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.

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.

Prepare to see the vegetation, what remains, wither and die. Get used to there being no water in the tap much less locally available. Be ready for major energy shocks where your car sits lifeless in the driveway, a chunk of immobile metal, and your house remains unheated and uncooled.

Expect bands of marauders to pillage your belongings and have their way with your wives and daughters. The re-emergence of slavery and warring autocratic city-states is a virtual certainty as centuries of social progress are jettisoned.  

Entire bioregions are going to be laid to waste and have to be evacuated as they become uninhabitable. Given uncertainly in lag times, and what wells of ecological resiliency remain in the Earth System, it is difficult to know how long it will be until the biosphere goes into positive feedback and collapses and dies. It is also virtually impossible to know when it is too late and will occur regardless.

That is why we must seek an ecological ethic and way of life until our dying breath. Despite its shortcomings, ecocidal inclinations in particular, the human species is an amazing creature. Our ability to think abstractly, examining and learning from our natural surroundings, are unsurpassed. Now if we could learn to not destroy nature we will be set to live essentially forever as a species.

The Options

We have everything we need to construct a just, equitable, and verdant future for all. Plentiful renewable energy sources exist. We know how to recreate natural ecosystems and permaculture gardens from the plant diversity that remains. Educating girls, providing free birth control, and economic incentives for small families can stabilize and then reduce the population.

Throughout human history we see time and time again people coming together to do what must be done to beat back evil and advance. Together we will have to shutdown the fossil fuel industry, demand global demilitarization and demobilization, and insist upon a reduction in the size and influence of corporations and governments alike.

So much of our prospects depend upon living more simply and naturally. That is why posing, preening “climate activists” like Leonardo DiCaprio are so dangerous. They tell us climate change is real from the back of a polluting private jet, spewing emissions from luxurious lifestyles that the majority seek but can never attain. We are going to have to learn to live more simply materially, as we explore the rich abundance in knowledge, sport, arts, and leisure.

A global ecology ethic based upon ecological truths must arise spontaneously utilizing all the tools at our disposal including the Internet. We must come to realize we are one human family spinning through space upon a naturally evolved living organism upon which we are utterly dependent. Gaia’s ecosystem organs – old-growth forests, natural waterways, bountiful oceans, vibrant soils – must be restored and maintained at all costs as global ecological reserves to power the biosphere and maintain a living and livable Earth.

Such a global ecological ethic goes well beyond the obvious and demands a complete reorganization of the dominant paradigm. We perish unless we come to accept that nation states are a lie, there is no god, and ecology is the meaning of life. Together we embrace and act upon ecology and other self-evident truths or we face vicious, merciless death at each other’s hands.

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]

Bill McKibben’s Ecology-Free Declaration of War on Climate is Dangerous and Wrong

Old-growth forests must be protected and restored
to limit abrupt climate change

Why does Bill McKibben’s recent sensationalist appeal for a “War on Climate” make no mention, not even one, of ecology or ecosystems? While understanding Mr. McKibben is trying to call for a rapid societal response at a massive scale to an urgent existential threat, perhaps a better analogy would be demobilizing to make climate peace by cutting emissions and reforesting, as declarations of war often only make things worse.

It is irresponsible and contrary to established ecological science for Mr. McKibben to promote a war on climate focused solely upon techno-optimist industrial solutions. First and foremost, climate change is an ecological issue… I, for one, am much less perturbed that Bill occasionally uses plastic bags for his groceries, than that he apparently has little understanding of the ecological systems that maintain a livable Earth. — Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders, Deep ecology essays by Dr. Glen Barry

Climate policies matter. We have very few chances to get it right before abrupt climate change and related environmental and social issues collapse the biosphere. Yet the solutions being put forth by the leading climate activists—including Bill McKibben, Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Klein, and Michael Brune—are woefully inadequate. In fact, their lack of ecological focus is dangerous and wrong, and virtually ensures failure in limiting global warming to an acceptable level.

In a recent New Republic essay entitled “A World at War”, Mr. McKibben states “We’re under attack from climate change—and our only hope is to mobilize like we did in WWII.” The colorful essay correctly notes the urgency of a dramatic, urgent, and large-scale response to the threats posed by climate change. Yet we are led to falsely believe that a war-like industrial retooling to produce massively more solar panels and wind turbines more quickly will prove adequate to solve climate change. At best this is meaningless jingoism, at its worst it dangerously misdiagnoses climate change’s causes,  and does not propose ecologically sufficient climate change solutions.

NOT EVEN ONCE does Bill’s essay calling for a war on climate mention the biological and ecological aspects of our climate change conundrum. In fact, the words ecology, ecosystem, and even environment are not used. How is it that the climate movement’s perceived Martin Luther King type transformational figure has the science and policy behind climate change so dangerously wrong?
Natural ecosystem loss as a cause, and positive-feedback fed result, of abrupt climate change is once again given short shrift, and protecting and enhancing the natural environment is amazingly completely ignored once again by Mr. McKibben as an element of climate solutions. Instead we are left with war metaphors and further industrial development as a dangerously incomplete climate policy prescription.

What the hell Bill? Where is your understanding of ecology, and your embrace of widespread and connected natural ecosystems as a crucial element of any climate change solution?
Mr. McKibben, climate change is not Hitler, and waging war will not solve it. Climate change results not only from billions of pistons burning fossil fuels, it is also caused by billions of conscious decisions to destroy the naturally evolved world – one tree, or patch of ground, at a time – which through vegetation’s cycling of water, energy, and carbon have sustained a habitable Earth for eons. Of course at some level Bill you must realize this, but why not speak, write, and advocate for protecting and restoring natural ecosystems as a keystone climate change response?

Permaculture forest gardens intermixed with
regenerating old-growth key to stabilizing
carbon cycle

Maintaining natural stores of carbon and the natural carbon cycle between these repositories is of primary importance in limiting abrupt climate change and ensuring it doesn’t become run-away. Mr. McKibben’s vision of a war-like industrial mobilization is myopic and entirely ignores the re-greening of land and waters that must occur. We could end fossil fuel emissions rapidly, and still drown in historical emissions, if there are not ways to remove what has already been emitted from the atmosphere (we are at over 400 parts per million of carbon and Bill’s group’s name 350.org acknowledges we have surpassed the safe limit). How else but through natural processes associated with plant growth will global ecological balance be restored?

The simple ecological truth is that natural vegetation holds and cycles carbon in a manner that removes carbon from the atmosphere. We know much carbon is released when natural vegetation is cleared or reduced. And that there is tremendous potential to re-vegetate the vast areas of land that have been cleared of natural ecosystems, as nearly 90% of primary forests have been cleared or dramatically diminished through fragmentation. All remaining old-growth forests must be protected not only as carbon stores, but also for sources of seed and genetic variability for the coming era of ecosystem restoration and climate adaptation, and aided to expand and reconnect. Along with secondary forests undergoing succession into old-growth status, inter-mixed with organic permaculture and forest gardens, expanded natural forest ecosystems have dramatic potential to store carbon and perhaps more importantly keep it cycling.

Given how many natural terrestrial ecosystems have been lost, it is vital to avoiding willful ecocide that we stop logging ancient old-growth forests, allowing them to recover and expand.

I assert with absolute certainty as a trained ecologist after a lifetime of study and nurturing of ecological intuition that there is no possible solution to climate change that does not include large natural forests covering the majority of Earth’s land mass.

So why is Mr. McKibben and 350.org not calling for an immediate end to old-growth logging and massive program to restore native forest ecosystems along with all those solar and wind factories? In what can only be called willful negligence, essentially the entire climate change glitterati including Mr. McKibben refuses to publicly support in a major way protecting and restoring old-growth forests as part of the climate change solution, despite being called upon to do so by myself and others for over a decade.

Why could this possibly be? Is it ignorance? Is the climate movement’s leadership out of their element? Does a Journalism degree from Harvard qualify someone to craft planetary ecological solutions? Why is it that the largest, most well-funded voices on climate are not only a journalist by training; but the others are an accountant, a philosopher, a politician, and an actor. Why are none of the leading climate spokespersons who are espousing climate policies trained in ecological science?

Is it possible that, however well intentioned, a climate change movement led by those without ecological training are missing the crucial link between functioning natural ecosystems and a functioning climate and biosphere? And that possibly their sense of hubris and self-importance leads them to miss this crucial universal truth that natural vegetation and an operational climate are tightly coupled and intricately dependent upon each other? 

Could the Earth System be a living organism dependent upon natural ecosystems to cycle carbon and Bill, Leo, Mike, Naomi and Al wouldn’t know it?

It is possible that the climate change leadership’s funding sources have an interest in continued destruction of natural ecosystems. 350.org is primarily funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, also a long-time funder of “sustainable old-growth forest logging”, the same pile of ill-gotten fossil fuel money that has long funded the lie put forth by the Forest Stewardship Council and other logging apologists that old-growth forests can and should be logged sustainably. Two decades ago it looked like primary forest logging was waning and would end, then along came a false solution based upon bad science, and we now have questionably sustainable old-growth forest toilet paper and lawn furniture. We know it is good because the Rockefeller funded stamp of approval says so.

We have known for over 100 years, since John Muir’s prescient preservationist warnings, reinforced by modern science, that logging old-growth forests can never be done sustainably. Contemporary planetary boundary science makes clear more natural forest ecosystems have been lost than the biosphere can bear. My own research indicates that at 66% loss of natural ecosystems, the global biosphere percolates and loses critical connectivity required to sustain terrestrial ecosystems and thus the biosphere.

Climate change could be solved tomorrow and soil erosion, ecosystem loss, nitrogen and phosphorous deposition, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, emergent disease, toxic synergies, mass extinction, ocean decline, water scarcity, over-population, inequity, perma-war, and any number of other of social environmental issues could still decimate and perhaps end humanity. Climate change is a symptom of deeper maladies which will not be addressed in isolation. 

There are many elements of sufficient climate policy other than natural ecosystems given short thrift by a techno-optimist vision overly focused upon industrial production of renewable energy. Some can happen right away with the same urgency as ramping up renewable energy. What of energy conservation? Reduced meat diets based upon local organic production? Foregoing personal automobiles and flying less? Others are more long-term but must start immediately and be maintained if there is any hope for global ecological sustainability. What of reducing inequity to ensure all of humanity’s basic needs are met? Having fewer children? And perhaps most importantly, working to demobilize standing armies as has occurred throughout history except in the last 100 years.

A focus upon vilifying the fossil fuel industry, a product that virtually every global citizen depends, even the climate glitterati, will only get you so far. At some point, only calls for sacrifice, equity, and justice will get the job done. Yet climate leaders such as Leo DiCaprio won’t even give up their profligate emissions for leisure on private jets and yachts. On an over-populated, inequitable world that has already overshot ecological limits, it is wrong and dangerous to suggest we can continue conspicuously overconsuming electricity generated through industrial scale renewable energy. It is irresponsible to suggest a war on climate focused solely upon techno-optimist industrial solutions.

The gross inadequacy of calling for a declaration of war on climate goes further. People are murdered in war, Bill, in large numbers, ruthlessly and wantonly. The jettisoning of moral and ethical standards implicit in war jargon enables a war on drugs to target the poor and minorities, as the war on terror justifies remote control murder, including of American citizens without due process. And we know drugs have won, and militant nationalism breeds terror. “Wars” declared on behalf of policies have seldom if ever been effective.

A much richer vision of urgent resolve would be to call for climate change demobilization and waging of climate peace. History is replete with examples of ending war and the beating of guns into plowshares as an opportunity to redirect societal resources. How many solar panels and windmills could be crafted from nearly $2 trillion in global military spending a year, if the world returned to its pre-911 course of establishing international laws and reducing military expenditures?

Let me make it clear. Bill McKibben is a hero who has done much for the climate change movement. But he and 350.org are not the only, most qualified, or longest serving players. And sometimes, such as with their abject resistance to addressing natural ecosystem loss as a keystone response to climate change, they are simply plain wrong. 

Tragically, both 350.org and other foundation-fed climate bureaucracies like the Sierra Club make little effort to engage with their critics. This is not the first time they have been challenged to address natural ecosystem destruction as root cause of climate change, and embrace policies of protecting and restoring terrestrial ecosystems including old-growth forests as a keystone policy response. Despite being asked numerous times to clarify 350.org’s position on old-growth forest logging, they choose to remain silent. 

Bill and company, from their position of power, privilege, and prestige, have chosen to stonewall and directed their surrogates to vilify critics. When challenged, those feeding themselves from the trough of public money meant to solve climate change have refused to engage in a healthy debate, or even respond to critics, which could lead to a more diverse and sufficient climate change movement. Many of their supporters, and funders, portray asking questions regarding 350.org’s ecology-free climate pronouncements as somehow betraying the movement, rather than ensuring correct and sufficient science-based climate actions are identified and implemented in all haste. 

Is this the type of climate change movement we want and need?

Recently Bill wrote in the New York Times of the outrage that right-wing fossil fuel representatives were following him, observing his lifestyle. It is time for Bill to man up, and recognize as a public figure, scrutiny of his public and private actions are justified. He has been tasked with crafting personal and societal climate change responses that are sufficient to avoid global ecological collapse. I, for one, am much less perturbed that Bill occasionally uses plastic bags for his groceries, than that he apparently has little understanding of the ecological systems that maintain a livable Earth. 

In closing, I call upon Bill, Leo, Al, Naomi, and Mike to immediately come out against old-growth forest logging and for natural forest ecosystem restoration; and if not, to explicitly and specifically say why. Otherwise each is a legitimate target for protest as they are little more than charlatan demagogues hocking inadequate climate solutions. And I implore the vast climate movement and donors, in crafting sufficient polices to limit abrupt climate change, and the myriad of related environmental crises threatening biosphere collapse, it is time for more ecologically inspired voices to be heard and supported. That is if the big boys (and girl) have left any space or funding in the climate movement for deep ecology.

How Much Is Enough

Live more simply so that others may simply live

To sustain a livable environment, all basic human needs must be met as sufficient steady state stocks of natural capital are maintained. Guaranteeing a basic income as the greed of the billionaire class is tamed are keys to avoiding biosphere collapse and the end of being.

Conspicuous over-consumption by some as others fester in abject poverty is killing us all as we liquidate our shared biological inheritance for throw-away consumer crap... This perilous state of global inequity begs the question how much is enough? - Dr. Glen Barry

Despite being more aware than many of the perilous ecological condition of the planet, like most I am drawn by the siren call of affluenza. The variety of consumer goods and their marketing are so pervasive that it is hard to not succumb to the illusion that material items equate with happiness and well-being.

And while I try hard to weigh the impacts of personal expenditures on the planet and its life, and whether the purchase of a particular item is necessary, it is just so damn difficult to resist the desire to meet everyday whims and consume more, and not feel somehow disadvantaged if more stuff cannot be had.

My unmet desires for electronics, a new wardrobe, and travel of course pale in importance to the billions who struggle to meet basic needs. The fact that one billion people live in abject poverty on less than $1.50 a day continues to stun me. Given the networked nature of the world it is very unlikely that a just, sustainable and livable Earth can long persist with such imbalances.

Being married to a Papua New Guinean, and having lived in this Pacific Island’s villages for many years, I understand that exclusion from the money economy does not mean that existence cannot be rich in community, experience, leisure and the wealth found in a well tilled garden. It is important to differentiate between self-sufficiency and dispossession in those that are materially poor.

But the truth remains that billions of people’s basic needs for medicine, food, comfort, and a few select luxuries continue to go unmet; as others slovenly conspicuously over-consume. Jet set celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio warn us climate is real as they gallivant around the world with pals in private yachts and jets spewing emissions for leisure, setting a bad example. Many of us in the developed world’s middle class live lives of consumption beyond the kings and queens of yesteryear, yet rarely is our desire for more satiated.

Earth is a finite place. There are only so many resources to be derived from the harvest of natural ecosystems. As natural capital has and continues to be drawn down by exponentially growing populations all wanting to consume more; a state of ecological overshoot has resulted whereby consumption is occurring at a rate beyond Earth’s ability to regenerate. We have gone from one to seven billion super-consumers in 130 years and we are liquidating Earth’s natural ecosystems to make consumer products that mostly end up in the landfill.

Regional scale ecological depletion is becoming the norm as arable land, fresh water, and clear skies have become scarce. Throughout the world suffering from emergent diseases, hunger, and a state of resource driven perma-war escalates as ecosystems collapse. Soon our one shared biosphere will collapse too if the status quo of inequity, war, and ecocide continue.

This environmental decline often impacts the poor more deeply who depend upon local resources for livelihoods. Yet middle-class opportunities for employment and consumption are also in decline. As I have noted on many occasion, natural ecosystem loss and abrupt climate change threaten to collapse our one shared biosphere in what can only be described as the end of being. Then even the rich will feel the pain of consumption of Earth’s life-support systems.

This perilous state of global inequity begs the question how much is enough?

A few hundred people have half the Earth’s wealth. Historically a CEO of a business would make a few dozen times as much as their workers. Now it is often several hundred times.

In a world that is collapsing into a state of perma-war and abject poverty, can we not pursue any limits at all upon personal wealth? No one is speaking of communism or even socialism here – those that work hard and are smarter deserve to have more. But at what point is it enough? And when do societal requirements for meeting basic human needs, while maintaining a habitable planet for all species, take precedence? We engage with these questions of inequity or we die.

One of the more interesting ideas gaining support across the political spectrum is the idea of replacing virtually all government programs with a guaranteed basic income sufficient to cover basic sustenance to every human being simply for being alive. Thus every human being’s basic human needs for shelter, food, clothing, and medicine would be realized. 

Those living on just such a basic income would not live a luxurious life, but abject human suffering would be banished. Huge government bureaucracies could be dismantled. Some could choose to live simple lives as students, artists, and musicians; while other work for extra consumption – but not without limit. And those working harder would have more, but not endless amounts that threaten the environment and others’ ability to persist.

So how much is enough? How about top executives making 40 times the amount of their average employee instead of 400 times, like they used to – if workers make $50,000 this still provides the boss with $2,000,000, more than enough to reward hard work. And every human being could have their average needs met with a basic income. This would be a start.

We have been conditioned since birth to consume at all costs, often haphazardly at the expense of the natural capital that sustains us. It will be very difficult to overcome the lure of mammon yet try we must. If the population can be stabilized and begin to be reduced, there is enough natural wealth for all to live decent lives with basic needs met and a variety of some, but not all, luxuries to match every taste.

Imagine a world where community, experience, regional travel, knowledge, and a life well lived are desired as much as ever more wealth at the expense of others and the Earth. The political will must be found to strongly tax the wealth of the billionaire class to meet the needs of the poor and our shared environment. 

There are other ways to live than a hell-bent rush to ecocide.

Until such time as we all in the middle and upper classes learn to live with a bit less, and to share with others, there is virtually no chance of a peaceful, sustainable, and just Earth continuing forever, or even much longer.

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.

Streams of refugees flee collapsing ecosystems and abrupt climate change. Traditional food stocks from the oceans and forests are virtually exhausted. The act of saving seeds has become a radical act of resistance as all that is natural is commodified, homogenized, and toxified.

All around are well-meaning peoples pursuing pieces of the solution. Organic permaculture, ending fossil fuels, protecting and restoring natural ecosystems, consuming less, and more are occurring. But it is too little too late by orders of magnitude as the sheer inertia of ecocide found in mass conspicuous over-population and consumption prepares its final assault upon the natural world.

Already societies and economies are collapsing, from Syria to Haiti, and including the downturn in economic aspirations for the petty-bourgeoisie. The Earth’s capacity to provide for human well-being is collapsing. Every last natural ecosystem is to be mopped up for chopsticks and the last drop of oil. Not only will your children not have more than you have, they may die in an unimaginably horrendous ecological apocalypse.

Every month without the rise of ecologism, we fall deeper into nothingness, as the signs of sick ecosystems and dysfunctional climate are written off by the ecologically challenged. Soon as the pillages of war and ecocide come to your neighborhood you can expect to know hunger, disease, and the bad kind of anarchy.

Expect to face firsthand the terror of biosphere collapse – where your mothers and daughters are raped, along with your sons sold into the military and other forms of slavery, before they and you die like famished stray dogs on a dead Earth.

The global ecological system is collapsing and dying.

We are a clever species, with opposable thumbs and relatively large brains. Perhaps the Internet community and the sense of the human family it engenders can help us realize there is no god but Earth, that we are one people, and that we are one species of animals amongst many. And that we can choose to return to nature’s fold.

All that is green and natural must be protected in earnest and urgency with all our might or the biological foundation of being ends. Start with growing your food and restoring the land, reject personal cars and large families, and work outward to reconnect your community to its peaceful and healthy bioregion.

Otherwise the hairless ape show all intentions of pulling down the biosphere as we frantically seek more not understanding there is no more to be had. The sky is falling. The end of being looms.