Queue voice over by Rod Serling or Leonard Nimoy… not Twilight Zone or Star Trek, but the 70’s Cousteau docs of Serling’s and the 80s ‘In Search Of’ series hosted by Nimoy. Sustainable Civilizations has a mythic ring. They are not lost in the hoary past like some lame Indiana Jones sequel but rather waiting for us in an alternate future, a misty maybe world we must bring into razor sharp focus. It’s epic in the sense that we are running out of time. If we don’t find a path to a highly sustainable reality lickity split, we’re gonna suffer some serious trauma and maybe worse – extinction. No amount of military spending can protect you from a crippled global life support system. If you really love your grandchildren, change your life style. And so on.
Can we peer into the mists and make out some outlines of a sustainable human scenario? How would we change and will it be fun? What do we really want anyway? The tie in between our desire and our destiny is solid, what we want or think we want determines what we move toward.
I like wilderness. My personal mission is…
Activating global consciousness to steward and expand the wilds.
The way I see it, the global life support system includes the atmosphere, oceans, plants, algae, fungus, wild animals of all stripes, volcanos, rocks… It is certainly quite ancient, very sophisticated and complex – regardless whether one believes it’s designed by natural selection or a personal god.
The current configuration of cities, suburbs and strip malls and their associated infrastructure are probably not contributing to the proper function of the global life support system. That’s why my mission bucks the inevitable trend of building more stuff – I want to expand the wilds. Why? Because the wilds comprise an efficacious global life support system. When the earth has dominion over the land and seas, you can count on breathable air, potable water and reasonable temperatures. Human occupation and management as it’s currently configured hasn’t worked out all that well in the long term.
If you meet someone who doubts that humans can influence the global climate, check their stock portfolio. Chances are there’s some fossil fuel or uranium investments, probably defense industries too. Think about it – 6 billion people is a huge force, especially when augmented by machines. Is there anything we can’t do? Altering the climate of an entire planet? Childs play.
Relying on a government / corporate driven tech fix is not an option – some bogus half assed boondoggle porkbarrel scam slathered with a thick icky sweet icing of propagandertainment. Let’s just give it back to the ultimate technology, the 4 billion year old supra genius mutha. Let HER bring it back online for heavens sake, before it’s too late.
If you’ve been checking in at On Desire, you know I am not one of those ‘human beings are a cancer’ type. I’m not advocating ‘kill all humans’. For me it’s about figuring out how we fit into the global life support system.
We can take a little tech with us, certainly. Landing on the moon was cool, but for my money the best thing we’ve come up with lately is the internet. It’s a mostly harmless way to stimulate the brain and other parts. It’s got a footprint, but it get’s us all connected in a way that works for me. We can collaborate directly. I vote to keep the internet.
So it’s not about having 6 billion farmers either. Sustainable civilizations are a mystery we can solve, but it’s going to be much more juicy, enigmatic and elegant than anything yet described by the mainstream media. It’s to funky for the hollywood formula. We’ve got to make it, ourselves. We’ve got to do it together.
How does this apply to Around Lake Michigan? I am creating a bit of a spectacle with the lowest impact tools currently at my disposal, a sustainable moon landing or Jacques-Yves Cousteau riff. It’s a little kooky, it’s Dan Kelly style. Asking the right questions is what this is about, asking as if I expect there to be an answer. Ask questions in that way and the hazy horizon get’s a little bit brighter.