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Saturday, July 23, 2016

Environmental Collapse Fuels Resurgent Fascism of the #CreepyDonald Ilk


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

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

Earth Meanders, Deep Ecology Essay
By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecointernet
July 23, 2016

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

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

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

CONVERGING GLOBAL CRISES THREATEN BIOSPHERE COLLAPSE

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

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

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

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

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

THE RISE AND FALL OF #CREEPYDONALD

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

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

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

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

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

GREEN LIBERTY IS THE ANSWER

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

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

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

Sunday, June 5, 2016

The Sheer Terror of Looming Biosphere Collapse

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


[continue reading at EcoInternet]





Sunday, May 15, 2016

The Pernicious Myth of Perpetual Economic Growth

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

By Dr. Glen Barry

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

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

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

Earth is Everything
Earth is everything. Without ecology there can be no economy.
Economic growth is worshiped as if it were holy and divine, rather than acknowledging that growth can come at enormous economic, social, and environmental costs. There is little understanding of ecological overshoot and the limits to growth, as we seek ever more material possessions at the expense of all else, systematically degrading not only our habitat, but also our future resource base and potential for broad-based community advancement.

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, May 8, 2016

On Ecology and Going Back to the Land

Life begets life, making Earth livable. — Dr. Glen Barry
Grow your own food as you restore ecology
Not much new land is being made, yet land’s well-being is central to the well-being of human and all life. On land, in a miraculous act of biological emergence, plants and animals have naturally evolved and self-organized to form ecosystems and ultimately the biosphere. Yet existing land and its ecology have has been treated incautiously and with great malice for centuries.

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

Life begets life, making Earth livable.

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

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

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

Read more at EcoInternet