The Goal: Cosmic Purpose or Self-Annihilation ?
In the context of the Earth Overshoot Day graph in my last post this CO2 emissions graph below, from a recent New Republic report, shows the value of useful ‘Information’ versus, less useful, ‘Data’:
The graphs look almost identical but the Earth Overshoot Day graph in my previos post helps me see ‘The Goal’ and the size of ‘Our Challenge’ to get to ‘The Goal’. Whereas the Emissions graph above merely shows the trend in GTons of C02 Emissions, and I can’t really take anything else that’s useful for me? I could maybe even conclude that 20 tons back in 2000 is ‘The goal’?!
One of the biggest ‘failures’ in the UN / Global approach to Climate Change is the single focus on emissions, and parts per million of CO2 etc, and taking that into the debate on “What is an acceptable planet temperature rise we humans can withstand, with least inconvenience?”
I’m a chemical engineer so understand all this tons CO2, ppm stuff, but ‘we’ can’t relate this to ‘What this means, what ‘we’ can do?’ “How serious is this?” and “What is morally / ethically is right for Humanity”?
Finally: The Problem ‘We’ have today is not about temperature rise, or just about CO2 emissions, it’s about the size of our Total Take from Nature: Water, land, fish, forests, and all its eco diversity.
Everything we ‘use’ in our lives ultimately comes from Nature, The Ecological Footprint measures this ‘all’, and surely his should be Our interest, and Our concern?
The Global Footprint Network does a fantastic job of taking data and making it relevant and understandable information for all of us, and so I’ll focus on their Earth Overshoot Day graph: Below, I have added some more ‘information’ to the graph from the previous post: The ‘Three Red Arrows’:
The ‘Three Red Arrows‘ show, the only three times in the last 50 years, where we have managed to reverse the alarming Earth Overshoot Day rollout. Ie: Times when we were able to reduce our, ‘Way over Demand‘, draw on Nature’s bio-generative resources.
If “Everything we ‘use’ in our lives ultimately comes from Nature“, it’s clear to me that we humans are ‘designed’ with a instinct ‘Cosmic Purpose‘: To ensure we don’t overuse what can’t be regenerated, and thus live within One Planet’s natural resources. That ‘Purpose‘ not just for our collective Own Good, but also as a rule for being a collaboartive part of Nature‘s cosmic system !
Like the salmon and all other creatures who have their clear instinct purpose, surely this is our deepest, Human ‘Instinct’ drive?
As humans, we were give the Rational Capability to choose our own course of life, but do we really have total freedom in this choice, or is this Purpose our conditional freedom?
‘On Purpose‘ in the context of that cosmic design means we HAVE to get back to a Jan 1 Zero Overshoot Day Goal?
It’s easy to feel helpless in the crowd and diversity of humanity, but ultimately we are part of that humanity, and isn’t it just about ensuring our soul is at one with that cosmic Human Purpose?
After years of exploration with others, I’m beginning to accept that not many human beings on Earth see that Earth Overshoot Day is linked to our deepest Human Purpose?
Further: I have concluded that this is largely because of the distraction of human created Money and the pervasive controlling role it plays in all our lives.
From the both the Earth Overshoot Day graph, and the orange path in the graph above, it’s clear that back ‘On Purpose‘ would be something like a 70% reduction in the size of our collective demand on Nature’s resources, today.
The good news is that those ‘Three Red Arrows‘ offer real hope and clues.
Maybe, like so many I meet you are on the verge on helplessness? They see the problem, but they also see that they inextricably are part of ‘THE System‘, and that System is causing all this?
I can totally empathisize with this helplessness, I fight it ‘everyday’ myself.
But don’t we all essentially have our ‘Own System‘, and the extent to which that ‘Own System‘ mimics ‘THE System‘ will determine how personally Free or personally Imprisoned and helpless we become?
At the heart of ‘THE System‘ is human created Money, and in the next post I’ll explore how this human Money is linked to the ‘Three Red Arrows’ on the Earth Overshoot Day graph above!
