Can we be made accountable to Gaia?

Introduction: This entry assumes that suprasystems are not presently constituted or constrained to act in the interests of natural systems. If there is an overlap of planned impacts and benefit to habitats or ecosystems it is always in a manner distorted by human exploitation. This point of view requires that internal restucturing and external repurposing be accomplished so that Gaia will always have a seat [and have a powerful {veto? vote] at the suprasystem's planning and evaluating tables.

While Gaia is the containing system, seemingly quite bounded yet not closed [energic and material input, output through its boundaries]-- it's contained subsystems are huge and have separating boundaries that vary with circumstance and have energy, material and information exchanges that are dynamic.

Diagnosis... (a)human multiplication and (b) human use of nonreplaceables have a combined effect : moving Gaia to a state of high entropy and lowered ability to self-repair [More appropriate system speak here needed]. In plain language: unless we [the set of all human systems, suprasystems etc] dramatically alter our present tendencies it seems easy to see that we make the earth uninhabitable by people [except in dramatically lowered numbers living in conditions of considerably higher threat and lesser quality] or, worse, rendered uninhabitable by intelligent life.

It also appears to be true that all human suprasystems pursue ends that make it more likely that such a future becomes real. That is, unless gaian health as a whole and in her subsystems are part of the core planning of all human systems , in a way that its never been before, then our present actions will continue to devolve the planet for humans and for higher forms of life.

All of that is still background.

What I would like to review, summarize, preview or invent is the family of sets of techniques that get systems to include ecosensitivity as a strong determiner of actions. Instead of providing "The theory of supra system limitation" [or the like] I'll describe a particular vision and note how it might help to serve the purposes I have argued need serving.

Let me describe, [I have to limit myself to painting in bold strokes her] what is meant to be a major intervention for that purpose. This is what it amounts to: a) the creation of an instantaneous and comprehensive link to Gaian ecological subsystems which allows analysis of present health and the projection of future health based on proposed human action and b) the creation of the human infrastructure to build, maintain and use such a system and c) the creation of information and action links with the general society.

This amounts to adding a created linkage between Gaia and human action. We have linkages of all sorts already ... but as members of ecosystems ... top link predators who were subject to the limits of birth rate, death rate, competition and material availability in spatially bounded ecosystems until relatively recently, in geological time terms. However, we have, in this age of technology and industrialization and now in the information age diminshed our natural connections to [and limitations by] nature; thus our limits are mainly those that other humans or our communities place on us. We must self-limit in order to avoid destroying the systems that house, and feed us.

So we have to insert what Gaia hasn't had the chance to yet create. A means of limiting human system action before a suprasystem or even Gaian collapse is eventually provoked by our actions. In short, I have called this giving Gaia a voice in all of human action.

The information system I am describing would allow us to directly query 'Gaia'about present and future consequences of any level of human action; in short we would be able to ask what would happen, to our ecological setting [at any level of specificity or generality] if we did thus and so. 'How is Gaia doing as we do thus and so in Anderson Valley", that is "What are present consequences and future likelihoods and how would each be modified if we change if we did X".

Beyond that I would propose that not only must we create such an 'oracle' but that we must, through human institutions, strongly insist that all human action be accountable to such oracular analysis of the consequences of individual or collective actions. That we artificially insert some strong controls on individual and collective action which limit the likelihood of ecological damage.

Give Gaia a human interface, make it universally accessible and modifiy human supra systems to require responsibility for Gaian consequences. That productivity or profit margin have been 'intolerably' constrained are empty arguments for certain consequences, even if made by a suprasystem, and no suprasystem can contravene such an oracular pronouncement. It would be considered criminal to do so and justice would be swift and effective.

For now this is the vision that is available to me. How do we move from an ineffective EPA and a Natural Resource system that is pimping for the big extractors and harvesters and from post hoc whining about consequences to such a gaia-bound set up.

First we create: gaia's data network.

The concern here is with the nature of self-limitation for big systems. My ultimate aim will be that large human systems change in a timely and effective manner.

For starters, let's say that like Goldstein we believe that there are dynamic huge systems with 'Gaia' being his term for the Earth system. Huge systems do change, grow, stagnate, die. [Though the hugest, Gaia, though not closed seems convincingly and permanently bounded] Change in a system is a result, ultimately, of change in the nature of its relationship with its environment. Example from last Wednesday's [midweek anyway] news: the huge spruce forests of the Kenai Penninsula in Alaska. Spruce's evidently have evolved a chemical control of beetles which limits damage to sublethal level. But, with gloabal warming giving Alaska a warm summer which extends the breeding season and activity time of the beetles.. the damage is no longer sublethal. The trees are dying and/or dead and the forest is about to be a stand of dead trees. In short -- some changes aren't enough to protect a system and it dies. In this case the death of the of the forests may be directly attributed to the collective actions of man-- global warming due to excessive masses of greenhouse gases.

So -- we've come to the consequence of non self-limitation. This is just the beginning. And, at this point, we're just jawboneing [this note included].

How do we get intelligent, survival-oriented redirection on the part of the human supra-system. It is a matter of what's right, yes, but of immediate importance, it would seem to me, would be survival.

What mechanisms of feedback and change does the suprasystem have? How do they work? Do they work?

[As I review what i've written so far I find that I've overstayed the introduction and underplayed the body and conclusion. Hmmph!]

I'll finish by adding a final question: would adding an unimpeachable micro to macro ecological pulse taker empower self-limiting for small and large systems alike.? I'd like to reason and argue this out carefully. The issue isn't whether it's thoughtful, caring or inspired -- the issue is pragmatic -- is this an effective piece of the set of remedial actions that will put 'pause' or 'stop' to the Gaian destruction is the fallout of suprasystem actions these days. The tragedy is that this destruction is a nonconscious, unwitting consequence of suprasystem behavior. [I'll work on this idea more in my next entry]