There are three simple but still shocking reasons why the Job One for Humanity climate change think tank forecasts are so accurate.

Introduction

We have included John Stewart's new book review of Human Superintelligence because it describes how to develop the critical Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking skill set. This new thinking and analysis process is also crucial to our climate change analysis work at Job One, and we want as many other people to learn it as soon as possible.

If our leaders and politicians learned it, they would be far better able to make wiser decisions about the climate change emergency and the many other world problems involving complex adaptive systems.

The Human Superintelligence book review

I just finished reading a new book by John Stewart called Human Superintelligence: How you can develop it using recursive self-improvement.

The subtitle definitely does not do this book’s comprehensiveness justice.

Human Superintelligence is a bold throw down and challenge to every Mensa member, polymath, valedictorian, salutatorian, or autodidact worldwide looking for their next big intellectual challenge. But, before I share my experience of this book and its techniques, a few words should be said about the author. 

John Stewart is a well-published evolutionary theorist. His work on the principles of progressive evolution has significantly advanced original thinking about the most profound principles of evolution. His publications on Progressive Evolution are earning him the underground nickname of “the new Darwin of the 21st Century.”

At this point, you may wonder what would cause or even qualify an evolutionary theorist to write a book on human superintelligence. The answer comes from the discovery that to understand and model the multiple, overlaying complex adaptive systems that create evolution and reveal the deeper framework principles of Progressive Evolution, one first has to be able to model and analyze complex adaptive processes at what could only be called a new level of human superintelligence.

In other words, John Stewart had to first develop human superintelligence within himself to model and discover the most profound principles of Progressive Evolution. Additionally, after years of trying to teach progressive evolution principles to others and failing consistently, it became clear to Stewart that his students also had to develop superintelligence before they could effectively understand Progressive Evolution and, more importantly, the many complex adaptive systems currently determining the fate of human civilization (climate change, politics, economics, ecology, etc.).

Stewart’s new book Human SuperIntelligence begins with a beautiful and vulnerable narrative of how he developed superintelligence over his lifetime and understood how to develop human superintelligence in others. In the book's later sections, Stewart shares the many techniques one must diligently practice to develop superintelligence within oneself. 

Stewart admits he is autistic, and his writing style can occasionally be repetitive and nonlinear. But most often, he brilliantly and convincingly argues that the processes of developing superintelligence only partially surrender to traditional linear thinking and transcend being understood using only the past's rational, analytical thinking methodologies.

This book is designed for the highly motivated who want to reach their fullest intellectual potential. It is also far from a light read. To achieve something that only a few other people have gained during their lifetimes, the reader must put in consistent effort and learn a breakthrough new thinking methodology that far transcends the rational, analytical thinking for the First Enlightenment and the birth of science. 

This new methodology is called Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking. It is derived from the work of a former Harvard professor, Otto Laske. Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking is very complex.  It is so complex that one must be at least 27 years old to do it effectively. (Under 27, one does not have enough synaptic brain connections to do this kind of high-level modeling and processing.)

For the first time, Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking allows humanity to model complex adaptive systems at a level that far exceeds the capabilities and capacities of rational, analytical thinking. Using the new Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking, you can “see” a single, continually transforming, and evolving moment (or series of moments) from 28 unique and powerful perspectives. The difference between the old rational, analytical thinking versus the new Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking can be described as being able to see the details and nuances of the relationships, processes, contexts, and transformations of the world at a 4,200 computer screen dpi resolution when previously you could only see the world at a computer 420 dpi screen resolution.

Unfortunately, Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking is not the only new skill you must learn to develop human superintelligence. You will also need to become skillful in turning your internal subjective thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and ideas into external objects you can view dispassionately and objectively. Stewart says this objectification of internalized thoughts and feelings ability is one of the most challenging skills you must acquire to develop human superintelligence. 

Making your subjective internal thoughts become like exterior objects that can be quickly reviewed and manipulated is not an entirely new skill. Meditators who have practiced for years can sometimes do this with their thoughts and emotions. Additionally, some lucky individuals who have reached Harvard professor Robert Keegan's fourth or fifth highest stages of social-emotional development have developed the skill naturally.

In summary

To develop your superintelligence, one will have to:

1. 1. Diligently study the heavy lift of the 28 dialectical perspectives described in intricate and nuanced detail by Otto Laske in his new three-book series, Advanced Systems Level Problem-solving. Approaching real-world complexity with dialectical thinking. Once you have mastered that, you have at least the foundation of Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking.
   2. Be able to treat your thoughts and emotions objectively. And,
   3. Listen to Stewart's many tips in his life story and detailed descriptions of what one must go through and do to succeed.

There are also a few foundational skills that can be very helpful once one has developed superintelligence and is proficient in the new Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking. The paradox around these skills is that if you have them now, you will have to suspend these analysis approaches, at least temporarily, to master Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking. This is because dialectical meta-systemic thinking is so different and far transcends them when it comes to the modeling and analysis of complex adaptive systems. 

Don't worry if you don't have all the foundational skills now. These skills should be easier to develop after you have achieved superintelligence.

Those foundational skills are:

1. 1. Classic logic.
   2. Rational, analytical thinking,
   3. System thinking, and 
   4. Statical analysis.

I can attest that this book will deliver on its big promises, but only if you put in the intense intellectual effort, practice wisely, and persist despite slowly increasing success for most people. You will develop superintelligence if you do what he recommends and bring a significant level of your intellectual bandwidth to the challenge.

For those who succeed, the rewards are super-abundant wherever understanding and solving problems that involve the world’s many complex adaptive systems is required. Superintelligence is particularly useful in the humanities, where its Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking skills will produce abundant beneficial new research results.

By mastering the superintelligence skill subset of Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking, you can write your career ticket worldwide. Your peers will wonder how you know what you know and how you solve problems with new solutions that nobody previously had any idea how to find. Using your developed superintelligence, you will begin to stand out to others in the know, like Matt Damon stood out in the movie “Good Will Hunting.”

Towards the end of Stewart’s empowering book, he describes what else naturally happens to you after you acquire human superintelligence. That description is a beautiful and inspiring invitation to gifted individuals worldwide to experience and help create a superintelligent human future and a rich and beneficial Second Enlightenment era for humanity.

In conclusion, if you know someone who is gifted (or at least thinks they are), please forward this book review to them. Challenge them to move beyond the First Enlightenment rational, analytical thinking to the new Second Enlightenment Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking, the perfect thinking methodology for managing the complex adaptive systems of today and the rapidly escalating challenges facing humanity’s future.

Click here for the new Human Superintelligence book on Amazon.

Click here for more about the author John Stewart and his Progressive Evolution publications.

Click Here for more information on Dialectical Meta-systemic Thinking.

Lawrence Wollersheim wrote this book review and uses the principles and tools of Stewart’s Human Super Intelligence daily. He is a lead research analyst at the Universe Institute and the Job One for Humanity think tanks.

Here are three empowering reasons to become a new member/donor at Job One for Humanity today.

Zoom Call Subject: How will the new US politics radically worsen the climate emergency? By Job One for Humanity and

Have you been feeling anxious or having unsettling concerns after the US presidential election? Do you wonder what this election means for the climate emergency and your life over the next four years?

The courageous investigative reporter team at Desmog has done it again. Read how "Big Money? is hiding the coming climate change nightmare from public awareness and discussion.

Please read the following to understand why Yale's new 15-year prediction for climate chaos is wrong and why the correct prediction is actually six years.

If you live in a medium—to high-risk climate change consequence area, right or wrong, it's only a matter of time before your insurance company skyrockets your rates or cancels your policy.

Are you taking your escalating climate change emergency preparations seriously enough? Is it difficult to do the preparation you know you should be doing? If not, watch this inspiring video!

EARTH DAY, 2024, SHOULD BE A DAY OF GRIEF FOR HOW WE HUMANS HAVE WROUGHT HAVOC ON THE EARTH.

One of our Fossil fuel and climate change battle peers, the Desmog blog, published the perfect International Women's Day (March 8) message on the fossil fuel cartel. I'm re-publishing it with permission because it is perfect!

Part Two

3. HOW TO ACCEPT OUR ROLE IN CREATING THIS PREDICAMENT

We want to live longer and have access to more goods and services. When coupled to the energy of fossil fuels we have become so successful that exponential growth is the result. But our successes have come at the  expense of the natural world. The diagrams (repeated below) of ‘Global Ecological Footprint’,  ‘Recent Changes in Natural Ecological Systems of the Earth’,  and of the impinging of the  Ethereal Environment into the Natural World summarize these conflicts. 

Global Ecological Footprint Recent Changes in Natural Ecological Systems of the Earth         Predictions for 21^st Century 

By now most educated people have accepted the idea that there are major, worldwide environmental problems.  We have personally experienced “heat domes,” temperature extremes, devastating fires, ocean warming, and unexpected flooding.  Many of us have also accepted the fact that human activities have indirectly caused these and many other major environmental problems.  We see that humans thoughtlessly but without malice or intent have altered and polluted the land, water and air around us. On a personal level, we are unable to change our cultural stories and to alter an unrelenting social inertia that prevents acceptance of these existential predicaments. Nor, in the recent understanding of the problem, have we been able to change, collectively, the course of  our government or our economy. 

Most of us have been enamoured with the ideals of progress and growth that underlie our culture.  But we largely remain unaware of the scientific facts that conflict with those ideas. Few can see the direct relationship between humans’ incessant energy demands and the dynamics of thermodynamics and evolution. That is what I tried to show in Parts 1. and 2. The laws of physics and biology, when considered within the intricacies and immense extent of natural ecological systems, are fundamental to understanding the environmental problems we now face. 

We have probably grown up with an optimistic outlook that is basic to this peak period of American economic prosperity. William Catton calls it exuberance! From childhood, I have been influenced by the optimism of better access to diverse sources of food, means of transportation and communication, of better health through better medicine and public sanitation, of more leisure time, of expectations of access to education and employment. In other words, to ‘modern life’.  And even as I am aware of the relations of humans within the biosphere, I continue to live the way of life with which I grew up.  I continue to consume the world, largely unaware of the diverse and extensive energy transformations in assembling goods and services. I travel with little real sense of how it contributes to air pollution. I do not know how my pension plan contributes indirectly to the burning of fossil fuels. In my tenth decade on Earth, I can’t calculate the very high energy costs of my education, career, or health, all of which were extraordinarily  energy consumptive.

The Dominant View of Modern Life

American culture has been mine since birth and is the background to my thoughts today. Some ideas have changed but always within the context of my 20^th century acculturation. Lewis Mumford’s “Pentagon of Power”-- Power, Profit, Production, Property, and Publicity-gets at underlying cultural concepts. My habits and ideas, built up over the years, remain front and center. Within this 20^th-century social contract, it is relatively easy to shift my political views from Republican to Democrat,  to consume less meat, to get rid of my  automobile, to avoid artificial fibers in clothing. I could insulate my house and use solar panels; I can maintain healthy activity patterns, and  grow some of my own food. All of these actions are acceptable within my culture. I can contribute money to environmental causes. But I still consume large amounts of goods and services that I do not need for survival or even to live well. I use digital devices that are new and useful for present day activities but are not necessary for a sustainable existence. In other words even as I am aware of the roots of environmental degradation,  I am unavoidably and inextricably embedded within both the organic imperative to grow and reproduce and the modern cultural complex to get more and more and prosper in social and economic life.

I am addicted.

If you do not believe the evidence, you may ignore, deny, contradict, disbelieve, or not consider it to be important. However, If you believe the scientific evidence of ecology, evolution, and energy and also believe that you are addicted to the ideas of growth and progress, you most likely will experience stress or psychological anxiety.  Many of us feel unsettled as we envision the future of our own, our children's, and their children’s lives because we are living in ways that harm the future. 

 Addiction to Environmental Destruction

In Gregory Bateson’s words:

 If “we realize that we are caught in the double bind of mind versus  body; our mind and body are sending us conflicting messages that cannot be reconciled and which are depriving us of sanity and health.” (Substitute ‘behavior’ for Bateson’s, ‘body’ and you will see the analogy directly).

If you, as I, cannot reconcile your life style with the impact that it is having on the natural world, you have become helplessly addicted to exploitation of your earthly home. The admission that our actions cannot be made to correspond with our thought is fundamental.Environmental addiction is a disease more deadly than drug addiction.

To find relief from that double bind of addiction and belief, it is fundamental to adjust both our thoughts and our actions. Differences between what we know and what we believe to be true result in cognitive dissonance. To reconcile this dissonance, we need help. Gregory Bateson offered some help when he  alerted me to an ecological model about the ways in which alcoholics and other addicts might substitute a sane and healthy life for their addiction, thereby relieving the dissonance.

“It is [***] asserted that the nonalcoholic world has many lessons which it might learn from the epistemology of systems theory and from the ways of AA.  If we continue to operate in terms of a Cartesian dualism of mind versus matter, we shall probably also continue to see the world in terms of God versus man; elite versus people; chosen race versus others; nation versus nation; and man versus environment.  It is doubtful whether a species having both an advanced technology and this strange way of looking at its world can endure.” (My emphasis)

I believe that adopting AA’s systems model  can bring some “sanity and health” to us who are addicted to our modern cultural beliefs as we see environmental crises unfold before us.  Even a modified AA model will not solve the physics of environmental disruptions. It won’t change the course of evolution. And it won’t soon change the course of American culture.  But it may help some of us find peace of mind as we live through and try to understand the troubled environmental predicament of today. 

The AA model is similar to an ecosystem that recognizes that we are organisms who live in larger ecosystems--the natural world--and also in subordinate ecosystems--our minds and the stories we live by. Thinking of the natural world and our mental worlds together causes great stress. Is that stress so great that we have ‘hit bottom’ and recognize the we are addicted (not simply aware) of damaging our environment?

To overcome our addiction to our current ways of thinking of mind versus nature, we must come up with a new way of thinking—a new epistemology.  We must recognize that we are part, but only part, of a system that is greater than ourselves, a system that is sane and healthy, a system in which mind and matter, humans and environment, are not opposed. Bateson’s writes:

“The self is but a small part of a much larger trial-and-error system which does the thinking, acting, deciding.”  

The realization that we are merely a part of a naturally evolving and ecological world that is immensely greater than ourselves is truly a humbling experience for those of us raised in the traditions of The Enlightenment and of modern beliefs which stress the power, rationality, and individuality of humans and humanity.

To acknowledge that we are part of the natural processes of evolution and ecosystems, which we are significantly disrupting, is highly disturbing. Viewed in the context in which every technological triumph has also disrupted some ecological or evolutionary relationship, one can catches glimpses of disasters far more threatening than alterations of our current life styles.  We have to admit that continued human survival  rests largely outside our control but, instead, within ecologic and evolutionary terms.  For a shorthand term, we might say that we are in the hands of Mother Earth or Gaia. 

After admitting that we are not in control, the next step toward sanity-- to surrender to this new way of thinking--is extraordinarily difficult.  We need to acknowledge that our behavior is both addictive and destructive. Few among us have ‘hit bottom’ because to do so would be seen as a threat to our current ways of life. Nevertheless, we can actively and honestly become part of Gaia by physically acknowledging and, wherever possible, rectifying, the wrongs (the disruptions to natural ecosystems) we have done to her in the past.  

We can do so by making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.  We must admit to ourselves and others the exact nature of our wrongs to what may be called Mother Earth, Gaia, or natural ecological systems. We need to make a list of the environmental and ecological systems we have harmed and, where possible, make amends to them. We should continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admit it. Through prayer and meditation we can reaffirm our humility as part of an unimaginably larger system. There  is no need to feel guilty or find blame for your  actions. Instead, you may find lessened stress simply  in the recognition that you are doing whatever you can to live a sane and healthier life.

This is important to my thinking, these principles also allow me to understand human behaviour in historic time, especially in my own lifetime. Humans, extraordinarily successful organisms, have been simply carrying out their lives, unaware of the consequences of their physical and cultural imperatives. If now, humans have become aware that their very existence is at stake, even as they cannot overcome these imperatives, they can find ways to live more sanely and peaceably.

Thus I am  not panicked by what I have come to think about the human role in changing global ecosystems. I am neither pessimistic nor optimistic about the results of the continuation of the negative, radical changes that I now see going on around me. I think that I understand the principal basic facts about the general trends of the alterations of the natural world and I have a very general understanding of the major ecologic systems that are being altered and of the existential questions of humankind's place in the evolution of organic life. I also have a general understanding of the ways in which worldviews and culture are effecting change. 

I am personally aware of many of the ways that I fit into American culture and worldviews. I am particularly concerned with the uniquely insistent human characteristic of consciousness and how I might use it to live the best life possible in the existential predicament of today. Most importantly, I must be mindful of the ways in which I continue to participate in both the cultural and natural world. 

We must learn to live with the knowledge that our brief moment of human exuberance is expiring, in large part, because of our own doing. Now, we must try to remain sane on the Earth that we have insanely altered.

1. 4.HOW TO LIVE  A SANE LIFE ON AN GREATLY ALTERED EARTH

For most of the last 10,000 years, alleviation of environmental problems for humanity was possible only because new lands and technologies were available. The growth imperative of humans, as with that of all organisms…to maintain and reproduce themselves through thick and thin--could continue until limits within the natural environment restricted expansion. But when technology, science, individualism, and the belief that humans are the masters of the Earth were coupled with the power of fossil fuels, the natural limits to growth were released, swamping any remaining sense of  human wisdo

A.Sustainability   

In the 1970s, with ecological views in mind, H. T. and Elizabeth Odum wrote what to do if  we wanted to attain a  sustainable society or to decline prosperously. To attain a sustainable society, the major requirement would be to consume less. Reading through the list of the Odums, it is understandable  why their suggestions were not adopted.  They simply contradicted the Mumfords “pentagon of power” in multiple ways. For example: 

Redefine progress as adaptation to earth restoration. 

Decentralizes organizational hierarchy; 

Place an upper limit on individual incomes;

Provide incentives to eliminate luxury use of fuels, cars, and electric power;

Use agricultural varieties that need less input. 

Almost none of their suggested  policies could be adopted because they were then unpalatable to political and economic leaders and to most modern Americans. 

( I remember going to the City Council of Eugene, in the 1980s, with colleagues from the Planning Department and the School of Architecture of the University of Oregon urging it to limit growth of the City. We were met with silence before it adopted policies of economic and physical growth of the City.)

 Degrowth--necessary for attaining sustainability--was not even considered. 

Sustainability may remain a goal for some people, today, but will remain elusive because our leaders still want economic growth,  which is impossible without further destruction of the natural world.  Growth and Progress,  today’s dominant world views, can only result in collapse of modern civilization and the vast alteration of the natural world.   

The future after the Recognition of the Crash

A major ecological thinker concerned with  the future of humankind, William Catton, writes:

” … in an age of global overshoot, the task facing mankind is to minimize the severity and inhumanity of the crash toward which we … are headed. Presumably mankind has found high death rates less unbearable when due to natural causes (e.g., microscopic predators) than when imposed by arrogant, sadistic human executioners. “

He continues: 

“Our best bet is to act as if we believed we have already overshot, and do our best to ensure that the inevitable crash consists as little as possible of outright die-off of Homo sapiens. Instead, it should consist as far as possible of the chosen abandonment of those seductive values characteristic of Homo colossus. Indeed, renunciation of such values may be the main alternative to renewed indulgence in cruel genocide. If crash should prove to be avoidable after all, a global strategy of trying to moderate expected crash is the strategy most likely to avert it.”  (Catton, William R.. Overshoot (p. 266). University of Illinois Press. Kindle Edition. on, William R.. Overshoot (pp. 215-216). University of Illinois Press. Kindle Edition.) 

 B. Ethical views.

 All major religions incorporate prohibitions in their worldviews: do not kill, do not steal, do not speak in anger or derision, et cetera.  They also include positive directives: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, be kind, be considerate, loving, and compassionate, et cetera. One can try to live by these commands because they offer directives as to how to live ethically, responsibly, supportive, and concernedly with other people. But they  do not offer ethical guidance as to how to live with nature.

In 1864, George Perkins Marsh published, “Man and Nature-or Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action.’  HIs books were among  the first to incorporate modern views on ethical relations of humans towards nature. He wrote:

“the dangers of imprudence and the necessity of caution in all operations which, on a large scale, interfere with the spontaneous arrangements of the organic and inorganic world.” p. vii 

In 1955, William Thomas edited the massive volume, ‘Man’s Role in Changing The Face of the Earth’, which was the result of meetings of over 100 scholars concerned with human modifications of the natural world. The conference was dedicated to George Perkins Marsh. In the introduction, Thomas stated that Marsh believed that man should moderate his activities and develop a morality in respect to his use of the earth. Thomas included the ideas that

 “ The identification, use, and care of resources is in the end a problem of human values and behavior,”  and “The dichotomy of man and nature is … thus seen as an intellectual device and as such should not be confused with reality.”

 In 1948, Aldo Leopold, a forest ecologist, addressed ethics directly when he wrote (in A Sand County ALMANAC, Oxford University Press):

“The first ethics dealt with the relation between individuals.*** Later accretions dealt with the relation between the individual and society. *** There is yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it.*** It is still property.”

“The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively: the land.” **

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise. 

“In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.” *** “In all of these cleavages, we see repeated the same basic paradoxes: man the conqueror versus man the biotic citizen; science the sharpener of his sword versus science the searchlight on his universe; land the slave and servant versus land the collective organism.”

‘By and large, our present problem is one of attitudes and implements.We are remodeling the Alhambra with a steam shovel, and we are proud of our yardage. We shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many good points, but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful use.” 

Written 75 years ago, Leopold’s ethical proposals have been almost completely ignored. The steam shovels have been busy, nearly completely remaking the world. His land ethic sounds quaint, coming as it did before the “great acceleration” of goods and services supported by energy from fossil fuels. The genie of growth and progress has no chance of being put back in the bottle. We can never be a ‘plain member and citizen in the land-community’. We remain ‘man the conqueror using science as the sharpener of  our sword’ and ‘land (and sea and air) as the slave and servant’. 

In the 1970s, Howard Odum also proposed a set of ecological ethics focused on energy flows in society.

Unlike Marsh, Leopold, and Odum, I  have had no hope that their ethical ideas might be adopted. Instead, ethics remain focused on human relations among themselves, not on their relationships in the natural world.  But, like them, I can actively support attempts to preserve 'natural' areas, urge efforts to decrease the input of carbon dioxide and other disruptive gasses into the atmosphere, eat less beef, support increased use of organic foods, and on and on because I respect the ecosphere and the Land Ethic.  One can live an ethical life even as natural and human systems fall apart. The predicament in which we live does not preclude acting for what we believe is right.

C. Religious views. 

In many ways the ethics and morality of ecology appear to be in direct conflict with some basic concepts of traditional religions.   Michael Dowd a minister,  in a series of extraordinary videos describes his religion as Sacred Realism / Religious naturalism and how those religious beliefs can be interpreted in today’s world.Sanity 101: Living Fully in an Age of Decline - Essential Wisdom for Hard Times Is a recent video in which he expresses his ‘ Eco-Theo Creed’ in some of the same terms as traditional religious practices. The two images below are take form that video. His ecological/evolutionary concepts are similar to those that I presented above. He has come to scientific concepts of the world from a traditional religious background whereas I have come from an a-religious, secular, background in environmental studies to religious views.  We have come from different backgrounds but have reached many of the same conclusions. Our strategies of how to live life may be different but we live in the same spiritual world.  The second image suggests ways to better live a full life if you accept the inevitability of ecological and societal collapse

D. Behavioral Views or Ideas about how to act. 

Solutions: Technology

A word about looking for solutions through the use of technology. Ways of preventing or moderating global warming have been proposed by many people and organizations.  However, I believe that there are no technological solutions that will stop global warming nor prevent a major collapse of modern society. Governmental  and most other influential leaders continue to talk of growth of the economy and act to encourage greater use of energy. They do not want to concern themselves with the realities of ecology and its consequences for organic life.  Instead, they look to technology and false hopes. To reach Net Zero Emissions by 2050, the IPCC, indicates that Low-carbon technologies are key to necessary reductions. Behaviour changes, changes of attitudes, and the lack of needed materials are largely dismissed. Ecological view are ignored.

IPCC role of technology in attaining Net Zero emissions

To try to continue our lives as we have in recent decades is not fruitful. Before making suggestion about how to act in a practical way, I want to dismiss technology as being practical in solving environmental problems.

Technology cannot provide solutions to the problems of global warming, which it has created. Technology has been extraordinarily successful because it can focus on specific problems with little regard to the secondary, tertiary, or more remote ecological effects of the solution to particular problems. Technology has produced great medicines, lots of food, better living conditions but also eight billion people on an Earth that will not be able to support them.  Technology has produced the machines and resources to produce  a plethora of goods and services, but not ways to limit the pollution of its waste products. Technology has produced plastics that contribute to many beneficial goods and services but now is a contaminant or pollutant throughout the natural environment, even within the human body. Little sense of large group decision-making survives Technology has devised artificial Intelligence, even among computers themselves, but cannot employ wisdom. In fact, technology, no matter how intelligent, cannot be wise. The lack of human wisdom may also not have been possible once political power became rested in organizations larger than subsistence groups or tribes whose wisdom was necessary for group survival. Technology, in its self, is a human creation. It is not part of the biotic world of evolution nor does it exchange information with the natural world.

For most of the last 10,000 years, alleviation of environmental problems for humanity was possible only because new lands and technologies were available. The growth imperative of humans, as with that of all organisms--to maintain and reproduce themselves--could continue until limits within the natural environment restricted expansion. But when technology, science, individualism, and the belief that humans are the masters of the Earth were coupled with the power of fossil fuels, the natural limits to growth were released, swamping any remaining sense of  human wisdom with regard to nature.

Renewable energy is based on current resources, not those of millions of years ago. But to use renewable sources of energy, almost all of which are based on incoming sunlight, it takes modern technology, which is based on nonrenewable source to use it. Renewable energy, although in continuous supply, cannot support the technology that it takes to  harness it to other uses. Its EROEI is far below the energy required for modern society. It is not a perpetual motion machine!

[As a side thought, even if renewable energy were to substitute for fossil fuel energy  (So far, it has not. Use of fossil fuel energy continues to grow.), the natural ecological systems of the Earth would continue to be greatly altered. Further, the problem of peak oil would then loom large. With continued use of Fossil Fuels at current rates, a peak in production should occur in the 2040s.]

 2. Deep Adaptation

I believe that neither the ‘Eco-Theo Creed’ nor a land ethic, alone or together, will be adequate to keep a personal sane in the insane world  of the coming collapse of modern society. Another approach that may help is ‘Deep Adaptation,’ a philosophy and course of action devised by Jem Bendell, an academic systems analyst who searched for ‘sustainability’ in a world in which humans were radically altering the Earth’s natural systems. As he became overwhelmed with the impossibility of cultural change leading to sustainable  societies , he asked the question:

 “How on Earth do we begin to talk to each other and work from a starting point of experiencing or anticipating societal disruption and even collapse?”

He writes of the Four Rs of Deep Adaptation, a broad framework which are questions to keep in mind in times of social disruption:  Resilience, Relinquishment, Restoration, and Reconciliation.

Resilience requires us to think about what we want to keep.  What values and behaviors are most important to maintain when under great stress, even societal collapse? What fundamental positive beliefs do you consider essential when your cultural context is disintegrating? 

On a practical level, what do  we want to retain beyond access to fresh water, basic food items, primary health care, and clothing and shelter.

Relinquishment means what we are able to  give up.  “It involves people and communities letting go of certain assets, behaviors and beliefs where retaining them could make matters worse. Examples include withdrawing settlements from coastlines, shutting down vulnerable industrial facilities, or giving up expectations for certain types of consumption.” In line with what Aldo Leopold writes, we should be able to give up practices that damage the natural ecosystems that support life other than our own. We should give up the technologies that pollute or damage our life support systems and manufacture items that might be called luxuries.

Restoration means to rediscover attitudes and approaches to life and to organizing people and communities that were lost during the days when fossil fuel energy dominated technology. Humans need to restore the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community through such activities as rewilding and organic gardening. We need to restore the communal activities that strengthen families, neighborhoods, and larger community. We may encourage this through restoring participatory sports, dance, music, and arts of all kinds  We can substitute personal contact for reliance on mechanical and electronic devices. 

Reconciliation means the process of learning to live with each other and nature within the emerging existential predicament. We must do so in an open, calm, and adaptable manner, without panic. We should look for consensus.

To lessen our impact on the ecosphere and personal cognitive dissonance, I think that we should always ask the four questions of Deep Adaptation before we act.

The question of Resilience is  “What do we most value that we want to keep and how?”

The question of Relinquishment is  “What should we let go of so as not to make matters worse?” 

The question of Restoration is: “What could we bring back to  help us in these difficult times?”  

The question of Reconciliation is: “With what and with whom shall we make peace as we awaken to our common mortality?” 

I believe that these questions ask us to think about human consciousness. The better responses are to be found in the depths of consciousness. They include honesty, kindness, truthfulness, concern for others, openness to love--the positive characteristics of most religious beliefs. I also believe that Michael Dowd’s recommendations to act through love, laugh, learn something new, leave  a legacy, and live courageously are good behaviors to keep through the predicament of modern life and societal collapse. 

 3. The Post-Carbon Institute through its web-site, Resilience, offers ideas about how to live in a collapsing society. Their ideas are positive and pro-active in that they show ways in which local communities can become more resilient in a declining economy. I recommend its video course entitled Resilience. It emphasizes actions at the local level. 

(https://www.postcarbon.org/  and  https://www.resilience.org/)

4. Stockholm Resilience Center also offers many ideas about sustainability and guides to survival. The Wayfinder guide is particularly good at offering organizational skills dealing with sustainable development.

(https://www.stockholmresilience.org/   and  https://wayfinder.earth/the-wayfinder-guide/)

5. The website of Job One For Humanity, in addition to offering solid scientific advice about the climate predicament, has proposed a series of strategies of survival for people, whatever their situation may be today. They have very recently prepared a program called: Climate Change Backup Emergency Preparations & Climate Disaster Recovery Survival Kit, which proposes several ways to survive the impending global climate disaster. The outline of the proposed actions (listed below) is followed by detailed explanations:

Action Step 1: Enjoy your life now and build psychological and emotional stability, reserves, and resilience. 

Action Step 2: Build your necessary backup emergency supplies and resilience for runaway global heating disaster survival and recovery.

Action Step 3: Create a climate change emergency preparation cash or valuable commodity reserve fund equaling 5%-10% of your annual income.

Action Step 4: Plan how to adapt where you are and move critical resources, technology, and infrastructure to handle the escalating consequences of runaway global heating.

Action Step 5: Get as personally sustainable as possible, as quickly as possible, and create renewable long-term food supplies that you can manage.

Action Step 6: Evaluate if you must relocate or migrate, and if so, plan where and when. Here you will learn about the concepts of Managed Retreat.

Action Step 7: Carefully Watch Our Accelerating runaway global heating and Other Related Consequences and Their Warning Signs to Wisely Stay Ahead of Them for as Long as You Can.

Action Step 8: If you are also of a spiritual nature, your faith can provide a critical and powerful motivation to help you persevere and survive what is coming.

Action Step 9: Work together passionately and wisely to slow and lessen the avoidable pain, suffering, and death that is and will be caused by accelerating runaway global heating.

Action Step 10: Join one of our existing ClimateSafe Villages or create a climate-safe eco-community to have a prepared community to help protect you and your loved ones through the many hardships ahead. (This is an essential survive and thrive step as climate consequences worsen.)

Action Step 11: How to become a part of or build one of the four urban, rural, hybrid, or virtual resilient models of the new supportive ClimateSafe Villages that will have your back as conditions worsen. 

Action Step 12: Do everything possible to also protect and preserve the biological life and ecological systems within your zones of influence and resources while protecting yourself and your loved ones.

The above are just the emergency preparation's found that job one for humanity. Click here for an equally useful list of the necessary adaptations that will be needed for true climate resilience.

6. Sixteen Words of Advice to Young People in the 21st Century 

And for down to Earth advice, I recommend Richard Heinberg’s advice to young people:

In his book, Power,  Richard Heinberg presents what is probably the most important practical ideas and actions for everyone who will have to live their lives in a disintegrating society. He writes:

1.Learn to grow food. Study permaculture. 

2.Learn to read people. You’re going to need to know whether people in your vicinity are trustworthy. 

3.Be trustworthy. Otherwise smart and trustworthy people won’t associate with you. 

4.Learn to express yourself clearly & Persuasively. 

5.Consider making a commitment not to reproduce. There are already plenty of people in the world. 

6.Learn to make decisions by consensus and to work collaboratively. 

Be a person with whom others enjoy working. 

7.Learn to repair and use relatively simple technologies. Studying to be a computer programmer or hacker could pay off in the short run, but over the longer term you’ll benefit more from learning to fix farming and construction tools.

8.Learn to make spare parts from junk. 

9.Learn how energy works. Be able to identify the sources of energy 

in your environment and find ways to harness that energy to do useful work. 

10.Learn to defend yourself. Sadly, for the remainder of this century the world is likely to be a more violent place. Even if that turns out not to be the case, martial arts can still be useful paths of self- discipline. 

11. Learn to heal the human body via nutrition, herbs, and basic emergency care. 

12. Learn to recognize the subjective effects of sex hormones, dopamine, and other brain chemicals, and find ways to use their effects to help achieve goals. 

13. Learn about nature. Memorize the names of local plants, birds, and insects, and observe their habits. Learn to be comfortable in the wild. 

14. Learn how to produce beauty via art, music, or movement, and how to engage others in creative, celebratory activities. 

15. Learn to emotionally process trauma and grief, and to help others do so. 

16. Learn when and how to use humor to release tension.

Summary Remarks

I try to apply ecologically positive behavior to how I live. At 92, I try to follow Heinberg’s advice to young people. In small ways one can conserve, preserve, encourage diversity and integrity of the spaces we occupy, use, or travel through. I have tried to apply ideas as a person concerned with planning my workspace, my yard, my neighborhood, my city, and my state. And ecological understanding is the issue I find most important in trying to influence my political leaders. (with little response.) Many of my contributions in time and money have gone to organizations imbued with Leopold’s ethics. My fundamental conscious thought is trying to raise awareness of human/nature interactions, which are as important as interaction between and among humans. And to understand the physical context of the land ethic it is necessary  to    learn the basic facts of the natural environment within which humans live-- evolution, ecology, and energy--Biology, Geography, and Geology.

I believe that the ongoing political, social and economic crises will result in unprecedented psychological stress. New technologies or radical changes in worldview will at best slow or delay the processes that are leading to crises. As cultural changes get more disordered, personal unease and stress will increase.  To lessen the stresses of living in a society in which growth and progress are less possible, I believe that more direct communal activities-- as well as greater personal self-sufficiency-- must be learned. To that end, education, especially of young children, should shift emphasis from global technology and how to get a job in a capitalistic economy to concerns of how to live locally and respect the natural world around us. In particular, education should emphasize participation in the care of the local environment and local community and in teaching ways of living an enjoyable, non- consumptive lifestyle through personal skills such as conversation, music, dance, drama, art, physical training, and participatory sports. As well, meditation, in whatever form practiced, can help clear the mind, leading to greater personal peace and possibly to connections with the 'power' of existence. 

This is not to say that activists should stop protesting new fossil fuel production projects, to advocate for a fossil fuel tax, or that planning agencies should stop advocating more energy efficiency and solar panels, or that conservationists should stop protecting creatures and ecosystems. I encourage the old-line preservation, conservation organizations to continue their efforts. And everyone who recycles, reuses, and reduces their consumption must by praised.

We must do what we can, even if it’s not enough to avert all the environmental, social, and economic crises that we’ve been fomenting with decades of over-consumption.    

“In this trembling moment ... is it still possible to face the gathering darkness and say to the physical Earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you, and to embrace fearlessly the burning world?”  Barry Lopez

Humanity has entered a world that is radically different from any preceding period of life on Earth. The growth of  available goods and services and the decline in the diversity of organic life have collided to create a predicament completely beyond humans ability to manage, possibly even to survive. Modern Technology through its highly focused goals and coupled with massive amounts of fossil fuel energy has created the modern world of growth and progress. And now, the technology of creative intelligence of AI unthinkingly accelerates innovations previously unimaginable. However, technology has also created unwanted secondary, tertiary and more distant repercussions in its application. The ongoing success of a multitude of projects is increasingly overwhelmed by natural restraints and limitations. Technology’s greatest success--growth of  a population of eight billion people--presses the limits of the biosphere to sustain them. Some humans may well survive into the foreseeable future. However, most of the survivors will live at a level that is greatly reduced from that of the present.

Today, some people can’t imagine being deprived of modern goods and services, let alone of lessened health care,  the prospect of a shorter life, a shortage of food, or increased restrictions on movement. Instead, they are presented with thoughts of space and undersea travel, of artificial intelligence, and of continued exponential growth of our economy. No one wants to return to the simple lives that over 99% of humans lived until the 20^th century. Many believe that current luxuries can exist along side continued heating of the atmosphere, oceans, and land. With a great deal of hubris, humans blithely or unthinkingly believe that they are the masters of the Earth and its other inhabitants even though many of our best scientists warn us that human omnipotence is coming to an end. We have reached an irreversible place in climate warming; we are approaching tipping points when temperatures will accelerate, causing natural and human disasters never before seen on Earth.

What  are some of the ways we can face this oncoming world? What can we do as members of communities and nations, and as individuals--Earthly creatures--who find ourselves approaching this predicament? We must understand that we exist within a world that is beyond simple human solutions. Then, ask what can we do as we survive in a greatly changed world. And how can we humans, especially the younger among us, live in the real world that lies ahead without false hopes or despair that will inevitably arise in a declining society? Many negative emotions will arise when humans no longer are able to grow and reproduce as we have in the last decades. Nor can we remain calm in a natural world that is changing before our eyes. This will require us to discover the very best qualities of what it is to be human. It will require us to find new ways of living and how to comport ourselves with dignity.

First, we need to face the reality of the natural world as, through science, we have best come to know and understand its workings.  We need to become aware of the ways in which are disrupting the natural world. We need to learn how to approach the world without destroying it. And we need to change our behavior with this newly found knowledge.  I present, here, my thoughts on these needs, awareness, and actions.

Second, we need to recognize the tragedy created by the ideas and behaviors of the modern world.  

Third, We need to accept our role in creating this tragedy.  

And fourth,we need to find ways of living in the declining civilization that confronts humanity.

I. Some basic ideas about the natural world

“But to be successful with this experiment of human life on earth we have to understand the laws of nature as they are encountered in the study of the sciences and mathematics.”

 Albert Bartlett

To understand the magnitude of the predicament created by human alterations to the Earth, we must look at the world through fundamental natural processes that touch our lives. Because we have learned about many natural processes only in the modern era, we can now understand aspects of the natural realm that closely affect human existence, many of which were formerly hidden to us. I think that the processes of Ecology, Evolution, Energy, and Environment are  basic and frame the dialectics of natural and cultural interactions focused on the human animal. We  also need to understand the arithmetic function of exponential growth because many of the recent natural and cultural changes follow exponential curves.  

A. Ecology

Ecology is, literally, the study of home or household.  In a more technical definition, Eugene Odum, an early practitioner of biological ecology, defined an ecosystem as: "Any unit that includes all of the organisms...in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined (trophic structure) place in the food chain, biotic diversity, and (material cycles i.e)., exchange of materials between living and nonliving parts within the system...."[Odum, Eugene P. (1971). Fundamentals of Ecology (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]  An essence of ecology is the understanding of organisms within the many interacting systems that are present in a defined area.  (A system is anything that functions as a whole of interacting parts. The parts are sub-systems in themselves and systems are parts of larger systems.)  Ecology emerged as a scientific study with a focus on particular areas occupied by a common organic theme such as a pond, a forest type, a particular organism or group of organisms. The systematic interrelationships of the organisms with each other and with the impinging natural elements is the focus of ecology. 

However, when considering the interrelationships of all organisms on Earth with their surroundings, the concept of ecology must be expanded greatly beyond studies of limited areas or of limited kinds of organisms. The terms ecosphere or biosphere  better describe the scale of interactions among organisms and natural systems on Earth. When human cultural systems are included the interactions are greatly increased. 

The ecosphere is composed of an extraordinary complexity of interacting systems.  As an example of the complexity, in the partial diagram of a climate system, below, look at its starting point  and its direct links with six other major subsystems (shown in different colors). Each of those subsystems are highly connected internally and with many parts of the other six subsystems as well as systems not shown in the diagram.  Imagine the starting point is the content of greenhouse gases within the Earth’s climate system and its connection with other sub-systems. Each different color represents another system with which it is actively connected. For example, consider the blue represents the system of the carbon cycle; the orange represents links within the oceanic systems; the green represents the forest systems; red/violet represent agricultural systems. And these major systems are interconnected, some more intimately than others.

The impact of changes within the system and subsystems are not simple and direct. Many changes have secondary, tertiary, or more remote consequences. The major point  is that abrupt human alterations to natural ecosystems have extraordinary impacts throughout the Earth’s ecosphere. Changes in the flows of information within and among ecosystems are extraordinarily complicated and carry ramifications at each point of contact. Some computer models have identified limited aspects of natural systems  and their impacts on other natural systems.  For example, many climate models have illuminated the severity that greenhouse gasses have caused in raising atmospheric temperatures as part of a climate system. 

A major difficulty in understanding the biosphere is apparent when you realize that ecosystems are composed of other ecosystems and are also parts of larger ecosystems. It is impossible to identify all of the major ecosystems that are interconnected, let alone, understand them. (Academic studies have largely emphasized specialization of smaller  systems rather than connections within larger systems.)

More generalized consequences of global warming on many ecosystems is indicated in the following diagram.  And each of the illustrated ecosystems or conditions is part of yet other ecosystems as is indicated by dotted lines.  Starting at the bottom of the diagram, the effects of global warming are shown as being intensified with increasing global temperatures. In the middle section, the results of continued global  warming are the passing of tipping points, beyond which changes are irreversible. The upper part of the diagram illustrates probable consequences within the human world. (Diagram is from Job One for Humanity)

Ecologists- Geographers

George Perkins Marsh--1864--Man and Nature --Or Physical Geography as Midified by Man

Carl Sauer, Marston Bates, Lewis Mumford,William Thomas (ed.)--Man’s Role in Changing the Fase of the Earth--1955

Eugene Odum--1961--Fundamentals of Ecology

Howard T. Odum--1971--Environment, Power, and Society in the 21st Century

William Catton--1982--Overshoot; The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change

Although ecological theories had not yet been invented in the 19^th century, ideas that humans were causing major alterations to the natural  world, were written about  by George Perkins Marsh and others. Almost 100 years later, in the early 1950s, broader recognition of destructive modification of the Earth resulted in the first international  conference of seventy scholars and writers and the publication of “Mans’ Role in Changing the Face of the Earth.”(University of Chicago Press; 1956)  Geographer, Carl Sauer, introduced that conference with an article, ‘The Agency of Man on the Earth’. In it, he states:

“The theme (of the conference) is the capacity of man to alter his natural environment, the manner of his doing so, and the virtue of his action. It is concerned with historically cumulative effects, with the physical and biologic processes that man sets in motion, inhibits, or deflects and the differences in cultural conduct that distinguish one human group from another.” p 49

“We need to understand better how man has disturbed and displaced more and more of the   organic world, has become in more and more regions the ecologic dominant and has affected the course of organic evolution.”

Having taken place 70 years ago, the participants’ discussions of environmental changes, now seem dated. The magnitude of post-World War II alterations of the Earth by humans was largely unforeseen. Fossil fuels had barely begun to exert there extraordinary impact on the Earth. And the relationship of what was said was largely ecological only by inference. 

Fifteen years later, the ecologist Howard T. Odum (Environment, Power, and Society for the 21^st Century--The Hierarchy of Energy; John Wiley ; New York 1971--2007) thoroughly discussed the implications of ecological thinking on both the natural world and  human society.  In the 2007 revision of the 1971 edition of the book, he writes:

“The purpose of this book is to increase our understanding of the system of civilization  and its resource basis so as to chart a better future.  A macroscopic understanding of environment and society is sought with the principles of general systems, energy hierarchy, and earth metabolism. By accounting for the sequence of society from agrarian landscapes to urban frenzy, we can extend the reasons for history to the future.  Even now  the environmental resources of the planet are beginning to limit society just as the earth's fossil fuel-based urban civilization is flowering in storms of information. ”

Odum looked at ecology from the perspective of energy flows, storage, and degradation and of the consequences of those actions both in terms of natural materials and within human systems. (I will postpone further discussion Odum’s  ecological thinking to my section on energy.) He addressed a future that emerged out of the first Earth Day in 1967 in which ‘peak oil’ and the running out of fossil fuel energy was a major environmental concern. Global warming was not a major topic  at the time. 

Odum wrote about the “energy crisis: 

“We could make a mess of our transition (to a low energy society) if we fail to understand its nature. The terrible possibility before us is that there will be a continued insistence on growth with our last energies. There would then be no reserves with which to make changes, maintain order, and cushion the impact on human life of a period when energy use must drop.”

Based on his understanding of ecology he hoped that public would become aware that the uses of fossil fuel energy must decline. He showed ways that might lead to a moderate energy, steady state economy. Of course, energy use has accelerated rather than declined. And with it, pollution causing global warming has become the major problem of energy use, not forced contractions  in economy based on the decline in energy supplies.

Another influential late 20th century scholar was the sociologist, William Canton, whose book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, (University of Illinois Press: 1982) placed the actions of humans in the context of ideas and terms derived from  traditional studies in biological ecology. He was most concerned with the concepts of carrying capacity and overshoot. Canton boldly applied biological/ecological terms to human actions and history. 

“We must learn to live within carrying capacity without trying to enlarge it. We must rely on renewable resources consumed no faster than at sustained yield rates. The last best hope for mankind is ecological modesty.”

Catton, William R. Overshoot (p. 260). University of Illinois Press. Kindle Edition. 

The natural systems of most natural scientists have not yet been integrated with the cultural beliefs of religious, economic and political leaders, let alone the general public; Most social scientist have not been concerned with natural ecology. And  humans are still more fascinated with the stories we tell ourselves about culture, politics, economics, religion, and our daily life, than about how our cultural ecosystems are intimately connected to natural ecosystems. If humanity is to survive, these systematic connection must become more widely known and acted on.

1. B.Evolution

Evolutionary processes are guided by the innate propensity of all organism to grow and reproduce.  And evolution is intimately tied to ecology as a process through which all organisms, including humans, have found a place within the biosphere.  However, in their attempt to grow, not all organisms survive. They die out when they reach the limits imposed by their ecosystems. If the ecosystem changes are slow or minor, many can adjust to the new conditions, although most mutant variations die. Some mutations may be better adapted to rapidly changing ecological conditions and survive in the course of evolution. As explained in the Wikipedia article on evolution,

“Each population within an ecosystem occupies a distinct niche, or position, with distinct relationships to other parts of the system. These relationships involve the life history of the organism, its position in the food chain and its geographic range. This broad understanding of nature enables scientists to delineate specific forces which, together, comprise natural selection. Natural selection can act at different levels of organisation, such as genes, cells, individual organisms, groups of organisms and species. Selection can act at multiple levels simultaneously. ”

When natural ecosystems are changing rapidly and geographically, some organisms will be restricted or selected out; others may evolve into new, distinct species. Most species have disappeared during Earth’s previous five extinction events. A few species may survive the new ecological  systems. An asteroid impact, 65 million years ago caused the last major extinction during which all dinosaurs and many other larger plants and animals died. However, a few mammals, which date back some 85 million years ago, survived this last major extinction event. Among those mammals were the ancestors of humans.

The first hominids appeared about 14 million years ago (mya) evolving into 15-20 species. The earliest species of Australopithecenes evolved about 4 mya. And the first of the genus Homo (shown in green in the diagram below) appeared about 2.8 mya--during just the last 0.0006 % of geologic time.  All hominid species with the exception of Homo sapiens are extinct!

Divergence of Humans from Chimps

Modern man (Homo sapiens) is now thought to have evolved from H. heidelbergensis about 315,000 years ago and diffused out of Africa into Asia 120,000 years ago and to Europe 40-50,000 years ago.

.

Branches of the later species of humans

(By Homo-Stammbaum, Version Stringer.jpg: Chris Stringerderivative work: Conquistador - This file was derived from: Homo-Stammbaum, Version Stringer.jpg:, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36416828)

During the period of their evolution, small populations of Homo sapiens and other organisms have been able to live through the slowly changing natural ecological systems that accompanied major changes in climate that followed the extremes in the orbital pattern of the Earth. Humans evolved within their ‘distinct niche, or position, with distinct relationships to other parts of the system’. 

The  Quaternary geologic period, which began 2.58 mya, is characterized by 60 major periods of cooling that were accompanied by glacial ice sheets. They were followed by rising inter-glacial temperatures.  This is the period during which our distant hominid ancestors evolved and died. Homo sapiens evolved  during the last four major glacial advances.  These changes were gradual. The last glacial maximum was 22,000 years ago and was followed by increasing warming. In the 20th century, the average peak temperature of the last four inter-glacial periods  was recorded. 

Changes in Temperature, CO2, and Sea Level during the last four inter-glacial periods).

In 1950, temperatures reached the average of the peak temperatures of the last four inter-glacial periods. Since then they have risen exponentially. (See diagram above.) Solar radiation has maintain normal variations; CO₂ captured in ice show a moderate increase since 1880; CO₂ measured in the air on the Volcano Mauna Loa has been rising exponentially; and global temperatures have followed the rise in CO₂.

Our other human ancestors of the genera Homo have died out. Only Homo sapiens remains.  Modern humans have eked out an existence over the last 315,000 year. Their lives were very short until the 20th century. Movements of ice sheets, long periods of drought, and rising sea levels during the Pleistocene forced many groups to migrate if they were to survive. Gigantic volcanic explosions caused major worldwide ash fall. Plagues also killed large numbers of humans.   Homo sapiens are but recent survivors of long periods of adjustment to the natural world that surrounds them. They outlasted or absorbed Denisovan and Neanderthal species of Homo.

However, today humans no longer live within the same natural ecological systems that allowed the evolution of small groups of human animals. Today, humans have greatly altered the Earth’s ecological systems. The natural world  differs from the one within which Homo sapiens evolved. Have Homo sapiens also reached the limits of their particular evolutionary line?

1. C.Energy 

“Everything that happens is an expression of the flow of energy in one of its forms.   ….components of energy are necessary for the the action of all the processes of the universe. … Energy is a measure of everything. It measures the amount of stored capability for future processes and the rate at which processes go. The total amount of an accomplished process is measured by the energy used. ….Everything has a component of energy.” 

The ecologist, Howard T.  Odum, most comprehensively introduced the concept of energy into ecological studies. With the quotation above, he states a basic concept to understanding  a major aspect of life on Earth and its relationship to the natural world--to understanding the biosphere that includes humans. His ideas derive from the understanding of four laws of thermodynamics.

The first law--the law of conservation of energy--states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. Energy may be transformed, stored, and degraded; but is not lost. 

Until very recently, human existence has depended on the transformation of solar energy derived mainly through direct processing of photosynthesis in plants. Humans have transformed, stored and degraded energy from plants and animals as their major sources of energy. Through the application of technology humans have also used solar energy that drives wind and water systems, for example in water wheels and turbines and in sailboats. In the 315,000 years of life of humans on Earth, only since the 19th century have humans  transformed and degraded solar energy that was transformed and stored in plants that were fossilized in distant geologic time. The rapid degradation of this fossDegraded energy is ultimately in the form of heat.

The second law--the law of degradation of energy--states that All energy when transformed is concentrated and loses heat. 

From its initial form at extraction, the energy of all fossil fuels becomes available for use or transformation. At each stage of its use or transformation, energy is either lost as heat or changed in form, incorporating lesser amounts of energy in the new product or service. At each stage of transformation, the remaining energy also becomes more complex and concentrated as it is stored in a product of service. 

Stored or potential energy, such as is found in fossil fuels, may be used to produce higher quality energy, i.e., more concentrated or more ordered energy. In the transformation process, some energy is concentrated and other energy is degraded. Although some degraded energy may be recycled as exemplified in the recycling of  nutrients when plants decay, much energy is degraded and  is lost in the form of heat. The dispersal of that heat, which  is the loss of the molecular activity as it approaches absolute zero, is called entropy. In common terms, degraded energy is less ordered. That everything tends to fall apart or depreciate  is an example of the 2nd Law of thermodynamics.

A third law or principle of thermodynamics is the maximum-power principle, which states that those systems that survive in competition among alternative choices are those that develop more power inflow (work) and use it to meet the needs of survival. “ They do this by (1) developing storages of high- quality energy, ( 2) feeding back work from the storages to increase inflows; (3) recycling materials as needed; (4) organizing control mechanisms that keep the system adapted and stable; (5) setting up exchanges with other systems to supply special energy needs, and (6) contributing useful work to the surrounding environmental system that helps maintain favorable conditions. “

More simply stated; the system that gets the most energy and uses it most effectively survives in competition with other systems. To be efficient, systems that have the largest sources of energy will produce more places to store energy which may be used as feedback. (Feedback is the reinforcement of the source of the energy.) The continual production of storage places is commonly called growth. The increasing accumulation of  storage places is, at least temporarily, called progress. 

Maximum power is attained when 50 % of the system’s energy is used either to maintain the system or to create storage places that feedback energy used in maintaining the system. The remaining 50% of the incoming energy is degraded. When a system’s maximum power is no longer attained or is short-circuited, other competing systems that are at maximum power, may replace the existing system or modify its position within the larger system in which both exist. This is the energy element in the process of evolution. 

When energy sources exceed production in maximum power efficient systems,  exponential overgrowth or overshoot occurs unless another system subsequently is able to limit its energy sources. The prime example of  exponential overgrowth is the addition of excess energy from fossil fuels into energetically-stable systems. In addition to the production of high quality of goods and services (storage devices), if sufficient feedback to maintain a stable system is not attained, excessive heat will be released into the biosphere. If the continuing use of fossil fuels in satisfying the demands for greater goods and services in modern societies is not accompanied by human limitations to maintain the natural and cultural systems of which they are a part, overgrowth occurs. The question today is: When will the Earthly biome, its natural systems, eliminate or reduce greatly the modern human systems, which are in overgrowth mode?

T.H. T. Odum suggests a Fourth thermodynamic law--the law of energy transformations. 

“All the known energy transformations can be connected in a series network according to the quantity of one kind of energy required for the next.” 

Odum illustrates this in the diagram below.

The Hierarchy of Energy; Columbia University Press; New York. 418 pp. 2007.

a: Reading left to right, energy is transformed from solar energy through the processes of  photosynthesis and is stored as (wood), which may be fossilized as (coal), which may be extracted as a fossil fuels (mining), and subsequently burned in power plants and concentration in factories, (the making of an electric light bulb).  The right-pointing arrows show potential energy (originally solar energy) as it is transformed. The left-pointing arrows show feedback energy. The down-pointing arrows show the degradation of energy to heat. (All measurements are in equivalents of ‘solar calories’.)  

b. At each stage of transformation, power (energy) is lost in work. Compare ‘a” with ‘b’.

c. At each stage, energy is concentrated and more specialized. It is stored in product or as feedback.)

The graph below shows a more generalized example of the transformation of solar energy as it flows through multiple different pathways.  Each pathway uses available sources of potential energy (when measured in common energy terms). Transformations are always toward greater concentration of embedded energy as well as greater degradation of energy. The ultimate source of the potential energy from Earthly sources is transformed at each stage of its use and is accompanied by the loss of degraded 

energy.

In this diagram, first levels of transformation--A, B, C, D, E--contribute concentrated energy to the second level of production--J, K, L--which in turn are processed and concentrated--S, T--to the final goods or services--Z. Each process of transformation leads to heat loss but also to feedback of energy to the lower level. Product Z , in turn may supply energy, say to systems of education or entertainment.

The end product, such as a smart phone or an educated person, is the result of huge amounts of concentrated and complex energy that has already been transformed in the stages leading to its use in the parts and services in making a smart phone or education a person. The total amount of energy consumed by a person has already been greatly concentrated in the transformations of energy from their original sources.

These transformations are accompanied by very large amounts of degraded energy that is lost to further concentration of products. Much of this degraded energy results in atmospheric accumulation in the form of greenhouse gasses. (The oceans absorb over 90% of the emitted CO2.) Throughout most of recent geologic time, the flow of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere has equaled their flow out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Only with  human activities, starting with agriculture and culminating today with the burning of fossil fuels, has the warming of the atmosphere by greenhouse gasses exceed its loss to outer space. 

(A major human error in determining amounts and types of energy in the transformation of materials and sources of energy is the selection of only one or two energy pathways or only one or two levels of transformation in  looking at the energy used in the  product in question, often only of the last stage--the desired product.)

The next diagram shows the approximate costs in terms of energy  needed to create a useful form of energy.   (How much energy to you get from the amount of energy it takes to make it useful.  Energy returned on  energy in-EREI) We know, for example, natural gas provides much more energy than the energy used to make useful. By contrast, it is difficult to establish the cost in energy needed to produce electricity from photo-voltaic solar cells.It Is not enough to note that PV solar cells cost fewer dollars  than some other sources of electricity. But does the production of PV cells provide more useful energy than the energy used in making it useful?  The answer is not clear. Although the determination of the actual energy costs are extremely difficult to determine, often speculative, the positioning on scales of concentration of energy and yield in energy remain relatively consistent in various studies done over time. The chart below is one rough estimate of energy costs of production and the energy output from their use. All numbers less than 10  are not cost effective in terms of energy.

                                                                      Materials required in construction (tons/kilowatt hour)

At present, humanity continues to want to maintain an high-energy society. To do so, it has been estimated that an EROI must be above 7 to economical.  Although our leaders may be aware of the natural costs of doing so, they are unable to  continue to find energy sources that do not exceed the energy cost of producing them and the infrastructure to support them. Although renewable sources may not have a high energy return for energy produced, renewable sources may remain desirable because they are less polluting than fossil fuel sources. It should be remembered, however, that  all forms of energy  whether renewable or not, alter the natural systems of which they are a part.

Actual energy costs are not used in determining economic costs. Most energy costs are ‘externalized’ in economic processes. Thus  thinking about the relationship between major human economic systems and natural ecological systems is broken. In the diagram below, you can see where natural resource and waste systems, potential energy and degraded energy, as well as where natural and degraded materials are found. They are all part of the Earth’s biosphere. The economic system is also a part of the Biosphere, but is usually considered a world unto itself. Energy flows in and out of the economic system from the biosphere.  

[The rectangular box (red) represents the economic system that is embedded in the Earth’s biosphere, (shown in green.] The predicament in which humanity finds itself today is represented by the extraction of energy and materials (which can be described in terms of energy) and the waste products, (largely heat, which it discharges into the biosphere.) When these costs are ‘external’ to the economy, their costs to natural ecosystems are excluded. Equating  economic costs  with the energy costs of resources and waste disposal would go a long way towards creating a feedback system within a more stable system that is the biosphere. Energy needs to be evaluated in terms of energy, not simply in financial terms.

The existential crises that humanity faces today have been created by the increased use of energy. Exponential overgrowth of energy today, contrasts with the slow, stable interactions of natural systems of earlier times.  Over millenniums, those systems have slowly adjusted to variations in solar radiation, the rotation and inclination of the Earth, growth in ice sheets and changes in vegetative cover. The exponential growth of the use of energy, especially from fossil fuels since 1950, differs both in its scale and the speed of its occurrence from the energy changes of the Pleistocene. The ecological disruptions of the Earth’s biosphere directly reflect human actions which are based on the increased use of non-renewable energy. To understand the disturbed world in which we now live, energy must be considered along side ecology and evolution.

D.Environment

Environment is a very broad idea that encompasses energy, ecology, evolution, and matter.  At its most comprehensive, environment is whatever interacts with a selected subject through exchanges of information.  Of  most concern in this presentation is the exchange of information between the cultural world of humanity and the natural  world of earthly materials and energy.

Natural Environment 

For millenniums, the human species--an evolving species of mammals--adapted successfully to the flow of information of slowly changing ecological systems--its environment.  Natural ecosystems accepted the habits of the ancestors of the human species. Since the middle of the 20th century, however, the flow of information from humans to natural ecological systems differs radically from what it was when Homo sapiens evolved over 300,000 years ago.  The consequence of those flows of information is that many of the ecosystems within the natural world have  been altered to tipping points, which make them unstable. The consequences to humanity of reaching tipping points of natural ecosystems are extremely uncertain. The environmental evidence is overwhelming  that several  tipping points are locked in. We are most aware of those dealing with global warming.

The climate crisis and the ecosystems at its base may be partially  identified by  an excess of  “greenhouse gases”. For over 400,000 years atmospheric levels of CO2 had not exceeded 300 ppm. Since 1950 they have risen by over 120 ppm. This year, 2023, recorded global temperatures at their highest, as are the levels of the three main greenhouse gases--Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), and Nitrous Oxide (N2O).

The diagram below illustrates some of  the flows of information from increased amounts of greenhouse gasses.  Follow the red arrows from the lower left hand part of the diagram. Several pathways lead to changes in the states of the oceans. Other flows of information from increased amounts of greenhouse gases effect  changes in glaciers, sea ice, and vegetative land  cover.

Other major examples of interference in natural ecosystems by humans as their population grew are the clearing of land for agriculture, the destruction of forests, the damming of rivers,  the extinction of species, and the desertification of dry lands. The amount of  agricultural and grazing lands have greatly increased in the last 200 years, affecting the reflectivity and absorption of solar energy. As the diagrams of Land Use Changes and of the Changes in the Biomass of the world’s Terrestrial Vertebrates show, the environments of all organism has change greatly in modern times.

Ethereal environment or stories we tell ourselves

In addition to a natural environment, humans also participate in an ethereal world through exchanges of information with one another. The unique exchanges of a human animal within his or her ethereal environment are guided by flows of abstract and symbolic information that has been stored within the body/mind, and are expressed in speech, body movements, cultural artifacts, or technology. The flow of information through language, behavior, and artifacts is usually mediated by institutions of which print and electronic media are now among the most important.  

Today the most important narratives--the stories or codified forms of information flow--are science, individualism, and capitalism. An partial example of major stories we tall ourselves is illustrated here. 

 Their coupling with an unrelenting technology has transformed, unalterably, not only the cultural environment of all humans but also the material environment of all life. The material world has increasingly been forced to respond to the increasing productions of the human mind which are creating effects both beneficial and deleterious to the very survival of the human species.

The flows of information from applied natural and social sciences and many modern humanistic studiesare at the root of  today’s existential crises. Because they relate primarily to activities within an ethereal world and ignore natural ecologic systems they remain inventions that are isolated from physical reality.  If Homo sapiens is to survive, many of the underpinnings of our dominant stories demand drastic revision to include the realities of the physical properties of nature.

The growth of human population that is supported by the goods and services of modern life cannot continue when the natural ecosystems  are increasingly altered by that human population.   The “Bads” of  human making--the extinctions, resource extraction, pollution, increasing entropy--are radically transformed natural environments. In the diagram below, the the real world of humans is shown as thrusting its flows of intelligence in the production of artifacts and  descriptions of the real world of Nature. The creation of ‘Goods’ or artifacts has created ‘Bads’--the  alterations of Nature. The world of matter and energy and  wilderness  is now transformed at a scale that has been labeled the Anthropocene because the techniques and values of humans--the ethereal world--have come to be the major transformer of the natural world. All natural environments have been  invaded by ethereal environments.

The Biosphere focused on Human/Nature Environments

The environment of humanity has been greatly changed since the evolution of Homo sapiens. During the last two centuries, especially in the last 70 years, humans have disturbed the environments in which they evolved by their coupling of technology with the burning of fossil fuel energy.  The steady, slow flows of information in both natural and ethereal systems--environmental processes--have been accelerated, interrupted, altered, or broken by human actions and thought.  Humans have created the Anthropocene!

Eight billion humans living on the same planet on which Homo sapiens evolved is the largest environmental change resulting from the use of fossil fuels. Food supplies are adequate to maintain the 8 billion only through the “Green Revolution,” which is based on fossil fuels. The same fossil fuels that let humans live longer and in better health are the same fossil fuels that are creating the environmental  disasters that threaten us.  

E.Exponential Growth

However, within the lifetime of many people still living, the population has quadrupled to 8 billion. Goods and services have grown exponentially in recent decades. Humans have excelled in the imperative to grow and reproduce. And who can decry better health, longer lives, and freer movement? But recently we are beginning to recognizance that economic systems based on stories of growth and progress are also dependent on the real world of nature. 

Only with exponential growth of rapid entropy, have pollution, extinctions, resource depletion and other negative aspects of economic growth become apparent. 

“In this trembling moment ... is it still possible to face the gathering darkness and say to the physical Earth, and to all its creatures, including ourselves, fiercely and without embarrassment, I love you, and to embrace fearlessly the burning world?”  Barry Lope

For more information about the author of this article, Alvin Urquhart, Emeritus Professor of Geography who was a founder and director of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Oregon, click here.

Here is the link to part two of this article. Part two has all of the recommendations and it is amazing reading!

Are a visual? Review the ecological crisis facing humanity by Alvin Urquhart, Emeritus Professor and a founder of the Environmental Studies Program, University of Oregon.

The timeframes for the most dangerous consequences of climate change will continue to evolve and change as humanity crosses more climate change tipping points, feedback loops, and points of no return.

In general, the timeframes below apply to individuals, families, and businesses:

a. If you and your loved ones want to live another 10 to 15 years in relative comfort and stability, start your emergency preparations, adaptations, and climate change resilience-building now!

b. If you and your loved ones want to live another 15 to 30 years in relative comfort and stability, build a climate change-resilient community with adequate emergency preparations, adaptations, and common defense strategies.

c. If you and your loved ones want to live another 30 to 50 years and beyond in relative comfort and stability, build a region of many climate change-resilient communities working together with adequate emergency preparations, adaptations, and mutual defense strategies.

Why the evolving climate change consequence timeframes are a genuine matter of avoiding unnecessary personal suffering and death

Many people today believe that a climate change-driven collapse and extinction cycle is highly probable for humanity's future. They see that humanity faces 12 major global crises described on this page and that climate change is worsening most of them.

They also believe it is a horse race to see which one of the 12 major global crises we'll destroy us first. While the above may be entirely true for many people, several far more critical extinction and collapse questions are seldom fully understood or addressed.

Those questions and their sub-questions are:

a. How much of humanity will go extinct, and how many of the world's economic, political, and social systems will collapse? Will we experience partial extinction, mass extinction, near total extinction, or total extinction? Will only the poorest countries collapse, or will some of the strongest nations also collapse?

b. How, in practical terms, will you, your family, your business, your local community, state, or nation survive this? Most people have either denied or discarded careful thought about the unbelievable pain, suffering, and loss that will engulf them, their businesses, and their communities. 

Most people believe they can survive what's coming but have not looked at the crucial details of what is coming. They never think that they or their loved ones could be turned into enslaved people, raped, and continually tortured until they die because of the other starving individuals who must steal and kill to survive and keep their loved ones alive.

No one who thinks about what the future will be like for their family and community should neglect reading the following two books as soon as possible. These two spellbinding fiction books describe in excruciating detail the horrible human physical and emotional consequences of climate change after individuals wait too long to prepare for it in time or migrate away from it.

These books are by an award-winning black female writer. They are:

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993. (This is part one of the two sequential novels. It is set in 2024.)

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Talents. Seven Stories Press, 1998. (This is part of two of the Parable duology. It is set in 2032.)

These two books are absolute must-reads to see the daily ordinary and extraordinary suffering that runaway global warming will impose on our future. These two books will educate you in detailed ways we at Job One for Humanity have not yet been able to do with the many climate facts and consequences found on our web pages. 

Our website lacks the finely detailed, phase-by-phase emotional power and astute psychological and character insights into what happens to and between people, families, and communities in deep crisis (the climate emergency) as things worsen.

Franky, we are baffled as to how Octavia Butler could so accurately depict the tortuous lives of individuals who waited too long to get prepared and migrate because of global warming and then suffered endless horrible consequences. She skillfully compels the reader scene by scene with a brilliantly written cast of families trying to migrate up the California coast through crisis after crisis. It is impossible not to be drawn into the painful personal lives and details of what happens to these decent, regular families when societies break down at every level because of the consequences of late-stage global warming.

Many people believe we are going to experience total human extinction and the complete collapse of modern civilization. That may become an excruciatingly painful position if the collapse level is significantly below total extinction and worldwide collapse. Some of the same people who believe in total extinction and total collapse are adapting by living out their bucket lists. Many of those bucket lists have a focus on kindness and meaning.

Unfortunately, suppose the total extinction and collapse believers are wrong. What if the extinction and collapse levels are significantly less than they believe? In that case, they will be utterly unprepared for the suffering they and their loved ones will experience, as described so elegantly and entirely in the above two books by Octavia Butler.

These additional documents will help you understand the ever-evolving climate change consequence timeframes and which locations will be hit the worst

Here are those articles:

Click here for the four extinction-driving climate tipping points, the first being crossed starting about 2025. This page will explain precisely why the 1% only have 3-9 years left to maintain some level of effective control over their climate future before the immutable laws of climate and atmospheric greenhouse gas physics take over. 

Click here for the climate-driven processes of global collapse and mass to near-total extinction. Here, you will see the cascade of almost 80 primary and secondary climate change consequences unfolding and interacting with humanity's 11 other major global crises. After reading this page, you will understand why the extinction of half of humanity by 2050 is already an unavoidable reality. All that remains now is to fight to prevent our near-total extinction. 

Click here for only this year's climate change consequence forecast.

Click here for the critical MIT and related studies on the timeframes for global collapse. This is essential reading if you think it is just our think tank discussing likely climate change-driven collapse scenarios and their time frames.

Click here for the most detailed information on the evolving timeframes of climate change consequences and locations in our Members Only section. You will need to become a member, so click here to see all the Members Only access to additional critical information and benefits you will receive. (Membership cost is very reasonable.)

How to prepare for these evolving climate change timeframes

1. Click here for the necessary climate change emergency preparations.

2. Click here for the necessary climate change adaptations.

3. Click here to build climate change-resilience and a climate-resilient community. Improve Your Climate Future: Be Part of a Visionary, Self-Sufficient, and Climate-Resilient community in a ClimateSave village.

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