At the same time, we must consciously understand that we are a part of and are dependent upon the entire web of life on our planet. This means that we cannot create emergence in forms which are destructive to the web of life that sustains us.
This understanding must be universally taught to everyone. It must be a foundational, integral aspect of our culture, of our species interpretation of reality. Globally organized humanity must always act defensively to prevent any violation of this basic reality of our existence.
In saying this, I do not believe that we should return to being Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, abandoning the organized social complexity developed over the past ten thousand years. I am not opposed to advanced technology, or to the existence of large human aggregations-our towns and cities.
Not at all! Here, I part company with activists that seem to advocate ending civilization and returning to a hunter-gather existence. If the coming collapse is total - and this may occur anyway - such a result might be unavoidable, however, I believe that if possible, it should be avoided.
What I advocate instead is fundamental transformation of ourselves.
All human organization and activity must be consistent with ecological sustainability. We must develop a culture based upon a greater degree of abstraction: one based upon understanding the nature of the universe, and enjoying life while learning. If we do this, then we will value abstract goods such as new knowledge, poetry, art and music, and political innovation towards truly representational forms of government, over a false and environmentally destructive drive for material acquisition.
My hope is that all of the knowledge of our age can be preserved for future generations. Knowing what is coming upon us, I have proposed, for example; placing microwave reflectors (ultra-thin wire mesh, basically) in geosynchronous orbit and using ground based microwave technology to distribute renewably-produced energy around the world as needed. This is existent technology. This setup would also provide for a global internet to continue to exist and link all of humanity into a densely-interconnected whole. Its backbone would be sun powered and 23,400 miles above Earth's equator. Once established it could easily function for a thousand years without maintenance while humanity sorted out its affairs below. Everyone would benefit from, and be dependent upon, the global sharing of energy and information that this would make possible. Shrinking away from technology at this point would be foolish in the utmost extreme!
A human society such as this would be capable of orders of magnitude greater emergent wealth than today's humanity possesses. And it would be quality wealth: health, happiness, knowledge and well-being, instead of the materialistic "wealth" which consists of ever-growing heaps of cheap plastic crap from Wall Mart!
Such a planetary species would truly be a far superior and worthy successor to its doomed present-day predecessor. It would be easily able to pass the impulsive greed test which all other primate species have failed. Indeed it would be an emergence of a new, sustainable, and humane (vs. "human") culture.
So I say to all of you: You can work to make this goal your reality, or you can go down with the proverbial ship. The iceberg is just ahead, and we are roaring toward it at flank speed.
Choose.
In a future essay I will have more to say about how we may realize this transformative agenda.
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