Creating The Symbiocene

In order to have hope and to be able to convert that hope into meaningful change we must imagine a new meme, one that clearly signposts and paves the way to a good future beyond The Anthropocene. Let us try and imagine The Symbiocene. The Symbiocene will be characterised by a form of human intelligence that replicates in society the symbiotic and life reproducing processes to be found in life and natural systems. The vital elements of The Symbiocene might include, full recyclability of all inputs and outputs and the elimination of all forms of toxic pollution, safe and socially just renewable energy (preferably produced from that safe and distant nuclear reactor, the sun), full and harmonious integration with physical and living systems at all scales and the minimisation of entropy in all aspects of human enterprise. Such imagination includes all of our cultural and artistic responses to the challenge of creating The Symbiocene.

Once our children are empowered with this vision of the future, they will have the emotional energy to create it.

Adult Artefact Overdose Disorder (AAOD)

Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD) in children has been graphically described by Richard Louv in his Last Child in the Woods. I contend that NDD is in part caused by AAOD. With our attention directed by the digital we miss the many opportunities for stimulus from the world that surrounds us and that we are a part of. We fail to live in the symbionment when wired and wireless for stimulus. Our children then have no idea what utility and beauty there is in our relationships to the living world, both human and non-human. They have a form of sensory deprivation that causes them to live in a world that could be called Myopia. It is no wonder the generations of children being raised by adults with AAOD have no idea about the importance of ecosystem services, ecosystem health, nature’s cycles, nature’s beauty and a stable climate that supports all life. When the machine stops (E.M. Forster), we will all be made acutely aware of the importance of the symbiocene and the obscenity of the anthropocene and its AAOD in adults and NDD in our children.

Symbiocene

Many are now suggesting that we should rename this period on earth as the Anthropocene.

This era could be called the Obscene, not the Anthropocene.

I for one, a human, do not wish to be associated with a period in Earth's history where the dominant people in one species, wipe out the foundations of life for all other humans and non-humans.

I wish to be part of the 'Symbiocene' where humans live in harmony with all other beings.

We can do this via eco- and biomimicry and ecoindustrial economies.

Its going to be hard, but it is at least thermodynamically possible. It may even be ethical and beautiful.