[Mb-civic] Viva la Earth Revolution! A Sustainable Future by All Means Necessary

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

This very thought-provoking essay lays out succinctly what must be done 
for our grandchildren's survival....and thereby paints a stark contrast with 
the shortsided, misguided and destructive agendas of many of our world's 
current government and business leaders.  Very much worth taking the 
time to read, digest, and share.....Mha Atma


EARTH MEANDERS
Viva la Earth Revolution! A Sustainable Future by All 
Means Necessary

By Dr. Glen Barry, http://www.environmentalsustainability.info/
January 30, 2005

We know what is required for global environmental sustainability, what is
lacking is political will.  In the face of continued stonewalling and
green washing by the Earth liquidating industrial growth machine, lovers
and protectors of the Earth and her humanity should not so quickly dismiss
the possibility of an Earth Revolution - peaceful or otherwise -
sufficient to ensure global ecological sustainability.


Gasping Earth

I am constantly amazed at people that afford the natural world - plants,
animals and the Earth itself - little or no worth.  Modern humans have
lost sight of the web of life and our place within, and because of such
willful ignorance the Earth and her humanity's survival is threatened.  We
should all be aware of the environmental problems that face the Earth and
thus our and our children's survival.  Threats to the Earth are more
complex than if we pollute we will get global warming - what we are
witnessing is the demise of the global ecological system.

The world's environmental crises include forest and other habitat
destruction which causes loss of biological diversity and ecosystems;
water and oceanic overuse and degradation; climate and other global
changes; and a deadly cocktail of persistent toxics.  Each global
environmental malady is but a different aspect of the Earth's ecosystem
decline and collapse in total, brought on by humanity's fecundity, avarice
and stupidity.

The Earth's perilous condition is exacerbated by the tragic state of
humanity.  Global inequities in wealth, terrorism and militarism, and an
absence of social justice, both cause, and are caused, by environmental
decline.  Western civilization such as it is - including its economic,
religious and social systems - has not and will not prove adequate to
sustainably provide for most of the Earth's inhabitants for much longer.

The Earth is dying because of the way you and I live.  This essay shall
try to identify key ecological requirements for global ecological
sustainability, turning later to the political ecology of the matter.  I
close with a perfunctory examination of conditions under which a violent
"Earth Revolution" may be justified.


Global Ecological Sustainability

Here I wish to investigate in broad strokes elements of an environmental
policy adequate to achieve global ecological sustainability.  The human
family must embark upon the most ambitious project in history - an "Earth
Revolution" - in order to again achieve a combination of natural
ecosystems and human endeavors adequate to sustain themselves and each
other.  As humanity has already overshot the carrying capacity of the
Earth, global ecological sustainability will only be achieved by entering
an age of ecological restoration which stops further destruction and helps
natural habitats to expand and become healthier.  

Environmentalist and pro-growth people have a fundamentally different 
view
of the world.  Anyone with half an ecological wit can see imminent limits
to growth do exist, however delayed due to technology.  Desertification,
water-borne disease and climate change clearly indicate there are too many
people that in sum total are consuming too much.  Lifestyles of affluent
countries are going to need to be simplified and made more efficient to
reduce their impact.  But this does not obviate the fact that the Earth
now has many more humans than can be supported well.

My best estimate is that there will need to be a reduction in population
to around one billion - the exact amount to be calibrated as requirements
for global ecological sustainability continue to emerge.  This can best be
achieved through immediate global incentives to have fewer children -
including tax relief, and preferential access to education and other
benefits.  With an average of one child per couple (though in practice
some may have none and others as many as two), this could be achieved in
several generations.

We must learn to love and respect the land.  Most people will need to be
living symbiotically with the land.  Science suggests 50% of land area
will need to be maintained as "global ecological reserves" - zoned as
areas of strict protection, natural conservation management, tribal lands
and other community-based conservation development schemes (eco-
forestry,
eco-tourism, gardening and plant raising, restoration).  This will require
massive continental level rewilding efforts; as whole roads, towns and
other human artifacts are removed from large and connected areas deemed
necessary to maintain ecosystems and non-human species.

Cities will need to be re-thought and transformed.  On the simplest level,
this means pedestrian and ecological needs will surpass those of cars and
their roads.  New urbanism and bioregionalism inform us that humans can
live, work, play and socialize in ways appropriate and sustainable for
their local environments.  The next technological revolution will focus
upon what is necessary for human continuity.  Business will be required to
not only end pollution and environmental damage, but to pursue economic
activities that are ecologically restorative.

Access to water must be enshrined as a basic human right.  Those that have
gained access to large amounts of water through historical accident will
lose their "rights".  In particular irrigated agriculture from fossil
water stores to support inflated populations will become a thing of the
past.  It will no longer be deemed socially acceptable to use lakes and
rivers as dumping grounds for waste.  Riparian zones and key watersheds
will need to be removed from human use.

The world's oceans have long been thought to be too massive to ever be
damaged.  Large marine dead zones and dramatic declines in fish and other
marine wildlife have shown this to be false.  If oceanic ecosystems are to
persist and continue providing services upon which civilization depends,
large marine protected areas - some one third or more of their total area
- are going to need to be placed off limits to industrial development.
This will mean an immediate end to industrial fishing/mining of marine
life.  

Maintenance of predictable and relatively stable climatic and other
geo-biochemical patterns will require a complete revamping of our energy
infrastructure.  Super-Kyoto targets must be established and implemented
that reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions by over 60% by 2050.  The
best minds and materials must be put into such efforts, noting that
current expenditures are a miniscule percentage of that spent on the
military.  Not only do we not know what toxic persistent chemicals do
individually, we have no idea of what they do synergistically.  The age of
life destroying engineered chemical compounds will end.

Humanity will need to return to rituals that acknowledge our place within
the cosmos and the Earth.  Doctrinaire cults of personality will be
replaced by rituals that acknowledge and celebrate the natural rhythms
whereby life is possible and continues.  Life's meaning will come from
knowledge, community and creativity - not from consumption.  Our
children's future will be assured only when humanity acknowledges the
Earth is alive, our mother, and the giver of life.


Earth Revolution

Ideally, a peaceful Earth Revolution based upon enlightened self-interest,
a well developed ecological ethic, and good governance will provide
conditions sufficient (above) to ensure global ecological sustainability,
while equitably meeting all of humanity's basic needs.  It is much desired
that this occur non-violently.  I implore each of us to pursue every
non-violent means possible to get the human family into sustainability
with the Earth, in order that neither is destroyed.  

As an academic exercise I wish to briefly examine when and why a violent
revolution may be necessary on behalf of the Earth.  I do not mean to
suggest that death and mayhem - part of any revolution - is desirable or
imminent; but the Earth's must be protected and healed at any price.
Assuming that other political and social measures have failed, I suggest
that as a last resort a violent Earth Revolution may be necessary to save
the Earth.  Given the precarious state of the Earth and all her
inhabitants, the possibility of a violent Earth Revolution to save the
Earth should not be discarded out of hand.  

One way or another, humanity's destruction of the Earth and our habitat
will be remedied.  Gaia will either shrug our grubby existence off through
famine, pestilence and war - or we shall enter an age of restoration and
sustainability - through wise governance or through violent revolution.
Perhaps it is only through murder and mayhem that we can save the Earth.
Would you have fought to stop Hitler or Napoleon?  Would you fight to
protect your children's lives?  Then why not fight to protect the Earth?
Indeed, doing so IS fighting to protect your children.

If ignorant, self-righteous and superstitious fascists continue to reign -
the true eco-terrorists in their plundering of the Earth's life giving
systems - it may well prove necessary to use violence in defense of the
Earth.  In discussing this as an academic exercise, I would suggest that
the sort of mischief that has been carried out in the past by Earth First
and ELF - spiking a tree, destroying a bulldozer - is inadequate.  An
Earth Revolution is not about making a statement - it is about results.  

I would suggest that to be effective, a violent revolution on behalf of
the Earth must seek to seize power, smash Earth destroying entities, and
transform society along the lines indicated above.  Anything less would
prove inadequate.  The industrial triad of fossil fuels, mining and
logging would need to be immediately dismembered, to allow the Earth's
natural regenerative capabilities to recover and accelerate.

Sadly, the best way to avoid such a revolution is exactly as it has always
been throughout history - to make the privileged and powerful cognizant of
the fact that their privilege and power depends upon major societal
change.  Given looming ecological constraints imposed by the Earth, it is
not clear that moderate environmental reforms can occur in a manner that
addresses global inequities and is sufficient to reverse ecosystem decline
and loss.  

We must try to save the Earth without going to war.  However, there is
nothing more instinctual for any creature than maintaining their species -
including fighting for their self-preservation.  In the face of continued
stonewalling and green washing by the industrial growth machine, lovers
and protectors of the Earth and her humanity should not so quickly dismiss
the possibility of an Earth Revolution - peaceful or otherwise -
sufficient to ensure global ecological sustainability.

The Earth must and shall be sustained by all means necessary.  Viva la
Earth Revolution!

###

Earth Meanders is a series of personal essays that places questions of
environmental sustainability within the context of other contemporary
issues.  Comments can be made, and past writings can be found, at:
http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/ .  Emailed comments will be posted
there as well.  Permission is granted to reprint this essay provided it is
properly credited.

-----------------------------




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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


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