Do We Want to Reverse the Ecological Crisis or Not?
We Must First Invent a Complete Process for Reversing the Ecological Crisis
Do we want to go to the moon or not? – John Houbolt
When John F. Kennedy declared in 1961 that:
… this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth …
… he was setting a “seemingly-impossible goal” because, in the words of NASA Flight Director Chris Kraft:
When Kennedy asked us to do that in 1961, it was impossible.
In 1961, landing a man on the moon was a seemingly-impossible goal because the aerospace technology for “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth” did not exist.
The aerospace technology did not exist because it had not yet been invented.
Today, reversing the Ecological Crisis as a whole is a seemingly-impossible goal because a process for achieving that goal does not exist.[1]
A process for reversing the Ecological Crisis does not exist because it has not yet been invented.
To land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth, the people of that day had to invent two processes for achieving that seemingly-impossible goal.
First, they had to invent a complete process for landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.
Second, they had to invent a process for inventing the specific technological advances required for the complete process of landing a man on the moon.
Just as the people of 1961 had to invent two processes for landing a man on the moon, so must we invent two processes for reversing the Ecological Crisis as a whole.
First, we have to invent a complete process for reversing the Ecological Crisis as a whole.
Second, we have to invent a process through which people everywhere make specific decisions and take specific actions required for the complete process of reversing the Ecological Crisis.
In this article, you will learn how the complete process that was invented for landing a man on the moon serves as a model for a complete process for reversing the Ecological Crisis.
To land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth, the people of 1961 first had to invent a complete process for doing that.
The complete process they invented was something called Lunar Orbit Rendezvous:[2],[3]
Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. … In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a lunar lander travel to lunar orbit. The lunar lander then independently descends to the surface of the Moon, while the main spacecraft remains in lunar orbit. After completion of the mission there, the lander returns to lunar orbit to rendezvous and re-dock with the main spacecraft, then is discarded after transfer of crew and payload. Only the main spacecraft returns to Earth.[4]
The people of 1961 had to first invent the complete process of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous for landing a man on the moon before they could invent a process for inventing the specific technological advances -- the Mercury missions, the Gemini missions and the Apollo missions -- required for landing a man on the moon.
Just as the people of 1961 had to first invent a complete process of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous for landing a man on the moon, so must we first invent a complete process for reversing the Ecological Crisis as a whole.
Inventing such a complete process for reversing the Ecological Crisis might look like:
First, an understanding that …
… the biosphere organizes itself in living networks, and these living networks are inherently regenerative, creative and intelligent …
… the biosphere thinks and decides and operates on an extremely simple principle of meeting the physical needs of all living beings, including human beings, and …
… the biosphere as a whole (including its human beings) possesses the creativity, the intelligence and the regenerative capacity for reversing the Ecological Crisis as a whole.
Second, an understanding that …
… human decision-making for meeting human physical needs (in turquoise) is creating exponentially-growing things-we-extract flows[5] and pollution flows[6] (in orange) that are damaging the biosphere’s capacity (in deep green) for meeting the physical needs of all living beings, including human beings, and …
… this damage to the biosphere is showing up as the sum of nine planet-scale ecological crises (the “Ecological Crisis”) created by humanity’s “overshoot” of “planetary boundaries” …
Third, invention of a complete process through which …
… people everywhere make specific decisions and take specific actions for meeting their human physical needs (in turquoise) that scale back the things-we-extract flows and pollution flows (in orange) …
… and, at the same time, keep intact the things-we-extract flows (in orange) and things-we-use flows[7] (in white) for meeting every human being’s physical needs …
… which allows the biosphere (in deep green) to regenerate itself as a whole …
… and allows the creativity, intelligence and regenerative capacity of the biosphere as a whole to reverse the Ecological Crisis as a whole …
… and allows the biosphere to meet the physical needs of all its living beings, including its human beings, as a whole …
Do we want to reverse the Ecological Crisis or not?
Just as the people of 1961 had to first invent a complete process of Lunar Orbit Rendezvous for landing a man on the moon, so must we first invent a complete process for reversing the Ecological Crisis as a whole.
In the next article, you will learn how the process of inventing specific technological advances for landing a man on the moon serves as a model for a process through which people everywhere make specific decisions and take specific actions for reversing the Ecological Crisis.
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Peace and Aloha!
Erik
P.S. I cross-posted this article on Medium for greater reach.
[1] My article, “What if the Planet is Trying to Save Us?” lists problem-solving disciplines that have not yet invented a workable process for reversing the Ecological Crisis.
[2] Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was chosen from among three complete processes for getting to the moon:
Direct Ascent – blast straight off the ground on a direct path to the lunar surface and return the same way;
Earth-Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) – launch two rockets into Earth orbit, refuel and assemble the spacecraft, and then take the entire craft to the moon;
Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) – launch one rocket towards lunar orbit and land a small lander on the lunar surface while the remaining spacecraft stayed in orbit.
[3] The story of how Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was invented for landing a man on the moon is told in this NASA article, “60 years ago: NASA Decides on Lunar Orbit Rendezvous for Moon Landing.”
[4] From Wikipedia: Lunar orbit rendezvous
[5] Things-we-extract flows include flows of things like forests, fresh water, wildlife, soils and minerals.
[6] Pollution flows include flows of things like greenhouse gas emissions; aerosol pollutants like smoke, dust & sulfates; synthetic pollutants like herbicides, pesticides & microplastics; ozone-depleting gases; and phosphorus & nitrogen pollutants.
[7] Things-we-use flows include flows of things like energy, water, materials & chemicals, food & fiber and manufactures & structures.