A Planet-sized Economy

The simple idea of a "planet-sized living system" sums up what humans must achieve if we are to survive as a species. Chief Sealth understood this more than a century ago,"the earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth." Yet now is humankind witnessing the meanest, greediest, and most aggressive amongst us dominating over those who cooperate, share, and live within the means our planet can provide. Will evolution enable humans to make the shift to an economic model that lives within the bounds of available resources? Right now, economic expansion is taking place on borrowed money and time. Contrary to a "planet-sized living system," capitalism is running up a steep debt that is putting the future of humanity at risk. When the debt is called, in the form of quickening, disruptive climate change, will we be able to make the transformations of society that will be necessary to bring the earth back into balance? Paul Gilding, in the Great Disruption," predicts this catastrophe may unfold around 2018: Too few resources, too much consumption and toxification of the planet, first and foremost in the form of CO2 emissions and the subsequent warming of the planet. We are in an epoch where the majority, at the grassroots level, must fight for the birth of a new world, where sharing becomes the norm, along with the recognition that humans are a part of the earth, not above or separate from it. These are exciting times.