These are the last words from someone who was one of the first to recognize that the US and apparently much of the world was on a path to unsustainability. The essay starts out addressing the decline of America and its empire, but about half way through he seems to suggest that the problem is wider. Referring to a book he authored back in the 1970s, he writes:
Ecotopia is a novel, and secession was its dominant metaphor: how would a relatively rational part of the country save itself ecologically if it was on its own? As Ecotopia Emerging puts it, Ecotopia aspired to be a beacon for the rest of the world. And so it may prove, in the very, very long run, because the general outlines of Ecotopia are those of any possible future sustainable society.
The "ecology in one country" argument was an echo of an actual early Soviet argument, as to whether "socialism in one country" was possible. In both cases, it now seems to me, the answer must be no. We are now fatally interconnected, in climate change, ocean impoverishment, agricultural soil loss, etc., etc., etc. International consumer capitalism is a self-destroying machine, and as long as it remains the dominant social form, we are headed for catastrophe; indeed, like rafters first entering the "tongue" of a great rapid, we are already embarked on it.Here he clearly argues that one cannot save the ecological system in only one country. His essay suggests that he doesn't hold out for much hope for the present social-economic system, but he seems to be unreasonably optimistic about some sort of death and renewal, like the cycle in nature of death, destruction and renewed life forms. The following statements increase the confusion about whether he is referring only to the US or to humanity:
So I look to a long-term process of "succession," as the biological concept has it, where "disturbances" kill off an ecosystem, but little by little new plants colonize the devastated area, prepare the soil for larger and more complex plants (and the other beings who depend on them), and finally the process achieves a flourishing, resilient, complex state -- not necessarily what was there before, but durable and richly productive.
...All things “go” somewhere: they evolve, with or without us, into new forms. So as the decades pass, we should try not always to futilely fight these transformations. As the Japanese know, there is much unnoticed beauty in wabi-sabi -- the old, the worn, the tumble-down, those things beginning their transformation into something else. We can embrace this process of devolution: embellish it when strength avails, learn to love it.So, who is "us" in the last paragraph. Americans or humanity? And, likewise when he concludes on this more optimistic note:
Since I wrote Ecotopia, I have become less confident of humans' political ability to act on commonsense, shared values. Our era has become one of spectacular polarization, with folly multiplying on every hand. That is the way empires crumble: they are taken over by looter elites, who sooner or later cause collapse. But then new games become possible, and with luck Ecotopia might be among them.Of course, life forms will continue one way or another, but what I fear--and I think it a very reasonable fear--is that all human life will not continue if radical changes are not made soon to create a new, sustainable social-economic system capable of existing in harmony with nature..
