at
the expense of local merchants and the climate. And then there is the
fact that Amazon Inc. simply pilfered their name from the greatest
ecosystem in the world that is mortally threatened.
Bezos’ recent commitment of funding to address climate change is
welcome and appropriate given Amazon’s huge carbon footprint. Yet an
additional massive, sustained investment in Amazonia rainforest
protection is still appropriate given the past and ongoing benefits
accrued from the expropriation of the Amazon name in particular and all
it connotes.
With all due respect Mr. Bezos, how much is enough? How many more
lavish homes do you intend to buy this year, as our global home and your
company’s namesake, the Amazon, is destroyed because of lack of
conservation finance. At what point does the existential threats to
global ecological sustainability become more or at least as important to
you, the richest person in the world, than delivering ever more
consumer goods faster?
We get it Mr. Bezos, your Amazon may not be legally required to pay
for use of the Amazon name for your branding. But it is the classy,
ethical, and just thing to do. And it protects your future as well.
There will be consequences of Amazon failing to act to protect its
namesake. Already popular sentiment is shifting against the company
given its size and extravagance of its owners. How much better to make
the company a purpose driven organization rather than only a consumption
growth machine.
Pressure campaigns are possible, but hopefully are not needed,
assuming the goodwill of a man and company that has benefited so much
from expropriating of the Amazon name. Some would say theft, like so
much else that has been forcefully taken from the Brazilian people.
Big old trees in expansive primary forests power the biosphere. Dr. Glen Barry, Amazonia, 2020
Amazon
Standing Trust Fund
It should be possible to pay to keep the Amazon rainforest fully
standing. And in a manner that provides decent livelihoods for all
inhabitants. Surely there is more worth to be found in a live than a
dead forest. Particularly ancient naturally evolved old-growth forests.
All that is required is sustained investments in Amazonian alternative
development models and governance depending on protecting and not
destroying old, natural forests.
What I am proposing is that Amazon Inc. and/or Jeff Bezos establish
an endowed trust fund committed to full protection of the Amazon
Rainforest. “Amazon Standing” would use the interest on the endowment to
fund non-extractive efforts for local peoples and governments to
benefit economically and culturally from permanently standing and intact
primary rainforests.
Sufficiently endowed, such an approach has great potential to shift
the economics against large-scale extractive industries which are only
marginally profitable.
Without massive investments the Amazon rainforest will continue to
fall at an unconscionable rate. Slowly yet inexorably the last remnant
large natural ecosystems will be dismantled; liquidated for all the
wrong reasons, sending shock waves throughout the global ecological
system.
It is not OK for one of the largest companies to name itself after
Earth’s largest and most important ecosystem without having some stake
in its protection. Imbuing Amazon Inc. with social merit beyond
consuming ever more, faster, will make it a force for social good.
Transforming Amazon Inc. into a purpose driven venture will make it
stronger and more appealing, while providing a long-term source of
finance to keep Amazon Standing. There is tremendous reputational risk
to Amazon Inc. and Jeff Bezos of not immediately beginning to pay for
the use of Amazon as their brand name.
The bill is due for Amazon company’s unpaid use of the mighty Amazon
rainforest’s name. Significant funding can be provided willingly to keep
the Amazon rainforest standing while meeting local needs, or all sorts
of campaign measures are likely.
Amazon will
have earned its name based on merit and not merely size.
Expect to hear more about what it takes to keep Amazon Standing and
the rainforest movements efforts to get Amazon Inc. to embrace and
finance protection of its namesake.
The
Chinese system of government has shown monstrous disdain for free
speech, truth, and basic human rights; most recently bringing disease
upon its citizens and threatening the health of the entire world. It is
time for Chinese Democracy, and for totalitarian communist tyranny to
end, starting with President Xi Jinping’s resignation.
Hong Kong protestors foretold the type of Chinese deception that has caused the coronavirus epidemic
“A healthy society should not have just one voice.” – Dr. Li Wenliang
“There
are no rioters, only a tyrannical regime” (沒有暴徒 只有暴政) and “Five
demands, not one less” (五大訴求 缺一不可) – Hong Kong Democracy Protestors
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” – Winston S. Churchill
“The Chinese communist party cannot be trusted to tell the truth and must step down.” – Dr. Glen Barry
To start, let me express my most sincere condolences for Chinese and
other victims of the Wuhan Coronavirus. The whole world hopes for swift
containment and recovery. Yet this is a manmade crisis that with a
decent, functional government could have been avoided. Instead Wuhan,
China, and the world are terrorized by a disease spawned by the Chinese
government’s disdain for truth and stifling of free speech.
The coronavirus epidemic did not arise out of nowhere. It is the
logical consequence of a deeply authoritarian government, a casual
disregard for truth and freedom of speech, and Xi Jinping’s recent
strengthening of tyrannical rule. Xi and the Chinese government bear
full blame for the coronavirus outbreak and must be held to account.
Failed Chinese Communist Dogma
Most
cultures have a combination of a storied and horrifying past and China is no
different. Throughout Chinese history epic human constructs and monumental
battles have been wrought upon the back of the degradation of the common
person. Even within the past century the nation has jumped between enlightened
thought and despotic tyranny, at any time seemingly moments away from further wide-scale
state genocide.
Contemporary
China is a plutocratic criminal state based upon banning free speech and other
human rights, in a vile system that imprisons its citizens, so that the small
group of Chinese communist party leaders and their families can live opulently.
The term “communist” which implies equality has long been nonsensical in such
an inequitable and corrupt system.
A maelstrom of
threats emanates from Red China that threatens to kill Chinese and global citizenry
under the mantra of dated, self-serving communist dogma (which few believe, and
fewer adhere to). The communist party (which is in fact neither) maintains its
grip on power through the constant threat of an iron fist in its citizens’
face.
There is an epic battle underway between liberal democracy (now with
its own tendencies towards authoritarianism), and the communist police
state that is Red China. At stake is all humanity’s basic human rights
and dignity, freedom of thought and speech, liberty and privacy, and
protection from dangerous government secrets.
State Terror and the Rights of Man
The litany of contemporary Chinese tyranny runs the gamut of
conceivable intrusions upon human well-being meant by the state to
inspire terror. Minority, ancient cultures such as the Uighurs and
Tibetans are imprisoned in their own homelands and brain-washed to love
red China’s promise of imprisoned consumption. Entire ancient cultures
are being eliminated in acts of slow-motion genocide.
Much of China is constantly surveilled as a dragnet of cameras
connected to sophisticated machine learning databases permeates every
crevice of individual’s lives. What sort of vile voyeuristic artificial
intelligence seeks to spy upon every action of their citizenry? What a
depraved system that deems to algorithmically score the social
worthiness of the myriad types of human self-expression, as if obedience
to authority is the only measure of a person.
How long
until drone assassins use this surveillance infrastructure to wage war upon
individual thought, murdering free thinkers for daring to believe in free
speech and the rights of wo(man)?
In China we
are witnessing the fulfillment of Orwell’s big brother and it is terrifyingly
real and dangerous. This escalating assault upon the hard-fought rights of man
must not stand.
China will be free. Hong Kong protests will grow and spread to China post-coronavirus
In Hong Kong a proud, un-servile people demand the rule of law, the
maintenance of freedom of speech, full democratic rights including to
vote, and freedom from the constant threat of state violence. This
modern proclamation of the rights of man; and simple, sincere requests
to be heard and to vote, face unremitting police violence. We must all
stand with Hong Kong as this is the proxy struggle between truth and
lies, justice and injustice, freedom and tyranny, and decency and
vileness.
There is not
a moment to waste. The human family chooses now between a future of bright
democratic liberty or dark autocratic tyranny.
Filthy Live Markets and State Secrets
And now the filthy, vile habit of slaughtering wildlife of all types
in brutal “live markets” for falsely purported benefits – including a
limp dick – has the world poised on the brink of pandemic. This
widespread Chinese bloody, unsanitary mess has no counterpart in the
world for incubating new diseases. Virtually anything that is alive
including endangered species are at risk of a merciless, brutal death
before being thrown in the cooking pot.
What sort of despotic, self-serving force knowingly allows viral
outbreaks to exponentially cascade out of control to maintain power and
save face for a while? People speaking truthfully of the virus outbreak
such as Li Wenliang and others have been silenced and even imprisoned by
government censors. If those giving notice had been heard early in the
disease’s spread, almost certainly coronavirus would have been stopped
before spreading widely.
Free speech could have limited the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak
The monstrous manner the Chinese system allowed the Wuhan Coronavirus
to knowingly spread shows the evil, self-serving, and insecure nature
of Chinese power. Limp dick indeed.
Thankfully at this moment the coronavirus mortality rates are low.
But as exponential growth in the spread of the disease continues, the
greater risk is overwhelmed medical facilities and social disorder.
Weeks into exponential growth of new cases and mass quarantines, the
Chinese government has been too proud to accept WHO and CDC assistance.
Now avoidance of a global pandemic appears to require further Chinese
totalitarian human rights atrocities.
Chinese Ecocidal Tyranny
China is the central organizer and buyer for the global trade in
illegal logging of ancient forests. Globally all standing rainforest are
threatened by the insatiable greed of a corrupt government that will do
anything to amass further power. The only relief for Chinese citizens
from brutal tyranny is to consume ever more cheap throwaway consumer
goods based upon the destruction of dwindling ecosystems.
While paying
lip service to climate change, the Chinese government ramps up its coal use,
and backs away from controlling the size of its population (itself a component
of the coronavirus’ spread). Chinese crowded conditions across degraded over-populated
landscapes create optimal conditions for the spread of diseases as Gaia fights
back.
Chinese
growth alone threatens to pull down the biosphere.
China is the center of the global illegal rainforest logging market
Truth Matters
The Chinese
system of government is a monstrous taint upon humanity’s progression towards
realization of universal human rights, and equitable and just ecological
sustainability, based upon scientific truths and the inherent rights of men and
women to be free.
The Chinese
government’s spying, imprisonment, ecocide, police brutality, and callous
disregard for the health of their own citizens (indeed the global population)
makes the communist party an illegitimate government.
The Chinese communist party cannot be trusted to tell the truth and
must step down. It is up to every Chinese and non-Chinese citizen to
demand democratic reform and an unraveling of authoritarian single party
tyranny. China will only ever fully realize its greatness when it is a
democracy and its citizens can express themselves freely and be heard.
Never has it
been more important to stop buying Chinese goods as a means of depriving such a
monstrous political system of its wealth.
Imperfect Democracy
On the other
hand, stands Western style imperfect quasi-democracy that glorifies militarism,
was built upon racism, and depends upon a foundation of elitist
over-consumption at the expense of nature. Liberal democracy is the worst form
of government ever, except for all the alternatives.
Yet in America’s
and Europe’s unrealized testbeds of democracy one finds a sense of freedom that
remains unparalled in human history. And continues perpetually to better itself
and overcome past evils. Clearly the systems of government found in the United
States and Europe are far preferable to Red, or shall we say Dead, China.
In America you have the right to be free, and that means something,
and it is worth fighting for such liberty for the entire human family.
Yet none of our freedom is guaranteed as long as some remain unfree,
For the most
part citizens in liberal democracies are free from random state violence
(though it does occur, particularly for non-whites). Except for the constant
barrage of advertising for democratic over-consumption, diminished but not yet
banished religious idolatry, and military dogmatism; generally, those living in
liberal democracies are not programmed as to how to think.
In Western
Democracy there exists personal and societal space to seek and find truthful
thought. To listen to the music and read the books you like. To say and write
what you wish. To move about mostly freely. To vote your desires. And to make
something of yourself based upon personal merit.
Certainly, the project of Western Democracy remains incomplete.
Expenditures on militarism to fund continued global resource thievery
ensure that education, health care, job training, and other social needs
remain unmet. The promise of equal rights for all races and sexes
remains incomplete.
And vile, filthy authoritarianism in the face of environmental
scarcity is bearing its ugly face in no less than Brazil and the United
States, where environmental rollbacks threaten ecosystem collapse.
Yet the
choice is clear. Democracy, despite its faults, is the far preferable system over
vile authoritarianism, wherever it bears its heads, and most particularly now
in communist China.
Humanity
stands at a pivotal juncture as the coronavirus threatens mass murder because
of the communist party’s lust for power and rejection of those who speak truth.
We recommit to human rights, democratic values, and to together finding a way
towards ecological sustainability; or we descend into the techno-invasive,
violent and disease ridden, police state future as espoused by Chinese
capitalism.
Bring Necessary Manufacturing Home
“Made in China” is synonymous with a system that wages surveillance,
torture, murder, and disease upon its own under-paid, over-worked, and
ultimately disposable citizens. No longer can state murder and torture
be paid for with the ill-gotten gains of selling cheap consumer goods in
the West.
It is time to bring back locally to the place of consumption all necessary manufacturing from China and discontinue the rest.
China Will Be Free
For the welfare of the human family, let’s demand a Chinese political
system that tells the truth and lets its citizens speak freely.
That shuts down live markets massacring wildlife, creating the filthy
environment that incubated coronavirus and other diseases, and
threatens to do so again. That rebukes and dismantles the state driven
spying and flawed judgements upon everyday lives of its citizens. And
that implements a new Democratic China of liberty, freedom, truth, and
basic human decency absent from the current vile and evil Communist Inc.
Let’s demand a Chinese government that lets people speak freely so that never again will Chinese tyranny threaten global health.
And let us hope that despite such a horrendous, irresponsible system
of government; that the coronavirus is brought under control to avoid
more Chinese suffering and a global pandemic.
President
Xi Jinping has failed the test of leadership causing the coronavirus to
needlessly spread and is called upon to resign immediately
President Xi Jinping and the entire senior communist party leaders
are called upon to resign immediately, given their mishandling and
attempt to cover-up a disease of their own making. They have failed the
test of leadership and their corrupt, power-hungry leadership is not fit
for the challenges the country faces containing coronavirus.
Green Liberty is humanity’s shared future. Think of your children.
Your planet. And your loved ones. And embrace human rights, democracy,
and ecological sustainability for all. Before Dead China gets you.
Global ecological sustainability requires large scale tree planting to restore natural ecosystems
“Then the angel showed me the
river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the
throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of
the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing
twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves
of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” – Revelation 22: 1-2
“Ecosystem restoration of landscapes across bioregions can
ultimately lift the souls of dispirited citizens, provide continuously
for their righteous livelihoods, regenerate the health and well-being
of entire nations, while ensuring sustainability of our one shared
biosphere… Only more leaves on the trees can heal your and our many
nations’ brokenness. Please plant trees, restore ecosystems, and love
nature and others.” – Dr. Glen Barry
The End of Being Looms
The ecological
fabric of being is fraying and Earth is at imminent risk of become
uninhabitable. The collapse of major ecological systems that provide
for the well-being of all life is intimately entwined with the personal
despair, and political and social chaos, roiling global societies. Many
growing social ills such as poverty, violence, and addiction are
ultimately driven by environmental decline; and can only worsen if
nature is not protected and restored.
Here I will first
review our ecological predicament, before referring (as an atheist) to
biblical wisdom as to the role trees play in our healing.
The Age of Industrial Affluence whereby
illusory human material advancement briefly occurred through the
liquidation of natural ecosystems is ending. We are well into the Age of Ecocide as
drawdowns of natural capital – water, soil, atmosphere, fish, wildlife
– have exceeded their regenerative capacity. Everywhere the
ecologically attuned eye looks, tawdry natural plant communities and
wildlife populations are collapsing and dying.
Humanity has surpassed the carrying capacity of the atmosphere, ecosystems, and the biosphere.
Simultaneously,
and as a direct result, human societies are distressed. Shocking
levels of inequality exist whereby billions lack basic needs as a small
group of billionaires live a life of grotesque opulence. Both extremes
further squeeze the Earth.
The economic bubble of an
industrial growth economy based upon ecocide has burst. Violence, drug
dependency, sexual abuse, depression, suicide, perma-war, racism, and
even a resurgence in slavery are rife. All are related to the lessened
prospects of material comfort for the lower and middle classes as there
exists fewer natural areas to plunder for money. And to a general sense
of lack of meaning in lives devoid of nature. The entire premise of
capitalism, that an economy can grow forever by razing natural systems,
has been revealed to be nonsensical malarkey that threatens to kill us
all.
Exponential growth in population and consumption drive
the fatally unsustainable resource consumption that liquidates natural
ecosystem habitats. This relentless growth in everything at the expense
of the natural world is the ultimate source of biodiversity loss,
ecosystem diminishment, a fatally diminished climate, and ultimately a
decline in human prospects for meaningful, universal, and lasting
advancement.
Entering this new era of natural scarcity had
led to greater competition between both individuals and nations, and to
spiraling conflict and malignancies of all types. The final assault
upon the Planet’s last natural ecosystem engines can only lead to
collapse of societies and the biosphere.
And the end of being.
The key point: human well-being (and indeed all life) is intimately dependent upon natural ecosystems. Indeed, humanity is part of the ecological whole, as goes nature goes humanity. Critically we have gone from a state of nature surrounding humanity, to humanity enveloping sickened natural remnants. As ecology has dwindled under a centuries old assault, human mid-to-long term prospects have declined in tandem.
After
years of human advancement in liberty, human rights, and equality; the
current rise of authoritarian fascism is the natural consequence of a
sick global environment. In the global rise of right-wing anti-science
populism, we are witnessing fits of petulance when people and nations hit
the limits to growth and can’t have infinitely more of everything for
everybody. Ignorance, including regarding ecology, has lead to serious
misdiagnoses of societal problems.
Humanity is hell-bent
upon destroying their habitat and the natural capital which makes
possible and enriches their existence. As the collapse of global
ecosystems intensify, together we face a brief period of unimaginably
grim social strife that threatens decades of conflict and pain; before
humanity, all life, and the biosphere die.
Unless we plant more trees to restore the environment and our culture.
The decline in natural ecosystems, and the reduction in economic
opportunity from their clearance, is a driving force behind a range of
social ills including perma-war, violence, addiction, depression,
suicide, and poverty. Only widespread tree planting to regenerate
natural and agro-ecosystems in an Age of Ecological Restoration can avoid collapse of societies and ultimately the biosphere.
Leaves Heal Nations
As
an atheist rejecting worship of mythical ghosts, I’m not one to quote
scripture. My spirituality is found in self-evident truths such as
nature. Yet I recently became aware of the bible verse “The leaves of
the tree were for the healing of the nations,” and it deeply resonates
with me. The quote occurs within the context of Revelation’s grim
self-fulfilling prophecy of the end of the world as a result of sinful
pestilence and war.
Stripped of Abrahamic myth, the quote
contains an important secular truth that nations and their peoples are
ultimately dependent upon the productivity and ecological health of
their land, water, air, and seas. From trees and related natural
ecosystems come the food, fiber, air, water, and livelihoods upon which
the well-being of human and kindred life is utterly dependent. And
when societies are in despair, it is ultimately nature and trees which
can best heal the wounds of greed, war, and personal pain.
Innumerable cultural traditions – many of them massacred by
christians – have understood humanity’s oneness with, and utter
dependence upon, trees and nature. Destroying your shared environment is
the ultimate sin for which redemption may not be possible if you wait
too long.
The core nugget of universal, objective truth found in this bible
verse is that tree leaves can heal nations. Tree planting will heal all
nations and restore a personal state of natural awe and well-being. More
tree and other plant leaves will lead inexorably to more fertile soil,
plentiful water, full stomachs, sustained wildlife, full employment,
peace, prosperity, and an operable climate.
While planting trees is good, doing so with the intent of restoring natural forest and agro-ecosystems is even better.
There exists tremendous potential to restore local ecosystems in a
manner that improves landscape health and ultimately allows nature to
once again provide the context for humanity. Remaining natural ecosystem
fragments can have their margins secured to allow natural succession
and their expansion to occur. This natural regrowth can be augmented
with the planting of dominant natural tree species. Ecosystem
restoration along with simultaneous rapid reductions in fossil fuel
emissions (covered in other essays) are humanity’s only remaining hope
to avoid destroying our one shared biosphere home.
Several large contiguous large forest wildernesses, and significant
fragments of natural ecosystems, remain and for now are the ecosystem
engines that are powering the global environment. Despite the fragments
being nearly universally distributed; they are often small, isolated,
and are thus unable to provide the full range of ecological and economic
benefits necessary for the well-being of human and all life. And
wherever old trees stand they continue to be assaulted under the
quasi-religious dogma of economic development.
These last naturally evolved ecological gems can be eliminated in a
futile attempt to prop up continued exponential growth. Or the pressure
can be taken off of the leaves of the trees; as natural ecosystems are
assisted to regenerate, expand, reconnect, and ultimately become fully
productive again.
Multiple goals can be pursued. Core ecological areas that are large
and connected enough to maintain the entire panoply of life, and which
provide ecosystem services upon which all life depends, must be
protected and/or re-established. Within this landscape matrix areas of
production of food and fiber can co-exist. This will run the gamut from
perma-culture gardens of fruits, nuts, and vegetables; to natural
plantations of fiber for shelter and other necessities, all enmeshed
within the core areas. Local species and genotypes will be favored, yet
due to abrupt climate change it may be necessary to use species
assemblages that occur together in nearby hotter climates.
There exist hundreds of millions of denuded acres globally that can
immediately be marked as zones of ecological restoration (given consent
of local peoples and plans for their economic benefit). In many areas,
small tawdry patches of naturally evolved plant stocks remain, that if
the pressure were taken off, could quickly regenerate, particularly in
the tropics. There will be millions of jobs for local peoples in plant nurseries; and tree planting, care, and harvest. While some core areas
must remain involatile to remain ecologically intact, small communities
of forest keepers will live sustainable, fulfilling lives throughout the
rest. And critically indigenous land tenure, including to stolen
lands,will be restored and solidified.
Ecosystem restoration of landscapes across bioregions can ultimately
lift the souls of dispirited citizens, provide continuously for their
righteous livelihoods, regenerate the health and well-being of entire
nations, while ensuring sustainability of our one shared biosphere.
The Age of Global Ecological Restoration
Please hear the clarion call of millions already working to usher in
an Age of Global Ecological Restoration. We must come together as a
global family to restore ecologically the places we inhabit and which
we and our forebearers have senselessly allowed to be destroyed. One
last time lets beat guns into plowshares, to make the shovels necessary
to plant the trees whose leaves we need to cool the frustrations of
diminished prospects and restore hope in a mortally threatened world.
By reconstituting ecology, society will reconnect to the wonders of
nature. A sense of communal well-being will come; as guns, hard drugs,
suicide, and over-consumption fade away. The focus will be upon shared
advancement, well-being, and experience rather than insular, anxious
lusting for the accumulation of more stuff.
In many a glen, after a day of hard work planting and caring for
trees, people will gather in new forests of their making for feasts
under the moon and stars; and again find community and make love.
We will marvel at creation and the miracle of being as we work for
her continuation. Once again, we will feel in our very cells our own
intimate connection with kindred species with which we share this
billions of year long evolutionary journey. There will be a resurgence
in self-expression as art, sport, music, theater, science (and other
knowledge), and the written word rise in prominence. Emerging
technologies will be used appropriately, and only to the extent that
they augment ecology, and are used exclusively for social good.
Frequent long-distance travel, the military-industrial complex,
fossil fuels, big government, abject despair, extreme poverty, and
social want will fade away as a more just society based upon equitable
and sustainable bioregional plenty re-emerges.
Together the human family has arrived at the point where only the
leaves of the tree can heal the nations. We have one last chance, and a
closing window of opportunity, to restore the ecosystems that humans
need to both survive and thrive. We must power down, demilitarize,
reject industrial ecocide, and embrace centuries of ecological
restoration as the penultimate focus of human endeavors.
Only more leaves on the trees can heal your and our many nations’
brokenness. Please plant trees, restore ecosystems, and love nature and
others.
Global Ecological Sustainability depends critically upon ending the logging and burning of old forests and letting them recover, expand and reconnect
“Each act of cutting and burning
old trees diminishes and contributes to the pending collapse of the
biosphere… The cutting and burning of old forests ends, as a prominent
aspect of the coming Great Transition required for equitable and just
global ecological sustainability, or together we all needlessly die .”
Dr. Glen Barry
Old trees in old growth forests power the biosphere
A particularly malignant social and ecological disease sprung forth
upon the Earth several centuries ago. A central component of European
colonialism was the pernicious, ecocidal belief that wide scale cutting
and burning of natural ecosystems was desirable. Indeed, cutting and
burning natural ecosystems defined “civilization” and made the Western
worldview superior to heathen naturalism.
This pantheon to “development” was created around murdering natural
ecosystems and their inhabitants, which continues to be pursued with
religious intensity. Enormous temporary growth and wealth were
accumulated by some through the wholesale liquidation of vast expanses
of naturally evolved life. Generations of children were born and
indoctrinated into the fallacy that ecosystems existed to be cut and
burnt and had no intrinsic worth.
In fact, as multitudes of indigenous cultures intimately understood,
humanity is completely dependent upon natural ecosystem habitats to meet
all our needs. Food, water, air, shelter, medicines, spirituality and
more derive from old forests and old trees.
Humans and all life need naturally evolved ecosystems to exist and
prosper. We are part of and utterly dependent upon the web of life found
in the ecology of old forests and other natural habitats.
Yet we have derived an economic system of growth dependent upon their
clearing. At a certain scale such habitat destruction could occur
without impacting climate, soil, precipitation, and other ecological
processes. Yet increasingly over recent decades landscapes, bioregions,
and increasingly the global system are being thrown into disarray as
terrestrial ecosystem processes and patterns are disturbed and
ultimately eliminated.
Critical thresholds whereby natural ecosystems become disconnected,
and are islands of habitat surrounded by devastation, have been
surpassed. Abrupt climate change, lack of drinking water, soil
infertility, dead oceans – all are contributed to by loss and
diminishment of terrestrial ecosystems.
This European spawned disease of over-development, since embraced by
many others, threatens an uninhabitable hell on Earth. Tremendous
suffering awaits us all and has already begun as climate weirding,
ecosystem collapse, food and water shortages, and authoritarian
responses destroy centuries of progress. Ill-gotten wealth from
ecosystem liquidation has enabled unsustainable growth in human
populations and inequitable over-consumption.
Each act of cutting and burning old trees diminishes and contributes
to the pending collapse of the biosphere. Continued clearing of old
forests inexorably leads to the end of being.
The Amazon rainforest, along with a handful of other forest
wildernesses in Africa, Canada, the Congo, Russia, and New Guinea,
contain the last intact, contiguous terrestrial ecosystems that provide
ecosystem services driving global ecological sustainability. These
naturally evolved large-scale ecosystems contain a complex panoply of
life that in sum power the biosphere and make Earth habitable. And at a
smaller scale remnant habits along rivers, in wetlands, forest
fragments, and even individual large trees continue to provide habitat
for all life including humans.
Yet despite all that science has re-learned regarding the importance
of natural ecosystems for biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate; these
last planetary ecological engines continue to be sacrificed on the alter
of mammon in an orgiastic spasm of ecological cruelty and derangement.
Ecology is the meaning of life (not development).
It is ludicrous to log old trees found in millions of year-old
natural ecosystems. It is abnormal and a self-fulfilling death wish.
Think of the suffering of wildlife as they are consumed by flames or die
from lack of habitat.
Amazon rainforest fires threaten Brazilian and global well-being
Cutting and burning are both a cause and a symptom of the disease
consuming the Amazon.
Rainforests are cleared for agriculture using
fire, and the resultant micro-climate changes, particularly along
exposed rainforest edges, make otherwise moist regions more prone to
burning.
The current burning of the Amazon is the logical consequence of a
wicked worldview’s pernicious logging of tropical hardwoods and clearing
of land using fire for agricultural expansion. And most of this
destruction is to feed the markets of the over-developed world which
have already decimated their own natural systems.
You can make a difference in protecting the Amazon and other old
forests. Your hunger for soy, beef, and timber are ultimately the cause
of Amazon’s fires. Eliminate these rainforest destroying products from
your life. For centuries settlers have threatened indigenous
communities. Working as an ally to support indigenous land tenure is
perhaps the most important thing you can do to help stop the Amazon
fires. And work to support ecological restoration and regenerative
agriculture in the Amazon and on all degraded lands including those near
you.
Entire criminal sectors have made some powerful interests rich, and
provide temporary employment for workers growing soybeans, milling logs,
and cattle ranching. Yet all such extractive enterprises based upon
clearing millions of year old natural ecosystems ultimately prove
tragically unsustainable in the mid-to-long term.
The collapse of natural ecosystems is made more tragic by a whole
lecherous NGO sector greenwashing particular types of rainforest logging
or farming as being “sustainable”. Should a hell exist other than in
Amazonian infernos, a special place is reserved for such traitors to the
Earth and ecological truth. You know who you are, shame on you.
Around the world social protest movements are emerging,
strengthening, and coalescing into more than the sum of their parts; to
demand democratic, just, equitable, and sustainable social change. Only
through such a Great Transition can the global environment be sustained,
and all enjoy freedom and decent livelihoods. Crucially, protest
movements are emerging that acknowledge that the climate, biodiversity,
and ecosystems crises are one and the same.
A central demand of those seeking ecology truths must be that all
cutting and burning of old trees found in natural old forest habitats
end immediately. And that an age of ecological restoration be embraced
with all haste to reestablish mature natural habitats across the
majority of Earth’s surface.
Entire industries feeding themselves upon the trough of global
ecocide must be dismantled; and replaced with eco-enterprises based upon
regenerative agriculture and allowing natural ecosystems to age and
reconnect. There exists tremendous potential for good livelihoods built
upon restoring natural forests, soils, wetlands, and waterways. All of
which will prove important in restoring our global atmosphere by slowing
climate change as well.
It is
morally wrong to kill old trees.
The cutting and
burning of old forests ends, as a prominent aspect of the coming Great
Transition required for equitable and just global ecological sustainability, or
together we all needlessly die.
I beseech you to dedicate yourself to living a life that does not
consume products produced by burning and cutting old forests and other
natural ecosystems. And commit yourself to restoring natural habitats,
indigenous well-being, and sustainable agriculture.
Do so as if your and all life depend upon it. It does.
