Mother Pelican
A Journal of Solidarity and Sustainability

Vol. 19, No. 8, August 2023 Luis T. Gutiérrez, Editor

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Facing the Reality of Ecological Overshoot Ayn Rand was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. Born in Russia, she became aware that Communism is incapable of fostering social justice and human well-being, and emigrated to the United States in 1926. She wrote extensively, and a bit uncritically about unregulated Capitalism as a better system. Now, it seems that reality is changing, as we become increasingly aware that unregulated neoliberal Capitalism induces social injustice and, in addition, is lethal for ecological sustainability. Her perception that "you can evade reality, but you can't evade the consequences of evading reality," applies to our globalized world in both the social and ecological dimensions. It is time to face the reality of unregulated overpopulation, overconsumption, and overshoot; else, we shall have to deal with the consequences of evading reality as the planetary biosphere becomes unable to support all forms of life, including human life. Is Natural Population Decline a Concern? ARTICLES Arrogance in the Anthropocene Barbara Williams The Ecological Transition, the Path to Happiness: Il Gusto di Cambiare Pope Francis Overshoot ~ A Rapidly Expanding Human Enterprise on a Finite Planet William Rees Polycrisis, Unraveling, Simplification, or Collapse: Coming Soon to a Planet Near You? Richard Heinberg Is There a Way Forward? Gus Speth Using GDP to Estimate the Limits to Growth Brian Czech Forget GDP Growth ~ It's Sustainable Wellbeing We Need to Aim For Robert Costanza The World Economy Is Becoming Unglued ~ Models Miss Real-World Behavior Gail Tverberg Leaving Las Vegas ~ Interlude II ~ Improvising Counterhegemonies: A Lived Manifesto Cara Judea Alhadeff Fast Tracking Extinction: The Rush to Streamline Permitting for "Green" Energy Rob Lewis Who Tallies the Resources? Daniel Wortel-London Tools to Make the Corporation, and Governments, Serve the Needs of Human Beings Carmine Gorga Are We Missing Something About the Coming Population Decline? Kurt Cobb Nanoplastics Are Entering Our Bodies Erica Cirino Migration: The Consequence of Colonial Exploitation Shay Cullen Freshwater, Water Fragility, Water Security, and the Real Meaning of Resilience Eliza Daley Industrialism ~ Our Commitment to Impermanence Christopher O. Clugston Ocean Heat is Off the Charts ~ Here's What That Means for Humans and Ecosystems Around the World Annalisa Bracco From Expansion to Harmonisation ~ A New Economic Trajectory Paddy Le Flufy The Eco Collapse We Were Warned About Has Begun José Seoane The Best Degrowth Directory Juan Pablo Arellano Why Are Feminist Perspectives, Analyses, and Actions Vital to Degrowth? FaDa Writing Collective Patriarchy, Its Interferences With Psychological Development, and Risks for Mental Health Mayank Gupta, Jayakrishna S. Madabushi, Nihit Gupta Book Summary of The Patriarchs ~ The Origins of Inequality Angela Saini Arrogance in the Anthropocene Barbara Williams This article was originally published by Medium, 27 June 2023 REPUBLISHED WITH PERMISSION The Titanic was a classic example of humanity’s arrogance that affluence and technology can outwit natural forces. So far we have collectively failed to learn the lessons from irony of the ‘unsinkable’ ship that sank on her maiden voyage. Agreement is growing that we are past the point of no return with regards to the man-made climate and ecosystems breakdown. Many are now looking to build a concerted attempt to soften the landing. The most high-level international initiative is ‘Our Common Agenda’ which is led by the United Nations. The ‘Common Agenda’ recognises that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does not measure wellbeing. The insights from environmental science warn us that growing GDP is detrimental to the wellbeing of our environment. The I=PAT equation warns us that growing our population size, affluence and technology will degrade our environment. The Jevons Paradox warns us that increasing the efficiency with which we use energy only results in increases in demand. The data about Earth’s biocapacity and humanity’s ecological footprint combine to inform us that we have been exceeding the carrying-capacity of Earth for well over fifty years. All these insights have not prevented us from continually increasing the pressure on our degraded ecosystems. We do not stress these insights in our formal or informal education. All our strategies for resolving the climate crisis are dependant on affluence and technology, despite the fact that these tools play a big role in exacerbating our problems. We are caught in a deadly loop trying to use our problematic tools as the solution. There is a lifeboat available on our modern day Titanic. It involves a managed retreat from our bloated indulgence in all the eco-costly treats that are offered by over-exploiting Nature and burning fossil fuels for non-essential purposes. It also involves accepting that this managed retreat is both urgent and tricky and is not something where we have any past-experience. It is therefore recommended that whilst we attempt to rapidly reorganise our priorities we should ask our young adults to consider delaying their plans to raise a family. The ‘lifeboat’ can be summarised as a collective endeavour to peacefully, voluntarily and equitably downsize the global economy and population size until we are consuming no more than half the available biocapacity on Earth. The ‘lifeboat’ described above is expressed formally in the UN Charter for Ecological Justice; this concept is designed to redress the flaw in our Human Rights and our prevailing economic model which both ignore the need to operate within the biocapacity of Earth. The Charter is designed to inspire the longing for economic downsizing into the human mindset. It will enable the fledging Degrowth movement to evolve up to a new level of ambition and vision. Click on the image to enlarge. In order to embark on our voyage in this lifeboat we shall need to achieve a higher level of emotional maturity. Embracing the Ubuntu philosophy will help us to put collective needs above our individual desires. We shall need to recognise that many of our intellectual preoccupations at the moment are simply irrelevant in the escalating polycrises. Much of our modern commerce, education, leisure, and legislation is unhelpful and too eco-costly to be justified in the current context. We can simplify our Maslow hierarchy of ‘needs’ by removing the top tiers and jointly prioritising the problem of attempting to make our planet a ‘safe’ habitat and a balanced eco-system once again. This revision makes our pursuit of ‘fulfilment’ much less eco-costly and more accessible to us all. There is a great deal of discussion about equality and fairness. Ecological ‘fairness’ was never considered when we constructed modern civilisation. Therefore in order to achieve ‘Ecological Justice’ we shall need to revise our understanding of the meaning of ‘fairness’. In modern society we respect and admire those who work hard and earn money. Those who earn a lot of money are regarded as ‘successful’. There is no challenge to the ecological costs associated with their work and their affluent lifestyle. The Charter for Ecological Justice challenges this cultural meme. We are damaging the eco-health of the Commons by allowing this culture to thrive. No organisation or institution can be considered truly net-zero, unless the lifestyles of the staff and use of the product/service that is provided is also net-zero. This article is intended as an introduction to the scientific paper ‘Scientists Warning proposes a Roadmap to Ecological Justice’ which has recently gone for peer review. It is available as a preprint from this link. Note that the concept of the UN Charter for Ecological Justice has been included in the 2023 global stocktake for the Paris climate agreement, you can access the relevant paper here. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Barbara Williams has been working in the field of altruistic Degrowth for four years. Most of her work is accessible from her website. She is currently working on a ‘Roadmap to Ecological Justice’ on request from the Scientists Warning organisation, you can read the draft version here. |Back to Outline| LINK TO THE CURRENT ISSUE          LINK TO THE HOME PAGE

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