I don't think many folks have read these pages, but I write them for my own benefit and if anyone else finds them useful, all the better! Here I can keep track of and clarify ideas as I write about them.
I want to be brutally honest with myself, and any readers. I don't think my ideas will have much influence or impact in this world obsessed with money and wealth, and owning a lot of crap so so some folks can lord it over others.
Sometimes I get the bad feeling the world is careening towards some horrible catastrophe, that the 7 billion or more people on the earth may see their numbers drastically cut in some lemming like massive die off, that the world we know, and I grew up with may change drastically for the worse. Some superbug may get out of control. Some kind of nuclear bomb exchange - perhaps China vs India vs Pakistan might occur, radiating half the planet. Or some new technology might run amok such as genetically engineered plants or bugs, or some toxic chemical.
Frankly, people in general seem to me not all that smart. Clever, maybe, but not really smart. Even supposedly intelligent well educated civilized people do absolutely insane destructive evil things. African tribal genocide? We have witnessed Nazi Germany, and Balkans genocides where neighbors(for centuries) suddenly turn on each other in blind hate. The veneer of civility is thin. As I get older I have less hope, more cynicism. I hope my family and community can survive and prosper in the cataclysm, and I wish only well to ALL people of goodwill in the world. But I worry (too much since worry does no good) about the prospects for my children, and all of the children of the world.
There is a new book: "Deep Green Resistance" that in no uncertain terms states we are doomed to ecological catastrophe and violent resistance - in fact, destruction of civilization as we know it is necessary NOW to save life on earth (and humanity - at least part of humanity). Can this be the truth? It is all too easy to condemn the book and the ideas in it, and I am sure all of the police and anti-terrorism forces of the world will take a deep interest in anyone who attempts, advocates, or even has sympathy for the ideas and methods advocated in this book. But advocating, supporting, empowering the police forces of a civilization in the process of destroying itself (if it is), somehow that does not seem like the right thing to do either.
The book would have us scrap a lot of modern technology and go back to living like 'indigenous or aboriginal peoples' who for the most part left the natural world intact.
I propose a more peaceful solution, but perhaps just as hard or harder to realize than the one proposed by 'Deep Green Resistance'. Let us advocate and make it a goal that we put the earth back (wherever we can) the way it was before modern industrial civilization took over -BUT use technology to achieve this.
You may ask where and how will billions of people live? I contend it is perfectly possible to design and build houses, communities, cities, civilization that leaves the natural earth intact. We just have to agree to do it.
How can this be achieved? Paoli Soleri visionary architect proposed 'arkologies' huge vertical cities built in places and in ways that do not ruin the natural world: in remote places that can be made habitable by the capabilities of modern technology. Mountain cliffs, and caves, and Antarctic ice, and and places where few or no living things currently exist. (And build around the living things that are there). The land around, and even under (or over) these cities would be left to nature. I agree with Soleris' concept but believe his cities would cut people off too much from nature, almost like spaceships (but on the surface of the earth). I think we need not concentrate most people into huge new cities - though some cities could be built for those who prefer such lifestyles.
Instead, I propose that people live, and learn to live surrounded by nature but live in ways that leave natural life, land, air and water intact.
Possible methods: Underground communities, houses with earth covered roofs and earth bermed walls (like small hills), and houses on columns over water, lakes, estuaries, floating houses etc. Roads underground or perhaps elevated. (One possibility, google 'skyway' project that uses small vehicles hung from cables so the land is free of cars). Roads returned to paths, or forest.
I really believe that if folks properly understood, and appreciated the natural world they could build communities that ENHANCE and ENRICH the ecosystems of the world, rather than destroying them.
One big problem, that I believe can be solved, how to construct these communities without ruining nature. Today, building projects make a mess of the surroundings as they go up. Ways must be found to build without having this effect.
One technique: bring in materials from the air, rather than build roads and truck materials in. Imagine a new arctic community supplied by air rather than roads that ruin wilderness, built so that it actually provides some refuge, provides an enhanced environment for arctic plant and animals (perhaps endangered by global warming).
Or a community in a barren desert (no desert is really barren) that provides an improved environment for life to survive.
Really there is a lot of hypocrisy out there among advocates of the environment (like the Sierra Club) who favor the natural world but do not live or find ways to live that preserves (or even restores) the natural world. They live in cities and suburbs, use roads, drive cars, live in conventional houses, and use all or most of the conveniences of the modern world regardless of their impact on the natural world. (But they are still way beyond - at least in their awareness - the consciouslness of folks who are indifferent to the natural world, or ruin the earth to make money).
They, (and we all including myself) must rethink how we live and how we can live so the apocalypse of 'Deep Green Resistance' can be just an idea and never become fact.
Humanity living in harmony with a restored natural world?
Some of the ideas in this web site move towards this vision. I believe working towards Living Zero Cost helps realize the vision.
