Beyond Hope

 Many years ago, in the early 90's when the Internet first enabled online conversations with people all over the world, I got into a dialogue with a guy named Jay Hanson, who lived in Hawaii and passed away in 2019. Jay was a thoroughgoing pessimist, and his website, Dieoff.com, was, by far, the darkest and most unnerving scenario for the future of humanity that I had ever encountered. 

At the time, I was still an optimist; I still believed that if and when Gaian consciousness--the dawning awareness of our total dependence upon a unique and magnificent living planet--spread inexorably around the globe, it would lead to a great awakening, and that everyone, from the top down and bottom up simultaneously, would reduce their consumption of fossil fuels, build out solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass systems, grow organic food, limit their reproduction, preserve threatened species and ecosystems, clean up pollution on air, water, and land, and learn how to close the loop on manufacturing, recycling everything. 

My byword in those days was a quote from Norman Myers, editor of the first Gaia Atlas of Planet Management, who said in his preface, "We have two choices: a Gaian Future, or No Future." And so I argued vehemently with Jay Hanson about this, but he was adamant that given our inherently aggressive, self-serving, and short-sighted animal nature, we would never abandon our dependence on fossil fuels--and the instant wealth and gratification provided by them--until it was far too late, the oil ran out, the climate heated up, the system crashed, and humans died off en masse, turning savage and cannibalistic along the way to oblivion.

Fast forward thirty years, and it appears that Jay Hanson was right about this. Years of persistent, truthless climate denial by Republicans, and hypocritical doubletalk by Democrats (who are equally dependent on the fossil fuel industry), coupled by 24/7 advertising for more and bigger cars, houses, and consumer goods,  have closed any window of opportunity we might have had for an orderly and phased transition from a "growth" economy to a ecologically sustainable steady state, or from fossil fuels to renewables.  Meanwhile, the rising levels of atmospheric CO2 have already pushed the global climate beyond many tipping points, ensuring a horrific and catastrophic future for younger generations and their descendants. So it appears we now have only one choice: no future.

All of which begs a painful question: what do we tell our children now? But let's first ask a different question, taken from the tired old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, when they are surrounded by hostile Indians: "What you mean 'we,' white man?"

A quick scan of the rising number of editorials about the climate crisis will reveal no shortage of recommendations on what "we" need to do. "We" must convert, en masse, to solar and wind-powered electricity; "we" must put a price on carbon emissions; "we" must build carbon recapture machines to suck all the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere; "we" must block the sun's rays by geo-engineering, whether by sending big mirrors into space or generating stratospheric dust clouds for albedo; "we" must ban all SUVs and pickup trucks; "we" must prohibit the eating of meat; and so forth...But who is this "we"? Certainly not ordinary citizens, who are powerless to do any of these things; nor corporations, who have an overwhelming vested interest in the status quo, which ensures continued rising profits into the next quarter; nor our elected officials, who depend entirely on these corporations and their wealthy stockholders to fund their ever-more-costly re-election campaigns. So what should we do?

Let's convert this to a different question: knowing that our "civilization"--that is, our fossil fuel-driven global market economy (Glomart)--is doomed to a catastrophic collapse and die-off that has already started, what can you and I (not the generic, unspecified "we") do, starting today?

For starters, I will turn to the wisdom of Lao Tzu, who, writing during the catastrophic "Warring States" era of Chinese history, laid out a simple recipe for social regeneration. Let's take it one line at a time:

Cultivate Virtue in your self/And Virtue will be real.

Real cultural transformation always begins with personal transformation--from the bottom up, not from the top down, "Virtue"--the (untranslatable) Chinese concept de--can be understood as the ability to work effectively with things as they are (rather than as we might wish them to be). This, of course, entails cultivating such qualities as equanimity, mindfulness, empathy, and skillfulness.

Cultivate it in the family/And Virtue will abound. Or as the old Crosby-Stills-Nash tune had it, "Teach your children well." That is, from an early age, teach them to cultivate their innate curiosity and love of all living things, and the skills of coping, of self-reliance, and of compassion.

Cultivate it in the village, and Virtue will grow. This is vitally important in our time, when most of our social connections are remote--via the Internet, our workplaces, or our social hangouts (whether school, church, or local bar)--while we are estranged from our immediate neighbors. But true community is face-to-face; people you've worked with, learned from, or taught, and whom you can call on or assist, when disaster strikes.

Cultivate it in the nation/And Virtue will be abundant.

Cultivate it in the universe/And Virtue will be everywhere. These last two I group together because they point to the importance of playing the long game--setting goals that will extend well beyond the span of our own lives; in this case, a Gaian future arising from the ashes of No Future. 

In practical terms, this recipe for regeneration can be summed up in a few of my signature slogans:

Grow Gardens, Grow Community, and Grow Awareness.

Learn Gaia--i.e. learn Permaculture principles and practices;

Teach Gaia--i.e. teach regenerative knowledge and skills to others at every opportunity;

Heal Gaia--apply what you have learned to healing, as best you can, our topsoil, our biota, and our communities;

Create Gaia--through all of the above, dedicate your life to creating a Gaian future for yourself, your family, all living beings, and all future generations--no matter what happens. 

A Gaian Revolution

 

Unlike the connotations of “revolution” that arise in most people’s minds these days, a Gaian Revolution does not entail a violent overthrow of a government or social order from the top down, as in the French Revolution, the American Revolution, or the Communist Revolutions. Rather, I refer to the older, less violent, but more comprehensive meanings of the word, as implied by such concepts as the Industrial Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, the Gutenberg (print) Revolution, the Reformation, the Italian Renaissance, the Carolingian Renaissance (12^th Century)—and long before that, the rise of Islam and Christianity from combined Hebraic and Hellenic roots, and the rise, in the Far East, of Buddhism—and giving rise to all of the above, the worldwide Agricultural Revolution, starting around 10,000 years ago. Each of these revolutions changed everything; they arose when pre-existing socioeconomic, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual orders had clearly become obsolete, and could not adapt to the changing world around them. Some (but not all) of these revolutions were spearheaded by charismatic leaders; others arose out of a zeitgeist created or activated by some new technological innovation or scientific discovery. (Neither Gutenberg nor Galileo nor Darwin, for example, were charismatic leaders; they were simply tinkering, and stumbled upon an innovation, an insight, or an observation that changed everything, through calibration and feedback.)

So what is the Gaian revolution?  It begins, like many of these others, with a new insight by a scientist—Dr. James Lovelock—a British atmospheric chemist who, as a consequence of his research (for the US Jet Propulsion Lab) into the startling difference between the (equilibrium) Martian atmosphere and the (far-from-equlibrium) atmosphere of our own planet, derived an explanation, based on systems theory, that seems perfectly obvious in retrospect, but that no others had thought of: that life itself—the biosphere—is directly responsible for the constant mixing of our atmosphere (through photosynthesis, respiration, and other biogenic reactions) that keeps it in a stable, but far-from-equilibrium state, and has done so for several billion years. This insight might well have become buried in the scientific literature and had no cultural influence whatsoever, if Lovelock had not taken a walk with his neighbor, novelist William Golding, who, with his classical background, suggested that Lovelock call his new theory the ”Gaia” hypothesis, after the ancient primordial Greek Earth-mother goddess. Lovelock took Golding’s advice, published his findings as Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth—and all hell broke loose in the scientific community, because he had violated a deep taboo within the scientific literature: never to mix myth and science. So they attacked his theory with a vengeance because it also violated their other major premise—scientific reductionism, or the idea that all causality can be explained from the bottom up; that is, by looking first at mechanisms at the atomic and molecular scale, then working up from there to larger and larger macro-scales. But Lovelock’s theory began from the insights of emerging general systems theory and cybernetics: that while the parts constitute the whole, the emergent characteristics of the whole reciprocally influence the behavior of the parts. That is, causality is a two-way street, from parts to whole and back again. Hence a simple explanation of Gaia theory is this: life creates, sustains, and propagates the biosphere, which in turn sustains and further propagates life.

But while Gaia as a scientific model was already revolutionary, it still retained the mythic resonance of its name, and this led to its embrace by the counter-culture (arising out of the cultural convulsions of the Sixties and Seventies) and simultaneously to its vehement denunciation by Christian fundamentalists, who saw it as a heretical resurgence of paganism. So Lovelock and his colleague, Lynn Margulis, managed to alienate both the mainstream scientific community and the religious right! And this endeared them even more to the “new age” counter-culture—much to their own dismay.

But besides being both a myth and a scientific model, Gaia gained cultural currency among intellectuals  as a metaphor for the holistic way of thinking championed by leading-edge philosophers such as Fritjof Capra, William Irwin Thompson, Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana, and Ken Wilber. And because it resonated with the worldwide environmental movement, it likewise became a new banner for activists in that movement as well. Finally, of course, entrepreneurs saw dollar signs in its rapid cultural dissemination, so (with no understanding of, and even less concern for) its revolutionary implications, they trivialized the Gaia concept, turning it into a niche-marketing device for cosmetics, tarot cards, and yoga paraphernalia. (see Gaia.com).

But while all this was happening, another revolution was occurring, well beneath the radar of mass media. Around the same time as Lovelock was working out his revolutionary hypothesis, the Australian agronomist Bill Mollison, inspired by Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog and the systems thinking that infused it, conceived of a revolutionary new, Earth-friendly approach to the design of landscapes, gardens, and human habitat, which he called “Permaculture”—a portmanteau word for “permanent agriculture” (later expanded to “permanent culture”).  Mollison likewise acknowledged Lovelock’s Gaia theory as the source of his inspiration for emulating natural systems in his designs. And significantly, he and his colleague David Holmgren designed a 72-hour curriculum for teaching others the principles and basic practices of permaculture design, and this curriculum became self-replicating, and has spread all around the world, simply because these design principles are universal, and apply to every conceivable bioregion and ecosystem.

And so now we have two of the prime prerequisites for a global Gaian revolution: Gaian theory (i.e. general systems theory, as applied to living systems) and Gaian praxis (permaculture or regenerative design). The third prerequiste, of course, is the obsolescence of our existing status quo of “More is always better”--industrial consumer culture and media-driven politics as a blood sport, all while the forests burn and ecosystems collapse worldwide. (There is little need, these days, to elaborate on this!)

And the fourth, which is yet to come, are effective means of codification and dissemination, since the Gaian revolution presently goes under a bewildering variety of names, each appealing to distinct constituencies that are often unknown to one another, or even in competition for limited philanthropic donations or grants to their respective nonprofits. Hence we have the proliferation of concepts and entities like Postcarbon Institute, Transition Towns, Biodynamics, Steady State Economics, Ecovillages, Green parties, etc. etc.—all pursuing their own variations or portions of a common goal: what Paul Hawken and Daniel Christian Wahl refer to, in their latest books, as “regeneration.”

This is all very inspiring for intellectuals or activists—people like me, who are already “on board” with the whole Gaian vision of a human culture that is symbiotic with, rather than parasitic upon, its biological support system. But what about the ordinary Joe and Darlene out there, driving their pick-ups or SUVs to Walmart or Costco to fill them up with processed food wrapped in plastic, trying to make ends meet, worried about their children getting gunned down in school, getting brainwashed daily by strident corporate media and 24/7 advertising everywhere they look, which constantly drums in the notion that to be is to buy; that their identity and value are entirely contingent on how much stuff they own. How can a Gaian Revolution reach, and involve, the broad masses of stressed-out and brainwashed humanity, here and elsewhere?

If I had a good answer to this, I would already have accepted my Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t. But I have, at least, an idea worth sharing. What are two things that those of us who live in individual suburban homes or duplexes are likely to have in common with our neighbors—even if we don’t know them at all, and even if they are polar opposites in their politics? First, we both eat food and drink water. Second, we both own, or at least have some control over, the land we occupy.  That is the starting point for a Gaian revolution. We are both Gaians, whether we know it or not!

The next step is to find a good occasion to meet our immediate neighbors, where they are less likely than usual to be hostile or suspicious of our motives. One of the easiest ways to do this is to be out in our yards when they are out in theirs, and use the occasion to strike up a chat about gardening. Or even, during harvest season, bring our neighbors some fresh tomatoes or strawberries!

And here is where I can introduce our Gaian marching orders: Grow Gardens, Grow Community, Grow Awareness. In that order.  By growing gardens, we become less dependent on Glomart (e.g. our global market economy) and more dependent on Gaia (our topsoil). By growing community, we become less isolated—less dependent on television and the internet, and more habituated to actual conversation with our neighbors.  Then we can form Garden Guilds, which are “cells” of Gaian consciousness, where we can meet periodically in potlucks, keep in touch online, sponsor gardening educational events at our homes or elsewhere, organize neighborhood work parties to assist one another in expanding our self-reliance by growing more food, teach Permaculture principles and skills to our children and youth, and donate our surplus produce to feed, house, and teach in turn, the growing masses of homeless and landless people all around us. It is through such simple mechanisms—growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness, that the Gaian revolution can gain traction, and transform or displace Glomart—one backyard at a time.  But as we all know, there is no time to lose!

The Gaians: A dystopic fantasy

 "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,/Nothing is going to get better--it's not." --Dr. Seuss, "The Lorax."

Imagine, if you dare, a worst-case scenario, (short of the total extinction of humanity and all higher life forms).  Unfortunately, that is not difficult these days, with the rapid acceleration, worldwide, of climate-related and environmental catastrophes, coupled with the increasing strains on the global market economy caused by inflation and supply-chain disruptions, and on our political culture, both here and everywhere else, by the rise of corporate-backed brutal, thuggish fascist regimes, with contempt for truth, science, democracy, civility, and diplomacy alike. Future prospects have never looked as grim as they do today. So let's venture imaginatively a bit deeper into this unfolding hellscape of the future--in order to seek out the last "truffula seeds" of hope....

The grisly details--if you have been paying attention--have already haunted your imagination: ecological collapse; mass starvation and die-off of most of humanity; vast swarms of desperate refugees, both from the superheated global South and from inundated coastal cities worldwide as the polar ice sheets collapse; small, fiercely defended islands of extreme wealth and privilege (for a while) in a rising sea of poverty, starvation, and violence--whether from murderous drug gangs, tyrannical fascist regimes, rival warlords and their armies, or whoever...all coupled with relentless pandemics, including an epidemic of suicides, especially among the young...

But let's zero in a bit to the small, scattered colonies of survivors here and there. These fall into two broad categories: survivalists and Gaians. Survivalists are those people, mostly from rural areas, who have abundant survival skills already, and who own lots of guns. They will, no doubt, build walled fortifications to protect themselves, gun down anyone who approaches, and divide other survivalist enclaves into either rivals or allies in an endless war of attrition for vital, vanishing resources. Life will be ugly and short for them, most likely; they will likely have to indenture themselves to fascist thugs and their armies in order to survive, and of course, they will be easy prey for scurrilous demagogues (like Trump, Erdogan, or Bolsonaro) who celebrate, reward, and encourage their violence.

Urban areas will most likely disintegrate into hellscapes of starvation and gang violence (as is already happening throughout Mexico and Central America). And that leaves...the suburbs.

Most suburbanites, of course, will die fairly quickly, as their college degrees, SUVs, mortgages, and ornamental gardens will do them little if any good as things fall apart. Some, of course, will emulate their rural survivalist counterparts by building walls, getting big dogs, and packing lots of guns--but lacking both the land-based resources and the skills, they will be hard put to survive the destitute and violent predators who will attack their fortified homes relentlessly and mercilessly for whatever they can steal.  And that leaves the Gaians...

The Gaians are those who saw what was coming and have prepared for it systematically in advance--not by fleeing to the countryside in pursuit of a survivalist fantasy, nor by walling themselves in with lots of guns, but by reaching out and making friends with their neighbors, and by devoting their time and energy to learning Gaia, teaching Gaia, healing Gaia, and creating Gaia. By growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness. By practicing Permaculture, but also teaching it to others, whenever, however, and wherever possible. And by pledging their lifelong allegiance--not to any nation-state, ethnicity, religious organization, or drug gang--but to Gaia--the only living planet we will ever know.

Gaians--like everyone else--may well need to defend themselves from marauders as civil society collapses and vast swarms of destitute people may turn violent and predatory in order to feed their children. But their first task--as they organize themselves into neighborhood Garden Guilds--will be to generate enough surplus from their regenerative methods of growing food to set up distribution centers for the needy and destitute--and then teach them Gaian consciousness and Permaculture skills as well.

Many Gaians (like everyone else) will die violent, horrible deaths, of course, but their training in meditation skills like Tonglen and nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha) will prepare them emotionally, helping them overcome their fear of death in order to reach out to, and teach others, whether by precept or example, right up to their final breath. As with the early Christians in the Roman empire, their fearless willingness to face death rather than compromise their principles will inspire many others to embrace Gaianity as well.

And fortunately, no one needs to “convert” to Gaianity, since everyone who breathes air, drinks water, and eats food is already a Gaian. It is not a “belief system” so much as it is a way of knowing what is already self-evidently true: that we are a part of, not apart from, Gaia — the only living planet we will ever know — and will survive only if we learn to work with Gaia rather than against her — energetically, ecologically, and ethically.

And who knows--after the Great Die-Off has run its course, Gaians may proliferate, sowing their Truffula seeds of Tonglen, Satyagraha, and Permaculture to engender a whole new culture, in a symbiotic, rather than parasitic relationship with our magnificent, wounded living planet.

None of this may happen, of course. But it is worth trying...worth living for.

Understanding Permaculture: The Four Pillars

 

Bill Mollison's Permaculture Logo

"We have two choices: A Gaian Future, or No Future."  --Norman Myers

"What is Permaculture?"  Virtually everyone who has developed a keen interest in Permaculture, or received his or her Permaculture Design Certificate, has heard this question from the vast majority of people out there who have either never heard of the term at all, or have heard it only in passing, and have developed stereotypical images of ragged, aging "back-to-the-land" hippies somewhere in the hinterlands, crowding around their woodstoves and strumming their guitars singing "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog" and other old favorites from the late '60s and '70's... 

In fact, Permaculture is something deeper, far more profound than this: it is not just a gardening technique, or even a set of gardening techniques, although gardening is the most common arena for the application of Permaculture principles.  Rather, it can best be understood, in my view, as the convergence of four "E's": Epistemology, Ethics, Ecology, and Energy.  Let's look at these one at a time:

Epistemology: This one takes the most explaining. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge; the study of how we know things or more specifically, the study of the presuppositions that undergird the ways in which we conceptualize our world. And in the West, these presuppositions have been rooted in what Greeks called ideas (after Plato) and what later Latin-speaking scholars called essences or entia.This way of knowing could be symbolized mathematically by saying "X, not Y."  For the Greeks, the whole of epistemic inquiry involved questioning the ways we could define X so as to exclude Y, and vice versa. What, essentially, is X?  We can flesh this out a bit by replacing the empty signifiers X and Y with two actual concepts: "Man" and "Nature."

Since the Agricultural Revolution, which occurred several thousand years before Plato's time, the general assumption among agricultural societies has been that "Man" and "Nature" are separate entities, that "Man" is apart from, not a part of, "Nature," and that "Nature" is a mere "resource" whose value is latent until it is transformed, by "Man," into a commodity--something for his \own personal use, or for sale to someone else. When this way of thinking is applied in practice, it leads exactly to what we have seen ever since the Agricultural Revolution, some 8 to 10 thousand years ago: the progressive transformation of complex, perennial ecosystems into monocultural, annual (and storable) high-carbohydrate grasses like wheat, rice, and corn; the simultaneous explosive growth of human population and the rise of cities and commerce (all dependent on converting nature to commodities). The spinoffs are thus entirely predictable as well: as the topsoil in one area of land was exhausted and as human populations increased, we saw the Age of Empire arise, as cities and states fought each other over access to agricultural land, or displaced indigenous horticultural and nomadic tribes to grab yet more land for conversion to monoculture. Meanwhile both topsoil loss and pollution of air, land, and water accelerated in every area that agriculture reached and transformed. The Industrial Revolution, of course, turbo-charged this process of turning ecosystems into monocultural crops, and replacing lost nutrients in topsoil with artificial fertilizers from fossil fuels--and thereby turning both oil and ecosystems into yet more people!

Permaculture seeks to reverse this whole destructive pattern, right from its epistemological roots. Rather than starting with an emphasis on entities--"Man" vs. "Nature"--it starts with an emphasis on relationships. Rather than X being defined as not Y, the expression of relatedness would be "X is X because Y is Y (and vice versa): "This is because that is," as the Buddha succinctly put it; an insight symbolized  by the familiar Tai Chi, or Yang/Yin Symbol in Chinese culture:

In this relational understanding, we see that humanity (not just "man") is what it is because nature is what it is--that we are a part of, not apart from "nature."  Hence we need a new name for "nature" that captures this inclusive relationship, and the obvious choice is "Gaia"--the ancient Greek Earth goddess, a name that has been recycled more recently to refer to the systemic view of the biosphere (including humanity) as a Complex Adaptive System. So this is the first pillar of Permaculture--a new understanding of ourselves as Gaians--as part of, rather than apart from, the biological world we inhabit.

Ethics: This new Gaian understanding of nature as a complex adaptive system, and of ourselves as a part of that system, subject to its production rules, leads directly to the second pillar of Permaculture: ethics. According to its founder, Bill Mollison, all Permaculture design is rooted in three core ethics: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. The first, Earth Care, takes priority: in every decision a Permaculture designer makes, he or she must first consider the effects of that decision on the larger systems of which his project is a part--above all, the biosphere or Gaia. Whenever two or more design options are available, the mandate is to choose the design option that has the least adverse effect--or the greatest potential benefits--to the ecosystem and the bioregion we inhabit--and by extension, to the entire living planet. People Care, the second Ethic, begins with the assumption that we are part of nature, not apart from it, so that in taking good care of our ecosystems, we are also taking good care of one another. 

The third core ethic, "Fair Share" is more problematic. Various permaculturists have proposed alternatives like "Future Care" or "Reinvesting the Surplus" as alternatives, but I prefer the original term that Mollison suggested. It does not, however, mean communism or redistributing the wealth by any coercive means!  Rather, it refers to reinvesting the surplus yields we get from practicing Earth Care and People Care into more of the same; it can be thought of as the replicative function of the three core ethics, sharing not only produce and other surplus yields, but also newly acquired knowledge and skills. In short, it a mandate to not only to learn Permaculture design principles, but to teach them as well, and to make use of these principles to heal our landscapes (and our planet) and to create new patterns for symbiotic cohabitation with our living planet, rather than parasitic exploitation.

Ecology is, of course, the biological science that lies at the foundation of Permaculture as a practical discipline. In fact "applied ecology" can be thought of as another concise definition of Permaculture design. So understanding ecosystems at all levels--topsoil, biota and their interactions, climate. population dynamics, plants and animals, landscape forms, watersheds, and ecological succession--are all prerequisites of Permaculture. 

Energy the final, equally fundamental basis of Permaculture design; another short definition of Permaculture is "an energy audit," for patterns of energy flow are at the foundation of everything we do in a landscape. Thus, in conceiving of, and laying out a design--whether for a household, a landscape, or a city, Permaculturists first look at energy flow, including seasonal climate patterns based on latitude and altitude, gravitational water flow, slope and solar aspect, human exertion patterns, microclimates, and external influences beyond our control, both natural (e.g. fire vectors) and human (traffic flows, noise, pollution or "invisible structures" such as laws and ordinances, attitudes and behavior of neighbors, etc.)

These four pillars--Epistemology, Ethics, Ecology, and Energy--form the foundation of Permaculture as a design discipline, but also as a way of life, a way of thinking, that could ultimately lead toward our final asymptotic goal as Gaians: to shift our collective gift of human intelligence from its current parasitic and destructive relationship with our living planet to a symbiotic and healing relationship--before it's far too late. May it be so.

Who will survive the next evolutionary bottleneck?

 An evolutionary bottleneck is a metaphor used by evolutionary biologists to refer to an apparent acceleration of genetic variation in a species due to a catastrophic reduction in its population. Unlike the normal processes of natural selection, which are driven by "fitness" or the adaptive benefits of a given allele (variant within a specific genotype) within a given ecological niche, evolutionary bottlenecks tend to result in the rapid proliferation, in a recovering population, of random alleles that may or may not confer reproductive advantage.  If they do not, the population may quickly go extinct, due to a loss of adaptive fitness; conversely, if they are lucky, a random allele may confer a benefit that gives them an edge over competition or over their prey, and enables them to rapidly proliferate, taking over one niche and expanding to others. 

A currently popular theory in human evolutionary biology is that one or more evolutionary bottlenecks--disasters that nearly eliminated our hominid ancestors but left a small remnant to survive and proliferate--may have, through this evolutionary process, conferred upon us the selective advantage that resulted in our taking over the entire planet: our unique aquisition of digital language, which enabled us to communicate not just nonverbal relationship information (e.g. dominance/submission, sexual interest, or parental guidance) but actual concepts and propositions, invented and shared as needed--a communicative intervention that gave us a decisive evolutionary advantage over all other complex species--plant and animal alike, and that led, through a familiar process of positive feedback, to the expansion of our frontal lobes that enabled us to process this vast and growing array of information.

The results today, of course, are entirely predictable from an evolutionary perspective.  As biologist Lynn Margulis once observed, "Humans are an extraordinarily successful species, but extraordinarily successful species never last long." This is true because such species, no matter how versatile, quickly outgrow the carrying capacity of their ecological niche--even if that niche comprises the entire planet.

And that is exactly where we are today.  There are far more humans alive today than all of our ancestors combined, and most of us--especially in the global North--are using far more energetic, biological, and material resources per capita than our ancestors ever imagined. As a consequence, ecosystems are collapsing everywhere, topsoil is being depleted at a far faster rate than it can be rebuilt, our fisheries are declining rapidly, and of course the climate crisis is the wild card that could upend it all within the coming decades. The possible triggering mechanisms of global catastrophe are proliferating, almost daily: rapidly melting ice caps and glaciers at both poles and on mountains worldwide; an accelerating uptick in the frequency and severity of droughts, floods, violent storms, and wildfires; the potential collapse of the international political and economic order into warring authoritarian states ruled by thuggish despots (which could easily lead to the unimaginable outbreak and proliferation of nuclear conflicts)--the convergent prospects of global biological and civilizational collapse are all too clear, leading the most pessimistic of us to warn darkly of "human extinction" within the next few decades.

Extinction?  Possibly, but I doubt it.  But a great die-off of a huge proportion of humanity is probably inevitable--and it won't be pretty.  Imagine, for example, if  Thwaite's Glacier in West Antarctica, which holds back the huge mass of ice on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, were to collapse within the next few years, as many scientists predict. This could trigger a cascading collapse of the entire western continental ice sheet, raising the global sea level by three meters. (This is why it is often called the "Doomsday Glacier")  The result would be the inundation of coastal cities throughout the world, resulting in a surge of destitute refugees inland, spawning predatory gangs that survive by raiding shopping centers, then suburbs, then farms--and governments, despite their armed forces and brutality, would be powerless to stop them. Whole economies would quickly collapse, leading to mass starvation, yet more desperate refugees, more violence, more starvation...the mind reels at the horrific prospects worldwide.  And coupled with increasing drought, violent storms, and wildfires, the global death toll of humans and other animals would continue to spiral out of control.

But would we all die? I doubt it. The most likely survivors would be the most resilient: small bands of people with practical skills who form close working relationships--either for more effective predation (like our current urban drug cartels and criminal syndicates) or for more adaptive purposes. But if only thugs survive, they will eventually kill each other off, competing for supremacy. And who wants to live in a desperate, broken world of scattered thugs and warlords anyway? Not I.

So what might be "more adaptive purposes"? If we go back to past Dark Ages following catastrophic collapses (e.g. the Eastern Mediterranean collapse of the 12th Century BC, or northern Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire, we see long periods of rival warlords and clans, holing themselves up in defensive battlements and fighting endless power struggles--but we also see a "saving remnant" of scattered communities with higher, regenerative goals--like the monasteries which preserved and disseminated literacy and both classical and biblical texts, or even the nomadic Bedouins who carried the Qu'ran to the far reaches of Asia and Africa; like Buddhist communities in war-torn India and central Asia, or Confucians and Taoists in the wake of the chaotic Warring States period in China.

Could something similar-- small, scattered communities of Gaians that preserve the best of the past along with a more adaptive, aware, and compassionate way of living within, and regenerating, our biological support system--happen again after the coming global catastrophe?  I don't know--but it is an ideal worth living for, and worth passing on to our younger generations. For now, our best bet is to propagate Gaianity by growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness.

Reimagining the Future

 "...and where I used to see orange groves out the window of my plane, today I looked down and saw...Houses! Shopping centers! Progress!  And I want to see a lot more of it." --Richard Nixon, ca. 1950.

As a dominant culture, particularly here in North America, we have always been oriented toward the idea of "the  future" or--as Nixon called it during his first Senate campaign in 1950, "progress." This optimistic future focus coevolved with the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th Centuries when, for the first time in our history, vast improvements in technology, in lifestyle, in creature comforts, in general affluence, and in available goods and services became apparent between one generation and the next.  To take one simple example, my grandfather was born in 1877 and died in 1966. When he was born, his world bore a closer resemblance to the world of John Adams--or even Julius Caesar--than it did to my world as a youth--the world in which he died. In 1877, there were no cars or airplanes, no electric lights or appliances, no plastics, and of course, no mass media other than newspapers. The fossil-fuel age had begun with coal, but railroads with steam engines were the only available form of industrialized mass transportation over land, while steam ships were still in the process of displacing sailing ships at sea. Yet by the time he died, the world was substantially the same as it is today--minus, of course, the digital revolution of personal computers, cellphones, and the internet.

When I was growing up, during the explosion of unprecedented affluence following the second World War, futuristic fantasies abounded, particularly among the youth, as the global market economy and technological revolution expanded around the world. In fiction, in advertising, and in movies (like the Star Wars series) and television series (like Star Trek), my generation was immersed in fantasies about the future as a technological wonderland of space travel, robotic servants, flying around in our personal jets just as we drove around in our flashy new cars, traveling to distant planets, and of course, building bigger and better suburban mansions than those we grew up in. And to a large extent, our educators and mass media continue to propagate these fantasies among our youth as ideals to strive for, so that they will continue to work hard and get good grades at school, get college and graduate degrees, and work for--or establish their own--multinational corporations, and get rich.

In recent years, however, this aggressively promoted narrative of endless growth and progress has been tarnished by growing awareness of frightening trends that have darkened our collective horizons--above all, the climate crisis. And accordingly, our familiar fantasies of a bright, affluent, technologically advanced future have been increasingly displaced by dystopic or apocalyptic fantasies and disaster movies. Yet our educational systems are still rooted in the endemic optimism of the industrial era: "Work hard, boy, and you'll find/Some day, you'll have a job like mine..." as Cat Stevens once sang.  Greta Thunberg rose to instant fame simply by calling the bluff of the entire global educational establishment, rather like the little girl in "The Emperor's New Clothes," by posing the question, "WHAT future??"

What future, indeed? There is no shortage of dire scenarios to choose from, but I see no point in belaboring these. The one certainty is that a global market economy that depends entirely on the endless expansion of production, consumption, and population is fundamentally incompatible with a finite biological support system like Gaia, our living planet. And the waste product from the fossil fuels that have driven this expansion--excess carbon dioxide--has already started to heat up and destabilize our climate patterns enough that rising global temperatures will soon render large areas of our planet uninhabitable for humans and other complex life forms. The likely result will be mass migration, starvation, pervasive conflict, and upward concentration of wealth into fiercely defended islands of wealth, privilege, and armed power amidst a growing sea of poverty, violence, and destitution, culminating in a global die-off of unprecedented proportions. The future has become an image of Hell itself.

Given this grim reality that has become all too apparent, what should we tell our children? That is the huge question facing today's parents and teachers alike. Here are a few suggestions:

First, remind them that the present is all there is. That the past is just a memory, and the future is unknowable, except in broad trends. Yet the world we all share--and the future we all shape--is the collective consequence of decisions we each make every day.  So if they are terrified of the future (as they have every right to be), they can take refuge in the present moment--first, by breathing, observing, and letting go; then by being well, doing good work, and keeping in touch. This is basic mindfulness practice, to which they can always return, no matter how stressed out or depressed they become.

Second, while they have no direct control over the disintegrative future of the world at large, they can still take control of the present moment right where they are--by growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness. 

Finally, they can let go of the vanishing industrial utopia of the "old" future, and instead plant the seeds of a post-apocalyptic Gaian future--whether or not they live to see it--by learning Gaia, teaching Gaia, healing Gaia, and creating Gaia. Learning, that is, to see themselves as a part of, not apart from, nature, and acting accordingly by the study and practice of Permaculture design; teaching others to do likewise; healing, by these practices, their own portion of the living planet we all share; and creating new, relocalized ways of living, new appropriate technologies, and new eco-social ethics, as a foundation for regenerating whatever is left of our living planet after our global market economy finally collapses.

This Gaian future--if it happens at all--will be very different, of course, from the suburban techno-fantasies that most of us took in with our mother's milk. It will be more labor-intensive, to be sure, but also, it could be more convivial--although resurgent tribalism will always be a danger. But if rooted in the practice of mindfulness and compassion, of earth care, people care, and fair share, it may also be a better life altogether than the alienated, endlessly distracted techno-fantasy of modern suburbia. So let's give our children a realistic, yet hopeful and empowering vision of a postindustrial Gaian future; and as for the proliferating horrors all around the world between now and then--keep in mind this line from Neil Young: "Don't let it bring you down/It's only castles burning/Just find someone who's turning,/And you will come around."  So may we all "come around" to growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness!

My Agenda

     I have occasionally been accused of “having an agenda”—a phrase which has acquired bad connotations in recent years, since people often equate “agenda” with “hidden agenda”—that is, some nefarious or conspiratorial plan to gain money, power, or influence over others—or worse, to deceive, exploit, or harm them for one’s own benefit.  To such charges, I plead innocent. 

But if we take “agenda” in the original sense of the word, it is actually a neuter plural of the Latin word “Agendum,” which is a gerundive meaning “things to do” or “things worth doing.”  It derives from the Latin verb “ago, agere” meaning simply “to do”  So properly understood, an agenda is a list of things to be done.

And I have something to be done, to which I have devoted my life for as long as I remember. When I was a kid, it took the simple form of wanting to save animals from harm. But as I grew into adulthood, my agenda became more complex, and more philosophically elaborate. Prior to Earth Day 1970, I was a passionate “conservationist.”  After that watershed date, I became a passionate “environmentalist.”  And then, a decade later, after I first encountered Dr. James Lovelock’s visionary and scientifically rigorous “Gaia” hypothesis, I became a passionate Gaian, and have remained so ever since.  I define a Gaian as one whose first allegiance is to the living Earth, and who fully understands what most people have long forgotten: that humanity is a part of, and not apart from, “nature” (or Gaia), and that “nature” (or Gaia) is a complex adaptive system of which we humans are a part, rather than a “resource” with no value at all until it is transformed into commodities.

  In the 1990s, I encountered the luminous Buddhist teachings of the eminent Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, who led me to embrace Buddhism. As a practicing Buddhist, I am committed to the Bodhisattva Vow:  to take care of everyone and everything, and to abandon no one and nothing—and to resist, as best I can, any impulse to pursue my own ego-interests at the expense of others.

So as a Gaian Buddhist (which is the most accurate label I have yet adopted), I came upon the most recent watershed event in shaping and clarifying my life agenda, right into old age: my discovery—and wholehearted embrace--of Permaculture in 2015 or thereabouts.  I had heard of Permaculture many times before, but had assumed it was not really for me because the writings of Bill Mollison seemed to be intended for a target audience of practical-minded small-scale agrarians, or what we used to call “back-to-the-land” types. And as an urban college professor with no practical skills whatsoever, I saw little personal use for this line of inquiry. Philosophy was my “thing.”

But then I happened upon a YouTube clip featuring Geoff Lawton, a prominent Australian Permaculture teacher (and the student of Bill Mollison), which was entitled “Greening the Desert.” It was about a project he led on a 10-acre plot he had procured in the parched semi-arid deserts of Jordan. And with contagious enthusiasm, Lawton showed exactly how he and his crew of volunteers had transformed their dry, hard, empty desert plot into a rich and bountiful garden, which captured, retained, and slowly distributed the small amount of annual rainfall so that the garden was largely self-sustaining. Suffice to say I was blown away by this!  So I dove into Permaculture, reading everything I could get my hands on, and my enthusiasm just kept growing.  

Once I retired and my wife and I moved to Oregon in 2017, I first signed up for training with the Marion County Master Gardeners (since a thorough basic knowledge of gardening is a prerequisite to the study of Permaculture), and then, in fall of 2018, I signed on for an online Permaculture Design Certification course at Oregon State University, with the incredibly gifted Andrew Millison as the instructor—one of the best Permaculture teachers on the planet today, with a brilliant gift for succinct and beautifully crafted instructional videoclips on YouTube.  I quickly came to realize that Gaian theory is useless—just an intellectual exercise—without Gaian praxis, and Permaculture is the essential Gaian praxis: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share.

Hence my life agenda: From now on, until I’m dead, composted, and pushing up the daisies, I will devote my life to Gaianity, which I broadly define as the integration of Dharma practice, Gaian consciousness, and the practice and propagation of Permaculture. And my most recent watershed moment was only a month and a half ago, when I hatched a new idea that struck me immediately as the ideal vehicle for propagating Permaculture (and thereby, Gaian consciousness)  as widely and quickly as possible: my Garden Guild initiative.

A Garden Guild is a voluntary association of contiguous neighbors, who live within walking distance of one another, to collaborate in growing and sharing vegetables, herbs, fruit trees, shrubs, and flowers, and also in sharing ideas, skills, and tools for growing these more efficiently and responsibly. And the purpose of Garden Guilds, as expressed in the slogan, is to “grow gardens, grow community, and grow awareness,” each leading to the other and reciprocally reinforcing each other. And so, in this sense, I would define Garden Guilds as the seeds of a Gaian future, which now may be our only alternative, both individually and collectively, to no future at all.

Hence my specific agenda for 2022 is as follows: to use the  32 (sometimes 33) Gaian holidays as times of convergence, conviviality, and conversation for fellow Gaians (and anyone can be a fellow Gaian, as long as you breathe air, drink water, eat food, and care about your children’s future). What are these holidays?  The Eight Solar Holidays (solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days) and the 24 (sometimes 25) Lunar holidays (new and full moon dates, with a blue moon (twice a month) on rare occasions).

How so?

1.      On or near each of the eight Solar holidays, when possible, we can arrange to meet in person (with masks, if necessary) for a “Gaia Walk” at some convenient local park or natural area.  Here we will practice formal walking meditation in the first part of the walk (going out) and an ordinary, sociable walk on the second (coming back). Our purpose, in keeping with the first of the Twelve Permaculture Principles, is to "observe and interact."

2.      On New Moon days, those interested can meet (on Zoom or in person if possible) for a Dharma Gaia Circle, an ecumenical Sangha (meaning “gathering” or “meditation group”) based on study and practice of the universal Dharma (as manifested in any or all wisdom traditions) as a principle, a precept, and a practice.

3.      On Full Moon days, members of the Garden Guild Network (and anyone else interested) can meet (on Zoom or in person if possible) to read, watch, and discuss instructional video presentations or book chapters on Permaculture, in order to strengthen our gardening skills and stay in touch with each other.

The purpose of these meetings?  You guessed it: to grow gardens, grow community, and to grow awareness. And to encourage one another to continue learning, teaching, healing, and creating Gaia.  So be it.