It’s Time To Talk About Ecological Overshoot

Aventurine’s challenge: Can we give up our addiction to convenience in a package, unbridled consumption, always the new tech device, and endless toxic media?

Elisabeth Robson, you are a genius. Your article, “Why Are We Not Talking About Ecological Overshoot?”, inspired me beyond words. You’re right. It’s time we talk about it.

Dear reader, if you’re not familiar with the concept of ecological overshoot and the planetary boundaries framework, take the time now to read Elisabeth’s article (link at the end).

Here’s my response. First, WTF? Why are we not talking about it? Fellow humans, this is not good, right?

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and ingesting of social media lately. There’s some great news out there, but it’s hard to find. Most of the climate change narrative feels misplaced on the negative; on the surface, it looks like it’s about creating fear but not take meaningful action. What I’ve seen makes me feel like we don’t have enough people yet who get that it’s beyond time to take action. Are there only a few of us who see and feel the danger of our situation?

One might say I’m in no position to judge. I mean, if I’m honest, I’ve been asleep at the wheel most of my life, lulled into a stupor through the wealth and privilege granted to me by our consumer civilization. But I can’t deny it any longer. I’m wondering how many others there are like me who recognize that we can no longer deny this.

The way I see it, we’re in this together. And it’s time for us to take collective action. Mother Earth is calling out to us for our help. She’s crying out to us, She can’t take much more. Will we answer the call?

The actions of those of you in power — I’m not going to name you, you know who you are — indicate you see this as an opportunity to secure future economic and political power. Let’s get real.

Granted, you are spearheading some solutions. It’s great that you’re championing global investment efforts. But the primary proposition — implementing global systems to control carbon as you race to build more AI data centers, EVs, robots, and alternative energy infrastructure that only provides intermittent power, all of which requires massive materials mining using fossil fuels — isn’t going to get it done.

Carbon is not our biggest risk. And yes, we all see it… you’re giving yourselves a pass through then purchase of carbon offsets and credits. There’s a growing body of evidence that says your solutions are not dealing with the the most dangerous problems fast enough to avert disaster. One need look no further that Substack (Medium) for that evidence.

I have questions for all of humanity. The clock is ticking. Our days appear to be numbered. Are we ready to see what’s happening? Are we ready wake up now? Can we give up our addiction to convenience in a package, unbridled consumption, always the new tech device, and endless toxic media? Will we do it in time to prevent the sixth mass extinction from wiping out most life on the planet, including our own?

These are the things I worry about. I see what we’re doing and it upsets me. All day, every day, and every night, I ask myself, what can I do about this? What can we do?

For what little difference I might make, I’m going to write about it. Here’s what I see:

• We have existing technologies that can and are helping.
• It’s time to deploy them at a global scale as fast as humanly possible.
• Yeah yeah I know, it must be a calm and orderly transition, and it will take time.
• There is no more time to wait. We gotta move. We’ve overshot six of the nine planetary boundaries. Ocean acidification is fast approaching the boundary. If we lose the oceans, it’s over.

Here’s my initial plan. A series of articles to cover how we’ve violated or are about to violate the nine planetary boundaries defined by the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University:

1. Novel entities
2. Biosphere integrity
3. Biogeochemical flows
4. Climate change
5. Freshwater change
6. Land-system change
7. Ocean acidification
8. Atmospheric aerosol loading
9. Stratospheric ozone depletion

For each boundary, I’ll shine a spotlight on what brave humans around the world are doing to address it. I know of some already. Through my research, I hope to find more solutions, proven in the real world, that we can scale up to help answer the call from Mother Earth.

And while we’re at it, let’s add a tenth boundary. One that’s near and dear to my heart. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated overfishing. Heartbreaking. This is out of control. Have you seen what’s going on here? Search “factory fishing super trawlers 2024“ for examples.

I have to tell you one more thing. Hoping this won’t deter you from taking my work seriously. I’m going to use AI to help me organize the facts and tell the story. I’ll let you know when I do. It’s time we use every tactic and technology at our disposal. Generative AI saves massive time in research.

Will you join me, fellow human? Let’s come together and do what’s right. Right now.

Love, Aventurine

Why are we not talking about Ecological Overshoot?