Stephen Barlow Profile picture
Naturalist, Conservationist, Environmentalist and Nature Photographer (especially macro). Born at 314ppm. Woke (awake). https://t.co/B7XkkKho07

Jun 3, 2022, 8 tweets

People often ask what I mean by system change re: the climate and ecological crisis. It is very simple. I mean a full shift to a truly sustainable society/economy. This means changing more or less every convention of our modern society.

Sustainable means what it says. A society and economy in balance with the ecological carrying capacity of the Earth. Essentially that means no unsustainable trends, where our impact on the natural systems of the world is growing.

You see, in ecological terms, if there is a component, where it's impact on natural systems is constantly growing. Eventually it will have catastrophic effects, impacting also on the component driving it i.e. human society.

Lots of natural components have growing impacts. Let's say an exploding population of rodents. But this is eventually counteracted, by a sudden fall in the population of that rodent. Often, it produces a cycle or rise and fall.

Humans appear to have got out of this cycle and effect, by using innovation to get around what would cause that contraction in that growth. For instance, the use of fertilisers and pesticides.

But this is at the cost of destroying other ecosystem components and biodiversity, which in a long loop, will eventually have serious impacts on us, that we can't innovate our way out of.

There is no simple recipe for creating a sustainable society economy. However, if we don't want our population, our civilization, our society and economy to crash, it is essential.

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