A central theme of my book on climate is that if we are to focus our attention on a single substance, it should be not carbon dioxide but water. Beyond greenhouse effects, water is crucial in the ways the world maintains conditions for life to thrive.
I've been a regenerative farmer and forester for over a decade now...entered into this from my work in environmental activism more or less...no prior farming experience in our families. One of our main drivers was to help change the ag system to be more "climate friendly". What a joke, frankly.
I can't say how important it is to stop focusing on carbon. Sure, it's an added benefit of proper soil/forest management (ie the storing of carbon) - but not so much to pull it out of the air, moreso that it (carbon) helps to build healthier soils - which have a remarkable, cascading effect on ecosystems, with the water cycle being one of the most important.
Support the ecosystem, and all of our ecological crises will return to balance. The impact on our property alone is remarkable in any measure you care to mention, from increased nutrient-dense food for our community, positive economic impacts from our business, astounding increases in biodiversity in our fields, forests and ponds and an overall abundance that warms the heart.
What's intriguing is how many of us (small scale regenerative farmers) are questioning various narratives at this stage. A lot of us are well aware of the links between the various "leadership" factions across the globe, their actions over the last 3 years and their unrelenting push for managing (and monetizing) carbon. We are actually questioning the entire argument and trying to push for precisely what Charles is talking about here. It's about water - not carbon!
Thanks again Charles for your continued support and contributions to this topic!
To some extent there has been a happy confluence between the health of soil and carbon credits. Regenerative ag has benefit from the carbon narrative. However, ultimately what is good for the farm ecosystem is not necessarily to build soil carbon as rapidly as possible. If we assess farming based on some metric, I'd say it should be biodiversity of soil organisms or something like that. As you say: the ecosystem.
I was watching a starwars tv show recently that depicted a planet at the center of the Galaxy (“Coruscant”) which is a planet that is completely covered in one giant city.
The episode depicted two characters going to visit a sort of ‘park’ or monument which had the very highest peak on the planet poking out of a section of cement (surrounded in security railings and drones) about 3 meters, and one of the characters explained how that was the very last natural piece of the planet that is exposed, the rest is covered in city. One of the most disturbing things for me, is that in this depiction, the city planet was not depicted as the center of evil or the empire, no, it was shown as no more than a busy planet of democracy and bureaucracy, businessmen and industrialists, all just “trying to make a living” having achieved the construction of a ‘wonderful’ civilization.
The story glossed over that abhorrent depiction in a sort of trivial way, but I found it to be very chilling and it made me think of your essay.
Humans have even come up with a name for such an abomination. They call it an “Ecumenopolis” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenopolis (a planet completely covered in one giant city). Considering it is a thing that has been given a name and is depicted in lofty starwars scifi scenes it almost seems as though some humans think such a thing is worth striving towards creating.
I feel that if we created such a thing it would be like creating a rock hard capsule that seals our heart and minds off from our soul. We would become vacant empty versions of humans, driven by perpetual superficialities.. living a pointless existence while patting ourselves on the back for how civilized we all are.
All I know is, if the time comes when human children end up “..on a concrete world..” “compensating for the lost connection to a living world with a burgeoning array of virtual substitutes” I hope I am not around to see it.
Perhaps when enough of us align our conscious will with the will of the Living Planet Earth (through choosing to act as agents of regeneration, cultivators and propagators of diversity, symbiosis and resilience in the face of adversity) we will generate a morphic field that will illuminate and shift the minds and hearts of those lost in their bio-neuro-nano-transhumanist delusions back into sanity (nudging them back in the direction of compassion and humility) ?
Though, even if a heart-mind modulated (endogenously produced) coherent electro-magnetic field ("morphic field") cannot shift the tides of consciousness and bring us back from the brink, I still feel that choosing the path that is aligned with hope, regeneration, creativity, symbiosis and love will be well worth it. Each choice leaves a mark on one's soul which is eternal, and thus, each choice (regardless of the earthly outcome) is significant.
It needs to be very clear in seeing what's going on with this wellbeing-economy which should be fully implemented until 2030. Economisation of everything, of life, of nature, of human, of plants, of animals and industrialisation of neo-ecology.
the first step is to make it clear, that ecologic, resilience, symbiosis, diversity, humanity, democracy, regeneration, and so on and so on are terms whisch are captured. the technocrats, scientocrats and psychocrats are using all these terms and mean controll instead of an respectful organistic view on life.
I personally have no interest in involuntary governance systems of any kind (whether they are called "democracy" or "technocracy" or anything else where the will of the majority or a minority is forced onto the rest of the population through violent coercion).
We have all been indoctrinated since we were very young to unquestioningly accept the domination of involuntary governance systems (aka multi-generational organized crime syndicates) in our lives and see the "big brother" figure as something that is necessary to 'keep us safe'. However, students of history quickly learn that the facts do not support that story of the role of governments in our lives.
When will we collectively learn the lesson that the institutions we have been raised to trust and respect are not here for the benefit of everyday citizens?
When will we muster the courage to break the cycle and instead (peacefully) choose a different path?
I intent on undermining the foundations of the corporation and bankster dominated governments by withdrawing my support from their centralized systems (and helping other do the same) until they collapse under their own top heavy weight. I aim to starve the beast and plant the seeds for something more aligned with integrity, equality, compassion and abundance to grow in its place. More on that mission and one way of how to accomplish it here: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/in-pursuit-of-an-antidote-for-parasites
"The state is not a benevolent force, despite what the most brainwashed of statists believe. It is not even a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill, as those who consider themselves pragmatists believe. It is violence. It is force. It is aggression. It is people believing that what is wrong for any individual to do is perfectly OK if an agent of the state does it.
If I steal, it is theft. If the state steals, it is taxation. If I kill, it is murder. If the state kills, it is warfare. If I force someone to work for me involuntarily, it is slavery. If the state does it, it is conscription. If I confine someone against their will, it is kidnapping. If the state does it, it is incarceration. Nothing has changed but the label.
What binds us to the state is the belief that there is a different morality for anything that has been sanctified through the political process. "Oh, 50%+1 of the population voted for forced vaccinations? Then I guess we have to comply." If you scoff at that sentence, how about if the vote were 100%-1? Would that change the morality of resistance? How about if forced vaccinations were mandated by the constitution? Then would you be compelled to submit?
Does the ballot box transform the unethical into the ethical? Of course not. But I'll tell you what it does do: It makes everyone who casts their ballot a part of the process that legitimizes the murder and violence committed by agents of the state." - James Corbett (from https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/government-itself-is-immoral )
It's that crazy that United Nations Organisations, OECD, WEF, European Union and so much more means technology (bio-, nano-, digital, neuro-technology) will safe the world.
Everything (!) now is part of industrial development! They want to controll everything with the digital twin technology. Here is the Bentham's Obsorvatory until 2050 and the Net-Zero-Ideology. https://systemschangelab.org/ Who thaught, that sustainability will become a technocracy! https://www.technocracy.news/
Support the ecosystem, and all of our ecological crises will return to balance <--> Support the body & soul, and all of our health crises will return to balance.
We too employ regenerative practises on our farm / homestead, although my wife has practised organic natural farming, permaculture, biodynamics etc., for most of her 42 years. Our aim is not so much to identify with the practises of a certain label, but to really take the time to understand our land and the cycles of bacteria and fungi with our plants and the changing seasons. For every place has its own signature and our role is to find our symbiotic place within it. However, no matter where one is, I believe that making compost and living soils is one of humanity's greatest offerings to Nature.
For everything starts from "waste" which Nature sees as simply a transition to ever greater biodiversity and increased life. We are surrounded by commercial farms and our little village (Hogsback, South Africa) of permaculture practitioners has become a refuge for all forms of wildlife and insects etc., while the neighbouring farms are literal deserts. The wonderful thing about "regenerative agriculture" is how Nature does most of the work to increase abundance and lower costs. It really could work so well for both farmers and consumers - it's the evil rent-seeking middle-men that need to go and find something else to do. Simply making one's own wood vinegar for instance, is copying Nature's way of boosting plant immune systems.
Last night I had a terrifying dream though.... If the chemical companies really wanted to take over then all they need to do was to partner with the geo-engineering companies to release aerosols that targeted natural, organic crops, and left their GMO chemical crops alone. We have had a lot of rain recently and several crops outside have suffered from too much rain. However, our crops inside our greenhouses have done really well. I think I need to stop thinking such awful thoughts lest they manifest themselves in reality.
Yes, there are a whole host of evil things that could manifest, so we are better off telling such thoughts to scram! and continue on a more hopeful path of integrity and Goodness. It is easy to tell others not to have such thoughts--I fight with myself everyday--so I understand. I am so grateful that you and your wife are creating life and Love through your farming practices. Many blessings to you both.
Next step after chemical industry is biotech. You only have to look who is behind these idealistic view of future with the concept of planetary health. The most powerful promoter of chemical medicine and agriculture: https://www.planetaryhealth.ox.ac.uk/
I have a more nuanced perspective on this than one in which we must abandon one paradigm of climate science and replace it with another -- with the first being the carbon-centric model and the second being the water-centric model (or even ecosystem-centric model). I think both of these paradigms hold important truths which ought to be fully integrated into a much more expansive paradigm -- one which fully incorporates the living Earth framing and the crucial importance of intact ecosystems and the (sadly largely broken) water cycle.
Let's not go to war here. Both perspectives hold crucially important truths. The carbon-centric model is flawed mainly because it largely (if not entirely) ignores the wisdom Charles is bringing to the topic. It's not like we should just ignore fossil fuel consumption, as if it were irrelevant! That would be just as mistaken as ignoring the water cycle and the integrity of ecosystems as contributors to "global weirding".
I would bring even further nuance to the narrative to be , not just 'water' centric, but *watershed* centric. Every piece of ground on Earth is part of a watershed ecosystem, and all watershed ecosystems are nested and linked into each other, to form a web of life that makes up the entire global biosphere. (All watersheds are fractals of each other.)
If indeed the Fairy Creek old growth watershed is the very last intact old growth temperate rainforest watershed on Earth, as the photo caption said, it should be protected from any harm. But even if that weren't the case, like all forests, it should be protected from harm.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and share your thoughts James.
My grandpa was a forester in BC and he taught me that all other old growth temperate rainforest watersheds had at the very least been partially clear-cut at some time in recorded human history (except Fairy Creek) but maybe he was wrong.
I feel it is also worth noting that definitions seem to be being re-defined willy nilly now a days as well (to either justify further profiteering/ecocide and/or to serve as some part of a social engineering operation). Eg., what was once considered "herd immunity" has now been re-written to align with the goals and agenda of specific corporations. Thus, what was once strictly defined as something (such as an "intact old growth temperate rainforest watershed), is not necessarily defined as the same thing today (as it was in the 90-s).
I would be happy to learn there is another watershed on Earth filled with thousand year old plus temperate rainforest photosynthetic beings. If you know of one, please let me know.
The second photo viewable through that link shows me with a tree that is over 900 years old. This is a tree that was already centuries old before Canada and the United States became countries.. watching over the rich forests and mountains for countless seasons.. long before the bloodthirsty European 'explorers' even knew this land existed.
That tree is a being that had already stood for a century when Genghis khan was busy conquering half the known world. This is a being that has stood as a silent watcher and protector, still and peaceful as human empires rose and fell. Standing beside my ancient kin... feeling the deep memory of that caring being.. it was a profound experience.. I felt like I had a lot to learn from this tree.
I agree with your universal recognition of the importance of protecting forests from harm (regardless of their age and/or how rare the specific species and ecosystems within them are). I suppose I emphasized the fact that the last remaining in tact forests on BC's west coast are particularly worth protecting since many would argue that we must continue to log trees to live as we do, but my point was that (even within that selfish and anthropocentric worldview and set of priorities) we can continue to use wood as we do without chopping down the very last ancient trees that hold the memory of Gaia.. holding visions and "memories of health" (as Charles has put it) of a time before most of humanity lost its way and embarked down the slippery slope into the age of separation.
As a bioregionalist, I like this thought. Bioregions, when mapped by biregionalists, usually incorporate watershed boundaries as crucial features of bioregional boundaries. So it works! If we reinhabit our bioregions in a regenerative way we could perhaps heal the broken climate system. But we'd have to do it in a BIG way. And very soon -- as in now.
Yes. We have a systems issue and it will take work on a lot of fronts. It's great if there people focusing on biodiversity and water health, we need that. But we also need other efforts, focus, skills, passions
I expressed my own form of "questioning various narratives at this stage..(and)..links between the various "leadership" factions across the globe, their actions over the last 3 years and their unrelenting push for managing (and monetizing) carbon." in this post:
The powers are pushing to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Plant life is already suffering from the low 400 ppm CO2 in the air. When the earth hosted the greatest fauna in history, many millions of years ago, the CO2 in the atmosphere was over 2000 ppm. The overemphasis on CO2 and carbon is important because it is a strategic move to further the environmental problems.
Atmospheric CO2 is getting lots of publicity. That means money, time, and effort spent reducing the CO2 are seen as desirable by the powerful of the world. The COVID scare and the push to take the shots may take the top seat right now, but the CO2 effort will continue long after the virus has passed. We must attempt to understand the strategy involved and, even more so, the motive behind the expenditures.
The same people who brought us colonialism, capitalism, industrial revolutions, and technological revolutions are the people who, by passing their power and motives down to the generations, brought the planet to this tragedy. It is indeed a tragedy. Nothing can be overstated about the severity of the environmental crisis we face. It is all too real, but it is not something that was not foreseen. There are some people who are very bad. They made slavery a business of international trade. They produced the world wars and all the atrocities that went with them. They have ruled for thousands of years. They pass the power down to their children or to those they recruit. Once the Americas were brought under their control it was only a matter of time until we reached this point. They get what they want. Mankind must attempt to comprehend them to fathom what they want.
It is strategy. The people can develop strategy, too. We the people have the power to do what we want if we combine to execute a strategy. That became well understood hundreds of years ago as the world was being divided among the powerful. It forced the powerful, especially after the French Revolution that saw nobles slaughtered by the people, to form strategy for coping with the power of the people. You and I are living in the results. Don't take the environmental publicity as the heart-felt interests of the powerful for a better ecology. It is not. They have been destroying the environment for hundreds of years and knew all along what they were doing. To get more power there was nothing they would not do. Now that communications has become a toy of the people and put them in touch with others around the world, the powerful are panicked. The fear the people, not the environment. The people must find the ways to bring them into a greater mission. It will be far more then tending the ecology of the planet. But since the 1960s when we started trying to get the people to see the ecological damage being done, I and many others are happy to see it finally getting more notice. Too bad it is getting it for reasons the powerful have instead of the reasons the people have.
Well said overall, but focusing on those past concentrations of CO2 just because they were higher, is not an accurate or safe way to assess the current danger. The current danger is high because of the *speed* of the change. Both global warming and the extinction rate are happening orders of magnitude faster (with massive changes in mere hundreds or thousands of years, instead of millions). If you look at the first graph at https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2 you'll see that the last time CO2 increased anywhere near as quickly was 250m years ago when Earth life was hit by the Permian Extinction, an extinction event that rapidly wiped out over 95% of all life on Earth.
We are now seeing CO2, warming, and extinction rates even faster than those of the Permian, along with warning signs almost exactly like those of the Permian. To learn about a a new and alarming warning sign that is showing us how serious a situation we are facing due to this rapid change, read:
"Nature Is Giving Humanity Our Final Extinction Crisis Warning"
I appreciate your thoughts and reading. I don't know why you couldn't spare a "Like" for the thoughts I wrote, but I am free of any need for them. It just seems to be something overt and indicative.
The sharp increase in CO2 is nothing like people who are able to publish information claim. The reason there CO2 is increasing is not emissions but bulldozers and chain saws. When man developed the ability to remove the forests with new speed, the beginning of climate change began. Vegetation made the planet habitable by oxygen dependent forms of life. That is because vegetation depends on CO2 like we depend on oxygen. The big difference is numbers. There are more plants than animals including humans. Emphasizing the abundance of CO2 "is not an accurate or safe way to assess the current danger."
I have been working with trees for nearly fifty years. My tree service is not 31. My classroom education is extensive, but my experience in the field with trees and in my personal pursuit of knowledge are even more extensive. It is painfully clear that the forests have been destroyed at a rate that corresponds with the graphs in the article you linked me to. The climate/atmosphere circumstances of history were not caused by man because they predate mankind. Volcanoes and celestial changes are the large factors. There is no controversy about that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event What is left out of most available data is the destruction of living organisms and the causes.
Man has developed social systems that made it possible for some, less than one percent, to live lives that exceed all possibility prior to the industrial revolution. As I stated in the article you read, that is what has caused the climate to change rapidly. They used the industrial revolution for their benefit at the expense of mankind, animals, plants, and the planet. They deployed the population like slaves to gather more and more for themselves. It is an ongoing battle they are fighting each other over. The world wars happened during the rapid CO2 increase you mentioned. So did the other and smaller ones. Man's weapons also began to increase during the time you mentioned.
There is plenty of things we must do to change the momentum that is killing everything. Reducing CO2 is not one. We must increase it. As you see in the article you included and many others, much higher CO2 levels did not destroy the plant life. It did not melt the icecaps. The end of the Younger Dryas increased the sea level by about 400 feet. This is easily studied as there is a plethora of articles about it on the internet. They claim solar system changes caused it. It happened long before man had power. Reducing CO2 is already damaging the trees. The sharp increase to 400 ppm is welcome by this arborist.
Man must change a lot of things to prevent the momentum from destroying all life. We are exhausting toxic stuff in amounts that are not even mentioned in many articles. From the mining to the consumption mankind is killing everything using both the available tools and the number of people. But we need more people living like they have brains instead of fewer to cleanup the world, purify it, and restore the balances.
I find it interesting that you thought it worth your time to address my words about CO2 while ignoring the more vital things I wrote. I don't care what anyone does or thinks as long as they take to heart the way human societies are operated. We are deployed like inhuman slaves to grind up all that lives and all that does not live. We are destroying the DNA of life with nuclear stuff and polluting the entire eco system with toxins that did not exist before the industrial revolution. A virtual army of people are out across the land of the world every day with tanks full of deadly poisons to kill insects and other forms of like they so stupidly call pests.
I find it mesmerizing that so many people can be led around as though they had rings in their noses with leasing tied to them. The other ends of the reigns are in the hands of the powerful. They set the path ahead and have done so to create the industrial revolution. Take heed of the chemical revolution. The high-tech revolution promises to bring the end of ninety percent of mankind and most other forms of life. The fools who think they are better than everyone intend to wipe out most of mankind and emerge from the ruins rulers of the world.
We should already have manufacturing off-planet. We don't because the people who control investments don't want that. We could restore the planet. But that is not being done. Instead, they are telling you and me to reduce our carbon footprints. It is not just nonsense. It is insane. You can see from the page you wanted me to see that CO2 can be much higher with minimal consequence. How is that escaped your notice and prompted you to write me with a critique about it? People! Seventy-two years has taught me a few things. The past fifty-two have taught me tones more.
While you are correct that deforestation and other habitat destruction are more responsible for the crisis than direct human emissions from fossil fuel burning, those fossil fuel burning emissions *and* methane/CO2 emissions from animal agriculture are a *major* part of the problem. Most importantly, a lot of the CO2 problem comes from deforestation *caused* by animal agriculture. You seem to not be making this direct connection that one of the worst aspects of deforestation is that it *causes* massive CO2 and methane releases that *are* dangerously warming the planet with a rapidity that is likely to trigger another Permian level extinction event. It is because you seem to be denying the role of greenhouse gases in the crisis, that I could not in good conscience 'like' your response. Runaway Greenhouse Effect denial is wrong, and dangerous.
I don't check this site often. Typical thinking and writing typical things is so boring to read and cope with. When people write the same old stuff too many times, there is little to offer that will help them. They have become victims of living in these times. Parents and other adults begin indoctrinating children immediately. Few ever recreate themselves intentionally. It is just more of the same sort of stuff with personal spins and biases. Frankly, it is more the cause of man-made horrors and problems than anything else. I can't tell you how tired I am of reading and hearing about the "economy," for example. People of rather high levels of intelligence actually believe it is something tangible and real. It is not. It is make-believe that most people join. Yet, here I am again finding your last reply to my message back in April despite my desire to avoid this sort of wasted time.
I subscribed to the Greg Reese report and saw that there are messages waiting for me. That is why I am here now. I read you post and felt just as bored as before. You are just repeating things that most people repeat. It is just a fact and I am not in any way desirous of offending you, but you direct your words at me. That makes me want to be just as direct. Do you really think any of the things you offer are not common? The only things you offer that are not are directly related to how you analyze my thinking. Few ever do that. Maybe none. I can't recall any at this time. It may be the largest factor in my willingness to reply. I must say, that is new. That is interesting.
"You seem to not be making" are words that tell me what you think and how you think.
"While you are correct that deforestation and other habitat destruction are more responsible for the crisis than direct human emissions from fossil fuel burning," tells me you are making assumptions. They are incorrect. It is the science that is leaving you wanting for things that will help you comprehend me. I am a scientists since I was a little boy. I don't get my science from the media or even from other scientists; for the most part. Of course, I know the elemental chart I did not create. But I have done the due diligence. Nearly fifty years of helping trees in my business has given me a rare acumen about trees and the sciences involved. Just to help you see where your analysis of me goes wrong, I know that emissions from fossil fuels is causing terrible problems. It is carbon monoxide, though, and many other complex gasses along with heat that is doing the damage. Even so, the procurement of oil and gas, something I grew up doing as my father holds records in that field, along with the refinement into the many products derived from it that are destroying the habitat. But the list of damaging things is not in the propaganda. Where are the effects of war and military? Where are the consequences of capitalism? That is the largest factor next to human ignorance and susceptibility to what they hear.
I don't know if I can find it again, but I recently read a report from a bunch of notable scientists that said something I already knew; CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. With all the propaganda blaming CO2 and calling it a greenhouse gas, that statement meets with robotic responses from people who know only what they heard and read. That is probably the single largest factor in the destruction of the environment and the endless horrors being done to every living thing, especially the humans. "Parrots" are running around repeating propaganda as if they have proven the repeated things. Actually, I did the search and found one of the articles: https://www.humanprogress.org/ridley-rejoice-the-earth-is-becoming-greener/ There are others. Going against the mainstream propaganda is difficult. Finding articles that refute the propaganda are not easy. I have found some that disappear later.
Look at the oceans. That is the easiest way to determine icecap conditions. It rises with heat and contracts with ice. It is not changing. It is not going to change due to greenhouse gases unless more are added faster than they can settle out. The dynamics of atmosphere cause many things to happen to atmospheric gasses.
Mankind is killing everything including the environment. It is as obvious as sun light. But it has nothing to do with global warming or greenhouse gasses. That is a propaganda trick designed to provide methods the world's most powerful need for the Great Reset and countless other agenda, like digital currency, population reduction, genome modification of human genome, and on and on. All they need is good people to be idiots gobbling up the swill they serve in countless ways. You believe the garbage and I don't, especially regarding CO2 which is in short supply for the earth's vegetation. I don't deny climate change or a looming ecological tragedy. I deny that CO2 is causing it. I know from experience and education it isn't. We are losing trees at a fantastic rate due to low CO2 levels. You can believe whatever you want. So can I and I don't have to answer to you about it. I hope people will come to their senses, though. That includes you. The causes for the environmental problems are myriad and dangerous. I have been protesting, speaking out, and writing about it since 1969. Everything I saw coming has come, but now it is accompanied by a global level mind bending that is preventing good and smart people from thinking for themselves. I have heard, read, and studied all these things you write to me about. How could I not? The world is inundated with it. The people saturating the world with it are minions of a small portion of the people who want to extend their control and power across the planet. They are the ones who believe they are superior to everyone. It is one of the oldest insanities there is. Being able to do science better than someone else does not make me superior to them. Nor does having more power or money make one superior to anyone. All men are created equal except on payday. They are trying to accomplish agenda they think CO2 hysteria will help them accomplish. So far, they are correct because many people simply swallow lies so easily. I don't think I can change your mind. You don't seem to be capable of facing the facts yet. You can if you try, though. One simple fact should do it. Look at the sea level if you think the earth is warming and ice is melting. According to Al Gore, the east coast is under water already. What a joke!
Mankind is killing everything and attempting to justify it to themselves. They teach their children to do it. Hunting. Eating animals. Destroying plants as though they are not relevant or even living conscious beings is killing everything including us. Whereas we can live in symbiosis with plants, most people would rather kill something. I don't do that. I never will. I would rather starve than kill a plant or an animal to eat. It have lived this way for 52 years now. Maybe that will help you understand me better. Mankind is so deranged and dangerous the end of life is perilously close. I know God. I don't think God will destroy the world, but I know he is not happy about mankind's behavior. His grief must be off the charts. I love all living things and God and Goddess. That makes me a bit different. It helped me recreate myself, to start over to develop my opinions and way. I live in bliss because Love put me there. The ways of mankind do not meet with my approval, but my love is unconditional. Yes, we are destroying the habitat. With the nuclear stuff we are likely to destroy Life on Earth. Of course, the propaganda pundits and scientists think God does not exist and that they are the only forms of life worth noting. Sad.
Sorry brother but, you just don't know what you are talking about at all, and your claim that you are a 'scientist' is *extremely* dubious. What is your 'scientific' expertise? Did you learn the basic science of the greenhouse effect in primary school? If you had, you would know this *very* basic stuff..
The Greenhouse Effect was discovered in 1824. Here's how it works:
CO2 easily allows in full spectrum light, much of which arrives from the Sun in small, tight bandwidths which collide *less* with relatively well spaced apart CO2 molecules. That light heats the Earth. The heat then radiates upward as larger bandwidth *red* light that bounces back down more readily off the CO2 (because larger bandwidth light hits the CO2 molecules more often). This increases heating of the atmosphere, ground, & water.
When there is too much CO2, (as there is now because of unprecedented industrial animal agriculture and fossil fuel burning) that trapped heat keeps increasing, and does not stop increasing. When such CO2-driven heating happens quickly enough (as happened during the Permian Extinction 250 million years ago due to massive CO2-releasing Siberian volcanic eruptions) that situation triggers cascading feedback loops (like the loss of reflective ice and snow at the poles) which make the heating even faster and higher. And at the same time the skyrocketing CO2 rapidly makes all water bodies and oceans far more acid than the life in them is accustomed to.
The heat combined with the acid causes huge collapses in the biosphere. This causes animals and plants to die in huge numbers, and that releases even *more* CO2, even faster. The widespread death of plant life also drives deforestation and soil runoff which loads water bodies and oceans with excess nutrients, and that heavy nutrient load combines with the higher heat and acidity to generate worldwide deadly toxic algae blooms. During the Permian this deadly heat/acid/algae-bloom combination and its feedback loops caused 95% of all life to go extinct.
Humans are now raising temperature, CO2, ocean acidity, deforestation, and water body nutrient load on Earth 10 to 100 times *faster* than during the Permian Extinction. It is the *speed* of change, of these combined factors, that is the danger.
In at least one case in our solar system, on Venus (the planet most like ours in size and distance from the Sun) the Greenhouse Effect caused a runaway heating so bad that it turned Venus into an anvil. It became the hottest place in the solar system besides the Sun - and this wiped out any life, or hope for life, arising there.
This was all understood long before modern day grifters like Gates, Soros, Al Gore, and the World Economic Forum started using their billions to coopt and manipulate the climate response (and use reverse psychology to alienate from the environmental movement people like yourself who don't know the science) and to steer it in wrong directions to make it impotent, and to trick the general public into doubting the actual, legitimate, climate danger, as well as the legitimate movement to reverse that danger which still exists and is doing crucial work (especially in my home state of California, where I am one of the activists in that movement).
I, and other activists and scientists, were warning people about all of this 40 years ago, long before the 21st century elites 'Green Grift' started happening.
You are falling prey to conspiracism, instead of thinking for yourself. And to the extent you are convincing others to believe that conspiracist nonsense, you are endangering every human being, and all life on Earth.
Here's the most important point. If I and the other 95% of environmentalists and scientists who are saying there is an emergency are wrong, then the measures we are proposing will still make the world a much better place by getting rid of a lot of pollution and wildlife destruction.
If people such as yourself are wrong, everybody, and almost every-thing, dies.
With that obvious reality in front of us and undeniable, it is clear what we need to do.
Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 26, 2023Liked by Charles Eisenstein
Great video and insights Charles. Jimi's work is awesome!
It's really very simple why carbon became the bogey-man. It was the easiest to monetise and the EU carbon market in the early 90's was the start of it all. Unfortunately, late stage global capitalism and its several money-making sops to Nature (such as ESG etc.) are all about monetising Nature wherever possible. Now that we have monetised the air my greatest fear is that water and earth are next.
So, if you really want Conservation, Regeneration and Detoxification to succeed then you need to figure out how the 1% can monetise them for their own gain. Of course I'm joking but sadly I'm probably not too far from the truth either. At the end of the day we (as a collective global society) will eventually realise our mistakes and start seeing things holistically. Or we will die.
I'm reminded of being an apprentice, which etymology ultimately comes from the PIE root *ghend- "to seize, take hold of." Ultimately an apprentice must observe in order to understand and seize the knowledge. Far too many are pretending to be masters already without doing the work of observing. And for me OBSERVING IS THE WORK, as it leads to the correct understanding, which results in the correct actions. Indeed, the word "observe" itself comes from "ob + servare" meaning "to watch, keep safe, protect."
At the end of the day, I think the old monastic orders understood our symbiotic role with Nature best. Laborare et Orare - To work is to pray. For it is only in doing the work, that we will save our planet, and maybe even save ourselves in the process.
Beautiful, yes! We took observation out of science (and I might add ‘listening,’ and ‘feeling’), by focusing solely on the scientific method. Hypothesis testing, in which the hypotheses are narrow theories that leave out vast fields of information. This has occurred in every field of study, not just ecology.. but I feel the tide is turning. X
Yes! Science started as a way of appreciating and working with God's will. Tenure and government grants and null hypotheses turned science into a way of destroying the entire fucking universe. When the goal of every paper is to prove null, the result is a null universe.
Charles, I hope you might get a chance to mention the work of Amory Lovins at Rocky Mountain Institute. He promotes what he calls the "soft energy path". It is actually cheaper to improve energy efficiency than to build new power plants, whether they be solar or coal or nuclear. RMI has demonstrated 200-MPG cars and their HQ is a building that uses no fuel or electricity for heating -- just super-insulation, heat exchanged ventilation, and passive solar. This in Snowmass, CO where temperatures go to minus 30 every year.
Using energy more efficiently is a viable alternative to cutting down forests for "solar farms", and even competes favorably with rooftop solar.
Yes there are lots of technologies like that. None or our environmental problems are technically very difficult to solve. Furthermore, beyond doing what we already do more efficiently, the real solution is to do different things, which requires a different pattern of life. For example, smaller homes in denser communities with vibrant public life.
Yes, Charles, and reducing consumption. Not only do we need more efficiency; we need lower demand. My daytime heating is set at 64 degrees F. (that's 18 C.), off at night; in summer I rely on trees and breeze for cooling. I fly only in my dreams, and I drive (mostly on renewable electricity) about 3000 miles per year.
Thank you for mentioning Lovins’ work. His book ‘Natural Capitalism’ was hugely influential in my outlook on how to solve our environmental problems. I’ve always thought he should serve in a presidential cabinet.
Agree with all of it. However I don't believe it is the flawed science or a limited eco perspective that truly prevents us from taking care of our precious earth home. it is the basic culturally embedded arrogance caused by a dominator 'master of the universe' model adopted and reinforced for multiple generations. We naturally. instinctually and biologically know how to work and live and survive in harmony with the planet who gave birth to us. We have simply been trained and domesticated out of that knowlege with a multi-generational ponzi scheme of epic proportions. The only way forward I see at this point is for the individual human to consciously choose to stop listening to our supposed 'leaders' and take back our own sovereignty. So the burning question for me these days is why oh why are so many still willing to follow these insane alphas over the edge of the cliff ??? We can now prove up one side and down the other why we should absolutely NOT being doing what most of our leaders are telling us to do. Yet here we all are anyway. If I could only understand why so many choose to follow bad leaders rather than claim their own power and soveregnty, I might be know what best actions to take. I realize there are lots of legitimate causes of this follow the leader shit, but surely surely surely at the end of the day when the survival of our entire species is threatened, some gentic/concsiousness switch will kick in and we can alter our behavior. At least I used to hope so.
Yes! My comment echoes much of what you say here before I read through the (largely illuminating) comments -- I would toss in one more bespoke nugget, a term I coined a few years ago: can we intentionally engender the emergence (return?) of Homo Correctus -- a species that would not be dominated by domination tendencies but operate from a depth of understanding of symbiosis, systems and flows. It's kind of a new brain we need to grow, that is yes much more spiritually rooted (right-brain/left-brain balance adjusted?) -- in many cases, I don't feel the cognitive capabilities are actually in place today in us in order to truly perceive very much of what we only glimpse here and there -- and yet deeper wisdom and vaster perception was common here and there in previous homo sapiens cultures.....a mysterious dip to the dark side, we seem to have taken
I vote for Homo Correctus! I find the evolutionary biology perspective helpful and am fascinated by the illuminating ( and humane!) social experiments done with various species and groups of primates. Especially in the past few decades, the results of these experiments have certainly convinced me that we have the deeply encoded inherent genetic proclivities for both aggression/domination and peace/cooperation. Which way a primate group goes hugely depends on both environment and the dominant group energy. For example, the more peaceful primate groups generally live in resource rich rainforests with little competition for food and relatively few predators. Conversely the more aggressive primates generally live in areas where they must compete more fiercely for food and defend themselves against more predators. Pretty basic adaptive biology. However here is where it gets very interesting; when a few members of say an aggressive group are introduced into a closely related species group that is more peaceful, the few aggressive primates quickly adapt themselves to the peaceful behavior of the larger group. Vice versa also appears to be true. So one could extrapolate that if the majority of humanity determined to become peaceful and cooperative, the rest would naturally follow along, irregardless of early training. But. and this is a huge obstacle in my mind, the surrounding environmental factors would also need to promote peaceful/cooperative behaviorial responses and realisticlly Nature can be a very harsh mistress at times. So I believe there are valid survival as well as psycho-social reasons to keep our warrior protector side in healthy balance with our healer peacekeeper side. Going all peace love and light defies the laws of our day and night universe. Yet as we know dominating everything in sight is out of balance too. So as always, I ineveitably come back to my tribal ancestral teachings that the purpose of human beings is to balance the opposing cosmic forces; both withn and without.
really helpful ! thinking about peaceful primates lifts my spirits -- and, yes Balance, amen. This is what the Ch'an/Taoists were on about in their own nature-rooted way as well, as well as the great George Clinton: https://youtu.be/UatXfWIIv7A
I so appreciate this dialogue. Not listening to our supposed leaders isn't as easy as one thinks withh government curruption, there are bad bills that eliminate NEPA and CEQA (environmental review) on the state and federal level, regulatory agency capture -the FDA for example is violating its own laws, right now so many bad bills in the hopper with "federal and state pre-emption," where the hands of local leaders can be tied. I would like to know of organizations that are not in service to the Green Economy at the expense of conservation- I worked at one as a volunteer only to have my hopes dashed by the top-down hierachy that doesn't allow the entire organization to speak on any environmental issue that wasn't approved by their Board of six or so people. We had radio silence on the "elephant in the room," . Local communities get money from developers to build slums of the future with no green spaces to grow food, the buildings are actually not green, and are creating artificial urban corridors, but on these "soul les buildings" is are on grid solar supposedly to make this earth friendly when it is not.
The pathological need for more and more and more money rules in America 2023. For some people, there is no genetic/consciouness switch. We tell ourselves cheery stories lie that to avoid feeling the ghastly reality that there are corporate and individual monsters in our midst. We tell ourselves those stories wo we won't have to get off our butts and do the hard work and scary actions. It is taking me five minutes, tops to write this comment while I sit at my comfy desk in my comfy trailer. And, where are our guillotines?The French and American Revolutions weren't won by blogs and social media posts. We are wimpy cowards.
Yes we are wimpy cowards. But hey, good luck going up against armed robots, sonic grenades, microwave weapons and tear gas. Not to mention plain ole guns and tanks, etc. All of which have been used by our fearless leaders to quell the restless masses. There are multiple ways to fight; perhaps even better and sneakier ways. The French and American Revolutions were very different situations than what we are faced with on the ground today. Same with the Civil War, when it was still possible to go up directly against the federal government as an equal force. Today however. we are so outgunned and out propagandized; I don't see how a direct, no holds barred confrontation would serve us. It may come to armed conflict in the end, but folks would have to be alot more desperate than they are now. When desperate WW1 vets marched on the White House during the Great Depression to demand their promised bonus pay; Hoover sent out the military troops against them and they were tear gassed and beaten into submission. First time tear gas, a weapon of war, was used against American Citizens by it's own government. And they used it against veterans no less! They justified this by cleverly painting the protesting veterans as communists and red agitators. Today american law enforcement still uses tear gas even though it has been internationally banned since 1993 as a weapon of war. https://daily.jstor.org/how-tear-gas-became-a-staple-of-american-law-enforcement/
Belle & RMW are right. Instead of surrounding the home of a fearless leader with a few hundred people (anyone see the Israeli protessts last week?) people might simply borrow a few EMPs and call it a day. The Viking battle axe was very effective until someone borrowed one and reverse engineered it. Our brothers and sisters who work for these psychopaths can't see above their monthly bills. Will you help them gaze up?
Very good points Charles. Thank you. Such is the modern binary decision process. If you’re not on board with the WEF DAVOS crowd anticarbon nonsense you must want to destroy the planet. No, we see the horrific negative impact humans are having, and it cannot continue in its present form, but being ruled by self appointed technocrats and herded like sheep is not the answer.
What is your point here? Who are those naughty technocrats and who is herding us sheep? Matter of fact, who are the sheep? When you've been arrested for earth-protectino actions, then you can criticize others. Been there, done that.
Beautifully and succinctly put Charles. Your message is simple and based on intelligent love. Many thanks for having the courage and perspicacity to challenge the current 'zero carbon ' mono narrative.
Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 26, 2023Liked by Charles Eisenstein
While in principle all of this makes sense, until people feel like they matter they won't treat the Earth's resources as as though they matter. Everywhere you look people are traumatized and acting out there trauma on each other, including and especially the oligarchs. Much of the work you're doing addresses this, but I'm inclined to think that until we find a path to healing that trauma, we'll be fighting against the tide of mutual and self-hatred.
I love the work of Brené Brown who talks about shame and how foundational it is to our sense of / lack of self-worth. The predatory capitalist model is based upon and profits greatly from our sense of inadequacy and fear of the future. They drive this insecurity through advertising and convince people that their only value comes through material acquisition.
As citizens of the world we need to tear down this predatory competitive capitalist model which exploits human vulnerabilities for profit and power. Only by creating a more holistic, cooperative economic system - with the means of production owned by localized communities, not the state or corporations - can we restore wholeness in our psyches which empowers us to restore wholeness to our communities. Then, perhaps we can commit energy to healing our relationship to our home planet Earth.
Thank you so much for this, Charles. This is probably the first and only non-polarising article I have read on climate change. Finally, something that actually makes sense, and means I no longer feel alone.
Thanks for seeing that! I try very hard not to be polarizing. Polarization is what paralyzes society and allows powers unfriendly to public wellbeing to have their way.
I'm very sympathetic to most of Charles' points in this essay. And I'm a huge fan of the Living Earth framing which Charles brings to the table. And I agree that the water cycle factors in global weirding need to be integrated into an expanded paradigm of anthropogenic climate disruption.
BUT... but... I disagree that Charles' essay isn't "polarizing" in a certain sense. After all, Charles has not, as I see it, called for an integration of the CO2 paradigm with the Living Earth / water cycle paradigm, but his writings on these topics have instead leaned more in the direction of proposing a replacement of the CO2 / greenhouse gas paradigm with the water cycle / Living Earth paradigm.
I'm a big fan of Charles' work, and I think he's onto important and valuable things here, but I'm not convinced by Charles' arguments against the CO2 paradigm, as stated. I have no reason to doubt that the mixed and nuanced means of assessing global average temperatures used by the IPCC should be replaced by a restriction of data to satellite measurements of the lower troposphere, instead. IPCC scientists have a very good scientific reason for a blended / mixed approach to temperature data analysis. And so Charles' claim that warming is not accelerating is almost certainly not true. I think Charles does a disservice to his valuable insights about the Living Earth and water cycle factors when he seeks to undercut the CO2 paradigm rather than to expand the overall climate science paradigm to be much more inclusive of these other factors which Charles emphasizes.
To get fully beyond polarization, we have to get into dialogue. Dialogue requires all points of view to receive a fair hearing from all quarters.
James, it's not what Charles argues for or against—and he clearly has strong views. It is the way he expresses those views that I perceive as non-polarising. We don't have to sit on the fence, nor agree with all perspectives to embrace the other. That's what I consistently see Charles doing: embracing the other. This is enemy love. This is what attracts me.
Good point! In my analysis, much of this polarization has to do with another historic polarization: the difficulties of climate scientists to find proof for global warming. While the GHG effect was hypothesized in the early 20th century, proof of its realness only came in 2003, 100 years later. In the late 20th century, many argued that landuse change and desertification were actually responsible for the warming trends that were regionally observable... and it was the GHG advocates who could not yet bring proof. Well, we flipped and forgot about the climate impacts of landuse. The challenge is to see TWO drivers simultaneously. Beats our discipline-based science structure, and the ability of (some) humans to think in complex structures.
This is not correct. The Greenhouse effect was recognized by 1824, and the danger of a runaway greenhouse effect due to industrial civilization was clearly recognized and quantified by the 1970s. James Hansen had enough data to sound an unequivocal alarm in the 1980s - at which point the fossil fuel industry kicked denial propaganda into HIGH gear in an attempt to cover up the danger.
There's a difference between hypothesizing a mechanism, and demonstrating that the mechanism is active and real.
I am not willing to debate when and who discovered the greenhouse effect... 1824 (Fourier), 1856 (Eunice Foote), 1859 (Tyndall), 1896 (Arrhenius), and then again in the earliest 20th century people hypothesized it. James Hansen could not demonstrate the warming, but he could make a strong point that there will be warming. Even though, there were some reasonable doubts that would take too long to get into - CO2 was already saturating atmospheric absorption, so scientists were wondering how more CO2 would make a difference.
I was working at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in 2003, among the leading research centres. PIK scientists accepted the following paper as first statistical evidence that there is an anthropogenic greenhouse effect that is warming the troposphere (more precisely, elevating the boundary of the lower troposphere):
B.D. Santer et.al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes,” Science vol. 301 (25 July 2003), 479-483.
Sorry, but the evidence that there is extremely dangerous human GHG driven warming happening right now, which is putting us on the precipice of a Permian level extinction event, is absolutely undeniable - so undeniable that even the IPCC, which is being hammered by *massive* manipulation under fossil fuel industry influences, is showing *even* in its watered down analysis, that we are in deep shit. Period. The most recent analysis of Hansen and his team is far more independent and robust, and shows a far more alarming picture, at: https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf
The evidence s that global warming is taking dangerous levels. The GHG connection is hypothesized based on models. And maybe the causality is - well, not totally wrong, but very incomplete.
The current climate models mesh together the impacts from landuse change and the increase of carbon dioxide/greenhouse gases, and call them 'greenhouse gas effect'. This way, what we experience is sold as 100% greenhouse gas driven, but in reality much of what we experience is landuse change driven. Recently, Anastassia Makarieva found a bug that is probably active across all climate models. And all the "evidence" you are quoting is based on these models. Unfortunately, climate change science is very much unaware of meteorologcal discussions.
Point taken. Call it 'strong corroboration' then. 2003 was when data measurements could, the first time ever, demonstrate with very high certainty that the Earth is warming globally from atmospheric GHGs, not just in multiple regions with landuse change. (some statisticician from Frankfurt, Germany, delivered that - a mathematician ;-) ). I participated in the eariest champagne celebrations of my life, at Potsdam Institute for Climate Adaptation Research: were finally knew with great certainty that we were not wrong about global warming. A fear became observable reality.
I'd be pleased, Thorsten, if you could provide links to any articles or papers on what happened then in 2003. I'm curious.
It seems to me that only very rarely, if ever, do the phenomena in our world have singular causes. Usually, events (I tend strongly toward process-relational ontology) have multiple -- and often many -- causal factors behind them, so to speak. This means our world (nature) is highly complex. It seems to me not to include the water cycle more fully in climate science -- which is not to include the role of forests, of groundwater, of soil..., renders the paradigm of climate science inadequate. And not just a little bit inadequate!
The practice of science is always, in various senses, political in nature. (I define 'politics' simply as 'decision making in groups'). I think the time has come to include living systems much more fully into climate systems in relation to climate science. This will be very challenging, not merely because of the inertia embedded in the current established systems of climate science, but also because it's so much easier to measure and predict simpler systems than more complex ones.
I agree with Charles' premise that thriving, intact ecosystems result in a far more adaptive and resilient Earth system as a whole. So "carbon reductionism" is, indeed, a bit of a catastrophe. And it's ultimately a political catastrophe, with politics defined as "decision making in groups'. Among these 'groups' are those who comprise the group known as the community of climate scientists themselves.
I don't have citations at hand right now, but can do so next week.
The scientific thrust, back then, was to single out GHG-driven global warming from the complex overall system of Gaia. Which certainly is a valid analysis. It's a bit like being a specialized heart surgeon. Doing heart surgery does not invalidate that the liver is important as well. I am glad we have specialized heart surgeons. They should just not be our only doctors... We have to be careful not to fall into an "anti-carbon rhetoric" in response to the emerging "carbon carbon over everything else" rhetoric. For some regions, global warming is the ONLY driving force of the planetary crisis - ocean acidification, coral bleaching, antarctic and arctic ice melting have no other driver than global warming. In others, its different. Context matters - Holistic Management 101.
Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 26, 2023Liked by Charles Eisenstein
Water is the lifeblood. Had dinner with a friend who wanted to move to a pretty town in the South that I'd also considered. I said it was great on the surface but had a dark past -- and an active nuclear cleanup site. He didn't know because he hadn't considered the waters.
It's the first thing I ask before moving: how clean is the water? The soil and the wells? What will I drink every day? Where I am now, I drink artisan spring water that is 99% pure.
I lived in a gold standard state for environmentalism and moved to one that is stuck in the 80s. Incredible beauty -- everything you mentioned about insects, birds and vegetation exists here -- but litter lines the roads and crusts the waters. Plastic bags in trees and gutters. A rep from the Forest Service advised a local friend to spray Roundup on her vast acreage (which she refused). The people are genuinely nice, yet I can't understand how this treasure is taken for granted and trashed by some.
However, I am not separate from "some". I am that person when I thoughtlessly buy plastic, overshop, ignore litter or curse those who trash the planet. I was "some" before my 5th grade teacher taught me about the Earth and why we shouldn't litter. I am that person because I write on a laptop that could have been built by a slave.
However, things are slowly changing as we all grow conscious, heal our traumas and open to love. I live in a stunning natural landscape that will endure beyond our lives. My addition provides a picture of a healthier future, even as I choose to move on. We don't have to live anywhere permanently to leave our mark. The state I moved from was nearly deforested in the 1800s by sheep farms. It's coated in trees now.
"A more beautiful world" exists in the our consciousness before any physical protest or movement. The world I'm in now -- this present physical state -- will change in the next 5 years, in no small part from my imprint. I come to bless the waters, the animals and insects, love the people -- even if litter blows my mind -- it will improve. It already has. It was only a few decades ago that I thought my mom was crazy for recycling milk jugs!
This planet is changing for the better and I may not be alive to see how wonderful it will become, I still hold the vision.
Almost exactly right. The regenerative word, like sustainable, is now also being reappropriated like regenerating the Borg.
I know of holdings where the caretaker has implemented a designed planting that feeds wildlife and its working to produce an increase in the diversity and amount of life. If enough people pitched in this would be fixed quickly.
Any word we use will be coopted. I kinda like the old word "organic" as Rodale used it. Before the FDA got a hold of it, it was all about soil. Not using chemical fertilizers and pesticides was not the core principle (though still important because of what those do to soil). Rodale called it "organic" because it was about organic molecules in the soil. I.e, carbon.
Yes, Charles. I grew up in southern California, and subscribed to Rodale's magazine, Organic Farming and Gardening (which later dropped "Farming" from its title). I moved north, because Oregon Tilth was certifying organic farms, requiring onsite inspections of all their operations. Some years later, USDA took over "organic" certification, and shifted it from principles and procedures to (sampled) laboratory testing of products. Now, instead of all materials and operations being done with life-sourced stuff applied in earth-wise and labor-intensive ways, the term "organic" officially means "does not exceed allowable limits" of poisons, herbicides, pesticides and artificial fertilizers.
I've read the old composting book, quite enlightening.
Yes, when the carbon declines to a low point the agribusiness crowd abandons the land. With the economic problems increasing less profits will accelerate their problems. Two main issues one is to stop this practice of cut burn and poisoning the land, the other is how to restore what thy ruined. People are accustomed to buying food and soon they will have to learn how to restore a small area so they have something to eat. Best in a small community as those who will actually restore the land will need help apart from this task (instead of requiring money). I've watched your work for awhile and realize you know most of this already.
I participated in a permaculture design course and been practicing & experimenting, my holdings are growing with life and more food than I can eat as well (by myself but with money).
I agree with what you say but I would add that we need another dynamic to add to love of nature. I think it’s indisputable that most people are not primarily motivated by this spiritual approach and live their lives in a more practical way. They need a society that enables them to make a living in a way that doesn’t use too many resources etc.So it’s a question of economic equality and distribution of power - how do we achieve that?
Definitely. I wasn't going to attempt to answer that in this article, though I did attempt it in a 400 page book back in 2011. But yes, right now our destructive ways are built into the physical and economic infrastructure of society.
And what may be worse, Charles, is that those "destructive ways" are built into our career prospects; our means of achieving a degree of success in this competitive culture. Unless we're in the mixed-blessing position of inheriting a bundle from some exploiter of the past, or we make a fresh fortune out of crying on the radio about a lost love, or we happen to grow 7 feet tall and learn how to shoot hoops, we are left to collaborate instead of compete. What was that about "the meek shall inherit" ...?
Weirdly enough, many people deny that they are spiritual, but their emotions echo the structures of Christianity. The original sin, fear of hell, good vs. evil is as prevalent in "new atheists" as it is in Christians.
If you don't believe it - let's all get naked and dance! Most people will die of shame, including the non-religious ones.
Yes, many of the core themes of the culture we call "Western civilization" and "modernity" have roots in Christianity. That should hardly be surprising, as the Christian church/s essentially defined Western civilization for a great many centuries.
One example of the continuity of the traditional Christian worldview into the modern era in Western Civ is the present near ubiquity of anthropocentrism -- which I would argue is straight out of the book of Genesis.
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
When early modern science appeared during the 'Enlightenment', it took features of the Genesis story and wove them into the new scientific mythos. It was a story which features man (humanity) as the source of all meaning and value, and explained that humans ought to dominate the world -- to have "dominion" over all of the Earth. What is more, it was the task of humans to perfect the world by intervening into everything -- e.g., building dams and canals so we could grow fruits and vegetables in what had been a patch of desert.
Anyway, anyone who wants to get naked and dance together can count me in!
Just saying ecological campaigner not environmental campaigners would help a lot seeing us as part of that ecology not observers of it.
Added to that we should have a big category for emotional health not mental health. A large number of depressions are not 'mental' issues but ones of loss of connection and meaning
I agree Chris. I notice that media and people in general often speak of "the" environment. A simple change to "our" environment might help change some attitudes.
The trouble with using "our" environment is that "our" implies ownership. Ownership is one of the most basic mistakes humans have been making for millennia ....
I live in LA in a high-fire area. At a community meeting one of the head fire chiefs spoke. I caught up with him afterward and asked if a policy could be implemented in the valley of LA, which can have very high urban temperatures, for homeowners to be subsidized for watering and caring for the large trees that provide a canopy and thus shade. I swear to God he wanted to pat me on the head for an idea from a 'good little girl.' He was not white. And I do not attribute the attitude to sexism per se, but to the attitudes by our officials. I have also written officials to ask why in the world LA uses asphalt for all its roads increasing temperatures and pollution. Driving to Palm Desert from LA and encountering the massive windmills, you don't have to be a scientist to think they are not a good idea. UCLA is now partnering with the government and private entities to carbon capture using the ocean. What could go wrong? Hmmm. Maybe the death of sea life? This is what happens when busybodies, who don't actually do the work, create plans. Natural Gas is a great interim source. Pushes to enhance the gas combustibles' efficiency would be far more effective than solar farms. But common real-world solutions are not the goal.
LA draws lots of its water from the Owens Valley, which it has basically desertified. Meanwhile most of its rainwater runs into the ocean. It is crazy. They need more sane ideas like yours.
I cringe, cringe, cringe when I see rainwater going into the sewer system knowing filthy water is going into the ocean, polluting the water for sea life, instead of being captured and processed for use. If you drive up highway 5, you see billboards on farms begging for more water. Meanwhile, there are the Resnicks and their water control for their almond investments. Then there are the wineries - one owned by the governor. I love California wine but hearing about a dried-up aquifer where water is used for local wineries has made me rethink this love. California is full of extremely wealthy people who get very very rich saying they are working for the poor while they line their own pockets or the pockets of their cronies. Unfortunately, while the emperors have no clothes, and they know they do not, no one is willing, to tell the truth.
Thank you K.E. Cronin, I'm also very concerned about the death of sea life, including the potential elimination of tens of millions of years of sea nodules due to deep sea mining for EV batteries. You mentioned UCLA partnering with the government for carbon capture in the ocean. Is this the paper UCLA published? https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c08561 Currently whales, a keynote species, is the ocean's natural way of mitigating carbon, are we trading this out for an artificial method in service to the Green Economy? Technologies often do harm marine life, internet communications use sonar in the oceans. LA County recently approved new changes to the LA County Code that violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) increases the risk of fire and takes away citizen right. LA County wasn't taking fire risk seriously. A group called Fiber First LA is taking action.
Interesting, I was talking to an old friend just earlier today and he mentioned how they were mining the ocean floor for metals used in electric vehicles and such. I hadn’t heard about that, and now confirmed twice in the same day. Not exactly “sustainable”...
It really just puts the lie to all the claims of saving the planet or doing good for the environment. What controllers (i.e. the ones determining the direction of research and business funding, education, finance, technology, etc.) want most of isn't money, it's more control. And the more efficient the control the better. And that's why they want to steer everyone into 15-minute cities and over EV-only roadways with all traffic monitored.
Right now the big hype is how cool Chat GPT and AI is. This will get lots of people adopting it to "make life easier" and even in some cases to make art. Then, I reckon we have at most two years before some sort of "deep fake" false flag or fake Russian cyber attack is carried out so that a verified digital ID must be used to get "preferred" internet access. Of course, this will come with strings attached, like being updated on one's quackcines.
All truth. This is pretty easy to witness if you work in any of these industries. Misanthropes who survive on control don't know anything else. The sleeping workers who fear they can't pay their bills don't know anything else. My neighbors and work together (for free of course) on the local problems we share. The conversations are absolutely stirring!
I've been a regenerative farmer and forester for over a decade now...entered into this from my work in environmental activism more or less...no prior farming experience in our families. One of our main drivers was to help change the ag system to be more "climate friendly". What a joke, frankly.
I can't say how important it is to stop focusing on carbon. Sure, it's an added benefit of proper soil/forest management (ie the storing of carbon) - but not so much to pull it out of the air, moreso that it (carbon) helps to build healthier soils - which have a remarkable, cascading effect on ecosystems, with the water cycle being one of the most important.
Support the ecosystem, and all of our ecological crises will return to balance. The impact on our property alone is remarkable in any measure you care to mention, from increased nutrient-dense food for our community, positive economic impacts from our business, astounding increases in biodiversity in our fields, forests and ponds and an overall abundance that warms the heart.
What's intriguing is how many of us (small scale regenerative farmers) are questioning various narratives at this stage. A lot of us are well aware of the links between the various "leadership" factions across the globe, their actions over the last 3 years and their unrelenting push for managing (and monetizing) carbon. We are actually questioning the entire argument and trying to push for precisely what Charles is talking about here. It's about water - not carbon!
Thanks again Charles for your continued support and contributions to this topic!
Thanks for bringing a farmer's perspective.
To some extent there has been a happy confluence between the health of soil and carbon credits. Regenerative ag has benefit from the carbon narrative. However, ultimately what is good for the farm ecosystem is not necessarily to build soil carbon as rapidly as possible. If we assess farming based on some metric, I'd say it should be biodiversity of soil organisms or something like that. As you say: the ecosystem.
I was watching a starwars tv show recently that depicted a planet at the center of the Galaxy (“Coruscant”) which is a planet that is completely covered in one giant city.
The episode depicted two characters going to visit a sort of ‘park’ or monument which had the very highest peak on the planet poking out of a section of cement (surrounded in security railings and drones) about 3 meters, and one of the characters explained how that was the very last natural piece of the planet that is exposed, the rest is covered in city. One of the most disturbing things for me, is that in this depiction, the city planet was not depicted as the center of evil or the empire, no, it was shown as no more than a busy planet of democracy and bureaucracy, businessmen and industrialists, all just “trying to make a living” having achieved the construction of a ‘wonderful’ civilization.
The story glossed over that abhorrent depiction in a sort of trivial way, but I found it to be very chilling and it made me think of your essay.
Humans have even come up with a name for such an abomination. They call it an “Ecumenopolis” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenopolis (a planet completely covered in one giant city). Considering it is a thing that has been given a name and is depicted in lofty starwars scifi scenes it almost seems as though some humans think such a thing is worth striving towards creating.
I feel that if we created such a thing it would be like creating a rock hard capsule that seals our heart and minds off from our soul. We would become vacant empty versions of humans, driven by perpetual superficialities.. living a pointless existence while patting ourselves on the back for how civilized we all are.
All I know is, if the time comes when human children end up “..on a concrete world..” “compensating for the lost connection to a living world with a burgeoning array of virtual substitutes” I hope I am not around to see it.
It's terrifying. I do not find a single ecological approach which is not captured and hijacked from these neo-"ecological" bio-, neuro-, nano-tech-companies. https://www.syngentagroup.com/en/regenerative-agriculture#bookmark8
Perhaps when enough of us align our conscious will with the will of the Living Planet Earth (through choosing to act as agents of regeneration, cultivators and propagators of diversity, symbiosis and resilience in the face of adversity) we will generate a morphic field that will illuminate and shift the minds and hearts of those lost in their bio-neuro-nano-transhumanist delusions back into sanity (nudging them back in the direction of compassion and humility) ?
Though, even if a heart-mind modulated (endogenously produced) coherent electro-magnetic field ("morphic field") cannot shift the tides of consciousness and bring us back from the brink, I still feel that choosing the path that is aligned with hope, regeneration, creativity, symbiosis and love will be well worth it. Each choice leaves a mark on one's soul which is eternal, and thus, each choice (regardless of the earthly outcome) is significant.
It needs to be very clear in seeing what's going on with this wellbeing-economy which should be fully implemented until 2030. Economisation of everything, of life, of nature, of human, of plants, of animals and industrialisation of neo-ecology.
No, it's not legit in democracy that humans are being an object of investment of brain capital and health, an object of industrial development. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/brain-capital-a-new-vector-for-democracy-strengthening/
No, it was not the intend of sustainability to build the next mega-machine.
the first step is to make it clear, that ecologic, resilience, symbiosis, diversity, humanity, democracy, regeneration, and so on and so on are terms whisch are captured. the technocrats, scientocrats and psychocrats are using all these terms and mean controll instead of an respectful organistic view on life.
I personally have no interest in involuntary governance systems of any kind (whether they are called "democracy" or "technocracy" or anything else where the will of the majority or a minority is forced onto the rest of the population through violent coercion).
We have all been indoctrinated since we were very young to unquestioningly accept the domination of involuntary governance systems (aka multi-generational organized crime syndicates) in our lives and see the "big brother" figure as something that is necessary to 'keep us safe'. However, students of history quickly learn that the facts do not support that story of the role of governments in our lives.
When will we collectively learn the lesson that the institutions we have been raised to trust and respect are not here for the benefit of everyday citizens?
When will we muster the courage to break the cycle and instead (peacefully) choose a different path?
I intent on undermining the foundations of the corporation and bankster dominated governments by withdrawing my support from their centralized systems (and helping other do the same) until they collapse under their own top heavy weight. I aim to starve the beast and plant the seeds for something more aligned with integrity, equality, compassion and abundance to grow in its place. More on that mission and one way of how to accomplish it here: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/in-pursuit-of-an-antidote-for-parasites
"The state is not a benevolent force, despite what the most brainwashed of statists believe. It is not even a neutral tool that can be used for good or ill, as those who consider themselves pragmatists believe. It is violence. It is force. It is aggression. It is people believing that what is wrong for any individual to do is perfectly OK if an agent of the state does it.
If I steal, it is theft. If the state steals, it is taxation. If I kill, it is murder. If the state kills, it is warfare. If I force someone to work for me involuntarily, it is slavery. If the state does it, it is conscription. If I confine someone against their will, it is kidnapping. If the state does it, it is incarceration. Nothing has changed but the label.
What binds us to the state is the belief that there is a different morality for anything that has been sanctified through the political process. "Oh, 50%+1 of the population voted for forced vaccinations? Then I guess we have to comply." If you scoff at that sentence, how about if the vote were 100%-1? Would that change the morality of resistance? How about if forced vaccinations were mandated by the constitution? Then would you be compelled to submit?
Does the ballot box transform the unethical into the ethical? Of course not. But I'll tell you what it does do: It makes everyone who casts their ballot a part of the process that legitimizes the murder and violence committed by agents of the state." - James Corbett (from https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/government-itself-is-immoral )
Bayer is already steping in into the neo-ecological "regenerative agriculture". https://bio.news/agriculture/regenerative-farming-bayer-crop-science-smallholders-ukraine/
It's that crazy that United Nations Organisations, OECD, WEF, European Union and so much more means technology (bio-, nano-, digital, neuro-technology) will safe the world.
Everything (!) now is part of industrial development! They want to controll everything with the digital twin technology. Here is the Bentham's Obsorvatory until 2050 and the Net-Zero-Ideology. https://systemschangelab.org/ Who thaught, that sustainability will become a technocracy! https://www.technocracy.news/
Support the ecosystem, and all of our ecological crises will return to balance <--> Support the body & soul, and all of our health crises will return to balance.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We too employ regenerative practises on our farm / homestead, although my wife has practised organic natural farming, permaculture, biodynamics etc., for most of her 42 years. Our aim is not so much to identify with the practises of a certain label, but to really take the time to understand our land and the cycles of bacteria and fungi with our plants and the changing seasons. For every place has its own signature and our role is to find our symbiotic place within it. However, no matter where one is, I believe that making compost and living soils is one of humanity's greatest offerings to Nature.
For everything starts from "waste" which Nature sees as simply a transition to ever greater biodiversity and increased life. We are surrounded by commercial farms and our little village (Hogsback, South Africa) of permaculture practitioners has become a refuge for all forms of wildlife and insects etc., while the neighbouring farms are literal deserts. The wonderful thing about "regenerative agriculture" is how Nature does most of the work to increase abundance and lower costs. It really could work so well for both farmers and consumers - it's the evil rent-seeking middle-men that need to go and find something else to do. Simply making one's own wood vinegar for instance, is copying Nature's way of boosting plant immune systems.
Last night I had a terrifying dream though.... If the chemical companies really wanted to take over then all they need to do was to partner with the geo-engineering companies to release aerosols that targeted natural, organic crops, and left their GMO chemical crops alone. We have had a lot of rain recently and several crops outside have suffered from too much rain. However, our crops inside our greenhouses have done really well. I think I need to stop thinking such awful thoughts lest they manifest themselves in reality.
Yes, there are a whole host of evil things that could manifest, so we are better off telling such thoughts to scram! and continue on a more hopeful path of integrity and Goodness. It is easy to tell others not to have such thoughts--I fight with myself everyday--so I understand. I am so grateful that you and your wife are creating life and Love through your farming practices. Many blessings to you both.
Next step after chemical industry is biotech. You only have to look who is behind these idealistic view of future with the concept of planetary health. The most powerful promoter of chemical medicine and agriculture: https://www.planetaryhealth.ox.ac.uk/
Glory be, your comment has made me feel hopeful this morning. Thank you!
I have a more nuanced perspective on this than one in which we must abandon one paradigm of climate science and replace it with another -- with the first being the carbon-centric model and the second being the water-centric model (or even ecosystem-centric model). I think both of these paradigms hold important truths which ought to be fully integrated into a much more expansive paradigm -- one which fully incorporates the living Earth framing and the crucial importance of intact ecosystems and the (sadly largely broken) water cycle.
Let's not go to war here. Both perspectives hold crucially important truths. The carbon-centric model is flawed mainly because it largely (if not entirely) ignores the wisdom Charles is bringing to the topic. It's not like we should just ignore fossil fuel consumption, as if it were irrelevant! That would be just as mistaken as ignoring the water cycle and the integrity of ecosystems as contributors to "global weirding".
I would bring even further nuance to the narrative to be , not just 'water' centric, but *watershed* centric. Every piece of ground on Earth is part of a watershed ecosystem, and all watershed ecosystems are nested and linked into each other, to form a web of life that makes up the entire global biosphere. (All watersheds are fractals of each other.)
Watershed: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/watershed.html
What are your thoughts on what is happening to the watershed that is Fairy Creek (on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada) ?
For more info : https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/death-by-a-thousand-clearcuts
If indeed the Fairy Creek old growth watershed is the very last intact old growth temperate rainforest watershed on Earth, as the photo caption said, it should be protected from any harm. But even if that weren't the case, like all forests, it should be protected from harm.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and share your thoughts James.
My grandpa was a forester in BC and he taught me that all other old growth temperate rainforest watersheds had at the very least been partially clear-cut at some time in recorded human history (except Fairy Creek) but maybe he was wrong.
I feel it is also worth noting that definitions seem to be being re-defined willy nilly now a days as well (to either justify further profiteering/ecocide and/or to serve as some part of a social engineering operation). Eg., what was once considered "herd immunity" has now been re-written to align with the goals and agenda of specific corporations. Thus, what was once strictly defined as something (such as an "intact old growth temperate rainforest watershed), is not necessarily defined as the same thing today (as it was in the 90-s).
I would be happy to learn there is another watershed on Earth filled with thousand year old plus temperate rainforest photosynthetic beings. If you know of one, please let me know.
As I said recently to a friend, I knew some of the ancient beings who had their lives cut short (and know some of those who they intend to murder this summer in Fairy Creek) personally. https://archive.org/details/ancienttrees_202303/82302090_565008011014278_1898533595333525504_n.jpg
The second photo viewable through that link shows me with a tree that is over 900 years old. This is a tree that was already centuries old before Canada and the United States became countries.. watching over the rich forests and mountains for countless seasons.. long before the bloodthirsty European 'explorers' even knew this land existed.
That tree is a being that had already stood for a century when Genghis khan was busy conquering half the known world. This is a being that has stood as a silent watcher and protector, still and peaceful as human empires rose and fell. Standing beside my ancient kin... feeling the deep memory of that caring being.. it was a profound experience.. I felt like I had a lot to learn from this tree.
I agree with your universal recognition of the importance of protecting forests from harm (regardless of their age and/or how rare the specific species and ecosystems within them are). I suppose I emphasized the fact that the last remaining in tact forests on BC's west coast are particularly worth protecting since many would argue that we must continue to log trees to live as we do, but my point was that (even within that selfish and anthropocentric worldview and set of priorities) we can continue to use wood as we do without chopping down the very last ancient trees that hold the memory of Gaia.. holding visions and "memories of health" (as Charles has put it) of a time before most of humanity lost its way and embarked down the slippery slope into the age of separation.
As a bioregionalist, I like this thought. Bioregions, when mapped by biregionalists, usually incorporate watershed boundaries as crucial features of bioregional boundaries. So it works! If we reinhabit our bioregions in a regenerative way we could perhaps heal the broken climate system. But we'd have to do it in a BIG way. And very soon -- as in now.
Yes. We have a systems issue and it will take work on a lot of fronts. It's great if there people focusing on biodiversity and water health, we need that. But we also need other efforts, focus, skills, passions
Greetings from Southern Ontario James
I expressed my own form of "questioning various narratives at this stage..(and)..links between the various "leadership" factions across the globe, their actions over the last 3 years and their unrelenting push for managing (and monetizing) carbon." in this post:
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/globalized-greenwashing-the-oligarchs
I would value your input considering the term "regenerative" is being specifically used by the oligarchic organizations I discuss in the post.
Thanks for the comment and thanks for your time.
The powers are pushing to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Plant life is already suffering from the low 400 ppm CO2 in the air. When the earth hosted the greatest fauna in history, many millions of years ago, the CO2 in the atmosphere was over 2000 ppm. The overemphasis on CO2 and carbon is important because it is a strategic move to further the environmental problems.
Atmospheric CO2 is getting lots of publicity. That means money, time, and effort spent reducing the CO2 are seen as desirable by the powerful of the world. The COVID scare and the push to take the shots may take the top seat right now, but the CO2 effort will continue long after the virus has passed. We must attempt to understand the strategy involved and, even more so, the motive behind the expenditures.
The same people who brought us colonialism, capitalism, industrial revolutions, and technological revolutions are the people who, by passing their power and motives down to the generations, brought the planet to this tragedy. It is indeed a tragedy. Nothing can be overstated about the severity of the environmental crisis we face. It is all too real, but it is not something that was not foreseen. There are some people who are very bad. They made slavery a business of international trade. They produced the world wars and all the atrocities that went with them. They have ruled for thousands of years. They pass the power down to their children or to those they recruit. Once the Americas were brought under their control it was only a matter of time until we reached this point. They get what they want. Mankind must attempt to comprehend them to fathom what they want.
It is strategy. The people can develop strategy, too. We the people have the power to do what we want if we combine to execute a strategy. That became well understood hundreds of years ago as the world was being divided among the powerful. It forced the powerful, especially after the French Revolution that saw nobles slaughtered by the people, to form strategy for coping with the power of the people. You and I are living in the results. Don't take the environmental publicity as the heart-felt interests of the powerful for a better ecology. It is not. They have been destroying the environment for hundreds of years and knew all along what they were doing. To get more power there was nothing they would not do. Now that communications has become a toy of the people and put them in touch with others around the world, the powerful are panicked. The fear the people, not the environment. The people must find the ways to bring them into a greater mission. It will be far more then tending the ecology of the planet. But since the 1960s when we started trying to get the people to see the ecological damage being done, I and many others are happy to see it finally getting more notice. Too bad it is getting it for reasons the powerful have instead of the reasons the people have.
Well said overall, but focusing on those past concentrations of CO2 just because they were higher, is not an accurate or safe way to assess the current danger. The current danger is high because of the *speed* of the change. Both global warming and the extinction rate are happening orders of magnitude faster (with massive changes in mere hundreds or thousands of years, instead of millions). If you look at the first graph at https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2 you'll see that the last time CO2 increased anywhere near as quickly was 250m years ago when Earth life was hit by the Permian Extinction, an extinction event that rapidly wiped out over 95% of all life on Earth.
We are now seeing CO2, warming, and extinction rates even faster than those of the Permian, along with warning signs almost exactly like those of the Permian. To learn about a a new and alarming warning sign that is showing us how serious a situation we are facing due to this rapid change, read:
"Nature Is Giving Humanity Our Final Extinction Crisis Warning"
https://ericbrooks.substack.com/p/nature-is-giving-humanity-our-final
I appreciate your thoughts and reading. I don't know why you couldn't spare a "Like" for the thoughts I wrote, but I am free of any need for them. It just seems to be something overt and indicative.
The sharp increase in CO2 is nothing like people who are able to publish information claim. The reason there CO2 is increasing is not emissions but bulldozers and chain saws. When man developed the ability to remove the forests with new speed, the beginning of climate change began. Vegetation made the planet habitable by oxygen dependent forms of life. That is because vegetation depends on CO2 like we depend on oxygen. The big difference is numbers. There are more plants than animals including humans. Emphasizing the abundance of CO2 "is not an accurate or safe way to assess the current danger."
I have been working with trees for nearly fifty years. My tree service is not 31. My classroom education is extensive, but my experience in the field with trees and in my personal pursuit of knowledge are even more extensive. It is painfully clear that the forests have been destroyed at a rate that corresponds with the graphs in the article you linked me to. The climate/atmosphere circumstances of history were not caused by man because they predate mankind. Volcanoes and celestial changes are the large factors. There is no controversy about that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event What is left out of most available data is the destruction of living organisms and the causes.
Man has developed social systems that made it possible for some, less than one percent, to live lives that exceed all possibility prior to the industrial revolution. As I stated in the article you read, that is what has caused the climate to change rapidly. They used the industrial revolution for their benefit at the expense of mankind, animals, plants, and the planet. They deployed the population like slaves to gather more and more for themselves. It is an ongoing battle they are fighting each other over. The world wars happened during the rapid CO2 increase you mentioned. So did the other and smaller ones. Man's weapons also began to increase during the time you mentioned.
There is plenty of things we must do to change the momentum that is killing everything. Reducing CO2 is not one. We must increase it. As you see in the article you included and many others, much higher CO2 levels did not destroy the plant life. It did not melt the icecaps. The end of the Younger Dryas increased the sea level by about 400 feet. This is easily studied as there is a plethora of articles about it on the internet. They claim solar system changes caused it. It happened long before man had power. Reducing CO2 is already damaging the trees. The sharp increase to 400 ppm is welcome by this arborist.
Man must change a lot of things to prevent the momentum from destroying all life. We are exhausting toxic stuff in amounts that are not even mentioned in many articles. From the mining to the consumption mankind is killing everything using both the available tools and the number of people. But we need more people living like they have brains instead of fewer to cleanup the world, purify it, and restore the balances.
I find it interesting that you thought it worth your time to address my words about CO2 while ignoring the more vital things I wrote. I don't care what anyone does or thinks as long as they take to heart the way human societies are operated. We are deployed like inhuman slaves to grind up all that lives and all that does not live. We are destroying the DNA of life with nuclear stuff and polluting the entire eco system with toxins that did not exist before the industrial revolution. A virtual army of people are out across the land of the world every day with tanks full of deadly poisons to kill insects and other forms of like they so stupidly call pests.
I find it mesmerizing that so many people can be led around as though they had rings in their noses with leasing tied to them. The other ends of the reigns are in the hands of the powerful. They set the path ahead and have done so to create the industrial revolution. Take heed of the chemical revolution. The high-tech revolution promises to bring the end of ninety percent of mankind and most other forms of life. The fools who think they are better than everyone intend to wipe out most of mankind and emerge from the ruins rulers of the world.
We should already have manufacturing off-planet. We don't because the people who control investments don't want that. We could restore the planet. But that is not being done. Instead, they are telling you and me to reduce our carbon footprints. It is not just nonsense. It is insane. You can see from the page you wanted me to see that CO2 can be much higher with minimal consequence. How is that escaped your notice and prompted you to write me with a critique about it? People! Seventy-two years has taught me a few things. The past fifty-two have taught me tones more.
See http://www.thepowerofthepeople.org to read more of my stuff.
While you are correct that deforestation and other habitat destruction are more responsible for the crisis than direct human emissions from fossil fuel burning, those fossil fuel burning emissions *and* methane/CO2 emissions from animal agriculture are a *major* part of the problem. Most importantly, a lot of the CO2 problem comes from deforestation *caused* by animal agriculture. You seem to not be making this direct connection that one of the worst aspects of deforestation is that it *causes* massive CO2 and methane releases that *are* dangerously warming the planet with a rapidity that is likely to trigger another Permian level extinction event. It is because you seem to be denying the role of greenhouse gases in the crisis, that I could not in good conscience 'like' your response. Runaway Greenhouse Effect denial is wrong, and dangerous.
I don't check this site often. Typical thinking and writing typical things is so boring to read and cope with. When people write the same old stuff too many times, there is little to offer that will help them. They have become victims of living in these times. Parents and other adults begin indoctrinating children immediately. Few ever recreate themselves intentionally. It is just more of the same sort of stuff with personal spins and biases. Frankly, it is more the cause of man-made horrors and problems than anything else. I can't tell you how tired I am of reading and hearing about the "economy," for example. People of rather high levels of intelligence actually believe it is something tangible and real. It is not. It is make-believe that most people join. Yet, here I am again finding your last reply to my message back in April despite my desire to avoid this sort of wasted time.
I subscribed to the Greg Reese report and saw that there are messages waiting for me. That is why I am here now. I read you post and felt just as bored as before. You are just repeating things that most people repeat. It is just a fact and I am not in any way desirous of offending you, but you direct your words at me. That makes me want to be just as direct. Do you really think any of the things you offer are not common? The only things you offer that are not are directly related to how you analyze my thinking. Few ever do that. Maybe none. I can't recall any at this time. It may be the largest factor in my willingness to reply. I must say, that is new. That is interesting.
"You seem to not be making" are words that tell me what you think and how you think.
"While you are correct that deforestation and other habitat destruction are more responsible for the crisis than direct human emissions from fossil fuel burning," tells me you are making assumptions. They are incorrect. It is the science that is leaving you wanting for things that will help you comprehend me. I am a scientists since I was a little boy. I don't get my science from the media or even from other scientists; for the most part. Of course, I know the elemental chart I did not create. But I have done the due diligence. Nearly fifty years of helping trees in my business has given me a rare acumen about trees and the sciences involved. Just to help you see where your analysis of me goes wrong, I know that emissions from fossil fuels is causing terrible problems. It is carbon monoxide, though, and many other complex gasses along with heat that is doing the damage. Even so, the procurement of oil and gas, something I grew up doing as my father holds records in that field, along with the refinement into the many products derived from it that are destroying the habitat. But the list of damaging things is not in the propaganda. Where are the effects of war and military? Where are the consequences of capitalism? That is the largest factor next to human ignorance and susceptibility to what they hear.
I don't know if I can find it again, but I recently read a report from a bunch of notable scientists that said something I already knew; CO2 is not a greenhouse gas. With all the propaganda blaming CO2 and calling it a greenhouse gas, that statement meets with robotic responses from people who know only what they heard and read. That is probably the single largest factor in the destruction of the environment and the endless horrors being done to every living thing, especially the humans. "Parrots" are running around repeating propaganda as if they have proven the repeated things. Actually, I did the search and found one of the articles: https://www.humanprogress.org/ridley-rejoice-the-earth-is-becoming-greener/ There are others. Going against the mainstream propaganda is difficult. Finding articles that refute the propaganda are not easy. I have found some that disappear later.
Look at the oceans. That is the easiest way to determine icecap conditions. It rises with heat and contracts with ice. It is not changing. It is not going to change due to greenhouse gases unless more are added faster than they can settle out. The dynamics of atmosphere cause many things to happen to atmospheric gasses.
Mankind is killing everything including the environment. It is as obvious as sun light. But it has nothing to do with global warming or greenhouse gasses. That is a propaganda trick designed to provide methods the world's most powerful need for the Great Reset and countless other agenda, like digital currency, population reduction, genome modification of human genome, and on and on. All they need is good people to be idiots gobbling up the swill they serve in countless ways. You believe the garbage and I don't, especially regarding CO2 which is in short supply for the earth's vegetation. I don't deny climate change or a looming ecological tragedy. I deny that CO2 is causing it. I know from experience and education it isn't. We are losing trees at a fantastic rate due to low CO2 levels. You can believe whatever you want. So can I and I don't have to answer to you about it. I hope people will come to their senses, though. That includes you. The causes for the environmental problems are myriad and dangerous. I have been protesting, speaking out, and writing about it since 1969. Everything I saw coming has come, but now it is accompanied by a global level mind bending that is preventing good and smart people from thinking for themselves. I have heard, read, and studied all these things you write to me about. How could I not? The world is inundated with it. The people saturating the world with it are minions of a small portion of the people who want to extend their control and power across the planet. They are the ones who believe they are superior to everyone. It is one of the oldest insanities there is. Being able to do science better than someone else does not make me superior to them. Nor does having more power or money make one superior to anyone. All men are created equal except on payday. They are trying to accomplish agenda they think CO2 hysteria will help them accomplish. So far, they are correct because many people simply swallow lies so easily. I don't think I can change your mind. You don't seem to be capable of facing the facts yet. You can if you try, though. One simple fact should do it. Look at the sea level if you think the earth is warming and ice is melting. According to Al Gore, the east coast is under water already. What a joke!
Mankind is killing everything and attempting to justify it to themselves. They teach their children to do it. Hunting. Eating animals. Destroying plants as though they are not relevant or even living conscious beings is killing everything including us. Whereas we can live in symbiosis with plants, most people would rather kill something. I don't do that. I never will. I would rather starve than kill a plant or an animal to eat. It have lived this way for 52 years now. Maybe that will help you understand me better. Mankind is so deranged and dangerous the end of life is perilously close. I know God. I don't think God will destroy the world, but I know he is not happy about mankind's behavior. His grief must be off the charts. I love all living things and God and Goddess. That makes me a bit different. It helped me recreate myself, to start over to develop my opinions and way. I live in bliss because Love put me there. The ways of mankind do not meet with my approval, but my love is unconditional. Yes, we are destroying the habitat. With the nuclear stuff we are likely to destroy Life on Earth. Of course, the propaganda pundits and scientists think God does not exist and that they are the only forms of life worth noting. Sad.
I have to get busy. Thanks for reading.
Sorry brother but, you just don't know what you are talking about at all, and your claim that you are a 'scientist' is *extremely* dubious. What is your 'scientific' expertise? Did you learn the basic science of the greenhouse effect in primary school? If you had, you would know this *very* basic stuff..
The Greenhouse Effect was discovered in 1824. Here's how it works:
CO2 easily allows in full spectrum light, much of which arrives from the Sun in small, tight bandwidths which collide *less* with relatively well spaced apart CO2 molecules. That light heats the Earth. The heat then radiates upward as larger bandwidth *red* light that bounces back down more readily off the CO2 (because larger bandwidth light hits the CO2 molecules more often). This increases heating of the atmosphere, ground, & water.
When there is too much CO2, (as there is now because of unprecedented industrial animal agriculture and fossil fuel burning) that trapped heat keeps increasing, and does not stop increasing. When such CO2-driven heating happens quickly enough (as happened during the Permian Extinction 250 million years ago due to massive CO2-releasing Siberian volcanic eruptions) that situation triggers cascading feedback loops (like the loss of reflective ice and snow at the poles) which make the heating even faster and higher. And at the same time the skyrocketing CO2 rapidly makes all water bodies and oceans far more acid than the life in them is accustomed to.
The heat combined with the acid causes huge collapses in the biosphere. This causes animals and plants to die in huge numbers, and that releases even *more* CO2, even faster. The widespread death of plant life also drives deforestation and soil runoff which loads water bodies and oceans with excess nutrients, and that heavy nutrient load combines with the higher heat and acidity to generate worldwide deadly toxic algae blooms. During the Permian this deadly heat/acid/algae-bloom combination and its feedback loops caused 95% of all life to go extinct.
Humans are now raising temperature, CO2, ocean acidity, deforestation, and water body nutrient load on Earth 10 to 100 times *faster* than during the Permian Extinction. It is the *speed* of change, of these combined factors, that is the danger.
In at least one case in our solar system, on Venus (the planet most like ours in size and distance from the Sun) the Greenhouse Effect caused a runaway heating so bad that it turned Venus into an anvil. It became the hottest place in the solar system besides the Sun - and this wiped out any life, or hope for life, arising there.
This was all understood long before modern day grifters like Gates, Soros, Al Gore, and the World Economic Forum started using their billions to coopt and manipulate the climate response (and use reverse psychology to alienate from the environmental movement people like yourself who don't know the science) and to steer it in wrong directions to make it impotent, and to trick the general public into doubting the actual, legitimate, climate danger, as well as the legitimate movement to reverse that danger which still exists and is doing crucial work (especially in my home state of California, where I am one of the activists in that movement).
I, and other activists and scientists, were warning people about all of this 40 years ago, long before the 21st century elites 'Green Grift' started happening.
You are falling prey to conspiracism, instead of thinking for yourself. And to the extent you are convincing others to believe that conspiracist nonsense, you are endangering every human being, and all life on Earth.
Here's the most important point. If I and the other 95% of environmentalists and scientists who are saying there is an emergency are wrong, then the measures we are proposing will still make the world a much better place by getting rid of a lot of pollution and wildlife destruction.
If people such as yourself are wrong, everybody, and almost every-thing, dies.
With that obvious reality in front of us and undeniable, it is clear what we need to do.
Great video and insights Charles. Jimi's work is awesome!
It's really very simple why carbon became the bogey-man. It was the easiest to monetise and the EU carbon market in the early 90's was the start of it all. Unfortunately, late stage global capitalism and its several money-making sops to Nature (such as ESG etc.) are all about monetising Nature wherever possible. Now that we have monetised the air my greatest fear is that water and earth are next.
So, if you really want Conservation, Regeneration and Detoxification to succeed then you need to figure out how the 1% can monetise them for their own gain. Of course I'm joking but sadly I'm probably not too far from the truth either. At the end of the day we (as a collective global society) will eventually realise our mistakes and start seeing things holistically. Or we will die.
I'm reminded of being an apprentice, which etymology ultimately comes from the PIE root *ghend- "to seize, take hold of." Ultimately an apprentice must observe in order to understand and seize the knowledge. Far too many are pretending to be masters already without doing the work of observing. And for me OBSERVING IS THE WORK, as it leads to the correct understanding, which results in the correct actions. Indeed, the word "observe" itself comes from "ob + servare" meaning "to watch, keep safe, protect."
At the end of the day, I think the old monastic orders understood our symbiotic role with Nature best. Laborare et Orare - To work is to pray. For it is only in doing the work, that we will save our planet, and maybe even save ourselves in the process.
Ha! Love this Bevan and it really puts into beautiful context being branded as 'Apprentice' the other day by my sheep farming friend. Yes, yes, yes.
Beautiful, yes! We took observation out of science (and I might add ‘listening,’ and ‘feeling’), by focusing solely on the scientific method. Hypothesis testing, in which the hypotheses are narrow theories that leave out vast fields of information. This has occurred in every field of study, not just ecology.. but I feel the tide is turning. X
Yes! Science started as a way of appreciating and working with God's will. Tenure and government grants and null hypotheses turned science into a way of destroying the entire fucking universe. When the goal of every paper is to prove null, the result is a null universe.
they have monetised water... i felt dread when I saw this headline: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-investors-snapping-up-colorado-river-water-rights-betting-big-on-an-increasingly-scarce-resource/
THIS!!!👆👆👆👆👆
Charles, I hope you might get a chance to mention the work of Amory Lovins at Rocky Mountain Institute. He promotes what he calls the "soft energy path". It is actually cheaper to improve energy efficiency than to build new power plants, whether they be solar or coal or nuclear. RMI has demonstrated 200-MPG cars and their HQ is a building that uses no fuel or electricity for heating -- just super-insulation, heat exchanged ventilation, and passive solar. This in Snowmass, CO where temperatures go to minus 30 every year.
Using energy more efficiently is a viable alternative to cutting down forests for "solar farms", and even competes favorably with rooftop solar.
Yes there are lots of technologies like that. None or our environmental problems are technically very difficult to solve. Furthermore, beyond doing what we already do more efficiently, the real solution is to do different things, which requires a different pattern of life. For example, smaller homes in denser communities with vibrant public life.
Yes, Charles, and reducing consumption. Not only do we need more efficiency; we need lower demand. My daytime heating is set at 64 degrees F. (that's 18 C.), off at night; in summer I rely on trees and breeze for cooling. I fly only in my dreams, and I drive (mostly on renewable electricity) about 3000 miles per year.
Thank you for mentioning Lovins’ work. His book ‘Natural Capitalism’ was hugely influential in my outlook on how to solve our environmental problems. I’ve always thought he should serve in a presidential cabinet.
Agree with all of it. However I don't believe it is the flawed science or a limited eco perspective that truly prevents us from taking care of our precious earth home. it is the basic culturally embedded arrogance caused by a dominator 'master of the universe' model adopted and reinforced for multiple generations. We naturally. instinctually and biologically know how to work and live and survive in harmony with the planet who gave birth to us. We have simply been trained and domesticated out of that knowlege with a multi-generational ponzi scheme of epic proportions. The only way forward I see at this point is for the individual human to consciously choose to stop listening to our supposed 'leaders' and take back our own sovereignty. So the burning question for me these days is why oh why are so many still willing to follow these insane alphas over the edge of the cliff ??? We can now prove up one side and down the other why we should absolutely NOT being doing what most of our leaders are telling us to do. Yet here we all are anyway. If I could only understand why so many choose to follow bad leaders rather than claim their own power and soveregnty, I might be know what best actions to take. I realize there are lots of legitimate causes of this follow the leader shit, but surely surely surely at the end of the day when the survival of our entire species is threatened, some gentic/concsiousness switch will kick in and we can alter our behavior. At least I used to hope so.
Yes! My comment echoes much of what you say here before I read through the (largely illuminating) comments -- I would toss in one more bespoke nugget, a term I coined a few years ago: can we intentionally engender the emergence (return?) of Homo Correctus -- a species that would not be dominated by domination tendencies but operate from a depth of understanding of symbiosis, systems and flows. It's kind of a new brain we need to grow, that is yes much more spiritually rooted (right-brain/left-brain balance adjusted?) -- in many cases, I don't feel the cognitive capabilities are actually in place today in us in order to truly perceive very much of what we only glimpse here and there -- and yet deeper wisdom and vaster perception was common here and there in previous homo sapiens cultures.....a mysterious dip to the dark side, we seem to have taken
I vote for Homo Correctus! I find the evolutionary biology perspective helpful and am fascinated by the illuminating ( and humane!) social experiments done with various species and groups of primates. Especially in the past few decades, the results of these experiments have certainly convinced me that we have the deeply encoded inherent genetic proclivities for both aggression/domination and peace/cooperation. Which way a primate group goes hugely depends on both environment and the dominant group energy. For example, the more peaceful primate groups generally live in resource rich rainforests with little competition for food and relatively few predators. Conversely the more aggressive primates generally live in areas where they must compete more fiercely for food and defend themselves against more predators. Pretty basic adaptive biology. However here is where it gets very interesting; when a few members of say an aggressive group are introduced into a closely related species group that is more peaceful, the few aggressive primates quickly adapt themselves to the peaceful behavior of the larger group. Vice versa also appears to be true. So one could extrapolate that if the majority of humanity determined to become peaceful and cooperative, the rest would naturally follow along, irregardless of early training. But. and this is a huge obstacle in my mind, the surrounding environmental factors would also need to promote peaceful/cooperative behaviorial responses and realisticlly Nature can be a very harsh mistress at times. So I believe there are valid survival as well as psycho-social reasons to keep our warrior protector side in healthy balance with our healer peacekeeper side. Going all peace love and light defies the laws of our day and night universe. Yet as we know dominating everything in sight is out of balance too. So as always, I ineveitably come back to my tribal ancestral teachings that the purpose of human beings is to balance the opposing cosmic forces; both withn and without.
really helpful ! thinking about peaceful primates lifts my spirits -- and, yes Balance, amen. This is what the Ch'an/Taoists were on about in their own nature-rooted way as well, as well as the great George Clinton: https://youtu.be/UatXfWIIv7A
I so appreciate this dialogue. Not listening to our supposed leaders isn't as easy as one thinks withh government curruption, there are bad bills that eliminate NEPA and CEQA (environmental review) on the state and federal level, regulatory agency capture -the FDA for example is violating its own laws, right now so many bad bills in the hopper with "federal and state pre-emption," where the hands of local leaders can be tied. I would like to know of organizations that are not in service to the Green Economy at the expense of conservation- I worked at one as a volunteer only to have my hopes dashed by the top-down hierachy that doesn't allow the entire organization to speak on any environmental issue that wasn't approved by their Board of six or so people. We had radio silence on the "elephant in the room," . Local communities get money from developers to build slums of the future with no green spaces to grow food, the buildings are actually not green, and are creating artificial urban corridors, but on these "soul les buildings" is are on grid solar supposedly to make this earth friendly when it is not.
The pathological need for more and more and more money rules in America 2023. For some people, there is no genetic/consciouness switch. We tell ourselves cheery stories lie that to avoid feeling the ghastly reality that there are corporate and individual monsters in our midst. We tell ourselves those stories wo we won't have to get off our butts and do the hard work and scary actions. It is taking me five minutes, tops to write this comment while I sit at my comfy desk in my comfy trailer. And, where are our guillotines?The French and American Revolutions weren't won by blogs and social media posts. We are wimpy cowards.
Yes we are wimpy cowards. But hey, good luck going up against armed robots, sonic grenades, microwave weapons and tear gas. Not to mention plain ole guns and tanks, etc. All of which have been used by our fearless leaders to quell the restless masses. There are multiple ways to fight; perhaps even better and sneakier ways. The French and American Revolutions were very different situations than what we are faced with on the ground today. Same with the Civil War, when it was still possible to go up directly against the federal government as an equal force. Today however. we are so outgunned and out propagandized; I don't see how a direct, no holds barred confrontation would serve us. It may come to armed conflict in the end, but folks would have to be alot more desperate than they are now. When desperate WW1 vets marched on the White House during the Great Depression to demand their promised bonus pay; Hoover sent out the military troops against them and they were tear gassed and beaten into submission. First time tear gas, a weapon of war, was used against American Citizens by it's own government. And they used it against veterans no less! They justified this by cleverly painting the protesting veterans as communists and red agitators. Today american law enforcement still uses tear gas even though it has been internationally banned since 1993 as a weapon of war. https://daily.jstor.org/how-tear-gas-became-a-staple-of-american-law-enforcement/
Belle & RMW are right. Instead of surrounding the home of a fearless leader with a few hundred people (anyone see the Israeli protessts last week?) people might simply borrow a few EMPs and call it a day. The Viking battle axe was very effective until someone borrowed one and reverse engineered it. Our brothers and sisters who work for these psychopaths can't see above their monthly bills. Will you help them gaze up?
Very good points Charles. Thank you. Such is the modern binary decision process. If you’re not on board with the WEF DAVOS crowd anticarbon nonsense you must want to destroy the planet. No, we see the horrific negative impact humans are having, and it cannot continue in its present form, but being ruled by self appointed technocrats and herded like sheep is not the answer.
What is your point here? Who are those naughty technocrats and who is herding us sheep? Matter of fact, who are the sheep? When you've been arrested for earth-protectino actions, then you can criticize others. Been there, done that.
Beautifully and succinctly put Charles. Your message is simple and based on intelligent love. Many thanks for having the courage and perspicacity to challenge the current 'zero carbon ' mono narrative.
If we define "courage" as posting on the internet, we betray the Earth.
While in principle all of this makes sense, until people feel like they matter they won't treat the Earth's resources as as though they matter. Everywhere you look people are traumatized and acting out there trauma on each other, including and especially the oligarchs. Much of the work you're doing addresses this, but I'm inclined to think that until we find a path to healing that trauma, we'll be fighting against the tide of mutual and self-hatred.
I love the work of Brené Brown who talks about shame and how foundational it is to our sense of / lack of self-worth. The predatory capitalist model is based upon and profits greatly from our sense of inadequacy and fear of the future. They drive this insecurity through advertising and convince people that their only value comes through material acquisition.
As citizens of the world we need to tear down this predatory competitive capitalist model which exploits human vulnerabilities for profit and power. Only by creating a more holistic, cooperative economic system - with the means of production owned by localized communities, not the state or corporations - can we restore wholeness in our psyches which empowers us to restore wholeness to our communities. Then, perhaps we can commit energy to healing our relationship to our home planet Earth.
Thank you so much for this, Charles. This is probably the first and only non-polarising article I have read on climate change. Finally, something that actually makes sense, and means I no longer feel alone.
Thanks for seeing that! I try very hard not to be polarizing. Polarization is what paralyzes society and allows powers unfriendly to public wellbeing to have their way.
I'm very sympathetic to most of Charles' points in this essay. And I'm a huge fan of the Living Earth framing which Charles brings to the table. And I agree that the water cycle factors in global weirding need to be integrated into an expanded paradigm of anthropogenic climate disruption.
BUT... but... I disagree that Charles' essay isn't "polarizing" in a certain sense. After all, Charles has not, as I see it, called for an integration of the CO2 paradigm with the Living Earth / water cycle paradigm, but his writings on these topics have instead leaned more in the direction of proposing a replacement of the CO2 / greenhouse gas paradigm with the water cycle / Living Earth paradigm.
I'm a big fan of Charles' work, and I think he's onto important and valuable things here, but I'm not convinced by Charles' arguments against the CO2 paradigm, as stated. I have no reason to doubt that the mixed and nuanced means of assessing global average temperatures used by the IPCC should be replaced by a restriction of data to satellite measurements of the lower troposphere, instead. IPCC scientists have a very good scientific reason for a blended / mixed approach to temperature data analysis. And so Charles' claim that warming is not accelerating is almost certainly not true. I think Charles does a disservice to his valuable insights about the Living Earth and water cycle factors when he seeks to undercut the CO2 paradigm rather than to expand the overall climate science paradigm to be much more inclusive of these other factors which Charles emphasizes.
To get fully beyond polarization, we have to get into dialogue. Dialogue requires all points of view to receive a fair hearing from all quarters.
James, it's not what Charles argues for or against—and he clearly has strong views. It is the way he expresses those views that I perceive as non-polarising. We don't have to sit on the fence, nor agree with all perspectives to embrace the other. That's what I consistently see Charles doing: embracing the other. This is enemy love. This is what attracts me.
Tobias -
I see what you mean, I think. And I think I'm in basic agreement with you.
Good point! In my analysis, much of this polarization has to do with another historic polarization: the difficulties of climate scientists to find proof for global warming. While the GHG effect was hypothesized in the early 20th century, proof of its realness only came in 2003, 100 years later. In the late 20th century, many argued that landuse change and desertification were actually responsible for the warming trends that were regionally observable... and it was the GHG advocates who could not yet bring proof. Well, we flipped and forgot about the climate impacts of landuse. The challenge is to see TWO drivers simultaneously. Beats our discipline-based science structure, and the ability of (some) humans to think in complex structures.
https://thorstenarnold.com/why-is-our-world-so-blind-to-ways-how-landuse-is-changing-our-climate/
This is not correct. The Greenhouse effect was recognized by 1824, and the danger of a runaway greenhouse effect due to industrial civilization was clearly recognized and quantified by the 1970s. James Hansen had enough data to sound an unequivocal alarm in the 1980s - at which point the fossil fuel industry kicked denial propaganda into HIGH gear in an attempt to cover up the danger.
There's a difference between hypothesizing a mechanism, and demonstrating that the mechanism is active and real.
I am not willing to debate when and who discovered the greenhouse effect... 1824 (Fourier), 1856 (Eunice Foote), 1859 (Tyndall), 1896 (Arrhenius), and then again in the earliest 20th century people hypothesized it. James Hansen could not demonstrate the warming, but he could make a strong point that there will be warming. Even though, there were some reasonable doubts that would take too long to get into - CO2 was already saturating atmospheric absorption, so scientists were wondering how more CO2 would make a difference.
I was working at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in 2003, among the leading research centres. PIK scientists accepted the following paper as first statistical evidence that there is an anthropogenic greenhouse effect that is warming the troposphere (more precisely, elevating the boundary of the lower troposphere):
B.D. Santer et.al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes,” Science vol. 301 (25 July 2003), 479-483.
Sorry, but the evidence that there is extremely dangerous human GHG driven warming happening right now, which is putting us on the precipice of a Permian level extinction event, is absolutely undeniable - so undeniable that even the IPCC, which is being hammered by *massive* manipulation under fossil fuel industry influences, is showing *even* in its watered down analysis, that we are in deep shit. Period. The most recent analysis of Hansen and his team is far more independent and robust, and shows a far more alarming picture, at: https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/acp-16-3761-2016.pdf
The evidence s that global warming is taking dangerous levels. The GHG connection is hypothesized based on models. And maybe the causality is - well, not totally wrong, but very incomplete.
The current climate models mesh together the impacts from landuse change and the increase of carbon dioxide/greenhouse gases, and call them 'greenhouse gas effect'. This way, what we experience is sold as 100% greenhouse gas driven, but in reality much of what we experience is landuse change driven. Recently, Anastassia Makarieva found a bug that is probably active across all climate models. And all the "evidence" you are quoting is based on these models. Unfortunately, climate change science is very much unaware of meteorologcal discussions.
My blog explains the bug, and gives references.
https://thorstenarnold.com/how-anastassia-makarieva-challenges-climate-academics-to-behave-like-scientists/
Actual scientists don't speak of their work in relation to "proof". They leave 'proofs' to mathematicians. https://thelogicofscience.com/2016/04/19/science-doesnt-prove-anything-and-thats-a-good-thing/
Point taken. Call it 'strong corroboration' then. 2003 was when data measurements could, the first time ever, demonstrate with very high certainty that the Earth is warming globally from atmospheric GHGs, not just in multiple regions with landuse change. (some statisticician from Frankfurt, Germany, delivered that - a mathematician ;-) ). I participated in the eariest champagne celebrations of my life, at Potsdam Institute for Climate Adaptation Research: were finally knew with great certainty that we were not wrong about global warming. A fear became observable reality.
I'd be pleased, Thorsten, if you could provide links to any articles or papers on what happened then in 2003. I'm curious.
It seems to me that only very rarely, if ever, do the phenomena in our world have singular causes. Usually, events (I tend strongly toward process-relational ontology) have multiple -- and often many -- causal factors behind them, so to speak. This means our world (nature) is highly complex. It seems to me not to include the water cycle more fully in climate science -- which is not to include the role of forests, of groundwater, of soil..., renders the paradigm of climate science inadequate. And not just a little bit inadequate!
The practice of science is always, in various senses, political in nature. (I define 'politics' simply as 'decision making in groups'). I think the time has come to include living systems much more fully into climate systems in relation to climate science. This will be very challenging, not merely because of the inertia embedded in the current established systems of climate science, but also because it's so much easier to measure and predict simpler systems than more complex ones.
I agree with Charles' premise that thriving, intact ecosystems result in a far more adaptive and resilient Earth system as a whole. So "carbon reductionism" is, indeed, a bit of a catastrophe. And it's ultimately a political catastrophe, with politics defined as "decision making in groups'. Among these 'groups' are those who comprise the group known as the community of climate scientists themselves.
I don't have citations at hand right now, but can do so next week.
The scientific thrust, back then, was to single out GHG-driven global warming from the complex overall system of Gaia. Which certainly is a valid analysis. It's a bit like being a specialized heart surgeon. Doing heart surgery does not invalidate that the liver is important as well. I am glad we have specialized heart surgeons. They should just not be our only doctors... We have to be careful not to fall into an "anti-carbon rhetoric" in response to the emerging "carbon carbon over everything else" rhetoric. For some regions, global warming is the ONLY driving force of the planetary crisis - ocean acidification, coral bleaching, antarctic and arctic ice melting have no other driver than global warming. In others, its different. Context matters - Holistic Management 101.
Yes, agreed. Warming is indeed accelerating. The science shows this.
Water is the lifeblood. Had dinner with a friend who wanted to move to a pretty town in the South that I'd also considered. I said it was great on the surface but had a dark past -- and an active nuclear cleanup site. He didn't know because he hadn't considered the waters.
It's the first thing I ask before moving: how clean is the water? The soil and the wells? What will I drink every day? Where I am now, I drink artisan spring water that is 99% pure.
I lived in a gold standard state for environmentalism and moved to one that is stuck in the 80s. Incredible beauty -- everything you mentioned about insects, birds and vegetation exists here -- but litter lines the roads and crusts the waters. Plastic bags in trees and gutters. A rep from the Forest Service advised a local friend to spray Roundup on her vast acreage (which she refused). The people are genuinely nice, yet I can't understand how this treasure is taken for granted and trashed by some.
However, I am not separate from "some". I am that person when I thoughtlessly buy plastic, overshop, ignore litter or curse those who trash the planet. I was "some" before my 5th grade teacher taught me about the Earth and why we shouldn't litter. I am that person because I write on a laptop that could have been built by a slave.
However, things are slowly changing as we all grow conscious, heal our traumas and open to love. I live in a stunning natural landscape that will endure beyond our lives. My addition provides a picture of a healthier future, even as I choose to move on. We don't have to live anywhere permanently to leave our mark. The state I moved from was nearly deforested in the 1800s by sheep farms. It's coated in trees now.
"A more beautiful world" exists in the our consciousness before any physical protest or movement. The world I'm in now -- this present physical state -- will change in the next 5 years, in no small part from my imprint. I come to bless the waters, the animals and insects, love the people -- even if litter blows my mind -- it will improve. It already has. It was only a few decades ago that I thought my mom was crazy for recycling milk jugs!
This planet is changing for the better and I may not be alive to see how wonderful it will become, I still hold the vision.
I think I lived in the southern town you mentioned! The nuclear leakage and environmental issues are very real there.
Hi Marcy! You are more than welcome to venture a guess but unfortunately, there are so many…
That's true. More than I even could guess! Aiken, SC with the Savannah River site
Close! A bit further north -- TN on the Nolichucky River.
Almost exactly right. The regenerative word, like sustainable, is now also being reappropriated like regenerating the Borg.
I know of holdings where the caretaker has implemented a designed planting that feeds wildlife and its working to produce an increase in the diversity and amount of life. If enough people pitched in this would be fixed quickly.
Any word we use will be coopted. I kinda like the old word "organic" as Rodale used it. Before the FDA got a hold of it, it was all about soil. Not using chemical fertilizers and pesticides was not the core principle (though still important because of what those do to soil). Rodale called it "organic" because it was about organic molecules in the soil. I.e, carbon.
Yes, Charles. I grew up in southern California, and subscribed to Rodale's magazine, Organic Farming and Gardening (which later dropped "Farming" from its title). I moved north, because Oregon Tilth was certifying organic farms, requiring onsite inspections of all their operations. Some years later, USDA took over "organic" certification, and shifted it from principles and procedures to (sampled) laboratory testing of products. Now, instead of all materials and operations being done with life-sourced stuff applied in earth-wise and labor-intensive ways, the term "organic" officially means "does not exceed allowable limits" of poisons, herbicides, pesticides and artificial fertilizers.
I've read the old composting book, quite enlightening.
Yes, when the carbon declines to a low point the agribusiness crowd abandons the land. With the economic problems increasing less profits will accelerate their problems. Two main issues one is to stop this practice of cut burn and poisoning the land, the other is how to restore what thy ruined. People are accustomed to buying food and soon they will have to learn how to restore a small area so they have something to eat. Best in a small community as those who will actually restore the land will need help apart from this task (instead of requiring money). I've watched your work for awhile and realize you know most of this already.
I participated in a permaculture design course and been practicing & experimenting, my holdings are growing with life and more food than I can eat as well (by myself but with money).
Yes as a long-time regenerative farmer I'm disheartened by the co-opting of the word by "Big Food".
I agree with what you say but I would add that we need another dynamic to add to love of nature. I think it’s indisputable that most people are not primarily motivated by this spiritual approach and live their lives in a more practical way. They need a society that enables them to make a living in a way that doesn’t use too many resources etc.So it’s a question of economic equality and distribution of power - how do we achieve that?
Definitely. I wasn't going to attempt to answer that in this article, though I did attempt it in a 400 page book back in 2011. But yes, right now our destructive ways are built into the physical and economic infrastructure of society.
And what may be worse, Charles, is that those "destructive ways" are built into our career prospects; our means of achieving a degree of success in this competitive culture. Unless we're in the mixed-blessing position of inheriting a bundle from some exploiter of the past, or we make a fresh fortune out of crying on the radio about a lost love, or we happen to grow 7 feet tall and learn how to shoot hoops, we are left to collaborate instead of compete. What was that about "the meek shall inherit" ...?
Weirdly enough, many people deny that they are spiritual, but their emotions echo the structures of Christianity. The original sin, fear of hell, good vs. evil is as prevalent in "new atheists" as it is in Christians.
If you don't believe it - let's all get naked and dance! Most people will die of shame, including the non-religious ones.
Yes, many of the core themes of the culture we call "Western civilization" and "modernity" have roots in Christianity. That should hardly be surprising, as the Christian church/s essentially defined Western civilization for a great many centuries.
One example of the continuity of the traditional Christian worldview into the modern era in Western Civ is the present near ubiquity of anthropocentrism -- which I would argue is straight out of the book of Genesis.
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
—Genesis 1:26 (KJV)
https://theheronhouse.substack.com/p/the-devil-the-details-and-the-leopards-4a1
When early modern science appeared during the 'Enlightenment', it took features of the Genesis story and wove them into the new scientific mythos. It was a story which features man (humanity) as the source of all meaning and value, and explained that humans ought to dominate the world -- to have "dominion" over all of the Earth. What is more, it was the task of humans to perfect the world by intervening into everything -- e.g., building dams and canals so we could grow fruits and vegetables in what had been a patch of desert.
Anyway, anyone who wants to get naked and dance together can count me in!
Here is my podcast interview of Charles Eisenstein on the topic of water, climate, and environment, released last week https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/charles-eisenstein-water-and-the#details
Just saying ecological campaigner not environmental campaigners would help a lot seeing us as part of that ecology not observers of it.
Added to that we should have a big category for emotional health not mental health. A large number of depressions are not 'mental' issues but ones of loss of connection and meaning
I agree Chris. I notice that media and people in general often speak of "the" environment. A simple change to "our" environment might help change some attitudes.
The trouble with using "our" environment is that "our" implies ownership. Ownership is one of the most basic mistakes humans have been making for millennia ....
I live in LA in a high-fire area. At a community meeting one of the head fire chiefs spoke. I caught up with him afterward and asked if a policy could be implemented in the valley of LA, which can have very high urban temperatures, for homeowners to be subsidized for watering and caring for the large trees that provide a canopy and thus shade. I swear to God he wanted to pat me on the head for an idea from a 'good little girl.' He was not white. And I do not attribute the attitude to sexism per se, but to the attitudes by our officials. I have also written officials to ask why in the world LA uses asphalt for all its roads increasing temperatures and pollution. Driving to Palm Desert from LA and encountering the massive windmills, you don't have to be a scientist to think they are not a good idea. UCLA is now partnering with the government and private entities to carbon capture using the ocean. What could go wrong? Hmmm. Maybe the death of sea life? This is what happens when busybodies, who don't actually do the work, create plans. Natural Gas is a great interim source. Pushes to enhance the gas combustibles' efficiency would be far more effective than solar farms. But common real-world solutions are not the goal.
LA draws lots of its water from the Owens Valley, which it has basically desertified. Meanwhile most of its rainwater runs into the ocean. It is crazy. They need more sane ideas like yours.
I cringe, cringe, cringe when I see rainwater going into the sewer system knowing filthy water is going into the ocean, polluting the water for sea life, instead of being captured and processed for use. If you drive up highway 5, you see billboards on farms begging for more water. Meanwhile, there are the Resnicks and their water control for their almond investments. Then there are the wineries - one owned by the governor. I love California wine but hearing about a dried-up aquifer where water is used for local wineries has made me rethink this love. California is full of extremely wealthy people who get very very rich saying they are working for the poor while they line their own pockets or the pockets of their cronies. Unfortunately, while the emperors have no clothes, and they know they do not, no one is willing, to tell the truth.
Thank you K.E. Cronin, I'm also very concerned about the death of sea life, including the potential elimination of tens of millions of years of sea nodules due to deep sea mining for EV batteries. You mentioned UCLA partnering with the government for carbon capture in the ocean. Is this the paper UCLA published? https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c08561 Currently whales, a keynote species, is the ocean's natural way of mitigating carbon, are we trading this out for an artificial method in service to the Green Economy? Technologies often do harm marine life, internet communications use sonar in the oceans. LA County recently approved new changes to the LA County Code that violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) increases the risk of fire and takes away citizen right. LA County wasn't taking fire risk seriously. A group called Fiber First LA is taking action.
We should stop geoengineering and see how fast the Earth heals. I think it would help immensely
Yes!
I read this right after I saw an article about deep sea mining for precious metals for electric cars and wind farms. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/26/deep-sea-mining-for-rare-metals-will-destroy-ecosystems-say-scientists
You hit the nail on the head with this one, Charles! It's all been rebranded for more exploitation.
yup
Interesting, I was talking to an old friend just earlier today and he mentioned how they were mining the ocean floor for metals used in electric vehicles and such. I hadn’t heard about that, and now confirmed twice in the same day. Not exactly “sustainable”...
It really just puts the lie to all the claims of saving the planet or doing good for the environment. What controllers (i.e. the ones determining the direction of research and business funding, education, finance, technology, etc.) want most of isn't money, it's more control. And the more efficient the control the better. And that's why they want to steer everyone into 15-minute cities and over EV-only roadways with all traffic monitored.
Right now the big hype is how cool Chat GPT and AI is. This will get lots of people adopting it to "make life easier" and even in some cases to make art. Then, I reckon we have at most two years before some sort of "deep fake" false flag or fake Russian cyber attack is carried out so that a verified digital ID must be used to get "preferred" internet access. Of course, this will come with strings attached, like being updated on one's quackcines.
All truth. This is pretty easy to witness if you work in any of these industries. Misanthropes who survive on control don't know anything else. The sleeping workers who fear they can't pay their bills don't know anything else. My neighbors and work together (for free of course) on the local problems we share. The conversations are absolutely stirring!
I fear you may be right