Equilibra: The Philosophy and Political Economy of Existence and Extinction

THE ULTIMATUM IS IMPERATIVE- transform ourselves now or decline and perish as a result of the consequences of our own actions, a species suicide.THE ULTIMATUM IS DUAL- we can produce our own extinction and that of other species through weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear, and/or environmental degradation, especially climate change.The EQUILIBRA series begins with THE ULTIMATUM, the myriad ways Mother Earth is communicating to us the current, imminent, and potential desequilibra that threaten the ecosystems and the synergies between them that support life on Planet Earth.Endless, limitless, mindless growth, production, consumption, and capital accumulation cannot continue on a planet with limited, degraded resources. The formula that has allowed us to survive and advance, the transformation of nature, is now counterproductive, making fundamental corrective action most difficult. It is easier for us to continue transforming nature than to transform ourselves.Does anyone doubt that the species marching toward extinction because of our impact on the environment does not include our own?We live in a cosmic shooting gallery of meteors, comets, electromagnetic pulses, gamma rays and solar radiation on a volcanic molten bomb of a planet under attack by bacterial and rapidly mutating viral pathogens, unable to control the consequences of our own science and technology: nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence.Given that we have serious threats we cannot control, that the most probable risks are now of human origin represents a high level of species masochism.The Novel Coronavirus and COVID-19 demonstrate how unprepared we are to confront our high risk threats and how little we invest politically and economically in avoiding them, which also applies to the threats of nuclear weapons and climate change. The degree of disruption of our lives, societies, and economies of the Novel Coronavirus and the disease COVID-19 is greater than 9/11, the 2007-2009 financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession combined. Yet, the disruption of the Coronavirus is small, transient, and recoverable, compared to the total, permanent, and irreversible damage of a nuclear exchange or the disruption of the eco-systems and synergies between them that maintain life on Planet Earth, including the critical variable temperature.