Global Ecological Restoration: The Leaves of the Tree Will Heal the Nations

Global ecological sustainability requires large scale tree planting to restore natural ecosystems

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” – Revelation 22: 1-2

“Ecosystem restoration of landscapes across bioregions can ultimately lift the souls of dispirited citizens, provide continuously for their righteous livelihoods, regenerate the health and well-being of entire nations, while ensuring sustainability of our one shared biosphere… Only more leaves on the trees can heal your and our many nations’ brokenness. Please plant trees, restore ecosystems, and love nature and others.” – Dr. Glen Barry

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The End of Being Looms

The ecological fabric of being is fraying and Earth is at imminent risk of become uninhabitable. The collapse of major ecological systems that provide for the well-being of all life is intimately entwined with the personal despair, and political and social chaos, roiling global societies. Many growing social ills such as poverty, violence, and addiction are ultimately driven by environmental decline; and can only worsen if nature is not protected and restored.

Here I will first review our ecological predicament, before referring (as an atheist) to biblical wisdom as to the role trees play in our healing.

The Age of Industrial Affluence whereby illusory human material advancement briefly occurred through the liquidation of natural ecosystems is ending. We are well into the Age of Ecocide as drawdowns of natural capital – water, soil, atmosphere, fish, wildlife – have exceeded their regenerative capacity. Everywhere the ecologically attuned eye looks, tawdry natural plant communities and wildlife populations are collapsing and dying.

Humanity has surpassed the carrying capacity of the atmosphere, ecosystems, and the biosphere.

Simultaneously, and as a direct result, human societies are distressed. Shocking levels of inequality exist whereby billions lack basic needs as a small group of billionaires live a life of grotesque opulence. Both extremes further squeeze the Earth.

The economic bubble of an industrial growth economy based upon ecocide has burst. Violence, drug dependency, sexual abuse, depression, suicide, perma-war, racism, and even a resurgence in slavery are rife. All are related to the lessened prospects of material comfort for the lower and middle classes as there exists fewer natural areas to plunder for money. And to a general sense of lack of meaning in lives devoid of nature. The entire premise of capitalism, that an economy can grow forever by razing natural systems, has been revealed to be nonsensical malarkey that threatens to kill us all.

Exponential growth in population and consumption drive the fatally unsustainable resource consumption that liquidates natural ecosystem habitats. This relentless growth in everything at the expense of the natural world is the ultimate source of biodiversity loss, ecosystem diminishment, a fatally diminished climate, and ultimately a decline in human prospects for meaningful, universal, and lasting advancement.

Entering this new era of natural scarcity had led to greater competition between both individuals and nations, and to spiraling conflict and malignancies of all types. The final assault upon the Planet’s last natural ecosystem engines can only lead to collapse of societies and the biosphere.

And the end of being.

The key point: human well-being (and indeed all life) is intimately dependent upon natural ecosystems. Indeed, humanity is part of the ecological whole, as goes nature goes humanity. Critically we have gone from a state of nature surrounding humanity, to humanity enveloping sickened natural remnants. As ecology has dwindled under a centuries old assault, human mid-to-long term prospects have declined in tandem.

After years of human advancement in liberty, human rights, and equality; the current rise of authoritarian fascism is the natural consequence of a sick global environment. In the global rise of right-wing anti-science populism we are witnessing fits of petulance when people and nations hit the limits to growth and can’t have infinitely more of everything for everybody. Ignorance, including regarding ecology, has lead to serious misdiagnoses of societal problems.

Humanity is hell-bent upon destroying their habitat and the natural capital which makes possible and enriches their existence. As the collapse of global ecosystems intensify, together we face a brief period of unimaginably grim social strife that threatens decades of conflict and pain; before humanity, all life, and the biosphere die.

Unless we plant more trees to restore the environment and our culture.

The decline in natural ecosystems, and the reduction in economic opportunity from their clearance, is a driving force behind a range of social ills including perma-war, violence, addiction, depression, suicide, and poverty. Only widespread tree planting to regenerate natural and agro-ecosystems in an Age of Ecological Restoration can avoid collapse of societies and ultimately the biosphere.

Leaves Heal Nations

As an atheist rejecting worship of mythical ghosts, I’m not one to quote scripture. My spirituality is found in self-evident truths such as nature. Yet I recently became aware of the bible verse “The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations,” and it deeply resonates with me. The quote occurs within the context of Revelation’s grim self-fulfilling prophecy of the end of the world as a result of sinful pestilence and war.

Stripped of Abrahamic myth, the quote contains an important secular truth that nations and their peoples are ultimately dependent upon the productivity and ecological health of their land, water, air, and seas. From trees and related natural ecosystems come the food, fiber, air, water, and livelihoods upon which the well-being of human and kindred life is utterly dependent. And when societies are in despair, it is ultimately nature and trees which can best heal the wounds of greed, war, and personal pain.

Innumerable cultural traditions – many of them massacred by christians – have understood humanity’s oneness with, and utter dependence upon, trees and nature. Destroying your shared environment is the ultimate sin for which redemption may not be possible if you wait too long.

The core nugget of universal, objective truth found in this bible verse is that tree leaves can heal nations. Tree planting will heal all nations and restore a personal state of natural awe and well-being. More tree and other plant leaves will lead inexorably to more fertile soil, plentiful water, full stomachs, sustained wildlife, full employment, peace, prosperity, and an operable climate.

While planting trees is good, doing so with the intent of restoring natural forest and agro-ecosystems is even better.

There exists tremendous potential to restore local ecosystems in a manner that improves landscape health and ultimately allows nature to once again provide the context for humanity. Remaining natural ecosystem fragments can have their margins secured to allow natural succession and their expansion to occur. This natural regrowth can be augmented with the planting of dominant natural tree species. Ecosystem restoration along with simultaneous rapid reductions in fossil fuel emissions (covered in other essays) are humanity’s only remaining hope to avoid destroying our one shared biosphere home.

Several large contiguous large forest wildernesses, and significant fragments of natural ecosystems, remain and for now are the ecosystem engines that are powering the global environment. Despite the fragments being nearly universally distributed; they are often small, isolated, and are thus unable to provide the full range of ecological and economic benefits necessary for the well-being of human and all life. And wherever old trees stand they continue to be assaulted under the quasi-religious dogma of economic development.

These last naturally evolved ecological gems can be eliminated in a futile attempt to prop up continued exponential growth. Or the pressure can be taken off of the leaves of the trees; as natural ecosystems are assisted to regenerate, expand, reconnect, and ultimately become fully productive again.

Multiple goals can be pursued. Core ecological areas that are large and connected enough to maintain the entire panoply of life, and which provide ecosystem services upon which all life depends, must be protected and/or re-established. Within this landscape matrix areas of production of food and fiber can co-exist. This will run the gamut from perma-culture gardens of fruits, nuts, and vegetables; to natural plantations of fiber for shelter and other necessities, all enmeshed within the core areas. Local species and genotypes will be favored, yet due to abrupt climate change it may be necessary to use species assemblages that occur together in nearby hotter climates.

There exist hundreds of millions of denuded acres globally that can immediately be marked as zones of ecological restoration (given consent of local peoples and plans for their economic benefit). In many areas, small tawdry patches of naturally evolved plant stocks remain, that if the pressure were taken off, could quickly regenerate, particularly in the tropics. There will be millions of jobs for local peoples in plant nurseries; and tree planting, care, and harvest. While some core areas must remain involatile to remain ecologically intact, small communities of forest keepers will live sustainable, fulfilling lives throughout the rest. And critically indigenous land tenure, including to stolen lands,will be restored and solidified.

Ecosystem restoration of landscapes across bioregions can ultimately lift the souls of dispirited citizens, provide continuously for their righteous livelihoods, regenerate the health and well-being of entire nations, while ensuring sustainability of our one shared biosphere.

The Age of Global Ecological Restoration 

Please hear the clarion call of millions already working to usher in an Age of Global Ecological Restoration. We must come together as a global family to restore ecologically the places we inhabit and which we and our forebearers have senselessly allowed to be destroyed. One last time lets beat guns into plowshares, to make the shovels necessary to plant the trees whose leaves we need to cool the frustrations of diminished prospects and restore hope in a mortally threatened world.

By reconstituting ecology, society will reconnect to the wonders of nature. A sense of communal well-being will come; as guns, hard drugs, suicide, and over-consumption fade away. The focus will be upon shared advancement, well-being, and experience rather than insular, anxious lusting for the accumulation of more stuff.

In many a glen, after a day of hard work planting and caring for trees, people will gather in new forests of their making for feasts under the moon and stars; and again find community and make love.
We will marvel at creation and the miracle of being as we work for her continuation. Once again, we will feel in our very cells our own intimate connection with kindred species with which we share this billions of year long evolutionary journey. There will be a resurgence in self-expression as art, sport, music, theater, science (and other knowledge), and the written word rise in prominence. Emerging technologies will be used appropriately, and only to the extent that they augment ecology, and are used exclusively for social good.

Frequent long-distance travel, the military-industrial complex, fossil fuels, big government, abject despair, extreme poverty, and social want will fade away as a more just society based upon equitable and sustainable bioregional plenty re-emerges.

Together the human family has arrived at the point where only the leaves of the tree can heal the nations. We have one last chance, and a closing window of opportunity, to restore the ecosystems that humans need to both survive and thrive. We must power down, demilitarize, reject industrial ecocide, and embrace centuries of ecological restoration as the penultimate focus of human endeavors.

Only more leaves on the trees can heal your and our many nations’ brokenness. Please plant trees, restore ecosystems, and love nature and others.

On Amazon Fires: It’s the Ecology Stupid

Global Ecological Sustainability depends critically upon ending the logging and burning of old forests and letting them recover, expand and reconnect

“Each act of cutting and burning old trees diminishes and contributes to the pending collapse of the biosphere… The cutting and burning of old forests ends, as a prominent aspect of the coming Great Transition required for equitable and just global ecological sustainability, or together we all needlessly die .” 

Dr. Glen Barry

Old trees in old growth forests power the biosphere

A particularly malignant social and ecological disease sprung forth upon the Earth several centuries ago. A central component of European colonialism was the pernicious, ecocidal belief that wide scale cutting and burning of natural ecosystems was desirable. Indeed, cutting and burning natural ecosystems defined “civilization” and made the Western worldview superior to heathen naturalism.

This pantheon to “development” was created around murdering natural ecosystems and their inhabitants, which continues to be pursued with religious intensity. Enormous temporary growth and wealth were accumulated by some through the wholesale liquidation of vast expanses of naturally evolved life. Generations of children were born and indoctrinated into the fallacy that ecosystems existed to be cut and burnt and had no intrinsic worth.

In fact, as multitudes of indigenous cultures intimately understood, humanity is completely dependent upon natural ecosystem habitats to meet all our needs. Food, water, air, shelter, medicines, spirituality and more derive from old forests and old trees.

Humans and all life need naturally evolved ecosystems to exist and prosper. We are part of and utterly dependent upon the web of life found in the ecology of old forests and other natural habitats.

Yet we have derived an economic system of growth dependent upon their clearing. At a certain scale such habitat destruction could occur without impacting climate, soil, precipitation, and other ecological processes. Yet increasingly over recent decades landscapes, bioregions, and increasingly the global system are being thrown into disarray as terrestrial ecosystem processes and patterns are disturbed and ultimately eliminated.

Critical thresholds whereby natural ecosystems become disconnected, and are islands of habitat surrounded by devastation, have been surpassed. Abrupt climate change, lack of drinking water, soil infertility, dead oceans – all are contributed to by loss and diminishment of terrestrial ecosystems.
This European spawned disease of over-development, since embraced by many others, threatens an uninhabitable hell on Earth. Tremendous suffering awaits us all and has already begun as climate weirding, ecosystem collapse, food and water shortages, and authoritarian responses destroy centuries of progress. Ill-gotten wealth from ecosystem liquidation has enabled unsustainable growth in human populations and inequitable over-consumption.

Each act of cutting and burning old trees diminishes and contributes to the pending collapse of the biosphere. Continued clearing of old forests inexorably leads to the end of being.

The Amazon rainforest, along with a handful of other forest wildernesses in Africa, Canada, the Congo, Russia, and New Guinea, contain the last intact, contiguous terrestrial ecosystems that provide ecosystem services driving global ecological sustainability. These naturally evolved large-scale ecosystems contain a complex panoply of life that in sum power the biosphere and make Earth habitable. And at a smaller scale remnant habits along rivers, in wetlands, forest fragments, and even individual large trees continue to provide habitat for all life including humans.

Yet despite all that science has re-learned regarding the importance of natural ecosystems for biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate; these last planetary ecological engines continue to be sacrificed on the alter of mammon in an orgiastic spasm of ecological cruelty and derangement.

Ecology is the meaning of life (not development).

It is ludicrous to log old trees found in millions of year-old natural ecosystems. It is abnormal and a self-fulfilling death wish. Think of the suffering of wildlife as they are consumed by flames or die from lack of habitat.

Amazon rainforest fires threaten Brazilian and global well-being

Cutting and burning are both a cause and a symptom of the disease consuming the Amazon.

Rainforests are cleared for agriculture using fire, and the resultant micro-climate changes, particularly along exposed rainforest edges, make otherwise moist regions more prone to burning.

The current burning of the Amazon is the logical consequence of a wicked worldview’s pernicious logging of tropical hardwoods and clearing of land using fire for agricultural expansion. And most of this destruction is to feed the markets of the over-developed world which have already decimated their own natural systems.

You can make a difference in protecting the Amazon and other old forests. Your hunger for soy, beef, and timber are ultimately the cause of Amazon’s fires. Eliminate these rainforest destroying products from your life. For centuries settlers have threatened indigenous communities. Working as an ally to support indigenous land tenure is perhaps the most important thing you can do to help stop the Amazon fires. And work to support ecological restoration and regenerative agriculture in the Amazon and on all degraded lands including those near you.

Entire criminal sectors have made some powerful interests rich, and provide temporary employment for workers growing soybeans, milling logs, and cattle ranching. Yet all such extractive enterprises based upon clearing millions of year old natural ecosystems ultimately prove tragically unsustainable in the mid-to-long term.

The collapse of natural ecosystems is made more tragic by a whole lecherous NGO sector greenwashing particular types of rainforest logging or farming as being “sustainable”. Should a hell exist other than in Amazonian infernos, a special place is reserved for such traitors to the Earth and ecological truth. You know who you are, shame on you.

Around the world social protest movements are emerging, strengthening, and coalescing into more than the sum of their parts; to demand democratic, just, equitable, and sustainable social change. Only through such a Great Transition can the global environment be sustained, and all enjoy freedom and decent livelihoods. Crucially, protest movements are emerging that acknowledge that the climate, biodiversity, and ecosystems crises are one and the same.

A central demand of those seeking ecology truths must be that all cutting and burning of old trees found in natural old forest habitats end immediately. And that an age of ecological restoration be embraced with all haste to reestablish mature natural habitats across the majority of Earth’s surface.

Entire industries feeding themselves upon the trough of global ecocide must be dismantled; and replaced with eco-enterprises based upon regenerative agriculture and allowing natural ecosystems to age and reconnect. There exists tremendous potential for good livelihoods built upon restoring natural forests, soils, wetlands, and waterways. All of which will prove important in restoring our global atmosphere by slowing climate change as well.

It is morally wrong to kill old trees.

The cutting and burning of old forests ends, as a prominent aspect of the coming Great Transition required for equitable and just global ecological sustainability, or together we all needlessly die.

I beseech you to dedicate yourself to living a life that does not consume products produced by burning and cutting old forests and other natural ecosystems. And commit yourself to restoring natural habitats, indigenous well-being, and sustainable agriculture.

Do so as if your and all life depend upon it. It does.

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.

Absolute Radical Green Freedom

On the rise of high-tech global authoritarianism, as freedom and ecosystems fail, and Amerika falls into Russian and Chinese style tyranny

“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilised nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct.” – The White Rose, Hitler Resistance Pamphlet

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.” – George Orwell, 1984

“The world is converging on trans-national state terror as the biosphere collapses.” – Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders – Deep Ecology Essays
By Dr. Glen Barry

Big brother is not your friend

As a child I remember the awe and pride of learning the history of human advancement. From the realization of the rights of man, and the ending of the slave trade, to the sharing of wealth with workers, onward to constant — albeit incremental — progress on greater racial and gender equality, as we stepped back from the brink of nuclear war, embraced international law and human rights, and began addressing global environmental issues; the human condition was always improving.

What a wonderful time to be alive, I thought as a young man working for rainforests, indigenous rights, and climate. Surely my generation would complete the journey to a just, equitable, peaceful, and sustainable world. The human family was inevitably evolving to a higher level of consciousness and thus shared well-being.

Now in my middle age, I realize how fragile and impermanent are all advancess in the human condition in the face of sloth, ignorance, and envy. Full blown global authoritarian fascism is descending upon the Earth as China, Russia and America reject human rights and environmentalism. In a series of largely bloodless coups, charlatan demagogues have seized power, rolled back democratic progress, stonewalled necessary measures to pursue global ecological sustainability, and are thus committing treason against Earth and her peoples. A small yet concentrated global oligarchy controls over half of Earth’s wealth, and are harnessing big data technologies to forcefully maintain their advantage, blocking all efforts to achieve global justice, equity, and sustainability.

Centuries of human progress are being jettisoned to placate the masses with ever more shiny trinkets, as the rich ensconce themselves in unimaginable opulent splendor far removed from failing ecosystems. Summary arrests, show trials, abrupt climate change, routine spying, degraded environments, centralized authority, minority scapegoating, growing inequity, drone murder, and perma-war are pervasive. In general the rejection of global human rights and environmental protections have become the new international norm.

The world is converging on trans-national state terror as the biosphere collapses.

The American, Chinese and Russian political systems are increasingly characterized by authoritarian tyranny under the guise of various nationalistic window-dressings. In each surging inequitable consumption destroys the ecosystems and atmosphere that are our shared habitat. Fascist surveillance states fueled by faux-populism are all the rage, as freedom and Earth let out their last gasping breath, before together we fall into nothingness.

We are being led in chains to our miserable deaths. The end of being is at hand.

THE NOT SO GREAT POWERS

China is a foul ecocidal failed state whose repulsive political system is rife with corruption, tyranny, state thievery, voracious growth, and an unsustainable appetite for resources that consumes global ecosystems. Past glories of ancient ancestors do little to soften the brutal savagery of a hyper surveillance state bent upon absolute control through dehumanization. The hunger of over a billion potential consumers, believing in little else but having more, alone threatens to collapse and pull down the biosphere with it at any time. With Xi, yet another tyrannical tin-pot dictator has arisen, the cult of personality and mass murder are sure to follow.

Russia is a constantly under-achieving and envious failed state which seeks to get ahead through nefarious means and cults of personality rather than substantively creating anything of value for its citizens or the global system. Whatever contributions have been made to human history in the past, Russia has become a perpetual basket-case of poverty, mediocrity, and state violence. Putin would nuke the world because of hurt pride. There are no notions of human rights, environmentalism, or progress in this Potemkin nation. When the oil is gone Russia will once again collapse into serfdom, but not before the current state of impotent insecurity unleashes war upon the West in support of murderous nationalism.

In America a treasonous regime has seized power, usurping the rule of law, and threatening global ruin at any moment – perhaps over a slight on Twitter. A once proud nation has become a belligerent, insolent failed state that keeps itself drugged and amused to avoid addressing the harm their over-consumption and militarism wage upon the environment and global well-being. What was once Earth’s last great hope is now shooting up on heroin and guns as fortunes fade as the easy resources are gone and the environment and social cohesion collapse. A series of stolen elections have installed a decadent self-serving oligarchy, placing in the tiny hands of UnPresident Trump (a narcissistic authoritarian madman) the button to impulsively destroy the world many times over. The Trumpkin cult is bereft of personality.

False, competing claims of exceptionalism by America, Russia, and China share one thing in common – they each consider it their birthright to destroy the world if they are not perceived as worthy of great nation status (deservedly or not) and if they can’t have more of everything regardless of the fate of others. Bots, learned machines, and drones keep the riffraff under constant surveillance and control lest they realize they are adrift upon a dying planet whose imminent collapse under the weight of inequitable over-population makes them expendable.

No person is worthy of such power

In triplicate, self-absorbed political charlatans hold the power to push a button and launch nuclear weapons that will destroy the world. These ethically dubious individuals can do so at any time based upon fits of rage, hurt feelings, or other human inadequacies multiplied by their false sense of importance. Such power in the hands of authoritarian megalomaniacs in service to their oligarchies is unacceptable and must be revoked now through global denuclearization, demilitarization, and a democratic decentralization of power.

Ever wonder what you would have done as Hitler rose in Germany (or for that matter Stalin or Mao)? Now you can answer as Trump, Putin, and Xi follow similar paths toward absolute power and certain yet unknown atrocities to come. Each of these governments are horrific in terms of lack of commitment, indeed a shared disdain, for human rights and the environment. At least in America there is a prospect, at least for now, of a democratic change in government. Each nation’s peoples continue to largely lead normal and worthy lives, though they do share culpability for allowing authoritarianism to emerge unchallenged, and for embracing unsustainable lifestyles that destroy ecosystems. As has been noted throughout history, trading liberty for security provides neither.

What meaning is there besides various nationalistic myths and more stuff in post-Modern America, China, and Russia? What is there to believe in that is noble, equitable, and just? What higher vision for sublime truth and goodness are to be found among the cheap throw away consumer goods and blood? How will livelihoods of the masses be sustained across landscapes whose ecosystems have been decimated to build mammonist temples as playhouses for the uber-rich?

Only revolutionary social change away from trans-national charlatan oligarchic demagoguery can save the human family from final enslavement and mass death before an apocalyptic collapse.
We need a return to a shared sense of basic decency, including a respect for global human rights, international law, and nature; in order that we can address existential threats to our continued shared being.

We must seek to return to and remain in our natural condition of absolute freedom and deep greenness.

WHAT HAS BECOME OF AMERICA

The United States of America has become decadent and depraved. Where once many Americans stood together for human advancement and rights, we have descended into hateful politics between deceitful extremes. It is difficult to know which is worse: smug, corrupt, elitist Progressives or fascist, treasonous, hypocritical Conservatives. The political center has collapsed, spiraling crises such as climate change and perma-war are going unaddressed, and the nation is on the verge of breaking apart.

Fellow Americans it’s time to take a good hard look at our country. How have we become a grotesque caricature far removed from reality? Amnesty International now places the US in the second tier of democratic states. We speak of freedom as we enslave others, of liberty as we wage drone-based perma-war (often murdering innocents), and of exceptionalism as we regress on virtually every measure of human well-being.

True lovers of liberty can’t sit by and watch the once greatest Democracy in the world becoming self-destructive with substance abuse, homelessness, and guns. Our rapacious appetites have left behind a filthy environment and a slew of broken people. Deaths attributed to alcohol, drugs and suicide increase at a record pace. With human trafficking we are descending back into slavery.

The opioid crisis, school shootings, a state of perma-war, and Trumpian fascism are all symptoms of the disease that threatens to destroy the America we all claim to love. We have no shared meaning, no overarching commitment to anything other than ourselves and our immediate gratification.
Depression brought on by a sense of meaninglessness pervades the American psyche.

Americans have turned into sullen, self-absorbed, and self-entitled people. However much we have, we only care about having more. I know because I am one of these Americans. I too feel a constant nagging desire to consume more no matter how much I have already. And a sense of hypocritical outrage over foreign election meddling and military occupation by others, yet realize these are things our country has done surreptitiously overseas for years.

The USA has never really lived up to the rhetoric on human rights, but until recently it has been committed to continued self-improvement, and its turbulent democracy has nonetheless been the worst form of government except for all the alternatives. Fascism is on the rise globally. Putin to Duerte to Xi to Trump. Will America remain the last beacon of liberal democracy? Or have we become something else, Amerika perhaps? It is looking precarious as Trump is bent upon destroying democratic institutions and norms required to maintain liberty.

America’s commitment to freedom, however imperfect, is waning. America: what have we become? Who shall stand for global freedom?

True lovers of American liberty must return to the political center, and cultivate basic human decency in order that we can address existential threats to our very being. I am first to admit at times I have been a vicious troll on the Internet in service to what I believed to be good causes. However others on the other side thought so as well.

We must take a good hard look at ourselves and our country. And step back from the precipice, tone down the rhetoric (but not the shared pursuit of truth), and listen to each other. Good governance requires making sensible compromises.

It is time to embrace ambitious societal goals. Let's end abject poverty. Stop and reverse destruction of nature. Demobilize our militaries and redirect expenditures to health, education, and jobs. And embrace arts, sport, literature, wildlife, music, and all the other beautiful aspects of human existence. A shared spirituality that acknowledges the holiness of natural creation is long-overdue.

We could be so much better. We are not caring for our children. Or our habitat. Or each other.

We must turn back from becoming sullen, bitter, angry, self-destructive people. We must care about more than having more. I know because I am one of these Amerikans.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND NATURE ARE ABSOLUTE, NON-NEGOTIABLE

The natural state of humanity is absolute freedom. Humans have evolved from the same primordial soup, and share ecological habitat, with all Earth’s kindred life. Each person, like all organisms, holds an inherent right to complete autonomy and control over their minds, bodies, and actions; as long as they do no harm to others and the environment, and while realizing the consequences of misdeeds.

By nature of your existence you possess absolute radical green freedom.

True liberty can only be achieved and maintained through continual free thinking and sustained natural ecosystems.

For millennia as early humans settled and population densities increased, there has been a constant diminution of free will, and growth of centralized control. From storers of grain determining who ate, to the rise of royalty, to being indoctrinated with myths that the reward for suffering injustice was eternal life in paradise, to our present misguided faith that big government will care for us and keep us safe; we have continually moved away from our true nature.

The past centuries’ advancements in living conditions, political freedoms, and free thought for some worked to reverse this trend. But only briefly as a resource constrained world needs complex hierarchical relations to control the means to allocate what remains.

Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence threaten to complete the creation of an Orwellian authoritarian nightmare of constant state surveillance and murder. The benefits that flow from free thinking in a liberal democracy must not be traded away for a false sense of security from the nanny state.

Big brother is not your friend.

The necessary policies for sustainability may more easily be achieved under authoritarian command driven government. But the price of slavery is not worth it.

Better the human spirit remain untethered than in chains, at any cost.

A call goes out to all global lovers of liberty to resist the rise of fascism and other forms of despotic control wherever they may be found. There is no higher calling than free thinking, absolute liberty, and serving nature. Continued improvement in the human condition requires defending human progress that has been achieved thus far, as together we work for further human advancement by demobilizing the war industry, achieving greater equity, establishing universal human rights, and committing to global ecological sustainability.

We sprang forth from wild natural ecosystems where we fended for ourselves and our kin with no higher authority than the forest canopy and stars above. Our better nature which has brought us so much progress must be rekindled as we return to the garden.

All that really matters in these troubled times is sustaining green liberty before it is too late.