MetaNature - Evolutionary Imperative for Human Survival!

My friend Jim Fournier has an extraordinary mind, and a very diverse view.

I appreciate the broad base of knowledge from which he draws, and a truly multi-disciplinary approach to contemplating, and addressing the worlds challenges.

He recently posted a piece on the online magazine Reality Sandwich entitled "Shift Scenario: Averting Extinction" which I found to be a brilliant assessment of the current situation on the planet and a cogent pathway for the human race to maintain a degree of grace and poise through what could be one of the more challenging periods of our civilization!"

"Just as early organisms virtually exhausted available resources before discovering how to establish and maintain cyclic closed loops of material flows, humans have done the same with our industrial technology. We will either figure out how to make this transition like those successful organisms that survived, or go extinct like those that did not."

The heart of his article is in agreement with Einstein's statement "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." for the human race. What is refreshing - is that Jim lays out a pathway and a model to see this unfold.

Simply he states: "It may be possible for the global system to undergo a change in state, a fundamental shift from one of increasingly intractable interrelated crises to one characterized by mutually reinforcing synergetic solutions."

There are several very challenging trends unfolding on our planet: peak oil, climate change, biodiversity loss, overconsumption of resources and the globalization of the economic juggernaut. And Jim also points out some very promising trends which are evidence of the promise of a global mind-shift: internet commuication, growing democracy, advance of cross cultural diversity and most of all an increasing awareness of the interconnectedness of all life. These are all necessary ingredients for the type of shift in global awareness which can put us in line with the planet's life support systems.

"In some ways the perspective outlined above [in his article] is reassuring, as it suggests that even human technological activity can be seen as a natural and indeed inevitable process wherein everything that everyone has done up to this point was perhaps necessary. Evolutionary systems seem to naturally move toward higher states of coherence. Nature does this by itself, and thus what we're doing can be seen as part of a natural process. Once seen in this manner, that very understanding also compels us to act differently in the light of this new vantage point; we, as humans, have both a unique opportunity and responsibility to do so."