It’s been a pleasure doing this series, “Biosphere Earth”, and thinking from a biospheric perspective.
From a Biospheric Perspective
One way of talking about this 20-part series is that it’s a response to the greatest crisis in the last 65 million years — the collapse of Biosphere Earth.
Now you may be thinking “I’ve already heard of climate change,” or “Is this in addition to climate change?”
This is not the same as climate change. It’s a bigger problem with a brighter solution. …
First of all — it’s the right goal.
It should be the first goal of human society to have as robust a life-support system on Earth as it possibly can.
Then, perhaps, supplying all of humanity with shelter, healthy food and clean water on a daily basis will become achievable and reliable, the climate un-changed, and Life saved. Once all of that is locked down, we can talk about economic growth and sustaining large, capital gains.
Most modern humans always thought our life-support system was guaranteed, if we thought about it at all. That’s changing. …
I should say: it stands to reason that rebuilding bio-physical functionality, by rebuilding Biosphere Earth (our life-support system) can only help us restore and retain bio / climate health and security.
This blog is a continuation of the previous blog, “Local Priorities.”
Restoring Wilderness (Restoring bio-physical security)
We’re just scratching the surface in terms of what’s possible for rebuilding climate and biospheric security on Earth. This particular piece is very general, but: in addition to prioritizing vital organ ecosystems, we should be integrating wild vegetation into the places we live, work and travel as fast as we possibly can today.
You can play many roles.
Here’s a brief sequence showing how restoring and reconnecting wilderness integrity looks from local to macro spaces. (The previous blog showed micro to local spaces.)
Bringing back Biosphere Earth —
OK, so, local strategy #1 is global strategy #1: Act Globally. In other words, the number one thing you can do locally is help globally; help best practice organizations working on resolving our most urgent global priorities.
Then #2, Go vegan.
Then #3, Act Locally — do things where you live and work that rebuild and reconnect green infrastructure; natural wilderness ecosystems. This blog provides a quick vision for that: Acting Locally to rescue and restore Biosphere Earth.
Context
Once one considers the history and architecture of the human life-support system it’s easy to see Earth not as some planet in space we just happen to live on, but as the only planetary biosphere; a contiguous wilderness of land and water ecosystems animated by their biodiversity, which has recently been interrupted and scaled-back by humanity’s growth. …
Hopefully, you’ve read blogs 15 and 13 which share the science on why land-based tropical ecosystems are priority 1 for Biosphere Earth’s rescue and continuation.
Add to that list, Earth’s other vital organ ecosystems. In sum, the vital organ ecosystems: tropical lands, all coastal ecosystems, a few lakes, and high-lattitude oceans. These places are the most critical to global climate, food, and continuation. You can see this in the amazing animation from NASA shown here. This is 20 years of biological productivity, compressed into a 10-second loop.
This blog is part of a series on Biosphere Earth. Here is part 15: How Rescuing & Rebulding Our Primary Asset Benefits Everything & Every Major Issue.
Compare the Red & Yellow areas (below)
Doing what’s best for our life support system is also what’s best for our climate and society. How do we know? Compare these 3 maps.
- Earth’s bio-productivity: is concentrated in Tropical lands
Do we have the resources available to re-vegetate areas of the Earth that have gone desolate?
We do, yes.
And biospheric resources compound as we bring ecosystems back.
This blog is part of a series on Biosphere Earth. To review other posts, visit the TOC. Here is part 13.
This blog shows that when one combines the carbon reduction promise (stated here) with the climate system benefits of protecting and restoring Earth’s vital organ ecosystems — we’re looking at the most realistic way to solve climate change.
Maps speak louder than words
Most of our life-support system’s priority ecosystems have been identified. Let’s first look at three maps. These show, in essence, macro-level organization of Biosphere Earth’s productivity; our life support-system’s productivity.
#1. Global natural carbon absorption (1998)
#2. Global land biodiversity (2013)
This blog is part of a series on Biosphere Earth. To review other posts in this series, visit the TOC. Here’s part 12.
The carbon emissions reduction potentials — from rescuing and stewarding our planetary life-support system are, frankly, enormous. As in mind-blowing.
I’ll show that in the next blog.
What’s most important, first, is to realize that rescuing and stewarding our biosphere is so good for our climate that the enormous carbon reductions you’ll read about tomorrow are secondary to the overall suite of climate system benefits.
And these benefits compound in a net positive way. …
