The Gloaming

 

 

It's time now to prepare for and remember the year-ago promise of Advent with the knowing that forces are coalescing around the globe and in the US which are countermanding the denial and obstruction we see at the highest levels of global climate interaction. Groundwork has been laid, players identified, and industries have begun mobilization.

A year ago, John Kerry, the former senator and secretary of state, formed a new bipartisan coalition of world leaders, military brass and Hollywood celebrities to push for public action to combat climate change.The name, World War Zero, is supposed to evoke both the national security threat posed by the earth’s warming and the type of wartime mobilization that Mr. Kerry argued would be needed to stop the rise in carbon emissions before 2050. The star-studded group is supposed to win over those skeptical of the policies that would be needed to accomplish that. Now, under the nascent Biden administration cabinet, these policies are stirring to life with the appointment of Kerry as special presidential envoy for climate.

This clears the way for the US to rejoin the Paris Agreement of COP21 and establish leadership on building a future of zero carbon with the worldwide community of nations. The number of commitments to reach net zero emissions has doubled in less than a year, with many in the Race to Zero by 2050. According to a report by the Data-Driven EnviroLab and the NewClimate Institute, published during Climate Week NYC, that includes cities and regions covering more than the combined GDP of Japan, India and the UK, and companies with a combined revenue of over $11.4 trillion (equivalent to more than half of the US GDP). This shows that climate action has continued unimpeded by Covid-19. This joins with work in place and underway by the private foundations of Michael Bloomberg, Al Gore and Bill Gates, among many others, that have been focused on seeding efforts to implement carbon neutrality in time to avoid the worst of the impacts of climate change, which is set at a maximum of 1.5C by the Paris Agreement.

The architecture profession, along with the construction industry in the US, has risen to the challenge of implementing the requirements of carbon net zero in its construction practices. The American Institute of Architects (AIA), in concert with Architecture 2030, has incorporated tools and strategies for the industry to begin moving ahead with immediate carbon reduction in its construction materials and practices as well as significant carbon sequestration. The basis for this work is the 2017 Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Volume I, a comprehensive, multi-year scientific analysis under the auspices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Very specifically, this work done by the AIA involves the evolution of its Committee on the Environment (COTE) into an overarching Framework for Design Excellence which guides the design and construction of resilient and carbon neutral projects. This goes beyond the operational carbon reduction used by the US Green Building criteria (LEED) and encompasses embodied carbon as well as water re-use and building electrification. The site and its landscaping are also contributors to carbon absorption.

The goals are that these strategies, as well as a calculation for embodied carbon in a project will bring the construction industry into closer compliance with global carbon emissions requirements. The EC3 tool is the first free tool that allows for supply chain specific analysis of embodied carbon data, utilizing the first searchable and sortable database of all United States and Canadian Environmental Product Declarations for concrete, steel, wood, glass, aluminum, insulation, gypsum, carpet and ceiling tiles.

Because the building sector is currently responsible for 39% of global energy related carbon emissions: 28% from operational emissions, from energy needed to heat, cool and power them, and the remaining 11% from materials and construction, the World Green Building Council has a call to action with the new requirements:

• By 2030, all new buildings, infrastructure and renovations will have at least 40% less embodied carbon with significant upfront carbon reduction, and all new buildings are net zero operational carbon.
• By 2050, new buildings, infrastructure and renovations will have net zero embodied carbon, and all buildings, including existing buildings must be net zero operational carbon. 

So we embark on a new course together with the world community to put actual practices in place for the reduction of carbon emissions to zero and a new sensibility for the value of the natural world no longer at the mercy of GDP economics.

 

Deforestation

 

Carbon sequestration is an important part of the equation for reducing the level of CO2 in the atmosphere in accordance with the Paris Agreement. One aspect of this agreement has just been addressed by California Governor Gavin Newsom. One of the main causes of global climate change is the destruction of natural ecosystems — for example, deforestation and unsustainable land conversion for agriculture. Deforestation destroys 13 million hectares (32 million acres) of forest every year — an area the size of North Carolina — adding more carbon to the atmosphere than the sum total of all the cars and trucks in the world.

California and the U.S. Forest Service have established a shared long-term strategy to manage forests and rangelands, Office of the Governor Reports. This agreement will improve coordination to reduce wildfire risks on federal and state lands. Funding is included in the federal Great American Outdoors Act recently signed on August 4 by the President of the United States. A summary is here.

The press release is as follows:

A historical transition toward unnaturally dense forests, a century of fire suppression and climate change resulting in warmer, hotter and drier conditions have left the majority of California’s forestland highly vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire and in need of active, science-based management. Since the federal government owns nearly 58 percent of California’s 33 million acres of forestlands, while the state owns 3 percent, joint state-federal management is crucial to California’s overall forest health and wildfire resilience.

Improved coordination also is key since nearly half of the state dollars invested in fuels management in recent years was spent on federal land. 

“Wildfires don’t stop at jurisdictional boundaries. As we respond to wildfires in real-time this summer, improving coordination between the major stewards of California’s forested land will help us protect communities and restore forest health across California,” Governor Gavin Newsom said. “We are grateful to secure the U.S. Forest Service’s commitment to help us more effectively address the scale of California’s current wildfire crisis.”

“Collaboration between state and federal agencies on issues of forest health and resiliency is critical,” said U.S. Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen. “The Forest Service is fortunate to collaborate on restoration projects across the state and share science and research to address issues to help care for the land and serve people. We are excited to expand our partnership with California to enhance our collaboration though this Shared Stewardship agreement with California.”

The Shared Stewardship Agreement builds on existing coordination between state and federal agencies, and outlines six core principles and nine specific actions that will drive improved state-federal collaboration.

“In a key step to improve stewardship of California’s forests, the Newsom Administration and the U.S. Forest Service today announced a new joint state-federal initiative to reduce wildfire risks, restore watersheds, protect habitat and biological diversity, and help the state meet its climate objectives.  The Agreement for Shared Stewardship of California’s Forest and Rangelands includes a commitment by the federal government to match California’s goal of reducing wildfire risks on 500,000 acres of forest land per year. To protect public safety and ecology, experts agree that at least one million acres of California forest and wildlands must be treated annually across jurisdictions.

Earth Day 50th

It's discouraging to look back at 50 years of environmental activism (an entire lifetime!) and see how little has been accomplished in spite of the overwhelming emergency that we're faced with in ecological destruction. The result of endless growth vectors in human culture and economics carried out in trade, the industrial carbon emissions over the last 200 years has finally impacted our planet in devastating ways. With no constraints on growth, a violation of natural processes and structures, human civilization has overrun the natural checks and balances that kept the planetary cycles in balance. But in the end there's always a reckoning because, well, physics.

Sierra Club recaps these issues in an interview with Dennis Hayes. "Fifty years later, we have different environmental challenges, some much larger, most notably global climate change. Despite the existential threat of climate change, today countries are rolling back environmental protections, failing to live up to the Paris Agreement and dragging their feet on climate action. Meanwhile, the environmental movement has gained momentum, thanks in no small part to an infusion of energy and outrage from the youth climate movement."

As described in Nature magazine, a new synthesis shows what a wasted decade means for the climate pact made in Paris. "In global climate projections, no single model can predict the future, and such analyses by necessity exclude the most recent developments. Nevertheless, it is clear that, collectively, current policies will not limit global warming to well below 2 °C, let alone 1.5 °C, as agreed in Paris. Clearly, the annual audit of the emissions gap has not altered poor performance. The gap concept has nonetheless proved useful. The reports and numbers have continuously informed the UN climate summits and the emissions gap was noted as a serious concern when parties were adopting the Paris agreement." This article includes a chart demonstrating the impact of this process.

Aubrey Meyer of GCI has continually emphasized that the global rate of the rise of temperature & CO2 concentrations is determined by the global contraction rate/weight/date of the future global CO2 emissions budget. An international carbon-sharing strategy is essential for UNFCCC-compliance if we are seriously risk-averse. "A lot of valuable time has been completely wasted over the last 25 years when total annual CO2 output was around 7Gt C/year. As it is now ~14 Gt C & temperature looks likely to be taken over the 2° C threshold, the situation is now obviously urgent." Insufficient climate action during the past decade means that transformational development pathways are now required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on time to meet the 1.5C Paris target.

Strategies for addressing this have been put forth. For example, Rocky Mountain Institute has proposed Decarbonization and Debt Forgiveness: A Path Forward. "A simple debt forgiveness approach can help industries and workers feeling economic pain now and build toward a more sustainable, low-emissions future."

Important legal precedents are being set in UK and US courts. The recent UK decision against allowing another runway to be constructed at Heathrow is a moment of truth. "That’s why the ruling sets such a powerful precedent, both in the UK and beyond. The message has gone out loud and clear that governments can no longer do what they’ve been doing for decades: claiming to be serious about tackling the climate crisis while marching us headlong towards disaster."

The recent impact of the coronavirus pandemic as well as a trade war in oil has produced an enormous shock to the fossil fuel industry. It has completely changed future projections for the industry, and has had had an immediate impact on its viability as an investment vehicle, as outlined in the article, The Beginning of the End for Oil?

It appears that the entire global population is facing a pivot point in which the need for serious, drastic climate action is clear to most people and governments now. One can only hope that this opportunity is not wasted as well.

Bending the Arc of Justice

From the inspiration of Earth Day in the writings and activism of Rachel Carson in her epic Silent Spring documentation to the present-day confrontational actions between the corporate power of profit versus the Extinction Rebellion - portrayed in the graphic above from FT - we have seen Earth Day evolve extensively from its first recognition in 1970. During that time, we have seen 24 COP's come and go; the first COP was held in Berlin in 1995.

The 25th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25) to the UNFCCC was to take place from 11-22 November 2019 in Brazil. Upon election as President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro pulled Brazil out of hosting the event. So now the Santiago Climate Change Conference, which will feature the 25th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25) to the UNFCCC and meetings of the UNFCCC subsidiary bodies, is expected to take place from 2-13 December 2019.

This reflects the global turbulence among countries, governments and corporate powers that are all staking a claim on planet earth, resulting in a human-induced crisis of resources, humanity and the very life systems of our environment. In the last few hundred years we've gone beyond our natural limits and show no signs of stopping carbon emissions in spite of all the agreements and discussions to date. Hence, the increasing tragedy of future environmental collapse, and the resistance personified by children like Greta and the powerful counter movements emerging as the alarms are set off by more and more people seeing an unfolding terrible, dark future.

According to a NYTimes report, more carbon has been released into the atmosphere since the final day of the Noordwijk conference, Nov. 7, 1989, than in the entire history of civilization preceding it. In 1990, humankind emitted more than 20 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. By 2017, the figure had risen to 32.5 billion metric tons, a record. Despite every action taken since the Charney report — the billions of dollars invested in research, the nonbinding treaties, the investments in renewable energy — the only number that counts, the total quantity of global greenhouse gas emitted per year, has continued its inexorable rise.

Like the scientific story, the political story hasn’t changed greatly, except in its particulars. Even some of the nations that pushed hardest for climate policy have failed to honor their own commitments. When it comes to our own nation, which has failed to make any binding commitments whatsoever, the dominant narrative for the last quarter century has concerned the efforts of the fossil-fuel industries to suppress science, confuse public knowledge and bribe politicians.

Because our destructive, profit-focused economic system demands a fiction called GDP that requires physical consumption to increase the ledger sheet balance, the system inherently grows out of control as the markets are expanded. Destroying the environment that provides our life support is a form of insanity that leads to collapse, and that is increasingly recognized now by people all over the world, as well as by governments and the insurance industry. A view delineating this is: Collapse of Industrial Civilization ~ Finding the Truth behind the American Hologram Concerning Humanity’s Future: Interview with Nick Humphrey, Climatologist and Geoscientist. Nick makes the critical point that Nature is in control, not humans. Even our current catastrophes which were sparked by humanity’s activities were ultimately governed by the laws of Nature (physics, thermodynamics, chemistry, etc). We never were separate from it all, but a part of it. We should be telling ourselves to do what we feel is right to respect Nature and its unbreakable laws, accepting our place in the Universe as just one of many species which have a finite existence on this planet.

The enormous effort that it will take for the all the civilizations of the world to stop the self-destruction and change the entire system in time to stave off the worst impacts appear to be unachievable at this point, especially given the rise of demagogues and rampant corruption in many countries, including the US, that block even the efforts by corporations and individuals to change this systemic self-destruction. We have reached our day of reckoning, which was actually five years ago with the issuance of the IPCC's AR5 fifth assessment report, Part 2, ahead of the Paris Climate Summit.

As Chris Hays put it, Martin Luther King's idea that the moral universe inherently bends towards justice is inspiring. ... "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." It means that all of us together will have to bend it with revolutionary fervor, not just foster incremental steps. The time has come, even as the natural world inflicts its wrath upon our efforts to salvage a future for ourselves and our kids.

Update 4/23/19: It’s Not Coming, It’s Here: Bill McKibben on Our New Climate Reality

Update 4/24/19: Club of Rome Climate Emergency Plan (pdf file)

Update 6/29/19: Bonn wrap-up: Shifting the levers of power toward climate justice.

Update 9/24/19: Former Governor Jerry Brown launches California-China Climate Institute.  More on that here.

Denial

The blaze that erupted in London's Grenfeld Tower in June of 2017, resulting in the utter destruction of the structure inasmuch as its steel framework remained standing, is under examination by the government as well as media sources. The search for blame for the inferno resulting from cheap exterior cladding has unearthed a disingenuous claim by the Daily Mail that environmental requirements were the cause of the faulty design, as cited by the Carbon Brief analysis published in The Guardian.

"On page eight is a full-page commentary from Ross Clark, sitting under the headline question: “So did an obsession with green targets lead to inferno?” Clark, who has published various climate sceptic articles and written a book attacking regulations he believes to be “strangling” the UK."

The 2012 planning documents cited by the Daily Mail – and studied by Carbon Brief – show that its reporting of their content to be highly selective and misleading, per the article. This amounts to another systematic attempt to deconstruct environmental regulations with the critique that they are onerous and lead to dangerous building structures. This kind of position could only be taken if one dismisses the facts of the matter, which are that the retrofit did not include fire sprinklers, and that a non-flammable exterior was available for an additional few thousand pounds. It's actually a result of willful disregard for life safety because of cost issues, not environmental issues.

In fact, the position of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in their report on Grenfell is an emphasis on maintaining professional competency in the engineering profession with even more oversight of design and construction approaches in the building industry.

A documentary film by Jamie Roberts points directly at the impact of pro-business policies which have permitted these kinds of fires to continue to happen over the last half century:

"The Fires that Foretold Grenfell, a well-researched, powerful documentary, is essential viewing for anyone seeking to understand the causes of and background to the June 2017 Grenfell fire tragedy. It includes harrowing interviews with survivors of five fires across the UK over a span of 45 years, their families and firefighters.

It demonstrates that the inferno which claimed 72 lives was not an accident, but a social crime. It was the result of the pro-big business policies of successive governments which ignored the lessons of five tragic fires, resulting in many avoidable deaths."

This form of denial obviously needs to be thoroughly debunked before it becomes accepted as some kind of talking point, as it's clearly fueled by disinformation put out by the fossil fuel industry which supports people who say things like this. It is at the root of the obstruction of the necessary decarbonization of our built environment and energy production. Not only that, this kind of denial serves to confuse the issues and bury the facts in deliberate misinformation about physics and building construction.

For example, this fire is typical of what happens to steel structures that are fully engulfed in major fires; the building materials are consumed, but the steel frames remain intact. And yet another denial tries to construct an alternate reality about these kinds of structures in The 9/11 Commission Report and other reports by the NIST, which have been deconstructed by the 9/11 Consensus Panel, based upon further evidence obtained in many sources as well as accurate engineering analyses. This has been published in the book, 9/11 Unmasked, which points out that no other high rises have ever been structurally destroyed by fire. The Twin Towers came down at the speed of gravity on their footprints, which points straight at a demolition scenario in order to create a "Pearl Harbor" event.

As has been established extensively in the press, this event was used as a pretext for the Bush administration to instigate wars in the middle east on behalf of their Arab allies in order to procure further fossil fuel resources. Thus denial comes full circle as a tool in its deliberate destruction of human lives and our environment on an almost unimaginable scale of annihilation. That it may lead to the extinction of life on our planet by the end of this century is a responsibility that is shirked by the oil industry in its rapacious efforts to protect its profits.

Update 11/9/18: Bill McKibben - Up Against Big Oil in the Midterms

Update 11/14/18:  There is a huge fight by the fossil fuel industry against cheap renewables.

Update 11/24/18: Hunter Lovins - Capitalism v. Ecological Economics in a Hotter World

Update 12/9/18: Large coal holdings investments are held by some of the world’s largest pension funds

Update 3/2/19: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are quietly helping Big Oil destroy the climate.

Update 10/8/19:  The money behind the climate denial movement

Update 4/3/20:  University of Alaska Fairbanks WTC 7 Final Report

Cause and Effect

 The flux of corporeal existence arises from the harmonics of the interactions of everything in the physical world and its energetic structures. The principles of the constructive, anti-entropic processes require that all systems fully account for the energies of mass, motion and light across vast distances that may not actually exist in other dimensions. Living systems operate in this fabric of existence at a scale that reflects the molecular building blocks of DNA strands that emerge as growing organic structures that interact in this system. But a reductionist view is unable to see this.

At its very basic level, "Every action has equal and opposite reaction, acting on two different bodies", which is Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion in his "Principia Mathematica" of 1686. It describes the physical world very well, and until Einstein came along with his theory of special relativity (1905) along with investigating quantum mechanics, these basic concepts prevailed in the Western world.

This kind of understanding in the conscious, energetic realm is reflected in the Buddhist 12 Laws of Karma, including: "Everything in the universe is connected". This is characteristic of all religions, generally assigning this connection to a higher being or form of consciousness that is fundamental to positive outcomes, such as "the mind of the creator". This takes us beyond the simplistic mechanistic views of our post-industrialist civilization and ironically points us towards the findings of quantum mechanics.

There is a new emphasis on this "unified field" approach to the human responsibilities involved with our habitation in our environment. On Care for Our Common Home (Laudato Si') is the fresh appeal from Pope Francis addressed to "every person living on this planet" for an inclusive dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. Pope Francis calls the Church and the world to acknowledge the urgency of our environmental challenges and to join him in embarking on a new path. He emphasizes that the climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all, and not be subject to the destruction driven by capitalism and corporate global commerce. He's in the Peruvian Amazon right now, and has excoriated the “throwaway culture” that wastes lives and despoils the land. “Gold ... can turn into a false god that demands human sacrifices,” the pope said. “False gods, the idols of avarice, money and power, corrupt everything. They corrupt people and institutions, and they ruin the forest.”

From Gary Hall, a former comedy writer and fierce progressive, past Dean of the Washington National Cathedral (Episcopal) - "America's Church" - and now a pastor in Los Angeles: "Our very environment is changing before our eyes. The folly of our human exploitation of nature is finally catching up with us. The climate change we have brought about through our selfish activity turns out to have real consequences for real people and the real world in the here and now."

Among other things, the backlash to environmental destruction is growing, and people of all beliefs across the planet are becoming open to aligning with natural processes and disposing of fossil fuel energy in order to stop burning carbon and quit trashing our planetary ecosystems with plastic refuse.

Understanding the necessity for reducing the human impact on nature is widespread now, and its solution is a congruence with organic growth. Aubrey Meyer has discussed this in depth in his developed principles behind the well-tempered framework of Contraction and Convergence. This is a proposed framework for the implementation by the UNFCCC which is grounded in the organic structure of Phi, a fundamental reality of the natural world. Its adoption would be a crucial step in the means by which humanity curtails its destructive characteristics and resonates in tune with sustainable ecology.

Update 1/21/18: That Was Easy: In Just 60 Years, Neoliberal Capitalism Has Nearly Broken Planet Earth

Update 1/22/18: Fossil fuel energy sources are the problem

Update 1/23/18: The unexpected math behind Van Gogh's "Starry Night"

Update 1/25/18:  And so where did it come from? Carl Sagan, in "Cosmos" Episode 10 clip (1980) and Cosmic Calendar: We have a choice. We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self destruction.

Update 2/9/18: Panpsychism: Could the force be with us?

Update 7/7/18:  Pope Francis calls for people power ahead of climate summit in San Francisco on Sept. 12 - 14

A Fair Consensus

In support of the Contraction and Convergence submission to the UN Climate Negotiations (UNFCCC) in February of this year by Aubrey Meyer (in video above, click to play) of the Global Commons Institute, I'm dedicating this post to the implementation of its framework. Many other signatories to this submission are listed here.

This climate agreement model is a very transparent and fair methodology for setting the framework for convergence of carbon emission containment and regenerative ecological habitation by all countries. It is a very clear and rational approach based upon per capita allowances. It's a necessary step because the timeline to reduce human carbon emissions to zero is only 50 years, due to recent documented changes in the climate system.

Double-Jeopardy of unsustainable growth of human population demands and concomitant increased costs of climate damage is a very clear risk model, and it's shared by every country on the globe. It's the limit to growth problem, and the methods by which this risk is contained are grounded in the rapid evolution of renewable energy, conservation and ecological recovery. These things are eminently doable, as is evidenced by the rapid development of net-zero strategies by the building industry, and the capability for rapid energy production transformation as outlined by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Many regional projects around the globe have already regenerated their rivers, forests and resources as part of their development.

The costs of the impact of climate change, as the financial community has observed through its re-insurers, are running well ahead of rate of growth of the global economy. This creates destructive economic as well as physical vectors and generates a future of great uncertainty for all countries. Destabilization of climate, food and water supplies, energy and resources come as an ultimate price of unchecked growth, placing this huge cost upon every country on the planet. Thus the argument that carbon emissions can continue going forward is shown to be utterly destructive to all human societies and living systems by the projections in this model.

Therefore the choice is not whether to agree, but how swiftly this method needs to be put into place. The sooner it is achieved, the better the future is for all countries, and the damage to human life, as well as to all life and ecological systems can be minimized both economically and in terms of resources.

This is a shift in the idea that human existence requires continuous expansion; rather it focuses on the quality of life on earth and the idea that a less mechanistic existence requires fewer resources and fosters the regeneration of that which supports life for all. Human suffering and extinction of natural processes are not rational choices under this model, which is something that can be agreed to in principle very quickly by all countries; the stakes are clear.

How this is achieved is left up to individual countries and fostered by ability of low-emission countries to create value for their renewal strategies and low carbon levels. This creates an incentive game where this value is sought after, thus creating a market for non-emission of carbon. It's the inverse of how fossil-fueled capitalism works now, but uses the same kind of fiscal incentives, and creates an entire new paradigm for human existence within the natural world that stabilizes the future and allows the earth to regenerate.

Regeneration

The idea that human habitation can be used as a tool to regenerate ecology is finally coming into its own after experimentation with projects all over the world. It's not a zero-sum game, it's a way of bringing together all the environmental and engineering factors together in a place such that it renews natural processes instead of destroying them. It takes a great deal of skill, knowledge and experience to work out the systems that result in the creation of place that interconnects all these factors. Many major corporate engineering, design and development firms are investing in think tanks to take this to the next level, such as Arup, a global design, planning and engineering firm.

Jerry Yudelson's moderation of a panel at Greenbuild 2011, hosted by the Green Building Council in Toronto, centered on a discussion of Ecodistricts. An ‘ecodistrict’ is an urban planning term for a specific section of an urban area, whether a neighborhood, school campus, industrial park, etc. that can operate as a self-contained and self-sufficient entity, while remaining connected to other adjacent ecodistricts. This concept is widely used throughout Europe and parts of Asia, but is still relatively unknown here in North America. The ecodistrict concept brings technologies such as district heating, decentralized wastewater treatment, and local food production down to a manageable scale, both for construction and financing.

Howver, many of our college, university and school campuses in the USA are designed with this fundamental concept as a basis for infrastructure design because of the efficiencies involved. The use of ecology as part of its inherent function is the more advanced and recent application of the "green" ethos. Shared resources and local sourcing go beyond just the idea of energy conservation or LEED buildings, since systems and supply chains are integrated with biological systems to regenerate the local ecology. Major firms have developed this expertise, for example the Bioengineering Group, which is entirely about solving these kinds of challenges.

Urban areas are capable of tremendous regeneration, as well as becoming a node for this kind of intelligence in managing ecologies for the better. These nodes of density can also be nodes of regeneration given that the systems are synergistic and balance off of each other. The World Futures Council has developed an outline policy that can be used as a template for this kind of organic, metabolic pattern of habitation.

Thus regeneration is necessarily the paradigm of the future, and it doesn't need to be a bleak vision of dense boxes and rigid limits. Life is abundant if it is handled intelligently and reverently, something our mechanistic societies have taken thousands of years to figure out. Limits are the fount of creative thinking and living, and decisions made by a society for its best integration with natural systems and bounds will provide the needed resources and balance with natural environments. Our best engineers and designers are entirely capable of creating these systems if the will to make regeneration a priority exists in our societies.