“There is no wealth without land, no prosperity without water, and no economy without a living Earth.”
— Dr. Glen Barry

Ecology is the study of our shared home; economy is its management. An economy that destroys its ecology is a household destroying itself. I work in investment management, building backend AI systems, and I am also a long-time committed deep ecologist. Many see these as contradictory. I see them as two views of the same reality; one that must converge as ecological limits impose themselves on economic reality.

I am not an investment professional. What follows is not investment advice, but a statement of personal values and strategy.

The condition of our land, air, and water has reached a breaking point. These are not abstract environmental concerns or distant risks; they are the destruction of the elemental biological conditions that make human life possible. Without clean water, fertile soil, and breathable air, societies cannot function. In many regions, they already do not. What we are witnessing are not “environmental problems” separate from economics, but the steady erosion of the ecological foundations upon which all economies rest.

The End of the Extraction Illusion

For centuries, we have treated Earth’s ecosystems as infinite sources of raw material and endless sinks for waste. That fantasy is ending. We have exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity, and the overshoot is now expressing itself as ecological breakdown across land, air, and water. Forests collapse, soils erode, rivers fail, and the atmosphere destabilizes, all at once. This unraveling of the environment is inseparable from the erosion of social cohesion, economic opportunity, and democratic political order. What appears as political instability or economic stress is, at root, a civilization colliding with biophysical limits.

This overshoot is driven not simply by population, but by obscene inequality layered onto sheer numbers. Billions survive on a few dollars a day, consuming little individually yet exerting immense collective pressure, while a tiny global elite lives in relentless excess, extracting, flying, building, and burning as if the planet were infinite. The richest pollute the most by orders of magnitude, yet the poorest suffer first and hardest. Any honest response must confront both realities at once: stabilizing population through the education and empowerment of girls and women, and dismantling extreme wealth concentration through taxation and accountability. There is no ecological future that permits limitless accumulation by the few on a finite planet already pushed beyond its carrying capacity.

The biosphere—the thin, fragile skin of life that makes civilization possible—is being torn apart in real time. Forests that took millennia to form are erased in hours. Rivers that sustained civilizations for thousands of years now run dry, are toxic, and become flashpoints of conflict. The atmosphere itself, stable throughout the entire span of human history, is being destabilized before our eyes. This is not a warning. It is already underway.

Deep ecology reminds us that nature has intrinsic value beyond human use, that we are members of ecological communities rather than rulers standing above other creatures. But even stripped of ethics and compassion, the arithmetic does not change. Physics and biology do not negotiate.

We are crossing into lethal territory. Climate change alone is already killing people, and it will kill many more. At the same time, we are dismantling soils, forests, and grasslands through desertification, erosion, and industrial abuse. These failures do not occur in isolation. They compound. They accelerate. Systems that once absorbed shock are failing together.

The most terrifying convergence is water, the lack of which is poised to cause dramatic global disruption. When climate disruption, land collapse, and atmospheric instability collide, potable water disappears. Aquifers are drained faster than they can recharge. Glaciers that supply billions are melting out of existence. Rivers fail. Reservoirs empty. Cities confront the unthinkable: taps that run dry. This is where the illusion finally shatters. Without water, people do not migrate, they die horribly in place. Not as statistics, but as bodies. In heat. In thirst. At scale.

No functioning ecosystems means no functioning economy. Jobs do not exist on a dead planet. Financial portfolios are meaningless without clean water to drink or food to eat or air to breathe.

There is no wealth without land, no prosperity without water, and no economy without a living Earth.

Capital as Leverage: Why ESG and Impact Investing Matter

This is where ESG and impact investing move from ethical preference to economic necessity. Capital is leverage. Where money flows, advancement is possible. If investment continues to favor fossil fuel extraction, soil-depleting industrial agriculture, and pollution-intensive manufacturing, we accelerate our own unraveling. Redirected toward regeneration, capital can slow damage, stabilize systems, and in some cases begin repair.

Water makes this plain. Watershed restoration does not merely secure drinking water for cities, it sustains agriculture, protects wildlife, and provides flood control worth billions. Investments in water purification, reuse, and sustainable management are not charity. They acknowledge that water scarcity is one of the defining constraints of this century. The Colorado River barely reaches the sea. The Ganges, Nile, and Yellow River are under severe stress. The investment opportunity lies in solutions, not denial and continued water-intensive overuse.

The same logic applies to regenerative agriculture and reforestation. Industrial farming has stripped immense quantities of topsoil in a single century. Regenerative practices rebuild soil, sequester carbon, increase long-term productivity, and restore resilience. Ecosystem restoration restores biodiversity, moderates local climate, and delivers ecosystem services whose value far exceeds what current balance sheets capture. These are not soft returns. When honestly accounted for, they are foundational to both surviving and thriving.

Air quality investments matter just as much. Renewable energy replaces fossil fuel combustion that both destabilizes the climate and poisons human lungs. Millions die each year from air pollution. Beyond the moral imperative, the economics are decisive. Renewables are increasingly cheaper than fossil fuels, storage is advancing rapidly, and the transition is structural, not ideological. Renewable energy markets continue to hold up, and clearly will win, despite opposition from entrenched interests.

Pricing True Costs

Traditional finance has priced nature at zero. Forests are valuable when cut. Rivers when dammed. Ecosystems when converted into commodities. This accounting is suicidal. Environmental economists have long understood that we systematically fail to internalize external costs into prices, privatizing profits while socializing ecological damage. When a river is polluted, downstream communities pay. When the climate destabilizes, future generations pay. This is not a market failure; it is how the system was built.

The power to change this unsustainable economic system lies not in abstract markets, but in the decisions of policymakers, investors, fiduciaries, pension funds, and insurers who determine what is financed, priced, and insured—and what is not.

Capitalism has generated extraordinary prosperity and lifted billions from poverty. It may be the worst economic system we have, except for all the others we have tried, but it was never designed to respect ecological limits, or to know when is enough. Having treated the biosphere as expendable, we are now colliding with the consequences of that worldview. If capitalism is to survive its own success, it must evolve.

Pollution, habitat destruction, and resource depletion can no longer be free. The costs must be internalized and natural assets properly accounted for. Carbon must have a price. Ecosystem destruction must have a price. Clean water, breathable air, and fertile soil must be recognized as the finite, irreplaceable assets they are. And show up on the balance sheet. Until we account for the nature we are losing and the condition of what still remains, we will keep losing it, paying far more later to survive the damage.

Going further, a viable economic system must do more than price destruction; it must reward restoration. Those who invest in ending habitat loss, repairing degraded ecosystems, and rebuilding natural capital must have a legitimate means to earn returns. A regenerative economy does not merely internalize externalities; it captures ecological rent on behalf of society while directing profit toward activities that restore soils, forests, watersheds, and climate stability.

When capital flows toward regeneration rather than extraction, markets begin to align with biophysical reality. The alternative is to continue subsidizing collapse—socializing ecological damage while privatizing short-term gain—until the costs overwhelm any remaining capacity to adapt.

An economy is only legitimate if it serves the biosphere that makes it possible.

Aligning Capital with Ecological Reality

My investment strategy follows directly from this ecological reality. I focus primarily on renewable energy and water, while seeking opportunities in sustainable agriculture. (And yes, AI - but that’s a subject for another day.) These sectors address the most basic requirements of any functioning economy: a stable climate, drinkable water, and fertile land.

I am currently underperforming the broader market, and I accept that this may persist as capital continues to chase short-lived narratives and extractive returns. Over the medium to long term, however, I believe these investments offer the most credible path to durable value because they align with physical reality rather than financial abstraction. Economies do not exist apart from energy, water, food, and stable ecosystems; they are built on them.

The biophysical reality that deep ecology recognizes will eventually force itself into economic accounting. When externalities are properly accounted for, when pollution, habitat destruction, and resource depletion carry their true costs, regenerative ecological investments will outperform extractive ones. Not as moral preference, but as reflection of actual costs and returns. Physical reality does not negotiate with financial abstractions. The costs we’ve been hiding will become visible, and capital allocated according to ecological reality will win.

Or both the global biosphere and economy collapse.

If I were to lose substantial money on these investments, it will be because of societal collapse and a functionally dead planet. We’ve all lost everything that matters and markets no longer exist. There is no scenario where ignoring ecological breakdown preserves wealth. But if these investments succeed, we’ve helped build an economy that can actually sustain itself, earning returns while ensuring basic needs are met widely and comfortable, dignified lives become achievable for all.

Few investments are more rational than those that protect land, water, and air. Not because it is virtuous to care about nature (though it is) but because everything else depends on it. Every meal, every breath, all love, every community exists within living systems. Investing in their protection and restoration is not idealism. It is realism.

The question is not whether we should prioritize ecological investment. The question is whether we will do it in time.

###

The views expressed are personal and not those of my employer or any other affiliates.

BigEarthData.ai Launches as a Biosphere-First Environmental Intelligence Platform

New York, New York – Dec. 27, 2025

BigEarthData.ai has launched as a new environmental intelligence platform dedicated to protecting the environment, climate, and people for global ecological sustainability. The platform helps the public, researchers, journalists, and decision-makers better understand the accelerating climate and ecological crisis through real-time data, science, and AI-assisted synthesis.

A first-of-its-kind Deep Ecology GenAI tool is online now at: https://bigearthdata.ai

BigEarthData.ai is an initiative of Big Earth Data, a long-standing environmental and AI research organization founded by environmental scientist and deep ecologist Dr. Glen Barry. Big Earth Data builds on the legacy of EcoInternet, one of the earliest global environmental information networks, which helped pioneer deep ecology informed online ecological advocacy and reporting from 1990 to 2020.

BigEarthData.ai integrates millions of global news articles, peer-reviewed scientific research, and continuously updated environmental data streams into a single searchable system. The platform combines advanced AI semantic search with a generative AI interface, Lil Dr Glen EcoChat, to provide evidence-based, biosphere-centered responses to urgent ecological questions in Dr. Barry’s voice.

“Humanity is facing a rapidly narrowing window to stabilize Earth’s life-support systems, and artificial intelligence has emerged just as the stakes could not be higher,” said Barry. “BigEarthData.ai exists to cut through noise, denial, and fragmentation, and to ground public understanding in the best available science and real-world environmental signals.”

Unlike conventional news or AI tools, BigEarthData.ai is explicitly biosphere-first. Its design reflects a core premise: modern civilization, the economy, and artificial intelligence itself depend entirely on a functioning biosphere. The platform treats ecological integrity, planetary boundaries, biodiversity protection, and climate stability as non-negotiable baselines for understanding global events and policy choices.

BigEarthData.ai provides:

- AI semantic search across climate, environment, science, biodiversity, Indigenous issues, and related global topics

- Lil Dr Glen EcoChat, a generative AI system grounded in curated environmental news and scientific research

- Continuous updates via RSS feeds and APIs, with new content added 24/7

- Source transparency that allows users to trace AI-generated responses back to underlying evidence

- A Bluesky social media stream providing real-time environmental intelligence and commentary at https://bsky.app/profile/bigearthdata.bsky.social

BigEarthData.ai is built around a simple reality: planetary systems are destabilizing faster than institutions and public understanding can adapt. Grounded in the recognition that humanity is undermining Earth’s life-support systems, the platform integrates science, data, and journalism to help society understand and respond to escalating, interconnected ecological risks shaping the human future.

“Technology has a role to play in protecting the living Earth,” Barry said. “But only if it is aligned with ecological reality rather than short-term optimization or abstract growth.”

BigEarthData.ai is now live and publicly accessible. It is an independent project of Dr. Barry and does not represent the views of his employer.

Contact:

Dr. Glen Barry
Founder, Big Earth Data
drgbarry@gmail.com
https://bigearthdata.ai

“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” - Joseph Welch, Army-McCarthy hearings

“A generation has been taught that decency is a weakness and power excuses anything.” - Dr. Glen Barry

It is deeply disheartening to be an American patriot and bear the vile, filthy indecency of the current American president.

This little, sick man brags about grabbing women, mocks a disabled reporter, demeans women’s bodies, and is a convicted felon. He belittles prisoners of war, jokes about sexual assault, separates families, and cages migrants. He tear-gasses peaceful demonstrators, praises authoritarian leaders, disparages allies, and attacks journalists. He labels facts fake, insults judges, uses racist language, and calls neo-Nazis “fine people.”

He encourages violence, neglects a deadly pandemic, rejects scientific guidance, and politicizes public health. He calls fallen soldiers “losers,” retaliates against whistleblowers, and fires inspectors general. He deploys troops against American cities, prosecutes political opponents, pressures courts and juries, and undermines confidence in our ballots. At every turn, our democratic institutions are weakened and bloodied.

There has long been a nativist streak in America, even as the nation itself was forged on stolen and conquered land. But there is no precedent for the bloated, cartoonish buffoonery of the current President.

This crisis is not simply about policy differences. Disorderly flows of people are disruptive. The LGBTQ agenda has, at times, overreached. Taxes are too high. Government is too large. But none of this legitimizes the level of jackassery to which Trump has dragged the country.

Yet other key policies threaten environmental collapse, a fascist future, and the very fall of the nation. We see bad policy making in the reckless dismissal of climate change as the world burns, the crushing inflation brought on by erratic tariffs, and the needless brutality of ICE.

These are not just ‘differences of opinion’; they are deep, structural wounds to our economy, ecology, and humanity. Trump’s unprecedented assault on the environment that sustains us is eroding our ability to maintain basic needs, democratic liberties, and healthy ecosystems.

What is being lost is not just good manners, but the basic moral ground a democracy stands on. A republic cannot survive when cruelty is a directive from the top. When truth becomes optional, the foundation cracks.

A generation has been taught that decency is a weakness and power excuses anything. Several episodes so clearly and blatantly overstep these bounds that they reveal his character in its plainest, ugliest form.

We see it in the chilling sight of American troops patrolling our own cities—a move of political theater that crosses a bright line and signals the Fall of American Democracy. This betrayal is compounded by the fascistic, seditious treachery at the Capitol, where he goaded white nationalist forces to overturn a fair election.

Even the “People’s House” has been bulldozed to make way for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom—a staggering act of vanity, as American families struggle to afford groceries and keep the lights on.

And at the most vicious personal level, what kind of vulgar person mocks a brutal double murder and belittles the slain Rob and Michele Reiner? To suggest their deaths were a result of their political convictions is an ogreish indecency from a sick mind, marking exactly how far President Trump has diminished the nation’s character.

Have you no sense of decency, Mr. President? Clearly not.

These words echo a turning point in American history. On June 9, 1954, during the Army-McCarthy hearings, attorney Joseph Welch famously asked Senator Joseph McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” It was the moment the nation collectively realized that cruelty and demagoguery had gone too far. Today, we face a similar reckoning.

Decency is not a luxury or partisan. It is the minimum requirement for a free society to hold together. When indecency becomes the point, the damage spreads far beyond one man. It corrodes trust, poisons civic life, and leaves the nation weaker and more divided.

America must not double down on extremes with more rage, more purity tests, or more performative outrage. The path forward is a return to restraint, proportionality, shared reality, and the broad political middle.

The task before us is not victory over one another, but the repair of American Democracy, which until recently was truly exceptional.

Witness inequitable overpopulation’s thunderous crescendo before global ecological collapse destroys everything, because many could not fathom how much is enough, as too many others have nothing

"You smell that? Do you smell that?... Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning." – Apocalypse Now

"Humanity's and nature's future, if any, are being determined now." – Dr. Glen Barry

Earth Meanders Essays by Dr. Glen Barry

Ecological Apocalypse Now

I have a story to tell you. It regards the mayhem you see all around you. The exponential growth tearing apart being, sending humanity well beyond Earth’s carrying capacity, and threating perma-war, abject poverty, and environmental collapse if we don’t act immediately…
We will get to the solutions, but first understand the magnitude of intertwined crises as biosphere collapse looms.

Earth is massive yet finite. For eons humans have intensively cultivated natural ecosystems, and once overexploited, moved on to destroy the next forest, grassland, and aquatic ecosystem. At low population densities, this allowed diminished areas time to recover.

In an ecological blink of an eye humanity’s population has exploded. In just over a century, human numbers have surged nearly ten-fold from one to eight billion. It’s so damn simple – the actual and perceived material needs of these apex predators in sum are totally and completely overwhelming nature.

The global life support system that humans and all life depend upon for our habitat is dying.

It is obscene that billions of human beings live meagerly upon a few dollars a day, while a small group of billionaires live lavishly, having hoarded half of Earth’s wealth. We now witness the grinding violence of poverty as billions eke out a living unable to meet basic needs for their children. As a sizable minority opulently overconsumes.

The madness of GDP growth as the measure of human well-being is pernicious; nonsensically equating economic growth, often at the expense of liquidating natural systems, with the well-being of billions of human beings, kindred life forms, and their shared habitat and atmosphere.

Grotesque inequity, with everyone wanting more and little sharing, precludes ever achieving global ecological sustainability.

Living as if there are no biogeophysical limits upon personal consumption and procreation is shredding natural ecosystems and the climate. The human family faces an era (perhaps our last) of Ecological Apocalypse Now.

A given piece of land can only be so productive before overuse leads to collapse and becoming barren. There are limits on the water that can be withdrawn from aquifers and rivers, and then they run dry. The atmosphere can only bear a certain amount of waste, before run-away climate heating occurs.

A couple decades ago it was said that Earth could support all of humanity at the material wealth of the average European. Sadly, those days are long gone, and reasonable levels of equity required to sustain an operable biosphere are going to require the wealthy to share. And all of us to have fewer children, as we seek less impact from our consumption.
Evidence of the population bomb going off are everywhere. People of different cultures packed more closely together make forever wars. Overt racism and even slavery are on the rise once again. Anti-bacterial resistance and epidemics result from many people living close together, including in proximity with livestock.

Look at the mangled landscape surrounding you, with quivering fragments of nature flickering out. Witness the mass migration of climate and ecosystem loss refugees. Hear the cries of terrorized wildlife, feel viscerally the loss of plants upon which all life depends, immerse yourself in the heat of a climate run amuck.

The human enterprise is drunkenly careening past Earth’s carrying capacity, living as if our shared natural habitat has no value. And like we have no duties to nature, if we are to survive.

When you push nature too hard, she pushes back. Until nature becomes overwhelmed and dies. We need to face the truth regarding our personal role in ecocide. Or together we face the end of being.

Ecological Solutions Now

Portends of the end of the world are all around you. Humanity's and nature's future, if any, are being determined now. 

Sustainability means redefining progress. As an immediate triage we must stop destroying natural vegetation. And quickly transition away from all types of burning including but not limited to fossil fuels.

The underlying lack of knowledge – and widespread ignorance, superstition and conspiracies – are all so tragic because it does not have to end this way. People want to feel special, successful and clever, I get it. Yet there is nothing appealing in a carefree, selfish lifestyle that pushes your species, planet, and all life beyond the carrying capacity.

As the world descends into a dystopian nightmare, foremost we are called upon to hold onto our humanity. While together we embark upon an unprecedented program of emissions cuts, rewilding of natural ecosystems, demobilizing militarily and making forever peace, re-localizing sustainable food systems, and limiting both our reproduction and personal consumption.

It remains possible to save nature and thus ourselves and our children. But it requires a rapid emergence of a regenerative worldview. Key is a commitment to degrowth, which requires shrinking extractive and industrial activities; to focus upon a restoration of natural ecosystems, righteous livelihoods, a commitment to reasonable levels of equity, and having fewer children.

So much could be done now to control population. Eliminate child tax breaks. Free condoms. Preferential access to higher education for small families. A basic income to guarantee essential needs are met for all. And first and foremost, educate all women and girls equally to men and boys.

Rewilding refers to actions to regenerate natural ecosystems as the surrounding context for meeting the needs of human society, kindred species, and our shared ecosystems right up to the biosphere. It involves both nurturing nature's natural process of succession and renewal, as well as augmenting regrowth with ecological restoration and permaculture plantings. Think of permaculture as forest gardens where human needs are met within perennial plantings that also provide ecosystem services.

Natural ecosystem processes, though weakened, still have an innate ability to repair themselves. Strict land controls will remove human pressures and allow fragmented ecosystems to recover, expand, and reconnect. Humanity can augment this natural recovery with carefully targeted restoration plantings. Massive greenhouses full of native plant genotypes, and a large workforce of gardeners, will supplant natural vegetation’s regeneration. Such restoration ecology reestablishes dominant native natural plants, that provide the natural structure and dynamics for nature to do the rest. Maximal benefits are achieved by targeting sites for planting that increase ecosystem connectivity and reduce fragmentation.

Native ecosystem restoration will be interspersed within a matrix of permacultural plantings to provide food, fiber, and a healthy environment. Increasingly communities will be required to live within their bioregion’s limits; growing, processing, and sharing their own food. Local, organic, non-industrial, and non-meat food sources need to be the focus.

Sources of drinking water must be zealously protected and restored. And we have all the tools we need in renewable energy, efficiency, and simplified lifestyles to end greenhouse gas emissions. Avoiding abrupt climate change requires a whole-systems ecological approach that includes both technology and reinvigorated nature.

Other key pillars of global ecological sustainability include an universally educated citizenry, demobilizing standing armies, and a commitment to racial justice and restitution. Imagine what is possible as the human family commits to Forever Peace. The quest for the stars, an AI assisted life of leisure, true passionate love, and great accomplishments in sports and the arts lie before us.

Within a couple generations, one can envision a once again lush and productive environment surrounding human works; where all basic needs are met, as those who work hard have reasonably more of the fruits of natural abundance.

A right-sized human future will be one of peace, ecology, truth, and equity if we want it to be. Or else business as usual means incomprehensible human and natural suffering before being ends. A verdant future is ours to make.

“Go back to the abyss! Fall into nothingness that awaits you and your master!” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“The biosphere is collapsing… Global ecological sustainability depends critically upon a swift end to both cutting natural vegetation and all burning.” – Dr. Glen Barry

Falling into Nothingness

Earth Meanders – Deep Ecology Essays by Dr. Glen Barry

The environment, which provides the habitat to sustain life, has been and continues to be shredded by the consuming hordes for throw-away products. Water, food, clean air, and natural resource depletion loom as exponential growth gobbles the last bits of global greenery. Sick ecosystems, abuse of animals, and over-crowdedness threaten rolling pandemics.

Nature is our only home

Humanity is dismantling the biosphere, the shared thin mantle of life in which we live, to have ever more babies that seek more of everything. The human family has surpassed Earth's carrying capacity and unless we pursue a policy of deliberate degrowth the biosphere will collapse and die.

The state of the world is simply wretched. There has always been human environmental impact, sickness, war, and social ills. But rarely at this scale, with entire bioregions becoming uninhabitable dead zones, and the serious possibility of destruction of the global ecological system by humans. As much of humanity suffers wanton despair.

Gaia, our one shared biosphere, is analogous to a living organism. Her constituent ecosystem organs are being pillaged by war, resource thievery, a belief system based upon myths of ancient ghosts, and a thirst for ever more stuff. Millions of years old naturally evolved rainforests teaming with life, fantastical marine abundance, natural water flows and stores, fertile ancient soils, and clean fresh air have been raped and plundered for god, country, and fleeting personal wealth and soon will be gone.

We spend much of societies' resources upon war making. At the detriment of all else including education, health care, and job training. A handful of billionaires have more financial resources than billions of others. White supremacy and other intersectional forms of discrimination dehumanize all who are not white christian males. 

Disease, hunger, ignorance, and greed run roughshod upon the land. We might as well eat our children, poison the well, and burn our food crops, as our behavior towards others and the natural world is so repugnant and could not be much worse.

Such pain as together we rush towards the darkness. 

How has the global zeitgeist become so banal, trivial and evil? What has become of pondering cosmological mysteries? Advancing the rights of humanity? Crafting hand-made masterpieces? Marveling at the wonders of the human body? Growing and building with our own hands? Working for truth, justice and equity? What of community, helping your neighbor, true love, and countless other human pursuits of excellence.

No ghosts in the sky

Many now aspire for no better than D-list influencer celebrity, a virtual life of gaming in the metaverse, and over-consuming. Rather than for a just, righteous livelihood within nature and community. Pixels on a screen are a poor replica of sunning on a beach, listening in an ancient forest, or finding true love (or for that matter lust). What an empty life. How clueless to not realize the energy and resources that technology requires.

And forget about engineering a biosphere, it will never happen. Too complex, too much can go wrong. And it is unnecessary as we already have a biosphere that can be be protected and restored.

A small handful of individuals possess half of Earth’s wealth as billions face the terror of abject poverty. CEOs make hundreds of times as much as their workers, and the working poor need food assistance and live out of their cars. Feel viscerally if you can the pain of three billion human beings living on a few dollars a day as they watch the opulent elite promenade. 

How long before the have-nots come for us? And pull down civilization such as it is. Or are they already?

The brutal rape of humanity and nature is nothing less than evil thuggery. Many must sell their bodies and souls simply to survive. As kindred noble primates cling to their offspring as their rainforest home is mowed for curios and trinkets. Wildlife and domesticated animals live lives of institutional terror as our playthings and factory food. 

Our whole way of being constitutes profoundly illogical terroristic dismembering of ourselves and our habitat, in a willful death-wish.

Tin-pot dictators can blow
us up on a whim

And why have peace, justice, and international law fallen out of fashion? Because the American Empire was attacked 20 years ago, now we are going to wage global perma-war? How could such an exceptional political system have become so grotesquely debased, belligerent, and self-entitled? Petty dictators sit upon the tin-pot thrones of many rich and ancient cultures, now fading in glory, yet with buttons to at a whim unleash nuclear war.

How will this transition into depletion and collapse be managed? How do we avoid fascist, authoritarian, falsely populist responses? Will the superstitious, poorly educated, and simply deplorable low-lives ever overcome their crass, belligerent ignorance; to be made to feel their oneness with natural ecosystems and people that are different than them? To savor their rights, while realizing their duties? Or will they continue to babble nonsensical conspiracy-theories, fall prey to fascist demagoguery, pursue traitorous sedition, and terrorize those of other colors and faiths?

Such ecological and social deterioration in such a short time. It really began in earnest with Cowboy Reagan's slashing of government, and the rise to power of far-right christian white supremacy. And before that, and since, bi-partisan war-making bolstering the Congressional-Industrial-Military complex. Along with the unquestioned irrational belief that growth in population and inequitable consumption comprises development. 

America’s recent fascist sedition epitomizes the underlying anti-truth, anti-science, hateful social disease.

I have tried to live a purpose-driven life committed to ideas. Channeling my visions of ecocide into written words and activism for 35 years has come at great expense to my physical and mental wellbeing, relationships with loved ones, and material comfort. I am getting tired. Recently I had a moment of doubt on whether I could continue. Thus, I have pared back my environmental science efforts including retiring aspects of EcoInternet after 25 years of service. My focus will be continuing to research artificial intelligence technologies for sustainability under the moniker Big Earth Data ( https://bigearth-data.com/ ), and perhaps other appropriate uses of information technologies. 

And I will write as I can, even as few are listening.

While I do not want to believe it is too late, it certainly could be. Still my hope is that there is some unknown fount of global ecological resilience that will sustain us until we can marshal a great
transition to renewed well-being.

It is going to take everything we have got. Every strategy: actions as diverse as Wall Street impact investing, youths organizing online, widespread social gardening, population controls, and income redistribution. Solutions for ecological sustainability include dramatic cuts in personal consumption, restoring ecosystems, end old-growth logging, demobilization of standing armies, and down-sizing of both corporate power and government bureaucracy.

Global ecological sustainability depends critically upon a swift end to both cutting natural vegetation and all burning. 

We must allow Gaia to rest.

We begin together to work in earnest on these priorities or we all face unimaginable deprivation and horrors as, with our hands on each other’s throats, together we fall into nothingness.

It is a choice. Miraculous nature and being do not have to end this way. 

Choose well.

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

Henry David Thoreau

“Life begets life. As ecology narrates… Be the seed, and tend to your garden.”

Dr. Glen Barry

Life Begets Life 

Miraculous seeds are our future and always have and will be. Programmed in sprouting seeds and animal zygotes, deeply within their DNA, is the perpetual renewal of life. Faith can be found in a seed, as well as the willful knowledge upon which life’s promise rests.

...that begets future ancient oaks

Together organisms propagated through seeds combine to produce plant communities, wildlife populations, human habitats and livelihoods, ecosystems, landscapes and ultimately our one living biosphere. In a cosmological wonder, these habitats born from seeds are the culmination of life, even as they make life of individual organisms possible.

Life begets life. As ecology narrates.

Out of this whirlwind of billions of years of genetic combinations emerged the hairless ape with the opposable thumbs. While clearly an animal, constant self-improvement has led to self-awareness. And the will to know, be free, and create.

Sadly, the human project while promising, has a dark, self-fulfilling death wish. Human comfort has come at the cost of a separation from, and destruction of, natural ecosystems. Packed tightly together, in weakened collapsing ecosystems, with industrial livestock and threatened wildlife; the future of the cosmic homo-sapien dance with nature is in question.

Nature and her humanity are in a race between ecosystem loss and regeneration, carbon emissions and renewables, vaccines and variants, scientific truths versus anti-science conspiracy theories. Human agency is both the problem and the answer.

At stake is personal and civilization’s well-being and survival. Human liberty for which it is worth living. And the future of a habitable biosphere. Nothing less than continued being or the end of being.

Powerful new seeds are needed to sow the pathway to continued nature and humanity. One might as well be an informed, awoke, and active you.

Looming Collapse

We are really in the shit. Environmental collapse, coronavirus, fascism, and I think I heard something about fire tornadoes. We find ourselves in this position of ecological and social collapse because of abrupt climate change, ecosystem loss, and over-population.

And hubristic and inequitable human material aspirations cumulatively surpassing the biosphere’s carrying capacity.

In a geological blink of an eye there has been enormous change to the ecological systems of the planet of which humans are a part, fully enmeshed, and utterly dependent. Anyone that looks with knowing eyes can see indicators that conditions for the global biosphere’s health are worsening. And that human society has been profoundly negatively impacted by environmental decline, finding itself now perched upon an apocalyptic end.

Deforestation, atmospheric change, water and ocean degradation, soil and wetland loss, clearing of natural ecosystems, and widespread cataclysmic wildfires are completely unprecedented. As wildlife habitats shrink diseases are coming in closer proximity to humans and there are increased inter-species jumps.

The context within which we live is changing. Our shared habitat is being simplified, toxified, and is dying. Socially, economically, and ecologically things are deteriorating fast. The situation has been bad for billions of humans for awhile, but the social implication of environmental decline is now hitting the well-off too.

Social competition and stress for limited resources in increasing. Globally protests are raging and may soon converge into an ecological, demonstration, injustice maelstrom. And we are seeing authoritarian responses including a drift towards fascism.

Those impeding science (and indigenous, justice, equity) based policy responses are on the wrong side of history and will be vilified for however long we have left.

Lazy Thinkers

Nature’s last chance is threatened by conspiracy theories promulgated by lazy thinkers. You know the type. The ones that find meaning in random YouTube videos, obscure podcasts, and millennia old texts. Those with poor critical thinking skills that have not educated themselves, invested time in being well-read, and pondered cosmology amongst old trees peering at the inscrutable stars.

Personally I have been first shocked and then saddened to hear family and friends repeat to me known falsehoods for which there is no truth. Trump won, COVID vaccines change your DNA, and many more. Humanity faces a deficit in critical thinking from which we may never recover.

Yet so many objective, science-buttressed truths exist. Life needs water. Land has a finite carrying-capacity. Earth is alive. Humans are born and meant to remain radically free. No Abrahamic gods sit in judgment. Love is the answer.

Earth and her humanity are faced with looming tragedies for which we don’t have much time. Critical thinking and rejecting conspiracy theories are more important now than ever.

It is OK, indeed admirable, to seek to live a special life in service to higher ideals, that has meaning other than self-stimulating your nerve endings. 

Science does not have all the answers and is fallible. But it is method whereby data and observable, repeatable outcomes very often arrive at objective truth.

In these challenging times, little is as fulfilling as taking the time to critically identify truth required for community survival and thriving. Which must be just, equitable, and sustainable. Reading and listening to experts of many sources and types, until becoming one yourself. And making your hard earned and demonstrable truths known to others, implementing with others your action-knowledge on behalf of being.

Here are some of my truths. Community gardens. Tree planting. Birth control. Reducing emissions. Eating locally. Flying and driving less. Race does not matter. Making Love. Feeding the hungry. Absolute radical freedom and responsibility. Teaching the uneducated. Healing the sick. Resisting fascists. Loving Earth. Serving nature.

All from life-long questioning and learning. And subject to revision at any time from new data and repeatable observation.

The deplorable indoctrinated hordes; bent upon self-indulgent consumerism and indoctrinated dogma at the expense of the biosphere, will try to limit, constrain, and tell you that you are not special. Maybe suggesting you are crazy.

Your task is the hard slog of self-education, to arrive at objective truths, to imagine a better society and world, and develop a program of self-expression and action. Despite lesser evolved beings.

Become the seed from which a new world springs that is just, equitable, free, and sustainable. And lasts forever.

Reimagine Everything                

We did it! Humanity is once again surrounded by intact nature. We have successfully returned to our natural condition. Energy, water, and nutrient cycles have been restored and once again make for a living biosphere.

After the decade long battle with coronavirus in which hundreds of millions died; we – the human family and kindred species – started over. The entire manner we related to our planet habitat was dramatically changed. When nature once again surrounded human works, we began to undo and reverse other types of collapse.

Many roads and other unnecessary human works were ripped out to reconnect water and woods and wildlife. Greatly reduced violence resulted from ending spending on militarism, and reductions in human population expanded wildlife habitat and opportunities for nature-based righteous livelihoods.

A choice was made to globally demobilize nuclear weapons and dramatically shrink standing armies. The money was plowed into children, and lifelong education, art and sport, job training, and of course the environment and health care.

Reasonable population reductions over time through educating all and on demand birth control were successfully implemented, allowing all basic human needs to be met with a guaranteed basic income. Positive results flowed from restraining capitalism’s excesses with simple long-prescribed notions like pricing environmental externalities, and favoring capital investments in the environment, social good, and governance.

In Closing

This seed seeks to highlight the universality of concerns across protests roiling the Earth, and the inherent ecological nature of many of these grievances.

There will be lasting peace. All humans will be treated equally. All will have enough as some have more. The Earth’s one shared biosphere will be sustained as the murderous suffering of nature will end as ecosystems are fully protected and restored.

Beside an occasional challenging essay, day in and day out EcoInternet’s seed provides an aggregated encyclopedic tracking and archiving of environmental and social events through the Biosphere EcoSearch. We seek to augment ecological knowledge and action using artificial intelligence.

Be the seed, and tend to your garden.

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” – Sinclair Lewis*

“…another generation of American antifascists has been called to duty.” – Dr. Glen Barry

* quote disputed yet salient

The American Capitol defiled by
traitorous deplorable confederate filth

America invented fascism. America’s centuries long system of white supremacy inspired Hitler’s Holocaust. Genocide and racial hostility are as American as baseball and apple pie, perhaps more so.

The new world of settler colonialism was born upon the twin sins of genocide and racism. Settlers wielding shotguns and bullwhips terrorized and subdued non-white nations; raping and enslaving dark-skinned people. Under the banners of christianity, capitalism, and democracy, white people have murdered and enslaved black people for centuries.

A white supremacist state was enshrined with highfalutin words of liberty, justice, and equality. As dispossessed Native Americans wallowed in squalor and enslaved Africans counted as 3/5 a person. Millions of living human beings were murdered and enslaved because they weren’t white christians.

Such savagery has rarely been seen, and its vestiges live on, as the white supremacists’ system of control has never wholly been dismantled. American rape and murder of non-white persons continues apace. And rising American fascism in the heartland promises a return to genocide and enslavement of all non-white non-christians.

There have been many types of fascism. Yet all share far-right, authoritarian, nationalistic, irrationality that critically depends upon scapegoating and dehumanizing others. Here I define fascism as including systematic racism whether it be against Jews, Africans, indigenous peoples or others.

Hitler came to power democratically with the aid of conservative allies who thought they could control him. He built a fascist system that raged against all that was non-Aryan. And murdered millions of mostly Jews but also the disabled, intellectuals, Gypsies, and those of other political persuasions. Nazism is a type of fascism, but there are others.

Fascism leads inevitably to mass murder

In a display of confounding duality, out of the American melting pot has also come two of the world’s most substantial antifascist responses. In 1865 the confederate slave-owning traitors were resoundingly defeated. And again in 1945 the filthy, genocidal nazi fascists were brought to justice.

American soldiers storming Atlanta and later Normandy were amongst the first successful antifascists. These mostly white Americans understood something about humanity despite their indoctrination and society.

We are all one human family. And while our different hues reflect the diversity of a multitude of rich ethnicities, it is our individual character that determines our worth, not the color of our skin. Claims of superiority and repression based upon skin color and religious belief are evil. And after all the arguments are through, sometimes to end the threat of murderous evil, you must punch a nazi or a confederate in the face.

Over the intervening years, steadily the US and the world have embraced the notion of global human rights. It has been slow, and the results are incomplete. But progress has been steady.

All people are created equal and have a right to freedom and liberty. In some of the greatest strides of human betterment, universal suffrage and freedom from servitude have become accepted as universal truth. Whole regions of the Earth still labor under dictatorial cults of personality, but the expectation has been set eventually all will have their inherent rights of hu(man) recognized and protected.

American fascists sought to capture and
murder America’s political leadership
Flash-forward another ~80 years and fascism and racism are again on the rise, particularly in America. In an age of increasing environmental scarcity and ecological collapse, poorly educated, down-on-their luck white people fell prey to a playboy New York huckster, here referred to appropriately as Creepy Donald.

Sweet nativist whispers were made by the creep that America would be made great again by rolling back history to a time of fascist white supremacy.

After four years of despotic rule by Creepy Donald’s cult, the nascent fascist disease – just in the nick of time – was defeated at the ballot box. The defeated great leader began sowing the big lie that the election had been stolen, seeking to illegally seize and hold power. This American authoritarian resurgence culminated recently with the creep’s white nationalist acolytes waging insurrection upon the capitol of the American Republic.

Creepy Donald’s legacy is treasonably
and seditiously sending a mob to murder
political adversaries and seize power

In a speech worthy of fascist greats of old, the American great creep repeatedly lied, whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and directed them to the Capitol. I have no doubt that the deplorable fascist foot-soldiers that assaulted the U.S. Capitol intended to take hostage and murder Congressional leadership to seize power. And that the Capitol was purposefully left unprotected.

In shameful acts of demagoguery, Creepy Donald sent the mob to kill Vice-President Pence, House Speaker Pelosi, and others. As the mob descended chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, the great leader was gleefully watching on TV and calling Senators to further delay ceremonial counting of electoral votes.

Nothing shows what a pile of shit Creepy Donald and his deplorables are more than the beating of a downed capitol police officer with an American flag.

American Fascist beats downed police
officer with an American flagWhoever could have imagined electing a failed philandering, bankrupt reality-TV show host could have such consequences? Many saw it coming and resisted early.

The United States of America narrowly averted mass assassination of our country’s political leadership. The only thing that stood between white supremacist insurgents and seizure of power were a small group of valiant capitol police and legislative aids with the foresight to carry the electoral ballots to safety. A coup was narrowly averted.

Thus, another generation of American antifascists has been called to duty.

A white nationalist American government has brought sedition and treason, disease and ignorance, to America. At this moment American nazis and militias continue planning to overthrow the democratic government of the United States of America. Even as Creepy Donald’s negligence and lust for power have enflamed a pandemic that continues to ravage America.

America came perilously close
to losing its DemocracyWe must remain vigilant and ensure that full-throated American fascism does not come to power. Not now, not ever, using all just means necessary. We must tirelessly atone for America’s original sins, and continually work for self-improvement, and the achievement of universal human rights in America and globally.

Not every conservative is a fascist, but all fascists are conservative. Throughout history fascists have come to power through alliances with conservatives who thought they could control the racist, genocidal impulses of their fascist partners. They have been wrong. Thus fascist-enabling conservative sympathizers share responsibility for authoritarian atrocities.

Either you are fascist, or you are antifascist – often abbreviated as Antifa. Each of us must choose now, there is no middle ground. To not choose makes you a fascist sympathizer.

Antifa is merely a shared belief that all humanity has equal dignity and rights, and a commitment to resist within your means white supremacists, advocates of genocide, white christian nationalism, fascist dogma, and other authoritarian ideologies and outcomes.

You beat white supremacist fascism by removing their platform, denying their control of the streets, removing individual fascists’ veil of anonymity, and when necessary, by punching nazis. And by holding them and their conservative sympathizers and enablers accountable.

The Antifa philosophy has united all types of people to defeat fascism for decades. On many occasions post-WWII fascist resurgence has been beaten back, avoiding further authoritarian dictatorships and genocidal mass murder. Once again we have a deep-rooted responsibility to stand up to the resurgence of fascism of various types in America, Russia, Brazil, China, and Europe.

Avoiding mass murder and white supremacy
may require punching nazis and their equivalents

The prude boys, zero percenters, belch keepers and other deplorable white supremacist nationalist militias must be disbanded, and their members imprisoned. Under no circumstances must we allow their seditious behavior to continue un-resisted or become normalized. Or there will be dictatorial rule by a fascist lunatic, concentration camps in the American heartland, and the mass murder of all that is non-white and non-christian.

While America has much going for it, American exceptionalism has always been a pernicious myth. There is much to celebrate in America’s history. Yet the myth has been used primarily to justify our obvious shortcomings.

It is the human family’s ongoing realization of universal human rights that is truly exceptional. People of all colors and creeds, sharing equally basic rights including universal suffrage and equitable opportunity, living with liberty in multi-cultural societies, free of systematic oppression, where prejudice and persecution based upon race and religion are not tolerated. While bearing the duty to expand and maintain these global human rights for all. It is this marvelous recent historical accomplishment, not yet realized perfectly, yet a work in progress, that is exceptional and must not be allowed to be rolled back by nazis or confederates.

Truth exists. We are one human family. Love is the answer. There are no gods. Earth is alive. All there is, is humanity, nature, and kindred species.

While the current moment seems hopeless, there are things that can be done. Extra-judicial murders of black people by the police, anti-Semitism, and the disappearance of native women, must be eradicated. Occupied lands must be returned to indigenous peoples. Fascists and their sympathizers must be brought to justice for their sedition and treason.

Systematic racism must be dismantled once and for all through a commitment to communication, policy, and reparations that bring about equity and justice, and only then make sustainability and peace possible.

Reject the fascist white nationalist nonsense: to be Antifa is to accept that all humans are created equally and universally possess inalienable human rights. And a commitment to resist murderous fascists bent upon white supremacy and genocide. Antifascism is in tune with the equitable, just, and sustainable societies America and the world are becoming, rather than what we were.

Home-grown American fascists must be deplatformed, and denied control of the streets and government. The 29% of Americans that approve of domestic terrorism in service to christian and white supremacy must be soundly driven from power, imprisoned if they have committed crimes, and deprogrammed to avoid forever the horrors of American full-throated fascism.

A well-lived life is one that serves justice, truth, sustainability, and peace. And fights against racism and fascism.

Bless Gaia and may she and our shared commitment to Antifa ideals save us from these nazis in the American heartland.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Death, Famine, War, and Conquest — result from our everyday choices and are not preordained

“I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round…”

John Lennon

“Regain a sense of wonderous awe at the miracle of creation and work tirelessly to protect and restore nature’s splendor.”

Dr. Glen Barry 

Look out the window, any window, and behold portends of the end of being. The very ecological fabric of being is unraveling. Disease, famine, false prophecy, and authoritarianism are rife.

The biosphere – the thin mantle of life upon the Earth that holds ecosystems that are the habitats for all life – is dying. And all Earth’s life is threatened with prolonged collapse followed by extermination. There can be no escape. Unless as individuals, societies, and humanity we dramatically change. And fast.

These are hard topics to talk about. Where to start? Religion and overpopulation, given the level of ignorance that exists regarding these topics, are as good as any.

Living our lives based upon millennia old myths, for which there is no evidence and the messaging is ecocidal, shackles the human family to a most ominous fate. Invisible ghosts living in the sky in constant judgment, and if we do not do as religious authorities say, we will burn forever; is a false, tawdry and dated manner to organize society. Particularly as we are told without proof that the ghosts want us to go forth and multiply and subjugate the Earth. And murder for our tribe’s rich old men.

Please, enough already.

We break free of god pollution or in a self-fulfilling prophecy all that we love will assuredly be unnecessarily destroyed.

The multiply part – from one to eight billion human beings in about 130 years – has led to exponential growth in human numbers, fueling the stripping of Earth’s life support systems. Some say the ghosts don’t want us to control our fertility, relegating humanity to the status of a disease upon the biosphere.

Grotesque inequity, a handful of super-predators possessing half of Earth’s wealth, while billions live on a few dollars a day, exacerbates the physical conundrum that Earth can not produce as much as we desire in total to consume. Vast forests, waters, oceans, and even the atmosphere have been fouled and destroyed to meet humanity’s insatiable hunger.

And then there is looming demise of nature. For millennia since humans settled, ancient naturally evolved ecosystems have been destroyed for “development”. Nature is destroyed for consumer goods, allowing human nerve endings for some to be positively stimulated for a while, as the habitats that constitute our life support systems are weakened. And eventually natural systems collapse and die. First the woodlot out back, then your city’s surroundings, next your bioregion’s ecosystems collapse, even whole countries’ and continent’s natural assets are lost, and eventually and finally Earth as a whole will follow in-kind and become a tawdry, denuded mess. And die.

The spilling forth of European ecocidal genocide into indigenous nations and their natural habitats represented an infection upon Gaia that has festered and grown. And may well prove fatal. Innumerable worldviews that understood the harmony between humans, nature, animals, and the stars have been wiped from being.

The industrial revolution, building wealth by murdering plants, wildlife, and non-white people, became a universally accepted twisted concept upon which to build society and individual aspiration. Wave upon wave of disease spilt forth from the destruction of wildlife and natural ecosystems and continues to do so. Most recently coronavirus, and any number of pathogens are yet to emerge during the collapse as nature ends.

Priceless ecological systems – that evolved novel and miraculous structures and patterns across scales from genes, to organisms, to communities, upward to ecosystems and landscapes; and together constitute our one shared biosphere – continue to be cut to wipe your ass. Nature is being liquidated for consumer throw-away crap, as basic human needs of so many go unmet.

Major ecological crises (sadly for which there are solutions) fester and grow, any one of them capable of toppling civilizations, and together capable of ending the conditions for life on Earth. Topsoil erodes. Rainforests fall. Diseases emerge. Water gone. Oceans die. Harvests fail. Toxics accumulate. Climate heats. War murders. And tyrants reign.

Granted, the momentary abundance provided for by market economies has led to the rights of man, slowly expanding (though not yet universally) to include all human beings. Democracy and liberty have made for greater well-being, remarkable liberties, unprecedented comfort, with less violence. Yet universal human rights have not been achieved and piece-meal advances have recently been shown to be weak and flaccid.

Resource scarcity and declining prospects have led to a surge in authoritarian tyranny, with petty dictators of all types in power over much of Earth’s inhabitants. One great people recently narrowly averted collapse into full-throated authoritarian fascism (for a while anyway). Other great peoples live under constant surveillance and threats of violence for thinking and acting freely.

Universal human rights are a precondition for just and equitable global ecological sustainability.

And then there is war. Huge amounts of Earth’s productive capacity continue to be siphoned off by the Congressional-Military-Industrial complex. Murdering other usually less fortunate people in the name of your god and country for the economic benefit of elite, usually white old men is good business if you can get it. Mass hysteria accepts war as patriotic. Yet free-thinkers and many vets know war is murder.

Humanity’s state of perma-war and resurgent tyranny is a direct result of environmental decline.

There can be no just, equitable, sustainable future until guns are beaten into plowshares one last time. Standing armies in times of peace are wasteful and evil. Imagine what could be done with these resources to educate, feed, clothe, house, employ, and limit the fecundity; while otherwise maximizing the shared well-being and sustainability of humanity. The obscene amount of armaments that presently exists greatly increases the potential for violence as ecosystems continue to collapse, and social strife explodes, making regeneration and reconciliation much more difficult.

The time for global demilitarization is long past due.

What philosophy remains unthought, technology un-invented, words unwritten, songs unsung, stories untold, and sport feats undone because we toil all day to destroy ecosystems and wage war? Humanity and you are capable and worthy of better.

And finally we have arrived at that painful matter of the entire biosphere collapsing and dying. Abrupt climate change and natural ecosystem loss are diseases of the Earth System that threaten an end to being for the human family and all kindred species. We immediately power down our fossil fuel use and destruction of nature or it is the end.

Failure to embrace a great transition means decades of war, pestilence, famine, and disease. Your family either starving or being raped and then murdered in front of your eyes. For the lucky, nuclear explosions to mercifully wipe the human taint. Before widespread collapse and mass die-offs, perhaps of all life.

Gaia, the Earth System, is a living organism. There are no guarantees that the tremendous destructive impacts of so many types, so quickly, upon already diminished biological systems, will not end the billions of years of conditions conducive to live, or that a re-radiation of evolutionary diversity is assured.

The biosphere too can die. Being can end. It’s happening now, creation is in its death-throes. Unless the will is found from watching and deeply understanding the multitudes of looming warnings, and necessary changes are made in how we relate and depend upon each other, kindred species, and nature.

There are things that can be done. Survival for awhile will be local, we need to grow our own food and find livelihoods that are local. Much can be done to limit consumption, but that will not be enough. Many of these problems are societal and can only be defeated through rationale thought, improved education, and global people power.

We know what must be done, all that is lacking is the will, even in the face of self-evident disease, fascism, hunger, and war caused by nature’s decline. Regenerative agriculture, population control, restoration ecology, bans on natural ecosystem clearing, universal human rights, global demilitarization, ending fossil fuels, energy conservation, and major expansion in renewable energy are all key (there are others).

The great transition will require far more than teenage girls striking. However well intentioned, if most others are self-righteously vilified, social change cannot succeed. We need allies of every type including farmers, business people, veterans, people of color, labor unions, financiers, indigenous peoples, and particularly the rich and powerful. History has shown that when the elite are made to understand it is in their interest to change, only then does social change come. Engage with efforts to reform finance in service for Earth.

Even as you grow coalitions, set your sights high, based upon what is ecologically sufficient. The business of war murders must end. Nothing short of societal transformation that eliminates the destroyers while fostering regenerative systems will suffice. Only a broad-based movement can avert being’s end.

Watch and understand the wheels going round and round. And then become a cog in the wheels of ecocide. Re-localize, grow food, make more with less, organize, convince others, take actions for Earth you deem necessary.

Understand that ecology is the meaning of life.

Regain a sense of wonderous awe at the miracle of creation and work tirelessly to protect and restore nature’s splendor. The human family must embrace the great transition – powering down, making love not war, and returning to nature – coming together to avert biosphere collapse

Starting now. Make it so. For Earth and all species. Or it is good-bye forever. 

I do not know how to tell Creepy Donald’s fascist death cult that they should care for other people

The survival of America as we know it – a particularly good, but flawed country, until recently working on improvement – depends critically upon resoundingly thumping Trump at the polls.

Dr. Glen Barry

Rarely if ever has the State of the Union been as grim or as fragile.

A pandemic rages without benefit of a federal response. Self-absorbed Americans gripe about the inconvenience of wearing a mask.

As 135,000 people are dead largely un-mourned.

It has become OK to be openly racist again. Non-whites are at risk of false imprisonment or even death from squads of Karens and rogue cops.

Sick, weak, and vulnerable; our enemies put bounties on our troops. While we surreptitiously wage war on Iran, blowing up nuclear facilities. Unidentified federal agents abduct Americans off the streets of Portland.

The 2020 budget deficit has already surged to $2.7 billion as money is printed at will. The stock market rises as the economy crumbles and mass unemployment festers.

The signs of abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse are everywhere. Record heatwaves advance more quickly than expected, as we prepare to endure another year of burning sick forests. Water is becoming scarce.

The environment is collapsing and dying.

Despair, fear, and broken dreams mingle with unemployment, ecocide, and addictions to create a crazy morass of conspiracy, outrage, and disease.

Hunger stalks the land.

Who could have imagined that electing a reality show actor as President could go so badly? The stakes have never been higher as our bankrupt President melts down.

The last days of the Trump administration are culminating in an existential emergency threat to America and the world. Creepy Donald’s anti-science, anti-truth, anti-justice, anti-equity, anti-women, anti-non-white, anti-environment, and anti-democratic agenda has a name which must be spoken.

It is fascism.

Frankly, the most fervent Trump supporters that I have seen personally are those that did not do well in school and have limited prospects as a result. Many were bullies in their youth and remain political bullies today, and continue to not be the sharpest tools in the shed. Further, oftentimes Trumpers have limited prospects because they have shown an unwillingness to retrain for a changing economy

In an increasingly bifurcated world of haves and have nots, the deplorables embrace a twisted populist vision of despair and revenge at their imagined tormentors. Nationalism, scapegoating, falsehoods, a cult of personality, and the threat of violence provide meaning to weak, hurting, down-on-their-luck people.

The normalization of hate, racism, injustice, and untruthfulness by Creepy Donald’s acolytes has been truly shocking. It is Unamerican and threatens to usher in a dystopian authoritarian state that stops being America.

President Trump’s negligence of the greatest health crisis in the nation’s history, as he pursues personal vendettas and re-election, is a crime. His defense of confederate traitors and inflaming of racial tensions is unhinged. Justice will be had.

Anti-Fascism is American

What will become of America, a beacon of liberty and opportunity? Are we going to let these deplorable dead-enders lead to the fall of America and the planetary system?

Granted, America was founded on the original sins of genocide and racism. We can never stop apologizing and making amends for centuries of ethnic cleansing, enslavement, and murder of indigenous peoples and black people.

You can love your country while acknowledging the truthful past and wishing for a better future. America was built upon constant self-improvement, and there is still hope of realizing our full potential of the rights of hu(man). But the system built by genocide and slavery has not yet been dismantled and there is hard and painful work ahead to do so.

America is precipitously in decline. There is reason to be concerned that another catastrophe – possible examples being a a major natural disaster, political violence, or an attack from a foreign nation – may overwhelm our resilience. Things may spiral out of control. Urgent measures must be taken every day to avoid a fall into irrelevance or perhaps even collapse.

Daily from now to 2021, we need to take measures to buttress the Fragile States of America.

Creepy Donald is unraveling and becoming an even worse blathering idiot before our very eyes. His unsteady gate and grasp, and daily tirades of petty grievances as the nation is sickened, are a window into a sick and twisted mind. We need to stand tall and strong until Trump and his virus are excised from the body politic at the polls.

So how do we ensure Fragile America makes it to the post-Trump era?

The survival of America as we know it – a particularly good, but flawed country, until recently working on improvement – depends critically upon resoundingly thumping Trump at the polls. Trump’s death cult of hate, lies, ecocide, and a frenetic instability – and America’s flirtation with authoritarian fascism – must be forever tarnished and banished.

President Trump’s reelection will only be possible through disenfranchisement. Plan your voting now. Ensure you and others around you are registered and know how to get to the polls. Every opportunity you have highlight the decay and disintegration of America values under Trump, demonstrating civility as you speak hard truths, and emphasizing that a Biden Presidency represents pulling back from the abyss to begin a return to normalcy.

At every opportunity we have, we need to set an example of caring for each other. Start by staying home when you can, and when you go out following scientific public health policy. This means masks and distancing at the least.

Model anti-fascist, democratic behavior. Care for yourselves and others. Share when you can. Work to be more self-sufficient. Grow food, plant trees, and care for children. Learn new skills.

Re-embrace grand visions of peace, love, truth, equity, ecology, and justice.

We must make crystal clear the democratic process will be followed to the letter. Under no circumstances will election cancellations or failure to accept the democratic results be tolerated. An attempt by Creepy Donald to steal the election would bring forth an anti-fascist fury that even the Trumpers should fear.

The US. Military is called upon to under no circumstances follow a Trump nuclear launch order. To seek to deescalate international conflict. And to pledge to respect the coming election.

Listen. Be open to others’ experiences. Question your white privilege. However anti-racist you may feel realize there is more you can know and learn.

The problems listed earlier are all solvable. It begins by reducing the military budget, practicing diplomacy, and once again joining civilized nations to end our state of perma-war. There is tremendous potential to use these savings for renewable energy, job training, health care, ecological restoration, public health, schools, and public infrastructure.

Recommit to an America based upon both the best of traditional values and continual betterment. For all peoples and life.

We are called upon as a nation to continue down our path of perpetual self-improvement and end all vestiges of racism once and for all. As we make the investments necessary to restore and maintain ecosystems and the climate. And ensure all have adequate water, food, and employment.

We can reclaim a United States of America where all basic needs are met, where we are at peace with the world, and once again education and health care provide the foundation for opportunity.

The Trump Virus must end. So once again America can stand proud and continue the process of being a model of decency and progress.

Since then Congressman Pocan has waged a harassment campaign against me. He has had capitol police call my employers. An associate of his followed and threatened me outside of my New York City home. He has repeatedly lobbied to have my Twitter accounts shutdown. And he has coordinated a misinformation campaign trying to destroy my reputation with lies.

Madison Wisconsin’s response to a longtime resident coming forward to detail such troubling behavior has been particularly disappointing. It has shown the truthfulness of Madison’s reputation as a smug, elitist bastion that holds few core values other than posing as being socially concerned. And a thirst for power.

Like in 2012, my request now is that my reported allegations be fully investigated, with the same legitimacy as other reports of sexual abuse over recent years. There are half a dozen other individuals that were present as Mr. Pocan went on at length detailing his illegal conduct. One boasted repeatedly to me he “knew where the bodies were buried” and recounted other episodes of sexual abuse of boys by Mr. Pocan. This was relayed to half a dozen Madison investigative bodies and the FBI. Have Mr. Pocan and these witnesses been questioned? What were the findings?

Coming forward was the right thing to do. Someday there will be justice. My conscience is clear.

Yet it saddens me greatly that the capitol of the great state of Wisconsin is represented in Washington D.C. by a child rapist, with the full acquiescence of state political institutions and politicians. And that other children may be at risk. Not one media or political figure expressed a concern or asked for more information. That is on them. I have done what I can do.

I affirm the above and original account are fully truthful. And I remain unbowed.

Dr. Glen Barry
July 19, 2020

“What is all your studying worth, all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn’t lead to wisdom? And what’s wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?” – Iain Banks

“Science informed and strengthened by love is our best bet to remain healthy and prosperous in these troubled times… Looming global ecological collapse including abrupt climate change is going to make the coronavirus pandemic look like a picnic in the park.” – Dr. Glen Barry

Love and Science

Anti-science sentiment and hateful rhetoric are in vogue in certain quarters. In a disturbingly relativistic age, we have lost track of profound truths upon which our shared well-being intimately depends. Many people live their lives as if scientific truths, the natural world, and empathy for those other than themselves and close loved ones, have no importance.

Much of humanity enjoys the material comforts of products and other advances derived through scientific processes. Ironically their inventors, who are experts in their fields, and have spent a lifetime mastering and contributing to all that is known about a topic, are disregarded and even vilified.

Response to the COVID-19 pandemic roiling America and the world has been profoundly disappointing. All of the above strands of thought come to mind. Yet in particular, I am horrified by the lack of focus upon the one hundred thousand Americans that have died and over a million sickened. This is more than thirty times the tragic horrific losses of 911.

Where is the empathy and outpouring of support for these equally innocent victims? America has become a hardened, soulless place where we don’t mourn our dead but instead focus upon how continuing mass death impacts our own conveniences. Even as the coronavirus is not yet contained.

It makes one wonder whether looming potentially catastrophic ecological crises can be responded to while maintaining our humanity.

Casual neglect of traditional wisdom, emerging knowledge, and traditional norms of civility threatens our very existence. We are constantly conditioned to hate all that is different or natural.

Let me share some objective, observable truths with you, that we disregard and fail to acknowledge at our own risk.

Biological life requires maintaining a narrow range of conditions. All living things require water. Economies are utterly dependent upon ecology.

Encroachment upon and destruction of natural ecosystems and wildlife result in emergent disease vectors. Stopping a pandemic requires reducing and eliminating pathways for disease transmission.

Earth is warmed as heat is trapped by atmospheric gases, an increase of which results in further warming. A given piece of land has a finite carrying capacity. Given their role in powering ecosystems, naturally evolved old-growth rainforests are worth more standing than logged.

Science Truth: Naturally evolved old-growth rainforests are worth more standing than logged

Chemistry and physics are sufficient to fully understand and explain biological processes and the cosmos (even if we do not yet know everything). Evolution explains the diversity of life. Exponential growth leads to feedback that tears apart systems.

There is no scientific evidence that an invisible Abrahamic god sits in judgment of our actions, or that we are destined for any life other than in the here and now.

And the penultimate truths of our times: Earth is alive and dying. Even as true love continues to have transformative powers to motivate you to do what is right, including making you more selfless.

Science is but one, albeit important, pathway to a love of observable truth. The scientific method of posing hypotheses and seeking repeatable methods to gather evidence for their testing has proven remarkably effective.

Other routes to know and serve truth may include carefully and reflectively listening to tribal leaders, trained naturalists, sage women, and philosophers. All who have honed their skills of observation. And seeking through reading, pedagogy, and reflection to become a student and teacher of truth yourself.

Nothing overcomes ignorance like a life-long commitment to self-education. Until such time as you become an expert yourself, act in service to the truth by critically listening to the advice of experts on important matters of life and death. And by not repeating every junky, titillating, yet unproven meme.

Science and education have allowed much of humanity to overcome superstitions that impede societal progress. Yet reactionary, revisionist ignorance continues to pose a risk of collapse back into medieval illness, servitude, and perma-war. Religious self-fulfilling prophecies of a rapture like end of the world continue to foul our thinking of what is possible with love and science.

Love and Science in the Time of Coronavirus

Now Earth and her humanity find ourselves in a time of pandemic. Scientific experts have long known that the world was vulnerable to new infectious disease. It has been firmly established and documented that microbes can evolve and emerge from animals and habitats, particularly when encroached upon.

It is truthfully self-evident that in recent decades there has been a reduction in public health expenditures. That China has a pattern of suppressing information about new disease outbreaks. And that deeply divided democratic societies are ill-equipped to mobilize quickly to organize the necessary social distancing and other requirements to stop a plague.

I remain stunned and saddened by the amount of anti-science conspiracy theories circulating that are undermining the science-based medical response to a global pandemic. One can honestly differ in opinion regarding how to balance health and economic aspects of pandemic. The required steps to stop the coronavirus pandemic are unnecessarily made so much more difficult by anti-science, hate-filled sentiment by ignorant people amplified through social networks.

Don’t let your perhaps well-intentioned but poorly informed political beliefs become a death wish for yourself and others. If you are sharing kooky conspiracy memes on the Internet you are part of the anti-science dumbing down of America that has allowed the virus to kill almost one hundred thousands Americans and a third of a million globally.

Science doesn’t care what you believe. There is nothing conservative (or liberal) about being untruthful, belligerent, and loud. Science and her truths are apolitical. If you refuse to social distance and wear a mask, and spread unfounded misinformation on Facebook during these tragic times, you may well be killing your neighbors, loved ones, or even your own parents. Do not let your beliefs make you a member of a conspiracy death cult.

Shame on you, stop it now. Or this coronavirus pandemic – which is far from done – can and will get much worse.

Loving Ecological Science

There exists a plethora of other unpleasant scientific truths that threaten mass human suffering, a rise of authoritarian fascism in response, and ultimately societal and biological collapse. And the death of billions of humans, and possibly biosphere collapse.

In past centuries, a wave of ecological imperialism spilt forth from Europe that has globally decimated indigenous cultures and ecosystems. The apocryphal worldview proliferated that natural ecosystems only existed to be destroyed for growth in economies and population. The massive illusory increase in material consumption has been inequitably distributed and is not sustainable.

Key bio-geochemical patterns and processes that sustain the biosphere, and thus societies and wildlife populations, are failing.

The list of ecological scientific risks is long and expanding, but includes: 1) soil loss and infertility, 2) ocean dead zones, 3) water scarcity, 4) abrupt climate weirding, 5) nitrogen and phosphorous inundation, 6) declines in biodiversity, particularly keystone wildlife and plant species 7) and loss and fragmentation of naturally evolved ecosystems including critical old-growth forests and wetlands.

There are science based policy prescriptions which will solve each of these ecological crises. But it requires wisdom to know and trust in the right course of action, and sacrifice and empathy based upon understanding and commitment to the scientific imperative. Yet if we don’t try, any one of these ecology truths left without a response could cause mass disruption and death. Together they may well collapse the biosphere and end being.

Looming global ecological collapse is going to make the coronavirus pandemic look like a picnic in the park.

Climate change and ecosystem collapse are the response expected by science to inequitable overpopulation that consumes nature, it could not be otherwise. These observations and others have led me to hypothesize that Ecology is the meaning of life. The test of this hypothesis is ongoing as humanity systematically murders species, dismantles ecological systems, and fouls the climate.

Love Science Truth

Scientific truths matter, willful ignorance kills. Believe in love and science as transformative forces for good.

We will only protect and change for what we love and have empathy. Shared survival depends upon each of us listening to and supporting science and other ways of knowing, or we willfully choose to lose our and our loved ones’ lives as being ends. Global ecological sustainability requires expanding the scope of your love to include others that are different than you (including both other cultures and species), natural ecosystems, and Earth as a whole. Revel in self-expression of your truths making sure they are defensible.

Though science has not always been channeled for social good, in sum it has provided amazing levels of social benefit as we better understand and adapt to observable reality. Yet even science must work to improve itself by committing to its appropriate application. We are beyond the point where we can return to a pre-science era.

Science informed and strengthened by love is our best bet to remain healthy and prosperous in these troubled times.

Reducing risk to you and your family’s well-being means, out of love for others and Earth, staying home and wearing masks when you go out. At the same time work on reducing your ecological footprint, while working to be able to meet as many of your subsistence needs as possible. Be open to and critically review information that comes your way, with a commitment to truth and self-improvement.

Only from the transformative nature of love of science and truth can we avoid a massive second wave of coronavirus in the short-term, and the next pandemic and impending ecological collapse in the mid-term.

Only love, science, and nature can keep us safe. Or disease, ecological collapse, and despair rage until being ends. That is the truth, like it or not.

The Amazon rainforest must remain standing for global ecological sustainability, and Amazon company is the best source of finance given their expropriation of the Amazon name. It should be possible to pay to fully protect the Amazon rainforest while meeting local people’s needs. The best place to start is for online Amazon Inc. to pay on a sustained basis for its long overdue unpaid expropriation of the Amazon name. Transforming Amazon Inc. into a purpose driven venture will make it stronger and more appealing, while providing a long-term source of finance to keep Amazon Standing.

EARTH MEANDERS
By Dr. Glen Barry

“There’s nothing about our model that can’t be copied over time… A lot of it comes down to the brand name. Brand names are more important online than they are in the physical world.” – Jeff Bezos

“The bill is due for Amazon company’s unpaid use of the mighty Amazon rainforest’s name.” – Dr. Glen Barry

The First Amazon

The Amazon rainforest is a global ecological treasure of unparalleled importance for Earth and all inhabitants. Over at least 55 million years vast evolutionary radiance has created a brilliant super-organism that powers the planet’s biosphere through the sum of the interactions of its parts.

The Amazon is rich in ecological diversity with a dizzying array of life across scales — from landscapes, downward to ecosystems, to plant communities and animal populations, including indigenous peoples, down to species and individual plants and wildlife, composed of their genetic sequences. From such complex yet decadent disorder emerges the primary bioregional ecosystem that powers the biosphere.

Though the Amazon as an ecosystem is more than the sum of these parts, all parts are required for it to remain fully intact and thus operational. The Amazon basin drains the slopes of the Andes through biodiverse mountain slopes into the vast lowland swamp forests. This vast plethora of micro-habitats contains stores of medicinal plants, cycles water and nutrients, and drives global climate.

Besides large-scale farming and logging, many
Amazonian rainforests are being slowly fragmented
for rural electrification and other activities

Loss of the Amazon as an intact whole will result in a major diminishment in climate buffering, disappearance of an unknown amount of genetic wealth potentially valuable for diseases such as coronavirus, deprive millions of indigenous peoples and settlers of their livelihoods, and may in itself crash the biosphere. Yet a variety of threats continues the European legacy of ecocide upon native nature and peoples, cruelly propagating the myth that destroying millions of year old ecosystems and their inhabitants is “development”.

Recently I wrote On Amazon fires: It’s the ecology stupid. Therein it is noted that Global Ecological Sustainability depends critically upon ending the logging and burning of old forests such as the Amazon and letting them recover, expand and reconnect. Earlier I have published peer reviewed science that is worth reading, identifying a threshold for how many ecosystems can be lost before the biosphere collapses: Barry, G. (2014), “Terrestrial ecosystem loss and biosphere collapse”, Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 542-563.

I have had the privilege to spend the month of February in Brazil, mostly in the Amazonia region. There I trekked into lowland tropical rainforests and was overjoyed to see big ancient trees and wildlife including spider monkeys, pink river dolphins, and anacondas. The river boat ride down a portion of the Amazon was an adventure. By the time I reached The Amazon river’s point of entry into the Atlantic Oceans, I was struck again and again by the generosity and kindness of the region’s peoples.

Dr. Glen Barry, Amazonia, 2020

Mostly I silently rejoiced in my long-felt ecological intuition that these Amazon rainforests are the global habitat that makes my and all life possible. Often I just sat in the jungle listening for long hours, fully feeling a bond with the diverse and dependent life therein. And I also saw firsthand the senseless devastation being wrought by agri-business and rural electrification.

And I became further resolved that it must be possible to meet development needs of Amazonians while keeping Amazon Standing.

This essay represents the beginning of efforts to develop a campaign to find and implement a way to finance sufficient socio-economic activities to ensure the Amazon remains standing. This must be done in a creative, sustained manner that protects native livelihoods and means meeting all basic needs and then some. Yet forgoes all commercial exploitation that destroys or diminishes standing primary forests.

The greatest challenge of our generation is to find a viable way to fully protect the Amazon.

Time for the Other Amazon to Step Up

Imagine if you can that there was a large organization that has benefited from the unreimbursed use of the Amazon name, and could help fund keeping the Amazon rainforest standing. Surely, in such a case, there would be tremendous potential to harness sustainable funding for Amazon rainforest protection, and there would be a huge public outcry that the company pay a significant portion of their revenue for the right to use the Amazon name.

Wait, what of Jeff Bezos’ Amazon online store? He reportedly named it Amazon because it was “exotic and different”, and the Amazon River was the largest in the world, and he planned for Amazon company to be so as well. Given the tremendous corporate and personal success realized by Amazon and Jeff Bezos, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that the company pay to protect the threatened Amazon rainforest after which it is named.

Mr. Bezos himself has expressed how critical branding is to online success, and he has certainly benefited richly from the sentiments evoked by his use of the Amazon name.

Indeed, given Mr. Bezo’s hundreds of millions of dollars spent on new homes in recent months, isn’t financing by Amazon company to protect the Amazon rainforest long overdue? It’s a justice, equity, and ecological sustainability thing Mr. Bezos. How can you have so much, benefiting from the globally recognized name of an impoverished region, for which you have never paid?

Some would say that Amazon having made so much money without paying anything to Brazil and neighboring countries is the very exemplar of white and billionaire privilege. With all due respect Mr. Bezos, how much is enough? How many more new homes will you purchase this year as our global home, the Amazon, burns?

Don’t get me wrong, Jeff Bezos has built Amazon (the company referred to as Amazon Inc.) into an amazing company. I spend considerable amounts of money with Amazon Inc., making purchases almost daily given the convenience, selection, and speed of delivery. And EcoInterent’s services are hosted on the Amazon cloud, which is truly amazing in its own right.

But come on, at some point growth becomes greed. Already there is a backlash against the richest man in the world, and how it has come at the expense of local merchants and the climate. And then there is the fact that Amazon Inc. simply pilfered their name from the greatest ecosystem in the world that is mortally threatened.

Bezos’ recent commitment of funding to address climate change is welcome and appropriate given Amazon’s huge carbon footprint. Yet an additional massive, sustained investment in Amazonia rainforest protection is still appropriate given the past and ongoing benefits accrued from the expropriation of the Amazon name in particular and all it connotes.

With all due respect Mr. Bezos, how much is enough? How many more lavish homes do you intend to buy this year, as our global home and your company’s namesake, the Amazon, is destroyed because of lack of conservation finance. At what point does the existential threats to global ecological sustainability become more or at least as important to you, the richest person in the world, than delivering ever more consumer goods faster?

We get it Mr. Bezos, your Amazon may not be legally required to pay for use of the Amazon name for your branding. But it is the classy, ethical, and just thing to do. And it protects your future as well.

There will be consequences of Amazon failing to act to protect its namesake. Already popular sentiment is shifting against the company given its size and extravagance of its owners. How much better to make the company a purpose driven organization rather than only a consumption growth machine.

Pressure campaigns are possible, but hopefully are not needed, assuming the goodwill of a man and company that has benefited so much from expropriating of the Amazon name. Some would say theft, like so much else that has been forcefully taken from the Brazilian people.

Big old trees in expansive primary
forests power the biosphere.
Dr. Glen Barry, Amazonia, 2020

Amazon Standing Trust Fund

It should be possible to pay to keep the Amazon rainforest fully standing. And in a manner that provides decent livelihoods for all inhabitants. Surely there is more worth to be found in a live than a dead forest. Particularly ancient naturally evolved old-growth forests. All that is required is sustained investments in Amazonian alternative development models and governance depending on protecting and not destroying old, natural forests.

What I am proposing is that Amazon Inc. and/or Jeff Bezos establish an endowed trust fund committed to full protection of the Amazon Rainforest. “Amazon Standing” would use the interest on the endowment to fund non-extractive efforts for local peoples and governments to benefit economically and culturally from permanently standing and intact primary rainforests.

Sufficiently endowed, such an approach has great potential to shift the economics against large-scale extractive industries which are only marginally profitable.

Without massive investments the Amazon rainforest will continue to fall at an unconscionable rate. Slowly yet inexorably the last remnant large natural ecosystems will be dismantled; liquidated for all the wrong reasons, sending shock waves throughout the global ecological system.

And moving us a step closer towards the collapse of the biosphere and the end of being.

It is not OK for one of the largest companies to name itself after Earth’s largest and most important ecosystem without having some stake in its protection. Imbuing Amazon Inc. with social merit beyond consuming ever more, faster, will make it a force for social good.

Transforming Amazon Inc. into a purpose driven venture will make it stronger and more appealing, while providing a long-term source of finance to keep Amazon Standing. There is tremendous reputational risk to Amazon Inc. and Jeff Bezos of not immediately beginning to pay for the use of Amazon as their brand name.

The bill is due for Amazon company’s unpaid use of the mighty Amazon rainforest’s name. Significant funding can be provided willingly to keep the Amazon rainforest standing while meeting local needs, or all sorts of campaign measures are likely.

Amazon will have earned its name based on merit and not merely size.

Expect to hear more about what it takes to keep Amazon Standing and the rainforest movements efforts to get Amazon Inc. to embrace and finance protection of its namesake.

“A healthy society should not have just one voice.” – Dr. Li Wenliang

“There are no rioters, only a tyrannical regime” (沒有暴徒 只有暴政) and “Five demands, not one less” (五大訴求 缺一不可) – Hong Kong Democracy Protestors

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” – Winston S. Churchill

“The Chinese communist party cannot be trusted to tell the truth and must step down.” – Dr. Glen Barry

To start, let me express my most sincere condolences for Chinese and other victims of the Wuhan Coronavirus. The whole world hopes for swift containment and recovery. Yet this is a manmade crisis that with a decent, functional government could have been avoided. Instead Wuhan, China, and the world are terrorized by a disease spawned by the Chinese government’s disdain for truth and stifling of free speech.

The coronavirus epidemic did not arise out of nowhere. It is the logical consequence of a deeply authoritarian government, a casual disregard for truth and freedom of speech, and Xi Jinping’s recent strengthening of tyrannical rule. Xi and the Chinese government bear full blame for the coronavirus outbreak and must be held to account.

Failed Chinese Communist Dogma

Most cultures have a combination of a storied and horrifying past and China is no different. Throughout Chinese history epic human constructs and monumental battles have been wrought upon the back of the degradation of the common person. Even within the past century the nation has jumped between enlightened thought and despotic tyranny, at any time seemingly moments away from further wide-scale state genocide.

Contemporary China is a plutocratic criminal state based upon banning free speech and other human rights, in a vile system that imprisons its citizens, so that the small group of Chinese communist party leaders and their families can live opulently. The term “communist” which implies equality has long been nonsensical in such an inequitable and corrupt system.

A maelstrom of threats emanates from Red China that threatens to kill Chinese and global citizenry under the mantra of dated, self-serving communist dogma (which few believe, and fewer adhere to). The communist party (which is in fact neither) maintains its grip on power through the constant threat of an iron fist in its citizens’ face.

There is an epic battle underway between liberal democracy (now with its own tendencies towards authoritarianism), and the communist police state that is Red China. At stake is all humanity’s basic human rights and dignity, freedom of thought and speech, liberty and privacy, and protection from dangerous government secrets.

State Terror and the Rights of Man

The litany of contemporary Chinese tyranny runs the gamut of conceivable intrusions upon human well-being meant by the state to inspire terror. Minority, ancient cultures such as the Uighurs and Tibetans are imprisoned in their own homelands and brain-washed to love red China’s promise of imprisoned consumption. Entire ancient cultures are being eliminated in acts of slow-motion genocide.

Much of China is constantly surveilled as a dragnet of cameras connected to sophisticated machine learning databases permeates every crevice of individual’s lives. What sort of vile voyeuristic artificial intelligence seeks to spy upon every action of their citizenry? What a depraved system that deems to algorithmically score the social worthiness of the myriad types of human self-expression, as if obedience to authority is the only measure of a person.

How long until drone assassins use this surveillance infrastructure to wage war upon individual thought, murdering free thinkers for daring to believe in free speech and the rights of wo(man)?

In China we are witnessing the fulfillment of Orwell’s big brother and it is terrifyingly real and dangerous. This escalating assault upon the hard-fought rights of man must not stand.

In Hong Kong a proud, un-servile people demand the rule of law, the maintenance of freedom of speech, full democratic rights including to vote, and freedom from the constant threat of state violence. This modern proclamation of the rights of man; and simple, sincere requests to be heard and to vote, face unremitting police violence. We must all stand with Hong Kong as this is the proxy struggle between truth and lies, justice and injustice, freedom and tyranny, and decency and vileness.

There is not a moment to waste. The human family chooses now between a future of bright democratic liberty or dark autocratic tyranny.

Filthy Live Markets and State Secrets

And now the filthy, vile habit of slaughtering wildlife of all types in brutal “live markets” for falsely purported benefits – including a limp dick – has the world poised on the brink of pandemic. This widespread Chinese bloody, unsanitary mess has no counterpart in the world for incubating new diseases. Virtually anything that is alive including endangered species are at risk of a merciless, brutal death before being thrown in the cooking pot.

What sort of despotic, self-serving force knowingly allows viral outbreaks to exponentially cascade out of control to maintain power and save face for a while? People speaking truthfully of the virus outbreak such as Li Wenliang and others have been silenced and even imprisoned by government censors. If those giving notice had been heard early in the disease’s spread, almost certainly coronavirus would have been stopped before spreading widely.

The monstrous manner the Chinese system allowed the Wuhan Coronavirus to knowingly spread shows the evil, self-serving, and insecure nature of Chinese power. Limp dick indeed.

Thankfully at this moment the coronavirus mortality rates are low. But as exponential growth in the spread of the disease continues, the greater risk is overwhelmed medical facilities and social disorder. Weeks into exponential growth of new cases and mass quarantines, the Chinese government has been too proud to accept WHO and CDC assistance. Now avoidance of a global pandemic appears to require further Chinese totalitarian human rights atrocities.

Chinese Ecocidal Tyranny

China is the central organizer and buyer for the global trade in illegal logging of ancient forests. Globally all standing rainforest are threatened by the insatiable greed of a corrupt government that will do anything to amass further power. The only relief for Chinese citizens from brutal tyranny is to consume ever more cheap throwaway consumer goods based upon the destruction of dwindling ecosystems.

While paying lip service to climate change, the Chinese government ramps up its coal use, and backs away from controlling the size of its population (itself a component of the coronavirus’ spread). Chinese crowded conditions across degraded over-populated landscapes create optimal conditions for the spread of diseases as Gaia fights back.

Chinese growth alone threatens to pull down the biosphere.

Truth Matters

The Chinese system of government is a monstrous taint upon humanity’s progression towards realization of universal human rights, and equitable and just ecological sustainability, based upon scientific truths and the inherent rights of men and women to be free.

The Chinese government’s spying, imprisonment, ecocide, police brutality, and callous disregard for the health of their own citizens (indeed the global population) makes the communist party an illegitimate government.

The Chinese communist party cannot be trusted to tell the truth and must step down. It is up to every Chinese and non-Chinese citizen to demand democratic reform and an unraveling of authoritarian single party tyranny. China will only ever fully realize its greatness when it is a democracy and its citizens can express themselves freely and be heard.

Never has it been more important to stop buying Chinese goods as a means of depriving such a monstrous political system of its wealth.

Imperfect Democracy

On the other hand, stands Western style imperfect quasi-democracy that glorifies militarism, was built upon racism, and depends upon a foundation of elitist over-consumption at the expense of nature. Liberal democracy is the worst form of government ever, except for all the alternatives.

Yet in America’s and Europe’s unrealized testbeds of democracy one finds a sense of freedom that remains unparalled in human history. And continues perpetually to better itself and overcome past evils. Clearly the systems of government found in the United States and Europe are far preferable to Red, or shall we say Dead, China.

In America you have the right to be free, and that means something, and it is worth fighting for such liberty for the entire human family. Yet none of our freedom is guaranteed as long as some remain unfree,

All humans are born radically free and are meant to enjoy forever an unfettered personal liberty.

For the most part citizens in liberal democracies are free from random state violence (though it does occur, particularly for non-whites). Except for the constant barrage of advertising for democratic over-consumption, diminished but not yet banished religious idolatry, and military dogmatism; generally, those living in liberal democracies are not programmed as to how to think.

In Western Democracy there exists personal and societal space to seek and find truthful thought. To listen to the music and read the books you like. To say and write what you wish. To move about mostly freely. To vote your desires. And to make something of yourself based upon personal merit.

Certainly, the project of Western Democracy remains incomplete. Expenditures on militarism to fund continued global resource thievery ensure that education, health care, job training, and other social needs remain unmet. The promise of equal rights for all races and sexes remains incomplete.

And vile, filthy authoritarianism in the face of environmental scarcity is bearing its ugly face in no less than Brazil and the United States, where environmental rollbacks threaten ecosystem collapse.

Yet the choice is clear. Democracy, despite its faults, is the far preferable system over vile authoritarianism, wherever it bears its heads, and most particularly now in communist China.

Humanity stands at a pivotal juncture as the coronavirus threatens mass murder because of the communist party’s lust for power and rejection of those who speak truth. We recommit to human rights, democratic values, and to together finding a way towards ecological sustainability; or we descend into the techno-invasive, violent and disease ridden, police state future as espoused by Chinese capitalism.

Bring Necessary Manufacturing Home

“Made in China” is synonymous with a system that wages surveillance, torture, murder, and disease upon its own under-paid, over-worked, and ultimately disposable citizens. No longer can state murder and torture be paid for with the ill-gotten gains of selling cheap consumer goods in the West.

It is time to bring back locally to the place of consumption all necessary manufacturing from China and discontinue the rest.

China Will Be Free

For the welfare of the human family, let’s demand a Chinese political system that tells the truth and lets its citizens speak freely.

That shuts down live markets massacring wildlife, creating the filthy environment that incubated coronavirus and other diseases, and threatens to do so again. That rebukes and dismantles the state driven spying and flawed judgements upon everyday lives of its citizens. And that implements a new Democratic China of liberty, freedom, truth, and basic human decency absent from the current vile and evil Communist Inc.

Let’s demand a Chinese government that lets people speak freely so that never again will Chinese tyranny threaten global health.

And let us hope that despite such a horrendous, irresponsible system of government; that the coronavirus is brought under control to avoid more Chinese suffering and a global pandemic.

President Xi Jinping and the entire senior communist party leaders are called upon to resign immediately, given their mishandling and attempt to cover-up a disease of their own making. They have failed the test of leadership and their corrupt, power-hungry leadership is not fit for the challenges the country faces containing coronavirus.

Green Liberty is humanity’s shared future. Think of your children. Your planet. And your loved ones. And embrace human rights, democracy, and ecological sustainability for all. Before Dead China gets you.

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

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

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

The End of Being Looms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the end of being.

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

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

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

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

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

Leaves Heal Nations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Age of Global Ecological Restoration 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Glen Barry

Old trees in old growth forests power the biosphere

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ecology is the meaning of life (not development).

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

Amazon rainforest fires threaten Brazilian and global well-being

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is morally wrong to kill old trees.

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

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

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

Regenerate Gaia, Regrow Nature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imagine a peaceful rebellion that regrows nature.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ecology is the answer.

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

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

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

We are all in this together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Biosphere News Search

PRESS RELEASE
July 31, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

###ENDS###

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

There is nowhere to run, Earth is full

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Earth Meanders – Deep Ecology Essays
By Dr. Glen Barry

Big brother is not your friendAs a child I remember the awe and pride of learning the history of human advancement. From the realization of the rights of man, and the ending of the slave trade, to the sharing of wealth with workers, onward to constant — albeit incremental — progress on greater racial and gender equality, as we stepped back from the brink of nuclear war, embraced international law and human rights, and began addressing global environmental issues; the human condition was always improving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE NOT SO GREAT POWERS

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

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

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

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

No person is worthy of such powerIn triplicate, self-absorbed political charlatans hold the power to push a button and launch nuclear weapons that will destroy the world. These ethically dubious individuals can do so at any time based upon fits of rage, hurt feelings, or other human inadequacies multiplied by their false sense of importance. Such power in the hands of authoritarian megalomaniacs in service to their oligarchies is unacceptable and must be revoked now through global denuclearization, demilitarization, and a democratic decentralization of power.

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

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

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

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

WHAT HAS BECOME OF AMERICA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HUMAN RIGHTS AND NATURE ARE ABSOLUTE, NON-NEGOTIABLE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big brother is not your friend.

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

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

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

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

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