Biosphere Earth — 10: Overwhelm
So, here’s a break point.
So far we’ve talked about: the human identity, indigenous reality, and biospheric reality as circles, relationships, history, and architecture, compared Earth to Mars, and clarified the meaning of “biosphere.”
This collection of blogs is based on a lecture given on Indigenous Peoples Day 2020. Thanks again to Dr. Anne-Marie Thomas and her class for the opportunity. One of the things we talked about in prep was emotional overwhelm and how it impedes progress. There are too many things going wrong at once in the world today. We all feel this way. So what do we do about it?
I asked the students,
What are the things you all are concerned about, especially in relation to the environment, but not necessarily just the environment?
Their responses were impressive:
drinkable water
desertification
extinction of species
lack of biodiversity within our communities
local, natural predators and other species being pushed out by our communities
human-made industrial carbon emissions
human-made carbon emissions from consumer products
waste from consumer products
soil erosion
monoculture farming
deforestation
the political implications of climate change, i.e. anti-immigrant rhetoric in regards to climate crisis migrations. (since climate change is going to decimate major areas where people live and people will have to move, what are people already living in new refugee havens going to do? how are they going to react to millions of people invading their lands?)
displacement of underprivileged people
ocean acidification
the deaths of coral reefs
That’s a really strong list, right? Very realistic and connected to what science tells us are the primary concerns for human continuation today.
So let’s just acknowledge that for a moment. One thing that’s truly exciting, i’ve gotten to do presentations to Dr. Thomas’s classes multiple times over the last few years. With each year the IQ level on environmental issues doubles or triples.
The answers this year are WAY more sophisticated than in 2016, and not just in this particular class. It is exciting to see awareness changing and more of us getting on the same page. Hats off to Dr. Thomas’s students — and Gens Z, Y & X, and the Internet. This is good…
So, what do we do about all the stuff listed above? Drinkable water, Desertification, Extinction of species, Lack of biodiversity, Predator annihilation, Carbon emissions, Consumer products and waste, Soil erosion, Monocultural farming, Deforestation, Refugeeism, Political conflicts, Ocean acidification, Coral bleaching…
Honestly —
All of these issues and many more can be directly reduced, addressed, and/or resolved via 3 simple, planetary goals: Protect, Transform, Restore: Biosphere Earth & the Human Economy. We can approach this from globally and locally-strategic perspectives.
Everyone involved. Everyone benefitting.
More on this tomorrow — Thanks.
######
This blog is part of a series on Biosphere Earth.
Read the previous blog: Identity.
To review other posts in this series, visit the TOC.
