An incredibly important article that I hope will
be read and shared far and wide. — Molly
Much of my creative work these days (and indeed for decades before) is to address the mounting and sometimes engulfing Earth Crisis within which we are all entangled; which threatens us daily and overshadows the future.
Earth Crisis is not only Climate Change, although climate change is a major component of Earth Crisis. Other components of the ongoing global condition confronting and challenging life include rampant pollution and toxicity of land, atmosphere and waters (with oceans in particularly being negatively impacted), ever accelerating depletion of natural resources, reduction of diverse species habitation, massive extinctions of species causing proliferating regional collapses of eco-systems, and the seldom evaluated and more seldomly articulated, ecology of war. It is generally overlooked that modern war technology is environment altering and poisoning technology, with broad, long term consequences for botanic and biotic diversity, and human health.
Climate change, which is visibly impacting millions and gaining popular recognition and political traction in most nations, is important to accept and act on. At the same time, climate change, as a known term for events of pressing endangerment, can also provide a perspective of focus and a vital starting point for changing human assumptions and behaviors contra the fuller dynamics of Earth Crisis. Every component touched on here is interwoven with every other. When we address one, we, whether reluctantly or willingly, discover how it is part of the rest.
Ultimately, there is no way to acknowledge and respond to Earth Crisis in a sustainable, holistic manner without accepting that Earth Crisis is Human Crisis.
This planet has evolved as the known place of life, as habitat for diversity, as home ground. What is happening to the planet is not apart from us, although we are but a singular,while co-inhabiting, species-part of all that lives here. Directly, it is happening with and from and through us — the currently dominating, ubiquity of the human. Along with Earth being brought to trial by human intervention and impact, our humanity is simultaneously brought to trial.
The presence of the human is yet another (no doubt for us most significant), component of Earth Crisis. While we work with united dedication to correct the course of climate change, we need to inquire and take upon ourselves with equal dedication what the terms of identity, history, social organization, economic systems, and patterns of consumption and necessity, have been and are, and why.
How can there be a sustainable solution that is partial when the problem involves the organic whole, made up of vital relationships and interdependencies, and the whole of the problem is being directly driven, and thereby will be determined, by our planetary presence? We exist here among shrinking otherness and collectively are the cause behind species and systems imbalances.Yet collectively we are far from being sufficiently accountable for the extremes of human negatives — exploitation, disruption, misuse and overuse — and the already occurring and potential consequences.
Earth Crisis is Earth Changes. Earth Changes involve traumas, transformations and sacrifices. We too, an Earth species, must change, not with increased aggressiveness and not in bitterness, but with an Ecosophy, an Earth Wisdom of the reverence and dedication to the protection of life. Earth is a Life Place. Why do we choose existence in a so-called civilization threatening Earth with upheavals, waste and desolation?
Within the ongoing Earth Crisis, time is not on our side and species wide we are already called to an international mobilization of moral character and courage, and an immediate, intergenerational cultivation of response-ability as disaster preparedness and survival education. We need ask: What terms of a future await life if we continue to pretend and deny? What terms of Earth future if we change course and sustain proliferating facets of alternatives? If we unite in disciplined dedication to making of the Age of Extinctions an Ecozoic Era?
Please go here for the original: https://countercurrents.org/2019/06/a-clarifying-note-on-the-magnitude-of-earth-crisis
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