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The simple steps I have summarized below are not easy, would not be very popular with most people and, therefore, are not very likely to happen. But the potential results of those four simple steps could be life-saving for our species.
As for Mother Nature, she is going to be just fine -- with or without us. She will prevail no matter how much we trash her planet. It is we humans who are the ones whose future is in serious jeopardy.
Does anyone really doubt the answer to the question below this "visual" of the way we are living now in the "developed" world?
As for capitalism (humanity's score-keeping system), from Mother Nature's perspective, it's just a foolish method that we invented to administer the process of maximizing our own consumption of "stuff" in a world of finite resources.
Sadly, the majority of humans in the developed world have been convinced that if we can just stop burning fossil fuels, that we will reverse climate change, and everything will be great. Unfortunately, that is simply not true.
To be sure, human-driven climate change is a monster problem, but it's really just the result of a much bigger problem: the reckless, harmful and grossly unsustainable manner in which we have chosen to live.
No matter how thoroughly and how quickly we move away from the burning of fossil fuels, I am near certain that we will never achieve a harmonious relationship with the natural world unless we begin moving rapidly toward a much more Earth-friendly way of living during the next five years.
That Earth-friendly way of living might end up looking a lot like the GBN -- a "successor" civilization that we describe in Outcry.
To have a chance, we must figure out a way to answer "yes" to the question mentioned earlier, Is the Earth improving because of our presence? We can take a huge step in the direction of "improving the biosphere" by taking these four bold steps ASAP:
Four Steps for Maximizing our Chances for Survival
1. Totally stop the practice of eating animals. One of the primary drivers of climate change, deforestation and species extinction -- this step should be a no-brainer since there is scientific proof that a whole food, plant-based diet also reverses most chronic disease, promotes vibrant health AND would eliminate most of the world's gargantuan healthcare industry. The beauty here is that any consumer of animal-based foods can make this move immediately. At the same time, the natural world will start benefitting immediately. And, one more thing, if it were not for our love affair with eating animals, it is likely that there would have been fewer, if any, global pandemics on Earth. If you don't believe this last statement, check out this very convincing 9-minute 2020 video.
2. Replace capitalism with Earthonomics. Not a simple task by any means, this envisioned way of keeping score on this planet has the potential for convincing Mother Nature to renew our lease. As long as we adhere to a system that depends on maximizing the consumption of stuff in a world of finite resources, we are violating the age-old principles of third-grade arithmetic. More on this topic later in this SOS Memo.
3. Begin to lower the world's population. This practical engineer concludes that we either have to dramatically lower the number of people on this planet or we have to completely re-design our entire way of living. As for the latter, some well-informed scientists are saying that we must design and transition toward a totally sustainable "successor" civilization ASAP. I say we should urgently tackle both projects simultaneously. FYI, we've added a net 23 million people since the first of January (Births minus deaths).
4. Urgently design a "successor" civilization. With this one, we need to reach for the stars because we're likely to get only one chance to get this right. In Outcry, we took a stab at describing how that far-greener way of living might look.
How much greener should that successor civilization be? And how do we get rid of that nasty scene of the garbage truck at the city dump above?
In Outcry, we suggested that we must quickly learn to live five to ten times greener than the way we are living today. How do we get there? By asking the question at the top of this slide -- an image that I have been using a lot lately:
The sobering truth is that we may have passed the tipping point with respect to the collapse of our civilization and the impending demise of our species. Like the chart above asks, "How green is green enough" when it comes to the way we live on this planet?
Since the answer to that question is unknowable, it seems logical to me that we must commit ourselves to urgently re-thinking and re-designing every aspect of the way we live on this planet.
Some highly-respected scientists have concluded that we may have already waited too long -- implying that no matter what we do, it will be near impossible to prevent our demise as a species. But no one knows for sure.
Dr. James Lovelock, sums up our situation -- a view that is probably shared by most of the thousands of "big picture" scientists who've been sounding the alarm (to deaf ears) for the last three decades.
As he nears his 102nd birthday in July, he stops short of saying that we have no chance -- he just defines what it will take to heal our relationship with Mother Nature.
Reading between the lines, he probably would not predict with very much confidence that we will survive. As he says, "at best, only about a billion" of us will survive.
As for our longterm survival, there is one thing that we know for sure. Our score-keeping system consisting of an eternal growth economy in a world of finite resources -- is a fairytale that should have been addressed one or two centuries ago. Now, if we don't replace it in the very near future, nature will reclaim the Earth in its entirety and will have no use for our "kind" anymore.
Last week, I wrote about "an idea that just might work" when it comes to saving our species, but it won't work without replacing our global scorekeeping system for everything we do. We delved into that topic in Chapter 11 of Outcry -- beginning with this Cree Indian proverb:
"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught -- will we realize we cannot eat money."
The "score-keeping" Chapter 11, mentioned above, was inspired by a dream in the wee hours of the morning on February 24, 2020 -- less than two months before Outcry was to be published.
That night, I dreamed about a totally necessary transition...
from Capitalism to Earthism to Earthocracy to Earthonomics -- a form of economics that would be necessary to keep our biosphere healthy enough to continue supporting the nearly eight billion members of our tribe.
Immediately after awakening from that dream, I jotted down four words and their definitions -- the last three of which are, as of 2021, just products of my imagination:
Capitalism: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit -- an insidious system that promotes the never-ending maximization of the consumption of stuff in a world of finite resources.
Earthism: Not yet an official word in the dictionary, but definitely one that should be. It is a sustainable, Earth-friendly philosophy for humans that continually seeks to promote the improvement and optimization of the integrated system of humanity living in harmony with nature -- a process that Mother Nature demands.
Earthocracy: A future global form of governance that is based on total deference to the natural biosphere -- by all of the trillions of residents of this planet -- especially the nearly eight billion Homo sapiens, which is the only one, out of billions of species, that is not abiding by the rules of nature now.
Earthonomics. An Earth-friendly way of keeping score on planet Earth -- a system that replaces capitalism and rewards all actions to improve the biosphere, while punishing those that inflict damage. In this system, the actions of individuals and nations will be met with rewards or with punishments as appropriate.
The Bottom Line. We are not even scratching the surface when it comes to living in harmony with nature. We talk primarily about climate change and renewable energy but we almost never look at the "big picture" when it comes to how a truly sustainable civilization might look.
Just before launching this SOS Memo, I read a new article in the New York Times, " We need an infrastructure package for Nature." These two sentences, from that piece, resonate with what I have described in this SOS Memo: the urgent need for an entirely new kind of global economy, one that's primarily beholden to the needs of nature.
What nature needs is for us to get out of its way and let its systems function in the manner that billions of years of evolution enabled them to do.
We need a different kind of infrastructure entirely, one that accommodates the natural world and puts the long-term needs of ecosystems before the knee-jerk urges of all of us so eager to get back to life as we knew it.
Obviously, we are nowhere close to living in harmony with nature. We're not even having robust conversations about such a goal. For that reason, I must conclude that without an entirely new economic model for "keeping score" on this planet, we Homo sapiens are probably on our last legs.
A new DNI report from last week reinforces that prediction. The US Department of National Intelligence issued a report entitled: Global Trends 2040 -- A More Contested World. For a host of reasons, it's the kind of report that will make you think twice about having children.
Wanting to end today with a positive thought, I wrote last week about an idea that just might help us move rapidly toward a much more sustainable civilization. It features one of the USA's 2020 presidential candidates and you can access it here: A promising new "Sunrise for Humanity"
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What can you do? We feature a "big picture" view of humanity's current dilemma in our book Outcry. I am convinced that the more people who read that book, the greater are the chances that we will figure out how to get back on the right track before it's too late. Radical thinking for desperate times.
Hopefully, that straightforward book will help to open more minds as to what might be possible when it comes to living far more sustainably than we could ever imagine -- at least 5 to 10 times more efficiently than we are living now.
To our knowledge, Outcry remains the only book ever published that features an envisioned, totally-green, ultra-sustainable, super-desirable habitat for humans -- along with steps for how we might get there as soon as possible.
Please circulate this memo widely. Want to send a link to a friend? It is #101 on this list of SOS Memos. Finally, contact me directly at the email below if you would like to discuss.
PS: Free Zoom Conferences. In the interest of jump-starting the urgently-needed global "conversation" about the dilemma we are in, I am now offering to conduct private Zoom conferences free of charge to groups of almost any size. I look forward to ZOOM-ing with you and your group sometime soon.
In preparation for those Zoom visits, I have developed a one-hour format consisting of an opening statement followed by a 20-minute slide show and then ending with a discussion and Q&A with the attendees. The sessions you organize will be far more interesting and productive if attendees have read Outcry in advance.
Our book, for a host of environmental reasons, is only available as an e-book on Amazon. As such, it contains hyperlinks to hundreds of references and videos, is less expensive, does not kill any trees and does not have to be manufactured and delivered.
You can join my mailing list and/or find all of my previous postings by visiting the SOS Memos page on my website. Here are a few of them where you can see how my vision has evolved since that first "creative idea" on 9-21-18:
As always, I am just trying to spark a global conversation about what is needed. By sharing a vision of what I believe is possible, I hope to influence others to think bigger, better and bolder.
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What else can you do to help? Two things:
1. Live as greenly as possible while doing all that you can to raise the awareness of "big picture" solutions that are crucially necessary for saving our civilization.
2. Share this BSB and my "Mama Ain't Happy" BSB with prominent journalists, thought leaders and/or elected officials whom you respect. They need to learn a lot more about the many reasons why Mama ain't happy.
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