Manifesto for a NEW era and a DIFFERENT world
It is time to exchange the self-destructive lifestyle of economic growth for the time-consciousness of the future.
Manifesto for the Planetarian
There is an old and new consciousness. The old focuses on the ego-economic, the new on the planetary-ecological.
There is also an old and new kind of person. The old one is a Modern. He stubbornly clings to economic growth, profit maximization and the idea that the next generation must have it better than the generation before. 'Purchasing power' is his hobbyhorse, 'act normal' his credo.
The new man, on the other hand, doesn’t want to hear anything about this. He does not want to be a Modern anymore. No, he is an earthling. He is an Earthman. In all his humility he has realized that the earth is the only place he can live on. He is earthbound and by definition associated with (or bound to) his fellow earthlings, including all non-people.
He is not a tribalist, localist or nationalist who only focuses on protecting his own, small clique. He is also not a globalist or cosmopolitan who aims to include the entire world’s population. He rejects thinking that man is central. He is a Planetarian: 'one-earth' is his motto.
Where the Modern fights to preserve economic and material progress, the Planetarian is committed to ecological wealth, local stewardship and immaterial progress. The soil he lives on, the air he inhales, the food he consumes: for the Planetarian they are all tiny groups, puzzle pieces from the same globe. Planetary awareness starts with the own living environment.
The Planetarian stands up in a time where man is dominated by what some philosophers call 'glocal panic' and other 'format stress': the psychological inability to deal with the planetary catastrophe of that time. Think of it as a mollusk that is backtracking from it; in defensive mode the mollusk carefully nests in his comfortable shell of consumerism.
The Planetarian is sensitive for this human desire for security, for having an 'oikos' (house). 'But', he admonishes the Modern, 'your house is bigger than you think. Your house is a planet.’
Planetism is therefore the middle ground between nationalism and globalism: it connects the local biotope with what it is part of: the planet. It is a planetary disposition.
The Planetarian therefore advocates a planetary bioregionalism: a social and cultural identity that is not based on political land borders, but on the unique ecological character of the place where people live. Places shape people, the Planetarian knows. Places have a 'soul'.
The Planetarian sees his new position as geological force, which influences long-lasting ecological processes that shape the earth. He has entered another reality. One in which he liberated himself from the illusion that 'being modern' is the highest goal. He has placed himself out of the center of existence, he has disappeared into life: become part of a broader collective of earthlings. Mammals, microbes, water and forests, all for one and one for all.
However, the Planetarian is not anti-technology, but pro-fossil-free. He is a Zeronaut: someone who has set himself the goal of innovating, doing business and investing with zero emissions as a result. He wants to settle the war between economy and ecology. He argues for circular processes instead of more profit.
The Planetarian not only calls into question the quality of growth, but also the quantity. Not as much as possible or as little as possible, but the right amount of goods of the best quality with as few raw materials as possible. He does not oppose nature - tries not to control it - but tries to learn from it.
The Planetarian imitates ecological and biological processes, nature is his teacher. He knows: 3.8 billion years of evolution has sculpted perfect animals, plants and microbes. His ideal is a co-evolution between humans, animals, things and ecosystems, a technological nature cult. A multi-species civilization.
The Planetarian does not have to be authentic. Nothing or no one stands alone in the Ecopolis. The Planetarian prefers to be ecotic: connected with the world around him. He is a relational being.
Not the Planetarian, but the Modern with his self-destructive way of life, is radical. He has, at all costs, elevated individual economic freedom as its supreme principle. Money, growth, peaks and valleys, no matter how cliché it may sound, it is and remains its panacea.
The Planetarian, on the other hand, regards his fellow-earthlings as companions in the evolutionary struggle for survival. He realizes that economic cooperation is necessary to close cycles and stay within the ecological limits of the earth. He strives for balance between between the I and everything else. Money is a means, not an end in itself.
The Planetarian, so says this manifesto, embraces a secular belief in the planet as the highest authority, as a meaningful organ. He is a planetary being. He is a Planetarian!
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