Ecosystemics Official Launch Party Post!

Update Dec. 21, 2024. This post below came out almost a year ago, and this update is to announce that another and major phase of the Ecosystemics launch is happening now. Stay tuned for our debut informational / promotional document coming soon, plus important news and and events for 2025!

Ecosystemics.Org is hereby and right now officially launched! You are invited to this launch party (that is, this blog post). And you are invited to the ongoing party-like movement during which we will solve the global ecological multi-crisis! Woo-hoo! Now that is what I call a party!

This official launch communication is coming in two parts – this one is the fun part about the party theme and ideas. The other one is inviting your collaboration with details on how to join the fun and especially the activities.

First, some digital party finger food and ice breakers…

Who is this for?

What’s the big idea? What’s this all about?

When is shtuff about to get real?

Where will it go down?

Why? OK, but why? Yeah, but why?

As your party host and DJ / emcee, here are some food-for-thought hors d’oeuvres, some themes to consider as we get this party started, and as we choose the musical soundtrack for this work.

Ecosystemics as a project, and the goal to solve the global ecological multi-crisis, are for all of us – for you and me, for all people, and all of Life. If you are human, and/or if you are a living being, you are invited to this party! And, if you are in close communion with living beings – if you are soil, if you are a cloud, or a rocky outcrop, or the carbon cycle, or a glacier, or even a spaceship – you are also invited!

The big idea, and what this is all about, is that we are going to solve the global ecological multi-crisis. This 10-part disharmony disaster is described elsewhere on this website, so no more details here. [But if you want more details or further explanation, please contact me, and I would love to correspond, chat remotely, meet in person, or find ways to discuss this.] Suffice to say that this humanmade party-crasher of potential doom is a major party vibe downer, a Life bummer of epic proportion, and the number one priority to get sorted out and resolved so that we can get back to living, having fun, sharing community, and all the good stuff the Party of Life is meant to be.

To describe the other side, what this project and movement are NOT about…like some ground rules for ecosystemics party do’s and don’t’s…I will say that we will not be engaged in 1) kicking the can down the road, 2) green-washing, or 3) wishful thinking. These are out, and a few others that are likely obvious but will be addressed in the work (injustice, inequality, exclusion, corruption, harm, prejudice…). Otherwise – party on!

When is shtuff about to get real? The hopefully mind-expanding and thought-provoking answer to “When?” is “Now and forever”.

I want to start this month and this year – January 2024 – to kick this party into high energy party mode! Please see the companion post up today for ways to get involved, become a co-creator, to assist and participate as part of the Life of the party right away!

I have been working on related works for about 30 years. As Arlo Guthrie says in his song “Alice’s Restaurant”, “I’m not proud … or tired.” This came as he said he has been playing the song for 25 minutes and he can play it for another 25, so the audience had better join in on the chorus and sing loud! I can do this for another 30 years, so I hope you will join in!

And, the forever part is one of the big ideas. Imagine that we actually do solve the global ecological multi-crisis (and we will!). Think of the “When?” question in terms of that monumental success story and epic achievement. With success, we will have solved a crisis that has been brewing roughly for 400 years (when the current scientific paradigm, foundation of industrial culture, with the idea of “world as a machine” started). And, consider that what we will have done is to have figured out an eternal and perennial challenge – how to live in harmony with the environment. This necessity, what I often refer to as realizing a win/win, mutually beneficial Life-Environment relation, is an achievement that will stand as a break-through for all time and in every place in the universe. Why? Because all Life must live in some environment, and the Life-Environment relation must always and everywhere be win/win. Otherwise, game over, party’s over, everyone out of the pool – no healthy regenerative environment for the Life party means the party will come to an end.

[Note that indigenous cultures had already figured this out, but we have to get their help to figure it out all over again now that the genie of industrial culture has been let out of the lamp.]

Life has been on about a 4 billion year super successful run – let’s keep this party going! Another 4 billion years seems a reasonable goal given Life’s solid, evidence-based (sorry, scientist speak) track record. Heck, why not extend this to forever! Four billion years is dang close to eternity, so I say let’s go for it. The Never-Ending Story of Life, The Never-Ending Party. Wow – this is going to require some serious stamina…

I’m going to get a refill and a snack…whew…sitting out this next song…catch my breath…

Ok, back to the party favors – Where were we? Oh, yeah – Where?!?

I am in Western Maryland (an amazing place – come visit!) I travel fairly often to Durham, NC. I would love to go back to New York City and work with folks at the Urban Soils Institute. I am a guest senior research scholar with the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Austria (IIASA). I would love to develop collaborative projects in any of these places, and connected to wherever you are, virtually and/or in-person as the work unfolds.

The mission of ecosystemics is to solve the global ecological multi-crisis, which we could think of as stabilizing Life support systems on Spaceship Earth. So the primary focus is Earth, but as I have written and said in talks, and as we will see as work develops, the primary mission to sustain Life on Earth is likely very closely intertwined with a complementary mission to extend Life beyond Earth. I know…mind blown (in a good way, I hope!)

To wrap up my lengthy party starter monologue…let’s end with Why?

“Why?” is a cool question and playing with this like a very curious, very inquisitive child, I love how Why? telescopes down, and up, and in all directions. It seems less to ask for some definitive answer and more to point out the importance of questions like itself, pointing to questioning as a perennial and fruitful extensive process more than calling for a specific answer in a discrete Q-and-A transactional event.

Here’s the Why? sequence most relevant for ecosystemics.org, this party, project, work, and mission. This is modified from an article posted here, “The Roles of Science in the Global Ecological Multi-Crisis – As Solution Yes, But Not the Way You May Expect”).

The question at the start is partly a scientific question – a search for a causal explanation of a real problem. It is also a deeply existential question given the circumstances of the global ecological multi-crisis. Jumping down the Why? rabbit hole…

Q: What is causing the global ecological multi-crisis?

A: Well, it seems to be associated with industrial culture. We know that indigenous cultures are not damaging ecosystems in systemic and planetary ways, so let’s focus on industrial culture.

Q: Well, why? What causes or drives industrial culture?

A: A major factor is industrial technology – the many clever machines that provide the conveniences and advances of modern life in developed countries, but also burn fossil fuels; transport humans and materials all over; define modern homes, offices, factories, and buildings; create and distribute toxins; destroy habitat causing mass extinctions; transformed farming into industrial agriculture. Industrial technology seems very closely connected to the cause of industrial culture and its impacts.

Q: But why? What causes or drives industrial technology?

A: Well, it seems clear that science is what makes industrial technology possible, so effective at getting things done, and so powerful. It seems very clear that science is directly involved.

Q: But why? What is it about science specifically that influences technology, that could start this long chain of relationships, and that could end up damaging Life and our planetary Life-supporting environment in 10 or more different ways?

A: The answer to this question is one major focus of our work together. Some starting ideas are in the Foundations for Sustainability book, and elsewhere on this website.

Since Why? is such a flexible, deep, fractal, lifelike question, I will flip it around to ask you:

Why are you here? On Earth, alive, reading this blog, at this party?

Why do you think and feel that we will, or that we will not, succeed in solving the global ecological crisis? Why should we attempt to solve it? Why should we be concerned, or why are you not concerned?

Why are you going to do what you are going to do next, and later today, and tomorrow?

Why don’t we get back to the party? Thanks for reading, and I sincerely hope we get to work and party together. This is going to be real, and fun, and real fun, really important, and of great service to Life itself.