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Sunday, January 8, 2017

The Wretched State of the Human Family and Our Shared Ecological Habitat

Humanity’s one shared biosphere that makes Earth habitable is collapsing and dying as industrial growth overruns natural ecosystems and climate; as we have utterly failed to embrace our dependence upon each other and nature for our well-being and very survival. It is time to come together as one human family to resist injustice, inequity, violence, and non-sustainability as we create a rich and verdant life for all amidst resurgent natural ecosystems on a living Earth that can last essentially forever.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. – George Orwell
We are one human family. Best we end the dysfunction and start acting like it or we destroy ourselves and our one shared habitat... Let us unite as citizens of the world, coming together as one human family on an Earth that lives forever. – Dr. Glen Barry
Deep ecology essay by Dr. Glen Barry, EcoInternet

We Are All In This Together, One Human Family
In Beijing, New Delhi, and London one can barely breathe. Those sick with addiction are murdered in the Philippines by the state. The socialist paradise of Venezuela is becoming a failed state of wanton hunger, prostitution, and murder. Advanced western democracies turn towards fascism as long anticipated inequitable over-population and abrupt climate change lead to mass flows of refugees.

Western consumption is violence against the natural world and each other. Over a billion people live in abject poverty on $1.50 a day, as a few hundred oligarchs enjoy half of Earth’s wealth. In much of the world shocking and grotesque opulence exists within a sea of absolute human and natural misery. Wildlife continues to be slaughtered as vermin, as do unwanted human beings. Resurgent indigenous protectors are brutalized by settlers as they have been for 500 years.

The current pampered ruling elite in the United States stole an election from a good man working to channel the aspirations of everyday people, while committed to addressing societal issues that threaten us all. Instead we have an US President elect who is an anti-science lunatic that grabs women’s crotches and has sold out the nation to autocratic Russia. This creepy bankrupt reality show host will soon possess the button that can destroy the Earth many times over. Or his turning over of climate and environmental policy to the oil oligarchy may take care of that.

After centuries of war driven by ecological imperialism, and two world wars which brought horrors at unimaginable scale, much of the world supported institutions to make peace, and the desirability of demobilizing and ridding the world of nuclear arms. Then America reacted incautiously to the banditry of a small bunch of Islamic fanatics, using this horrific international crime as a pretext to settle other scores through wanton imperialist invasions. Now radical and medieval christianity and islam are at each other’s throats, which increasingly becomes a conflict between the haves and have nots, as we are plunged into a state of Perma-war from which we may never emerge.

The ecosystems that enable our very being are being cleared for toilet paper to wipe our asses and lawn furniture to luxuriate upon as being ends. Those that are relatively well-off are in profound denial that their inequitable over-consumptive lifestyles can continue as ecosystems and climate collapse. Decadent over-consuming celebrities prattle on about climate change as they flit about in highly-polluting private jets.

Society has atomized, not only between the well-off and dispossessed, but also between those enmeshed within supportive communities and those that are marginalized, unsupported, and ignored. Families have grown dysfunctional, ostracizing and vilifying rather than loving and nurturing, particularly those family members that are different. All life including other human beings (particularly women) and wildlife have become objectified for what they can do for me now, otherwise they are considered disposable.

Not so long ago things were looking good for human advancement. An end to slavery, racial equality, women’s and worker’s rights, environmental sustainability, and a lasting peace dividend were all in our grasp. Decades of human advancement are now threatened by pervasive anti-intellectualism, self-absorption, and simple human greed.

Previous generations believed in social progress, while current self-entitled generations believe in iPhone apps. Things could be so much better if we wanted; or at least had the intelligence, strength, and morality to try.

Until we educate every single one of us, and commit to truthful action to meet the basic needs of every human being, all species, and our shared habitat; humanity is little more than bacteria on a pile of sugar. Those that live extravagantly will soon burn through the living Earth’s resources and then being ends.

We simply must do better or our one shared environment will be destroyed as we die gasping for breath and starving, at each others' throats as society and the biosphere collapse.

We are one human family. Best we end the dysfunction and start acting like it or we destroy ourselves and our one shared habitat.

To thrive, indeed to survive, we simply must accept and embrace that we are more alike than different, we all feel pain and have desires, and we are utterly dependent upon each other for our well-being. We must do so despite our race, education level, income, and which ultimately unknowable faith we embrace; as we find ourselves hurtling together through space on one shared biosphere which is being murdered.

Lines on the map are vacuous nonsense meant to limit our unity. Nothing threatens the oligarchy's elites more than the thought of us coming together to demand peace, justice, equity, and ecology.
Together much could be achieved as we learn to value knowledge, experience, shared well-being, and natural ecosystems as the meaning of life or we fall into nothingness. The many visionary sages that speak of and lead us in this great transition must be supported, loved, and heeded, not ignored and vilified.
Where are the necessary lovers of ecological and other truths to lead us to salvation? Who will rise up with them as one and together destroy the ruling oligarchy class sucking the life from humanity and her habitat? From which quarters and unlikely alliances will The Resistance emerge to usher in the great transition to just, equitable, and global ecological sustainability?

There is more to life than throw-away consumption based upon liquidating ecosystems to soothe and comfort your nerve-endings as the expense of other life and your habitat. Stop being a turd polluting and ultimately killing miraculous Gaia and transform yourself and community into a state of personal well-being, societal harmony, and bioregional sustainability.

Make Love Not War
Believe in something greater than yourself. Commit to action for the land, air, and water. Reach across boundaries to share and love. Nurture and restore natural ecosystems. Work for greater equity where all basic needs are met as those that are smart and work harder have reasonably more. Heal your dysfunctional families and communities. Care for the sick and indigent. Join together in mass protest, when necessary swarming the sources of ecocide and fascism.

Make love not war.

Risk everything to be part of the great ecological transition to come. Ditch your car. Eat less or no meat. Do not consume old-growth forests, rather protect and restore native ecosystems as holy cathedrals that sustain life. Reduce your personal emissions as you come together with others to do so societally. Grow your food, and exchange the surplus with others.

Be kind and giving. Be not envious but rather rejoice in the success of others as it lifts all and provides valuable inspiration to your own journey. Empathize with the broken and aged, and young and stupid. But for the grace of Gaia there go any one of us.

Let’s stop being afraid of taking the actions individually and collectively required to get better and recover from human neuroses. Let us unite as citizens of the world, coming together as one human family on an Earth that lives forever.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Anti-Intellectual Voters in America’s Heartland Ensure Abrupt Climate Collapse


The poorly educated electing a climate change denier (however justified their rage at elitist opulence) is sheer utter madness. That abrupt climate change is well underway is self-evident as the Arctic has shockingly recently been 36° F above normal and above freezing, and 98%+ of temperature extremes are record highs. It is unconscionable that America’s House Science Committee tweets climate science disinformation, as Creepy Donald appoints climate change deniers to key environmental positions, and turns his jack booted thugs upon governmental climate scientists. Festering rural American anti-intellectualism may well kill us all. Being smart is cool. I very much hope this essay offends no one, other than the ones it was intended to.
Trump isn’t just a sexual predator, authoritarian demagogue, or proponent of ill-informed and self-serving policy; he is evil incarnate. Donald Trump is a festering pile of shit that conned the uneducated – who often through their own failures have fewer opportunities – to vote for him. Creepy Donald and his anti-intellectual base’s denial of established climate science truths threaten our very existence. — Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders, Deep Ecology essays by Dr. Glen Barry


Growing up in rural Wisconsin, I experienced firsthand anti-intellectualism. I vividly remember being bullied for my academic achievements (straight A’s except for, ironically, one B+ in of all things creative writing): being thrown against lockers, having my head hit hard, and even human snot being thrown at me because I was smart, valued learning, and did well in school. Thus a free-thinker was born.

Nonetheless, I fought back and liked High School very much – particularly opportunities for creative self-expression such as band and theatre – and I went on to earn numerous college degrees and have embraced life-time learning. I have worked very hard to get ahead and have lived a life committed to the search for truth and in service to important ideas. Others are not so lucky, as my gay brother was too effeminate to defend himself, and had to flee our rural school system and find other dubious manners to advance.

I continue to own my childhood home in the area, and some of these bullies over subsequent years have become close friends as we matured. And my wife and I deeply appreciate the area’s values based upon family, faith, hard-work, and community. As I shall reveal here I FAR prefer the company of rural Wisconsin to the self-entitled elitism of the cities.

Lack of education and outright anti-intellectual hostility has been a problem in American politics for a long time. This persistent anti-intellectualism, exhibited as anti-science hate by some, and present in so much of America’s rural heartland, must end; or we are going to destroy ourselves.

Everyone, however poorly educated, is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.
And the facts are that the basic science of climate change has been known for a century, proven conclusively, and is unfolding precisely as predicted by scientists decades ago. Current scientific findings, including my own – Terrestrial ecosystem loss and biosphere collapse – show clearly that humanity has through environmental destruction inherent in industrial growth overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. For those unfamiliar with the state of global ecological science, this means humanity’s destruction of natural climate and ecosystems threatens to collapse the biosphere and end being.

Recently nearly the entire world came together under the
Paris Climate Treaty to globally address climate change for
the first time with all nations cutting emissions, a
global consensus Donald Trump recklessly threatens to destroy
Anti-science hater Donald Trump came to power inflaming rural prejudice, demagoguing lack of opportunity for the poorly educated, and promoting extreme climate change disinformation. Creepy Donald has already begun his reign of terror upon climate and the natural world, as he hands over the reins of government to the scientifically illiterate and ethically compromised oil oligarchy, and compiles lists of those in the government that worked on climate policy.

Creepy Donald’s ascendancy commits the full might of big government and corporatist interests to the destruction of the atmosphere and every last bit of life-giving natural ecosystems; in order that the rich may access and burn every last drop of oil and chunk of coal. Government and corporations are merged – a key aspect of classic fascism – in order to maximally enrich the billionaire class, living in exclusive, opulent compounds as the rest of us suffer, starve, and die amidst apocalyptic ruin.

Trump isn’t just a sexual predator, authoritarian demagogue, or proponent of ill-informed, unscientific, and self-serving policy; he is evil incarnate. Most everything he promotes, and certainly his environmental agenda, are diametrically opposed to truth. Donald Trump is a festering pile of shit that conned the uneducated – who often through their own failures have fewer opportunities – to vote for him.

Creepy Donald and his anti-intellectual base’s denial of established climate science truths threaten our very existence.

Humanity’s inequitable growth in population and consumption is systematically dismantling the natural ecosystems that make Earth habitable. Whether the human family has evolved enough to survive and equitably thrive – through the acquisition of knowledge, ethics, and just governance – is being decided.

We are all poised together upon the precipice of abrupt climate change and total and complete ecological collapse as the biosphere collapses.

And much of America’s heartland is too fucking stupid to know or care. They have fallen victim to a deliberate misinformation campaign and don’t have the cognitive skills to resist. Often times you get what you deserve.

I also blame the media who treated Trump’s ascent as reality show entertainment. How surreal during US Presidential election debates that not a single question about climate or environment was asked, and now how ironic is the panic as the extremism of Trump’s anti-science agenda becomes apparent.
And the liberal elite who gorge upon delicacies in their fancy salon’s as so many people are suffering for lack of basic needs being met and a few creature comforts has to be held accountable. It is my devout wish that the apocalyptic times to come hold special horrors for those that held power and spoke with forked tongues as they enabled industrial ecocide, and enriched themselves, rather than help others and nature.

Recently it was 36° F hotter in the Arctic than it should be, shockingly above freezing for a long period of time. Earth’s last ancient naturally evolved ecosystems continue to be liquidated for toilet paper and lawn furniture. Native peoples protecting all of our water – our last best chance for leadership to save being – are brutalized by the fascist oil oligarchy.

It is unconscionable that as climate and nature are literally collapsing around us, and as one people we fall together into nothingness, that a denier of basic scientific facts required to inform solutions is elected.

I like the real people of Wisconsin far more than the elite, but they shouldn’t be anti-science and anti-truth, or be jealous of others who have worked their mind muscles very hard with education.
I have some advice for the Trump rural electorate, who are not necessarily bad people, but place faith in invisible ghosts over knowledge and truth (nothing wrong with personal faith as long as it doesn’t conflict with self-evident reality). Please stop being so envious of the success of others and work to improve yourself and your children’s prospects. The opportunities available to you and your children are largely determined by how hard you work to educate yourself. If you choose not to prioritize education in your life, and don’t work hard in school, you will have less of everything.

Being uneducated doesn’t make you bad or even dumb, but it makes you less able to think critically and identify and respond to truth. And finally, demand and vote for people who will deliver a fair share of the economic pie to all without polluting and destroying our environment which makes Earth habitable for everyone.

Seek out truth through critical thought and embrace liberty, equity, and ecology.

And frankly, I would expect talented outdoors-men that claim to love the woods and waters to have noticed the ecological decline all around them. But as long as they get their buck, some don’t really care that ecosystems are collapsing. I expect more from you, share your knowledge of nature with us, and work to let forests age and regenerate even if it means less deer.

Many classmates of mine from High School who did not have the opportunity to attend college for whatever reason, are now working overtime to put their own kids through college. Demographics are on our side as millennials embrace tolerance and education. The only question is whether abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse have reached a tipping point and it becomes too late, leaving us to squabble for the crumbs falling from a dying global ecological system.

Frankly, if rural Wisconsinites would jettison their anti-science hate, I far prefer their conservative ethics (conservation is deeply conservative, hence sharing the same root) to the flatulent and thoroughly rotten liberal elites in Madison. Another high school classmate who was once a good friend has done well for himself in the fetid corrupt political cultural there, getting ahead by enabling child sexual abusers. America’s tainted political elite from both parties speak of helping others as they gorge upon the trough of big government and big corporations, and live tawdry lives preying upon others.
After purging climate scientists from government, who
will Creepy Donald's jack booked thugs come for next?

It is no wonder that the heartland of America – the home of patriots and great good at times – cries out for change, but Trump’s anti-science totalitarianism will not make America great again, it will destroy America and Earth. You get what you deserve.

Being smart and looking out for long-term environmental needs are cool. Being an uneducated voter that votes for charlatans because of class envy, dooming the Earth to destruction is not. Taking more than your fair share as your over-consumption destroys nature and workers suffer is foul elitism and must be banished.

Despite being terrorized by the poorly educated with limited prospects in my youth, I am willing to move on and fight for their fair share of Earth’s bounty, and for life-long opportunities for self-improvement.

But first we need to defeat the fascist monster the anti-intellectual rural voters have foisted upon us. Donald Trump is a filthy, vile man – best described as Creepy Donald – who willfully ignores knowledge and preys upon others for personal gain.

Just this week he came for the climate scientists in government, making lists in preparation for their purge. Who will creepy Donald come for next? Gays, blacks, the poor, the handicapped, non-Christians? How long until those that dissent are imprisoned and murdered? Anti-intellectualism has placed the button to destroy the Earth in the hands of a mad man, though he may prefer to do so through his climate and environmental policy.

This American Nazi is not my President. He will have to be defeated, particularly his misogynist, racist, anti-environmental agenda, using all just means necessary.

Donald Trump’s defeat will start with billions of acts of non-cooperation. An Earth revolution is coming and it is our last chance to survive. We have neglected the needs of democracy, the less fortunate, and our one shared environment for too long. It is time to get back to the land.

The coming transition to an equitable, just, and ecologically sustainable world may well come from Wall Street or from Main Street, from the farms, from urban activists, or some combination of the above; but it will come. And I hope it results from all of us coming together to embrace knowledge, truth, and wisdom as we resist Creepy Donald’s fascist untruths, and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect and restore natural ecosystems, and learn to share again. Only then will America truly be great again.

Monday, October 24, 2016

The Death of Gaia

Miraculous nature is being murdered. Everywhere we look inequitable over-consumption is devastating the natural ecosystems that sustain a living Earth. Together we yield to ecological truth – personally embracing a global ecology ethic, and demanding others do so as well – or we all needlessly die at each others’ throats as the global ecological system collapses and being ends.
Gaia’s ecosystem organs – old-growth forests, natural waterways, bountiful oceans, vibrant soils – will be restored and maintained at all costs as global ecological reserves to power the biosphere and maintain a living and livable Earth. — Dr. Glen Barry
Earth is Dying
The Signs

Everywhere you look humans are destroying nature. We are eating the ecosystems that sustain us, crapping in our own habitat, calling it development as we destroy our one shared biosphere.

Look outside your window. Chances are that the “nature” you see – some degraded secondary forests, power lines and roadways, with disturbed soil and degraded waterways – was a million year old natural ecosystem only a few generations ago. Never have naturally evolved ancient ecosystems been so swiftly destroyed to produce throw away consumer junk.

We are witnessing the age of ecocidal, conspicuous, and inequitable over-consumption. 90% of old growth forests have been mowed and large ocean fish harvested. Half of both natural soil and vegetation have been destroyed. Oceans are dying from bottom trawling, acidification, and over-harvest.

Abrupt and runaway climate change is well underway as humanity continues to treat our atmosphere as a waste dump. We piss and worse into our natural waterways as billions lack clean drinking water. Plants and animals as well as people are fleeing collapsing ecosystems.

And most people are too fucking dumb to realize what is occurring, little more than microbes being pickled in their own waste as their and all being ends.

The Outlook

China is going to ecologically collapse first, as industrial filth on behalf of all nations has proliferated, and it will be soon. Collapse of this ecocidal tyranny may well by itself pull down the biosphere. Similarly India and Europe are most at risk – where millennia of ecological simplification, along with tremendous over-population, will ensure mass migration and conflict until these population bases are brought into balance once again with natural ecosystems.

The United States may persist longer as the ecocide has not occurred for as long. But here nationalistic militarism along with an unparalleled sense of entitlement, and a lack of understanding of community and the natural world, is perhaps most dangerous. If every American is not allowed to realize their exceptional birthright to wantonly overconsume, they damn well will destroy everybody and everything in fits of infantile rage.

Finish reading at EcoInternet...

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Declaring Climate Peace in an Age of Ecological Restoration

Make peace with the climate, ecology, and
each other

The global ecological system collapses and dies as human growth overruns natural ecosystems and climate. Our best hope is to declare peace with the natural world – starting with climate and old-growth forests – coming together as peace-makers of the rainbow for truth, love, justice, equity, and ecology.
Only a declaration of climate peace based upon protecting and restoring natural ecosystems including the atmosphere can save us now… Making peace with ecology will allow our descendants to live forever, rather than suffer and die miserably in ecologically apocalyptic wastelands. — Dr. Glen Barry
Earth Meanders deep ecology essays by Dr. Glen Barry


Ending Ecocide and Genocide

Humanity has waged war against the natural world for millennia, intensifying with the industrial revolution, culminating with 9/11 terror and resulting perma-war, and threatening now to collapse the biosphere. Centuries ago an epic wave of ecological terror swept from Northern Europe as the industrial revolution and colonialism put a price on everything, liquidating natural ecosystems for illusory consumption by some, based upon false claims of advancement. Fleeting creature comforts for a few generations for some have come at the expense of apocalyptic war waged upon our ecological habitats and all that is different than ourselves.

In the name of god and country, indigenous cultures ensconced within the loving embrace of natural ecosystems, living materially simple but ecologically rich lives, were labeled savages and brutally murdered in waves of ecocide and genocide. Millions of year old natural ecosystems were systematically dismantled, and their vibrant life forms mercilessly slaughtered, to be used as resources to fuel the fires of industry. Anything that could burn, including timeless carbon stores of ancestral life meant to remain sequestered, were set ablaze to fuel our insatiable urges.

Indigenous people will lead the way to
climate peace
Multi-pronged wars upon nature proclaimed as god’s will, and thus destined to be waged by exceptional nations, have utterly devastated naturally evolved ecosystems, the current climate equilibrium, non-Western cultures, and the sum total of life known as the biosphere. A constant state of conflict with nature and all people with heritages other than that of European settlers has left the world in an overpopulated, biologically tawdry and diminished condition, poised upon utter and complete ecological ruin. The end of being is nigh, yet hope inherent in ecology and peace remains.


Declaring Climate Peace

It is time to declare and make a lasting peace with the natural world – starting with climate and intact ecosystems such as old-growth forests, and encompassing all Earth’s life, including other peoples. Each of us must seek to minimize biological, ecological, and cultural conflict in order to allow Earth to rest, recuperate, and recover.

Only a declaration of climate peace based upon protecting and restoring natural ecosystems including the atmosphere can save us now.

[Finish reading essay at EcoInternet]