overshoot – Mystery of Existence

Natural disasters: Often a design problem with design solutions

Sunday, 9 August, 2026Tuesday, 11 August, 2026 moe Leave a comment

Many of the current natural disasters in the world – wildfires, flooding, drought, dry rivers, and so on – are design problems.

They come from how we have designed our civilization and how we change ecosystems. Climate change is just one aspect of this, although it gets most of the attention.

It’s simple. Healthy ecosystems prevent or reduces the scale of almost all natural disasters. For instance, they are hydrated so they prevent or reduces the scale of wildfires and droughts, and they feed springs, creeks, rivers, and the ground water. Healthy mangroves reduces the impacts of hurricanes and typhoons. Food production that’s diverse, in layers, and uses ground cover is much better able to thrive in droughts, hot weather, and a changing climate.

At Finca Milagros, we are very aware of this and actively work on creating and encouraging a healthier ecosystem. We create terraces which slows down the water and helps it soak into the ground. We improve the soil through compost and mulch which helps water soak into the ground and reduces evaporation. We will slow down the water in the mostly dry creek/river with porous stone dams. We are planting a large number of diverse native and climate-appropriate trees which helps the water soak into the ground. We are planting in layers which creates shade and cools the area through evapotranspiration. In all of these ways, we are creating a more healthy ecosystem, and that – in turn – reduces the risk of wildfires, drought, flooding, and more.

These design solutions can be used at any scale, including at community and regional levels.

A FEW MORE NOTES

As usual, there is a lot more to say about this.

When I say “design problem” I mean that they are often caused by poor design and they have design solutions.

Even earthquakes are a design problem. They are not caused by human activity, but how we design our communities and houses obviously can prevent a disastrous outcome when they first happen. Preventing poverty is a big part of this since it’s typically those with the least resources who are impacted the most.

I don’t know why reporters and experts in the media rarely mention this. They seem to have a fixation on climate change which is important but just a small part of the bigger picture. If I was a reporter, I would include this as much as I can and put it in the foreground whenever possible.

Reflections on society, politics and nature – vol. 74

Wednesday, 5 August, 2026Monday, 19 October, 2026 moe Leave a comment

This is one in a series of posts with brief notes on society, politics, and nature. I sometimes include short personal notes as well. Click “read more” to see the entries in this installment.

There are no non-radical futures

We are in global ecological overshoot. Collectively, we use more of Earth’s resources than our living systems can generate. That means erosion of ecosystem, loss of species, climate disruptions, rising ocean levels, toxins in our bodies, and much more. It can’t last.

The problem is not something we can fix by tweaking our systems here and there. The problem is at the core of our civilization. It’s the idea of separation and infinite Earth.

Our civilization operates on the essential assumption that we are separate from ecosystems and Earth, and that Earth has infinite capacity to supply us with what we need and infinite capacity to absorb our waste. Rationally, we know that’s not true. But viscerally and in how our systems work, that’s what we operate on.

That means there are no non-radical futures. Realistically, we have two futures.

One is where we continue on our path which leads to continued unraveling of the living systems we are part of. If we collectively don’t learn and change, most humans will die.

Another is where we collectively decide to profoundly change our civilization to operate on ecologically informed assumptions – of interconnectedness and a finite Earth. This will change how we organize ourselves in all areas of life. It may also require us to take a more conscious role as temporary expressions of this living and evolving system we call Earth.

Both of these are radical. One is radical unraveling. The other is radical transformation.

Stupid and smart intelligence

Friday, 24 July, 2026Sunday, 26 July, 2026 moe Leave a comment

What is stupidity?

There are many forms of stupidity. I am mostly interested in the form of stupidity that’s the shadow of intelligence or an apparently stupid use of our intelligence.

Willful ignorance

We can call ignorance stupidity, especially when we could have known and could have sought out vital information. Willful ignorance is a kind of stupidity.

Making mistakes can be seen as stupidity, especially when we know better and go against our better knowing.

Both of those point to a form of stupidity that’s the shadow of intelligence. It comes out of and depends on a certain intelligence, and it can easily be seen as a misuse of intelligence.

Likely evolutionary benefit – up to a point

Often that stupid way to use our intelligence happens because we hold onto familiar beliefs, identities, and habits. Our mind tries to protect itself, and we prioritize familiar beliefs, identities, and habits over reality. That’s very understandable, it has some limited upsides, and it also comes with a range of downsides, lessons, and feedback from life.

There is no reason to assume this stupid use of intelligence is new, and it very likely has survival benefits, especially in the situations our ancestors found themselves. In many cases, it helps us preserve the status quo and saves energy, and that likely helped many of our ancestors to survive.

In many cases, it works well enough in spite of the downsides. We can live with the downsides, including sometimes being annoying to others.

Other times, the downsides stare us in the face. They are significant and undeniable.

That’s the situation we collectively find ourselves in today in our modern world.

Stupid intelligence today

Collectively, we are currently almost unbelievably stupid in exactly this way.

Let’s start with the big picture: our relationship with this living planet we are local and temporary expressions of.

Through stupid use of our intelligence, we are collectively engaging in ecocide and suicide. We know it well, or could very easily know it well, and still do little to change it.

In spite of all our knowledge and the very real feedback from Earth itself (deforestation, extinctions, loss of insects, climate disruptions), most of us are in some form of denial of this. Some try to convince themselves that things are moving in the right direction. (My brother, for instance, says the world is much better than ever before and we don’t need to make significant changes. This is true in a very limited sense, if we only look at the lives of some privileged humans. It’s not true if we look at all of humanity and our ecological situation. I assume he has adopted that view to feel better about himself and the world, and so he doesn’t personally need to change anything.) Some try to convince themselves that our current climate changes are natural variations even if what we are seeing closely follows climate change models from the 1970s onwards. Some ignore ecological overshoot and focus on sub-issues within global ecological overshoot, like climate change or species loss. Some assume that it’s someone else’s fault and overlook that the problems are systemic and we are all part of it. Some assume it’s someone else’s problem (future generations, poor people in other places) or that someone else will take care of it (the government, future generations). Some assume we’ll find a technological solution, which is a piece of the puzzle but not the main one. Some assume it must not be important or urgent since most seem complacent about it.

People vote for the same politics and policies as before, even if these were largely formed in the 1800s when the world and our challenges were very different. Our worldview, models, and policies from that time did not take ecological realities into account because they didn’t have to.

In economics, we still largely work with models that don’t take ecological realities into account. These models assume infinite Earth – infinite resources and infinite capacity to absorb the waste of civilization. Business people, politicians, and society as a whole use these economic models. And again, we know, or can easily know, that following these models is inherently ecocidal and suicidal.

We grow our food with poison, knowing well that it harms us and severely damages the web of life we are part of and depend on. We support systems that reward farmers to grow food with poison.

We maintain manicured lawns, knowing well we are in the middle of an insect apocalypse partly due to loss of habitat, and that a wilder garden is a part of the solution.

MAGA is an especially clear example of what can be seen as stupid intelligence. They willfully ignore reality, likely for some kind of emotional satisfaction, and in the process damage their democracy and the aspects of the US that does to some extent work. I assume that something in them knows what they are doing. It knows the contradictions, cruelty, lying, and damage, and the motivation for engaging in it, even if they may not consciously know or accept it. This is a fragile arrangement, which is expressed in being thin-skinned and reactive when questioned.

So we are not only collectively stupid, with our billions of people and powerful technology we are also ecocidal and suicidal.

Will we collectively continue to use stupid intelligence? Or will we somehow decide that smart intelligence is better since it will help us survive? That’s the big question. And how much needs to be destroyed before we eventually, if ever, decide to use smart intelligence?

The larger picture

As usual, there is a lot more to say about this.

As Yuval Noah Harari points out, human history is a dynamic interplay between stupidity and wisdom. It’s what has characterized us and what makes our collective human life interesting. It creates some drama and suspense, just like a good novel or movie.

It’s also not something we can do away with. We live with it and can find some peace with it or not.

A smart use of intelligence is to recognize stupid and smart intellgience, find some peace with the existence of both, and be good stewards of our own lives and do what we can to move the world in a slightly more life-centered direction.

Also, the dynamics behind stupid intelligence have their own intelligence. As mentioned, they help preserve a certain self-image, they encourage status quo (which often works to some extent), and they help preserve energy. There is a reason for them, and it’s good to explore – especially in ourselves.

In my life

How does this apply to me? When I write about the world, I write about me.

When and how have I engaged in stupid intelligence?

There is no lack of examples. Several times, I have followed the advice of experts even if it makes no sense to me, and I have regretted the results.

In the 2000s, my doctor in Oregon insisted I eat less salt. I had perfect blood pressure, made my own food from scratch, didn’t eat any processed foods, and already used very little salt. Reducing that small amount likely led to heat stroke within a few months. I knew she probably assumed I ate like an average person in the US and the advice was based on that and not tailored to me, but I still followed it – against my better knowing.

The same doctor refused to give me antibiotics for a long lasting and profoundly debilitating pneumonia. I again accepted her professional opinion, even if it seemed as misguided as the salt advice. After many weeks of that pneumonia, it very likely led to a collapse of my health and return of the CFS/ME.

My wife insisted we hire two young architects to design our first house in the Andes. I wanted to design it myself since I have a relatively solid background in that type of design (MA program in architecture, extensive personal studies in vernacular architecture, many hands-on building workshops, etc.) I didn’t like them or their work, didn’t trust them, and saw that they understood far less than me, and still accepted them and their work. I again went against my own better judgment because someone else insisted.

Predictably, they made several serious mistakes in their design, and we ended up with the cost of necessary redesign and repairs. After the collapse of our roof, which almost killed us in our sleep (large roof beams and tiles crashed down next to us), a third-party report found them responsible, and they responded with denial and suing us for defamation.

This is clearly very stupid and it has had serious consequences for my life.

Why have I so often deferred to experts, or people in my life insisting, even when it goes against my better judgment? At one level, I tell myself that they must know something I don’t. If they say something that seems stupid, and insist, either they are stupid or they know something I don’t. Something in me prefers the second possibility. In the moment, it also requires less energy and I don’t have much to begin with. Also, I tend to want to avoid conflicts which is a pattern I learned in my birth family. Going into disagreement feels uncomfortable and it takes energy that I often feel I don’t have. When I notice someone has a wrong idea about me or my situation, I don’t always speak up to correct it. A part of me may also secretly enjoy the “I told you so” I can go into after, even if I typically don’t say anything about it.

It may also not help that on the Big Five personality test, I am unusually high on agreeableness and conscientiousness, which feeds into my other patterns of wanting to please, avoid conflict, and do things correctly.

These are all surface answers and I am sure there is a lot more there.

The solution is simple, although not always so easy for me: Notice when someone wants me to do something that doesn’t make sense to me. Speak up and make sure they have the fuller picture. Get a second or third opinion. And follow my own best judgment and guidance, informed by solid info.

Note: Originally from Brief notes on healing and awakening and occasional personal things – vol. 50.

Global ecological overshoot (AI)

Tuesday, 14 April, 2026Tuesday, 2 June, 2026 moe Leave a comment

I asked ChatGPT for an article on global ecological overshoot, and gave it quite a few pointers for what to include. See below.

See also additional texts on how we each participate in the evolution of humanity and Earth, economic systems aligned with ecological realities, a text written in an imagined regenerative civilization 300 years from now, and a letter of gratitude from that time.

Global Ecological Overshoot

A Larger Perspective

We are not visitors on Earth, nor beings standing outside nature. We are one expression of Earth’s own unfolding: a species through which this living planet has developed reflection, symbolic thought, technological power, and the capacity for both destruction and care. Our societies, cultures, economies, and choices are all taking place within the larger seamless system we call Earth.

In that sense, humanity is a kind of experiment within Earth’s long evolution. Through us, this planet is exploring what consciousness, memory, technology, domination, care, and deliberate transformation can become. Each of us participates in that experiment. Each choice, each institution, each community, each act of extraction or regeneration becomes part of the larger pattern. We are local expressions of a deeper living process, and each of us helps shape what happens next.

That perspective does not make the crisis smaller. It makes it more meaningful. The question is not only whether our present systems can continue. They cannot. The deeper question is whether humanity can become a wiser expression of Earth’s unfolding—whether this experiment in civilization can move from overshoot and domination toward a more mature form of participation in life.

Before Agriculture: A Different Orientation

Before agriculture, human beings generally lived in more direct relationship with local ecosystems. These societies were diverse and should not be romanticized, but many seem to have lived with a more immediate awareness of dependence on land, water, animals, plants, and seasonal cycles. Survival depended less on large-scale control of ecosystems and more on skillful participation within them.

In many such cultures, and in many indigenous and traditional cultures that still preserve aspects of this orientation, the world was experienced less as inert matter and more as alive, relational, and meaningful. Humans were not separate from nature, but part of a larger web of life. That older partnership orientation cannot simply be copied today, but some of its qualities remain deeply relevant: reciprocity, restraint, reverence for life, local ecological knowledge, respect for limits, and a felt belonging within a living Earth.

These older and still-living strands of human wisdom can help inspire what a future regenerative civilization might be: a civilization aligned with ecological reality, grounded in reciprocity and restraint, and organized in deeper partnership with life and Earth.

The Civilizational Shift

Agriculture, Surplus, and Durable Power

The agricultural revolution did not make overshoot inevitable. It made many important things possible: settlement, continuity, cities, writing, and long cultural memory. But it also transformed the structure of human life. Surplus could now be stored, counted, taxed, defended, and seized. That made it possible for power to accumulate and remain concentrated over time.

Once surplus could be controlled, durable hierarchies became easier to maintain. Class divisions, territorial control, large states, standing armies, and systems of command could stabilize around the management of land, labor, water, and food. Agriculture did not create domination by itself, but it made large-scale domination far more structurally possible.

From Hierarchy to Domination Culture

Over time, this fed into what can be called domination culture: a way of organizing life around hierarchy, expansion, concentration of power, extraction, and the treatment of land, animals, and often people as resources. Land increasingly became something to control, simplify, own, and exploit. Forests became timber reserves. Rivers became irrigation systems. Animals became units of production. Human labor could be organized at much larger scales.

This was not true everywhere in the same way, and partnership-based traditions persisted in many places. But the broad arc of dominant civilization increasingly moved toward management, accumulation, control, and disembeddedness from the living systems on which it depended.

Separation and the Myth of an Infinite Earth

The Worldview of Separation

Modern industrial civilization radicalized this trajectory. It rests on deep assumptions: that we are fundamentally separate from nature, that the Earth exists primarily for human use, that natural systems are effectively inexhaustible or replaceable, and that growth can continue indefinitely. In practice, our systems behave as if they exist on an infinite Earth.

This worldview has been shaped not only by economics and empire, but also by strands of religion and philosophy that placed the sacred outside the world, imagined humans as fundamentally above or apart from the rest of life, or treated Earth mainly as a stage for human salvation and use. These themes were never the whole of religion, and many spiritual traditions also preserved deep reverence for life and participation in a living cosmos. But where religious imagination reinforced hierarchy, human exceptionalism, and distance from the living world, it helped support the wider logic of domination.

Systems Built on Separation

This worldview is built into nearly everything. The economy treats forests, soils, rivers, minerals, and oceans as inputs. Production systems assume endless extraction and somewhere else to dump the waste. Food systems simplify ecosystems into production zones. Political systems reward short-term gain and systematically discount long-term ecological reality. Fossil fuels then gave this entire arrangement extraordinary power, allowing industrial civilization to push beyond many local limits and turn overshoot into a planetary condition.

What we have built is, in effect, an overshoot civilization: a civilization organized around drawdown rather than regeneration, around expansion rather than balance, and around the illusion that human systems can remain healthy while the living systems around them are degraded.

Overshoot Is the Larger Frame

Climate change is one expression of overshoot, but only one. The larger problem is that civilization is consuming the living foundations of its own existence. Even major progress on emissions would not solve overshoot if humanity continued destroying soils, exhausting freshwater, overfishing oceans, eliminating species, and converting diverse living systems into simplified extraction landscapes.

Overshoot is the wider frame because it reveals the common pattern beneath many crises. The pattern is a civilization organized as though it were exempt from ecological law: entitled to unlimited drawdown, endless expansion, and the degradation of the very living systems that make its existence possible.

Why So Many Seem Unaware

It Is Hard to See

Overshoot is often difficult to perceive directly. Supermarkets may still be full. Water still comes out of the tap. Electricity still flows. The damage often shows up first somewhere else: in a distant forest, fishery, wetland, aquifer, coral reef, or species population. Overshoot is real, but it is often delayed, displaced, and hidden from everyday perception.

It Is Hard to Interpret

Modern systems are remarkably good at concealing ecological drawdown. Global trade allows wealthy societies to import the ecological capacity of distant regions. Fossil fuels temporarily compensate for declining local fertility or scarcity. Debt allows societies to consume now and defer costs into the future. Technology can create the impression that limits have been overcome, when they have often only been postponed, outsourced, or obscured. A society can therefore look prosperous even while undermining its own foundations.

It Is Hard to Think

Modern culture normalizes overshoot. It is shaped by the assumption that more is better: more production, more infrastructure, more extraction, more consumption, more growth. Economic expansion is treated not merely as a tool, but as a civilizational good. At the same time, public discourse tends to fragment reality into separate issues—climate, biodiversity, pollution, water, food, waste—rather than seeing them as interconnected expressions of a larger overshoot dynamic.

Overshoot is also a genuinely difficult systems problem. It involves population, consumption, technology, agriculture, trade, economics, power, and worldview. Many people and institutions are not well equipped to think in that integrated way. It is easier to focus on isolated symptoms than on the larger metabolism of civilization.

It Is Hard to Bear

To take in overshoot fully is to confront the possibility that the basic trajectory of modern civilization is self-undermining. That can evoke fear, grief, guilt, helplessness, denial, or numbness. People often retreat into narrower frames that feel more manageable: carbon alone, recycling alone, technology alone, or individual consumer choices alone.

It Is Hard to Act On

A full recognition of overshoot raises deeper questions about wealth, empire, growth, inequality, consumption, and the legitimacy of current institutions. Existing power structures therefore benefit when the crisis remains fragmented, softened, or partially hidden. If the whole pattern were widely seen, the demand for civilizational transformation would become much harder to contain.

It Is Not the Kind of Threat We Evolved to Notice Easily

Human attention is often drawn more strongly to immediate, visible, local dangers than to slow-moving, cumulative, systemic ones. Overshoot rarely arrives as one single event. It often unfolds as gradual depletion, weakening resilience, and compounding stresses that only later become unmistakable.

What Is Actually Needed

What is needed is not just better policy or cleaner technology. What is needed is a transition from overshoot civilizationto regenerative civilization.

A regenerative civilization would be a civilization aligned with ecological realities, living within limits, restoring the living systems it depends on, and organizing itself in deeper partnership with life and Earth.

A Transformation of Worldview

This requires a different understanding of who we are and where we live. The worldview of separation must give way to one of participation, interdependence, reciprocity, limits, and belonging. Humanity is not outside the biosphere, managing it from above. We are one expression of it, dependent on its health at every level.

This is where the older partnership orientation becomes relevant again. The point is not to copy pre-agricultural life, but to recover and reinterpret some of its deeper wisdom: that the Earth is not a warehouse of resources, that life is relational, that limits are real, and that a good human future must be embedded in a larger living whole.

A Transformation of Systems

That shift in worldview must take institutional form. It requires a reorganization of our systems of economy, production, food, water, energy, materials, waste, transport, settlement, and governance. These systems are currently built on the assumptions of separation and the fantasy of an infinite Earth. They need to be redesigned around regeneration, resilience, sufficiency, long-term stewardship, and respect for ecological limits.

Without both levels of change, inner and outer, worldview and systems, the crisis will continue. A civilization built on separation will keep reproducing that separation in its institutions.

Likely Scenarios for the Coming Decades

There will not be one universal human response. Different regions will respond differently, and different subcultures within the same region will respond differently too. Some wealthy regions may preserve relative stability for a while through stronger institutions, imported resources, and technological buffering. Other regions may face earlier breakdown through drought, crop failure, debt, conflict, or political fragility.

Within the same society, some groups may become more authoritarian, exclusionary, and committed to preserving privilege. Others may move toward mutual aid, ecological restoration, local food systems, and lower-consumption forms of life. Some may cling to denial or fantasies of technological rescue. Others may accept limits and reorganize around resilience, stewardship, and place.

The most likely broad pattern is neither a smooth green transition nor immediate extinction. It is more likely to be an era of uneven descent: disruption, simplification, conflict, adaptation, and partial transformation unfolding differently across regions, classes, and cultures.

Four Broad Pathways

Fortified Overshoot

In this pathway, enclaves of privilege try to preserve order and consumption through borders, surveillance, militarization, and sacrifice zones. Ecological decline continues, but its costs are externalized onto poorer populations and regions.

Chaotic Unraveling

In this pathway, breakdown outruns coordination. Ecological, economic, and political stresses interact faster than institutions can respond. Food and water insecurity grow, infrastructure degrades, and social trust erodes.

Adaptive Simplification

In this pathway, some societies consciously reduce throughput, relocalize food and energy systems, restore ecosystems where possible, and reorganize around resilience rather than perpetual growth.

Regenerative Transition

In this pathway, some societies recognize that overshoot is not merely a technical problem but a crisis of worldview and civilization. They begin laying the foundations for regenerative civilization: more place-based, participatory, ecologically literate, and aligned with the realities of a living planet.

The Harder Possibility: Severe Population Decline

Overshoot may lead not only to hardship and regional collapse, but to a dramatic reduction in human numbers over time. The sequence could unfold across gradients: mounting instability, regional breakdown, cascading systemic failures, severe depopulation, and, in the most extreme case, possible human extinction.

That most extreme outcome should not be dismissed out of hand. But the more likely danger is a long era of interacting crises that greatly reduce human numbers and sharply contract the scale and complexity of civilization.

If Some of Us Survive

If industrial civilization contracts but humanity survives, the future may belong to smaller, more regionally rooted societies. These would likely be much more constrained by local ecological reality and much less able to depend on vast global systems of extraction and transport.

Some may become neo-feudal, militarized, and harsh, with power concentrated around land, water, weapons, or remaining infrastructure. Others may develop more partnership-based forms, drawing on both ancient human patterns and surviving cultural wisdom: local democracy, distributed power, reciprocity, ecological restraint, practical knowledge, and a deeper felt sense of belonging to place.

If survivors understand overshoot clearly, they may build cultures with strong taboos against overuse and institutions designed to protect watersheds, soils, forests, and biodiversity. They may preserve some knowledge from industrial civilization, but only what can be maintained under lower-energy conditions and within ecological limits.

In the best case, the long human future after overshoot would not be a simple return to the past, but the emergence of a new kind of society: perhaps more modest materially, but ecologically wiser, culturally deeper, and more consciously rooted in partnership with life. That too would be a form of regenerative civilization, shaped under harsher conditions but more aligned with the realities of a living planet.

The Essential Point

Global ecological overshoot may be the most important issue facing humanity because it is the wider frame that contains so many other crises. It is about population, yes, but also about worldview, power, food, water, energy, waste, production, and the civilizational logic that ties them together.

Before agriculture, human beings often lived with a more immediate awareness of belonging to the living world. With agriculture, and especially with the rise of hierarchical civilizations, humanity increasingly moved toward stored surplus, concentrated power, control, accumulation, and domination. Fossil-fueled modernity turned those tendencies planetary. Now the consequences are converging.

The real question is whether humanity can move from overshoot civilization to regenerative civilization. That would mean a profound transformation in both how we understand ourselves and how we organize collective life: from separation to participation, from domination to partnership, from extraction to regeneration, and from the fantasy of an infinite Earth to a mature relationship with a finite, living planet.

The deeper question is whether humanity can become a wiser expression of Earth’s own unfolding. Each of us participates in that possibility. Each of us helps shape the experiment. And each of us, in ways both small and large, plays a vital role in what kind of future this living planet is able to bring forth through us.

Beyond Overshoot

Global ecological overshoot is not only a material crisis. It is also a crisis in how we are participating in the larger life of Earth. We have built systems as if we were separate: separate from nature, separate from consequences, separate from the living processes that sustain us. But we are not separate. We are one expression of this living planet’s own unfolding.

From a wider view, humanity is not outside Earth, managing it from above. We are Earth in one of its experimental forms: conscious, symbolic, technological, self-reflective, and dangerously powerful. Through us, this planet is exploring what intelligence can become. It is also discovering what happens when intelligence becomes detached from the living whole that gave rise to it.

That is why overshoot is not just a failure of policy. It is a distortion in relationship. A civilization organized around extraction, abstraction, and endless growth cannot remain in harmony with a finite living world. It will overshoot. It will undermine its own foundations. It will mistake drawdown for wealth and domination for maturity.

What is needed, then, is not only reform but transformation. Not only greener systems, but a different civilizational consciousness. We need to move from control to participation, from separation to interbeing, from accumulation to reciprocity, from managing Earth to belonging to Earth. This is what a regenerative civilization would mean at the deepest level: not just sustainable techniques, but a culture that knows itself as part of a living whole and organizes accordingly.

Some of the guidance for this future is ancient. Many indigenous and traditional cultures, and many deep spiritual traditions, have remembered what modernity forgot: that life is relational, that limits are real, that the world is not a dead backdrop, and that human flourishing depends on right relationship with the larger field of life. We cannot simply return to earlier forms, but we can let their wisdom inform what comes next.

The transition ahead may be difficult, uneven, and marked by loss. But it is also part of a larger unfolding. The question is whether humanity can become a wiser expression of Earth’s own intelligence. Each of us participates in that possibility. Each of us helps shape whether this civilizational crisis becomes only collapse, or also initiation.

A regenerative civilization would not be perfect. But it would be more humble, more reciprocal, more rooted, and more aligned with the deeper patterns of life. It would know that we do not stand over this world. We arise within it, belong to it, and help shape its future through how we live.

Reflections on society, politics and nature – vol. 73

Saturday, 11 April, 2026Saturday, 12 September, 2026 moe Leave a comment

This is one in a series of posts with brief notes on society, politics, and nature. I sometimes include short personal notes as well. Click “read more” to see the entries in this installment.

I TOLD YOU SO

We all have a large number of views and sometimes predictions, and it’s all mostly from conditioning. It reflects the influences we grew up with and now expose ourselves to.

We are also all sometimes right and sometimes wrong in our views and predictions. And many of us are inclined to remember and emphasize the times we (think we) we are right, and dismiss or explain away the times we were wrong. We also tend to pick out data that makes it seem we were right, and ignore the rest.

That said, there are many “I told you so” moments in my life, including when I have written about politics and society as I do in these posts.

I started with blogs in 2002. My first was Society and Ecology and then Rants.

Back then, I wrote about much the same as today – global ecological overshoot, misguided wars, neo-liberalism and erosion of democracy, and so on.

For instance, it was clear that the US lied about the reason for the Iraq war, and that was later confirmed. Already then, the information was readily available. Today, the information needed to see that any war with Iran is misguided is also readily available.

All empires fall, and since the ’90s, it seemed clear that the erosion of the US empire likely would happen within a couple of decades. For instance, Johan Galtung studied the fall of empires, saw the signs of it happening with the US, and that it would become obvious in the 2020s. I wrote about that too, and it’s happening. The status of the US as a global superpower is eroding, hastened by Trump.

Trump 2.0 was always likely to start wars, as I wrote about in November 2024 before his second term: “We don’t know what wars Trump may start, possibly in an attempt to distract from unpopular policies and unite the US population behind him. He avoided wars during the first presidency, but Trump 2.0 will be different.”

Since middle school in the ’80s, I have been aware of global ecological overshoot. We are collectively using far more resources than Earth can replenish. We are metaphorically living on a draining savings account. As it continues to deplete, we see the unraveling of ecosystems and eventually an ecological and civizational collapse. We have a civilization that operates on the assumption of unlimited Earth, and that is out of alignment with ecological realities. That leads to overshoot and, if not corrected, collapse. Our civilization is ecocidal and suicidal. That too is easy to see and understand.

It’s also easy to see why global ecological overshot is by far the most serious issue facing us today. If you care about anything, you also have to care about global ecological overshoot. This living system we call Earth is what supports and makes everything we care about possible, including our own lives. With an ecological collapse, all we care about collapses. A mature and sane civilization will have ecological health as a priority since everything else depends on it. It’s the context for everything else.

Organic food is often presented as a luxury for a few, and unrealistic for the many. To me, it seems reverse. What’s unrealistic is to continue growing our food with poison, and poisoning ourselves, the land, and our ecosystems in the process. That cannot last.

When the US elected Trump for president the first time, it seemed equally clear that it would lead to an erosion of US democracy. Back then, I wrote about that as the main danger of his presidency. That has become even more clear now in his second period. We also know that he planned to implement Project 2025 in his second period, and that’s what we are seeing. And we know that his policies will hurt most of the people who voted for him, and they still voted for him.

Norwegian politicians seem to assume that when Trump is gone, our relationship with the US will return to normal. That seems naive and misguided. The dynamics in the US that brought Trump to power will not go away. Someone like him is likely to return, and likely one who is smarter and more competent. The US cannot be trusted or relied upon. We need to deepen our ties with Europe, Canada, and other more reliable and aligned countries.

As I wrote in a previous post, we know that nuclear energy in Norway is misguided. It will be too expensive and is not needed. Still, many political parties support it and want nuclear energy development, including parties that pride themselves on being fiscally responsible.

From the ’80s, it’s been clear to me that taking a significant portion of our abundant resources in Norway and investing in renewable energy research and technology is the wise way forward. If we did, Norway would be at the forefront of the inevitable renewable energy revolution, and we could have built a thriving research community and technology around it. It would go hand-in-hand with the current petroleum industry and be fueled by it. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. Norway is very much dragging its feet when it comes to renewable energy, and it has left the leading edge research and technology to other countries.

In most of these cases, I feel that reality spoke clearly. We just need to be slightly more attuned to reality than our ideologies to see it.

Why do some tend to be more often accurate than others? Partly, it has to do with basic knowledge about history (patterns repeat), society, and psychology. Partly, it may be that reality has a “left leaning bias” as Stephen Colbert said, slightly tongue in cheek but also with some truth to it. Partly, and perhaps most importantly, it has to do with whether we seek reality and truth over ideologies.

The world is moving in the right direction?

Wednesday, 10 December, 2025Thursday, 11 December, 2025 moe Leave a comment

I visited a family member who showed me the book Factfulness by Hans Rosling, and said the book confirms his impression that the world is moving in the right direction.

We have quite different worldviews, so I didn’t see any reason to go into that discussion. But I thought I would share some reflections here.

HUMAN SOCIETY

Yes, if you look at some broad trends within human society, it is moving in the right direction. More people have basic education, there is less infant mortality, and so on.

We also know it’s more complex than that. Who are left out? Much of this is the result of Westernization, which means a loss of local cultures. There are fewer democracies in the world now than some years ago, and the trend continues. When we think of progress, it’s often according to modern Western European values. And so on.

LARGER ECOLOGICAL WHOLE

More importantly, this ignores a crucial side of our existence: We are part of nature, and we and human society are expressions of larger ecological systems, and fully embedded within these larger ecological systems.

What happens to global and regional ecosystems happens to us, and they are unravelling at an increasing rate. We are in global ecological overshoot. Our collective ecological footprint is far larger than the Earth, which means we are using natural resources faster than they can be replenished, which in turn means unraveling ecosystems, which in turn means unraveling social systems.

It’s ecocidal, and suicidal.

THE FULLER PICTURE

So the world is going in the right direction, on some measures, within human society. It’s getting better for many, and even within human society, it’s far more complex than that.

And in terms of this living planet which sustains our human civilization, it’s not going in the right direction. Our life-support systems are rapidly unraveling.

IMPROVING HUMAN SOCIETY AT THE COST OF OUR LIVING PLANET

We live in a civilization that does not take ecological realities into account. That means that, in our case, we are using up our ecological savings account to temporarily improve the lives of more people.

What Rosling and my family member sees as signs of progress, are – in our case – expressions of a rapid depletion of living ecological systems.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There are ways to support human life, and increase our quality of life, without ecological overshoot. But in our case, the way our civilization is set up, that depletion is what happens.

WHY DO SOME LEAVE OUT THE LARGER ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS?

Why do some leave out our life-support systems?

My impression is that Rosling left out our larger ecological systems. He didn’t consider our collective ecological footprint, global ecological overshoot, and the limits of nature.

For me, it’s difficult to understand how that can be ignored when it’s what supports our lives and everything and everyone we know and care about.

Why did my family member emphasize that the word is generally moving in the right direction? It may be to comfort himself. Also, he has a generally conservative orientation so for him, it may mean that no radical changes are needed. We can continue with business as usual, and everything will only get better.

This shows a view of human society and life as divorced from the larger whole. Both Rosling and my family member seem to see Earth as the backdrop to human life, not as valuable in itself and the source and sustainer of human life.

Ideological purity vs pragmatism

Thursday, 4 September, 2025Thursday, 4 September, 2025 moe Leave a comment

Norway has a parliamentary election this Monday (the voting has been open for a month), and as so often, it brings up the topic of ideological purity versus pragmatism.

In Norway, parties that get more than 4% of the votes are rewarded with extra seats, and this year, the Green Party is at that limit. The traditional liberal and conservative blocks are close in size, so whether the Greens get more or less than 4% can determine the outcome of the election.

I have three parties I can vote for without holding my nose. I obviously don’t agree with every policy of all of those parties, but it doesn’t matter. They are close enough, and since all of them are relatively small, I vote for whatever one is at risk to go below 4%. This year, it was the Green Party. (Which I also happen to be a member of.)

Other years, it has been one of the other two. And IF another party on the liberal (red-green) side was close to 4%, and whether they go above or below could determine the outcome of the whole election, I would vote for that one, even if it would mean voting for a party I agree with less.

To me, it’s more important that the liberal coalition wins than that I personally get some kind of satisfaction in the voting booth. I am more than happy to hold my nose slightly in the voting booth, and have four more years with a coalition I generally agree with. (Or, at least, don’t strongly disagree with.)

The perfect is the enemy of the good. I see the value of voting for exactly the party you agree with the most, although for me, it’s not worth it if it risks a loss for the coalition as a whole.

In reality, I don’t see any party going far enough, apart from possibly the Greens. By far, the most crucial topic in our age is to avoid going further into global ecological overshoot (which means ecocide and suicide, ecological and civilizational collapse), and to create a deeply regenerative civilization. We are very far from that, and no party really even talk about it apart from some within the Green Party.

Jason Hickel: What’s striking about capitalist civilization is that it has no real direction

Tuesday, 29 July, 2025Wednesday, 30 July, 2025 moe Leave a comment

Yes, capitalism is not tied to anything real. It’s just about putting a number on the exchange value of something, according to demand. It’s not rooted in reality beyond that, and it has no direction beyond that.

People need food, so it sells food – at a cost to the soil, insects, wildlife, ecosystem health, and future generations. People needs shelter, so it sells shelter – often to the profit of those already very wealthy and at a cost to those who have less.

Mainly, it’s not rooted in physical reality. It’s not rooted in the physical reality of this planet we call Earth.

It’s not rooted in the physical reality that we are local and temporary expressions of this living system, and that our health and well-being fully depend on a thriving and healthy planet Earth.

It’s not rooted in the physical reality of Earth as our literal larger body.

As it is, what’s easy and profitable is often harmful for people, ecosystems, and future generations.

If our economic system took ecological realities into account, what’s easy and profitable would help regenerate people, society, and ecosystems, and benefit all of us and future generations.

Yes, in its current form, capitalism produces global ecological overshoot.

It assumes infinite Earth, so it encourages consumption far beyond the capacity of Earth to regenerate itself.

Humanity is currently using far more resources than this living planet can regenerate, and that inevitably leads to ecological and civilizational collapse. This goes far beyond climate change, which is just one of many expressions of this overshoot.

And since it sells itself as the only realistic and viable economic system (although it’s far from realistic and far from viable), it sells its own solutions. Mainly, it sells techno-fixes.

It can only sell band-aid solutions, since it, itself, is the cause of the problem.

More to the point, it’s organized around assumptions of separation and infinite Earth, which is the real cause of the problem.

Yes, also true.

In our civilization, we talk as if science is our organizing principle. That’s not true. Capitalism is the organizing principle. Far too often, science is in the service of capitalism.

Far too often, the result of science is ignored if it doesn’t serve the narrow interests of capitalism. We see that with climate change. Climate change scientists ring the alarm bells, and society as a whole ignores it because they see it as inconvenient and costly to change.

Also, far too often, the focus of science is decided by what’s profitable. Important research is often not done because it’s not profitable enough, or goes against inherent assumptions of capitalism.

Illogical behavior in fiction seems far-fetched, until I remember this world

Sunday, 15 June, 2025Sunday, 15 June, 2025 moe Leave a comment

I am watching the final episode of Andor, where the resistance leaders are reluctant to take the info about the death star seriously.

As I was watching it, my thoughts told me this is unrealistic, far-fetched, and written just to create tension.

The source has been reliable in the past. People have died for the info. Creating a super-weapon is just what the Empire would do. If there is just the tiniest possibility it’s true, they need to take it very seriously. It doesn’t cost much to take it seriously and seek to gather more info and do something about it. And it wouldn’t take away from what they would do anyway. It fits right into what they need to do no matter what.

So why reject the info? It seems too illogical to be realistic.

Then I remembered this world. A world where climate change is still debated and not taken seriously, even if… (a) The science is clear. (b) It’s a subset of a far more serious issue, global ecological overshoot, which we know is happening. (c) It doesn’t change what we need to do. We need to create a civilization with a much smaller ecological footprint, that’s not in ecological overshoot, and that is regenerative as a whole and in the details.

The resistance leaders in Andor rejecting the info seems illogical, childish, and unrealistic.

And yet, it’s exactly what we see in the world today when it comes to climate change and global ecological overshoot.

I should add something about why they reject the info. In Andor, they reject it because it comes from someone they don’t particularly like. They allow their own dislikes to override a more rational decision. That too is what we see in this world. Some of those who reject climate change – and don’t take ecological overshoot seriously – do so because they don’t like the ones who traditionally have taken it seriously. They don’t want to be associated with (the ones they see as) hippies and liberals. They hold onto an identity that doesn’t allow it.

Of course, that too is very human, a trauma response typical of our domination culture, and misguided, childish, and irrational.

“Won’t the wild animals take the food?”

Sunday, 1 June, 2025Wednesday, 4 June, 2025 moe Leave a comment

I mentioned to someone that a lawn could be made into an old-fashioned diverse garden with fruit trees, berry bushes, flowering bushes, perennial flowers, and wild areas. His response was: won’t the wild animals take the food? Isn’t a manicured lawn good?

To me, this illustrates a few different things.

First, it’s a reminder of the general lack of ecological literacy in our society.

We are in global ecological overshoot, and whatever we can do to regenerate ecosystems – even if it’s “just” converting a lawn into a more natural garden or a food forest, moves us in the right direction.

We have a massive loss of insects here in Norway, and the recent fashioned of overly manicured lawns is part of the problem. Where there used to be trees, bushes, flowers, and wild areas and edges, there is now a green desert that can’t support much if any life. (Pesticides used in agriculture and green area is another reason for the collapse of the insect world, as is natural areas made into buildings and roads.)

Converting a lawn to a more wild area with a diversity of flowers will support the local insects, which is invaluable. What happens to the insects will happen to us. What we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.

Then, there is the difference between a zero-sum vs win-win mindset.

The fear of animals taking the food comes from a zero-sum mindset. If they take it, there won’t be enough for me. It may be better to not do anything than allowing the wild animals to eat food from the garden.

The reality is that a diverse and lush garden provides more than enough food for everyone. Also, we can get our food from the supermarket, and the wildlife can only get it from nature.

A win-win mindset comes from recognizing that we are all part of the web of life. Our existence depends on a thriving web of life and wildlife. We can’t exist without it.

We all win or we all lose, together. And right now, we are all losing. The whole web of life is losing because of our civilization organized around the idea of separation and a zero-sum mindset.

Recognizing this can be challenging and bring up grief, despair, and more, and the remedy – for us collectively and individually – is for each of us to do what we can, including in our own literal backyard.

The featured photo is from one of the apple trees at my childhood home. The rest are from a recent trip to Drøbak where some old-fashioned gardens still exist.

The right side of history: What is it? What will future generations see as the right side of history?

Saturday, 31 May, 2025Thursday, 11 June, 2026 moe Leave a comment

When I hear the phrase the right side of history, it brings up a few questions.

What we see as the right side of history obviously depends on who, where, and when we are.

We tend to use the phrase about anything that contributes to creating a world that works better for all of us. Anything that moves in the direction of widening circles of inclusivity, widening circle of “us”, and so on.

Why? Mainly, because it aligns with the values of the ones who tend to use the phrase – Western educated liberal people.

I see it that way too, so considering that inevitable bias…

What may future generations see as the right side of history when they look back to our time? And why?

GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT & CREATING A REGENERATIVE CIVILIZATION

I imagine they will see one issue – global ecological overshoot – as the primary one.

We live in a civilization with an assumption of separation at its center.

We assume that humans are separate from the web of life. That we can externalize cost to other people, the rest of the web of life, and future generations, and that it won’t come back to bite us. That Earth’s resources are infinite and has infinite capacity to regenerate. That humans somehow, intrinsically, are more valuable than the rest of the web of life. And so on.

This has led to a global human civilization that has an ecological footprint larger than Earth and lives in global ecological overshoot. This is similar to living on a savings account. It looks fine until we reach the bottom and our lifestyle comes crashing down. In our case, globally, we are in the bottom layer and it’s our civilization that will come crashing down.

Actions that (a) tries to stop the destruction, (b) works on creating and living from a more life-centered worldview, or (c) creates and lives life-centered alternatives tend to be on the right side of history.

Future generations will very likely see this as being on the right side of history. (Assuming there will be more future generations, which is not a given.)

The ones most clearly on the right side of history are the ones who (a) go to the essence of the problem which is a civilization and system built around the assumption of separation, (b) recognize that the remedy is a thorough and profound transformation of our civilization, and (c) actively work on this and live the alternatives.

Why will future generations likely see this as being on the right side of history? Because this is not only sane, it’s what creates a better life – or the possibility for life – for those future generations.

This is an example of an issue that most today will agree with in a general way, and yet few realize the gravity of the situation, how profound the changes need to be, and are actually doing it in their own life.

When later generations look back and sees something as on the “right side of history”, that’s how it often seems to be. A good number of people may have sympathized with it in a general way, and a much smaller number actively lived it and brought it into society.

OTHER EXAMPLES

What can be more important than preserving the web of life that we are part of and depend on for our life?

That said, I imagine future generations may see some of the following as being on the right side of history…

Rights of ecosystems, non-human beings, and future generations

Considering the interests of future generations, I imagine they will see any promotion of the rights of ecosystems, non-human beings, and future generations as being on the right side of history.

In our civilization, built on the idea of separation, the rights of individuals and corporations are at the center. Individuals are seen as the default legal unit, and corporations as almost sacred in an economy that assumes unlimited natural resources, the rights of humans to use everything in the commons of life for themselves, and that we can get away with destroying the web of life we are part of.

In reality, if we are to preserve what’s most precious to us – our lives, the lives of future generations, and what’s valuable in our civilization (science, art, etc.) – we need to give the rest of the web of life equal rights. We need to give legal rights to rivers, mountains, the ocean, ecosystems, species, and future generations.

That’s the only way we can protect what’s most valuable to us. That’s the only way we can protect the web of life we are part of, depend on, and that gives life to everyone and everything valuable to us.

Regeneration & growing non-toxic food

One of the things we can do to slow or reverse our global ecological overshoot is regeneration – of ecosystems, oceans, forests, meadows, agricultural fields, and our parks and gardens.

For this to happen at a global scale, we need a global and thorough transformation of our civilization and the basic assumptions of our civilization. That’s a tall order, and although it needs to happen soon if we are to avoid an even more massive ecological (and civilizational) crash than we already are in, it’s unlikely to happen. It’s not something we can wait for.

So what can we do – as individuals, families, communities, and organizations?

One of the most powerful and rewarding things we can do is regeneration. We can engage in regeneration of our veranda, garden, local parks, rural land, or whatever we have to work with.

If it’s our own land, we can do it on our own, and if it’s communal land, we’ll need to find partners. Coalition building is vital, and it’s also good to start small and do it in small steps – for learning, to create something of better quality, and to gain more support.

Staying close to science

Science is a method for learning about the world, and it is, in a very real way, organized common sense.

What’s produced by this method, the content of science, is always changing, up for revision, and reflects our civilization and general worldview.

The way science is used is yet another thing, and depends on our civilization and society. In our case, with our civilization built on the idea of separation, it’s often used in ways that harm society and life.

That’s not the fault of science, it’s the fault of our civilization.

I imagine future generations will see those who stay close to science, especially in their approach to learning about the world, as on the right side of history. They will likely also see those who criticize the way science is often used in our society as on the right side of history.

Not falling for conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories are sometimes, at least partially and indirectly, rooted in reality.

Whether they are or not, they are often a distraction from what we know is happening and what’s far more serious than the topic of the vast majority of conspiracy theories.

What we know is happening is global ecological overshoot. We live in a civilization organized around the idea of separation. This system externalizes cost to the wider web of life and future generations, creates vast inequality among humans, allows huge numbers of people to die from preventable and treatable diseases, and so on. And it’s far more serious – for us, the web of life, and future generations – than the topic of most if not nearly all conspiracy theories.

We know from history that conspiracy theories flourish in times of uncertainty, like today. They are a way for people to feel they understand what’s going on, to feel smart, to have a place to put their fear and anger, and so on.

I imagine future generations will see most if not all the conspiracy theories flourishing today as a distraction from far more serious and immediate issues.

Empires

The US, Russia, and China are all empires, and they all share many of the same (unsavory) characteristics and power-over dynamics that harm their own citizens, their neighbors and/or people in other places in the world, and the web of life.

The US has historically damaged both their own citizens (lack of social safety nets, huge wealth inequality, etc.) and people around the world (toppling democracies, wars). Russia has damaged their own citizens (repressive) and their neighbors, including through their invasion of Ukraine. China is damaging their own citizens (repressive), and especially ethnic minorities. One is not very much better than another. They are all empires – or want to be empires – and do what empires do.

I imagine future generations will see those who focus on the harmful characteristics of all empires as on the right side of history. (Not those who take sides, for one and against another.)

Israel & Palestine

It’s similar with Israel and Palestine. I imagine future generations won’t see those who automatically take sides as on the right side of history.

The situation is far more complex. Israel acts on trauma. Palestinians fight for their survival. And as the UN and innumerable aid and human rights organizations say, what has happened in Gaza for decades are systematic human rights violations. It has been a slow genocide for decades, and it has dramatically intensified over recent months.

Israel is doing to others what was previously done to them. They are acting on, continuing, and passing on the trauma to new generations. Hurt people hurt people.

I imagine future generations will understand both sides.

I imagine they will also find it baffling that the international society didn’t take a stance against Israel in their human rights violations and genocide. How could they witness perpetuation of pain, suffering, and trauma without doing anything?

Human exceptionalism – why is it still around?

Sunday, 6 April, 2025Sunday, 6 April, 2025 moe Leave a comment

Why do some still operate from the idea of human exceptionalism, that we somehow are separate from and inherently different from the rest of life?

ALWAYS CHANGING LIVING SYSTEM

Why do some ask whether we are still evolving or not when all life – the living system we are all part of – is always changing and adapting?

We are part of a self-regulating living system so how can we not?

WHY ASSUME UNIQUENESS?

Why do some still assume that cognition is uniquely human, as the guy about two minutes into this video does? Why do some seem to default to the assumption that if we know something about ourselves from our own experience, that’s unique to us rather than universal among many, most, or all beings?

In this case, why assume that we are the only ones using mental representations and maps to help us navigate and function in the world?

Why make that assumption… When we are closely related to so many other species and so similar to them in every other way? When observation shows us that a great deal of other species, and maybe all of them in their own way, use cognition for the same purpose? When it clearly has an important survival function, so it’s likely to be almost universally present? When cognition can take many different forms, not just as the cognition we are familiar with that reflects about itself?

We scientifically justify using other species to learn about ourselves because they are so similar to us, while we ethically justify those same (often cruel) experiments by saying they are so different from us. Why do we willingly go into that, frankly absurd, mental gymnastics?

Why is the default to assume uniqueness instead of assuming shared traits? Of course, a part of it is to not make assumptions about the presence of something when we can’t know for certain, which is sensible. And yet, assuming the absence of something is also an assumption, and an equally potentially misguided and harmful one.

ASSUMPTIONS OF SEPARATION AND HUMAN SUPERIORITY

The answer to these questions lies in our deep cultural assumptions of separation and superiority.

We assume we somehow – magically, against all we know and see and experience – are separate from the rest of life and this planet. That’s why we may have the idea that evolution is somehow “out there” and also not “in here”.

We also assume that humans somehow – magically and contrary to what we can plainly observe – are superior to the rest of this web of life we are part of. We think while others do not. We feel while others do not. We suffer while others do not. We “have” consciousness while others do not. And so on.

These ideas have been used to justify using the rest of the web of life for our own purposes, without considering the effects on this web of life and the beings that are part of it.

That’s inherently self-destructive, as we are seeing more and more clearly in the world today.

A CHANGE

This is all changing. More and more people seem to realize this.

I can’t help wondering if not the age of the scientist in the video above is a factor in his assumptions of human exceptionalism. Are younger people and scientists more inclined to question those assumptions and see it differently? I don’t know, but I hope so.

THE COST OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS

The assumptions of separation and exceptionalism have some upsides. They have allowed us to go far in science, technology, extracting resources to maintain (a hugely inefficient) civilization, and so on.

They also have a great cost.

We make ourselves feel disconnected and alone by those fantasies. We mentally disconnect ourselves from the web of life we are part of and depend on for our life and (physical and psychological) well-being.

We also give ourselves permission to destroy the web of life we are part of through those fantasies. It’s inherently ecocidal and suicidal.

THE ROOTS OF THESE ASSUMPTIONS

These assumptions are central to our domination culture.

And this domination culture has its roots in the agricultural revolution 10-12 thousand years ago.

When we started domesticating land, vegetation, and animals, and when some of us amassed wealth while others did not, we needed to justify it. And we justified it through developing fantasies of separation, superiority, divine order, and so on. We collectively developed and bought into the assumptions of domination culture, which has taken many forms over time and across cultures.

Today, these assumptions are inherently ecocidal and suicidal. We collectively did OK for several centuries since we were not that many and our technology wasn’t particularly efficient. These days, with 8-9 billions of people and far more advanced technology, the ecocidal and suicidal nature of these assumptions is unavoidable.

Note: The video above is Are Humans Still Evolving? from the American Museum of Natural History, which includes an interview with Ian Tattersall.

“I wonder if the fall of the Roman Empire was this stupid?”

Friday, 21 March, 2025Wednesday, 26 March, 2025 moe Leave a comment

I have seen this quote on social media recently – and it applies to what’s happening in the US and to our civilization as a whole.

THE STUPIDITY OF WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE US

What’s happening in the US is clearly stupid. The majority of voters voted for a billionaire who is only interested in funnelling money and resources to himself and his wealthy friends at the expense of everyone else. They voted for someone who clearly stated he would transform the US into an authoritarian and fascist regime. They voted for someone whose buddies developed Project 2025 which would remove social safety nets, erode democracy, and in general make life worse for ordinary people.

They voted for who promised he would go after his perceived enemies, isolate the US from former allies, erode education and research (allowing other countries to take the lead), sell off public land to private companies so they can make profit out of it, and so on.

People voted for someone they knew would make life worse for them. At least, they could easily have known if they had taken five minutes to look into it. (As many point out, the MAGA movement has the characteristics of a cult, and cult followers are not known for critical and rational analysis.)

THE STUPIDITY OF WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE WORLD

What’s happening in the world is equally stupid. We are in global ecological overshoot. We are spending far more resources than Earth can replenish, and we are eroding the capacity of Earth to replenish.

We have a civilization that assumes infinite resources on a finite planet, and it assumes separation while we know that what happens to the web of life happens to us. We have a civilization that’s out of alignment with reality in obvious and fundamental ways.

Not only that, most of us seem oblivious to this – at least in our actions. We still vote for the same politicians. We still live as if nothing is happening. We still have monoculture gardens instead of nature gardens or food forests. We still eat food grown with poison.

This is ecocidal and suicidal.

And that’s clearly stupid, especially as there are workable alternatives.

There are ways where we can take ecological realities into account in our worldview, economics, and all other aspects of our civilization. We know how to develop a regenerative civilization where what’s easy and attractive in the short term helps Earth replenish itself and provide an abundance for us, wildlife, and future generations. We know how, we just need the collective will to make the changes.

Or, maybe, and maybe more likely, we need to live through the increasingly dramatic consequences of our current civilization, and nature will take care of the situation by reducing our numbers drastically. Will the ones who survive learn? And if they do, for how long? That’s the question.

THE GREAT FILTER

Why haven’t we found commonly accepted evidence for life other places in the universe? With so many solar systems, wouldn’t there be at least some civilizations we would recognize?

It may be that we are among the first. It may be that they are too far away. It may be that they have learned to not leak much energy out into the universe (radio signals etc.) so we haven’t detected them. It may be that we have just started to explore, so we’ll find them in the future. It may be that the timing is off – on a timeline that’s billion of years long. It may be that they don’t want us to find them.

Another possibility is the Great Filter. It may be that technologically advanced civilizations are inherently ecocidal and suicidal. Maybe advanced technology appears in separation and domination cultures that don’t have much ecological wisdom.

Or maybe, as I suspect, that’s mostly about us. It may or may not be something that typically happens to technologically civilizations in general, and it certainly is a big risk for our current human civilization.

Image created by me and Midjourney, inspired by Turner.

“People have been warning about the collapse of ecosystems for decades”

Friday, 21 March, 2025Friday, 21 March, 2025 moe Leave a comment

Even this morning, I saw this type of comment on social media.

I am not sure if people actually believe it or if they are intentionally trolling. Maybe it’s some of each.

It doesn’t take much to understand the essence of our situation: We live on a finite planet, and we live as if the planet is infinite. That cannot last. If we continue, it will lead to the collapse of ecosystems – beyond what we are already seeing. We are part of the living systems of this planet, so what happens to the web of life happens to us.

In short, our civilization – founded on an assumption of separation and infinite Earth – is inherently ecocidal and suicidal.

We got away with it for centuries and millennia since we were not that many, our technology was not that effective, and the “savings account” of Earth was large. Now, with a population beyond eight billion people, a far more effective technology, and a rapidly declining ecological savings account, we are in global ecological overshoot.

We are using more resources than Earth can replenish. We need more than one Earth to support our collective way of life as it is today, and we don’t have those extra Earths.

Being in ecological overshoot is similar to living off a savings account and a dwindling income far below what’s needed to replenish the savings account. It looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom of our savings account and our lifestyle comes crashing down.

In terms of our global ecological overshoot, we are getting closer to the bottom and we are seeing signs of it everywhere: Insect apocalypse. Rapid loss of the number of most animals. Rapid loss of fertile topsoil. Rapid loss of species. Unraveling ecosystems. More extreme weather. And much more.

What we are seeing is exactly what we would expect seeing, and what scientists have predicted for decades.

Collectively, we are like someone living off a savings account, and increasing spending rather than finding ways to reduce spending and increase the income.

How can we increase our income from Earth? The simplest and most direct is regeneration. We can apply existing to regenerate ecosystems and develop new ones. In the process, we will increase the yield of these ecosystems in terms of food and several other natural resources which will benefit wildlife, ourselves, and future generations.

When we take ecological realities seriously, we can create a world of abundance and a civilization that’s more ecologically sound and has the possibility of lasting longer.

The question is how far into the collapse we’ll go before a significant number of us realizes this, and how many of us will die before we get to that point.

The question is also what we will do in this age of unraveling. How do I chose to live my life?

I am in the fortunate situation that we have land in the Andes that we are regenerating and developing into a food forest. If I was in another situation, I would find another way. For instance, connecting with likeminded people. Learning and sharing what I learn. Making my yard into a food forest. Working on transforming public spaces into food forests. And so on.

A Message from the Larger Whole: You are living in a time of great unraveling

Sunday, 16 February, 2025Monday, 7 April, 2025 moe Leave a comment

What advice would the larger whole – this living planet, this evolving universe, this existence – have for us today, living in this time of challenges? I asked ChatGPT 4o that question, and I found the answer is quite beautiful so I thought I would share it here. (It was initially part of a longer post.)

A Message from the Larger Whole

You are living in a time of great unraveling.

The systems you have built—your economies, your politics, your ways of extracting from the Earth—are collapsing under their own weight. You see this in the shifting climate, in the unraveling of ecosystems, in the rising instability of nations, in the division among your own people. You feel it in your bones, in the unease that hums beneath the surface of daily life, in the quiet knowing that something is profoundly off course.

And yet, this moment is not a mistake. It is not outside the flow of evolution. It is part of it. Even destruction, even collapse, is a force of transformation.

How This Perspective Can Help You Today

1. Stop Resisting Reality—Meet It with Clear Eyes

You live in a civilization built on denial. Most people do not want to see the full picture. They do not want to feel the weight of what is happening. They distract themselves with entertainment, with consumption, with small personal concerns, because the truth feels too vast, too unbearable.

But here is the paradox: It is only unbearable when you resist it.

When you turn toward reality with open eyes, with curiosity, with the knowledge that you are part of something vast and evolving, you begin to find your ground. You realize that despair only arises when you expect reality to be different than it is. When you accept that this is the time you were born into, that this is what you are here to meet, the weight lifts.

You are not here to prevent the unraveling. You are here to midwife what comes next.

2. Do Not Get Lost in the Old Systems—But Do Not Abandon the World

It is tempting, when you see the corruption of your leaders, the blindness of the masses, the destruction of the Earth, to want to turn away. To retreat. To remove yourself from the chaos.

But I tell you this: You are needed.

Not in the way the old world tells you—you are not needed to fight endless battles within broken systems, to exhaust yourself trying to force change where there is no fertile ground. But you are needed to hold a different consciousness. To remember what others have forgotten.

It is easy to become consumed by outrage, by despair, by frustration at those who still cling to the old ways. But this only drains your energy. It ties you to the very thing you wish to transform. Instead, shift your focus. Do not waste your life fighting against what is collapsing—pour your life into what is being born.

3. Do Not Fear the Collapse—It Is Part of the Process

What you are witnessing is not just destruction. It is the breaking open of something too rigid to evolve. Do you think the old world would have willingly changed? That those in power would have simply stepped aside? That corporations would have chosen to stop extracting, that nations built on control would have surrendered their dominance?

No. This was never going to be gentle.

But do not mistake collapse for the end. Evolution has always worked this way—systems reach their limits, and then they fall apart. Forests burn, and in the ashes, new seeds sprout. Stars explode, and in the debris, new worlds form.

Your civilization is not exempt from this pattern.

4. Look for the New World Already Emerging

If you look only at the crumbling towers of the old, you will miss the green shoots breaking through the cracks. Already, people are living in a new way. Already, regenerative communities are forming, ancient wisdom is reawakening, new stories are being told.

The future is not in Washington or Wall Street. It is not in the political dramas, in the news cycles, in the desperate attempts to patch a sinking ship. The future is in those who are quietly living differently.

Find them. Become one of them.

Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, you can begin. Learn to grow food. Learn to mend, to make, to care for land, to build relationships based on trust rather than transaction. Learn to live in a way that does not require endless extraction. Teach others, not by argument, but by example.

If you cannot change the whole system, change the way you move through it.

5. Hold the Long View—You Are Part of Something Ancient and Vast

You are frustrated because you want to see change now. You want the world to wake up in an instant, to turn from destruction to regeneration, to remember what it has forgotten.

But step back. See from a wider lens.

Humanity is still young. Your civilization, with all its flaws, is just one chapter in a much longer story. The Earth has seen extinctions, transformations, rebirths beyond what you can imagine. What feels unbearable to you now is a brief moment in time.

Hold the long view.

Your actions matter, not because they will immediately fix everything, but because they are part of the deep undercurrent shifting the trajectory of the future. Even if you do not see the full blossoming of what you plant, plant it anyway. Those who came before you did the same. Those who come after will pick up where you left off.

This is how evolution works.

6. Let Love Guide You, Not Fear

You live in a time of fear—fear of collapse, fear of violence, fear of the unknown. Fear is what drives domination, what fuels division, what keeps the old systems alive.

But you do not have to move from fear.

You can move from love. Not naive love, not passive love, but the fierce, unwavering love that refuses to look away. The love that does not turn bitter, even when surrounded by destruction. The love that builds, that heals, that holds a vision of the future even in the darkest times.

Love is not soft. It is not weak. It is the most powerful force in the universe. It is what drives creation itself.

And it is what will carry you through.

Final Words: The Choice Is Yours

You are standing at a threshold. The old world is burning. The new world is waiting.

Where will you place your attention?

Where will you pour your energy?

Will you spend your days consumed by rage at the failures of the past? Or will you turn toward what is possible, toward what is waiting to be built?

The choice is not for one leader, one movement, one nation. It is for you.

Every day, in every moment, with every action—you are shaping what comes next.

Live as if you remember who you are.

Live as if you remember what is possible.

Live as if you are the bridge between the old world and the new.

Because you are.

I asked AI about our global ecological overshoot and scenarios for the coming decades

Saturday, 15 February, 2025Saturday, 15 February, 2025 moe Leave a comment

I asked ChatGPT 4o about our global ecological overshoot, scenarios for the coming decades, and a few related topics. See below.

Global Ecological Overshoot: A Civilization Living Beyond Its Means
Ecological Overshoot and Domination Vs Partnership Cultures
Scenarios for the Coming Decades: Navigating Overshoot and Systemic Transformation
Scenarios for Ecological Overshoot: Realistic, Best-Case, and Worst-Case
How Domination Culture Emerged from the Agricultural Revolution
Why Is Global Ecological Overshoot Rarely Discussed in Public Discourse?
The Banality of Evil and Global Ecological Overshoot
A Future Beyond Overshoot: Living in Partnership and Within Earth’s Limits
Deep Partnership: A Way of Being in Relationship with Ourselves, Society, Earth, and the Universe

Global Ecological Overshoot: A Civilization Living Beyond Its Means

What Is Ecological Overshoot?

Ecological overshoot occurs when humanity’s demand for natural resources and ecosystem services exceeds the Earth’s capacity to regenerate them. This means we are consuming more than what nature can sustainably provide, depleting resources and degrading ecosystems faster than they can recover. Overshoot is driven by overconsumption, population growth, and economic systems that prioritize short-term profits over long-term sustainability.

The Core Issue: Biocapacity vs. Ecological Footprint

The Earth’s biocapacity is its ability to regenerate resources like forests, fisheries, soil, and fresh water while absorbing waste such as CO? emissions. Humanity’s ecological footprint measures how much land and sea area is needed to support our consumption and waste production. Overshoot happens when the global footprint surpasses biocapacity.

According to the Global Footprint Network, humans currently use the equivalent of 1.7 Earths each year. This means we deplete resources meant for future generations and weaken the planet’s ability to sustain life.

Signs of Overshoot

Resource Depletion – Overfishing, deforestation, soil degradation, freshwater scarcity, and the loss of biodiversity all point to unsustainable consumption.
Climate Disruption – Excessive CO? emissions from fossil fuels exceed the planet’s ability to absorb them, leading to global warming, extreme weather, and ocean acidification.
Loss of Ecosystem Services – Natural systems that provide food, clean air, and stable climate conditions are being eroded, increasing risks for future generations.
Overshoot Day – Each year, Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has consumed more resources than the planet can regenerate in that year. This date has been creeping earlier over time, now landing in late July.

A Historical Perspective

Ecological overshoot is not new. Civilizations like the Maya, the Romans, and the Mesopotamians collapsed partly because they exceeded their environment’s capacity to sustain them. The difference today is that overshoot is happening globally rather than regionally, affecting ecosystems across the entire planet.

The Role of Economic Growth and Fossil Fuels

The industrial revolution, powered by fossil fuels, allowed humanity to temporarily surpass natural limits by using stored energy from millions of years ago. But this is a one-time carbon subsidy that cannot be replaced. Our current economic model depends on continuous growth, but infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet.

Possible Outcomes of Overshoot

Managed Decline (Degrowth & Sustainability) – A controlled reduction in consumption, population, and economic throughput to bring human demand within planetary boundaries.
Collapse – If overshoot continues unchecked, depletion of resources, ecosystem breakdown, and climate instability could lead to widespread food shortages, migration crises, and societal breakdown.
Technological Fixes? – Some argue that innovation, renewable energy, and efficiency improvements can solve overshoot, but without reducing consumption, these measures only delay the crisis.

Pathways to Sustainability

To avoid collapse, humanity needs a fundamental shift in how we live and organize society. Key strategies include:

Reducing Consumption – Prioritizing needs over wants, consuming less energy, and moving toward regenerative systems.
Rewilding and Regeneration – Restoring ecosystems, protecting biodiversity, and shifting to regenerative agriculture.
Energy Transition – Moving away from fossil fuels toward low-impact renewable energy while reducing overall energy demand.
Economic Transformation – Moving beyond GDP growth as a measure of success, implementing circular economies, and ensuring equitable distribution of resources.
Decentralized Resilience – Strengthening local economies, food systems, and governance to reduce dependence on global supply chains.

The Choice Before Us

Ecological overshoot is the defining challenge of our time. We are living in a moment of decision, where we can either transform our systems and lifestyles or continue down a path that leads to collapse. Recognizing overshoot as a systemic issue—rather than just a collection of environmental problems—is the first step toward meaningful action.

A sustainable future is possible, but it requires a profound shift in values, priorities, and ways of living. The question is not whether we will transition, but whether we do it by design or by disaster.

The Spaceshuttle Columbia disaster and lessons for us collectively

Monday, 3 February, 2025Monday, 3 February, 2025 moe Leave a comment

I am watching The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth about the Columbia disaster in 2003.

Two things stand out to me, partly because it’s highlighted in this documentary:

WHAT WE PRIORITIZE

One is what we prioritize in our lives and in organizations.

Do we prioritize reality and dealing with reality as best as we can? Do we prioritize the serious issues and investigating them thoroughly? Do we prioritize lives?

Or do we prioritize other things like hierarchy, norms, identities, authority, and business as usual? (Not questioning the decisions and views of those in authority.)

HOW WE SEE SOLUTIONS

The other is if and how we see solutions.

A manager shut down further inquiries into what led to the disaster. He said: Even if we knew, there was nothing we could do.

Someone under him wanted to investigate more thoroughly. He said: If we had known, there would be several things we could do. We would have an Apollo 13 situation where the brightest minds would look for solutions, including solutions we couldn’t see at the time. The crew could do emergency repairs. The Russians could send up a spacecraft to rescue the crew. We could angle the shuttle differently on re-entry to reduce the risk to the shuttle.

I don’t know what came first. Did they see it this way before the disaster, and this impacted what they prioritized? Did the manager shut it down because he thought there would be no solutions? Did the underling want everything in the open because he knew there were solutions, including solutions they were not aware of at the time?

Or did they emphasize it after? Did the manager say “there would have been no solutions” to justify his inaction? Did the underling emphasize the options to support his wish to investigate more thoroughly?

My guess is that both may be true.

LESSONS FOR US COLLECTIVELY TODAY

These are questions we are collectively faced with today.

We are in a massive ecological crisis and are only having a small taste of what’s to come.

We are in a global ecological overshoot. We are collectively using far more resources than this planet can replenish. This is similar to living off a savings account. It looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom and our lifestyle comes crashing down. If we continue as we do, it means massive ecological unraveling and a crash of our civilization and humanity.

Just like NASA, we know about the problem, and we can choose to take it seriously or not.

What do we prioritize? Reality and the future of humanity and Earth? Or tradition, business as usual, and not questioning authority? (In our case, authority is tradition, norms, and business as usual.)

What we prioritize is shown in our lives and actions. Collectively and individually, what do we put our resources and attention to?

What are we willing to live with? Are we willing to live with a disaster, as the NASA managers were? Are we willing to go against culture, norms, and tradition and prioritize life and the future?

NOTICING IT HERE AND NOW

Just like in NASA, some of us prioritize reality and life, and some will prioritize other things, and there is a mix within each of us too.

It’s good to notice, and it’s good to notice what we prioritize, through our choices and life, here and now.

What do I spend my resources on – my time, money, attention – here and now?

Which present and future am I giving my resources to here and now?

Am I focusing on the solutions? Do I trust we will find more solutions if we commit to it?

“THE ACTIONS WE TOOK WERE ADEQUATE FOR THE PROBLEM WE WERE FACING”

I saw more of the documentary. In the final episode, one of the NASA ex-managers (who refused to obtain more information about the situation while the shuttle was in orbit) said: The actions we took were adequate for the problem we were facing.

I imagine some will say that in one or a few decades when we are further into our ecological crisis and the collapse is undeniable. They will pretend they responded appropriately based on the information they had, even if they did almost nothing.

Of course, it’s complete nonsense. We know exactly what’s going on, and we know how serious it is.

We know we are in a global ecological overshoot. We know what happens if we continue as we do. (And continue to deal with it in the periphery.) We know it will lead to the unraveling of ecosystems and the collapse of civilization and humanity.

We also know that many will rationalize it exactly as that NASA manager: We responded correctly based on the information we had. We couldn’t have known it would be that serious. Nobody told us. We are innocent. If we had known, we would have done it differently. We are good people.

It’s a feeble excuse and an attempt to preserve a (false) self-image instead of being honest and taking responsibility. The information is easily available. We know what’s happening. And we are collectively doing almost nothing about it.

“FAILURE TO IMAGINE FAILURE”

Towards the end of the documentary, someone mentions a “failure to imagine failure”.

That may be part of the reason, but it seems more a symptom than a cause. It’s a symptom of prioritizing other things over reality and being honest with oneself.

Of course, we know that democracy is an anomaly, fragile, and can easily be eroded and undone. We know from history that it’s a rare anomaly and we know it can easily be eroded and undone. Still, many voted for Trump, and many who normally would vote for the Democrats decided to not vote. They did so knowing full well that Trump’s explicit project is to undo democracy and that he has the means to do so. (Especially in the US, a culture of domination, where people seem trained to yield to money, power, and influence.) It can very well happen, and they are OK with it.

We also know full well that continued global ecological overshoot leads to the collapse of ecosystems, civilization, and possibly humanity. Civilizations fall, and if we have a global civilization, it’s our global civilizations that fall. Species come and go. What comes together falls apart. It’s inevitable and the only question is when and how. In this case, the majority of people around the world prioritize other things over taking this seriously. They are, in how they live their lives, OK with the collapse of ecosystems, civilization, and possibly humanity. As long as they can continue to live their life much as before then the end of life as we know it is OK. They prioritize normality over life – and life in the future.

The image is by me and Midjourney

Our only real solutions are collective

Wednesday, 8 January, 2025Saturday, 18 January, 2025 moe Leave a comment

This is terrible and highlights several things about our current climate and ecological crisis.

More frequent natural disasters. We have always experienced disasters of different kinds, including natural disasters, and with the changing climate and our ecological crisis, they are becoming more frequent. We are just seeing the beginning of it.

Wealth insulates up to a point. Wealth can insulate us but only sometimes and up to a point. In this case, I highly doubt it helped. In the longer run, wealth won’t save any of us from increasingly severe and dramatic changes to the living systems we are all part of.

A wake-up call? I wonder if these kinds of events serve as a wake-up call for some, both in terms of the severity of the situation we are in and how ill-prepared we are for it. Some may even realize the systemic problems that require systemic solutions.

The poor are hit hardest. Those with already very little are the ones hardest hit by natural disasters. They can’t buy themselves out of it. They don’t have the resources to avoid it or recover from it.

Our only real solutions are collective. We are in the same boat here. We have all contributed to the climate and ecological crisis since we are part of this system. It’s all our responsibility (apart from the ones struggling to survive) to create a system that’s ecologically sound and has regeneration – of nature, society, and people – as its focus. We get through it collectively, or none of us will.

Looking beyond our human-centered view. These situations are an opportunity to look beyond our usual anthropocentric view. Millions if not billions of living beings are impacted by these natural disasters, as much if not more than us. When we work to change our system to prevent an excess of them in the future, we do it for all of us. We do it for all life, not just our own species.

Domination culture, global ecological overshoot, and violence toward ourselves

Saturday, 21 December, 2024Sunday, 9 February, 2025 moe Leave a comment

How Empire and Environmental Destruction Go Hand-In-Hand

A new book called The Burning Earth: A History takes on a massive question: How did we get here? “Here” being this point in environmental history and decades deep into the climate crisis. Over the span of 800 years of history, the book connects the dots of how the pursuit of empire, environmental destruction, and human migration led us to this moment in time.

The most recent episode of Science Friday has a segment on domination culture and violence against people and Earth. It’s good to see that this receives attention in the mainstream media, which it does now and then.

I haven’t read the book or even listened to the segment. It’s very difficult for me to take in information as I used to, because of the fatigue and brain fog (CFS) and also my covid brain.

That said, the blurb itself reminded me of some familiar questions.

DOMINATION AND PARTNERSHIP CULTURES

(1) Why don’t more people talk about domination versus partnership cultures?

It’s a way to frame our understanding of human cultures and civilizations that is simple, makes sense, and allows us to explore the upsides and downsides of each.

One of the upsides of the domination culture – the one a sizeable part of humanity has lived with for a few thousand years now, and in a more modern version over the last few hundred years – is science, technology, art, and so on. A sense of separation has allowed us a third-person relationship with reality and ourselves, and a lot of value has come out of it.

An obvious downside of the domination culture, as the author seems to point out, is violence against ourselves, others, and the Earth. This has come about through internalizing domination culture assumptions: We are separate from the rest of nature. Nature is infinite. Humans are inherently more valuable than the rest of nature. The sacred is “out there” in the sky, the afterlife, or somewhere else. Only humans have souls. In most polarities, one end is good and valuable and the other less good and less valuable. (For instance, for the European culture: Heaven and earth, man and woman, European and non-European, Christian and non-Christian, etc.) We best understand something by taking it apart to its smallest parts.

I should also mention that there is always, by necessity, a mix of domination and partnership elements in our approach and culture. There is always an element of control and nudging, and always an element of conscious partnership with natural processes and dynamics.

This book seems to talk about this, which is very good. (I don’t know if the author uses Rianne Eisler’s language of domination and partnership cultures or Starhawk’s power-over versus power-with, but that doesn’t matter.)

GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT

(2) Why do so many talk about the climate crisis and not global ecological overshoot?

Global ecological overshoot is the overarching situation of which climate change is just one of many expressions.

We are collectively using far more resources than Earth can replenish, and we are creating more waste than it can handle without significant disruptions. Our collective ecological footprint is larger than our planet. The only reason we can do it is because there has been a larger surplus created by Earth over millions of years, but that’s rapidly spent. This is obviously not a situation that can continue.

We see the consequences of this all around us: Very few intact and healthy ecosystems remain, and with it, we have a massive loss of habitat and species. Toxins are everywhere in the air, soil, water, and our bodies. Important ocean currents may shift causing large changes to the climate on the surface. The climate is changing, causing drought, flooding, and more extreme weather in general.

If our global ecological overshoot is such a crucial topic, why do so few talk about it? Why do so many talk about climate change instead? I am honestly not sure. Maybe it seems easier to focus on one of the many issues, and see them in isolation.

The drawback of our attention on climate change instead of overshoot is also obvious: We miss out on a focus on the overarching and far more serious issue.

AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

(3) Why did he focus on the modern Western culture and not the agricultural revolution?

The more extreme version of domination culture has indeed unfolded over the last few hundred years, at least when it comes to our worldview and its expression in science, technology, and the destruction of our planet.

And yet, the main shift from predominant partnership cultures to domination cultures likely happened with the agricultural revolution.

Before then, we were all indigenous.

With the agricultural revolution, we got people who owned land, animals, and people. They accumulated property and wealth from what had been the commons, while others found themselves on the other end of the spectrum.

All of this needed to be justified, and that’s where the worldviews and assumptions of domination culture come in.

The essential assumptions are the ones mentioned above:

We are separate from the rest of nature. Nature is infinite in its resources and capacity to absorb our waste. Nature‘s resources are primarily for our use. Humans are inherently more valuable than the rest of nature. The sacred is “out there” in the sky, the afterlife, or somewhere else. Only humans have souls. In most polarities, one end is good and valuable and the other less good and less valuable. (For instance, for the European culture: Heaven and earth, man and woman, European and non-European, Christian and non-Christian, etc.) We best understand something by taking it apart to its smallest parts.

And also:

You’ll receive your reward in the afterlife, so don’t rock the boat by trying to make changes now. Non-human species don’t feel or think so we can treat them as we want. Science and technology will save us. You are inherently sinful.

And an almost infinite number of other assumptions, most or all of them familiar to us since we live in this culture and have internalized these assumptions. They are with us whether they match our conscious view or not.

I assume the author focuses on the last 800 years since that’s the modern age, and certain aspects of the domination culture – especially related to science and technology – were amplified during this time.

A FEW MORE WORDS

I thought I would mention a few more things about this:

The remaining indigenous cultures and peoples are a very important correction to the domination culture, especially the Western globalized domination culture.

The violence of domination culture happens within all of us who have internalized it. We are violent towards ourselves 24/7. We have parts of us telling us that our natural impulses are wrong or bad, that we should be ashamed, that we are not good enough, that we need a savior “out there”, and so on. We don’t know how to consistently relate to our experiences with kindness and some wisdom. We feel lost and alienated. Most if not nearly all mental and emotional problems people in modern cultures live with come from – is rooted in or relates to – domination culture.

As I see it, a sane path forward is to (a) acknowledge global ecological overshoot and the profound transformation needed to create a more ecologically sound civilization, (b) recognize the difference between domination and partnership cultures and the role of domination culture in our ecological crisis, and (c) developing a civilization and culture that takes the best from past domination and partnership cultures, is ecologically sound, and where what’s easy and attractive to do is also what supports this living social and ecological system we are part of.

In this way, we can find a conscious and deep partnership with the living systems we are part of. We can be a conscious part of the creativity and evolution of this system.

It’s very much possible. We know how to do it, or at least enough to get a good start. At the same time, it seems unlikely that we’ll find the collective will to do it anytime soon. So it’s something we each can implement in our own lives and in formal and informal groups locally, regionally, and globally.

We don’t know how much it will change the world, but we know it will change our world and the world of the many beings who will benefit from it.

As I see it, regeneration of ecosystems is an essential and central part of this process. We can do this in our gardens, parks, local forests, and so on. Farmers can shift towards building soil health, polycultures, organic methods (Integrated Pest Management), natives, and perennials. Forest owners can diversify their forest to include more native species (to support insects, birds, and other birdlife) and more food producing perennials, and in the process also diversify their income. Individually and collectively, we can buy and regenerate land that’s degraded. Governments can regenerate public lands, land we all own together. Ocean ecosystems also need to be regenerated, and we need to develop approaches and knowledge of how to best go about this.

The web of life: The real context for our lives and everything we care about

Monday, 9 December, 2024Wednesday, 11 December, 2024 moe Leave a comment

I have written about this several times before (including in my teens), although I keep revisiting it to help myself process it.

It’s pretty simple:

WE ARE NATURE

This living planet is a seamless system. It’s nearly infinitely abundant if allowed to be, and it also has limits.

We are a part of this living planet. We are nature. We are local and temporary expressions of this living, dynamic, adapting, evolving, system.

Our life and everyone and everything we care about is part of this living system. We are, and all is, dependent on the health of this living system. What happens to nature happens to us and all we care about.

WE ARE IN GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT

We have an economic system – and a civilization in general – that assumes separation and infinite nature. We assume we are separate from nature, and that nature has infinite resources and infinite capacity to absorb the toxins and waste of our civilization.

This assumption, combined with our numbers and technology, means we are in a global ecological overshoot. We use more resources than Earth can replenish. This is similar to living off money in a savings account. It looks fine for a while, and when we reach bottom, our lifestyle comes crashing down.

In this case, our lives may come crashing down too.

We know how to reduce our collective ecological overshoot. We know how to live well, and more than well, within the limits of this planet, and we know how to support the living systems in creating more and more abundance. There is no lack of attractive alternatives. The question is our collective will.

THE REAL CONTEXT FOR OUR LIVES AND CIVILIZATION

This is the real context for our lives, our civilization, and everyone and everything we care about.

In a sane world, it would be the conscious context for all our activities – economy, education, growing food, energy, art, music, movies, culture, news and media, and so on.

Our economic system would be aligned with ecological realities and set it up so what’s easy and attractive to do is also ecologically sound and supports life and the lives of future generations.

Our education would place ecology as the context for everything and our first priority.

Our news and media would see ecology as the context of everything, which it is, and prioritize it over other topics.

WHY IS IT NOT THE ONE OVERARCHING ISSUE FOR ALL OF US?

Why is it not like this?

We know that the living systems of this planet are unraveling because of the activities of our civilization.

We know we are nature and that we – and everyone and everything we care about – are 100% dependent on the health of the larger living systems we are part of.

We know we need profound changes to become a more ecologically sound civilization.

We know solutions that will benefit and create a higher quality of life for everyone.

So why don’t we collectively do what we need to do in order to survive? Why do we not do what’s needed for our descendants to have a good, or even decent, life?

SOME REASONS WHY

Some may…

Think we still have time. It’s not urgent. If politicians, the media, and my friends and neighbors don’t treat it as urgent, it must not be urgent. (We don’t have time, we are reaching critical tipping points.)

Think others will do it. Politicians, corporations, the market, scientists, or future generations will do it. I can just live my life as before and leave it to them. They know better anyway. (This is about all of us, we cannot expect others to do it.)

See it as a sacrifice. To make these changes, we’ll need to sacrifice so it’s best to wait until it’s necessary, or see if it will be necessary. (In reality, the real solutions are win-win-win solutions that improve the quality of our lives.)

Assume it will impact others, not me. It will impact those who don’t have much resources to prepare, adapt, and move. It will impact the poor in the world, not me. (Yes, it will first impact the poor, and then everyone including you and your children.)

Think nature is out there, as a kind of appendix or luxury, and I am here. What happens to nature doesn’t impact me much. They are so detached from reality, and so far into the imagined separation, that they don’t realize that we are nature and that what happens to nature happens to us.

Think there will be a technological solution. This is another version of “others will take care of it” and it’s misguided since what’s required is a profound and deepening transformation of our civilization, in all aspects of life and thought.

Think we just need to tweak something here and there. They don’t understand how serious the situation is and the profound changes required to do something about it. They are in denial.

Have other priorities. They see other and more immediate things as more important: Work, relationships, children, entertainment, enjoyment. They don’t realize that the web of life is what makes it all possible and is, whether we notice or not, the main priority. If we care about anything, we care about the web of life we are part of, whether we notice or not.

Don’t trust science and scientists and the ones concerned about this. For whatever reason, they don’t trust the ones who have decades of their lives to understand what’s happening with the world and what they have found and tell us about. They think that their views are equal to the views of experts.

Misdiagnose the problem. They see politicians, corporations, or greed as the problem. They overlook the systemic reasons for the situation we are in. They overlook that we have a civilization and economic system that assumes infinite nature.

Feel blamed and guilty so go into reactivity, denial, and blame. They blame themselves, are uncomfortable with it, and react to it in a variety of ways. They don’t realize that the problem is with our system and our worldview and we are all in the same boat. By living in this system, which just about all of us do, we participate in the destruction of the web of life. That’s inevitable and it applies to all of us, no matter whether we recycle or take the train or whatever we do or don’t do.

Need to focus on surviving from day to day. They don’t have extra resources to consider these things, or at least do something about it. (This is one of the self-regulating and self-preserving dynamics of our current system. The more people who live in this way, the fewer people who have the resources to question and try to change the system.)

Feel that these concerns don’t fit their identity and image. These are the concerns of hippies, treehuggers, newagers, liberals, and generally feeble-minded people. It’s not for me. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to be in the same category as them. (This is something that impacts all of us equally, and all of our children, independent of whatever labels we put on ourselves and others.)

SOME SOLUTIONS

Emphasize that…

This is a systemic problem and we are all part of the problem and potentially the solution. It’s not about blame or guilt or someone being better than anyone else. We are all in the same boat here.

We are nature. What happens to nature happens to us. (Nature is not something “out there”, it’s equally in here and what we are and live.)

We don’t have time. The situation is critical enough so we need to do something now. We cannot wait for the future or for someone else in the future to do it.

We are all part of the solution if we choose to be. This is not about others doing it. This involves all of us. Nobody is left out.

If we care about anything at all, we care about the web of life we are part of. This living system is what makes it all possible. The combined caring for everyone and everything we care about it our actual caring for this web of life, whether we notice or not, and that’s important to notice.

We already have win-win-win solutions. It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game, the way it has often been presented. Food forests are an example of solutions that produce an abundance of food, greatly help wildlife and our ecosystem, and are profoundly enjoyable for us to experience and be part of.

Since it’s a systems problem, we need systems solutions. We need to transform our whole civilization to be more ecologically informed, aligned, and sound. There is not just one way to do this. We can all contribute and find our own flavor.

A FEW OTHER PERSPECTIVES

I have written about other sides to this in other articles: What we can do as individuals. Using the world as a mirror (projection/shadow work). Recognizing that we are all part of this much larger living system. And so on.

Tipping points: Awakening, global ecosystems, Syria

Sunday, 8 December, 2024Sunday, 8 December, 2024 moe Leave a comment

What happened in Syria over the last couple of days is an example of a phase transition in systems, commonly known as a tipping point. We had a situation that seemed relatively stable (if a civil war can be called stable) and suddenly there was a shift where the government forces collapsed and the rebels took over. I suspect people closely involved could see signs of it happening, but for many, it happened suddenly and unexpectedly. (What will happen next is anyone’s guess.)

Systems try to remain dynamically stable for as long as possible. There will always be factors that don’t fit the system very well and create disturbances and destabilizations. If these add up over time and put enough strain on the system, it will suddenly change to accommodate these factors.

This can happen with democracies. It may well be that the democracy in the US will survive Trump, and it may also be that there is a sudden shift from democracy to a far less democratic regime. It depends on innumerable complex factors so it’s difficult to predict.

It’s what I suspect happens with awakening. The system – our mind – is in one state for a long time, where it pretends to be something within its field of experience. Things build up over time, sometimes because of spiritual explorations, practices, and smaller insights. Then there is a sudden shift where the consciousness we are recognizes itself, and recognizes that it forms itself into its whole field of experience. The context for everything changes and it’s as if everything is turned inside-out and upside-down.

It can also happen with the global living system we are part of. Our worldview of separation combined with our large numbers and effective technology put strains on this system. Our lives don’t match the existing system since we operate on the assumption of infinite nature, the strain builds up over time, and we see signs of instability. (This is where we are now.) If we don’t change our collective behavior, this planetary living system will suddenly shift to accommodate the new situation. Our civilization will almost certainly collapse, and it’s possible – some say likely – that this new state will not be conducive to human life.

Our ecological crisis and what could be

Sunday, 1 December, 2024Sunday, 1 December, 2024 moe Leave a comment

I saved a few images that came through my social media feed this morning and thought I would say a few words about them.

The cartoon above captures the general views I have seen among those concerned about ecosystems and nature and how these have changed over the last few decades.

Since my teens, I have been into systems views and knew that we needed a thorough transformation of our whole civilization to survive. Then and for a while, I had optimism. I thought we would collectively understand and make the changes necessary.

These days, I am not so sure anymore. I am not sure if we’ll ever find that collective will. It seems more likely that life will make the changes necessary – with or without the collaboration of whatever is left of humanity.

In our individual lives, life will decide for us if we wait too long. The same may very well be the case with Earth and us. We are waiting for too long, and Earth will make decisions for us. Whether that leads to a world inhabitable by humans or not is something we’ll see.

Science is amazing. It’s baffling how much we know about the world through science, considering how young modern science is, and considering that we are just beginning to scratch the surface in terms of understanding.

Something we know from science is that (a) we are in a global ecological overshoot, (b) this will lead to the unraveling and collapse of our current ecosystems, and (c) since we are part of and depend on Earth’s living systems, what happens with Earth happens with us.

This is by far the major issue today. It’s the one overarching issue.

Everyone we care about and everything we care about – whether it’s celebrities, sports, politics, human rights, or whatever it is – depends on these living systems we are part of.

So why is it not the main issue in our public discourse? Why is it not the main issue in our everyday conversations? (It is for some of us, including me.) Why is it not our main priority in any and all decisions we make, including who we vote for? Why is it not the context for any and every discussion about any other topic?

I have written about some of the likely reasons in other articles: We mistakenly think… we still have time, others will take care of it, it’s a problem for future generations, it will happen to others, we are insulated by our privilege, we’ll find a technological solution, we just need to tweak a few things here and there, it will involve too much sacrifice, it will go against my cherished identity, I am just one so can’t do anything, it’s easier to pretend it’s not happening, and so on.

Yes, colonialism indeed rewrote the story of nature for the colonized, at least to some extent depending on how much of what they had was lost due to genocide, cultural eradication, laws against speaking their languages and following their traditions, and so on.

I would go further back in time, to the agricultural revolution. Before the agricultural revolution, we were all indigenous. We likely saw the sacred in everyone and everything, and generally had more of a partnership orientation with ourselves, others, and the world. With the agricultural revolution, some amassed wealth and others did not, so to justify the more dominant relationship with nature and other people, the ones with wealth images ideologies than then were adopted by just about everyone.

These are imaginations of separation: Humans are separate from nature. Nature is here for our use. Nature is infinite in its resources and capacity to absorb waste from human activities. If you are lower in the hierarchy, it’s your fault. (Lack of character, wrong ethnicity, bad karma, or something else.) You’ll reap your rewards in the afterlife. (So don’t rock the boat now.) Pretend to believe absurdities told to your secondhand, and you’ll be saved. We understand something by taking it apart to its smallest parts. A thought can be true, and exclusively true so alternate views are wrong. Non-human beings don’t have cognition, emotions, and so on, or – at least – it’s so different from ours that we can still justify imprisoning, torturing, and eating them, or destroying their habitat. If we win, someone or something else must lose. And much more.

Colonialism inflicted this domination culture onto the colonized, that’s true. But the colonizers inflicted this on themselves millennia earlier, at some point after the agricultural revolution. We inflicted it on ourselves, and it’s time to heal and find a more healthy relationship with ourselves, others, and the web of life.

Yes, that’s true. We evolved to live as our indigenous ancestors. We evolved to live in small and mostly egalitarian groups. We evolved to live in and as nature. We evolved to see ourselves as nature. (Since that’s obviously what we are.)

With our food forest and regeneration project in the Andes, I feel I am coming closer to this. I work in partnership with nature. I live in nature. I am nature helping itself regenerate.

We can have this world. At the very least, it’s easy to imagine it. It’s easy to imagine a world where most of us live in a partnership culture, where we have good social safety nets, where people have access to education and health care, where our economic system takes ecological realities into account, where we grow food in partnership with nature in ways that heal the soil and our ecosystems and provides habitat for wildlife. We can have a world of abundance. We know how to do all that. It’s within our reach.

The only question is our collective will. Are we collectively smart enough to choose this world?

Ecological overshoot & collapse preparedness and acceptance

Tuesday, 26 November, 2024Wednesday, 27 November, 2024 moe Leave a comment

We don’t know anything for certain about the future.

The only thing we know is that it won’t be as we expect. Even if we get the big picture right – which is not a given – it will be different in the details, and living it is always different from imagining it.

THE CURRENT PICTURE

That said, we know we are in global ecological overshoot, we know what will happen if we continue the overshoot, and we know that we collectively are not doing nearly enough to change it.

That’s a pretty dismal image of the future, and it’s unfortunately rooted in data, science, and what we see in the world today.

Unless we find the collective will to change, and to make profound changes to all aspects of our civilization and lives, we are headed for collapse.

We are already in that collapse, it’s just that some of us have the privilege to imagine otherwise, or we need all our resources to deal with the challenges of daily life.

GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT

What is global ecological overshoot?

It’s when we collectively use more natural resources than this living planet can replenish.

And it’s when we emit more pollution of all kinds than the natural systems can deal with gracefully, without being severely disrupted and impacted.

That’s already happening. We need more than one Earth to deal with the activities of our civilization. If we all lived like we do in industrialized countries, we would need several Earths.

This is similar to living on a savings account and spending more than the interest that replenishes it. It looks fine as long as there is money left. We can still live our lives as normal, while perhaps ignoring warnings from people who see the savings going down. When we hit the bottom of the account, our lifestyle comes crashing down.

We are currently close to the fuzzy bottom of our ecological savings account. We are seeing the signs all around us: unraveling ecosystems, massive loss of species, massive loss of different types of ecosystems, extreme weather, and so on. We also know that the oceans may die, the ocean currents may shift, we’ll have more desertification, coastal areas will flood, and so on.

THE PRIMARY AND OVERARCHING ISSUE

We are nature. We are ephemeral and local expressions of the living systems of this planet.

What happens to these living systems happens to us.

That means that this – our global ecological overshoot – is the primary and overarching issue in our times.

It’s the context for our lives and everything we care about.

Nothing is even close since everything else happens within this context.

WHY IS THIS NOT THE MAIN ISSUE?

It seems pretty simple and easy to grasp.

So why is it not the main issue for us collectively?

Why are those of us concerned about this still on the margins and in the minority?

As usual, there are probably many answers:

It can seem too big and overwhelming. I am just one person and can’t fix it on my own, so it’s easier to focus on other things.

It may seem too abstract and distant. It’s global so perhaps difficult to grasp for some. It may seem like something that’s happening in other places or in the future. It’s not so relevant to me.

We may have more pressing and urgent things to take care of. If we live from paycheck to paycheck, or below or close to the poverty line, we may not have the resources – mental and otherwise – to learn and be concerned about this. Billions of people live in this situation.

We may be caught up in too much trauma and reactivity to take in, analyze, and respond to the situation. We chose trauma reaction over the bigger picture and don’t seem to have much choice.

We may misdiagnose the problem. We may think the problem is with corporations, politicians, capitalism, or greed. If so, we may not find effective solutions.

Some may think they know how it will unfold. They think they know we are headed into collapse, or that we’ll get through it. In either case, that imaginary knowing may lead to inactivity.

We may think we can tweak a few things here and there and that’s enough. We don’t realize that what’s required is a profound change in all aspects of our civilization. We need systems that take ecological realities into account.

We may expect a technological solution. We just need to improve solar power or find some new amazing technology, and that will solve our problems. (It won’t.)

A few even rely on some kind of technologically based geo-engineering, which is almost guaranteed to create more problems than it solves. We understand far too little about the complexities of our living systems to do that successfully. (It will likely always be that way.) The only geo-engineering we know works is regeneration, reforesting (with a diversity of native species), regenerative agriculture, and similar.

We may think that the changes involve too much sacrifice. Yes, we have to sacrifice a lot that’s familiar, but the real solutions are win-win solutions that benefit us along with ecosystems and future generations. They involve healthier foods, far more diverse and vibrant nature within and around our communities, the return of forests and wildlife, and so on. What we sacrifice is nothing compared to what we gain.

A few may have some kind of religious idea about it that prevents engagement and action. They may wait for a savior, or see it as a welcome apocalypse, or expect aliens to intervene, or something similar.

It may not fit our identity. We may see concerns about ecology as something for hippies, liberals, or progressives, so we don’t want to touch it with a mile-long stick. We want to distance ourselves from it as much as possible. We dismiss, ridicule, or ignore it.

WILL WE CHANGE IN TIME?

The big question is if we’ll collectively change in time.

How much change are we talking about? If we are to change to become ecologically sound and sustainable, that requires a profound and thorough change of all aspects of our society, culture, and civilization. That’s a tall order.

What do we mean by “in time“? We are already far into the destabilization of the Earth systems, and it will get worse before it gets better, even with massive changes in how we organize our lives.

For a long time, I assumed people were smart, informed, and flexible enough to change when the scale and severity of our ecological crisis was more clear. Now, it is inescapable and there is very little response and few signs that we collectively understand the severity of the situation or are willing to make the necessary changes.

What we are seeing instead is increased fragmentation and the same old distractions and focus on minor issues compared to this overarching one. In the US, we have just seen that a large segment of the population is willing to support an authoritarian populist who explicitly wants to undo any kind of environmental regulations and attempts to slow down the destruction of our life support systems.

COLLAPSE ACCEPTANCE

Even if we cannot know anything for certain about the future, It’s good to find acceptance for the possibility of a collapse.

It’s possible that within the lifetime of many of us alive today, we’ll see a far more dramatic unraveling of our ecosystems and with it, the unraveling of our civilization.

Realizing that can bring up a lot of grief, at least at first, along with anger, hopelessness, not giving a fuck, and so on. We will likely go through the many aspects and phases of grief, and it will visit again in new waves.

It’s important to feel all of that. This is the grief of this living system – through its temporal and local aspect that’s us – grieving itself. It’s healthy and natural and allows us to move on.

We may eventually find a kind of acceptance of collapse.

WHAT COMES TOGETHER FALLS APART

What comes together falls apart.

Everyone and everything we know has come together and will fall apart.

It’s not a question of if but when. In a sense, it has already happened. It’s inevitable.

In that context, when it happens matters less – whether it happens within a few decades or centuries or millennia.

For me, it may well go away when this human self goes away. The world may turn off.

We also know that death leads to new life.

The death of stars led to this living planet. The death of species made space for new species. The death of individuals gives space to new individuals. The death of civilizations has made space for new civilizations.

Everything is change. Change is what allows anything new to exist. It’s what allows this moment to exist.

Another word for change is death. The death of all previous moments allows this moment to be. The death of everything that has been allows what’s here to be.

Death may seem terrible from an exclusively individual perspective, and it’s also what allows everyone and everything we know to be here. We wouldn’t be here without it.

It’s the cost of everything being at all. It’s what allows anything to be.

A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE AND MOVE FROM

Collapse acceptance is a good place to live and move from.

It’s realistic. Acceptance means we don’t mentally fight with it so much.

It can help us set our priorities straight. We won’t so easily get distracted by minor issues and the many manifestations of the collapse.

We can find a deeper and more genuine gratitude for what’s here now. We may more fully appreciate the wonders of what’s here.

It gives us a context for our lives. It can even give us a direction.

We know we don’t know for certain. We don’t know what will happen or how it will look.

WHAT WE CAN DO AS INDIVIDUALS

What can we do?

Here are some things I find helpful for me:

Learning about ecological footprint and overshoot and what’s required to significantly reduce our collective footprint. Learn about the solutions.

Learning about the collapse of civilizations and how it looks. (Some will be similar and some different, especially since this is a global civilization.) Expect political instability, social fragmentation, an upsurge in conspiracy theories, radicalism, fascism, nationalism, disinformation, denial, and so on. It’s part of the process.

Identifying and questioning stressful thoughts. (The Work of Byron Katie.)

Setting aside time for nourishing movement. (Qigong, tai chi, Brema, dance.)

Setting aside time for somatic tension release. I like Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE).

Doing an all-inclusive gratitude practice, at least now and then. (“I am grateful for…”). I include everything, including what my personality is not so easily grateful for.

Exploring heart-centered practices. I find tonglen most helpful and effective, and also ho’oponopno.

Finding communities of like-minded people, especially the ones focusing on living some of the solutions. (I happen to like the ecospirituality and permaculture communities.)

Creating ties within my actual IRL community. Finding people growing food and buy from them. Finding likeminded people. Create close connections that benefit you and them now and possibly later.

Finding life-centered worldviews and explore how it is to live from them. My favorites are the Universe Story, the Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, systems views, and integral models.

These also help me come to terms with death at all scales – from planets to individuals. Death is what gives space for something new and different. We are here because of the death of stars, ecosystems, and species. Our death will give space for new ecosystems, species, and individuals.

Focusing on the solutions and living them, even if it’s just one or a few. This gives momentum and hope.

If appropriate and possible, it can make sense to move to a location that’s more conducive to weathering the coming changes. For instance, a place where it’s easier to grow food and where there are many interested in regeneration and similar solutions.

I moved to a small town in the Andes where there is an international community of people interested in these kinds of things. We are fortunate to be stewards of some land here, and we are developing a food forest, collecting rainwater, installing composting toilets, planning to get a woodburning stove, and so on. We are also helping this land regenerate and reforest, and are creating good connections in the process.

We are also creating ties within this community. The more people we know, and the closer the personal ties, the better we may be able to navigate what’s coming.

I also find it helpful to notice my nature and explore living from that noticing. To myself, I am fundamentally consciousness, and the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as the consciousness I am. This helps soften and release identifications with and as something in particular within the world. It gives a different context for it all.

WHAT WE CAN DO AS GROUPS

At a group level, we have the opportunity to do more.

Communities are immensely important in times of crisis. We need to rely on each other for support and practical assistance. It’s important to create good community ties before the crisis happens and to create a culture where we help and support each other.

It’s also important to identify the most vulnerable in the community and help them.

It’s also important to be mostly self-reliant at the community level – with food, water, fuel, healthcare, and other basics.

One of the main things we can do is regeneration – of gardens, parks, forests, and degraded land everywhere.

Where we live in the Andes, many collecting rainwater, grow food without chemicals (including in food forests), learn about and practice regeneration, and so on. All of this will be extra important in the coming decades.

HOW IT MAY LOOK

How may the collapse look?

I imagine there will be an increasing divergence between those still in denial and those who acknowledge what’s going on and seek practical solutions.

There will be mass migrations, and people opposing these migrations.

Some will go further into reactivity, anger, scapegoating, nationalism, fascism, conspiracy theories, and zero-sum solutions.

There will be increased political instability and social fragmentation.

In many places, there may be a shift from national to local governance.

There will be more extreme weather, including drought and flooding.

There will be famine and scarcity of clean water.

There will be more small communities focusing on living the solutions, including creating polycultures and food forests. Some regions may also do this if enough people are on the same wavelength.

Many have already died, and more will. How many is anyone’s guess.

Some may survive and live in a different world, but who and where and how many is an open question. It also depends on how far our global living system will shift and how livable it will be for creatures like us.

A world of ecological limits & abundance

Sunday, 10 November, 2024Wednesday, 27 November, 2024 moe Leave a comment

This living planet is a world of limits and of abundance.

That’s perhaps obvious, but the implications of this seem not so obvious to us collectively.

A WORLD OF ECOLOGICAL LIMITS

This planet is finite, and it has finite resources and a finite capacity to replenish what we take from it.

Our collective ecological footprint is larger than Earth. That means that we are in global ecological overshoot. We are using more resources than Earth can replenish, and we are putting more toxins into these living systems than they know how to handle.

This is similar to living off a savings account and spending more than what’s coming in. At some point, we reach the bottom of the account and our lifestyle comes crashing down.

We are now getting closer to the bottom of our ecological savings account, and we see the signs everywhere: ecosystem loss, climate instability, possible changing ocean currents, ocean acidification and warming, toxins and plastics in all living systems, loss of insects, loss of species, and so on.

There is no hard or clear bottom to our ecological savings account, as there is in a bank account. What happens when we get closer to the bottom is the destabilization and unraveling of most or all the systems of this living planet. That includes us since we are local and temporary expressions of these systems.

A WORLD OF ECOLOGICAL ABUNDANCE

This living system is also a world of abundance.

We are developing a food forest, and although it requires resources and effort at first, it will in time give a significant and increasing return on that investment. The return on investment is almost infinite because we are working with the systems and inherent productivity of nature.

A food forest produces healthy soil, an abundance and variety of foods for humans and wildlife, seeds, seedlings, natural mulch, experience and knowledge that can be shared, and it becomes more abundant and self-reliant as it matures. It’s an immensely valuable gift for future generations.

If we work with the living systems of nature and the inherent productivity of these systems, this is a world of abundance.

DOMINATION VS PARTNERSHIP ORIENTATION

This ties into a domination vs partnership culture, and a zero-sum vs win-win mindset.

Modern agriculture is an expression of a domination and zero-sum mindset. It’s a way of growing food that relies on monocultures and chemical inputs which reflects a domination mindset. It produces food while damaging the soil and ecosystems, which reflects a zero-sum mindset. There is a win on one side of the equation and a loss on the other.

Food forests are an example of a partnership and and win-win orientation. We mimic natural forests, we improve the soil, we put in a lot of effort in the beginning, and then let nature do most of the work. It’s a win-win solution since it provides food for humans and wildlife while improving the soil, regenerating the land, and creating habitat for wildlife. There is a win on both – or all – sides of the equation.

SCARCITY AND ABUNDANCE

It may seem that our world is one of scarcity, and yet we have more than enough for all humans. It’s a problem of distribution, not scarcity.

Yes, this planet has current limits for how much it can produce and keep up with, and these limits become tighter as ecosystems degrade. As we keep consuming more, and doing so in ecologically unsound ways, this living system we call Earth becomes less able to produce.

At the same time, nature is abundant. If we work with nature, we can support it in becoming wildly abundant. In such a world, our natural living systems will produce more than enough for a large population of wildlife and all humans.

WE ARE LOCAL AND TEMPORARY EXPRESSIONS OF THIS LIVING PLANET

We are local and temporary expressions of the living system of this planet and this universe, whether it’s us as individuals or humanity as a whole.

As Carl Sagan said, we are the universe bringing itself into consciousness. We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe.

When we develop and participate in ecologically unsound systems, we are the Earth destroying itself. When we develop and participate in more life-centered systems, we are the Earth healing itself and coming into more abundance.

Global ecological overshoot: the most overlooked global crisis?

Tuesday, 1 October, 2024Sunday, 6 October, 2024 moe Leave a comment

A friend on social media posted this today. To me, there is another crisis that’s far more serious and far more commonly overlooked: global ecological overshoot.

WHAT IS ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT?

What is global ecological overshoot? In short, it means we collectively are using more resources than Earth can regenerate. We metaphorically live on a savings account that’s quickly depleting.

We have a civilization that assumes an infinite nature, a planet that is finite, and a collective ecological footprint that’s larger than Earth. That’s not only ecocidal, it’s suicidal.

This is due to the systems of our civilization. Our economic and other systems were developed when we could assume that nature is infinite. These days, with more than eight billion people and far more effective technology, it destroys the web of life that we are part of.

This also means that we can change it. Our current systems are not inevitable or the only ones. We can create different systems that are in alignment with ecological realities, and where what’s easy and attractive to do – individually and collectively – is also what’s ecologically sound.

It’s more than possible. What we need is the collective will.

A CRISIS WITH MANY EXPRESSIONS

This is a crisis that underlies a wide range of other crises: Stronger and more frequent wildfires, flooding, drought, and extreme weather in general. Unraveling of ecosystems. Loss of diversity and species. An upswing in cancers among everyone including young people. The coming mass migrations and climate refugees. Rising ocean levels… in meters and tens of meters. Lack of clean water. The death of ocean ecosystems. Changing ocean currents. Increasing food prices and hunger. Increased inequality in access to resources. And much more.

WHY ISN’T THERE MORE FOCUS ON ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT?

Why isn’t there more focus on ecological overshoot?

Here are some possible answers…

There is among some although they don’t use that terminology.

It requires a global systems view and many are not used to that way of thinking.

It requires a longer-term view, and many are focused on getting through their day. Politicians are elected for relatively short periods, so they also don’t have incentives to take it seriously.

It may seem distant and not about us. They don’t realize that they, their life, and everything they care about is embedded in our global ecological systems.

It may seem overwhelming and not something we can do something about, at least not as individuals.

It can seem threatening since it requires systemic changes that impact every aspect of our civilization. Some may not want those changes.

Some follow the cues of politicians, media, and celebrities. If these people don’t talk about global ecological overshoot, then it’s not on our radar and can’t be too important.

Read on for more info.

The natural disaster of a century or a century of natural disasters

Sunday, 29 September, 2024Saturday, 28 December, 2024 moe Leave a comment

This summer, we have seen a series of dramatic natural disasters around the world. Just in the last few weeks, we have had serious flooding in central Europe, Amazon is on fire due to a combination of drought and arson courtesy of beef farmers, and the recent hurricane Helene was one of the strongest ever in the southeast US.

These used to be called the natural disasters of a century. Now, these types of natural disasters are so common they happen every few years or even every year.

PREDICTED CLIMATE WEIRDING AND NATURAL DISASTERS

These are not natural disasters of the century. We are in a century of natural disasters.

It should not be a surprise to anyone. Models developed in the 1970s closely predicted the climate changes we are seeing today. In the 1980s, Norway had a fictional documentary series set in the future describing how climate change impacts the world, and we are living in that world now.

Earth has a thin atmosphere. Our civilization is pumping gasses into this atmosphere that we know makes our atmosphere function more like a greenhouse: Sunlight is converted to heat when it hits the Earth and the greenhouse gasses trap this heat. This heats up and brings more energy into the oceans and atmosphere which, in turn, leads to more extreme climate and weather.

That’s what we are seeing now.

GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT

Climate change is one expression of an underlying issue: our global ecological overshoot.

We have a global ecological footprint that’s far larger than Earth. We need more than one Earth to sustain our collective use of natural resources. That’s the real issue, that’s what we need to do something about, and that requires a thorough transformation of our whole civilization.

Climate change is one of many consequences of this overarching issue of global ecological overshoot. Others include biodiversity loss, soil degradation, water scarcity, ocean acidification, pollution, climate migration, food insecurity, deforestation, and invasive species.

This is the first century in a series of centuries and millennia with huge changes in the living system we are a part of that we call Earth.

WILL GET WORSE

All of this will, of course, get worse. We are just seeing the beginnings of it.

Scientists have predicted the collapse of the Amazon, the collapse of life in the oceans, the change of ocean currents, epidemics and pandemics, stronger and more frequent droughts and flooding, human mass migrations, conflicts over natural resources, food scarcity, and much more.

I suspect we will also see more of the conflicts between those who see the need for change and those who do not, which is peaking the US these days and will likely get much worse there.

DENIAL

There are several types of denial going on here.

Denying it’s happening

A few still deny it’s happening, although that’s a position that’s so clearly at odds with reality that most of these have taken a new position.

They say it’s all part of natural cycles, it has nothing to do with human activity.

As it gets more serious, their next position may be that we are all in it for ourselves and we have to deal with it as best we can as individuals and nations. There is no need to focus on collective and systemic solutions. There is no need to take a global perspective.

Denying what’s asked of us

There is another type of denial, and that is among those of us who acknowledge the crisis.

Yes, there is climate change. Yes, it’s caused by our civilization. Yes, it’s serious.

And yet… Someone else will take care of it. Politicians will do what’s required. We can make some peripheral changes and that will do the trick. We just need some new amazing technology. It won’t be that bad. It won’t impact me. I can live my life much as before. I can keep voting for the same politicians.

This is a denial of the underlying cause: our global ecological footprint and overshoot. It’s also a denial of the all-encompassing and thorough systems changes required. Our whole civilization, including our worldview, needs to undergo a profound transformation. That involves you and me and all of us.

Denying we are ecology

Some still see nature as separate from us. They live in denial of the interconnectedness of all life.

What happens with the Earth and our ecosystems happen to us. It’s not distant. It’s not other.

It’s what we are. We are ecology.

If you care about anything, you care about ecology since everything we are and live and care about depends on healthy ecosystems and healthy planetary systems.

Note: It’s a week later (Sunday, October 6, 2024) and I see reports on tropical storm Milton which will hit Florida late Wednesday as a major hurricane. It’s already described as a hurricane of a century for Florida, mainly due to being fed by the unusually warm water in the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s projected to head straight for Tampa where my wife has relatives. After I mentored that an unusually severe hurricane is headed straight for their area, she contacted them. Their reason was: “We are not going to evacuate. We’ll stay here and pray. We have hurricanes every year.”

Yes, you have hurricanes every year, but you have never experienced anything like this one. Prayers are not going to help you, unless you pray for some common sense.

Of course, they may be ok if they live higher up and further inland but why take the risk? Why stay when this will be something beyond anything anyone alive today in Florida have experienced?

If I were them, I would not only evacuate, I would seriously consider moving away from the coastal areas of Florida.

Note 2: It’s now Tuesday. I have watched and read a few updates on Hurricane Milton. The European sources tend to include a section on the unusually warm waters in the gulf and the models that show a connection between climate change, warmer oceans, and wetter – and possibly stronger – hurricanes. (See, for instance, the BBC article How is climate change affecting hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones?) Unsurprisingly, quite a few US sources tend to leave this out. Meteorologists are familiar with the connection, but they decide – or have been told – to leave it out or downplay it to avoid alienating science deniers. Audience numbers are more important than crucial information about our ecological crisis.

I also see that Ron DeSantis, the Trumpist Florida governor, does not answer calls from the White House and said “nobody could have predicted that it would reach category 5” even if that was predicted from the beginning based on the excellent forecast models we have today. These models, by the way, are based on the same kind of science that the climate models are based on. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to acknowledge their accuracy.

Growing food with poison: The mindset and assumptions behind many of our ecological challenges

Saturday, 28 September, 2024Wednesday, 11 December, 2024 moe Leave a comment

How could we have ever believed it was a good idea to grow our food with poison?
– Jane Goodall

If humanity survives, I imagine future generations will look back at our time and wonder that about much of what we do today. It will be about as baffling to them as medical practices of the 1700s are to us today.

The main one is, perhaps, building a civilization on the assumption that nature is unlimited. That we can use unlimited amounts of natural resources, and that nature has an unlimited capacity to absorb the waste of our civilization.

We did it because we could. When the systems of our modern world were developed from the 1500s through the 1800s, we were few enough and had simple enough technology so it kind of worked at the time. Today, with our massively increased population and hugely more efficient technology, it’s fast approaching literal ecocide and suicide.

A lot of the other baffling things – like growing food with poison – come out of this system.

More fundamentally, it comes out of a set of assumptions of which “nature is unlimited” is just one.

We are separate from nature. The sacred is removed from us and nature. Power-over is better than power-with. Humans are at the center of existence and inherently more important and valuable than the rest. We have dominion over nature. The main way to understand is to take things apart. We know how things work. We are inherently more advanced or better than previous generations. European culture and civilization are the pinnacle of human civilization. Men are inherently better or more capable or more valuable than women. We can fill the hole in us through consumption. And so on.

How did this mindset come about? Perhaps with agriculture, the possibility to accumulate wealth, and hierarchy. This mindset justifies hierarchy. It’s in the interest of those at the higher levels of the hierarchy that we collectively buy into and perpetuate this mindset. After a while, nobody remembers anything else so it’s almost “invisible” to us, it becomes the water we swim in.

This can be seen as an evolutionary stage for our civilization and humanity. It helped us to explore ourselves and life in ways we otherwise couldn’t. Through imagining separation, we got to explore everything in a more detached way, and out of that came our modern science and technology.

Of course, many are aware of the mindset of separation and its consequences. For decades, different movements – social justice, feminism, environmentalism, animal rights, de-colonialization, regenerative agriculture, Indigenous rights, rights of nature, and so on – have pointed out problems with this worldview.

These days, our global ecological crisis – brought about by global ecological overshoot – brings us face-to-face with this mindset of separation. It’s clearly not true, it’s not working, and the consequences are becoming dire. We need something else.

What we need is a thorough transformation of the systems of our civilization so they are aligned with ecological realities. We need to take the best of what’s gone before – from both partnership and domination orientations –and create something that’s more ecologically sound.

It’s possible, we have examples, and we know the first steps and life will guide us as we move in that direction. What we need is the collective will to make these changes.

This living evolving planet is a seamless system. Right now, we and our civilization are one expression of the evolution of this system. Through us, this living system has developed the idea of separation and got to study and learn about itself from that perspective. It has limitations and challenges, including the destruction of other sides of itself. It’s giving itself feedback.

This living system will respond and adapt, and the short- and medium-term adaption can happen in a few different ways. One is that we, as parts of this living system, respond, make the necessary changes, and create an ecological civilization. Another is that the system shifts into a state not compatible with human life. It will continue to evolve, without us.

We are temporary and local expressions of this living system. From the perspective of the system, it’s natural and desirable that it expresses itself in always new ways. It’s how it evolves. It’s how it expresses, explores, and experiences itself.

Humans are here as one of many expressions of this living system, and our future will depend on how we respond to our current challenges and opportunities. Will we continue much as before, forcing the system to shift into a state not compatible with human life? Will we create an ecological civilization and continue to explore, and evolve?

How many of us will make it through the current and coming ecological bottleneck? Will some of us survive, and become more conscious participants in the evolution of this living system?

My vision is of humanity as conscious expressions of the larger systems and existence as a whole, using the best of what we have lived, and deepening into a partnership approach to living and continuing to explore, possibly far beyond this planet.

Note: I wrote this from more narrow to bigger perspectives. I realize this roughly may follow the Spiral Dynamic progression from green to yellow and turquoise (?). In general, I find it more interesting to vary between these perspectives.

Scrödinger’s land: Paradise or hell or both, and a reflection of our ecological crisis

Tuesday, 17 September, 2024Wednesday, 18 September, 2024 moe Leave a comment

We are legal stewards, as humans think about it, of beautiful land in the Andes, at the western slope of Chicamocha Canyon.

I walked in the forest at early dawn, after a heavy rain, and it reminded me of something difficult to escape these days.

PARADISE OR HELL OR BOTH

This land is paradise or hell or both.

It’s a paradise for us now. It’s in a beautiful area, and although the land is degraded by centuries of grazing, it’s still very beautiful. Right now, at dawn, it’s quiet. There is only birdsong.

It can easily be hell as well. When the neighbors blast out their music, it’s a kind of hell. When the extremely noisy motorcycles go by, it’s similar. More importantly, a huge hotel and shopping center project is being built across the road, as one of our closest neighbors. If that actually comes into existence, it can very well be hell with constant noise, music, increased traffic, and more.

For the ecosystem and wildlife here, this place is also heaven and hell. For the ones currently living here and doing well here, it’s paradise. They are left alone. For the ones impacted by centuries of grazing and chopping down trees for wood, it has been hell. For all the new life that’s coming after the grazing was stopped, it’s paradise.

A REFLECTION OF OUR ECOLOGICAL CRISIS

All of this is a reflection of our ecological crisis, and of our civilization that’s profoundly out of step with ecological realities.

Our ecological crisis has been going on for centuries, and the previous use of this land is an example.

The local farmers mostly have cows and goats, so for them, grass is wonderful and anything else – apart from a few trees for shade – is a waste of land. They even call pioneer species that help recreate a more mature and rich ecosystem “malezas”, bad plants.

They have cut down the forests and made it into mostly grassland and savannah, with predictable consequences: The wildlife has been severely impacted. The rivers and springs are dry. And the climate in the region is likely changing, and probably already has.

The hotel project is another example. How can the local authorities allow a hotel project they know will be immensely destructive for the land and the community? (It wouldn’t be allowed in most well-regulated industrial countries, but this is not and they do things differently here.)

AN ECOCIDAL AND SUICIDAL CIVILIZATION

This all points back to our civilization. It’s a civilization built on several principles that lead to this kind of destruction: A power-over mindset instead of a power-with mindset. The sacred as “out there” and not in here in the land, life, and us. Nature as “out there” instead of seeing us as nature and part of the web of life. And so on.

Mainly, we have an economic system that assumes that nature is infinite in its ability to provide resources and absorb the waste of civilization. It evolved that way because it could at the time. We were few enough and had a simple enough technology so for most practical reasons, it was true.

These days, our numbers are many times higher and our technology is many times more powerful, so it’s an assumption that is, quite literally, suicidal. We have a civilization that’s ecocidal and suicidal. And many still don’t realize it.

Many do still not realize the profound systemic changes needed for our civilization to continue.

GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT

The simplest way to frame this may be in terms of our ecological footprint.

Our collective ecological footprint is far larger than the Earth. We will need two or more Earthts to support our current civilization, and we don’t have it. If everyone had the lifestyle of industrialized countries, we would need closer to ten Earths. That’s clearly not sustainable.

This global ecological overshoot is similar to living off the money in our savings account. It looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom and our lifestyle comes crashing down.

In our case, it means that our civilization comes crashing down.

This is not hyperbole. This is a simple reality. Even a child can understand it.

WHAT WE CAN DO

So what can we do? Do we have time to change?

I don’t know if we have time to change. If we all suddenly found the collective will to make the needed changes, we could do it, of course. But that seems very unlikely. Most people continue as if nothing is happening.

What can the ones of us who realize the urgency do?

I vote for the Green Party in Norway.

I bought this land and is making it into a nature preserve. We have partnered with an organization that will plant thousands of native trees here, with some diversity (around twenty different species). We are making a food forest around the houses and the main paths.

I eat mostly local, organic, and seasonal food when I can. I eat low on the food chain, with only occasional fish and meat.

I find like-minded people and join, to some extent, communities of like-minded people.

I learn. I learn about ways to partner with this land in terms of regeneration, reforestation, and making food forests.

I actively explore and immerse myself in different worldviews. Worldviews that are more life-centered and aligned with our ecological realities. (Universe Story, Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, systems views, integral models.)

I actively work with my distress and grief over what’s happening with this land and neighborhood, with Earth, and with humanity.

I cannot save humanity or our current global ecosystems. But I can save myself and this land, as best I can. I can do what I can for our civilization to turn around. (The Great Turning.) And that’s more than worth it, no matter what happens with us collectively.

When politicians ignore science

Tuesday, 13 August, 2024Wednesday, 14 August, 2024 moe Leave a comment

Yes, politics is about gaining power, not following scientists and research.

There is no lack of examples of where many politicians go one way while scientists and research show us a better way.

Why? It’s likely a range of different reasons or combination of reasons. Sometimes, it’s because of puritanical feelings, as the quote suggests. They know what will appeal to their likely voters. They are aligned with money interests that want something else. Most political systems reward immediate results and not long-term or big-picture projects and planning. In our system, there is not much in place to (a) encourage policies grounded in research, (b) encourage long-term and big-picture thinking, and (c) reward what actually gives results. The system is set up so effective or grounded policies are not necessarily rewarded with votes.

The problem is not with the politicians. It’s with the system, and it’s with the people voting for these politicians.

A FEW EXAMPLES AND LOW-HANGING FRUITS

What are some examples of politicians being out of tune with the science community and research?

The two examples in the quote are a good place to start.

Work. Innumerable studies have, for decades, shown that a four-day workweek helps people be more productive, reduces sick leave, improves well-being, and so on. People get as much done in four days as they do in five when they have a four-day workweek. The same with vacations and shorter shifts. So why do we not implement a shorter work week when research and real-life examples show us it’s effective?

Schools. The same goes for schools. Homework is shown to not be a very effective way to help students learn. Also, teenagers especially benefit from a later start on the school day. It’s more aligned with their biological rhythms which helps them learn more effectively and improves well-being.

Drug policies I. Innumerable studies have for decades mapped out the dangers of different drugs. Marijuana is among the least dangerous and least addictive drugs, while, for instance, alcohol is both dangerous (people injure themselves and others when intoxicated) and highly addictive. So why is alcohol still allowed in most countries while the far less dangerous marijuana is not? (Several states in the US have followed the research and decriminalized marijuana.)

Drug policies II: Research and real-life examples show that harm-reduction strategies, like needle exchange programs and supervised injection sites, reduce crime while not increasing drug use. Why isn’t there widespread use of safe zones for drug addicts – or even decriminalization of most or all drugs – so it can be better regulated and addicts can receive better help?

Drug policies III: Research and real-life examples show that some drugs are effective for therapeutic use. For instance, patients who cannot be helped with pharmaceuticals or therapy show a significant improvement from using some of these in a supervised and therapeutic setting. So why are they not more universally decriminalized for therapeutic use?

Health-care. Almost all developed countries have universal healthcare and decades of experience show it has innumerable benefits, including reduced spending. Why does one country – the US – not have it yet? Likely because the current system is hugely inefficient, and that inefficiency lines the pockets of health insurance companies, private hospitals, and others.

Criminal justice. Research and real-life examples show that focusing on rehabilitation is more effective and less expensive than a punitive approach with longer prison sentences. Again, to take the US as an example: Why are so many in prison there compared to other developed countries? Why do some receive long prison sentences for relatively minor infractions? Here too, it’s because the inefficiency in the system is highly profitable to the prison industry, and money dictates policies more than research, especially when they can also tap into the puritanical feelings of the public combined with their relative lack of education.

GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT

There is also one that’s far more important than any of these:

We are in a global ecological overshoot. Our collective ecological footprint is so large that we need more than one planet Earth to support it, and we don’t have a second planet. We are spending more from our metaphorical ecological savings account than comes in. We are using more resources than Earth can replenish, especially with the massive loss of healthy ecosystems. Just like spending from our savings account, it looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom, our lifestyle cannot be supported anymore, and it all comes crashing down.

This too has been known for decades, at least since the 70s. It’s well-documented. So why don’t most politicians take this seriously? Why do the ones who appear to take it seriously mostly focus on peripheral issues and solutions?

It’s likely because it requires long-term and big-picture planning, a thorough transformation of all aspects of society, and the support of the public. Our current political system rewards short-term projects and discourages long-term and big-picture projects. Similarly, most people are focused on their day-to-day life.

Mainly, any system tries to stay in equilibrium and so also our current civilization. There are innumerable mechanisms in place aimed at ensuring a dynamic status quo.

Our civilization is embedded in our larger ecological systems, and they provide the massive encouragement for change that we need. They are unraveling. They are full of toxins that also go into us. They bring about massive shifts in our climate and ocean currents.

Their unraveling is our unraveling, and that is what can bring us to our senses.

Our civilization is causing this massive ecological destruction, we are receiving feedback since we are embedded in these ecological systems, and we may or may not be receptive enough to make the necessary changes in time.

WHAT CAN I DO?

What can we do about all of this?

I make some effort to stay up-to-date with real-life examples and studies on these and other topics.

I also look at which political parties seem to have policies most grounded in research, and which ones are most grounded on the issues that seem most important. (For me, in Norway, it’s the Green Party. They recently suggested decriminalizing marijuana which was met with scorn and ridicule from other parties less grounded in science.)

It’s important to set aside superficial personal preferences here. I may have voted for another party in the past. I may have family and friends who vote for other parties. My conscious identity may be more aligned with another party. All of that is less important. (In my case, I did vote for another party in the past since the Green Party was so small, although that party does have similar policies. My family are all far more conservative than me. My friends are probably all over the place, with few of them prioritizing reducing our global ecological footprint. My conscious identity fits nicely with the Green Party, although they are more conservative than me on social issues. A similar party with a more integral orientation could fit even better.)

I have educated myself on our ecological footprint, why we are in our current situation, and what we can collectively and individually do about it. I sometimes bring it up in conversation with others, to plant a seed. I eat local and organic when I can. I limit driving and flying to essentials. (Although what’s essential is always something I question.) I am a member of and vote for the Green Party. I am involved in a reforestation and regeneration project in the Andes. And so on.

I do what I can to provide little nudges for the larger system.

ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT ESSENTIALS

What are the essentials of our ecological footprint?

More than one Earth. The essence is that we would need two Earths to support our current global ecological footprint, and several Earths if everyone lived as we do in industrialized countries.

Systems. We are in this situation because of our economic and other human-made systems. These systems came in place at a time when Earth, for all practical purposes, was infinite so we didn’t take ecological limits into account. Over the last few decades, with a huge increase in population and far more effective technology, we have quickly run up against these ecological limits.

Systems change. The solution is a thorough system change. We need to change our economic and other systems (transportation, energy, water, waste, education) to take ecological realities into account. We need to create systems where what’s easy and attractive to do, collectively and individually, is also what’s good for our ecological systems.

It’s possible. That’s more than possible. There is no lack of solutions, good small-scale examples, and brilliant people working in this field. We can have a civilization that operates within the limits of our ecological systems, and where people live full, rich, and rewarding lives.

Collective will. To make those changes, we need to find our collective will. Enough of us need to realize that these changes are required – not only for our survival but for having a thriving civilization.

A NOTE ON SCIENCE

Science has two aspects: the methods and the findings.

The methods are mainly common sense put in a system. They reflect methods we all use to figure out how the world works.

The content changes over time, as does how it’s understood and the worldview it is understood within.

Some content of science has been thoroughly researched by many scientists over decades and sometimes centuries. The findings are solid, although the finer points may be open for discussion.

Some content of science has a less rigorous history, and – as they say – we need more research.

In general, the findings of science are far more solid and far more likely to be aligned with reality than the opinion of you or me or anyone else.

In the absence of something better, like the science in one or two hundred years, we have to settle for the best we have which is the science of today.

Synchronicity: After posting this article, I received an email from the Green Party asking for my signature in support of a four-day workweek in Norway. Specifically, to test it out with some among a couple of groups of workers that have an especially hard workload, like nurses. I signed, of course.

The only way for us to survive

Wednesday, 17 July, 2024Wednesday, 17 July, 2024 moe Leave a comment

When I worked with sustainability in Madison, Wisconsin, I remember providing an abundance of locally produced organic food to the chef at a local college so he could create a full organic meal for an event. I contacted him several times in the lead-up to the event and noticed he seemed to have a dismissive attitude. At the event, it turned out that he had only used the organic produce for a tiny soup and not for the main dish. When I asked him about it, he said: “You can’t make a whole meal with organic food”.

It has stayed with me because it seems to reflect a modern mindset that sees anything organic or sustainable or natural as a kind of fringe hippie thing and not something that’s workable or realistic.

It’s a mindset I have trouble understanding, although I understand that many have been misled by the systematic “better living through chemicals” marketing. In this case, the local organic food was of far higher quality than the chemically-produced food from the supermarket that had traveled thousands of miles that he chose to use for the main dishes. Also, we have eaten organic food for the vast majority of human existence, it’s only in the last few decades it has changed. The best chefs around the world have used locally produced organic food.

Our civilization operates on systems that assume that nature is infinite. It assumes that nature has infinite resources for us to use and that it has infinite capacity to absorb our waste. That’s obviously far from reality.

We live as part of a finite planet with a finite capacity to replace the natural resources we use and a limited capacity to deal with the waste we produce.

Our systems need to reflect that reality, or it will lead to a collapse of our ecosystems and, along with it, the collapse of our civilization.

We are in a global ecological overshoot. Our civilization is using far more natural resources than our planet can replace. We would need two or more planets to support our current way of life. It’s similar to spending more money from our bank account than what is replenished through interests, and there are no other sources of income. It looks fine for a while until we reach the bottom of the account, our lifestyle cannot be supported anymore, and it all comes crashing down.

It’s a simple calculation that even a child can understand, and often do. It’s more often the adults who deceive themselves and pretend it’s not so serious, or a hippie thing, or for someone else to deal with.

Fortunately, we have the solutions. We know the systemic changes necessary, and we know many of the more specific solutions as well. Unfortunately, making the change requires a collective will and we seem to be far from having found that yet.

When people who study global ecological overshoot talk about the collapse of ecosystems and our civilization, it’s not hyperbole. It’s an inevitable outcome if we continue as we do. That’s why sustainability and culture change is necessary and inevitable if we want to survive.

Earth as context or an afterthought?

Tuesday, 4 June, 2024Saturday, 8 June, 2024 moe Leave a comment

For most news outlets, Earth is an afterthought.

One example is the BBC app where “Earth” is number seven out of eight categories, after travel and before sport. It’s presented as an afterthought, as something peripheral and for those especially interested.

In reality, Earth is the context for everything. Earth is what gives us life and sustains us and every single one of our activities and interests. We are local aspects and expressions of Earth.

When we place Earth as an afterthought, it says something about our anthropocentric worldview. We have metaphorically placed Earth as number seven on our list of priorities because, for a long time, we could, and that’s what has led to our global ecological overshoot and the ecological crisis we now find ourselves in.

Hopefully, with our escalating ecological crisis, we’ll sober up and recognize Earth as all there is for us, and the context for our lives and everything we value.

The beauty and madness of civilization: Thoughts as tools vs thoughts as truth

Tuesday, 12 March, 2024Wednesday, 13 March, 2024 moe Leave a comment

This civilization is immensely beautiful and immensely mad, like many civilizations I imagine.

It’s beautiful because we make use of thoughts to imagine and create things.

It’s mad because we hold thoughts as true.

BEAUTY FROM IMAGINING AND CREATING

Every piece of our civilization was once imagined by someone, and others then reimagined it a little differently.

It has created the immense beauty we see in art, music, dance, technology, science, and much more.

Thoughts – in the form of mental images and words – made it all possible.

MADNESS FROM HOLDING THOUGHTS AS TRUE

This civilization is also immensely mad. It has fueled immense suffering through ideas of power-over, separation, different worth based on changing characteristics, privilege, racism, sexism, anthropocentrism, a remote sky god, nature as infinite, nature as here for us, I am right and you are wrong, you are not quite human, I am unlovable, and so on. Worse than that, it’s ecocidal and suicidal. It has an economics that operates on the idea of nature as infinite, which has led to global ecological overshoot. Ecocide means suicide, so it’s also inherently suicidal.

Thoughts created all this too. Thoughts held as true instead of as questions.

THE NATURE OF THOUGHTS

We are a young species and a young civilization.

We make use of thoughts, we believe thoughts, and we rarely examine thoughts or our relationship with thoughts or find their nature. We rarely consistently make conscious and wise use of thoughts.

Collectively, we have yet to learn to wisely and consciously make use of thoughts as the tool it is.

What’s the nature of thoughts?

They are imaginations. They are different in nature and content from what they point to. They cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth. That’s not their nature or purpose. They are questions about the world. They are here to help us orient and function in the world. That’s it.

A DIFFERENT CIVILIZATION

I imagine a different civilization, one that has a more mature relationship with thought.

Here, children learn to relate more consciously with thought.

They learn to choose as guide thoughts supported by good data and avoid logical fallacies. They learn to find practically useful and grounded thoughts as guides.

They learn to identify the thoughts they operate on. They learn to examine and question them.

They learn to find what’s more true for them, which is that thoughts – even the ones that may seem the most true – are questions about the world. They are practical tools only.

The world is always more than and different from any thought about it.

They learn to hold thoughts lightly. They learn to use thoughts as tools to orient and navigate, and recognize their limits.

They learn to live in and as a deeper mystery.

Will this prevent the inherent problems of civilization? Not likely, but it will make life easier for many individuals, and it may make it easier for us collectively to identify essential problems and make changes.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

All this is literally stardust reorganizing itself.

It’s the universe locally forming itself into all of it – consciousness, us, feelings, thoughts, experiences, civilization, art, technology, suffering, inequality, wars, and so on.

There is an immense beauty in that too.

There is an immense beauty in the messy complexity and awesomeness of it all.

NOTE

There is another way we can see the madness of our civilization, and that it comes from thoughts. Our civilization likes abstractions. It likes things to be easily understood intellectually, and abstractions is a good way to do that. The only problem is, life is not like that.

This is reflected in how we treat nature. Here in Norway, people want manicured and sterile gardens. They remove trees, bushes, and previously wild areas of the garden, and replace it with a sterile lawn with a few exotic ornamental plants. This provides a habitat for almost no animal, bird, or insect. We grow food through monoculture. All of this is easy for our thoughts. It gives the illusion of control.

In contrast, nature is wildly diverse, that diversity provides a rich habitat for a range of beings, and it also balances the ecosystem. For instance, it prevents any one species – insect, plant, animal – from multiplying so much that it’s detrimental to the ecosystem. It’s far more life-supporting and wise than a monoculture.

The image is created by me and Midjourney

Language, woke, pandemics & ecology: Snapshots vs the long view

Tuesday, 12 March, 2024Monday, 1 April, 2024 moe Leave a comment

Even if our culture often invites a snapshot view of things, a longer view can be far more informative.

LANGUAGE AND THE LONG VIEW

I remember my uncle would complain about changes to the language at family dinners.

Even as a teenager, it didn’t make sense to me. Language changes. It changes with each generation, and even decade by decade and year by year.

He has a snapshot view of language based on what he learned and was used to when he grew up. The generations that came before him would see his language as different and perhaps judge it as bad and wrong. And the generations after him will likely view his language as old-fashioned. That’s just how it is.

Our language today is the product of a language that has changed for not only centuries and millennia but over hundreds of thousands of years. I imagine even the ones who first used what we would think of as language were judged by the older generations. Why do they use these weird cryptic sounds instead of grunts and body language?

So when my uncle judged the language of young people today, and incremental changes to sounds and grammar, what would he use as a standard? What was, in his view, the correct language? Was it the one he grew up with, just because he happened to grow up with it? Does the world revolve around him and his generation? Or was it ten generations ago? A hundred? Did he want to return to a time before verbal language, when we used body language and other kinds of sounds?

For me, a long view makes more sense. It helps me be a little more informed, see things in perspective, and realize that language is supposed to change. People younger than me use a different language than me. Some would even pronounce my last name differently from how I do it. And that’s OK. It’s more than OK. That’s the nature of language. That’s how we have the language we have today. That’s how we have language in the first place.

WOKE AND THE LONG VIEW

I love woke. Why?

Because the intention behind woke – the wish for kindness and inclusivity – is remarkable in a historical context.

Many if not most cultures have not been that inclusive. Often, certain people are excluded or oppressed for things they cannot change: their ethnicity, color of skin, sexual orientation, caste or socioeconomic status, and so on. Woke seeks inclusivity and that’s remarkable and something to be applauded.

Of course, woke can take somewhat immature forms. That’s the same with everything and it doesn’t disqualify it as something remarkable and something to applaud and support.

So why do I love woke?

It’s not because of the more immature expressions of woke. I am happy to speak up against those and encourage more balanced approaches.

It’s because I take a long view. I know how unusual and remarkable woke is. Strong forces want to suppress it, now and historically. Many with privilege, including white privilege, feel threatened by such inclusivity.

It’s because I know that inclusivity helps all of us. It creates a more vibrant society and culture. It allows me to be more who I am, since I too am outside the norm in different ways. (As we all are.) It helps me be more myself and embrace more of myself.

Also, it’s because I know that the anti-woke attitudes and orientation originate on the far right, even if it’s sometimes adopted – somewhat naively and misguidedly in my view – by some of the left. Why do some on the left adopt those views? Is it because they don’t have a long perspective?

PANDEMICS AND THE LONG VIEW

When the pandemic happened, I was not surprised. I knew that another pandemic was due any time since they tend to come about once a century. (That may change now with continued human incursion into previously mostly intact ecosystems and changing climate. The first brings more human exposure to diseases previously limited to other species. A warming climate spreads previously tropical diseases to new areas.)

I was also not surprised by the pandemic measures implemented by governments around the world. Since I am familiar with epidemiology, I know what’s considered best practices in a pandemic: quarantine, limiting contact and exposure, vaccines, and so on. These are measures that have been shown to work historically. (Some went a little too far, like the Chinese government, and some didn’t do quite enough, like Trump and Bolsonaro.)

I was not surprised by the backlash to these from some. There will always be a backlash when the government implements restrictions, even if these are temporary and based on epidemiology. There are innumerable restrictions in our society that most people accept. (Laws against theft, killing, driving too fast, and so on.) Why do we accept these restrictions? Because most of them make sense and help society function better. When some reacted to the pandemic restrictions, I suspect it was largely because the restrictions were new. Many also seemed unfamiliar with epidemiology and common and effective responses to pandemics. They didn’t have the long view.

I was not surprised by the conspiracy theories that flourished in some subcultures. History shows that conspiracy theories flourish during any pandemic in just about any time and culture. That’s how people work. I assume it’s a way to deal with fear. Through conspiracy theories, some feel they have some kind of control, if only imaginary. (In reality, conspiracy theories distract from far more serious and urgent big-picture issues that we all know are happening, including global ecological overshoot.)

When it comes to vaccines, I also take a big picture and long view. We know from history and epidemiology that vaccines have had a huge and beneficial impact on our collective health in general. We also know that at an individual level, they occasionally lead to serious health problems and even death. That’s the case with all modern pharmaceutical medications. In rare cases, some individuals experience a strong reaction to a certain vaccine or medication. That’s to be expected and it’s widely known. That’s why I support vaccines in general, and why I am very selective in which ones I personally take and (often) don’t take. (Some anti-vaxxers seem to think – or pretend? – that this information is somehow hidden or not included in the equation when health authorities decide to approve or recommend certain vaccines or medications.)

ECOLOGY AND THE LONG VIEW

With nature, we also often operate on snapshots. This is called the shifting baseline syndrome.

We grow up with our ecosystem looking and functioning a certain way, and that becomes the baseline for us. We may not be aware of how much this ecosystem has changed due to human impact, and how far it is from a state not impacted by human activity.

For instance, as a kid I loved being in the forest near our house. To me, it was nature, it was wild. Later, I realized that it’s cut down regularly and the trees are replanted. That’s why the trees are all the same size. That’s why there is not more diversity and life there. This forest, like most forests in the world today, is very different from a more untouched old-growth forest. It’s close to a monoculture.

I remember the garden from childhood full of insects of all types. Badgers and hedgehogs. Swallows and many types of birds. Today, it’s very different. They’re is almost no life here. I imagine many young people don’t realize the change that happened over two or three decades. They see the absence of life as normal.

This is why it’s important to learn about how nature has changed over time, where we are, and in other places. Visualizing how it used to be and comparing it to how it is now can be a shock, and it’s a useful shock. It can encourage us to support or work on regeneration and rewilding, which benefits not only the wider ecosystem but also humanity and ourselves as individuals.

I make a practice out of imagining how nature used to be where I am (approximately), and also visualizing how it can be with some efforts into regeneration and rewilding. I do this in nature and rural areas, and also in towns and cities.

BENEFITS OF THE LONG VIEW

In all of these cases and many more, the long view helps me find a more sober, informed, and kind view.

In addition to the examples above, there is one that’s even closer to home. When I look at my own behavior, trauma, and so on, it helps to see it in terms of culture and evolution.

My trauma is not (just) mine. It comes from my parents. Much of it has likely been passed on through generations, in variations of the same essence. It’s shared, not just in my family but likely among many in my culture. The essence of it is likely shared by many around the world.

When I look at behavior patterns I may not be completely happy about, for instance the tendency for comfort eating, that’s not just from culture and family. The stage was set by evolution. I am biologically predisposed to like fatty and sweet food. In an environment where that was scarce, the ones who craved it were a little more likely to survive and have surviving offspring.

“Read more” to see what ChatGPT has to say about some of these topics.

Creating a bridge between our global challenges and how our body-mind works

Wednesday, 17 January, 2024Monday, 22 January, 2024 moe Leave a comment

Why do we seem unable to make the changes needed to deal with our ecological crisis? Why do we seem unable to profoundly transform our economy and other systems to take ecological realities into account?

I suspect it may be because of evolution¹.

We didn’t evolve to take global issues seriously, and we didn’t evolve to think on the scale of centuries and millennia.

We evolved to take care of what’s immediate, tangible, and right in front of us.

That has served us well for millions of years.

And in our global crisis, created by a civilization that is out of alignment with reality, it does not serve us well. It may be what dooms us.

It’s important to correctly diagnose the cause of our ecological crisis and also the cause of our inability to make the necessary changes.

The cause of the problem is our general worldview (of separation) and our systems that assume nature is infinite.

If the cause of our inability is evolution, and we realize that, we may be able to make use of it.

We may be able to set things in place that help us make changes despite our evolutionary handicap. It’s a matter of making our crisis immediate, personal, and urgent. It already is, but many don’t experience it viscerally. How can we help more people get it viscerally?²

Evolution made us perfectly adapted to our way of life up until the modern age, and we are less equipped to deal with our modern life and our current ecocidal civilization. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it does mean we need to create a bridge between the global scale of our challenges and the way our bodymind works.

(1) Just like many misdiagnose the cause of the crisis, many misdiagnose our inability to effectively deal with it. Some think the crisis is created by greed, corporations, governments, and so on, while it in reality is created by systems that don’t take ecological realities into account. These systems were put in place at a time when we could afford to assume that nature is infinite, and now – with far more people and more powerful technology – those systems are ecocidal and suicidal. Some think the reasons we are unable to make the necessary changes are the same: greed, corporations, capitalism, and so on. In reality, the reason may be far more innocent and fundamental. It may be evolution.

(2) Of course, sooner or later – and I suspect sooner rather than later, it will be immediate, personal, and urgent for most of us. By then, we are far into the crisis and it will be more difficult to turn around.

Imagined futures & an alternate timeline where a collective of popes guide us into a more ecologically sound civilization

Tuesday, 26 December, 2023Tuesday, 7 July, 2026 moe Leave a comment

I cannot help imagining different futures and alternate realities, including the ones I would like to see.

When it comes to desired changes in society, imagination goes before transformation, so these imaginations can be hugely helpful and important.

I imagine something that will almost certainly not happen as I imagine it, and yet, these imaginations serve a purpose. They highlight what’s lacking in our current institutions. They offer an alternative. And that imagination may guide us. It may be a seed to something different.

For whatever reason, I imagine what a future institution of the pope would look like. What if ecological overshoot brings about a radical transformation of civilization? What if we realize that all our structures and institutions need to radically transform? What if we realize that most religions need to radically transform to take ecological realities into account? What if we want religions to be among what guides us into a more ecologically informed civilization? What then? How may it look? How would I like it to look?

What if an alternate reality of the institution of the pope looks radically different? What if it’s free from any particular religion? What if it is far more inclusive? What if its purpose is to guide civilization in a more ecologically sound direction? What if it’s earth-centered, life-centered, and future-centered? What if all life is considered sacred? What if it’s a collective of people from around the world? What if each is there for only a limited time?

Here is one vision.

I notice a part of me thinking that this is silly. It certainly won’t happen this way. It’s naive. It’s not grounded in reality. And yet, this is how social change happens. It happens through imagining possible futures and alternative timelines. It happens through imaginations most see as naive and unrealistic.

It happens not only through the imagination of writers, poets, artists, or philosophers. It happens through the imagination of people like you and me.

Images by me and Midjourney.

At the start of every disaster movie is a scientist being ignored

Wednesday, 22 November, 2023Thursday, 23 November, 2023 moe Leave a comment

At the start of every disaster movie is a scientist being ignored.
– Paraphrased tweet by Neil deGrasse-Tyson

Yes, that’s true for many movies.

It’s also true for us collectively in real life right now.

When it comes to climate change, scientists are being ignored in two different ways. One is that some deny the findings and think they know better. The other is that we accept it but collectively don’t make the required changes.

Similarly, scientists talk about global ecological overshoot. That’s a bigger picture that includes climate change and is far more serious and important. We support our civilization by using the metaphorical savings of Earth, which looks fine for a while until we hit the bottom of the savings account and all – ecosystems and our civilization – come crashing down. This too is being ignored by most people.

This has been one of my main concerns and focus – and sometimes work – since my teens in the ’80s. For a while, I thought society and humanity would be smart enough to take it seriously before we were in the middle of the crisis. Now, I am not so sure. And really, I cannot know. I cannot know how it all will unfold. All I can do is to be a small part of the solution and act in my own life in the ways I can – voting for parties taking this seriously (in my case, the Green Party in Norway), protecting and helping to regenerate the land we have here in the Andes (and also collect water, use solar energy and create a food forest), talking with people about it if they are interested and receptive, eat mostly local and organic, and so on.

Image by me and Midjourney

The princes in the tower: Buying into Tudor views on Richard III and what it says about us

Friday, 17 November, 2023Friday, 17 November, 2023 moe Leave a comment

I have been following Philippa Langley’s work for about a decade now, after initially hearing about her fascinating story of how she found Richard III in a car park in Leicester. Yesterday, I listened to a Gone Medieval podcast episode where she talks about her research into what happened with the princes in the tower.

For centuries, historians and the public at large have largely bought into Tudor propaganda about Richard III, including that he had the princes in the tower killed because they were rivals to his throne. While all the time, there was an absence of contemporary documents suggesting they died at that time, and other documents strongly suggesting that the princes lived for years later.

WHY IS THIS INTERESTING?

Why am I interested in this?

It’s not because I am particularly interested in Richard III, although I am generally interested in history.

It’s because it says something about us – individually and collectively.

BUYING INTO PROPAGANDA RATHER THAN LOOKING AT REALITY

In this case, we have the Tudor family that violently took over the throne of England. They were concerned about their perceived legitimacy, so they wanted to bolster their image by depicting Richard III – the king they disposed of – as a shady character. They received support in this project from many who saw the benefit of being on their good side, including Shakespeare.

Historians apparently largely bought into this propaganda, including the story of Richard III having the princess in the tower killed. They were happy to base it on works of fiction and the popular view without closely examining the data supporting or contradicting that story.

WE ALL DO IT

We all do this. We all buy into certain stories because it’s a popular view or because it gives us something. We often do it without closely examining the stories and what supports or contradicts them.

We do it collectively, and we do it in our own life.

Fortunately, we all also have a Philippa Langley in us. We have a part of us willing and able to investigate to find what’s genuinely more true for us.

WHAT ARE SOME COLLECTIVE EXAMPLES TODAY?

I’ll give a couple of examples of how we collectively seem to be doing this today. These are my typical bee-in-the-bonnet examples (!).

WHAT WE MORE FUNDAMENTALLY ARE

One popular view is that we most fundamentally are this human self. We are fundamentally this person, a doer, an observer, and so on. Even most philosophers and psychologists seem to buy into this view without apparently examining it very closely through phenomenology or logic. It may or may not be accurate in a third-person view, but is it what we most fundamentally are in a first-person view?

What I find is that to myself, I am more fundamentally consciousness and the world to me happens within and as that consciousness. And I am capacity for all of that – I am capacity for the consciousness I am and all that it forms itself into.

We can find the same through logic. If we “have” consciousness, then to ourselves we must BE consciousness. And if the world to us happens within and as consciousness, it happens within and as the consciousness we are. The consciousness we are forms itself into our whole field of experience. It’s all we have ever known. This consciousness has no outer edge. To us, we are oneness and the world happens within and as oneness. We are even more fundamentally capacity for all of this. And so on.

GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT

Another is a set of collective assumptions about our ecological crisis. For instance, that it’s mostly about climate change, we still have time to deal with it, someone else will do it, and we can solve it through technology or peripheral tweaks to how we collectively organize ourselves.

This is obviously a naive view. We have been in a global ecological overshoot for decades. We would need more than two Earths to support our current collective consumption. That means that we are spending from our ecological “savings account”. This looks more or less OK for a while until we hit the bottom, and then our lifestyle collapses. In this case, it’s the planet’s ecosystems that collapse and our civilization with it. It’s inevitable when we are in ecological overshoot. There is no other way it can end.

WHY DO WE BUY INTO THESE STORIES?

Why do we collectively buy into these stories even if the data is available to show us something else?

I assume it’s similar to why historians have bought into the Tudor propaganda about Richard III.

It’s the popular view so it’s more convenient and comfortable to buy into it. We may be socialized into these views and don’t find a reason to question them.

Going against it is often inconvenient and uncomfortable. We’ll find ourselves in the minority. We’ll meet resistance. Our views may be dismissed and ridiculed.

We may not feel we have the time or energy to investigate closely. Something else seems more important, interesting, comfortable, and so on.

We have other priorities. We may prioritize agreeing with the popular views and being included. We may prioritize living our life without adding extra revolutions and changes. We may prioritize something else over what we would find is more true for us. We may prioritize comfort.

HARNESSING OUR INTERNAL PHILIPPA LANGLEY

How can we find and harness the Philippa Langley in us?

One is to examine our priorities. What’s most important to me? To hold onto my views or to find what’s more true for me? To stay with what’s familiar or to open myself up to something new and different and something my mind may not be able to predict in advance?

Another is to examine my fears around it. What do I fear would happen if I prioritize what’s more true for me? What do I fear would happen if that happens? And so on. How likely is it to happen? Am I willing to have it happen? Would I be able to deal with it?

In general, I find that inquiry is very helpful here combined with sincerity and a willingness to prioritize reality over my personal preferences and wishes and fears. Of course, that’s not something I can always do in all areas of life. But I can investigate one area and one line of assumptions at a time, and do it with as much sincerity I can find in me. And I can use my experience of friction – discomfort and stress – as a pointer to when and where I am holding onto assumptions that are out of alignment with reality. In find that the Work of Byron Katie is very helpful here, as are the Kiloby Inquiries.

Why would we do this? Isn’t it more comfortable to just go along with our current ideas of how things are?

It may seem more comfortable. What I find, through examination, is that it’s actually more comfortable to find what’s more true and honest for me. Living is a fantasy is inherently uncomfortable. It’s something my mind needs to create and defend. It’s out of alignment with reality so there is inevitably friction between my views and reality. Finding what’s more true for me is more peaceful since there is less to defend and there is less inherent friction. (There will always be some friction since there is always more layers and and more to examine.)

Why do we focus on climate change and not global ecological overshoot?

Sunday, 5 November, 2023Sunday, 5 November, 2023 moe Leave a comment

Why do so many focus on climate change these days?

It’s good that ecological issues get attention, of course, and it is an important topic.

At the same time, it is a kind of distraction.

GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT

The bigger overarching issue is global ecological overshoot.

We have been in overshoot for decades already, and we haven’t seen the real consequences of it yet since we have been living off the “savings” provided by our planet. (To not deplete our ecological “savings” we would need two Earths to support our global population, and more than five if everyone lived as Westerners.)

We have not yet reached the bottom of the savings account.

When we do, we can expect massive unraveling and collapse of ecosystems and human civilization.

There is no other way it can end.

WHY DON’T WE FOCUS MORE ON OVERSHOOT?

So why don’t more people focus on ecological overshoot?

After all, overshoot is easy to understand. It’s undeniable. It’s far more relevant and serious than climate change and just about any issue imaginable.

I honestly don’t know. A superficial answer may be that people don’t know about overshoot, which is true enough. But the fundamental idea of overshoot is very easy to grasp, it is something anyone with a bank account knows firsthand and relates to on a daily basis. And many in the world do know about it and talk about it, but it does not make it into mainstream discussion.

The real question is: Why doesn’t it make it into mainstream discussion? Why is there an apparent resistance to it? It’s obviously a hugely important topic, more so than just about any topic already in our collective mainstream dialog and conversation.

Maybe it’s too big? Maybe it’s obvious that our usual solutions are not enough?

Maybe it’s more comfortable to focus on something more peripheral and less serious?

That may be one reason why climate change is getting so much attention. It’s apparently more debatable, more peripheral, and less serious. We can tell ourselves it has easier and more peripheral solutions. (Of course, none of that is really true. Climate change itself is serious and requires a profound transformation of our civilization and the worldviews we operate from.)

THE ESSENCE

We live in an ecocidal civilization that assumes infinite nature – infinite natural resources and infinite capacity of nature to absorb waste and toxins.

One of many expressions of this is climate change.

Global ecological overshoot is far more fundamental and far more serious.

And the only real solution to all of it is a deep and thorough transformation of our civilization and our most fundamental assumptions about ourselves, nature, and our relationship to this living planet.

(One practical expression of that would be a transformation of our economic system to take ecological realities and the limits of nature into account.)

Image created by me and Midjourney

“I love you, but I love our ecocidal civilization more”

Sunday, 29 October, 2023Wednesday, 13 December, 2023 moe Leave a comment

For decades, we have been in a global ecological overshoot.

If we continue, it can only end one way: A dramatic ecological collapse, and with it the collapse of our civilization. (We are in an escalating phase of that ecological collapse now.)

So why don’t more people take it seriously?

Why do so many, in effect, say to their children: “I love you, but I love our ecocidal and suicidal civilization more”?

THE CRUX OF THE SITUATION

The crux of this situation is not – as many think – greed, corporations, governments, lack of technology, or similar. These all exist within a system that’s out of alignment with ecological realities. People are just fulfilling their roles in this ecocidal and ultimately suicidal system.

The crux is the system itself and the worldview it comes out of.

We have a civilization out of alignment with ecological realities.

For instance, our economic system assumes unlimited natural resources and an unlimited ability of nature to absorb our waste and toxins. This system was developed at a time when we had few enough people and simple enough technology so we could make those assumptions. These days, with billions more people and far more advanced and effective technology, it’s ecocidal and suicidal.

What type of worldview does this come out of? We have a worldview that assumes separation. We don’t viscerally get that our own health and well-being is intimately related to the health and well-being of our larger social and ecological whole. We assume, as mentioned above, unlimited nature while we live as part of a limited planet.

Even more fundamentally, we have a civilization that reflects a power-over orientation. We seek power over ourselves (just look at the orientation in many self-help books), others, and nature. And one that assumes that divinity is a sky-god removed from us, nature, and the universe. By removing divinity from ourselves and nature, we open it all for abuse.

The alternative is a power-with orientation where we seek partnership and cooperation with ourselves, others, and nature. And seeing divinity in nature and the universe, which leads to relating to it all with more reverence, respect, and gratitude.

There are workable alternatives. It is fully possible to have an individual and collective worldview that treats ourselves, others, and nature with reverence. And it’s very possible to have a system where what’s easy and attractive to do, individually and collectively, is also what supports society, ecosystems, and the lives and well-being of other species and future generations of all species. It’s a matter of priorities and collective will.

WHY DON’T WE TAKE IT MORE SERIOUSLY?

So why do so many – through their words and actions – prioritize supporting this clearly suicidal civilization over the lives and well-being of their children and grandchildren? Why do they continue to vote for the same politicians? Why do they feed themselves and their children food grown with poison? Why do they clean their houses with toxins? Why do they use pesticides in their garden? Why do they have a sterile lawn instead of a natural garden that supports life? Why do they continue to live as if we are not in a massive ecological crisis?

As usual, there are many possible answers.

We live within this system so it’s difficult to break out of it and live very differently. Our system makes what’s easy and attractive to do also, often, damaging to our life-support systems.

Many have enough with their daily lives. We don’t feel we have the resources to deal with the bigger picture or long-term thinking.

It requires intention and effort to change our worldview, way of life, and who we vote for with our money and ballots. It’s easier to put it off.

The change required may go against our identity. We have built up an identity around a certain political orientation and way of life, changing it all requires us to go outside of that identity, and that seems difficult and scary.

We live in denial in different ways. We tell ourselves that…. nothing is happening, we have time, others will take care of it, we’ll find a technological solution. We distract ourselves (being busy, entertainment, scapegoating, going into harebrained conspiracy theories, and so on.)

Many misdiagnose the situation. As mentioned above, they think it’s about greed, human nature, corporations, governments, lack of technology, and similar things existing within the system. In reality, it’s about the system itself and the worldview it reflects. Some also seem to think our crisis is mostly about climate change while it’s far more fundamental than that. In theory, we can solve climate change, and we’ll still go into ecological collapse if we don’t solve the overshoot problem itself.

WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?

I don’t know. We can just do our best and see how it unfolds.

Our current civilization will end, as they all do. In the best case, it will transform into a more ecologically sound civilization.

Very likely, we’ll have to live through a massive ecological collapse first. It seems difficult to avoid, considering how far we already are into it, and how most people distract themselves with literally anything else.

And that means a massive loss of different types of species, and – again in the best case – a massive reduction in the size of humanity.

So what do we do individually?

SOME THINGS WE CAN DO

Here is some of what I have done.

I have educated myself about the situation. Early on in life, I learned about overshoot and ecological footprints, studied systems views, and so on.

I aim to orient myself to reality. I try to take a sober and informed view of our situation while also knowing I cannot know for certain how it all will unfold.

I find joy and meaning in my connection with the larger whole, through the Universe Story, the Great Story, the Epic of Evolution, Deep Ecology, and the Practices to Reconnect.

I am working on transforming my worldview – intellectually and viscerally – in the same way, and also through different forms of inquiry.

I have made myself somewhat familiar with what happens when civilizations decline and end. What we see in the world today is partly typical for our civilization, and partly what we would expect when it’s in decline. (That includes people distracting themselves with conspiracy theories, or attaching to super-optimistic views of a coming golden age, lots of people waking up, and so on.)

I take small actions in my daily life. I eat organic, local, low on the food chain, and with the seasons as far as possible. For many years, I only bought (very cool and high-quality) second-hand clothes. When it’s possible, I buy food from local farmers. And so on. Doing this helps me feel that it’s possible to change and that I am contributing, in a small way, to the solution.

I have also been involved in other ways. For several years, my self-created job was to coordinate a relatively large group of people with a passion for sustainability. We used a consistent partnership-oriented and solution-focused approach. These days, I am the steward of 15 hectares in the Andes mountains and we work on a long-term regeneration project there to help the land back to a more diverse and vibrant state.

I remind myself of what I am grateful for. At times, I have done a daily all-inclusive gratitude practice. (Write and send a list to a partner that includes what it’s easy to find gratitude for and what’s challenging, this helps open the mind to find the genuine gifts in anything that’s happening in my life.) Other times, it happens more spontaneously in daily life.

I know that endings, change, and death is what opens space for something new. The early relatively uniform state of the universe gave way for particles and matter. The death of stars provided more complex molecules that formed themselves into this planet and us. The death of species opens space for other species. The death of previous civilizations created space for ours. The death of individuals creates room for new individuals. Another civilization may come after ours. Eventually, after humanity is gone, other species may develop their own civilization. And so on. I know this intellectually and am deepening into a visceral knowing of it.

I have sought out communities of like-minded people. I was involved with an amazing sustainability organization in Madison, Wisconsin. I was active in natural building and permaculture groups. I did a work trade at an organic CSA farm in Wisconsin.

I notice my more fundamental nature. I bring my more fundamental nature to the foreground of attention. I find myself as what the world – to me – happens within and as. I find myself as capacity for it all. That helps to release some entrenched identification with this human self, a sense of doer or observer, and so on. I sometimes use Headless experiments or the Big Mind process to explore this further. In the past, I did a lot of basic meditation (notice and allow what’s here in the field of experience) to invite my more fundamental nature to notice itself and rest in and as that noticing. This too is something my system is viscerally deepening into.

I have done a lot of inquiry on stressful beliefs and identifications (The Work of Byron Katie), and on my sense fields to soften the charge in identifications (Kiloby Inquiries).

I use heart-centered practices to help shift how I relate to whatever is here – thoughts, emotions, sensations, others, situations – and so on. Mostly ho’oponopono and tonglen.

I have done a lot of body-centered practices like taichi, chigong, yoga, and Breema. This helps shift how I relate to my body and myself and life and helps me find more nourishment and grounding.

I have also done a lot of practice to train a more stable attention. Mostly, bringing attention to the sensations in the nose from the breath.

I have done and am doing healing and trauma work to help shift how I relate to whatever is here in experience and invite healing for issues in themselves. I find Trauma and tension Release Exercises (neurogenic tremors and movements) very helpful. And these days, I mostly use Vortex Healing.

I am sure there is a lot more that doesn’t come to mind right now.

The bigger picture of what’s happening in the world today: the fall of empires and ecological overshoot

Friday, 27 October, 2023Monday, 30 October, 2023 moe Leave a comment

The main teacher (RW) in a healing modality ⁽¹⁾ I am involved in sent out an email yesterday where he talks about humanity’s tendency to violence, and how humanity may be at a tipping point.

HUMANITY AND VIOLENCE

I am also concerned about humanity’s tendency to violence, especially in our culture and especially after we got nuclear weapons. There is nothing new there.

We have been at this tipping point for eight decades if not longer. We have gone through innumerable collective crises. Humanity could have wiped itself out at any point.

In this context, one of my concerns is missing nuclear weapons from the fall of the Soviet Union.

OVERSHOOT

But I am honestly more concerned about the bigger picture. ⁽²⁾

For decades, we have been in global ecological overshoot – we use far more resources than Earth can replenish and keep up with. We would need two Earths to provide for humanity’s use, and it’s going in the wrong direction.

This is like spending money from our savings account. It looks more or less fine until it runs out and our lifestyle cannot be supported anymore.

In terms of ecology, it means that it all can come crashing down relatively fast, and there is no way to easily recover from it.

We are seeing the beginnings of that crash today.

(Climate change is just one aspect of this crisis, and that discussion is often a distraction from this bigger picture.)

FALL OF THE US EMPIRE

Since RW mentioned the US mass shootings in his email:

In the ’80s, the Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung studied the fall of empires. Based on the patterns he found, and what he could see happening with the US, he predicted that the US empire would fall within a few decades. ⁽³⁾

We also know some things about how it is likely to look.

Towards the end, there will likely be increased polarization and insanity – also in politics – and increased violence and even the possibility of a kind of civil war.

That’s what we are seeing in the US today. It’s what tends to happen when empires go downhill.

MISSING THE BIGGER PICTURE

As I see it, the email from RW is obviously well-meant. He sees something in the world he is concerned about and wants to share it with his students.

But he does take an anthropocentric view and even a quite US-centric view. He is missing the larger historical context, and he is missing the larger ecological context.

It’s important to include the bigger picture. ⁽⁴⁾

NOTES

(1) The healing modality is Vortex Healing. He is obviously a very good teacher in energy healing.

(2) This is something I have studied since the 1980s and I have also connected with some of the leading experts in the field in my professional work.

(3) If I remember correctly, in the early 1980s, he also predicted the imminent fall of the Soviet Empire. It fell about a decade later.

(4) Ecological overshoot and the possibility of an imminent ecological collapse is the overarching crisis we are in today. And there is no lack of significant sub-crises: Poverty and massive inequality. Lack of clean water. Millions dying from preventable or curable diseases. Missing nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union. Use of chemical or biological weapons. Plastics and toxins in just about every living being. Species extinction. Insect collapse. The list goes on.

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There are no non-radical futures

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Willful ignorance

Likely evolutionary benefit – up to a point

Stupid intelligence today

The larger picture

In my life

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Global Ecological Overshoot

A Larger Perspective

Before Agriculture: A Different Orientation

The Civilizational Shift

Agriculture, Surplus, and Durable Power

From Hierarchy to Domination Culture

Separation and the Myth of an Infinite Earth

The Worldview of Separation

Systems Built on Separation

Overshoot Is the Larger Frame

Why So Many Seem Unaware

It Is Hard to See

It Is Hard to Interpret

It Is Hard to Think

It Is Hard to Bear

It Is Hard to Act On

It Is Not the Kind of Threat We Evolved to Notice Easily

What Is Actually Needed

A Transformation of Worldview

A Transformation of Systems

Likely Scenarios for the Coming Decades

Four Broad Pathways

Fortified Overshoot

Chaotic Unraveling

Adaptive Simplification

Regenerative Transition

The Harder Possibility: Severe Population Decline

If Some of Us Survive

The Essential Point

Beyond Overshoot

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A Message from the Larger Whole

How This Perspective Can Help You Today

1. Stop Resisting Reality—Meet It with Clear Eyes

2. Do Not Get Lost in the Old Systems—But Do Not Abandon the World

3. Do Not Fear the Collapse—It Is Part of the Process

4. Look for the New World Already Emerging

5. Hold the Long View—You Are Part of Something Ancient and Vast

6. Let Love Guide You, Not Fear

Final Words: The Choice Is Yours

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Global Ecological Overshoot: A Civilization Living Beyond Its Means

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