Regenerating Gaia: Imagine a Peaceful Rebellion that Regrows Nature

Gaia – the living global ecological system – is collapsing and dying as human industrial growth overruns natural ecosystems and climate. Yet the biosphere can regenerate, as it has done before, given the time and space, free from human burning and cutting. As the twin emergencies of climate and ecosystem loss threaten the end of being, I join in calls for a peaceful “Extinction Rebellion” whereby people together do what they can, do what they must, for Earth and our shared habitat. Let’s start by regenerating nature in order to sustain creation.

Regenerate Gaia, Regrow Nature

“Imagine all the people living life in peace… You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.” – John Lennon, Imagine

“Imagine a peaceful rebellion that regrows nature… Let’s return to and tend our planetary garden. We once shared creation with other creatures, let’s do so again. Gaia can regenerate herself if given enough time, space, and love.” – Dr. Glen Barry

One of many amazing things about nature is it can grow back. 10,000 short years ago much of the Northern hemisphere was covered by a mile of glacial ice, scouring the land of all-natural vegetation. Before that, cataclysmic asteroid strikes virtually annihilated biological life, in moments of immense planetary scale death. In each case, fragmented life re-emerged – renewed and diversified – in relatively short order. Critically, enough natural remnants remained, and were able to recover.

For eons biological life of all sorts including natural terrestrial ecosystems have shown an innate, indomitable will to sustain itself. This is not necessarily the case. Gaia, the planetary organism that is the sum of all ecosystems, can – like all life – collapse and die. Yet creation has proven to be remarkably resilient. When adequate remnant nature remains, and once pressure is taken off quickly and long enough, life is able to regenerate; genes evolve, wildlife has babies, and natural ecosystems repopulate denuded land and sea.

Gaia is a living organism. And once again, all her organic and naturally evolved life is in peril. This time at the hands of humanity.

It is difficult to fathom the degree to which natural ecosystems and climate have been disrupted by human industrial growth, and the potential for spiraling collapse should natural ecosystems and climate not be allowed to recover. The biosphere is already bifurcating between extremes (a sure sign of impending collapse) – demonstrated by trends as diverse as climate weirding, rising authoritarianism, collapsing ecosystems, mass migration, and a state of perma-war – before settling into a new normal of a depauperate and perhaps lifeless planet.

Now living in New York City and working in financial IT, much of my formative years unfolded in close proximity to nature. Some of my most pleasant memories as a child include fishing for bass from a canoe with my parents, the smell of the Earth waking in a tent, and partaking in the symbiotic ecological cycles of animal husbandry and gardening as my family homesteaded. Over the past two decades I have restored a natural forest ecosystem on a few acres of denuded farm fields – a gratifying yet grueling task.

From an early age I sensed Earth was alive and gravely threatened, intuitions fortified by over a decade of graduate studies in ecology, and a lifetime of rainforest and climate activism. It has been 5 years since I published Terrestrial Ecosystem Loss and Biosphere Collapse, ground-breaking peer-reviewed science identifying a tenth planetary boundary. There I hypothesized that 66% of Earth’s land must be covered with natural and agro-ecological ecosystems to sustain the biosphere; and foresaw the need for a revolutionary response to ecosystem and climate emergencies, now being realized with global climate strikes and extinction rebellions.

Given such a massive and unprecedented global ecological emergency, surely an “Extinction Rebellion” is long overdue.

Imagine a peaceful rebellion that regrows nature.

The place for sufficient climate and ecosystem solutions to start is to let Earth rest and recover. And most importantly, to allow and assist natural ecosystems to regrow. We must once again put our faith in seeds, and the ability of nature to sustain all life.

Massive nurseries of natives plants from local genetic stock, nearby genotypes adapted to warmer conditions, and species suitable for forest gardens will be required to provide seed stock to re-establish intact and functioning ecosystems over two-thirds of the Earth’s surface. Enormous deforested and ecologically diminished areas exist, particularly in the tropics, that must be quickly reforested. Replenishment planting surrounding and reconnecting natural remnants over vast areas will yield ecosystem services and store carbon, as well as provide massive employment. Science knows much regarding how to harness ecosystems’ natural restorative processes, carefully targeting for augmentation the re-establishment of dominant and keystone species, as remnant ecosystems are aided to expand and reconnect.

There exists enormous potential to carry out landscape scale ecological restoration activities which assist natural remnants to age, expand, and reconnect. Protecting and restoring old-growth forests, other natural ecosystems, and all kindred species are a huge part of the climate change and ecosystem solutions, and a prerequisite to solve a whole host of other ecological issues including biodiversity, soil, wildlife, and water crises.

We are speaking of restoring natural ecosystems, going well beyond tree farms. Such rewilding focuses upon assisting natural ecosystems to recover their full ecological integrity. This is demonstrated by their possessing the full range of natural species, composition, structure, and function. Diverse agro-ecological systems that emphasize organic perma-culture will play a vital role, when interspersed with intact and regenerating forests, in order to once again ensure ecosystems provide the ecological context within which humans and other species can live forever.

Of course, successfully regenerating ecosystems on a global scale presupposes that the damage to existing intact ecosystems ends. Much of the foundation-fed climate and environment movements have myopically focused upon technical solutions to climate change, failing to understand the role intact and regenerating ecosystems play in sustaining Gaia. Some go so far as continuing to sell logging primary forests as being desirable and even sustainable. We must go far beyond technophile solutions and end natural ecosystem loss and harness the Earth system’s amazing ability to regenerate herself.

This is what makes the Extinction Rebellion movement so exciting – it correctly diagnoses the threat to the biosphere, humanity, and kindred species as emanating from both climate change AND biodiversity/ecosystem loss.

Ecology is the answer.

There is no way humanity emerges intact from the climate and ecosystem emergencies and achieves global ecological sustainability unless we grow justice, peace, and equity as well. This will require powering down the industrial growth economy, demobilizing the military-industrial complex, and coming together as one human family to stop those destroying nature. Solutions include not only ending burning of fossil fuels and destruction of natural ecosystems. We must also make peace and demilitarize, promote greater fairness and justice, and limit human numbers and inequitable over-consumption.

Let’s return to and tend our planetary garden. We once shared creation with other creatures, let’s do so again. Gaia can regenerate herself if given enough time, space, and love.

It’s the End of the World and I Don’t Have Much New to Say

“Abrupt climate change is careening out of control, as the impacts of dramatic polar ice melt are given short shrift… Not a lot of new land is being made, and much of what remains is tawdry remnants of their former productive glory… And the middle class and political moderation are fading away. It is difficult to imagine how this can end in anything but utter and total collapse.” — Dr. Glen Barry

We are all in this together

After decades of writing essays highlighting global ecosystem collapse, I haven’t had much to say lately. That’s not meant to suggest that I don’t care, the threats to our very being have diminished, or that I am not still taking action for Earth.

But as the World comes to an end, I just don’t have much new to say.

Over the years I have written hundreds of essays. Recently my thoughts were about as poignantly put as I am able in The Ecology Ethic and Absolute Radical Green Freedom. There my central theses of all these years can be found: Earth is dying from ecosystem loss and climate change, only a profound cultural transition can save us, and economic decline, mass migration, and the rise of fascism are indicators of looming global ecological collapse.

It’s not even that I have become jaded or immobilized. I continue to develop machine learning systems to catalogue, and identify and network solutions, from Earth’s ecological information. Much will be unveiled on this soon (see https://search.ecointernet.org/ and https://www.twitter.com/ecointernet3 for an early start).

But as I age I have become more pragmatic. Very few societal changes have come about until the elite see it is in their interest and embrace change out of the need for self-preservation. I am working hard to connect with and understand global economics, looking for ways to build bridges between deep ecology and sustainable commerce. Thus I work a gratifying day job in finance to pay for my decades of past activism.

Clearly things are worsening ecologically, economically, and socially. Abrupt climate change is careening out of control, as the impacts of dramatic polar ice melt are given short shrift. A relatively large amount of heat is required to melt ice. Once the “air conditioning” provided by this ice is gone, extra heat will dramatically warm oceans and land, orders of magnitude beyond the calamitous warming already occurring.

Not a lot of new land is being made, and much of what remains is tawdry remnants of their former productive glory. Large naturally evolved ecosystems that power the biosphere are almost gone. The majority of the human family continues to focus upon serving invisible ghosts in the sky and buying more things, rather than concerning themselves with sustaining their shared habitat and thus community well-being.

Global economic inequity has reached obscene levels. A sizeable minority lives in cocooned techno-splendor, dying from over-consumption; as the majority barely gets by, many scrounging a miserable existence from industrially plundered environments. And the middle class and political moderation are fading away.

It is difficult to imagine how this can end in anything but utter and total collapse.

How long before the have-nots come to take what they need from those that have-so-much extra? Facebook friends will not be there to save you.

As we invest consider taking long positions in land, water, air, and food; and shorting fossil fuels, armaments, and spying. By doing so together we sustain a just, equitable, and free Earth; and we may benefit personally from funding solutions to our existential threats.

I do not think it is possible or necessary to seek perfection. But there is so much we can do individually and together to dramatically reduce the impact upon a sick Earth. Drive and fly, eat meat, and buy stuff way less. And find community, make peace, and share way more.

Recommit to humanity’s continual quest for self-improvement. Basic advances in the human condition such as slavery, racism, sexism, and militarism which nearly ended are once again threats due to profound ignorance, sloth, and greed.

We are all in this together. Resist the coming new Dark Age through love and connectedness with nature and fellow beings.

The three billion plus year old naturally evolved Earth is a masterpiece. The works of the hairless monkey with opposable thumbs are profoundly brilliant. We must continue our evolution, and doing so requires returning to our animalness, and relearning the most basic rule of all life: not fouling the nest in which you live.

Often I imagine a peaceful, thriving, loving humanity living enmeshed within rewilded nature abounding with old forests, rich gardens, and wildlife. I beseech you to make love not war, advancement not profit, equity not misery, ecology not ruin, justice not elitism, liberty not authoritarianism, respect not intolerance, knowledge not ignorance; and once again together strive for shared betterment.

Not sure how new this was. But I guess I had something to say after all.

New “Biosphere News Search” Web Site Launches to Benefit Global Ecology

Biosphere News Search

PRESS RELEASE
July 31, 2018

First of its kind climate and environment search engine, using machine learning and big data for global ecological sustainability, to be unveiled by EcoInternet this week in New York City

For more information contact:
Dr. Glen Barry, President, EcoInternet
drgbarry@gmail.com

New York, New York (July 31, 2018) – Environmental non-profit EcoInternet has today launched a new ecological search engine based upon cutting edge machine learning, data science, and big data technologies. Data tools typically used for finance and business are being applied for the first time to integrating the full body of global ecological knowledge in order to facilitate policies sufficient to avoid abrupt climate change, continued natural ecosystem loss, and ultimately biosphere collapse (1).

The new “Biosphere News Search” site at http://search.ecointernet.org/ tracks global climate and environmental news, as well as related issues as varied as rainforest conservation, sustainable agriculture, indigenous rights, and human trafficking. The best ecology news content from tens of thousands of news sources are continuously identified 24/7, algorithmically rated, networked on social media(2), and loaded into the new biosphere search engine.

“As Earth’s one shared biosphere is being pummeled by abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse, EcoInternet is thrilled to unveil the fruits of two years of research and development into information systems to help provide solutions to these cataclysmic threats. The Biosphere News Search continuously finds, integrates, and amplifies the best global ecological knowledge using machine learning and big data technologies (which can scale indefinitely). The system is learning about the types of solutions known by experts, and desired by the public, and is constantly improving its results,” explains Dr. Glen Barry(3), President of EcoInternet.

EcoInternet and predecessors have a long history of using information technology and the Internet for environmental conservation, dating to the late 1980s from the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. For decades Dr. Barry has pioneered ecological advocacy and science on the Internet, work widely regarded by others as visionary. He was among, if not the first, blogger and news aggregator, sharing forest conservation content since the early 1990s. EcoInternet has initiated and participated in hundreds of successful community and indigenous conservation campaigns, while pioneering environmental search since the late 1990s. After a few years of concentrated learning and training in emerging data technologies, EcoInternet has recently entirely retooled their computer systems, which had been initially constructed as part of Dr. Barry’s PhD research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The current Phase 1 Biosphere News Search makes all global climate and environment news content searchable; with sources running the full gamut of news agencies, NGOs, community groups, and scientific bodies. Nearly a thousand articles are gathered, networked, and made searchable a day. We are now raising funds to complete our work on the new search engine by polishing the news content aggregator and the search engine’s graphic presentation. Work has already begun on creating a Google-like web search of all the best reviewed scientific and educational information on rainforests, oceans, agriculture, water, ecosystems, climate and related issues available on the Internet. In coming months EcoInternet expects to release an Internet wide ecology search engine and will also unveil a revamped ecological action network. Partnerships and sponsorship opportunities are desired.

“The global ecological system is collapsing and dying as human industrial growth overwhelms the climate and ecosystems. We urgently need to integrate knowledge regarding ecological problems and their solutions — from the local to the global scale —  to inform advocacy and policy actions sufficient to maintain a habitable planet. Future phases of EcoInternet’s Earth IT Project will organize the most important global ecological data sets into a ‘Global Ecology Data Vault’ using cutting edge data warehousing techniques not yet applied to global ecological sustainability,” says Dr. Barry.

###ENDS###

(1) Barry, G. (2014), “Terrestrial ecosystem loss and biosphere collapse”, Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 542-563. https://ecointernet.org/terrestrial-ecosystem-loss-and-biosphere-collapse/
(2) EcoInternet’s climate and environmental aggregated news are available at:
Web: http://ecointernet.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ecointernet3
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EcoInternet/
RSS: https://www.ecointernet.org/eifullrss.xml
Search: https://search.ecointernet.org/
(3) Dr. Glen Barry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drglenbarry  — please feel free to connect

Mass Migration Portends Fascism and Biosphere Collapse Unless We Share

There is nowhere to run, Earth is full

Decades of ignoring the converging crises of climate change, ecosystem loss, nationalism, and inequity are reaching their logical conclusion as Europe and America are threatened with inundation by desperate peoples. Not all who wish to come will be able to be housed, and certainly not those arriving illegally, without pulling down host societies. Yet we must hold onto our humanity and work for global justice and ecological sustainability. It is the rich nation’s responsibility to stop ravaging developing nations’ environments, and learn to share including providing massive development aid in place. Or the biosphere collapses and we all die after enduring a dark era of unbearable authoritarian fascism.

Mass destabilizing migration is what you get when religion tells you to have ever more children. You get mass unruly migration when a handful of individuals have seized half of Earth’s wealth as billions live in abject poverty on a couple dollars a day. The inevitable outcome of clearance of natural forests, fouling of water, and exponential growth in human population and total consumption is ecocidal mass migration. — Dr. Glen Barry

Illegal immigration is, well, illegal. And it is not sustainable. Though absolute immigration numbers rise and fall at any given moment, the trend is clear that a variety of crises are leading globally to an unprecedented level of dislocation from people’s traditional homes. The days of verdant sparsely populated paradises that the dispossessed could flee to after devastating their own lands are long gone. At nearly 8 billion human super predators and counting Earth is fully occupied and then some.

In fact, the global biosphere is collapsing and dying. What we are witnessing at affluent states’ borders illustrates long anticipated limits to growth, the irrefutable consequences of inequitable over-popuation, and the logical conclusion of being in a terminal state of ecological overshoot for decades. Large swathes of formerly productive land have been laid to waste by the combined forces of too many people, global warming, natural ecosystem destruction, and over-intensive land utilization. This ecological decline combined with centuries of neo-colonialist resource thievery has made large areas of the world ungovernable.

Continued mass movements of refugees and economic migrants from the periphery into the world’s prosperous regions reflect the convergence of a perfect storm. Abrupt climate change, ecosystem collapse, grotesque inequity, continued neo-colonialism, nationalistic perma-war, and first and foremost over-population are all reflected in the streams of refugees to Europe and America. There are nearly 70 million refugees who have been forcefully displaced from their homes worldwide and many more choosing voluntarily to migrate in search of economic opportunity.

The imperial powers cannot house all the citizens of failed states and ecosystems (even though much of the suffering is at their hands). Trying will overrun liberal democracy and lead to authoritarian responses. Yet we must not lose our humanity and turn our backs on suffering of others. Our best response to mass migration is to stop destroying developing nations’ environments as the foundation of our economic system, dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and sum consumption immediately, discontinue our state of perma-war to ensure easy access to resources, and provide sizeable development aid to support meeting basic human needs in place. This includes a well-funded program of massive ecosystem restoration that will employ large numbers. And educating all girls as well as boys, as provide free birth control, is long overdue to stabilize and then reduce human numbers.

Europe and America sharing their ill-gotten wealth with other nations to provide for security, environment, education, justice, and jobs; to make it worthwhile to stay in place, is the only immigration solution that will work. There is no other way to shared well-being.

Far more is at stake than providing for economic advancement and safety from persecution for those fleeing failed states and ecosystems, and legitimate (though often needlessly racist) desires to maintain existing cultural heritages and jobs. Continued exploitation of cheap migrant labor is not justification for abdicating the rule of law or allowing haphazard flows of human beings into an area where many do not welcome the influx. The future of humanity is threatened as we are poised for a final apocalyptic collapse into nothingness unless we learn to equitably share, sustain ecosystems, and make peace.

Mass migration overwhelming America and Europe is a symptom of all that ails Western pseudo-democratic capitalism. In a globalized world everyone shares problems. For centuries Western thought has subjugated and persecuted other cultures, as our ravenous appetite for resources laid to ruin natural ecosystems. Developing nations’ landscapes are strewn with the wreckage of the over-developed world’s resource gluttony. Ironically some of the most culturally advanced political institutions and works of human self-expression have arisen from this thievery. Despite the over-developed world never having quite lived up to the false exceptionalist rhetoric, there is much that is good and noble in tolerant societies based upon free self-expression that must be maintained to avoid another totalitarian dark age.

Near zero tolerance may well be required to make clear that rampant illegal migration is not acceptable. But not President Trump’s seizing of children from their parents, which is clearly fascism and crosses the line. Racism and demagoguery will not turn back the tide of demographics. And there is nothing progressive in sending the message that all the world’s downtrodden are welcome to overrun some of Earth’s last prosperous and relatively well governed regions.

There are few things as sad as serial child-abuser Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, proposing legislation to end enforcement of immigration law given his history of traveling to Costa Rica to sexually abuse kids (wonder if any victims became migrants, a lot easier to prey upon if they are here). Neither far-right authoritarian thuggery or far-left sanctimonious elitism will resolve immigration concerns, the answer lies in the political center.

While believing firmly in the ideal of the unity of the human race and global citizenry, no one’s interests are served by continued acceptance of the cycle of land degradation and poor governance leading to widespread movement into other areas to repeat yet again the ecocidal pattern dismantling the shared global environment. More people embracing the Western throw-away culture of over-consumption is not the answer. As signs of biosphere collapse emerge we are each called upon to make sustainable livelihoods in our own bioregions as there is truly nowhere to flee.

Rarely if ever have the pundits and politicians failed so miserably to diagnose a social issues’ roots as they have done with immigration. The very same people who want to build the wall not only deny the scientific truths of climate change and environmental decline, they are loathe to spend a relative pittance on helping neighboring nations develop sustainably so there is no need to flee. America and Europe have long pillaged other nations and the bill is due. The U.S. spends 1% of its budget or about $50 billion on foreign aid, much of that military assistance. While at the same time in 2017 America spent $610 billion on the military. It is arguable which has kept us safer.

Mass destabilizing migration is what you get when religion tells you to have ever more children. You get mass unruly migration when a handful of individuals have seized half of Earth’s wealth as billions live in abject poverty on a couple dollars a day. The inevitable outcome of clearance of natural forests, fouling of water, and exponential growth in human population and total consumption is ecocidal mass migration.

Desperate people seeking to survive have to go somewhere. In a world of abrupt climate change and collapsed ecosystems anyone of us could become a refugee at any moment. Yay but for the grace of Gaia there go you and I. If we leave no options for recovery and self-advancement, desperation will lead to mass floods of humanity at our door step, and a state of anarchy and war which cannot be won.

All children are going to die if we don’t change.

We can respond with inhumane fascist authoritarianism, or welcome the flood as we willfully descend into chaos. Or we can hold onto our humanity and way of life, and together get at the root causes of inequitable injustice, while securing our borders. We can expand our foreign aid by several billion, or spend orders of magnitudes more building walls, to avoid the Western civilization we cherish from being overwhelmed. Perhaps we should do both.

I have experienced first hand the cultural uncomfortableness associated with the unregulated influx of refugees. As my wife and I raised a family in Madison, Wisconsin, a large family of migrants occupied the house across the street from us in our quiet residential neighborhood. At least a couple dozen people lived in the small house, and half a dozen cars were put on blocks to fix in the street and driveway. On numerous occasions I asked the new arrivals to not do their auto repair on the streets, to no avail. One late night one of the cars being worked upon exploded and nearly burnt down our home with us asleep inside. No apologies were forthcoming. From this one coincidental incident, I understand the unease as large numbers of outsiders with different social norms flood our neighborhoods. This has nothing to do with race — I have been in a multi-cultural relationship for all my adult life — it is about illegal entry into the country followed by an unwillingness to accept and abide by cultural norms. And an understanding that not everyone that wants to come to America can be accommodated without diminishing and possibly destroying the greatest imperfect country in human history.

We must be under no illusions. Much of the concern about immigration is thinly veiled racism bereft of understanding regarding the ecological and socio-political underpinnings of mass human movement. Yet real concerns regarding the environmental, social, economic, and cultural impacts of illegal migration exist. And it is clearly impossible for the 2 billion people globally living in abject poverty to be housed within the developing world without entirely destroying political stability and economic well-being.

Unless we are willing to take broad-based measures to share, cut emissions, nurture ecosystems, and stop murdering each other for resources; Europe and America will be overrun by migrant hordes and fall into the bad sort of anarchy. Without centers of prosperity it is very unlikely we will achieve the technology, shared well-being, and political will to avoid abrupt climate change and biosphere collapse. We get at the root causes of why so many people are fleeing failed lands and governments and help remedy those factors, or all of Western civilization (such as it is) and our one shared environment are lost forever.