Transformation Through Collapse: The Parable of The Burning Forest

Civilisations and ecosystems are virtually indistinguishable from each other at times of existential stress: the same laws of scarcity and competition which decimate an ecosystem’s food chain are behind the collapse of a human currency chain. In any interconnected system, whether this is a human society or an ecosystem, the weight of collapse bears down across the board until it finds the weakest link that will unravel the entire structure. Eventually no one escapes the bloodbath, and those who think they have avoided extinction won’t enjoy that moment for too long: they soon face the dire odds of survival in a world of diminished resources.

Many extinctions in an ecosystem in fact occur much later than the main event, as a consequence of the disappearance of support systems in a fragmented web of life. In a collapsing ecosystem cannibalism and desperation replace abundance and cooperation, and the same goes for any collapsing human society: the aftermath of a major disruption of energy networks, food, physical infrastructure and medical supplies is chaos and barbarism. Gaza may seem like an isolated case of civilisational collapse, but it is merely one of the interconnected hotspots comprising a global, systemic breakdown that has been thousands of years in the making. The natural ecosystem and human civilisation together form one, ailing interconnected system that has been breaking down ever since we entered the Anthropocene centuries ago. We are not heading for a collapse. We are experiencing the ongoing aftermath of an ecological and climate collapse that started many generations ago, masked by temporary recoveries that conceal an otherwise steady, underlying long-term trend of deterioration in biodiversity, climate, pollution, resource availability and just about anything we call “Earth”.

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Historically speaking, at some point a recovery takes place, but this is where any similarities between ecosystems and human civilisations end. The actual mode of recovery differs vastly between the two: while ecosystems take several hundred years to recover, collapsed human economies inflate and collapse again dozens of times over the same period. In the case of a burned down forest, what we witness is a slow, yet sustained, recovery. In the case of a collapsed human society, what follows is a series of short-lived, Ponzi soap bubbles that burst one right after the other seconds after their virgin flight into the hot, dry, summer air. Just like soap bubbles, human economies always spread themselves too thin. As water evaporates from the surface of the bubble and the soap film gets thinner, all the warnings are there. Despite this, the burst is sudden and catastrophic every single time. The most important difference between an ecosystem recovery and a human civilisation recovery is that, while the former eventually achieves a steady state, the latter always overshoots.

In a burned down forest recovery begins from the very basics, starting at the molecular and single-celled organism level. There are no predators or big trees that would place huge demands on the system at this stage, but there are plenty of microorganisms in the soil that can easily pick up where they left from. There are seeds that resisted the heat of the inferno. There are small plants and bulbs whose intact roots contain the energy needed to stage a comeback. And there is all that ash, the molecular remains of huge trees that have now become bioavailable nutrients. Most of all, there is no more canopy: light can reach the bottom of the forest now so that everyone can benefit, not just the big trees. It is here, on this scorched earth where small seedlings, previously unable to germinate under the shade of big trees, can begin the recovery process.

A burned down forest is a disaster scene, but it is also a place of tremendous opportunity where all predators are gone, and nutrients and sunlight are freely available to all. In time, as small plants colonise the area and work with the microorganisms to build the soil back up, trees and predators gradually move back in. This is a process that takes hundreds of years before the forest reaches maturity. At maturity, the predators and prey, the big trees and smaller plants, have come to a negotiation and reached a balance with each other.

The key aspect of the forest’s recovery is that it begins with small organisms and only gradually moves to larger ones. It is a pyramid-shaped recovery because it emphasizes the lower part of the building first, the foundations, composed of all the small organisms that form the majority of bioavailable biomass which is crucial to the ecosystem. Without small organisms the ecosystem is too weak to support large plants and predators, just like billionaires are nothing without their consumer base. Only if the base of the pyramid is strong, and completed first, can the ecosystem be built to last.

In human economies, a collapse is always followed by the overproliferation of economic parasites. Rather than regrowing from the bottom, human economies re-grow from the top, via stimulus packages and tax breaks for the rich. While the recovery of a forest is pyramid-shaped, human recovery is either rectangular, or even worse, an inverse pyramid. We always re-design our societies like a new version of a Jenga tower: they are built to collapse.

The lessons from a burned down forest couldn’t be any clearer. The economy, and any recovery, should always be owned by the people, not oligarchs and autocrats. We need societies that are built from the bottom up, not top down. Only this way can they be more resilient.

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