Accepted for decades in the geological sciences is the idea of the earth as a huge self-regulating system. Homeostasis is maintained through complex interactions of numerous physical and geo-biochemical cycles and feedback loops. Indicators strongly suggest that the present balance is being pushed toward some new nonlinear threshold point. It is agreed that humans are principally responsible for the increasing imbalance. Also accepted is that many species (including various human societies) have locally faced severe die-backs in the past due to either J-curve population increases and/or unsustainable resource consumption.

There is plenty of data to now suggest that human population growth and resource consumption are globally unsustainable, yet few observers are willing to forecast a global collapse. For even the most pessimistic, it seems, a human die-back is too painful to contemplate. Thursday night, a die-back of our species and the likely sources for its denial will be contemplated. Perhaps, the very term /sustainability -- /as the term tends to be used -- is a metaphor for the problem, for the discussion of sustainability by environmentalists even has been mainly a human-centered one. The concern is almost always, How many people at what level of consumption can the planet sustain? If there /is/ a mass extinction in process, how does it affect humans -- my children and theirs, etc? That humans have become so alienated from the rest of creation -- physically and mentally -- is at the heart of our dilemma: as divine creatures, we are not subject to the laws of nature.

Within the next century, civilization will be radically (fundamentally) overturned, either to preclude collapse or, more likely, as a result of the collapse. To sustain human life in a seemingly hostile cosmos, a new culture and mythology will emerge.

PRODUCER: Carleton Schade

Yoga and meditations on sustainability -- the interior and exteriors of my life -- have in common a discovery of healthy balance.