On leave, back soon

 I have been on extended sabbatical leave from my ecological essays. Expect more meanders soon(ish)...

Ecological Apocalypse Now

Rewilding, Population Controls, Local Food, Forever Peace, and Emission Cuts – or Die

Witness inequitable overpopulation’s thunderous crescendo before global ecological collapse destroys everything, because many could not fathom how much is enough, as too many others have nothing

"You smell that? Do you smell that?... Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning." – Apocalypse Now

"Humanity's and nature's future, if any, are being determined now." – Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders Essays by Dr. Glen Barry

Ecological Apocalypse Now

I have a story to tell you. It regards the mayhem you see all around you. The exponential growth tearing apart being, sending humanity well beyond Earth’s carrying capacity, and threatening perma-war, abject poverty, and environmental collapse if we don’t act immediately…

We will get to the solutions, but first understand the magnitude of intertwined crises as biosphere collapse looms.

Earth is massive yet finite. For eons humans have intensively cultivated natural ecosystems, and once overexploited, moved on to destroy the next forest, grassland, and aquatic ecosystem. At low population densities, this allowed diminished areas time to recover.

In an ecological blink of an eye humanity’s population has exploded. In just over a century, human numbers have surged nearly ten-fold from one to eight billion. It’s so damn simple – the actual and perceived material needs of these apex predators in sum are totally and completely overwhelming nature.

The global life support system that humans and all life depend upon for our habitat is dying.

It is obscene that billions of human beings live meagerly upon a few dollars a day, while a small group of billionaires live lavishly, having hoarded half of Earth’s wealth. We now witness the grinding violence of poverty as billions eke out a living unable to meet basic needs for their children. As a sizable minority opulently overconsumes.

The madness of GDP growth as the measure of human well-being is pernicious; nonsensically equating economic growth, often at the expense of liquidating natural systems, with the well-being of billions of human beings, kindred life forms, and their shared habitat and atmosphere.

Grotesque inequity, with everyone wanting more and little sharing, precludes ever achieving global ecological sustainability.

Living as if there are no biogeophysical limits upon personal consumption and procreation is shredding natural ecosystems and the climate. The human family faces an era (perhaps our last) of Ecological Apocalypse Now.

A given piece of land can only be so productive before overuse leads to collapse and becoming barren. There are limits on the water that can be withdrawn from aquifers and rivers, and then they run dry. The atmosphere can only bear a certain amount of waste, before run-away climate heating occurs.

A couple decades ago it was said that Earth could support all of humanity at the material wealth of the average European. Sadly, those days are long gone, and reasonable levels of equity required to sustain an operable biosphere are going to require the wealthy to share. And all of us to have fewer children, as we seek less impact from our consumption.

Evidence of the population bomb going off are everywhere. People of different cultures packed more closely together make forever wars. Overt racism and even slavery are on the rise once again. Anti-bacterial resistance and epidemics result from many people living close together, including in proximity with livestock.

Look at the mangled landscape surrounding you, with quivering fragments of nature flickering out. Witness the mass migration of climate and ecosystem loss refugees. Hear the cries of terrorized wildlife, feel viscerally the loss of plants upon which all life depends, immerse yourself in the heat of a climate run amuck.

The human enterprise is drunkenly careening past Earth’s carrying capacity, living as if our shared natural habitat has no value. And like we have no duties to nature, if we are to survive.

When you push nature too hard, she pushes back. Until nature becomes overwhelmed and dies. We need to face the truth regarding our personal role in ecocide. Or together we face the end of being.

Ecological Solutions Now

Portends of the end of the world are all around you. Humanity's and nature's future, if any, are being determined now. 

Sustainability means redefining progress. As an immediate triage we must stop destroying natural vegetation. And quickly transition away from all types of burning including but not limited to fossil fuels.

The underlying lack of knowledge – and widespread ignorance, superstition and conspiracies – are all so tragic because it does not have to end this way. People want to feel special, successful and clever, I get it. Yet there is nothing appealing in a carefree, selfish lifestyle that pushes your species, planet, and all life beyond the carrying capacity.

As the world descends into a dystopian nightmare, foremost we are called upon to hold onto our humanity. While together we embark upon an unprecedented program of emissions cuts, rewilding of natural ecosystems, demobilizing militarily and making forever peace, re-localizing sustainable food systems, and limiting both our reproduction and personal consumption.

It remains possible to save nature and thus ourselves and our children. But it requires a rapid emergence of a regenerative worldview. Key is a commitment to degrowth, which requires shrinking extractive and industrial activities; to focus upon a restoration of natural ecosystems, righteous livelihoods, a commitment to reasonable levels of equity, and having fewer children.

So much could be done now to control population. Eliminate child tax breaks. Free condoms. Preferential access to higher education for small families. A basic income to guarantee essential needs are met for all. And first and foremost, educate all women and girls equally to men and boys.

Rewilding refers to actions to regenerate natural ecosystems as the surrounding context for meeting the needs of human society, kindred species, and our shared ecosystems right up to the biosphere. It involves both nurturing nature's natural process of succession and renewal, as well as augmenting regrowth with ecological restoration and permaculture plantings. Think of permaculture as forest gardens where human needs are met within perennial plantings that also provide ecosystem services.

Natural ecosystem processes, though weakened, still have an innate ability to repair themselves. Strict land controls will remove human pressures and allow fragmented ecosystems to recover, expand, and reconnect. Humanity can augment this natural recovery with carefully targeted restoration plantings. Massive greenhouses full of native plant genotypes, and a large workforce of gardeners, will supplant natural vegetation’s regeneration. Such restoration ecology reestablishes dominant native natural plants, that provide the natural structure and dynamics for nature to do the rest. Maximal benefits are achieved by targeting sites for planting that increase ecosystem connectivity and reduce fragmentation.

Native ecosystem restoration will be interspersed within a matrix of permacultural plantings to provide food, fiber, and a healthy environment. Increasingly communities will be required to live within their bioregion’s limits; growing, processing, and sharing their own food. Local, organic, non-industrial, and non-meat food sources need to be the focus.

Sources of drinking water must be zealously protected and restored. And we have all the tools we need in renewable energy, efficiency, and simplified lifestyles to end greenhouse gas emissions. Avoiding abrupt climate change requires a whole-systems ecological approach that includes both technology and reinvigorated nature.

Other key pillars of global ecological sustainability include an universally educated citizenry, demobilizing standing armies, and a commitment to racial justice and restitution. Imagine what is possible as the human family commits to Forever Peace. The quest for the stars, an AI assisted life of leisure, true passionate love, and great accomplishments in sports and the arts lie before us.

Within a couple generations, one can envision a once again lush and productive environment surrounding human works; where all basic needs are met, as those who work hard have reasonably more of the fruits of natural abundance.

A right-sized human future will be one of peace, ecology, truth, and equity if we want it to be. Or else business as usual means incomprehensible human and natural suffering before being ends. A verdant future is ours to make.

 

 

Falling into Nothingness

Being is ending. Humanity and kindred species’ one shared environment is collapsing and dying. Wake up. Before you experience up close and personal the horrors of habitat collapse.

“Go back to the abyss! Fall into nothingness that awaits you and your master!” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“The biosphere is collapsing… Global ecological sustainability depends critically upon a swift end to both cutting natural vegetation and all burning.” – Dr. Glen Barry

 

Falling into Nothingness

Earth Meanders – Deep Ecology Essays by Dr. Glen Barry

The environment, which provides the habitat to sustain life, has been and continues to be shredded by the consuming hordes for throw-away products. Water, food, clean air, and natural resource depletion loom as exponential growth gobbles the last bits of global greenery. Sick ecosystems, abuse of animals, and over-crowdedness threaten rolling pandemics.

Nature is our only home

Humanity is dismantling the biosphere, the shared thin mantle of life in which we live, to have ever more babies that seek more of everything. The human family has surpassed Earth's carrying capacity and unless we pursue a policy of deliberate degrowth the biosphere will collapse and die.

The state of the world is simply wretched. There has always been human environmental impact, sickness, war, and social ills. But rarely at this scale, with entire bioregions becoming uninhabitable dead zones, and the serious possibility of destruction of the global ecological system by humans. As much of humanity suffers wanton despair.

Gaia, our one shared biosphere, is analogous to a living organism. Her constituent ecosystem organs are being pillaged by war, resource thievery, a belief system based upon myths of ancient ghosts, and a thirst for ever more stuff. Millions of years old naturally evolved rainforests teaming with life, fantastical marine abundance, natural water flows and stores, fertile ancient soils, and clean fresh air have been raped and plundered for god, country, and fleeting personal wealth and soon will be gone.

We spend much of societies' resources upon war making. At the detriment of all else including education, health care, and job training. A handful of billionaires have more financial resources than billions of others. White supremacy and other intersectional forms of discrimination dehumanize all who are not white christian males. 

Disease, hunger, ignorance, and greed run roughshod upon the land. We might as well eat our children, poison the well, and burn our food crops, as our behavior towards others and the natural world is so repugnant and could not be much worse.

Such pain as together we rush towards the darkness. 

How has the global zeitgeist become so banal, trivial and evil? What has become of pondering cosmological mysteries? Advancing the rights of humanity? Crafting hand-made masterpieces? Marveling at the wonders of the human body? Growing and building with our own hands? Working for truth, justice and equity? What of community, helping your neighbor, true love, and countless other human pursuits of excellence.

No ghosts in the sky

Many now aspire for no better than D-list influencer celebrity, a virtual life of gaming in the metaverse, and over-consuming. Rather than for a just, righteous livelihood within nature and community. Pixels on a screen are a poor replica of sunning on a beach, listening in an ancient forest, or finding true love (or for that matter lust). What an empty life. How clueless to not realize the energy and resources that technology requires.

And forget about engineering a biosphere, it will never happen. Too complex, too much can go wrong. And it is unnecessary as we already have a biosphere that can be be protected and restored.

A small handful of individuals possess half of Earth’s wealth as billions face the terror of abject poverty. CEOs make hundreds of times as much as their workers, and the working poor need food assistance and live out of their cars. Feel viscerally if you can the pain of three billion human beings living on a few dollars a day as they watch the opulent elite promenade. 

How long before the have-nots come for us? And pull down civilization such as it is. Or are they already?

The brutal rape of humanity and nature is nothing less than evil thuggery. Many must sell their bodies and souls simply to survive. As kindred noble primates cling to their offspring as their rainforest home is mowed for curios and trinkets. Wildlife and domesticated animals live lives of institutional terror as our playthings and factory food. 

Our whole way of being constitutes profoundly illogical terroristic dismembering of ourselves and our habitat, in a willful death-wish.

Tin-pot dictators can blow
us up on a whim

And why have peace, justice, and international law fallen out of fashion? Because the American Empire was attacked 20 years ago, now we are going to wage global perma-war? How could such an exceptional political system have become so grotesquely debased, belligerent, and self-entitled? Petty dictators sit upon the tin-pot thrones of many rich and ancient cultures, now fading in glory, yet with buttons to at a whim unleash nuclear war.

How will this transition into depletion and collapse be managed? How do we avoid fascist, authoritarian, falsely populist responses? Will the superstitious, poorly educated, and simply deplorable low-lives ever overcome their crass, belligerent ignorance; to be made to feel their oneness with natural ecosystems and people that are different than them? To savor their rights, while realizing their duties? Or will they continue to babble nonsensical conspiracy-theories, fall prey to fascist demagoguery, pursue traitorous sedition, and terrorize those of other colors and faiths?

Such ecological and social deterioration in such a short time. It really began in earnest with Cowboy Reagan's slashing of government, and the rise to power of far-right christian white supremacy. And before that, and since, bi-partisan war-making bolstering the Congressional-Industrial-Military complex. Along with the unquestioned irrational belief that growth in population and inequitable consumption comprises development. 

America’s recent fascist sedition epitomizes the underlying anti-truth, anti-science, hateful social disease.

I have tried to live a purpose-driven life committed to ideas. Channeling my visions of ecocide into written words and activism for 35 years has come at great expense to my physical and mental wellbeing, relationships with loved ones, and material comfort. I am getting tired. Recently I had a moment of doubt on whether I could continue. Thus, I have pared back my environmental science efforts including retiring aspects of EcoInternet after 25 years of service. My focus will be continuing to research artificial intelligence technologies for sustainability under the moniker Big Earth Data ( https://bigearth-data.com/ ), and perhaps other appropriate uses of information technologies. 

And I will write as I can, even as few are listening.

While I do not want to believe it is too late, it certainly could be. Still my hope is that there is some unknown fount of global ecological resilience that will sustain us until we can marshal a great transition to renewed well-being.

It is going to take everything we have got. Every strategy: actions as diverse as Wall Street impact investing, youths organizing online, widespread social gardening, population controls, and income redistribution. Solutions for ecological sustainability include dramatic cuts in personal consumption, restoring ecosystems, end old-growth logging, demobilization of standing armies, and down-sizing of both corporate power and government bureaucracy.

Global ecological sustainability depends critically upon a swift end to both cutting natural vegetation and all burning. 

We must allow Gaia to rest.

We begin together to work in earnest on these priorities or we all face unimaginable deprivation and horrors as, with our hands on each other’s throats, together we fall into nothingness.

It is a choice. Miraculous nature and being do not have to end this way. 

Choose well.

Be the Seed

Be the seed...

Amid collapse, recall life begets life. Reject lazy thinking, reimagine everything, be the seed promoting truths that rejuvenate Earth and uplift all life.

“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

Together organisms propagated through seeds combine to produce plant communities, wildlife populations, human habitats and livelihoods, ecosystems, landscapes and ultimately our one living biosphere. In a cosmological wonder, these habitats born from seeds are the culmination of life, even as they make life of individual organisms possible.

Life begets life. As ecology narrates.

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.

Antifa(scism) is the Antidote to Full-Throated American Fascism

Under no circumstances will white supremacy, authoritarian fascism, and rollbacks of global human rights be tolerated

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” – Sinclair Lewis*

“…another generation of American antifascists has been called to duty.” – Dr. Glen Barry

* quote disputed yet salient

The American Capitol defiled by
traitorous deplorable confederate filth

America invented fascism. America’s centuries long system of white supremacy inspired Hitler’s Holocaust. Genocide and racial hostility are as American as baseball and apple pie, perhaps more so.

The new world of settler colonialism was born upon the twin sins of genocide and racism. Settlers wielding shotguns and bullwhips terrorized and subdued non-white nations; raping and enslaving dark-skinned people. Under the banners of christianity, capitalism, and democracy, white people have murdered and enslaved black people for centuries.

A white supremacist state was enshrined with highfalutin words of liberty, justice, and equality. As dispossessed Native Americans wallowed in squalor and enslaved Africans counted as 3/5 a person. Millions of living human beings were murdered and enslaved because they weren’t white christians.

Such savagery has rarely been seen, and its vestiges live on, as the white supremacists’ system of control has never wholly been dismantled. American rape and murder of non-white persons continues apace. And rising American fascism in the heartland promises a return to genocide and enslavement of all non-white non-christians.

There have been many types of fascism. Yet all share far-right, authoritarian, nationalistic, irrationality that critically depends upon scapegoating and dehumanizing others. Here I define fascism as including systematic racism whether it be against Jews, Africans, indigenous peoples or others.

Hitler came to power democratically with the aid of conservative allies who thought they could control him. He built a fascist system that raged against all that was non-Aryan. And murdered millions of mostly Jews but also the disabled, intellectuals, Gypsies, and those of other political persuasions. Nazism is a type of fascism, but there are others.

Fascism leads inevitably to mass murder

In a display of confounding duality, out of the American melting pot has also come two of the world’s most substantial antifascist responses. In 1865 the confederate slave-owning traitors were resoundingly defeated. And again in 1945 the filthy, genocidal nazi fascists were brought to justice.

American soldiers storming Atlanta and later Normandy were amongst the first successful antifascists. These mostly white Americans understood something about humanity despite their indoctrination and society.

We are all one human family. And while our different hues reflect the diversity of a multitude of rich ethnicities, it is our individual character that determines our worth, not the color of our skin. Claims of superiority and repression based upon skin color and religious belief are evil. And after all the arguments are through, sometimes to end the threat of murderous evil, you must punch a nazi or a confederate in the face.

Over the intervening years, steadily the US and the world have embraced the notion of global human rights. It has been slow, and the results are incomplete. But progress has been steady.

All people are created equal and have a right to freedom and liberty. In some of the greatest strides of human betterment, universal suffrage and freedom from servitude have become accepted as universal truth. Whole regions of the Earth still labor under dictatorial cults of personality, but the expectation has been set eventually all will have their inherent rights of hu(man) recognized and protected.

American fascists sought to capture and
murder America’s political leadership

Flash-forward another ~80 years and fascism and racism are again on the rise, particularly in America. In an age of increasing environmental scarcity and ecological collapse, poorly educated, down-on-their luck white people fell prey to a playboy New York huckster, here referred to appropriately as Creepy Donald.

Sweet nativist whispers were made by the creep that America would be made great again by rolling back history to a time of fascist white supremacy.

After four years of despotic rule by Creepy Donald’s cult, the nascent fascist disease – just in the nick of time – was defeated at the ballot box. The defeated great leader began sowing the big lie that the election had been stolen, seeking to illegally seize and hold power. This American authoritarian resurgence culminated recently with the creep’s white nationalist acolytes waging insurrection upon the capitol of the American Republic.

Creepy Donald’s legacy is treasonably
and seditiously sending a mob to murder
political adversaries and seize power

In a speech worthy of fascist greats of old, the American great creep repeatedly lied, whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and directed them to the Capitol. I have no doubt that the deplorable fascist foot-soldiers that assaulted the U.S. Capitol intended to take hostage and murder Congressional leadership to seize power. And that the Capitol was purposefully left unprotected.

In shameful acts of demagoguery, Creepy Donald sent the mob to kill Vice-President Pence, House Speaker Pelosi, and others. As the mob descended chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, the great leader was gleefully watching on TV and calling Senators to further delay ceremonial counting of electoral votes.

Nothing shows what a pile of shit Creepy Donald and his deplorables are more than the beating of a downed capitol police officer with an American flag.

American Fascist beats downed police
officer with an American flag

Whoever could have imagined electing a failed philandering, bankrupt reality-TV show host could have such consequences? Many saw it coming and resisted early.

The United States of America narrowly averted mass assassination of our country’s political leadership. The only thing that stood between white supremacist insurgents and seizure of power were a small group of valiant capitol police and legislative aids with the foresight to carry the electoral ballots to safety. A coup was narrowly averted.

Thus, another generation of American antifascists has been called to duty.

A white nationalist American government has brought sedition and treason, disease and ignorance, to America. At this moment American nazis and militias continue planning to overthrow the democratic government of the United States of America. Even as Creepy Donald’s negligence and lust for power have enflamed a pandemic that continues to ravage America.

America came perilously close
to losing its Democracy

We must remain vigilant and ensure that full-throated American fascism does not come to power. Not now, not ever, using all just means necessary. We must tirelessly atone for America’s original sins, and continually work for self-improvement, and the achievement of universal human rights in America and globally.

Not every conservative is a fascist, but all fascists are conservative. Throughout history fascists have come to power through alliances with conservatives who thought they could control the racist, genocidal impulses of their fascist partners. They have been wrong. Thus fascist-enabling conservative sympathizers share responsibility for authoritarian atrocities.

Either you are fascist, or you are antifascist – often abbreviated as Antifa. Each of us must choose now, there is no middle ground. To not choose makes you a fascist sympathizer.

Antifa is merely a shared belief that all humanity has equal dignity and rights, and a commitment to resist within your means white supremacists, advocates of genocide, white christian nationalism, fascist dogma, and other authoritarian ideologies and outcomes.

You beat white supremacist fascism by removing their platform, denying their control of the streets, removing individual fascists’ veil of anonymity, and when necessary, by punching nazis. And by holding them and their conservative sympathizers and enablers accountable.

The Antifa philosophy has united all types of people to defeat fascism for decades. On many occasions post-WWII fascist resurgence has been beaten back, avoiding further authoritarian dictatorships and genocidal mass murder. Once again we have a deep-rooted responsibility to stand up to the resurgence of fascism of various types in America, Russia, Brazil, China, and Europe.

Avoiding mass murder and white supremacy
may require punching nazis and their equivalents

The prude boys, zero percenters, belch keepers and other deplorable white supremacist nationalist militias must be disbanded, and their members imprisoned. Under no circumstances must we allow their seditious behavior to continue un-resisted or become normalized. Or there will be dictatorial rule by a fascist lunatic, concentration camps in the American heartland, and the mass murder of all that is non-white and non-christian.

While America has much going for it, American exceptionalism has always been a pernicious myth. There is much to celebrate in America’s history. Yet the myth has been used primarily to justify our obvious shortcomings.

It is the human family’s ongoing realization of universal human rights that is truly exceptional. People of all colors and creeds, sharing equally basic rights including universal suffrage and equitable opportunity, living with liberty in multi-cultural societies, free of systematic oppression, where prejudice and persecution based upon race and religion are not tolerated. While bearing the duty to expand and maintain these global human rights for all. It is this marvelous recent historical accomplishment, not yet realized perfectly, yet a work in progress, that is exceptional and must not be allowed to be rolled back by nazis or confederates.

Truth exists. We are one human family. Love is the answer. There are no gods. Earth is alive. All there is, is humanity, nature, and kindred species.

While the current moment seems hopeless, there are things that can be done. Extra-judicial murders of black people by the police, anti-Semitism, and the disappearance of native women, must be eradicated. Occupied lands must be returned to indigenous peoples. Fascists and their sympathizers must be brought to justice for their sedition and treason.

Systematic racism must be dismantled once and for all through a commitment to communication, policy, and reparations that bring about equity and justice, and only then make sustainability and peace possible.

Reject the fascist white nationalist nonsense: to be Antifa is to accept that all humans are created equally and universally possess inalienable human rights. And a commitment to resist murderous fascists bent upon white supremacy and genocide. Antifascism is in tune with the equitable, just, and sustainable societies America and the world are becoming, rather than what we were.

Home-grown American fascists must be deplatformed, and denied control of the streets and government. The 29% of Americans that approve of domestic terrorism in service to christian and white supremacy must be soundly driven from power, imprisoned if they have committed crimes, and deprogrammed to avoid forever the horrors of American full-throated fascism.

A well-lived life is one that serves justice, truth, sustainability, and peace. And fights against racism and fascism.

Bless Gaia and may she and our shared commitment to Antifa ideals save us from these nazis in the American heartland.

The End of Being

Abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse are leading to plagues, famine, perma-war and tyranny and will ultimately result in biosphere collapse and the end of being

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Death, Famine, War, and Conquest — result from our everyday choices and are not preordained

“I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round…”

John Lennon

“Regain a sense of wonderous awe at the miracle of creation and work tirelessly to protect and restore nature’s splendor.”

Dr. Glen Barry 

Look out the window, any window, and behold portends of the end of being. The very ecological fabric of being is unraveling. Disease, famine, false prophecy, and authoritarianism are rife.

The biosphere – the thin mantle of life upon the Earth that holds ecosystems that are the habitats for all life – is dying. And all Earth’s life is threatened with prolonged collapse followed by extermination. There can be no escape. Unless as individuals, societies, and humanity we dramatically change. And fast.

These are hard topics to talk about. Where to start? Religion and overpopulation, given the level of ignorance that exists regarding these topics, are as good as any.

Living our lives based upon millennia old myths, for which there is no evidence and the messaging is ecocidal, shackles the human family to a most ominous fate. Invisible ghosts living in the sky in constant judgment, and if we do not do as religious authorities say, we will burn forever; is a false, tawdry and dated manner to organize society. Particularly as we are told without proof that the ghosts want us to go forth and multiply and subjugate the Earth. And murder for our tribe’s rich old men.

Please, enough already.

We break free of god pollution or in a self-fulfilling prophecy all that we love will assuredly be unnecessarily destroyed.

The multiply part – from one to eight billion human beings in about 130 years – has led to exponential growth in human numbers, fueling the stripping of Earth’s life support systems. Some say the ghosts don’t want us to control our fertility, relegating humanity to the status of a disease upon the biosphere.

Grotesque inequity, a handful of super-predators possessing half of Earth’s wealth, while billions live on a few dollars a day, exacerbates the physical conundrum that Earth can not produce as much as we desire in total to consume. Vast forests, waters, oceans, and even the atmosphere have been fouled and destroyed to meet humanity’s insatiable hunger.

And then there is looming demise of nature. For millennia since humans settled, ancient naturally evolved ecosystems have been destroyed for “development”. Nature is destroyed for consumer goods, allowing human nerve endings for some to be positively stimulated for a while, as the habitats that constitute our life support systems are weakened. And eventually natural systems collapse and die. First the woodlot out back, then your city’s surroundings, next your bioregion’s ecosystems collapse, even whole countries’ and continent’s natural assets are lost, and eventually and finally Earth as a whole will follow in-kind and become a tawdry, denuded mess. And die.

The spilling forth of European ecocidal genocide into indigenous nations and their natural habitats represented an infection upon Gaia that has festered and grown. And may well prove fatal. Innumerable worldviews that understood the harmony between humans, nature, animals, and the stars have been wiped from being.

The industrial revolution, building wealth by murdering plants, wildlife, and non-white people, became a universally accepted twisted concept upon which to build society and individual aspiration. Wave upon wave of disease spilt forth from the destruction of wildlife and natural ecosystems and continues to do so. Most recently coronavirus, and any number of pathogens are yet to emerge during the collapse as nature ends.

Priceless ecological systems – that evolved novel and miraculous structures and patterns across scales from genes, to organisms, to communities, upward to ecosystems and landscapes; and together constitute our one shared biosphere – continue to be cut to wipe your ass. Nature is being liquidated for consumer throw-away crap, as basic human needs of so many go unmet.

Major ecological crises (sadly for which there are solutions) fester and grow, any one of them capable of toppling civilizations, and together capable of ending the conditions for life on Earth. Topsoil erodes. Rainforests fall. Diseases emerge. Water gone. Oceans die. Harvests fail. Toxics accumulate. Climate heats. War murders. And tyrants reign.

Granted, the momentary abundance provided for by market economies has led to the rights of man, slowly expanding (though not yet universally) to include all human beings. Democracy and liberty have made for greater well-being, remarkable liberties, unprecedented comfort, with less violence. Yet universal human rights have not been achieved and piece-meal advances have recently been shown to be weak and flaccid.

Resource scarcity and declining prospects have led to a surge in authoritarian tyranny, with petty dictators of all types in power over much of Earth’s inhabitants. One great people recently narrowly averted collapse into full-throated authoritarian fascism (for a while anyway). Other great peoples live under constant surveillance and threats of violence for thinking and acting freely.

Universal human rights are a precondition for just and equitable global ecological sustainability.

And then there is war. Huge amounts of Earth’s productive capacity continue to be siphoned off by the Congressional-Military-Industrial complex. Murdering other usually less fortunate people in the name of your god and country for the economic benefit of elite, usually white old men is good business if you can get it. Mass hysteria accepts war as patriotic. Yet free-thinkers and many vets know war is murder.

Humanity’s state of perma-war and resurgent tyranny is a direct result of environmental decline.

There can be no just, equitable, sustainable future until guns are beaten into plowshares one last time. Standing armies in times of peace are wasteful and evil. Imagine what could be done with these resources to educate, feed, clothe, house, employ, and limit the fecundity; while otherwise maximizing the shared well-being and sustainability of humanity. The obscene amount of armaments that presently exists greatly increases the potential for violence as ecosystems continue to collapse, and social strife explodes, making regeneration and reconciliation much more difficult.

The time for global demilitarization is long past due.

What philosophy remains unthought, technology un-invented, words unwritten, songs unsung, stories untold, and sport feats undone because we toil all day to destroy ecosystems and wage war? Humanity and you are capable and worthy of better.

And finally we have arrived at that painful matter of the entire biosphere collapsing and dying. Abrupt climate change and natural ecosystem loss are diseases of the Earth System that threaten an end to being for the human family and all kindred species. We immediately power down our fossil fuel use and destruction of nature or it is the end.

Failure to embrace a great transition means decades of war, pestilence, famine, and disease. Your family either starving or being raped and then murdered in front of your eyes. For the lucky, nuclear explosions to mercifully wipe the human taint. Before widespread collapse and mass die-offs, perhaps of all life.

Gaia, the Earth System, is a living organism. There are no guarantees that the tremendous destructive impacts of so many types, so quickly, upon already diminished biological systems, will not end the billions of years of conditions conducive to live, or that a re-radiation of evolutionary diversity is assured.

The biosphere too can die. Being can end. It’s happening now, creation is in its death-throes. Unless the will is found from watching and deeply understanding the multitudes of looming warnings, and necessary changes are made in how we relate and depend upon each other, kindred species, and nature.

There are things that can be done. Survival for awhile will be local, we need to grow our own food and find livelihoods that are local. Much can be done to limit consumption, but that will not be enough. Many of these problems are societal and can only be defeated through rationale thought, improved education, and global people power.

We know what must be done, all that is lacking is the will, even in the face of self-evident disease, fascism, hunger, and war caused by nature’s decline. Regenerative agriculture, population control, restoration ecology, bans on natural ecosystem clearing, universal human rights, global demilitarization, ending fossil fuels, energy conservation, and major expansion in renewable energy are all key (there are others).

The great transition will require far more than teenage girls striking. However well intentioned, if most others are self-righteously vilified, social change cannot succeed. We need allies of every type including farmers, business people, veterans, people of color, labor unions, financiers, indigenous peoples, and particularly the rich and powerful. History has shown that when the elite are made to understand it is in their interest to change, only then does social change come. Engage with efforts to reform finance in service for Earth.

Even as you grow coalitions, set your sights high, based upon what is ecologically sufficient. The business of war murders must end. Nothing short of societal transformation that eliminates the destroyers while fostering regenerative systems will suffice. Only a broad-based movement can avert being’s end.

Watch and understand the wheels going round and round. And then become a cog in the wheels of ecocide. Re-localize, grow food, make more with less, organize, convince others, take actions for Earth you deem necessary.

Understand that ecology is the meaning of life.

Regain a sense of wonderous awe at the miracle of creation and work tirelessly to protect and restore nature’s splendor. The human family must embrace the great transition – powering down, making love not war, and returning to nature – coming together to avert biosphere collapse

Starting now. Make it so. For Earth and all species. Or it is good-bye forever. 

Creepy Donald’s Fragile States of America

I do not know how to tell Creepy Donald’s fascist death cult that they should care for other people

The survival of America as we know it – a particularly good, but flawed country, until recently working on improvement – depends critically upon resoundingly thumping Trump at the polls.

Dr. Glen Barry

Rarely if ever has the State of the Union been as grim or as fragile.

A pandemic rages without benefit of a federal response. Self-absorbed Americans gripe about the inconvenience of wearing a mask.

As 135,000 people are dead largely un-mourned.

It has become OK to be openly racist again. Non-whites are at risk of false imprisonment or even death from squads of Karens and rogue cops.

Sick, weak, and vulnerable; our enemies put bounties on our troops. While we surreptitiously wage war on Iran, blowing up nuclear facilities. Unidentified federal agents abduct Americans off the streets of Portland.

The 2020 budget deficit has already surged to $2.7 billion as money is printed at will. The stock market rises as the economy crumbles and mass unemployment festers.

The signs of abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse are everywhere. Record heatwaves advance more quickly than expected, as we prepare to endure another year of burning sick forests. Water is becoming scarce.

The environment is collapsing and dying.

Despair, fear, and broken dreams mingle with unemployment, ecocide, and addictions to create a crazy morass of conspiracy, outrage, and disease.

Hunger stalks the land.

Who could have imagined that electing a reality show actor as President could go so badly? The stakes have never been higher as our bankrupt President melts down.

The last days of the Trump administration are culminating in an existential emergency threat to America and the world. Creepy Donald’s anti-science, anti-truth, anti-justice, anti-equity, anti-women, anti-non-white, anti-environment, and anti-democratic agenda has a name which must be spoken.

It is fascism.

Frankly, the most fervent Trump supporters that I have seen personally are those that did not do well in school and have limited prospects as a result. Many were bullies in their youth and remain political bullies today, and continue to not be the sharpest tools in the shed. Further, oftentimes Trumpers have limited prospects because they have shown an unwillingness to retrain for a changing economy

In an increasingly bifurcated world of haves and have nots, the deplorables embrace a twisted populist vision of despair and revenge at their imagined tormentors. Nationalism, scapegoating, falsehoods, a cult of personality, and the threat of violence provide meaning to weak, hurting, down-on-their-luck people.

The normalization of hate, racism, injustice, and untruthfulness by Creepy Donald’s acolytes has been truly shocking. It is Unamerican and threatens to usher in a dystopian authoritarian state that stops being America.

President Trump’s negligence of the greatest health crisis in the nation’s history, as he pursues personal vendettas and re-election, is a crime. His defense of confederate traitors and inflaming of racial tensions is unhinged. Justice will be had.

Anti-Fascism is American

What will become of America, a beacon of liberty and opportunity? Are we going to let these deplorable dead-enders lead to the fall of America and the planetary system?

Granted, America was founded on the original sins of genocide and racism. We can never stop apologizing and making amends for centuries of ethnic cleansing, enslavement, and murder of indigenous peoples and black people.

You can love your country while acknowledging the truthful past and wishing for a better future. America was built upon constant self-improvement, and there is still hope of realizing our full potential of the rights of hu(man). But the system built by genocide and slavery has not yet been dismantled and there is hard and painful work ahead to do so.

America is precipitously in decline. There is reason to be concerned that another catastrophe – possible examples being a a major natural disaster, political violence, or an attack from a foreign nation – may overwhelm our resilience. Things may spiral out of control. Urgent measures must be taken every day to avoid a fall into irrelevance or perhaps even collapse.

Daily from now to 2021, we need to take measures to buttress the Fragile States of America.

Creepy Donald is unraveling and becoming an even worse blathering idiot before our very eyes. His unsteady gate and grasp, and daily tirades of petty grievances as the nation is sickened, are a window into a sick and twisted mind. We need to stand tall and strong until Trump and his virus are excised from the body politic at the polls.

So how do we ensure Fragile America makes it to the post-Trump era?

The survival of America as we know it – a particularly good, but flawed country, until recently working on improvement – depends critically upon resoundingly thumping Trump at the polls. Trump’s death cult of hate, lies, ecocide, and a frenetic instability – and America’s flirtation with authoritarian fascism – must be forever tarnished and banished.

President Trump’s reelection will only be possible through disenfranchisement. Plan your voting now. Ensure you and others around you are registered and know how to get to the polls. Every opportunity you have highlight the decay and disintegration of America values under Trump, demonstrating civility as you speak hard truths, and emphasizing that a Biden Presidency represents pulling back from the abyss to begin a return to normalcy.

At every opportunity we have, we need to set an example of caring for each other. Start by staying home when you can, and when you go out following scientific public health policy. This means masks and distancing at the least.

Model anti-fascist, democratic behavior. Care for yourselves and others. Share when you can. Work to be more self-sufficient. Grow food, plant trees, and care for children. Learn new skills.

Re-embrace grand visions of peace, love, truth, equity, ecology, and justice.

We must make crystal clear the democratic process will be followed to the letter. Under no circumstances will election cancellations or failure to accept the democratic results be tolerated. An attempt by Creepy Donald to steal the election would bring forth an anti-fascist fury that even the Trumpers should fear.

The US. Military is called upon to under no circumstances follow a Trump nuclear launch order. To seek to deescalate international conflict. And to pledge to respect the coming election.

Listen. Be open to others’ experiences. Question your white privilege. However anti-racist you may feel realize there is more you can know and learn.

The problems listed earlier are all solvable. It begins by reducing the military budget, practicing diplomacy, and once again joining civilized nations to end our state of perma-war. There is tremendous potential to use these savings for renewable energy, job training, health care, ecological restoration, public health, schools, and public infrastructure.

Recommit to an America based upon both the best of traditional values and continual betterment. For all peoples and life.

We are called upon as a nation to continue down our path of perpetual self-improvement and end all vestiges of racism once and for all. As we make the investments necessary to restore and maintain ecosystems and the climate. And ensure all have adequate water, food, and employment.

We can reclaim a United States of America where all basic needs are met, where we are at peace with the world, and once again education and health care provide the foundation for opportunity.

The Trump Virus must end. So once again America can stand proud and continue the process of being a model of decency and progress.