This conclusion:
In short, there is plenty of energy and material on this planet for our civilization, and the rest of nature, if we simply learn to live within the biological and physical realities of our world. And within this abundance, we humans can build a thriving civilization, alongside a vibrant and verdant natural world.
is not supported with evidence. I don’t have the numbers to prove it but I believe that to sustainably maintain the current Western and Eastern Middle Classes the less developed world will need to forgo advancement. Said another way. Everybody’s standard of living will need to stop advancing or maybe even be retrenched a bit to achieve sustainability.
It requires that we start thinking, and acting, like a planetary civilization.
I would think should consider all persons as equal and should strive to achieve and equitable distribution of the benefits and resources of the Planet. So the developed world’s standard of living needs to be sacrificed to allow the developing populations achieve near parity with the advanced Western and Eastern societies. Anything else is hypocritical. You might argue that we can bring up the disadvantaged without a sacrifice from the advantaged but I would scoff. How long would it take to achieve near parity that way and anyway. It is all a joke because we are going to be acting less and less like a planetary civilizations and more likely the large Nation States will fragment as local societies pursue their own best interests. This is becoming obvious with the impotence of the U.S. National Government.
At their core, our environmental challenges stem from too many people not understanding, or intentionally overlooking, the physical and biological systems governing this planet.
No joke, for most people accepting this understanding would be to face incredible cognitive dissonance. I too am destroying the planet and I am the most environmentally conscience person in my social circle.
I accept that I consume more than my share and rationalize it as, I am doing more than my associates and any more sacrifices will be in vain unless something radically changes.
Also, the rest of life on Earth doesn’t deplete its key resources.
This is not true, often a plants or animals will deplete its key resources resulting in a die back. You ever wonder why Fairy Circles are circles and not disks? Key resources are depleted in the interior of the circles.
Thankfully, some people are beginning to look to nature as a source of inspiration and solutions.
It is hard to be thankful for something that almost amounts to nothing. Yes, some people, maybe a millionth of a percent of the global human population.
As we develop our planetary perspective, we must look to nature for even more practical solutions for living sustainably on planet Earth.
More? Maybe I missed it but it does not seem you included a single practical solution in this story.
If we don’t act, and act soon and with purpose, this will become a crisis. A crisis that could affect everything we care about
It is already a crisis. The end of talking about avoiding the crisis is about to hit. The crisis will not be avoided and we will be focused on mitigations. We are already working mitigations for sea level rise. We are already working mitigations for habitat loss. We are already working mitigations for threatened species. We are post crisis and actually have been for decades. Go take a look if you want to ever see a glacier or ice sheet because they will be gone no mitigation is going to stop that loss.
Are we going to leave a better world for our children, so that they can live safe and healthy lives, or are we going to condemn them to a degraded and dangerous future?
What do you think? I know, my children are coming up to middle age. Things will not get better in their lifetime. Maybe my grandchild will live to see a better world but I don’t think those odds are as good as 50/50.
TEK
