Back   OpEd News
Font
PageWidth
Original Content at
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Ecology-Is-the-Meaning-of-by-Glen-Barry-Ecology_Ecosystems_Life-Forms-131023-868.html
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

October 23, 2013

Ecology Is the Meaning of Life. We Must Act Now To Save It!

By Glen Barry

Naturally evolved ecosystems are marvels that make Earth habitable, yet sadly they and all life are threatened.

::::::::

Naturally evolved ecosystems are marvels that make Earth habitable, yet sadly they and all life are threatened.

Miraculous Nature

Ultimately, all that humanity and all of life have to draw on is the biosphere--the thin layer of life just above and below Earth's surface that is composed of ancient, miraculously evolved natural ecosystems. The natural Earth is a marvel: a complex coupling of species within ecosystems, whereby life begets life.

The word ecology in one sense means the study of life and its environment. In this essay, however, the word is used as a synonym for ecosystems--the vibrant connections that emerge between species across scales and that, cumulatively, make life on Earth possible.

Nature is far, far more than pretty plants and animals. Ecosystems make Earth habitable, providing water, food, air, shelter, and more--everything that we need and desire to live well. In naturally evolved ecosystems, from genes to individual organisms and species, and everything else in between, each living being fills a niche in which it sustains itself, its neighbors, and the whole.

All species uniquely express evolutionary brilliance and have a purpose. They have a reason for being, a right to exist, and are necessary to maintain life's full potential. From the lowly worm, to soaring eagles, to the human race--all naturally evolved life has value and relies upon all the rest. Even seemingly noxious disease organisms and man-eating predators have a role to play in maintaining ecological balance.

The Earth as a whole is a living organism, similar biologically to a cell, plant, animal, or ecosystem. Without large intact ecosystems, Earth becomes uninhabitable. Yet sadly, she is being murdered by human industrial growth that is pursued at the expense of ecosystems. Like any life, the life of the Earth can die when it exceeds certain planetary boundary conditions. 

The vibrant mélange of life found in natural ecosystems is godlike in its all-embracing nurturing. Ecology is the meaning of life.

Ecosystem Collapse

Humankind's demand for resources and growth overwhelms nature. Our steady deterioration of ecosystems abruptly changes climate, which leads to the collapse of the biosphere. Global ecosystems--water, air, food, forests, oceans, wetlands, and more--are collapsing and dying under the burden of human industrial and population growth.

Human destruction of natural ecosystems and disintegrating climatic integrity are already past critical thresholds. Humanity (meaning each of us) can't dump filth into air, defecate into water, kill and diminish natural vegetation, plunder oceans, and expect to maintain an Earth that is habitable and capable of sustaining a decent life for its creatures. Abrupt climate change is indicative of a much broader decline, both ecological and social, that manifests itself in habitat loss, water shortages, inequitable over-consumption, dead oceans, nationalistic injustice, and industrial agriculture. Such a decline threatens life itself.

The comforts of modern life for some come at the expense of an utter decimation of the natural ecosystems required to sustain life. Comforts gained in this way cannot last. Mass chaos and death are sure to ensue. No one will survive abrupt climate change, ecosystem loss, and biosphere collapse.

Ecosystems are being wantonly liquidated in the mythical belief that we can grow forever. Yet, common sense should tell us that perpetual exponential economic growth is impossible on a finite planet. Humanity is in fact systematically dismantling Earth's environmental life-support systems. We have at most a few more decades of industrial growth ahead of us, which will inevitably be followed by ecosystem and biosphere collapse.

The human family is epically failing to protect and restore ecosystems. We are simply not reducing greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to avert global ecosystem collapse, achieve ecological sustainability, and enjoy universal well-being forever. The brutal manner in which humankind treats Earth, other species, and fellow humans makes a mockery of our claims to be civilized. At our worst, we have become out-of-control vermin destroying our own habitat for momentary pleasure.

The human family is now in ecological overshoot, having exceeded Earth's carrying capacity. It is pulling down all species and the biosphere with it, as Earth's life collapses into nothingness. There is no easy way out, as together we face an end to ecology, and thus life itself.

Sustainability Solutions Exist

While deep pessimism about our future is certainly warranted, workable solutions to climate change and our broad-based environmental decline do exist. They include ending the use of fossil fuels, protecting and restoring ecosystems, agro-ecological food production, reducing population and inequity, and establishing a steady state economy. Plainly, however, transitioning to such solutions to avert global ecosystem collapse is not going to be easy. It will in fact be highly disruptive. Yet, there is no alternative to reaching for these solutions, if, together, humanity is to survive and enjoy well-being within Earth's ecological boundaries.

Industrial growth at the expense of ecosystems and climate must end as soon as possible. For the survival and well-being of human life and all life, intact ecosystems must remain the context for human endeavors. Huge potential exists to further develop organic permaculture-based agro-ecological systems for growing our food. Ultimately, we are all challenged to gain our daily sustenance by working on the land and creating something of worth from our hands and minds that is consistent with the regeneration and nurturing of ecosystems. 

We each must cultivate a sense of enoughness--an awareness that more isn't always better, particularly if it undermines our natural habitat and thus our ability to survive.

It is not too late to embrace an ecology ethic. But the longer we wait, the more limited will be our options. Despite pernicious trends in ecological decline--and allowing for the possibility of a deep resiliency in the Earth System of which we are unaware--out of love of life, we owe it to Earth, to kindred species, and to kids everywhere to try everything possible to save Being.

Growth in industry, population, consumption, and inequity cannot be maintained. Together we must reach a steady-state economy in which natural capital is replenished, not diminished. We must also urgently pursue reductions in human population, which has the most basic human impact upon the climate and ecosystems and can cause the biosphere to collapse. Two effective measures to that end would be to educate all girls and provide birth control to all.

Ignorance and superstition must be banished through education and by promoting a love of truth, justice, knowledge, wisdom, and fairness.

For capitalism to have any future and avoid social, ecological, and economic collapse on a dead planet, it must learn to price external costs and environmental risk now, while rejecting its obsession with growth as the ultimate measure of well-being. Otherwise, industrial capitalism will have to be replaced soon, simply to enable most humans to survive, let alone thrive.

Alternatives to our present economic practices exist that are fair and reward hard work. Sadly, however, we find it easier to contemplate the end of life on Earth than to embrace essential social change.

For human survival and well-being, committing acts that destroy ecosystems must somehow be made unacceptable, and prohibitions against such acts must be enforced. The environment movement must make more of an effort to communicate the complexity of ecological crises, their profound risk, and possible solutions to them--while resolutely rejecting and outing greenwash that legitimates ecocidal activities.

The green movement must also move beyond awareness-raising stunts and build a broad-based movement to seize power and to implement the ecological policies necessary to sustain Being.

Only total societal reorganization away from destroying ecosystems and burning fossil fuels can save Earth and humanity. Either humanity together finds a way to implement difficult ecological policies to end the use of fossil fuels, protect ecosystems, and achieve a steady-state economy--or it is the end. No measures except indiscriminate terrorism targeting innocents can be off the table in efforts to protect ecology.

Hope in Ecosystems

Today, free your mind and senses to see ecology everywhere, in everything you do, and the myriad ways it suffers from human hubris, indifference, ignorance, and overuse. As long as together we still breathe, there is hope we can sustain Earth. Realistically, however, the state of ecosystems and the biosphere is grim and worsening. We must start in haste today to build the world that is possible and needed.

Love and respect for other peoples, species, nature, truth, justice, and equity offer the only lasting basis for global ecological sustainability and show the only effective way forward to avoid final ecosystem collapse. For a sustainable, decent future, we must go back to the land, stop burning fossil fuels, and nurture ecosystems and one another.

We are one human family with inalienable rights and duties to freedom, work, equity, peace, justice, and sustained ecology. Profound inequity, ecological collapse, persistent injustice, nationalistic perma-war, superstition, and ignorance when faced with truth--all are sicknesses that mar our human potential and will prove fatal.

Together the human family will either learn to live well together within intact ecosystems and without fossil fuels, or it will face a period of profound suffering, followed by biosphere collapse and the end of being. Together we could end the current system's elite rule, inequity, injustice, and gross ecological negligence at any time. Either we act together soon, courageously, on the basis of truthful ecological knowledge, or else each of us alone faces misery and a final apocalyptic global ecological collapse.

Ecology is the meaning of life. Truth, justice, equity, and sustainability are the ideals by which it can be maintained. Let's act on these principles now!


Authors Bio:
Dr. Glen Barry is an internationally recognized environmental advocate, scientist, writer and technology expert. He is well-known within the environmental community as a leading global ecological visionary, public intellectual, and environmental policy critic.

Dr. Barry holds a Ph.D. in "Land Resources" from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Masters of Science in "Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development" also from Madison, and a Bachelor of Arts in "Political Science" from Marquette University. He is a political ecologist scientist with expert proficiencies in old forest protection, climate change, and environmental sustainability policy and ecology. His work is committed to communicating the severity of global ecological crises - and related justice, rights and equity issues - while actively proposing, advocating, and organizing with others sufficient solutions to achieve global ecological sustainability.

Back