A community of Earth System scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Centre asked a powerful question: How do we define a safe operating space for humanity with all that is currently known about the Earth’s various systems? They determined that there are there are nine critical thresholds that together define a safe operating space for humanity: biosphere integrity, climate change, land-system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion, and one other catch-all category for unimagined risks. If we cross any one of these thresholds, it could be Game Over for humanity. And by some estimates, we have already crossed four of them.
Enter Joe Brewer. He has written a book called The Design Pathway for Regenerating Earth that addresses the intentional application of knowledge and tools to create solutions for regenerating living systems, feasible methods for getting all nine boundary dynamics back within acceptable limits. Joe does admit this is a gargantuan task and one that will require working through inner grief and trauma while experiencing the already occurring effects of planetary collapse.
Enter Bill Pfeiffer (Sky Otter), a dear friend, who as much as anyone I know, is doing something about changing our inner attitude about how to engage with the Earth, to engage with wildness, to live an ecstatic life in harmony and balance with all there is. His method for enacting change has been to design Wild Earth Intensives that bring people into sacred community and provide a microcosm for a future sustainable society. I wanted to bring these two guests together to represent both the outer and inner solutions for the seemingly intractable ecological challenges we now face. Join us as we explore "Restoring Health to Our Planet" on the Circle for Original Thinking podcast.