Planning for the Biosphere: The Need to De-Pressurize‪.‬

There is little need to tell this audience that the biosphere is under deadly assault and showing sings of toxicity, convulsive change, impoverishment and indeed, possibly even collapse. We represent the species with the greatest biomass on Earth, between half and three-quarters of a trillion pounds. We sequester for human use more than 30 percent of global net primary productivity (Ehrlich 1988). We watch all the indicators flash red: the worldwide decline of amphibians (Johnson 1994), the decline of neotropical migrant birds (Terborgh 1989), the collapse of one fishery after another, the global decline in biodiversity .... Yet we still burden the biosphere with a net increase of 4 humans per second, a quarter million (or a Kitchener-Waterloo) every 24 hours. Under such bizarre circumstances, we cajole, kid, bamboozle, lie to ourselves about "sustainable development", and now even contemplate planning for the biosphere. I want to consider three dimensions of such immense megaplanning: evolutionary, ethical/practical, and ecological/institutional.