And it always seems we’re runnin’ out of time,
We’re out of control
Out of Control
We’re out of control
Out of Control
[…]
Welcome to your last habitat. You’ve already been there all your life but maybe — like myself — perceive this very habitat through the distorted lens of cultural imaginations and social habits. The virtual (intersubjective) reality of our civilization is detached from the natural reality of a physical world. Individual experience, social norms and habits, daily routine and our role in an encompassing economic system make it hard to sense our basic situation in a global ecosphere:
As human mammals, our existence depends — like for every other species — on the presence of habitat. The habitat conditions depend on scales of temperature, water, light, air, soil, nutrients, protection, and natural resources. A loss of habitat seems to seal the extinction of every species when we observe the horrific amount of vanishing species in the past and present (mostly triggerd through an increasing human pressure on land an resources). Keeping this in mind, we must begin to perceive our habitat spanning the entire globe as a vulnerable fragment of the global ecosystem whose functioning and health determines our own destiny.
Sadly, the time we live in today is characterized by cognitive dissonance, permeating all levels of individual and collective reality. The materialistic wealth (especially in western societies), the deep-rooted belief in the capitalistic system and the encompassing distraction through all-time availability of information and media prevent the perception of the crucial conditions for inhabiting the earth.
“Among the epoch-making changes associated with the Great Acceleration are vast hockey stick-shaped increases in: fossil fuel combustion, carbon dioxide emissions, ocean acidification, species extinctions (and losses in biological diversity more generally), nitrogen and phosphorus cycle disruptions, freshwater depletion, forest loss, and chemical pollution. The result is a planetary ecological emergency or Earth System crisis.”1
In another sense, it seems to be ironic that anthropogenic climate change and ecological crisis peak in a time where we have all the technologic abilities and scientific knowledge to observe the effects on planetary up to molecular scale. One problem is our habit to think only in human life time scales — natural and chemical processes and the adaption (evolution) to changing condidtions of flora and fauna are based on larger timescales. (e.g.: Just 100 years ago there where just a few asphalted roads and railways, today we have a system of globel infrastructure on land, water and air spanning all continents and permeating nearly every ecosystem.) The second problem is our inability to imagine exponential development — the way climate change and species extinction evolves through its self-reinforcing feedback loops. Many people seem to extrapolate the experienced past to the future and adding more wealth and better technology. This linear consideration no longer seems to be suitable for the present situation. All parameters of the destruction of our natural world seem to increase exponentially: World population, temperature rise and greenhouse gases, energy consumption (of fossil fuels), loss of animal and plant species, land grab and soil degradation, crop loss in food-production and need for freshwater… To be honest with you, these developments definitely do not allow positive expectations of our future if we continue with “business as usual” and the facts should force us to fundamentally question our way of life.
lasthabit.at is meant to provide a platform for different sources, thoughts, and inspirations that helped me to shift my perspective towards nature and our role within.
