Ever since retiring as a university music professor in 2007, I’ve spent fifteen years transforming into a self-described socio-ecological philosopher and activist. Throughout the learning process, I’ve sought a big-picture, systemic understanding of our increasingly challenging human predicament; namely, how to address the harmful effects of multiple crises we’ve inflicted on our formerly pristine planet.
After spending over 200,000 years as mobile bands of predatory hunter-gathers symbiotically emmeshed in Nature, our Neolithic ancestors began forming small settlements (c.12,000 years ago), as the ice age transitioned into the current Holocene epoch. With the gradual advent of agriculture and animal husbandry, the production and storage of surplus food sources spurred population growth, and marketing of goods and services. Eventually, civilizational expansion stimulated growth of towns, cities, and empires, a milestone transition dominated by the worldview of patriarchy and anthropocentrism.
For thousands of years the human population grew slowly, constrained by shortened lifespans due to wars, diseases, and poor medical care. It remained relatively stable until the 17th Century, when wood provided the primary fuel for steam-powered machines. In the 18th Century, coal became the chief fuel for powering machinery in the new Industrial Age. With the discovery of two more supercharged “energy slaves” (oil and gas) in the 19th Century, the global economy experienced rapid material growth in all sectors of life. Thus, our current human predicament may be attributed to three factors associated with human-driven material growth: 1) overpopulation; 2) rampant consumption; and 3) increasing waste products.
In addition to the all-embracing crisis of climate change, related ecological crises include: species extinction (flora and fauna); depletion of key natural resources (renewable and nonrenewable) and pollution of air, water, and soil. Societal crises include expanding social and political polarities, geopolitical conflicts, equality-equity gaps, and health and wellness issues, including obesity and longevity.
A newly published paper by a distinguished trio of socioecological experts addresses the recent warning issued by world scientists concerning the behavioral crisis driving ecological overshoot: “In summary, the evidence indicates that anthropogenic ecological overshoot stems from a crisis of maladaptive human behaviors. While the behaviors generating overshoot were once adaptive for Homo sapiens, they have been distorted and extended to the point where they now threaten the fabric of complex life on Earth. Simply, we are trapped in a system built to encourage growth and appetites that will end us.”
In his twelve books, A Study of History (1934-1961), Arnold Joseph Toynbee compared civilizations to organisms whose existence traverse a life cycle in four stages: genesis, growth, breakdown, and disintegration. Throughout the process, how a civilization responds to any challenges influences their abilities at self-determination and self-direction. Accordingly, it seems the present-day globalized human superorganism is experiencing the breakdown stage, and presaging disintegration.
I think you’ll agree our socio-ecological predicament is an extremely complex and challenging situation. In hindsight, we wouldn’t be facing such a dire situation had we heeded the early warnings sounded over 50 years ago. Rachel Carson’s influential book, Silent Spring (1962) raised widespread alarm, followed by warnings from other prominent experts.
For a few years, it was acceptable for people to be environmental and population activists. Unfortunately, conservative sociopolitical and neoliberal economic forces, including large corporations and organizations supportive of fossil-fuel energy, mounted a campaign that eventually negatively influenced public perceptions about environmentalism. Only in the past few years, when it became impossible to ignore the accelerating deluge of extreme weather-related global disasters, has the mainstream media finally begun providing regular coverage of environmental issues.
Thanks to modern globalization, all converging crises are affecting everyone, and everything, so thoughtful individuals are justifiably concerned about how to address such a complicated predicament. It might help to study Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance). Attaining “acceptance” requires time and effort, but it’s the only stage where reality is viewed wholly and truthfully. For certain, it isn’t easy to accept such an unprecedented global predicament. Groups like Post Doom help by providing informational and social opportunities.
The challenges ahead are formidable. In a new world order experiencing a mix of breakdown and disintegration, an essential strategy for a well-informed global populace requires cultivating resilience, beginning with individuals, families, and local communities. With the assistance of reputable socio-ecological sources, we must urgently implement a range of strategies, methods, and techniques aimed at mitigating harmful behaviors, restoring damages, and adapting to a range of “new-normal” socio-ecological living conditions.
As for achieving sustainability, it’s important to first realize that it’s neither likely nor wise trying to sustain the level of material growth and consumption humanity has enjoyed for the past hundred-plus years. If humans wish to survive in the approaching Great Unraveling, it will require accepting and adjusting to limits imposed by finite planetary boundaries. The undervalued degrowth movement offers some sensible approaches, the ultimate goal being to develop a steady-state economy, the only sustainable system capable of functioning within the carrying capacity of our planet’s ecosphere.
The contraction-of-growth perspective is well-documented. And it counters the false-narrative of pronatalist alarmism, which dubiously claims that sustaining a growth-and-consumption global economy requires a growing population of youthful workers to replace retirees and provide care for aging citizens. Unsurprisingly, this specious pronatalist perspective is hyped by individuals, organizations, and institutions intent on sustaining a failing market-based economic system, which richly benefits them to the detriment of most world citizens.
In sum, I concur with prominent socio-ecological experts who believe that a smaller human population will help create a sustainable future. Based on several in-depth studies, population experts estimate an eventual sustainable population might range from one-to-three billion people, with everyone—the entire global population—enjoying a standard of living comparable to the average contemporary European. Getting to such a sweet spot will require replacing the monetary measurement of GDP with GNH, which measures genuine happiness and wellbeing.
Such a future scenario seems acceptable to me, and I hope you agree.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clifton Ware, D.M., emeritus professor (voice), professional singer and author of four published books and two unpublished works, retired in 2007 from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities School of Music, where he taught for 37 years. Since retiring, as a self-described socio-ecological philosopher he has spent 15 years focusing on sustainability issues, in the process of acquiring an evidence-based, big-picture understanding of all principal societal and ecological systems, including the symbiotic interconnections and role of humans as an integral part of Nature. In 2013 he founded Citizens for Sustainability in St. Anthony Village, MN, produced Sustainability News + Views (2014-2019), a weekly newsletter featuring a variety of articles and a commentary, co-composed 13 Eco Songs with his wife, Bettye, organized Sustainability Forums, and performed eco-oriented programs and presentations for several organizations.
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