What I think is that right now human beings are entirely capable, have entirely enough knowledge and capability to do this: we could only use energy transfer to fulfil our needs for warmth and light, we could provide that for every human on earth. We could live entirely respectfully with other forms of life on earth, only using land which has already been used, or use new land but offset it. We could avoid using valuable biodiverse land entirely. We could change our paradigm to believe that being respectful and loving towards our home planet earth is desirable. We could have farms which have a philosophy that they are borrowing land from nature, using it to produce food in ways which work with the seasons and soil health. We could use lots more of countries with small farms, run by families and small firms, who produced food for humans without cruelty to animals or using poison or medicine which harms those who consume it, or destroys or poisons the land around them. I entirely believe this is already within our capabilities as a species.

The fact is that as a species we choose not to do these things. The reason for this is that the number of people who believe this, and even have the knowledge to implement it, are kept away from power. A majority of humans either never think about such things, or are convinced that it is impossible. They think this because they think within a certain paradigm. This paradigm is kept there by a small number of people who want to keep it there for their own enrichment and greed.

That’s it. That’s all.

If you think of it as chimpanzees, with alphas and betas and the rest of us. Alphas are not necessarily wiser or gentler, they’re sometimes just bigger or fiercer or greedier. A group of chimps might have different alphas at different times depending on the needs of the group. Groups of chimps are fiercely competitive with each other, to the point of violence, in order to secure resources.

Humans don’t need to be fiercely competitive any more, but we still behave as if we do. Our brains are wired to feel these things, even when they’re false. We might choose a fierce or greedy alpha, by no means chosen by everyone, but just by a small and powerful pack of betas, even when there is no competition, just because we’re falsely aroused to believe there is one.

I keep thinking of Star Trek. The point of it is that in the future humans have created ways to create an ideal state of living, without competition for resources. They’ve done this by making food reproducible by machine. But this is false. There is no need for this in our ideal scenario. It is false to think that there is a scarcity of resources over which we’re all fighting. There isn’t. We have the knowledge and capacity to make sure this doesn’t happen.

Small farms didn’t disappear because huge intensive farming was the only way to feed a growing population. This is what we’re told to believe. What really happened was that this system, which worked totally fine, wasn’t making lots of money for anyone. And some people’s only raison d’être is to make lots of money for a small number of people. Small farms, lots of them, all over countries, run by families and small companies, works just fine. Different things are grown in different countries and we have the capacity now to share this around. We could totally do that. These farms would be rewarded for their excellence in keeping clean of poisons, of working with nature, and for creating and encouraging and working around biodiversity, wild-ness and respect. The farms would provide a livelihood for the farmers and companies and those who worked for them. They would be rewarded for making sure everyone involved knew what to do.

We have the capacity as a species to understand biodiversity and abundance as key principles for all actions, in particular actions directly on land. We choose not to do this. There is disagreement because old fashioned ‘knowledge’ of land management is based around entirely false premises. From neatness to forms of culling to burning heather to digging up peat. We know what is right now from what is wrong, if you keep the survival of the planet as your base line of achievement. If you don’t keep this as your base line, and many don’t, then you act in all sorts of ways which directly go against this trajectory.

If your actions go against this trajectory, you are doing the wrong thing.

I’m talking about change though. I’m not talking about you and you and you and your actions, whether you should really buy that top, or that ready meal, or take that plane journey to a holiday destination. I mean that as a species we know what to do.

But we’ve never thought of ourselves as a species. We’re too bound up with being ourselves to look outside ourselves. Those who do, many wise people, are kept away from day to day life. Without a sense of how we fit in to the planet with the other species we share it with, we cannot change. We’re both entirely alone, cut off from our connection to earth, obsessed with ourselves, and yet unable to see ourselves as a whole.