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'Nature’s Rights' - Religion or Science? US Constitutional Amendment Is Proposed - Cal Con C


Stockholm Univeristy

In August 2017, when Evolution News and Science published a brief review of the Cal Con Con initiative - it seemed to wonder if it is contradictory to think that humans and nature can co-thrive. It also wondered if the initiative is based on personal philosophies rather than science:

'Nature rights seeks to prevent humans from thriving by our use of natural resources. It is a form of nature religion. It is also an ideological statement against human exceptionalism that declares us just another species in the forest.'

So this might be a good time to address some of the concerns in this statement and use them as a jumping off point. Starting with the proposition that humans cannot be exceptional on a healthy planet:


Reasons:

We understand that the concept of Nature's Rights can be new to some. The initiative is based on a combination of science and a deep respect for life and does two things: 1). Protects human's ability and right to be healthy and thrive, 2). Protects Earth's ability and right to be healthy and thrive. Since life, by definition, is alive, and since human's rely on ecological life for our daily sustenance, it is logical to seek to protect both at the same time. Further, if we bestow these essential rights in law we create behaviours that can ensure the continuity of all life. These rights, inextricably linked in life, need to be linked in public policy, in particular in a way that removes both from the vulnerability of political positioning, so we can all get on with living our lives. This Initiative seeks to contemporize an historic, national, document that, at its time of conception, did not yet know it needed to worry about Climate Change - it was crafted around the time of the Industrial revolution, the impacts of which were to take decades to become defined and studied.

What changed?

As a species, humans have travelled through various iterations of community 'lifestyles, needs and wants' on this planet.

Initially, when humans were nomadic in lifestyle, we were few and our footprint on the earth was light enough to be sustainable. However, we have evolved quickly, and so have our ways of living on this planet. With the advent of the 18th Century Industrial revolution - which some may argue became inevitable with the genesis of the first nomadic settlers - we stopped moving and began to settle down and store things. Whereas a life of movement forced us to travel lightly, in the four directions, and on the surface of the planet, a settlers life forced us to grow both laterally and vertically. Settling encouraged us to dig - and eventually drill - into the earth, to journey into the oceans and to reach up into the sky. You could say we went from a single plane trajectory (horizontal exploration) to a double plane trajectory (horizontal and vertical). Add to that our exponentially growing population, and it makes sense that we expanded our territorial reach, especially given we are a creative species with a love of exploration and expansion.

That initial journey into the earth transitioned from planting, to drilling, to extracting as our wizardry with developing technologies asserted itself. The journey into our seas went from individuals or small communities fishing, to line fishing, to trawling with high tech sonar. And, in the sky, we seem to have gotten into geo-engineering, affecting the weather to try to suit our agricultural needs. We are obviously bold, but we have to ask, are we capable of also being wise? Our creative reach has gone into technologies that are efficient in one way i.e. they make it easier for us to gather larger amounts of food or raw materials in a shorter amount of time, but lead to three major inefficiencies: 1). A reduction of what will be available for us to farm, extract or generate in the future, in the same geographic area, due to soil depletion and exhaustion 2). Processes that generate an excess of food and animal waste, thanks to high speeds of operation and cost-cutting endeavours with a lack of systemic planning, and 3). Technologies and methods that create pollution and influence the regenerative capacity of Earth to keep up with our demand, when we really need to discover our adaptability and amend our approach: adjust our demand, to suit supply... in this case supply coming from a live source source with parameters, limits, and needs.

Degradation and damage to the environment's regenerative capacities are caused by pesticides, chemical fertilisers, unregulated business pollution and excessive scales of operation. We are compromising Nature's own ecological immune system by overtaxing it, poisoning the soil, air and water (you may be aware that USA has repealed a number of initiatives over this last year that were put in place to protect humans by protecting the environment - two elements you cannot realistically separate).

When we think of Nature it helps to remember that Nature is alive, and responsible for supporting all ecological systems... in fact Nature is all ecosystems, and we are part of this inter-relational ecology. Exactly as with a human, Earth gets sick. When that happens, it too becomes systemically compromised and unpredictable. In humans the sickness (system imbalance) might show up as a fever or, worse, cancer but, with Earth, it can lead to systemic imbalances with much larger reach and catastrophically dramatic outcomes (in USA right now all we need to look at this year are Texas, Florida, CA and Puerto Rico to see some of the civic effects). Now, imagine if someone was making you ill, over and over, so you never got a chance to get well before the next, different, sickness showed up somewhere else in your body. You might not survive. Our fossil-based manufacturing and business practices, diet and our consumerist lifestyles are doing just that. And, since Earth's equivalent of human sickness shows up in larger scale, instead of losing white blood cells, it loses bee colonies, instead of losing muscle mass it loses essential soil nutrients, instead of having a fever, Earth suffers a major drought. Our earlier skills and intelligence regarding civic planning seem to have gotten washed away with the last typhoon. In contemporary Western society we haven't really taken the time to retain the knowledge of how to take care of Nature, although these skills remain with the indigenous peoples of any given land. Thus, without this knowledge we attack rather than develop. As we deforest the land and acidify coral reefs we decimate the ecological medicine cabinet of life and create a barren landscape where life's coherence weakens.

Let's Get Practical

Whether or not you are informed by the moral issue of right relationship to another living being, there is still the foresight needed to be able to eat next week, next month, and next year. That foresight seems to be remarkably absent in our economic approaches to agriculture and community development. And, just to be clear, if you find yourself recoiling at the idea that Earth is a living being, the science of chemistry itself dictates that when humans take in nourishment it needs to a) be alive or b) have been alive, in order to convey nutritional and life-sustaining value. Life is alive and generating itself in order to create more life. We get to stay alive by taking it in, i.e. eating it, drinking it, breathing it, receiving its sunlight. And we are just one of millions of species, on different scales and with different life cycles, that depend on this one interactive source of life that has no fixed center. Originally we lived harmoniously with life's cycles and seasons but now we have altered that basic relational truth. We have actually confused Nature's processes by acting in spite of its natural cycles rather than with them. Humans are not really necessary to perpetuate Nature, and yet we have been shown to have a life altering effect on it. Has this ignorance been wilful? It seem illogical, this short-sightedness.

At the time of writing, Peter Frumhoff - Union of Concerned Scientists - shared their report at the Bonn Con23, 2017 Climate Change Conference. It specifically outlines 90 named companies that have directly influenced people's perception of Climate Crisis, deliberately and strategically sewing seeds of doubt; just enough to carry on selling an untenable lifestyle in a land - and era - of consumerism. Their profit-based models are concerningly naive in that they do not incorporate all mitigating circumstances needed to ensure that the market can continue to perpetuate itself. There is no adjustment for facts. Supply and demand needs stock. And the stock is limited. It is absolutely illogical to try to sell ahead of the curve, ultimately putting prices and values higher than the source from which they come. Life on Earth is the guiding premise and starting point of every decision. This lack of complexity in the striving is all the harder to accept when the information is out there in science papers, reports, journals, documentaries, government dossiers, etc. are screaming facts. We are not short on knowledge, just political will. And why? Is money more valuable than life itself?

Our human economic and political impact has become so noteworthy that it is leaving a 'lasting' impression. There isn't another 'shop' we can go to when the 'shop' we have been buying from (Earth) runs out of stock and its shelves are either empty or providing insufficient, inedible, wares. Oceans have less fish and plant life, lands have less trees, aquifers less freshwater. All that adds up to 'Where are you planning to shop next year? And the year after? And the year after that?' There is a timeline on all this. And it's close. The complexity of eco-system reliance is phenomenal and takes studying to understand. Which is why we have scientists, to do all that learning, research and work for us. What is the point of scientists doing science if we don't incorporate their findings into our evolving lifestyles? And then secure that knowledge into formal documents that guide all our decision-making processes, such as Rights of Nature and Rights of Humans to have access to clean and Healthy nature?

The Science

Sweden's Stockholm Resilience Center is a scientific research center that studies what we need to know about Planetary Systems' elasticity in order for humans to be able to continue to thrive on this planet for generations to come. They have identified 9 Planetary Boundaries that our response-ability influences: Stratospheric ozone depletion, Loss of biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and extinctions), Chemical pollution and the release of novel entities, Climate Change, Ocean acidification, Freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle, Land system change, Nitrogen and phosphorus flows to the biosphere and oceans, Atmospheric aerosol loading. This framework 'was first introduced in 2009, when a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists identified and quantified the first set of 9 planetary boundaries.' Regarding their research and its scope, they say it: '... requires transdisciplinary research. It draws on diverse theoretical framings including Earth systems analysis, resilience research, governance and policy studies, ecological economics, and environmental history. The research activities also contribute to debates on global scientific responsibility and sustainability.'

You can see the table depicting the real and potentially negative impacts humans can have on healthy ecological operations 'Control Variable/Threshold avoided. And, in case you learn more easily from the spoken word, you can see the video of SRC's director, Johan Rockstrom, presenting the 9 Planetary Boundaries model at a 2010 Ted Conference. The thumbnail version of this is that Earth has 9 main measurable, structural, operating systems. We can afford to get a little 'overextended' in an organic system such as Earth, because it is responsive but, for the same reason (i.e. because it is responsive), if we stretch its capacity too far, in too many of the 9 regions mentioned above, it loses its elasticity i.e. its capacity to 'bounce back.' And that's where we are now. In fact, emissions are actually on the rise again and we simply cannot afford it. More information is available on 'The 10 science ‘Must Knows’ on Climate Change' regarding the developing economic relationship to the science of climate change and prevention of further future pollution of Earth.

Being Exceptional


If there is concern that by intelligently paying attention to the science, that we somehow lose our ability to be exceptional, we would argue the opposite, that by responding to facts we become exceptional. We can look back through the phenomenal human endeavours that we have achieved; a plethora of opportunity and new directions co-created over time - that show our ability to adjust our needs according to each new era of our development. We see what's there, what's possible and we adapt - that is a sign of systemic intelligence. However, this has led us - for some, unexpectedly - to a futuristic impasse. If we are contemplating ignoring the science and the radical empirical nature of learning, evident every day, in terms of climate crises phenomena (both the slow erosion of soil and land desertification to the quicker paced tsunamis, hurricanes and wildfires) along with the empirical scientific data that can now - to an extent - project the timing of Nature's demise, we will have proven that we no longer have the ability to respond in ways that made us exceptional in the past. We will have shown that we were unable to take in the science and act according to our innovative gifts. Science tell us we are witnessing comprehensive system collapse, measured by the sixth extinction. Humans are affecting the system that we live within, and cannot live without.

Also at the Con23 Bonn 2017 today a panel, including several members of Union of Concerned Scientists, spoke of their urgent concerns for Climate Crisis, and the need to act now - an alarm they sounded in unison 25 years ago. As UCS representative, Rachel Cleetus, said "We must stand up for the preservation of Nature." That is Nature's Rights, right there.

So, in this time of action, what kinds of phenomenal developments could we instigate right now, in response to the overwhelmingly reliable data?

We Need To Act

Cal Con Con, alongside many other entities, votes to lean into our abilities to be inspired to collaborate across platforms - political, social, commercial and legal. We would argue that now is the time where opportunity beckons for us to become truly exceptional, through new choices based on our understanding of life's systemic intricacies and capacities. We are not done achieving. If we do not rise to the challenge we have co-created, we will be the species that led itself - and millions of other life forms on Earth - to extinction. And, if not 100% human extinction, then to a lifestyle that we would not recognize... and will not want to experience. That kind of intellectual inertia would be a rather embarrassing legacy for humans. The facts do not lie and will not stop compounding upon themselves while we wait for our leaders to find successful ways to work together.

People around the world, scientists, artists, religious leaders, politicians and lawyers are working to change our human operating systems. Cal Con Con is just another approach among many to raise the visibility and urgency of the dialogue. It seeks to amend things at the top, updating the US Constitution to serve us now and into the future, whilst other scientists and activists seek to secure foundations for our future in education and addressing changes in business practice and political policy. What value do past victories have if we cannot surpass them when we need to? And who is going to admire those achievements in the future if we didn't have enough human-friendly oxygen to breath, unpolluted food to eat or clean water to drink to help us get to that future? The Earth's climate is changing, and moving very close to beyond changing back. It is a wave we must ride with our eyes open, in order to mitigate the extended reach of unplanned consequences.

Protecting Nature for the Future

That is why we have started the campaign Cal Con Con to protect our future, by protecting the future of all Earth's Natural Systems, based on science. Earth is our home and we really don't have anywhere else to go. As a species, we are already familiar with system collapse. Recall two landmark economic collapses: the US housing prime rate mortgage bubble that burst in 2008 and Greece's 2010's bankruptcy. Those situations revealed our vulnerability and affected international markets, because they are interdependent, because they are systems. There were attempts at mitigation by US Government and IMF and EU, respectively, even though they were paralyzed by a financial landscape with no good choices. Lack of foresight created unpalatable options. That is what a systemic issue looks like: there were no winners. However, while financial chaos and debt can be forgiven (since it is figurative in nature), eco-debt cannot - as it is literal in nature. All we can do is mitigate it from exactly where we find ourselves, and that requires facts. Our only human negotiation here is not interest rates or repayment terms, but adaptive approaches to how we farm, fish, irrigate, politicise, fund, maintain and share the resources that can only regenerate in their own natural cycles of time. Most importantly, it requires a shift in thinking and approach, understanding our actual position of dependence and of interdependence. The same inter-dependence that formed life and gave us the human experience of intelligence.

If we know to worry about a collapsing economy then we understand systems. Nature is the least forgiving bank loan we could have chosen to - even accidentally - run up a debt with: again, whilst with money, numbers on a screen can be forgiven, deleted, with real life it's not so easy to negotiate. The information rendered from observing the behaviour of 'eco-markets' is something only the foolish - or the insentient - could ignore. But we can't afford to. Earth is neither our employee, nor our servant. We are, in fact, its dependents. So yes, in that way, we are just another species in the forest, and we need to recognize that there is no 'outside' to the consequences of how we are living in a living system.

Our Evolution - The Future

Being exceptional once-upon-a-time is rendered valueless if we are not wise enough to learn from the science. Science is talking to us today, interpreting the effects human evolution is having on our shared future. Through science, education, and a serious awareness of the moment we now find ourselves in, Earth's science becomes our guide out of the collapse and into a new opportunity; a paradigm shift into a yet more intelligent period of human development. Humans have barely scratched the surface of what's possible in our evolution. And it is a shared, collective, evolution. An evolutionary leap where we will show just how phenomenal we really are, how responsive, how capable.

For some the forests and rivers, sea and sky and mountains are a form of worship, a religion; be it Paganism, Animism, Christian Mysticism or any country's indigenous people's practices and beliefs. Our original ancestors were once contained as potential in a primordial cell - and that cell's ancestor was, of course, stardust - and it grew into this phenomenal, unimaginable display of life regenerating itself. Is this not worthy of religious awe, spiritual contemplation? Appreciating the gift of life is a healthy sign of a self-aware system, and appreciating the biology, chemistry, physics that make it up support that appreciation. The specific religion for science though, is just facts. And those facts are staring at us, clear as a lightening bolt in the sky.

We have steadily diverted ourselves away from the delicate balance of life and we need to collectively adopt the 9 Planetary Boundaries and their requirements for sustainable living, for sustaining life. We are no longer talking lifestyle choices here.... we are talking life itself. You may have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews or simply friends with children. When we talk about Nature's Rights we are talking about Human Rights. Exceptional and delusional are fine lines - a bit like genius and madness, one moulds reality whilst the other denies it. The dance of maintaining life is being able to recognize the difference. That's why we have inner guidance and outer science. Nature's rights serve religion, spirituality, sustainability and science. The former enhances the inner quality of our lives and the latter, the external. We need both. And for that reason, so does Nature.

For the Love of Life

Nature models intelligence. If we do the math, with population growth increasing exponentially, simply using up our appropriated natural resources is not intelligent. Destroying the future of Nature and not seeing that as the future of life is logic-defying. We stop using smart business practice when we stop taking the future into account. For that reason, we must protect ourselves from ourselves by protecting nature from us too. If we lose our model of intelligence, we not only lose the evidence of ways that work but we lose the oxygen, the water, the food, the future. If you've found this in any way hard to read, I ask only this: isn't life worth protecting? And not just for us?

There are so many models of beautiful relationships co-existing within Earth's boundaries. Scientist Jane Goodall commented on the dignity of our closest genetic relations, the Chimpanzee, who she discovered were not only sentient, but spiritually and emotionally connected to one another both within their species and across species. There are signs of interdependence everywhere; birds with beaks that only fit one type of flower to gather its nectar, birdsongs developed in one particular region that help the native plant stomata open up, animals and their carers devoted to each other, matriarchal elephant communities. This abundant universe is stunning and it needs our help.

We stand by our design to contemporize the US Constitution, to make it relevant to today's world, sending out a message to our brothers and sisters that we are not delusional, that we are, even in these political climates, capable of genius, capable of collaboration, capable of caring. Putting Rights of Nature in the US Constitution will help us create a guideline for business, politics and American life, to recognize and treasure the gifts we have received - for free - from the invitation to be part of life. Let's share these gifts, protect them and cherish them. Let's leave behind, in our future, a history of people who listened, learned and evolved alongside, and because of, the planet they are inhabiting. A people that truly were... exceptional.

Thank you for reading.

 

Cal Con Con is a CA-based Initiative aimed at instating into US Constitution Civil Rights and the Rights of Nature to help humans and all living systems co-evolve peacefully and sustainably. We are currently fundraising for a newly amended version of the initiative for the Nov 2018 ballot. It represents, in even more detail, the needs for a transformative shift in consciousness around our paradigmatic approach to Planetary Living. We respectfully recognise all the work being done around the world to mitigate the impacts of Climate Crisis and to prevent its acceleration. This article was created in response to Evolution News and Science today's article August 2017.

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