Earthconomics 101: There Is a Killer on the Loose

The reason Earth’s economy never endures boom-and-bust cycles is that everything in nature is reusable: someone’s trash becomes someone else’s food, on a planet where it is impossible for an ecosystem to ever go bankrupt. The remarkable feat of 10 million species coexisting in a small planet has only been possible because Earth long ago accomplished what humans could only dream of: an economy where supply and demand are so much in sync with each other that they are virtually interchangeable: nothing is either over-produced or over-consumed.

Although the planet may seem like a wild, open free-for-all supermarket, both supply and demand are under the strictest regulation imaginable. Thieves, looters and greedy CEOs do not exist in Earth’s economy simply because it is impossible for any species to accumulate wealth without facing immediate consequences. A predator, a virus or other calamity soon catches up with them, prescribed by the planet’s own surveillance system, the Earthnet of Things (EoT). Our ecosystems are made in such a way that there is absolutely nowhere to hide for thieves and freeloaders.

But how does the EoT regulate Earth’s economy?

In short, on the supply side. A finite planet can only produce finite resources. In Earth’s economy there is no reason to monitor sales volumes and revenue targets because these quantities remain constant: the supply of fruit on the trees, the fish, the amount of water in the rivers is stable over long stretches of time. Therefore as long as the supply of resources remains constant, there can only be so many customers. Intense competition on the demand side of the economy over these finite resources ensures that the consumer base never grows. If one group of consumers ends up eating more, others have to go hungry which triggers a series of food chain cascades that come full circle to punish the perpetrator: those who ate more than their share now become the food. The population caps placed on all 10 million species by the limited availability of nutrients is by far the greatest economic regulator on Earth, ensuring demand never exceeds supply. 

In Earth’s economy every species is both a food producer and a consumer, with the exception of humans who are the obese customers in nature’s supermarket. For human civilisation every day has always been Black Friday, as we trampled over the corpses of almost every species that existed to hoard water, food and habitat. There is a thief on the loose, as the global Earth economy suddenly begins to nosedive. The humans are not simply emptying the supermarket shelves. They are bulldozing the entire planet’s food production machine: its climate.

So while this planet’s remarkable richness is tightly controlled on the supply end, the actual supply of food is produced by the climate machine. The climate is not usually described as a food producer, but this is exactly what it is: it provides the right amount of temperature, water and sunlight so that ecosystems can flourish and civilisations can thrive. By destroying the climate humans have killed the biggest farmer on the planet. As supermarket shelves begin to empty, there is even more trouble ahead. A disturbed climate means disturbed ecosystems, giving rise to new predators and viruses which are nothing but the ecosystem’s way of trying to regulate itself again.

Humans get a big fat F in macroeconomics. The biggest economic mistake this civilisation made was to assume that supply and demand are positively correlated: that is, to assume that an escalating demand can be met by escalating supply. We created endless overshoot narratives such as “Build it and they will come” for supply-generated demand, and “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it” for demand-generated supply.  Our culture, society and economy are the direct offspring of narratives of infinite growth in both supply and demand, fueled by human supremacy.

This complex of narratives comprises today’s Civilisational Lie, which normalises disrespect for nature’s economics and ongoing atrocities against 10 million other species. This civilisation violates both math and physics, which is why it only exists as a Ponzi-scheme.  We are burning the economic candle at both ends: our extractive approaches towards supply destroy the very ability of the planet to supply, while demand itself has become a dead-end: very few of the items this civilisation produces are able to re-enter the circular economy, which would re-invigorate supply. We have broken every single rule in math, physics, economics and ecology.

But like all Ponzi schemes, this civilisation is ultimately unsustainable. The biggest stupidity of this civilisation, and of all civilisations, was the belief that it will never run out of raw materials – and that these materials were inexhaustible, when in fact they are the flesh and bones of a functioning planet.  However much we think we have rigged the economic game, the climate is always the ultimate economic regulator.  We may think we have hacked Earth, but all we’ve done is dismantle everything that used to be in working order.  The planet’s collapsing weather systems and their effect on the supply end of the economy will ultimately decide who survives and who doesn’t.

This civilisation is a criminal who thinks they will never get caught. It is our biggest cognitive impediment that we have remained a species who only knows how to exist through extraction and destruction. It is a matter of time before this existence is swiftly terminated.

George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist. You can follow him on Twitter @99blackbaloons

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